Marcella Cheri Marci Bachmann was 16 when she ran away from Vancouver, Washington, and turned up in Missoula, Montana, in the autumn of 1984. Using the alias Robin, she was taken in by a man named Wayne Nance, who worked as a bouncer; the two dated and in September said they planned to leave town together. Marcella disappeared on September 28, 1984.

Her body was found on December 24, 1984, in a shallow grave in woods near Deer Creek. Decomposition put her time of death about three months earlier. An autopsy found she had been shot three times in the head. She was initially unidentified and called Debbie Deer Creek.

Investigators gathered evidence linking Nance to the killing, including hair similar to hers found in his home and a photograph of them together. Nance, later known as the Missoula Mauler, died in September 1986 after being shot during a home invasion. In 2006 DNA profiling confirmed Debbie Deer Creek’s identity as Marcella Bachmann. Does anyone have memories of Marcella in Missoula or information that could add detail to her last weeks there?