Steven Harkins, 27, and his girlfriend Ruth Cooper, 42, left Tacoma, Washington for a camping trip on August 10, 1985. Both worked at a vocational school and failed to show up for work on Monday, prompting missing-person reports from their families. On August 14 hikers found Harkins at a remote campsite near Tule Lake in Pierce County. He was inside his sleeping bag with a gunshot wound to the head; the couple’s dog had also been shot.

Cooper’s fate remained unknown until October 26, when a skull was found near Harts Lake about 1.5 miles from the campsite. Dental records identified the remains as hers; two days later searchers recovered the rest of her body and her purse. The autopsy listed a gunshot wound to the abdomen and a tube sock tied around her neck.

The murders remain unsolved and no arrests have been announced. Investigators noted similarities to another double homicide later that year in which a tube sock was used, and the pair’s killings have been grouped with those cases under the Tube Sock Killings label.

Did anyone in the area at the time remember seeing the couple or their vehicle around August 10–14, 1985?