Aug. 28, 1988 was the day a woman’s body washed up onto the sandbar of the Puyallup River, less than 24 hours after she walked out of a Federal Way Burger King.
Her family would spend over three decades wondering who took her life.
18-year-old Tracy Whitney of Federal Way was found lifeless by a fisherman at the junction of the Puyallup and White Rivers near Sumner, according to a release from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, which recently cracked her cold case. An autopsy shortly after she died revealed that Whitney was unable to breathe when someone strangled and possibly smothered her. Her injuries also indicated signs of a sexual assault.
Her younger sister, Robin, was only 11 when her big sister died. She posted on Facebook yesterday to honor her sister’s memory, breaking years of silence.
“Many of you may not even know that I had a sister, and for those who did, I did not talk about her,” Robin wrote.
She also wrote that her father, Ronald, spent years in contact with detectives making sure that Tracy’s case wasn’t forgotten.
A picture of Tracy on Robin’s post shows a calm young woman with soft brown hair, brown eyes and a slight smile.
Her killer was recently identified as John Guillot Jr. of Puyallup, bringing closure to an investigation that stretched on for 36 years.
A DNA investigation
Investigators took DNA swabs from Tracy’s body after she was found. But technology at that time limited what they could find with that evidence.
“Detectives interviewed everyone who knew or had dated Tracy to try and find the killer,” the release said. “Unfortunately the case went cold for years.”
One by one, each potential suspect was eliminated as the true killer.
More recent technological advances led to a renewed search for a match to the suspect’s DNA profile, according to a video from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. Investigators submitted the suspect’s DNA profile in 2005 to CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), a nationwide database of DNA profiles managed by the FBI to help law enforcement solve crimes, but turned up no matches.
Investigators tried again. In August of 2022 Pierce County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Lynelle Anderson received the results back from a forensic genealogy analysis based on the suspect’s DNA and landed on John Guillot Jr.
By that time, Guillot Jr. had died from cancer at 64 years old. His remains had also been cremated, leaving behind no DNA to confirm Guillot Jr. as the suspect.
His biological son, John Guillot III of Bonney Lake, died the same year at 34 years old on April 29, 2022, according to Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sgt. Darren Moss. The circumstances of his death required an autopsy, and the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office had his DNA on file. Investigators compared it to the suspect’s DNA and confirmed that John Guillot III’s father matched the profile of the suspect.
The sheriff’s department release said that there were no connections found between Tracy Whitney and John Guillot Jr., leading to the conclusion that the incident was a “stranger abduction, rape and murder.”
According to News Tribune archives, an article was printed in 1989 reporting that deputies were looking for a link between Whitney’s death and the death of another 18-year-old woman, Amanda Stavik. Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sgt. Moss said he didn’t know if there was another victim associated with the suspect.
Cold cases and the Pierce County Sheriff
Asked how long detectives will continue checking a cold case like Whitney’s, Moss said the sheriff’s department has a designated detective sergeant who works on cold cases, which the department saves until they have more leads, evidence, witnesses or family members that can help solve them.
Some cases may never get solved, but the sheriff’s department goes through them as often as they can to see if they can do anything further, Moss said. If they can’t, they may put out flyers requesting more information.
“The thing that’s really sad is the farther out we get (from an incident), the less likely that people involved are still alive,” Moss said.
Pierce County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Lindsay Kirkegaard said in the sheriff’s department video explaining the investigation that she knows how important cold cases are to the community.
“Although there was no arrest made in this particular case, I hope that the family can find some peace in knowing that Tracy’s case is finally solved,” Kirkegaard said in the video.
