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No leads yet in Cowell murder case
Police say they have no leads in their investigation into the murder of Mackenzie Cowell, and hope the state crime lab can shed new light on the two-week-old case.
Wenatchee Police Sgt. Cherie Smith said investigators are hoping crime lab results expected this week will have some information “that might point us in a new direction — or give us some direction, period.”
“It’s getting more and more frustrating when nobody is in custody yet,” she added.
Smith said investigators are expecting information from two state crime labs — the fingerprint lab and the DNA lab. Evidence sent to the two labs was collected from the location where the teenager’s body was found Feb. 13 at Crescent Bar, and from her car, which was found abandoned Feb. 9 near the end of the paved road in Pitcher Canyon south of Wenatchee.
Meanwhile, police are scaling back the number of investigators assigned to the murder case, Smith said. Wenatchee and East Wenatchee police, Chelan and Douglas county sheriff’s departments and the FBI are all still involved. But their numbers will be fewer than the 30 assigned to the case last week, she said.
This week, detectives will continue interviewing family, friends and people who knew Cowell, she said. They will also continue to follow up on leads provided by the public.
“We’ll scale things back some because the tips are slowing down,” Smith said.
She said police are no longer gathering evidence from where Cowell’s car and body were found. “But we still don’t know where she was killed,” Smith said. “So we may have another crime scene at some point.”
Investigators last week released video footage of the last known sighting of Cowell in a Wenatchee-owned parking lot in the hope that someone saw the teenager or her red 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix.
“It is our hope that the release of this video footage will assist in generating additional tips from the public regarding the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and subsequent murder,” said investigation task force spokesman Doug Jones in a press release.
The video, shot about 3 p.m. Feb. 9 from a stationary camera in the parking lot, shows Cowell walking to her car, then driving south in the parking lot. Investigators have said they also have video footage, not released by the task force investigating her death, that shows her car heading west up Kittitas Street.
The city lot is behind the Academy of Hair Design, 208 S. Wenatchee Ave., where Cowell was a student. The 17-year-old also was a senior at Wenatchee High School. Her parents are Wendy Cowell of Wenatchee and Reid Cowell of Orondo.
Authorities are not releasing results from a autopsy conducted Feb. 17 to the public. Steve Clem, Douglas County prosecutor and coroner, said, “At this point, I want to keep that information inside law enforcement.”
Asked when results would be made public, he replied, “When a suspect has been identified and charged.”
Jones said in the press release, “There are no persons of interest or suspects identified at this time.”
He said that FBI agents, who had been helping with the case, are no longer on the scene.
That leaves task force members from Douglas and Chelan counties, the Wenatchee Police Department and the state patrol.
Jones asks anyone with information about the case to call the RiverCom dispatch center at 663-9911. He is specifically asking if anyone saw someone walking down Pitcher Canyon, Squilchuck Road or the south end of Methow Street between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Feb. 9. Those might have been the hours that someone abandoned Cowell’s car up Pitcher Canyon where the pavement ends and a dirt road begins.
The car was found near a driveway to a cattle gate about 8 p.m. that night by a Pitcher Canyon resident.
When the car was found, officials said there was a single set of footprints around it. Jones said Wednesday night that he could not comment on whether those tracks matched shoes worn by Cowell. He also declined to comment on whether footprints were found where Cowell’s body was located about 12:45 p.m. Saturday at Crescent Bar. Someone walking along the beach found the body, which was about 75 yards below a house, listed for sale by Windermere/K-2 Realty LLC out of Moses Lake.
“It appears she was put there by someone,” said Jerry Moore, chief of administration for the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday.
Jones also would not comment on any tire tracks found at the Crescent Bar crime scene.
