Brooke Wilberger, Joel Courtney: Missing Mormon College Coed Abduction To Air On ID’s ‘Motives And Murders’
Brooke Wilberger, the Brigham Young University student who vanished from Oregon and was later found dead, is the story that will air on Investigation Discovery’s Motives And Murders: Cracking the Case. Wilberger’s episode will air under the title “An Angel Taken” and will focus on the massive search that was conducted after the college coed disappeared from an apartment complex parking lot. The Investigation Discovery documentary will speak with law enforcement officials and friends, as well as family members of Brooke Wilberger. Her story has aired on numerous crime documentaries and follow-up news reports, including ABC’s 20/20 and Dateline NBC.
The way it all happened was eerie and strange. Brooke Wilberger was visiting her sister, who managed the Oak Park Apartments. She was last seen at around 10 a.m., cleaning the light posts in the parking lot. When her sister went to look for her, the only thing that was found were her flip flop shoes. To her family, it looked like a clear case of abduction, and one thing was for sure: whoever had done it, most likely had done it before.
The police search was launched immediately, since the overall feeling was that this was no ordinary runaway case. Brooke Wilberger had acted responsibly all of her life and was not the type of young lady who would disappear without telling anyone a thing.
Search teams combed the backwoods and nearby lakes for any trace of Brooke. Hundreds of volunteers in Corvallis aided in the search. It was the kind of crime that really brought the community together. Corvallis, Oregon, is known as a quiet family oriented town, and this kind of tragedy left residents in shock and fear.
It was also important that detectives checked everyone’s background, including her boyfriend Justin Blake, who was quickly ruled out, since he was in Venezuela doing missionary work. Police also checked out some other suspects, but they were all ruled out.
Brooke’s case was connected to the case of Maura Murray—another college student who went missing on a dark snowy road in New Hampshire. In that case, police say the woman abruptly left the college that she was attending and headed out late at night to New Hampshire. A passerby saw that the young woman had obviously had a car accident and offered to help, but he was shooed away after Maura told him that she was waiting for a wrecker. Left deeply concerned, the passerby called 911, but there was no trace of Maura Murray when officers arrived. People who know the area say that at night the desolate road is pitch black and surrounded by woods.
Brooke Wilberger was known as a fun-loving woman who was very focused. Her disappearance captured the nation’s attention, but eventually went cold with no word as to her whereabouts. It took five years before there was a break in the case. In 2009, a detective working a case in New Mexico had a arrested a man named Joel Courtney, who was accused of raping a college student who had escaped. A background check of Courtney revealed that he had an active warrant in Oregon and had a criminal history going back to his teen years. This led the detective to inquire if there were any college abductions or rapes that had been reported in that area. He struck gold when Oregon officials informed him about the Brooke Wilberger case. A search of Joel Courtney’s van turned up DNA evidence that was traced back to Brooke Wilberger.
With the evidence in hand, police charged Joel Courtney with Wilberger’s murder. To escape the death penalty, Joel Courtney eventually pleaded guilty and told police where they could recover her body. At last, Brooke Wilberger’s worried parents had their daughter’s final remains.
The body of Maura Murray has not been found. To see how the disappearance of Brooke Wilberger was solved, watch an all new Motives And Murders: Cracking The Case on Investigation Discovery (ID) tonight at 9/8 p.m. central.
[Photo by KGW-TV/AP Images]
