Mary Tracy. Credit: Ada County Sheriff's Office
Forty-three years after her mother was taken from her, the daughter of Mary Tracy was still waiting for answers. So much so that she requested the Ada County Sheriff’s Office (Idaho) reopen Tracy’s murder case from 1980.
This was the first step toward finally finding Tracy’s killer. Once reopened, a reexamination of all physical evidence—including audio of a jailhouse informant interview and Tracy’s rape kit—pointed toward one person: convicted murderer Charles Strain.
Case background
On the afternoon of June 26, 1980, a highway crew found the body of a deceased young woman a few feet off the pavement, near an irrigation ditch. She had what appeared to be stab wounds on her neck and chest, as well as dried blood on her head. The woman was quickly identified as 25-year-old Mary Tracy.
The autopsy revealed a brutal murder, with 11 stab wounds—three defensive—to the left side of Tracy’s body, including her leg, arm, hand, chest and back. The fatal stab wound was to the heart, which caused massive bleeding. The coroner also noted blunt force trauma to back of Tracy’s head. A piece of newspaper from 1967 was stuck to one side of Tracy’s face, and there was a bloody fingerprint on her back. The fingerprint was not able to be used in a comparison analysis, though.
Tracy had last been seen two days earlier on June 24, on Chinden Boulevard. At the time, that area was home to bars, nightclubs and adult bookstores. Amidst a crumbling marriage and financial hardship, Tracy was well-known in the area.
Although police canvased the area in the days after Tracy’s murder, they did not get much. There were rumors that a woman was killed at the Sunliner Motel, although management denied this. A maid at the motel did tell police she cleaned up a lot of blood in one of the rooms. This would fit with Tracy’s death as police believe her body was moved to the side of the highway due to lack of blood at the scene and the bloody fingerprint.
Police immediately ruled out Tracy’s husband, who was in the hospital at the time. Their neighbors said they saw Tracy fighting with a man on a motorcycle on June 24.
But with only fragments of evidence and a bunch of rumors, the case went cold.
Reinvestigation
When Cold Case Investigator Tim Cooper reopened Tracy’s case in August 2023, he said the case box looked like “a hurricane had blown through it.” Still, Cooper got to work organizing and examining hundreds of interview notes, transcripts, files, and more.
In Cooper’s reexamination, the name Charles Strain stood out. Cooper reviewed a handwritten note that said a jailhouse informant named Jose told police he saw his friend Chuck Strain at the High Ho Club at 11 a.m. on June 24. While there, Strain told Jose he killed a girl by stabbing her and threw her in a ditch off some road.
Cooper learned he couldn’t reinterview Jose as he died years ago, but the investigator found the original audio recording of the interview. The recording revealed two discrepancies with the written note: Jose talked to Strain in the club at 11 p.m., not a.m., and Strain specifically said he threw the body off Highway 55. Both those facts line up with Tracy’s murder and made Strain Cooper’s No. 1. Suspect.
Charles Strain
If the police looked at Strain in 1980, they would have seen a lengthy criminal history across multiple states consisting mostly of robbery—but that’s it. However, Strain wasn’t quiet for long after that.
In November 1981, Strain kidnapped his 10-year-old daughter from her mother and fled to Arizona, where they remained for 2.5 years until someone recognized the girl from the side of a milk carton. Strain had told his daughter her mom died in a car crash.
Then, on Feb. 26, 1986, Strain was arrested and later convicted for the murder of his 16-year-old stepdaughter, Deeana Dean, who had been missing for 5 years.
In the Summer of 1981, Dean went on a motorcycle trip with Strain from Idaho to Texas. She called her mother several times a week—until the calls stopped. Strain returned home without Dean and told her mother she stole his money and ran off.
In October 1981, a hunter found a partially clothed skeleton buried under rocks in a steep ravine in the Spanish Fort Canyon. The Jane Doe had a gunshot wound to the head. She was also found with an address book. Police sent letters inquiring about the young woman. In 1986, a letter reached Dean’s mother and the remains were positively identified.
Strain ultimately confessed to Dean’s murder. During the investigation, Strain was asked about Tracy’s murder since he lived next to the High Ho Club in 1980, but he claimed he did not know Tracy or anything about her murder.
The more Cooper reexamined the physical evidence in the case, the more it pointed to Strain, who had died of a heart attack in prison in 2007. In a rare feat of luck, the medical examiner still had a sample blood card from Strain’s autopsy.
Cooper submitted the card, as well as the rape kit collected from Tracy’s body in 1980 to the Idaho State Laboratory. The DNA from Strain’s autopsy matched the DNA profiled from the rape kit.
Cold case solved
With Strain deceased, the Ada County Sheriff’s office has closed Tracy’s case as solved. However, they are still hoping to find some answers.
The department is hoping to talk to anyone who worked at the Sunliner Motel during the summer of 1980. They are also attempting to locate a friend of Tracy’s, known only as Lisa, who may have been one of the last people to see her alive.