“She was very darling,” Marcene Briggs Hamilton told Dateline about her younger sister, Valaine Briggs. “She was very kind and very good to everyone.”
The Briggs children were raised on a cattle ranch in Montana. “It was a beautiful place to grow up,” Marcene said. She described Valaine as a hard worker who was active in their church and popular in school.
“Her cousins absolutely adored her,” Marcene said. “They just looked up to her.”
Milton Briggs is one of those cousins. “She was one of the most lovely people you could ever meet,” he told Dateline. Loyal, caring, sincere, and intelligent were the adjectives that first sprang to Milton’s mind when remembering Valaine. “I mean, I could go on,” he added.
“She’d become quite an accomplished pianist,” Marcene said. “She was an excellent student.”
In senior year of high school, Valaine met Scott Berry and they began dating. “She was in the top 10 of our class,” Scott told Dateline. “I think I was in the lower 10 of our class.”
Scott says Valaine went to Brigham Young University after graduation, while he attended a technical college in Salt Lake City, where he studied to become a chef. “BYU did not have the courses that she wanted to become a stenographer,” Scott said. “So she transferred up to LDS Business College.”
The school, now known as Ensign College, is in Salt Lake City. Cousin Milton says the career path seemed a good fit for Valaine. “She was doing very well,” he said. “It did seem to suit her.”
Dateline spoke with Linda Mekeel, who says she was one of Valaine’s roommates in Salt Lake City. “She was very sweet,” Linda said. “She was a good roommate. We didn’t argue about anything.”
It didn’t seem possible that something horrible would happen to sweet Valaine Briggs.
But on May 5, 1977, something horrible did happen to Valaine. The 18-year-old vanished in broad daylight.
Detective Ben Pender of the Salt Lake City County Sheriff’s Office has been working Valaine’s case since 2014. “We have 36 unsolved homicide cases and 15 unsolved missing person cases that we believe there’s some type of foul play involved,” he said.
Pender says Valaine went to school the day she vanished. “We know when she left, she had a conversation with a classmate,” he said. “That was confirmed, as well.”
Valaine then began the short walk back to her apartment after class, but never met up with one of her roommates as planned. “We had no information about a struggle or any type of an argument or anything,” Pender said, referring to eyewitness reports from that day. “It just appears as though she left school and disappeared.”
Pender says the roommate thought maybe Valaine just got caught up at school. “The roommates were concerned as the day went on,” he noted. Valaine was reported missing that night.
The news spread quickly among Valaine’s loved ones. Marcene was living in California. She remembers getting the call that her sister was missing. “We just knew Valaine well enough — if she didn’t come home, something was wrong,” she said.
Scott Berry says he learned Valaine was missing after he got off his 11:00 a.m. shift at a restaurant. “I got off at 7:00 that night,” he said. “My grandma’s there, and she’s saying, uh, ‘We can’t find Valaine.’”
Scott says he went out with his family to look for Valaine. “We drove all over Salt Lake. We drove up canyons, we drove –. We just drove,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do. I mean, she’s gone. I mean, just like in thin air, there is nothing.”
The Salt Lake City Police Department initially handled the case. “They did, actually, quite an extensive search,” Det. Pender told Dateline. “They did a neighborhood canvass. They were interviewing the roommates, they were interviewing schoolmates.”
Both Milton and Scott agree: Valaine would never have willingly gone with someone she didn’t know. “Valaine wouldn’t have got in anybody’s car,” Scott stressed.
“Valaine would never have gotten into a vehicle with someone she did not know or trust,” Milton wrote in a follow-up email.
Two days later, on May 7, Valaine’s body was found by four hikers up in Lambs Canyon, just about 20 miles from downtown Salt Lake City. According to Det. Pender, that’s when the case was transferred to the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office. The detective also told Dateline that some of Valaine’s belongings, including her school books, were found. “Just kind of scattered in the area,” he said. “Detectives went up, they had the crime scene [techs] come up and processed the scene at the time, collected evidence.”
Pender says Valaine’s body was transported to the medical examiner’s office, which ruled her death a homicide. He was unable to share any information about the cause of death.
Marcene told Dateline the family wasn’t contacted when Valaine’s body was found. She says they learned about it on the news, and it was devastating. Roommate Linda Mekeel says she wasn’t in Utah at the time, and also heard about it on the news. “I could not believe what I was hearing,” she said.
Scott heard on the radio. “I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t do anything,” he said. He told Dateline the memories of what happened to Valaine are still with him to this day. “It never goes away.”
“We were all living a very idyllic life,” cousin Milton Briggs said. “It was a total shock. And I — I believe a lot of us are still having trouble believing it’s actually real.”
Valaine’s funeral was held back home in Montana. “It actually was extremely hard on me. One of my cousins had to take -- he had to take me outside ‘cause I -- I really broke down,” Milton said. “Nothing seems real until you are looking at her in the casket.”
Marcene says people were standing outside, wrapped around the block, to get in for the viewing. The funeral itself was “completely packed.” And when they went to bury Valaine, “the funeral procession was about a mile long.”
Those who knew and loved Valaine grappled with the loss of such a bright light, as investigators began digging into what could have happened that day.
Detective Pender confirmed authorities initially looked into Scott Berry. “He did have an alibi, it was confirmed,” he said. “I did obtain DNA from him voluntarily, as well.” The detective does not consider Scott a suspect in Valaine’s murder. “I don’t have any reason to believe at this point that he is involved with this case,” he said.
Over the years, a few other names came up, too. But according to Det. Pender, those leads have all been exhausted. “At this point, we don’t believe those individuals are involved either,” he said. Despite that, the detective believes Valaine’s case is not over. “I am very optimistic this case will be solved someday,” he said.
Nearly half a century later, Linda Mekeel is hoping that’s the case. “She was so young and so, you know, so positive about life and, you know, she had good things going,” she said. “I hope someday they find out the truth.”
“It just seems wrong that it’s unresolved,” Milton Briggs said, adding that he is committed to getting justice for his cousin.
“I just want to know what happened,” boyfriend Scott Berry said. And he’s not the only one in his family with that thought. Dateline spoke with his niece, Taryn, on the phone, and his daughter, Kandace, via email. Neither of them got the chance to meet Valaine, but they both stressed how important it is to them, and their family, to find answers.
Valaine’s parents both died without learning what happened to their daughter. Marcene told Dateline she sometimes wonders what her sister would have been like all these years later. “It changed our family forever,” she said. She is hopeful advancements in DNA technology will eventually lead to answers.
Detective Pender told Dateline he checks in with the state crime lab multiple times a year to get its expert opinion on testing the DNA they do have. The key, he says, is timing. “If we submit everything and it comes back with nothing, then we have nothing,” he said. “We’re constantly doing things, it’s just — we’re very respectful of the evidence.”
And while DNA could be the thing that solves the case, a tip from the right person could also crack it wide open. “DNA is great. It’s a great tool,” Pender said, but “if somebody out there knows something, please call.”
“We want to give some answers to the family,” Pender told Dateline. “There’s somebody out there that did this horrific thing that we really need to bring to light and hold accountable.”
If you have information, please call Det. Ben Pender directly at 385-468-9816.
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