VANCOUVER Wash. (KPTV) – Families gathered in Vancouver on Sunday to honor a high school student who disappeared in the 1970s, as investigators who came out of retirement to re-open the case believe they know who is responsible.

“Today is the 54th anniversary of Jamie’s disappearance. It’s hard to say that,” said Starr Lara to a group of supporters on Sunday. Lara is Jamie Grissim’s younger sister and was just 14 years old when she disappeared.

“We were thought of as twins. Irish twins, they called it,” Lara said.

She describes her sister as fearless and artistic.

“That last Christmas, we wrapped presents together and she did that whole thing, the curling of the ribbon,” Lara said.

Jamie Grissim herself was just 15 years old when she didn’t come home from Fort Vancouver High School.

“She was just gone, nobody talked about her. She deserves a lot more than that,” Lara said.

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Now, Starr is closer to answers than ever before. With fresh determination when she reached her 40s, Starr contacted Clark County investigators and was shocked to learn there was a suspect.

“He said there was a serial killer and Jamie is considered his first victim,” Lara said.

Warren Forrest, 76, is serving two life sentences for the 1974 murders of Krista Blake and Martha Morrison. He was only convicted of Martha’s murder in 2023 after investigators began testing DNA evidence collected in the 1970s that hadn’t been usable until now. But Forrest is suspected of nine total murders between 1971 and 1974, including Jamie’s.

“They both went to the same high school, he happened to be back in town just a couple months before Jamie disappeared,” said Doug Maas, Clark County cold case investigator.

Many victims were last seen getting into a blue Ford van. Investigators like Maas, who worked the case in the 1970s, are in the process of testing DNA found in that van as they plan a search for remains in Washington’s Dole Valley, thanks to a lead from a neighbor decades in the making.

“We tracked down a witness that we’ve been looking for for a long time,” Maas said. “He is now in his early 70s, but he clearly recalled back in the winter of 1971. He had a spot with his family, ran away, stumbled into the woods and fell and came face-to-face with the remains of a young woman.”

Maas said the area he identified was less than 2 miles from where Jamie’s school ID was found and less than 1 mile from two of Forrest’s victims, bringing Starr revived hope for a conviction.

“The fact he could kill so many girls, and nobody even knew about him? He deserves a bad reputation. People need to know how evil he is,” Lara said.

Starr is raising funds to install a memorial bench and plaque at Fort Vancouver High School in honor of her sister Jamie.

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