In the official documentation on NAMUS, LCSO, etc, Rodney Grissom is listed as missing since May 24, 1977, and was last seen in Albany Oregon. You’ll find this same information in the earlier entries in my website, as it is the “official record”. However, I have found through additional research in contemporaneous newspapers that this information is incorrect, not out of intentional error or negligence, but due to the passage of time between his actual disappearance date and point last seen.
Rodney Grissom was officially reported missing in 2012, not in 1977. His family in Hillsborough may have reported him missing to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, but through error or the lack of a priority that a teen runaway would have been given in 1977, it was not officially recorded. When Lt. Mike Harmon began a new investigation in 2012, he contacted Rodney’s family, determined that he was still missing and LCSO filed the official missing persons report then.
This post-fact reporting introduced both the 24 May date and the Albany point last seen into the record. Albany Oregon is the Linn County seat, the headquarters of LCSO and would probably be the default for LCSO making a report. The official report does state that LCSO filed the report as a courtesy to Washington County, which indicates that the actual point last seen would have been there.
The 24 May date could have been a typographical error, or an error in memory on the part of Rodney’s family when talking with the investigator. It’s hard to determine which, but it is a good faith error.
All the contemporary accounts (1977-1982) list Rodney as traveling with Karen on the day she disappeared, 26 May 1977. Her last phone call indicates that they were traveling together as well. I apologize for my own earlier propagation of the incorrect 24 May 1977 and Albany information. I hope that this entry helps clear up that error.
The Search for Karen Jean Lee and Rodney L. Grissom 