Laverne Pavlinac

Background Pavlinac was born Laverne Johnson on December 19, 1932 in Marshland, Oregon. She worked as an aide at Dammasch State Hospital in Wilsonville, and resided in West Linn. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death.

Both Pavlinac and Sosnovske were separately interviewed by law enforcement, and Pavlinac was sent home with a recording wire, which police hoped would record Sosnovske implicating himself in conversation; however, Sosnovske failed to implicate himself. In subsequent interviews, Pavlinac told law enforcement that on the night of January 21, she had received a phone call from Sosnovske, who told her he was "in trouble" and asked her to meet him at a truck stop in Troutdale. Upon her arrival, she claimed that Sosnovske was hiding between two large trailers, and that the body of Bennett lay wrapped in a blanket at his feet. Pavlinac initially thought she was ill, but was told by Sosnovske that she was in fact dead. Pavlinac claimed the two rolled Bennett's body into a shower curtain that she had brought, and disposed of her body along the Old Columbia River Highway, around east in the Columbia River Gorge. She also stated that before disposing of Bennett's body, Sosnovske cut a piece of fabric from her jeans to keep as a souvenir.

Pavlinac accompanied law enforcement to the truck stop, where she identified the specific location she claimed to have seen Sosnovske standing with Bennett's body; she also accompanied them to the location where Bennett's body had been found, accurately identifying it. Based on Pavlinac's interviews with law enforcement, Sosnovske was arrested.

Subsequent confession

Following Sosnovske's arrest, a forensic analysis of Pavlinac's vehicle was completed, but no evidence indicating a body had been transported in it was found. The shower curtain, which Pavlinac claimed was thrown out of the car along the side of Interstate 84, was also not located. Pavlinac's story was also at odds with several eyewitness accounts which placed Bennett at a bar approximately from where Pavlinac claimed Sosnovske met Bennett. These eyewitnesses stated that they saw Bennett playing pool with two unidentified men, neither of whom was Sosnovske.

In a subsequent interview with police, Pavlinac altered her story significantly: she now claimed that when she arrived at the truck stop on the night of January 21, Bennett was alive and willingly got into her car with Sosnovske. Pavlinac claimed she began to drive toward northeast Portland, where Bennett said she lived with her mother, but Sosnovske forced her to drive east on Interstate 84 instead, before punching Bennett in the face and rendering her unconscious. Pavlinac said she drove to Crown Point, where the three entered the Vista House, an historic building which serves as a rest stop. Inside the Vista House, Pavlinac stated she held a rope around Bennett's neck while Sosnovske raped her, eventually strangling her to death.

After Pavlinac relayed this account of events, she was arrested, and both she and Sosnovske were indicted in Bennett's murder.

Trial and conviction Pavlinac's trial began on January 24, 1991. During the trial, she recanted her confession, claiming that she had lied to police in an attempt to escape her relationship with Sosnovske, who she said was physically abusive to her throughout their ten-year relationship. A key piece of evidence was her taped confession. In his confession, Jesperson recounted how he had picked up Bennett at a bar in Portland on the evening of January 21, 1990. Jesperson took her back to his residence, where he beat and strangled her to death. That night, Jesperson drove to Crown Point, and dumped her body over a ravine along the switchbacks on the Old Columbia River Highway. He subsequently disposed of his shoes along the interstate, and threw Bennett's Walkman cassette player into the Sandy River from a bridge in Troutdale. James McIntyre, the deputy district attorney who tried the case against Pavlinac in 1991, stated that Jesperson's claims were completely corroborated by law enforcement. Lipscomb said: "There's no longer any doubt that these two individuals are innocent. The evidence is compelling." She died of heart failure in Wilsonville on March 4, 2003, aged 70.

The "Happy Face Killer" murders were also covered in a two-part episode of the crime docuseries Catching Killers, Season 1.