Investigator specializing in cold cases looks into the 2008 killing of Linda Malcom

Linda Malcom suffered more than a dozen stab wounds when she was killed in her Sidney Avenue home in Port Orchard on April 30, 2008. Any one of those wounds could have been fatal, according to an autopsy report issued by the Kitsap County Coroner's Office after her death.

So why did her killer continue stabbing her when she was already dead? And then seek out accelerants to start a fire and burn her home?

These are questions that intrigue Jennifer Bucholtz, a former U.S. Army counterintelligence agent and professor of forensics at American Military University. In her work in different jobs in a medical examiner's office, training law enforcement and working as an investigator, Bucholtz said analyzing killers' behavioral profiles is one of her strengths.

"There are a lot of actions this killer took," Bucholtz said. "Stabbing her 18 times, setting the house on fire.... They took additional measures that weren't necessary to kill her, a level of overkill."

More: Unsolved murders in Kitsap and Mason counties

It's coming up on 15 years that the body of Malcom, a 47-year-old Navy veteran who worked as a paralegal, was found among the ashes of the Sidney Avenue home she was renting. Though a glimpse of hope for answers to her murder came in 2009 when Port Orchard police said they had a "person of interest" in the case, to date, no suspect has been revealed to the public.

Enter Bucholtz, who leads a volunteer Cold Case Investigative Team based at AMU in Charles Town, West Virginia. Students, many pursuing law enforcement degrees, focus on a case, exploring leads and doing research to help track down suspects in old cases. The goal is to get a conviction. She was connected to Malcom's case by an AMU student — Malcom's nephew, Mike Booker, who is studying for a master's degree in history at the university. When Bucholtz put an email to the school community last summer looking for cold cases, Booker responded with his aunt's case, though he wasn't hopeful she'd pick it up.

But Bucholtz was interested in the case and began work this fall learning as much as she could about the circumstances surrounding Malcom's death. She traveled to Port Orchard in November, interviewing the Kitsap County Coroner and a Port Orchard police detective. She visited the Golden Grill on the Bay on Bay Street, the bar Malcolm frequented to sing karoake, to learn more about her life here.

Booker, an Army veteran who was close to his aunt, said he was grateful when he found out Bucholtz would take on the case. He jokes that Malcom would frequently have him by her side, "running around doing what you probably shouldn't be doing when you are 13, 14 years old." He was in Iraq when she was murdered and wasn't able to come home for her funeral.

More:A year later, investigation continues into Port Orchard woman's murder

"I was kind of like, 'oh my god, this has been going on for so long," he said, adding "It came to the point where it seemed like no one cared."

Helping to find leads

Bucholtz has created an "Unsolved Murder of Linda Malcom" Facebook group where she and a George Jared — an investigative journalist who partners with her on the cold case queries — post photos, news stories about Malcom's death and ask questions for those interested in following the case. In other cases they've worked, police investigators have joined the groups. They put together podcasts that focus on the case. People who follow their work often donate money for a reward fund leading to information.

While Bucholtz admits that law enforcement agencies can be resistant to her involvement, she said her goal is not to step on the toes of police. She said that in past cold cases she's worked on, people who are intimidated to talk to police will talk to her, saying "we don't carry a gun or a badge or anything."

"We have a skillset where we can pull out leads and information they are unable to, and we just want to pass it on," she said.

"I understand this is a mostly one-way road," she said of working with police. "We'll pass you information, just promise you'll use it as you see fit."

This is the fourth case Bucholtz and Jared have taken on together, and it comes on the heels of the October sentencing of William Miller in Arkansas, who in 2020 confessed to police that he killed 22-year-old Rebekah Gould, who went missing in Izard County, Arkansas, in 2004. Her body was discovered off a highway, and it was determined she died from blows to the head.

Bucholtz and Jared were investigating Gould's case, and Miller actually joined the Facebook group the pair had created. Miller, then living in Texas with a wife and child, was an active participant in the group. A tip from someone in the Facebook group revealed that he had been in Arkansas at the time of the murder, and that raised suspicions and a possible connection to her death.

"We sent the investigator tips, he was tracking the guy on his own, and it merged together the last few weeks," Bucholtz said.

Miller ended up pleading guilty to Gould's murder, and in October, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison in Arkansas.

"At least he's behind bars," Bucholtz said, feeling a trial would have revealed more details about possible accomplices or those who hid details about the crime.

Port Orchard Police Chief Matt Brown said his department welcomed any assistance offered in finding Malcom's killer. He said there is a detective assigned to her case, and that the department has been working on it since he arrived as chief in 2019, though POPD, like most its size, does not have a dedicated cold case unit.

"The family had contacted (Bucholtz), she's putting some effort and energy into it, nothing is off the table," Brown said.

The challenges to the case include the amount of time that has passed, and the task of tracking down witnesses and other people who have information who have moved out of the area. He said with DNA science and technology continually evolving, there's always hope for a crack in the case. He said the department hopes to put its own spotlight on the case in April, which will mark the 15th anniversary of Malcom's murder.

"We do the best that we can with the hand that we have been dealt," Brown said. "We get new information in drips and drabs and pieces."

Malcom's loved ones hoping for answers

Cindy Booker is Malcom's sister. She said that since Bucholtz has taken on the case, the family has had access to the autopsy report and the fire report, things they didn't see in the immediate aftermath of Malcom's death.

"We never really got any answers, and now Jen's out there, helping us out," Cindy Booker said.

Cindy Booker describes how Malcom decided to join the Navy: she hung out with a friend who was going to join and thought about a desire to change her life and go somewhere different. The pair were going to join together until the friend backed out.

"But Linda said, 'I'm going to join anyway,'" Booker said.

Booker said Linda was stationed in Kitsap County and decided to stay after she got out of the Navy. She and her sisters were able to visit Linda in Kitsap for her birthday one year, eating out, taking cruises, and visiting the bar — Golden Grill on the Bay — she frequented.

"We had a pretty good time, and she seemed OK," Booker recalls, adding that Malcom was still working as a paralegal for a local attorney.

Booker said that before the murder, Malcom's life took a bit of a turn. She quit on the attorney she had worked for and began spending more time with people she met on the internet. She said that made her nervous for her sister, and even recalls telling her "I don't want to get a phone call that someone killed you."

An active follower of the Facebook group, she said it's "terrible" to relive the moments following her sister's murder: seeing her burned-out house and having to live through the pain of being the executor of her sister's estate.

She knows there's a chance that Malcom's killer won't be found and feels it's less likely with every year that goes by, but she hopes that Bucholtz's efforts turn up the person who did it.

"I'm hopeful that she does give us closure," she said. "We all need it here."

After a couple months of looking into Malcom's case and talking to people who were in her orbit leading up to the murder, Bucholtz said she's confident her team will be able to bring new information about Malcom's death to light.

"We feel really confident that we're going to find some new information and some new tipsters," she said. "The methodology that we use is working like it always does. As we make contact with all these people, eventually new details come out."

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Investigator brings new attention to Port Orchard unsolved murder