08:28 AM PDT on Wednesday, August 3, 2005

From KGW.com Staff and Associated Press

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A man being held in a New Mexico jail on unrelated kidnapping and rape charges has been charged with aggravated murder in the disappearance of Oregon native Brooke Wilberger, a 19-year-old college student who vanished more than a year ago, Corvallis police and New Mexico authorities confirmed to KGW on Tuesday.

KGW

Joel Patrick Courtney

Joel Patrick Courtney, 39, was placed on a "fugitive hold" after being served with an Oregon arrest warrant at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque. He's jailed there while awaiting trial on charges that he attacked another female college student. That incident occurred six months after Wilberger's disappearance.

Corvallis police Lt. Ron Noble indicated to KGW that authorities still have not found Wilberger's body.

A police news conference was scheduled for Wednesday at 2 p.m. to provide further details, Noble said, refusing to say what led investigators to Courtney.

Wilberger's family declined to comment late Tuesday.

Wilberger, 19, vanished May 24, 2004 from an apartment complex near the Oregon State University campus. No trace of her was found despite massive searches; detectives had repeatedly said they thought she was abducted and investigated numerous persons of interest before charging Courtney.

Wilberger, a student at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, had been staying with her sister at the Corvallis apartment complex she managed. The day Wilberger disappeared, she had been cleaning the light fixtures outside the complex. Investigators found Wilberger's flip flops and a pail of water at the location where she vanished.

An extensive search failed to garner any solid leads.

Announcement of a break in the case came two months after Corvallis police asked for the public's help tracking down information about a green minivan.

File

Brooke Wilberger

At that time, Noble said that on the day Wilberger vanished, a man who identified himself as "Brian" called 9-1-1 from his cell phone to report an erratically driven green van in the general area where Wilberger vanished.

The connection was lost before the call was completed.

"What we want to do is find out whether the van we know about was in a certain area. We want to know whether or not our guy with a green van is possibly related to Brooke," said Noble two months ago.

One of two persons of interest in the Wilberger case has a connection with a green vehicle, Noble said.

Courtney, who most recently had an Albuquerque-area address, is awaiting trial on charges of fist-degree kidnapping, rape and aggravated battery, stemming from an attack on a foreign exchange student attending the University of New Mexico. He is not expected to be returned to Oregon until court proceedings against him conclude in New Mexico.

Under Oregon law, the aggravated murder charge carries the possibility of a death sentence.

At the time of his arrest Nov. 30, 2004, Albuquerque police officer Trish Ahrensfield described Courtney as "a bad dude" who "had prior sex offenses in other states." One of his past convictions was in Oregon for attempted rape, she said.

In the New Mexico case, police said a female student was walking home from work when Courtney put a knife to her throat and forced her into his car. Courtney then allegedly took the victim to a parking lot, sexually assaulted her and tied her up.

Courtney bound the student's ankles with a shoestring and tied her wrists with a scarf, and then dropped her naked in the street, Albuquerque police said. A person walking nearby saw the victim and called police, who said they found Courtney a few hours later still in the same neighborhood where the attack had occurred.

In Utah, Howard Fuller, a bishop at the temple Wilberger attended as a college freshman, said people are not giving up hope.