Holly Grigsby and Joey Pedersen: A White Supremacist Couple’s Alleged Murder Spree

Leslie “Dee Dee” Pedersen and David “Red” Pedersen

David "Red" Pedersen and Leslie "Dee Dee" Pedersen. Family photo.

Myer’s alleged killers were already wanted for one murder (and at the time, one disappearance) in Washington state, where they had been living. According to KTLA news, on September 29, Leslie Pedersen, Pedersen’s stepmother, was found stabbed to death in a particularly gruesome scene at her mobile home in Everett. According to the affidavit for probable cause against Grigsby, when her mother had not returned several phone calls, Leslie Pedersen’s daughter went to the house to check in on her mother. What she saw was out of a horror movie: A sword was found nearby the body which was discovered in Leslie’s bed, her hands were tied with duct tape. A pillow soaked in blood covered her head. Her throat had been slashed. According to the affidavit, evidence indicated that Grigsby wielded the knife.

Leslie Pedersen’s husband was still mysteriously missing, as was his 2010 Jeep Patriot. Leslie’s daughter told police she thought they should find Joey Pedersen.

By Friday, October 7, Red had been found. His body was inside his Jeep, left at a campground in Linn County. He’d been shot in the head.

The younger Pedersen had planned to kill his father because he’d molested his sister and his adopted cousin. He’d gotten his father into the Jeep on a ruse to drive he and Holly to the bus station. Once inside car, Pedersen told investigators that he shot Red, and Holly commandeered the car.

Rather than stop there, they turned the car back and went to the mobile home and killed Leslie, because as Pedersen later told the Appeal-Democrat, “She knew what he had done and continued to support him.”

Reginald Alan Clark

Reginald Allen Clark. Facebook photo.

Around the same time that police discovered Red’s body, the duo were allegedly setting sights on their next victim, Reginald Alan Clark, an African American man in his 50s. Though it came out later that Pedersen and Grigsby were self-professed white supremacists, it appeared that Clark’s killing was the result of an opportune moment for the alleged criminals. They needed a car—and he was black.

Though they’d been in trouble with the law before, nothing pointed to their behavior on the road during that 14-day stretch.

Capt. Ken Summers, the Yamhill Country Sheriff, called the couple’s crime spree a “vicious, vile reign of terror.”

Captured

On October 5, between the discovery of Clark’s and Red’s bodies, the police found their fugitive duo. They had made it all the way down to Yuba City, California, and were sitting by the site of the road when a California Highway patrolman came across the Plymouth. He asked them if they were okay, and they responded they were just resting. He’d almost completely driven away but recalled the bulletin looking for the car and the description of the passengers and turned back.

When he encountered them again, he pulled them over and arrested them. Inside, according to the affidavit for probable cause against Grigsby, he found several pieces of evidence tying them to several of the crimes, including a Kershaw folding knife, a .22 and .9 mm handgun, a rifle, and the elder David Pedersen’s gas card.