Suspected serial killer pleads not guilty to new charge

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Suspected serial killer Warren Forrest, who’s accused in the slaying of 17-year-old Martha Morrison of Portland, Oregon, in the 1970s, pleaded not guilty Friday.

Forrest, 70, was arraigned in Clark County Superior Court in Vancouver on one count of first-degree murder in the girl’s 1974 death, The Columbian reported. Her remains were discovered in October 1974 by a hunter in a densely wooded area of Dole Valley, but they were not identified until July 2015.

His trial is scheduled for April.

Prosecutors filed the murder charge against Forrest in December. The long-anticipated charge came after a breakthrough in Morrison’s cold case. Blood found on an air pistol Forrest used to torture another woman in 1974 was identified as Morrison’s.

The former Battle Ground, Washington, man is believed to be responsible for the abduction and slaying of six women and girls in Clark County in the 1970s, and he is a person of interest in another missing person case.

Forrest was convicted in the murder of Krista Kay Blake, 20, who was last seen July 11, 1974, climbing into his light blue van. He has been serving a life sentence for Blake’s killing since 1979.