on february 5, 1990, the multnomah county police department received an anonymous phone call from a woman claiming she overheard a man in a bar bragging about committing the murder of 23-year-old taunja bennett, of portland, oregon. bennett had gone missing on january 21, and was found deceased on january 22, lying on the side of an embankment along the old columbia river highway in the columbia river gorge, east of portland. she had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death. the anonymous caller identified the braggart as 39-year-old john sosnovske, but his name was misspelled in the report, which prevented a follow-up from the sheriff's office. the following week, another call was placed to clackamas county police; in this report, sosnovske's name was correctly transcribed, and law enforcement began investigating him as a potential suspect. at the time, sosnovske was a parolee who had previous dui offenses. through police correspondence with sosnovske's parole officer, it was determined that the caller who implicated him was laverne pavlinac, sosnovske's 58-year-old girlfriend.