PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The investigative team at KOIN 6 News sunk their teeth into dozens of stories in 2019. Some of them shined a spotlight on mysterious phenomena, some exposed extreme living situations and others examined unsolved crimes.
These are the special reports you read most over the past 12 months in order of popularity.
The KOIN.com Top 10 special reports of 2019
#1: Canby teen trap shooter ‘shows ’em who’s boss’
July 30 — KOIN 6 News meets a senior at Canby High School recently named one of the top female trap shooters in the country. “You get out here and you drop all problems,” Issabella Berge said. “So from school, from your home life, from working, anything, you just get out on the line and you shoot and it was like therapy almost.”
#2. Portland, Oregon: The city that doesn’t work?
Feb. 7 — For a city that prides itself on being innovative and forward-thinking, Mayor Ted Wheeler says Portland’s style of government is stuck in the past. In the city’s commission form of government, voters elect commissioners citywide rather than by district.
#3. Inside a hoarder home in Oregon
May 9 — An Oregon company helps an elderly woman clear years’ worth of clutter from her home. “We can barely walk in here without tripping and falling. I’m not sure how she gets through here.”
#4. Unsolved: A frantic door knock, then a brutal attack
Feb. 26 — A Southeast Portland homeowner answers a knock on his door and finds a woman who looks to be in distress. He lets her in. Later — after being severely beaten, robbed of his life savings and nearly killed — he remembers a Good Samaritan answering his cry for help.
#5. ‘We’re not alone’: Two men spot UFOs in Bend
Feb. 13 — Two men in Central Oregon spot UFOs in the sky just days apart. One captured two red dots and a bright white light on camera; the other man recorded a bright light he said was hovering 500 feet above the ground.
#6. Out there: Spinning, flashing UFO spotted in Gaston
May 16 — A couple in Gaston see what they later describe as a bright, spinning light in the night sky. “It would spin and it would get bigger and bigger and bigger and then it would poof just go away for like I don’t know a quarter-mile, half-mile, just gone and then come right back.”
#7. The price of convenience: A Fred Meyer experiment
April 29 — To compare different methods of shopping, KOIN 6 News investigative reporter Dan Tilkin spends a day ordering groceries from Fred Meyer using the store’s online service and an independent service called Instacart. He also shops in person the old fashioned way.
#8. First paper rolls off the press at reopened mill
Aug. 15 — Paper-making returns to West Linn with the reopening of the West Linn Mill, now the Willamette Falls Paper Company.
#9. The incredible journey of Silverton’s ‘Wonder Dog’
May 22 — In the summer of 1923, the Brazier family took a road trip to Indiana but along the way, their beloved dog Bobbie was lost. Half a year later, Bobbie returned home — having made his way across more than 2,551 miles of plains, deserts and mountains.
#10. ‘Real mystery’: Who was found in the Columbia River?
Feb. 5 — A body found underwater in the North Portland Harbor remains at the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office, unidentified and unclaimed. “We have a real mystery on our hands. Who is this person? Who is their next of kin?”
