They were strangers, two men in a line of work no mother should ever be forced to learn about.
Denise Webber got to know Michael Downes and Brad Pince after the death of her daughter, Rachel Rose Burkheimer, 18.
In her darkest hours, the pair gave her hope for justice.
Now, with the end in sight for the trials of those accused in her daughter’s murder, Webber already feels a twinge of sadness over the prospect of no longer seeing the prosecutor and detective who have led the murder case.
Downes, 52, is an assistant chief criminal deputy prosecutor for Snohomish County. In more than two decades practicing law here, he’s handled dozens of murder cases, everything from drunken rampages by guys with guns to a gang-related killing where the victim was hanged with a belt.
Webber admires the prosecutor’s competence and combative spirit. She likes how the thick-necked blue-collar Boston native mixes it up with the opposition.
Webber considers Pince, 49, “kind of like a teddy bear,” but one with a shaved head, a gun on his hip and a thick, gray mustache.
Pince grew up in Wyoming and has worked with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office for more than 22 years, the past 15 as a homicide detective. The Burkheimer murder is one of roughly 150 killings he’s helped investigate.
Webber likes to joke with Pince about how well his ties coordinate with his suits. His ties are nice, he says, because his wife has good taste.
Webber knows both men and the rest of the prosecution team – deputy prosecutor Julie Mohr and detective Kelly Willoth – have put in long hours on her family’s behalf. She’s seen their weariness, their struggle with tears and sadness.
Except for facts scattered in courtroom testimony, it has fallen to the prosecution team to tell those who loved Rachel Burkheimer all that is known about her kidnapping and killing.
That’s happened during “family meetings” around a long table in a conference room at the prosecutor’s office. Downes sits at the head, joined by Webber, her daughter Meghan, ex-husband Bill Burkheimer, and other family and friends.
Downes, in particular, has counseled the family not to attend the trials when evidence from her autopsy is presented. They’ve heeded his advice and waited outside.
Much of what the family has learned has been painful, but some information has been strangely healing, Webber said.
Nearly two weeks passed before Rachel Burkheimer’s body was recovered form the Gold Bar grave where her killers left her. Webber wasn’t able to satisfy the instinct to hold her youngest child, to weep and know her girl was truly gone.
One day prosecutors called a meeting. They planned to show jurors a photograph of the teen in the grave but wanted her family to see it first.
Pince stood, holding the photo. Webber instantly recognized her. She went up close, through tears examining every detail.
“I’d wake up morning after morning after morning, picturing her in that pit,” Webber said. The photograph was “100 times better than every image I’ve had in my head.”
Webber knows Pince and Downes understand because both men have their own children and “put themselves in our position,” she said.
That isn’t possible, Pince said. Only family can understand the depth of this loss. Still, he aches every time the details of Rachel’s death are aired in court.
“That’s the part that is hardest to take right now,” Pince said, “having to see the family go through it over and over and over.”
Reporter Scott North: 425-339-3431 or north@heraldnet.com.
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