Detectives quickly noted that this name, Alan Edward Dean, was in the Melissa Lee case file.

Remember that starting in the second half of May 1993,

Snohomish County Sheriff's Detective Rinta and Everett PD Detective Anderson,

divided up Melissa's address book and started calling the phone numbers written inside to try to track down everybody that she knew.

Detective Rinta called a phone number listed for just a

Michael. The man who answered the phone said there wasn't a Michael there. However, Detective Rinta

asked if he could come by for a chat in person as part of an ongoing investigation. The man

on the phone was agreeable, so on May 19, Detective Rinta went to the residence of this man at 18,

Madison Street, number 3 3W and Everett.

The man identified himself as Alan E. Dean.

Detective Rinta showed Dean a photo of Melissa Lee and he said, oh yeah, I remember her.

He said he met Melissa through a chat line and dated her once or twice in March of 1993.

He did not know she was dead, he said, until the detective told him.

I have to explain this chat line thing. Detectives found the words nightline written in Melissa's

address book with a phone number. Apparently it was some kind of group telephone chat line where

you could talk to people you didn't know. Dean said he met Melissa through this chat line and that he

used the name Mike when he was on the chat line.

That's why she had written down Michael in her address book with his phone number.

Dean told Detective Rinta that sometime in March 1993, he picked up Melissa and Melissa's little sister Kelly at their residence on Philbert Road.

They went to the Alderwood Mall and then back to his apartment.

They also stopped in at

Melissa's friend Gina's house before he dropped Melissa and her sister at home. This should be ringing a bell.

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