The Oregonian

April 4, 2002

CHILD FOUND BESIDE MURDERED MOTHER

Monday afternoon, police discovered the body of a woman in her northeast Portland home after a UPS delivery driver reported the smell of decomposition emanating from the house.

The deceased, Olivia Ravanelle, 34, succumbed to a fatal stab wound to the heart. Police pathologist Dr. Irving Gebhardt estimated Ravanelle expired within minutes of the assault. Decomposition of the body placed the murder between eight to ten days prior to discovery.

The home’s thermostat was turned to 95 degrees, which significantly sped up the decomposition process that ultimately alerted the UPS worker.

In a macabre twist, Ravanelle’s daughter, identified as Birdie Ravanelle, age four, was discovered with her mother’s body. In addition to a deep wound on one hand, dehydration, and the onset of malnutrition, words and symbols in her mother’s dried blood were scrawled on Birdie’s skin. She was taken to Legacy Hospital for observation while Oregon Department of Human Services attempts to locate a family member.

Police Chief Dwayne Cottle asks that anyone with information about Olivia Ravanelle contact the Portland Police Department. A source within the department has stated that there were no signs of forced entry and the only prints on the knife, besides the mother’s, were Birdie’s.

Ravanelle was a clairvoyant who had worked with the Portland Police Department, most recently on the case of a kidnapped child, Donald T. Danzigger, age eight. Danzigger’s body was recovered in March in an abandoned building in the northwest industrial district five weeks after his abduction. He had been tortured, raped, and strangled. Police have no suspects at this time.

I pull Thomas’s computer onto my lap, drink in the photo beneath the article; trace the lines of my birth mother’s heart-shaped face and the black hair that curls past her shoulders. She has light gray eyes. “I look just like her.” My early life has so many holes. The name Birdie fills one. My name was Birdie Ravanelle. “I’m Birdie?”

Thomas nods.

Ghostly fingers sweep the hair from my eyes and the woman’s ethereal voice implores: Come out. Her inflection is French. I scan the article again, slow at the part that reads: A source within the department has stated that there were no signs of forced entry and the only prints on the knife, besides the mother’s, were Birdie’s.

The next few articles I click on are from tabloids, and the headlines are a gut punch:

CHILD KILLS MOTHER IN SATANIC RITUAL!

5-YEAR-OLD MAKES PACT WITH SATAN!

CHILD BRIDE OF THE DEVIL!

BIRDIE RAVANELLE KILLED FAMILY PET THEN MOTHER!

Heidi’s furious words return . . . You should thank us both! Without us you would never have been adopted.

“I get why Heidi destroyed my file and Gabriella changed my name and sealed my medical records,” I say, my voice paper-thin.

“Sylvie, it doesn’t mean—”

“They knew that there were tabloid journalists digging for information,” I interrupt. “That no family would agree to foster me if they were given my real name; that if anyone, including my foster family and their kids or my psychologist, realized who I really was, sold that story to the tabloids, or even mistakenly leaked it to someone who wanted to make money, no one would want to adopt me.” I reread those horrible headlines. child kills mother in satanic ritual . . . “They wanted to give me a chance; a fresh start.”