Melanie Virdell wasn’t known to wake up early when she lived in the Spanaway area of Pierce County, but on a cold February morning about 13 years ago, she was up with her son, 18-year-old Christopher Virdell.
Christopher and Melanie Virdell had breakfast together after she made him a bowl of oatmeal on Feb. 9, 2012. She told The News Tribune earlier this month that as he got ready to leave for work at Safeway, he had been texting a friend on his phone. She watched Christopher grab his jacket and start running to the door.
“And I was like, ‘Hey, get your butt back here and give me and your dad a hug and kiss goodbye.’ So he gave me a hug and kiss goodbye. And then went over and kissed his dad on his cheek,” Melanie Virdell said. “And he told us, bye, he loved us and ran out the door.”
This was the last time Paul and Melanie Virdell saw their son. His case remains unsolved. ‘Real good kid’
Christopher was the youngest of three boys, Melanie Virdell told The News Tribune, which is re-examining some of Pierce County’s cold cases.
Paul and Melanie Virdell said that Christopher graduated high school at 17 and wanted to be a medical flight pilot.
“He was gonna be enlisting in the National Guard to get his pilot’s license, and as a child, all he would play with was helicopters and wouldn’t play with anything else,” Melanie Virdell said.
Christopher Virdell would volunteer his time at the farmers market in Puyallup and carry groceries for customers. He took the bus from Spanaway on Tuesday afternoons to help a disabled woman in Puyallup.
Christopher also raised donations two years in a row at the Youth Investment Center in Puyallup. One year, he got first place for having the most donations and gave his prize to the runner up, Paul Virdell said.
“He’d take his shirt off his back. He didn’t have no enemies, nobody didn’t like him,” Paul Virdell said. “Just a real good kid.”
The search for Christopher
Christopher Virdell went to his friend’s house on 223rd Street East in Spanaway and was last seen leaving there at about 10 a.m. to catch the bus. Christopher, who was considered a model employee and never missed a day, did not show up for his shift. He also never arrived home.
“When he didn’t show up after work, it kind of hit me like a brick. I felt something was wrong, he wasn’t like this,” Paul Virdell told The News Tribune.
Paul and Melanie made calls to Christopher’s friends and his older brother who lived in Tacoma. They contacted the Sheriff’s Office, who told them to wait about 48 hours. There was also no detective available on the weekend, so the Virdells had to wait longer to speak to someone, according to Paul Virdell.
Melanie and Paul Virdell did not wait for law enforcement in order to search for their son. They were up the next morning with flyers to hand out. They knocked on Christopher’s friends’ doors and Paul Virdell rounded up a search team immediately.
For over two years, Christopher was missing. There were no suspects or leads, Paul Virdell said. The Sheriff’s Office was investigating but could not provide updates.
“I tried to hit the street and started talking to people and pushing and crying and started getting people to talk. I didn’t have nothing to go by,” Paul Virdell said.
He said that he had a group of people who wanted to help: psychics.
“I had these psychics … that were contacting me, emailing me, messaging me, and I’ve never talked to them before, and it was kind of weird because they were contacting me, and I didn’t really believe in psychics,” he said. “I just didn’t know enough about them to believe in them.”
Paul Virdell said he eventually opened up his mind about psychics. The psychics who Paul spoke to provided land or state markings. They provided information on suspect descriptions.
He said there was one psychic who was in the U.S. Army who did physical searches with them using her “gift.”
“She guided the way and she was trying to learn, learn her gift on how to control it, how to read it, the signs and everything so she could find him,” he said.
Paul and Melanie Virdell also hired a K-9 and search-and-rescue team six months into Christopher’s disappearance. That turned up nothing.
“He basically just picked up his scent, but then he ran into an inconclusive. His dogs couldn’t determine whether Chris went west or east. That indicated usually that he got into a vehicle and, and that’s all he had,” Paul Virdell said.
Melanie Virdell said that they tried to do something every day to find Christopher. They did different activities to spread awareness and get funds for the search such as washes and benefit concerts.
“Because it’s so expensive, the gas and flyers and everything,” she said.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also took on Christopher’s case, and his parents got a mentor through that program. They were invited to go to their headquarters in Virginia.
“The then-president of the National Center, she told me that me and my husband have done more in our search for Chris than any family has done in the history of [NCMEC],” Melanie Virdell said. ‘What do we do now?’
In a rural area just a little over an hour away from Spanaway in Centralia, a man was on a walk with his hunting dogs on Feb. 28, 2014, Paul Virdell said. The man was in the woods in the 2800 block of Little Hanaford Road.
One of the hunting dogs broke away from his chain and ran off down the gravel road. The man tried to follow him, but he got lost. The man got his tracking dog, and they found the runaway dog deep in the woods next to a tree.
“His dog was sitting right there in the same spot. He wouldn’t move. He wanted his attention for something,” Paul Virdell said.
The man noticed garbage, but when he looked closer there were some clothes as well.
Investigators later confirmed that Christopher Virdell’s remains had been found and believed he was killed. A cause of death was not released, The News Tribune reported.
Detectives believed that Virdell was killed elsewhere and his body was dumped in Centralia. Paul Virdell said he believes his remains might have been placed there that morning.
“When the detective came that evening and told us that Christopher’s remains had been identified and after he left, my husband and I looked at each other like, ‘What do we do now? What do we do now every day?” Melanie Virdell said.
The search shifted to a homicide investigation. The Sheriff’s Office said at the time that investigators had interviewed more than 100 people in the case.
Paul Virdell said he remembers people claiming responsibility in Christopher’s death, which was overwhelming for his family.
On Feb. 2, 2014 before Christopher’s remains were found, a 21-year-old Roy man was killed after a Pierce County deputy fired seven gunshots at him near 175th Street South and Pacific Avenue during a traffic stop.
The man fought with two deputies who tried to arrest him. At the time, there was a warrant for his arrest for identity theft, possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and other crimes. According to the Sheriff’s Office at the time, the man used pepper spray on the deputies.
The Pierce County Prosecutors Office determined in June 2014 that the deputy who shot the man was within his rights and protected himself as well as the other deputy.
KIRO-TV reported then that the man was wanted for questioning in Christopher’s disappearance and death.
Paul Virdell said that the man’s death “blew the case from being solved.” He believes that there were a few people involved in Christopher Virdell’s death, and it was premeditated.
“We definitely hope for some more justice,” Paul said. “[The man] would have been the firsthand testimony there on who was involved in helping him. We can estimate who it was, but if we don’t have no firsthand witness, it’s kind of hard to.”
No arrests have been made in Christopher Virdell’s case, and no one has been charged in 2025.
The Sheriff’s Office told The News Tribune that the detective investigating Virdell’s death was not ready to release additional information because it is still an active case. Kindness after death
Paul Virdell said after Christopher’s death, they got a letter from a girl saying that she was in a physical-education class with him in their junior year of high school. The girl was disabled and could not participate so she would sit on a bench the whole period.
The letter said that everybody in the class would tease or make fun of her, except Christopher.
“He would refuse to participate in PE every day, and he would sit with this girl and keep her company,” Paul Virdell said.
Christopher failed PE that year, and he had to take two classes in his last year to graduate.
“I was blown away by the letter, but at the same time, I’m like that sounds like Chris,” Melanie Virdell said.
Paul and Melanie Virdell took their son’s remains to California where he was born and raised to bury him. Paul and Melanie Virdell still live in California today, they said.
Melanie Virdell said it used to be a trigger for her to go to a grocery store and shop, so she decided one day to finally get over it. She got a job at a grocery store for Christopher, and she realized how hard the kids who work as baggers and cart runners work.
She said, “And so I’m at work one day and I just start crying for no reason, and I have to excuse myself off of my cash register because I realized how hard Christopher worked every day.”
Melanie and Paul Virdell ask that if someone knows something they should clear their conscience and come forward.
The Virdells run a Facebook page called “Justice for Christopher Virdell,” dedicated to their son and his unsolved case.
Anyone with information on Christopher Virdell’s death can submit a tip anonymously to Crimestoppers.
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