1986 Murder of Sally Heet in Washington, D.C. still unsolved
On Thursday, April 17, 1986, U.S. Sen. Daniel J. Evans of Washington state arrived on Capitol Hill for an early morning breakfast with a reporter from The Washington Post. They were expecting his press secretary, Sally Heet, to join them. The 35-year-old never showed up. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.They called her apartment. No answer.Sally’s press assistant, Monica Gliva, called Sally’s stepbrother, who had the key to her apartment. Together, they went to check on Sally. At the apartment building, Monica noticed Sally’s mailbox was unlocked and open, with mail still in it. When they went into the apartment, they found Sally. There was blood everywhere.“She was in the living room, and as we came in the front entry and looked over, it was very evident she was deceased,” Monica told Dateline. “I went into shock.” For 40 years, the case has remained unsolved, but Sally’s co-workers and family have never given up on pushing for justice.Sally HeetHeather MeansIn 2022, Detective Todd Williams of the Metropolitan Police began working on Sally’s case as part of D.C.’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, which funds investigations into sexual assault and other violent cold cases.According to Williams, police at the time determined that Sally had died the night before, on Wednesday, April 16, 1986. She had been stabbed more than a dozen times. Several of the wounds could have been fatal. Her death was ruled a homicide. According to The Seattle Times, two neighbors interviewed the week of Sally’s death reported hearing a voice cry out around 8:30 p.m. that Wednesday. Monica says when she and Sally’s stepbrother found her, she was nude. Her clothes were neatly folded nearby. “I don’t have evidence that suggests that an actual assault occurred, but there’s definitely a sexual component to the murder,” Det. Williams told Dateline. He added that there was no evidence of robbery, and the murder weapon was never recovered.Senator Evans’ staff was, by all accounts, a tight-knit group, and news of Sally’s death devastated the entire office. After alerting authorities, Monica called Sally’s deputy press secretary, Lee Keller, who rushed to the apartment in disbelief. “I was just sure she was alive. I couldn’t wrap my head around it,” Lee told Dateline. Lee went back to the Capitol and interrupted Sen. Evans during a hearing to break the news. “I’ve never seen him cry before or since,” Lee said. Lee describes Sally as the glue that held the office together. “People loved her,” she said. “I got to know her really well, and she was more like a big sister to me.”Monica, Sally, and LeeHeather MeansSally Heet was raised in Richmond, Indiana, and got her B.A. in communications at the University of Washington in Seattle. After college, she went on to become vice president and manager of the Rainier National Bank Corporate Communications Division. Dateline spoke with Kathleen Nelson, one of Sally’s co-workers at Ranier National Bank. She says that at a time when few women took the Public Relations Accreditation exam, she and Sally did — and passed on the first try. Sally was also involved in creating and leading a Seattle arts festival, which became the popular music festival, Bumbershoot. “She was an exceptional person,” Kathleen said. “Very creative, very positive. Nothing was gonna get in the way of getting things done.”When Evans was appointed to the Senate in 1983, he recruited Sally to be his press secretary. Monica remembers Sally as a great mentor and friend. “She was just lovely to work with,” she said. “I got to go to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and she had me come over and pick out one of her gowns to wear to it. She was just really generous that way with me, very kind.”Sally was also an inspiration to her niece and goddaughter, Heather Means, who was 15 at the time of her aunt’s death. Heather had visited Sally for a few days just five months earlier.“What I remember is how she seemed really smart, and she had a great laugh,” Heather told Dateline. “I thought she was really worldly, and she was fun, and — and I was really excited about getting to know this woman and having a relationship with her.”At Sally’s funeral, “I could not stop thinking about her final moments and how terrified she must have been,” Heather said. When she returned home to Ohio following the funeral, a postcard was waiting for her. It was from Sally, postmarked nine days before she died. “It was just heartbreaking,” Heather said.Postcard Heather received from SallyHeather MeansAccording to Det. Williams, police pursued multiple leads but lacked the evidence to charge anyone. “They talked to a lot of people, got a lot of statements, got a lot of information. That was how that investigative process looked back then,” he said. Over the last 40 years, as Sally’s case went cold, one question has haunted Heather about her aunt’s final moments: “Was she waiting for help?” While she will never get that answer, Heather does want to do something to help. “What I can do now is to try to keep finding justice for her.” Heather first reached out to the Metropolitan Police Department in 1998, and has been visiting D.C. to speak with detectives for the last three years. In 2024, she made a website with information about her aunt’s life and case. She also reached out to Dateline to bring attention to Sally’s story. Detective Williams says he is currently in his second round of retesting evidence from the scene and looking for DNA matches. He also is hoping someone will come forward with information after all this time. “It’s hard to believe that in 40 years the person who did this didn’t at some point make some kind of admission to somebody,” he said. “I want to emphasize that we would want that person to contact us, even if it’s like, ‘I didn’t think it really meant anything,’ or, ‘I just thought the person was saying it flippantly.’ That could mean something at this point.”Sally HeetHeather MeansWhile Williams hasn’t ruled out any scenarios, Heather doesn’t believe Sally’s killing was random. “When somebody is stabbing somebody so many times, that feels very personal, like they had a lot of anger towards her for something,” she said. “My hope is that that person is identified and could still be prosecuted.”“But truly, even if they are, it’s still no justice for her, because they got to live and she didn’t,” she added.To this day, Sally is remembered and honored for her exemplary work in the public relations field. The Puget Sound chapter of the Public Relations Society of America has provided 39 memorial scholarships to public relations students in Sally’s name, one for each year since her death.After Sally’s former press assistant Monica Gliva retired from her career in politics, she became a nurse. While working at a senior home in Washington state, she got to talking to one of the residents. It turned out to be Kathleen Nelson, Sally’s former co-worker at Ranier National Bank. “I just lost breath because after all these years to come that close again, with Sally’s and my paths crossing, was just kind of amazing to me,” Kathleen said.Sally’s former deputy, Lee Keller, told Dateline that a group of Sen. Evans’ former staffers calls the Metropolitan Police Department every year on the anniversary of her death. “You know, find out if they’ve done anything or know anything, and the answer is always no.”Monica Gliva says that the same group got together with Sen. Evans at his home in 2024. “On that evening, we were celebrating his 99th birthday in advance, not knowing he would die in a few days,” she said. “We talked about Sally quite a bit that evening. Just, you know, happy remembrances of her, because she was never, ever forgotten as we went on.”Daniel Evans wrote about losing Sally in his autobiography. “I keep hoping that someday Sally’s killer will be apprehended,” he wrote. “‘Closure’ is such an overworked word. Justice would suffice.” If you have any information about Sally’s case, please contact Det. Todd Williams with the Metropolitan Police Department at 202-277-4829 or the department’s Joint Operations Command Center at 202-727-9099.
