This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
South Salt Lake • For 12 years, Nancie Bakoles only had a mental image of her daughter, Nikole Bakoles, walking away in a Washington airport terminal with her newborn daughter, Chloe, on her hip, bound for Utah. But on Thursday, Nancie left Salt Lake City for Washington with peace of mind and her daughter's remains in hand.
In 1998, Nancie tried to convince Nikole to stay in Washington instead of returning to Utah. But there was no convincing the "flower child born out of her time."
Two years later, a couple of duck hunters found the decomposed remains of the woman who came to be known as "Saltair Sally." She was recently identified as 20-year-old Nikole. Now police are investigating a homicide and are looking for suspects.
Nikole was a "free spirit" and "down to earth," her brother, James Bakoles, said during a news conference Thursday, where the family spoke about their long-lost daughter and sister and the search for her killer.
Nikole's mother, brother and two sisters didn't speculate about who could have killed her or what happened, but pleaded for leads from the public.
"We just desperately need any information on what could have happened before Nikki passed," said James Bakoles.
Bakoles' remains — found next to a frontage road at the westbound Interstate 80 exit for Saltair in Salt Lake County — included a skull with waist-length hair, two dozen bones, a purple beaded necklace and an oversized T-shirt.
Police developed a computer-generated sketch of what the victim may have looked like, but over time the case went cold.
"The family is here in Utah now to take Nikole's remains home," said Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal during the news conference.
Nikole's family plan to hold a memorial for close family in Washington.
"We feel blessed to bring my sister [and my mom's daughter] home," James Bakoles said.
Nikole was an intelligent, "artistic girl" who loved to paint, draw and write poetry. She loved adventure and studying psychology. "We remember her zeal for life," James Bakoles said.
Police say Bakoles was last seen in March 2000 living with her boyfriend, Joel Chaudoin, in a hotel near 3300 South and Main Street. Bakoles had fallen on hard times and had lost custody of her daughter.
Police asked anyone who made contact or talked to Nikole between January and June 2000 to call the Unified Police Department at 801-793-5850.
Family contacted authorities in Washington in 2000 after they hadn't heard from Nikole for a while.
When Nikole moved to Utah in 1998, she gave family her phone number and address, but after she moved, didn't share new contact information. Her family tried to file a missing person report, but had no idea where she was or if anything happened to her. They "continued to hope she would call," but after a couple years, James said it was enough time to "substantiate she just hadn't gone on vacation." Midvale police said the family reported her missing to Utah authorities in 2003.
James Bakoles said he and Nikole were close and only a year apart in age.
"We were best friends, we spent every day together," James Bakoles said of their childhood. When Nikole grew up and moved to Utah, communication became less frequent. Before she stopped calling, they would talk on the phone every two to three months. The last time he spoke to her, he said the phone conversation was brief. They talked about "insignificant" things such as the weather, but it was the last time he would hear her voice.
UPD officials, who were investigating the remains as a homicide, said they never linked the Utah and Washington cases because they did not know about the missing person case.
"We simply didn't have that particular piece of the puzzle," said Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder earlier this month. The puzzle pieces came together after the Midvale Police Department merged with the UPD and the agencies began sharing records and resources.
Detective Todd Park, who handles UPD's cold case investigations, said new technology developed by University of Utah scientist Jim Ehleringer, which uses isotopes in hair fibers to pinpoint the geographic areas a person has visited, helped narrow the focus of the investigation from Salt Lake City to the Pacific Northwest, where Bakoles' mother lives.
From there, Park worked backward to Bakoles' mother in Washington state. A positive DNA match came back in early August, he said.
The family has set up a fund for Nikole's mother for money spent on the 12-year search for her daughter. More information is at http://www.gofundme.com/Nikole-Bakoles.
Any extra money will be put into a trust fund for Nikole's now 13-year-old daughter, who lives in Wisconsin with her birth father's dad.
Twitter: @CimCity