As the carnival closed at Oregon’s Coos County Fair on August 17, 1986, a Missing Persons puzzle was opened. A fourteen-year-old boy was last seen enjoying the festivities before inexplicably vanishing.

Rumors soon spread that something foul had happened to Jeremy Bright at the fair.

Jeremy Bright

Until the previous year, Jeremy, his mother Diane, and nine-year-old sister S’te, (pronounced “Estee”), had lived in Coos County’s Myrtle Point, two-hundred-thirty miles south of Portland. Following Diane’s separation from Jeremy’s stepfather, Olie, they moved to Grants Pass, one-hundred-ten miles to the southeast.

In mid-August, Jeremy and S’te returned to Myrtle Point to stay with Olie for a few days while they attended the Coos County Fair, nine miles outside of town.  Their first three days were fun-filled.

At approximately 4:45 p.m. on August 13, Jeremy called his mom from a payphone outside McKay’s Market in Myrtle Point, saying he was having a great time. Five hours later, at a local tavern owned by his grandma, Olie gave him money for the fair the following day.

Diane planned to pick up Jeremy and S’te in Myrtle Point on August 15.

Diane, Jeremy, and S’te

While at the fair on August 14, Jeremy and S’te separated at approximately 2:00 p.m.  As his sister went with a group of her friends, Jeremy met up with his friend, Johnny Fish. The siblings arranged to meet near the Ferris wheel at 5:00, but the designated time came and passed with no Jeremy. Johnny said he and Jeremy had separated earlier at the fair.

There had still been no word from Jeremy when Diane arrived in Myrtle Point to pick him and S’te up the following day.  He was still unaccounted for when the fair closed and moved on from Myrtle Point two days later.

Jeremy Is A No-Show

Jeremy did not fit the mold of most runaway children as his relationship with his mother and stepfather was good, he had a wide circle of friends, and he was excited about beginning high school. The past year, however, had been difficult for him with his mother’s impending divorce, moving from Myrtle Point, and struggling with schoolwork.

Jeremy loved the fair and several reported sightings of him received through August 17, the day the Coos County Fair had ended and three days after he was last seen, suggested he may have run away with the traveling carnival. None of the sightings, however, could be confirmed, and authorities ultimately concluded he had not voluntarily vanished. His wallet, keys, and new watch were left behind, and he had not taken any extra clothes. In addition, S’te and several other fairgoers had reported seeing him appearing to be forcibly taken by a male near the fairgrounds’ Ferris wheel between 1:00 and 1:30 p.m. on August 14, half-an-hour to one hour before he was to meet with his sister.

Authorities soon received information suggesting Jeremy had not strayed far from the fair before, suffering some form of accidental demise.

Jeremy Is An Unlikely Runaway

Several local parties were held during the week of the fair, two, possibly three of which, Jeremy had attended. Rumors circulated that he had overdosed while drinking a beer laced with an illegal drug. He had been diagnosed with a mild heart murmur, and the excessive consumption of a stimulant such as alcohol could have potentially killed him.

Police, however, could not determine if the episode had actually occurred.

An Accidental Overdose?

A jailhouse informant told a different story, fingering several local older boys who had harassed Jeremy and his friends while they were swimming in the local Coquille River on August 14. While they were indiscriminately target shooting, the informant said one of the stray shots struck Jeremy. The group, known as troublemakers, did not call the police or the paramedics. Instead, they took Jeremy to an abandoned cabin where they futilely attempted to nurse him back to health.

The jailhouse source said after Jeremy died from his wounds, the older buys buried him in a shallow grave about two-hundred feet from the cabin. Police searched the area but found nothing. Shortly thereafter, a tipster said Jeremy had instead been buried in an area well. Numerous pits and shafts in and around Myrtle Point were combed but again, no trace of Jeremy was found.

Several of Jeremy’s friends confirmed the harassment by the older boys, but none said they had seen Jeremy being shot.

Or Accidentally Shot?

Two of the local toughs who had pestered Jeremy and his friends were cousins Dennis and Terry Steinhoff.

As she was leaving her sister’s Myrtle Creek apartment between midnight and 1:00 a.m. on August 15, roughly twelve-to-thirteen hours after Jeremy was last seen, Cecelia Fish, Johnny’s sister, and a friend encountered David Steinhoff entering an adjacent apartment.  They noticed his shirt was stained with blood.

Cecelia Fish

Twenty-two-year-old Terry Steinhoff, a millworker who had babysat Jeremy and S’te several times when they were younger, was identified by the jailhouse informant as firing the fatal shot. Several people believe they saw Jeremy and Terry talking in a vehicle on the day Jeremy was last seen.

Both Steinhoffs stayed silent when asked about Jeremy’s disappearance.

Terry Steinhoff

In January 1989, two-and-a-half years later, Terry Steinhoff was sentenced to life in prison after pleading no contest to the May 1988 murder of a local woman, thirty-two-year-old Patricia Morris, who was found stabbed to death in a wooded area between her home and a tavern where she was last seen.

Investigators attempted several times to again question the imprisoned Steinhoff regarding Jeremy’s disappearance, but he remained uncooperative. Investigators searched property owned by both David and Terry Steinhoff without finding any trace of Jeremy.

Terry Steinhoff died in prison of a heroin overdose in 2007.

Terry Steinhoff Dies . . .

On August 24, 1986, ten days after the disappearance of Jeremy Bright, Dennis Steinhoff, twenty-five-years old at the time, was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm and first-degree burglary of a home near the Coos County Fairgrounds. He was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of the burglary charge and additional counts of second-degree criminal mischief and third-degree theft.  In November 1993, he was convicted of Felony Sexual Abuse of a young girl.

In June 2019, Steinhoff was arrested in Myrtle Point for car theft and failure to register as a sex offender. Some articles state the now sixty-three-year-old was charged with possession of methamphetamine in February 2025.

. . . While Dennis Steinhoff Gets In More Trouble

2019 Photo

In October 2016, thirty years after the disappearance of Jeremy Bright, the Coos County Sheriff’s Department received a tip saying he may have been disposed in a pond on private property along Oregon State Highway 42 approximately twenty-five miles from Myrtle Point. A search of the area produced no remains.

Another Search Effort Fails

All of his family members have been cleared of involvement in the August 14, 1986, disappearance of Jeremy Doland Bright.  At the time, he was fourteen-years-old, six feet tall, and weighed one-hundred-forty pounds. He had brown hair, green eyes, a mole on his chin, and scars on his nose and forehead. His left index finger was broken and he had large feet, wearing size 13 shoes. When last seen, Jeremy was wearing a blue windbreaker jacket, a red tank top, blue nylon shorts, and black Nike tennis shoes with red shoelaces.

Jeremy Bright would today be fifty-two-years-old. If you have any information relating to his disappearance, please contact Detective Dan Looney with the Coos County, Oregon, Sheriff’s Office at 541-396-3121, extension 378.

Computer-Aged Image Of Jeremy Bright

Jeremy Bright has been missing for nearly forty years. At one point, it appeared he had been located within a week after he was last seen.

Authorities initially believed it possible Jeremy had run away with the traveling carnival. The possibility was bolstered after they found a circus company in Florida had a worker named Jeremy Bright. He was, however, confirmed to be a young man of the same name from Colorado.

 A Different Jeremy Bright

Sources:

• Charley Project
• CBS Affiliate KVAL Channel 13 Eugene, Oregon
• Doe Network
• NamUs
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
• The Oregonian
• Unsolved Mysteries
• The World (newspaper) Coos Bay, Oregon