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WASHINGTON COUNTY Ore. (KPTV) - The Washington County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) is seeking information from a 1996 cold case involving a missing person and an unsolved murder, which investigators believe are connected.

According to the WCSO, in April 1996, 52-year-old Paul St. Claire was reported missing under suspicious circumstances. Neither he nor the car he was last seen in have ever been found.

St. Claire was born Lloyd Adam Buzzard, and lived under the named Paul Evers St. Claire since the 1970s. After taking the assumed name, he moved to Portland and became involved with a number of businesses.

Through his business connections, St. Claire met a man named Frank Tidwell, an alias used by Robert Stroh, a violent criminal with an extensive rap sheet, who was thought to be a silent partner in a number of Portland businesses.

St. Claire became close friends with a female relative of Stroh’s, and investigators believe this may have contributed to his disappearance. Stroh was reportedly the last person to see St. Claire alive.

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One week after St. Claire’s disappearance, WCSO began investigating the sexual assault of a teenage girl. The suspect in the case was Robert Stroh’s younger brother, David, who was using the alias Marshall Bond.

Investigators learned that St. Claire may have also had a close friendship with Stroh’s estranged wife.

David Stroh soon disappeared. He was indicted on the sexual assault charge, but authorities were unable to locate him.

Robert Stroh told detectives investigating the case that he believed his brother had moved to Wyoming, but a person said to have driven David to a business in Clackamas said that Robert was waiting there when they arrived, and David was never seen again.

Skeletal remains were found in November 1997 and May 1998 near John Day, and the Grant County Sheriff’s Office determined that they belonged to a male who died by homicide. They estimated that the remains had been there since roughly May or June 1996.

In 2019, the remains were identified as David Stroh. Robert Stroh died in 2013.

Investigators would like to hear from anybody with information related to the disappearance of Paul St. Claire (formerly known as Lloyd Buzzard) or the murder of David Stroh. Please contact WCSO Detective Tim Miller at 503-846-2690.