SWEETHEART GRAVES IN GREENWOOD MEMORIAL CEMETERY, RENTON HIGHLANDS
- treasurer1408
- Dec 26, 2025
- 2 min read
Young sweethearts died on May 28, 1984, Memorial Day Weekend, at the Green River Gorge near Black Diamond, WA.
When we are no longer able to tell our own life stories, we will be left to the writings of others. What do your relatives know about your daily life, your friends, your sweethearts, and your preferences? If we don’t communicate well with others, we might be surprised by what is said about us after our deaths.
A local story from a warm holiday weekend at the river is etched in stone on the gravestone of two 20 somethings that went for a drive and drowned in the Gorge. Rafters testified that a guy leaped into the water and began to swim toward Debra, but he slipped beneath the surface. They did not find him that day, and the King County Police asked for the public’s help to identify him.
Debra’s death certificate says she drowned while attempting to save her dog. The details of Scott’s death were not as easily known. When Debra was pulled out of the Green River, the kayakers knew a boy had tried to swim to her, but they didn’t know who he was or where he went.
Scott’s death was announced in the local paper on June 1st. His death certificate (dated June 26, 1984) says his death was an accident of freshwater drowning. He was found floating in the Green River.
Debra was 20 years of age, and she worked as a Nurse’s Aid at a Convalescent Center.
Scott was 21 years of age, and he was a Warehouse worker at SeaWest Equipment Co. in
Renton.
These two young people are buried beside each other in the Azalea Plot of Greenwood Cemetery in the Renton Highlands beside Scott’s parents, Larry and Beverly. Debra and Scott are buried in a grave with the heading: “Sweethearts” and the inscription: “They died for love, Greenriver Gorge.”
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¹ Greenwood Memorial Park and Funeral Home, About Us (Renton, WA: Dignity Memorial), accessed August 16, 2025. Information for this article was sourced from a May 30, 1984 article from The News Tribune.