0:01

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. October

0:04

is Cyber Security Awareness Month, so LifeLock

0:06

wants to remind you to update your

0:08

passwords. Using the same password

0:10

across multiple accounts makes you vulnerable to

0:12

cyber criminals. For comprehensive identity

0:15

theft protection, let LifeLock alert you

0:17

to anything suspicious and fix any

0:19

issues. Start protecting your

0:21

identity today with a 30-day

0:24

free trial at lifelock.com/podcast. Terms

0:26

apply. Welcome back, True Grand

0:28

Army. I am your host Margot, and this

0:30

is Military Murder, a show where

0:32

I focus on crimes committed by military members

0:34

and veterans. But don't worry, you don't

0:37

have to know anything about the military to

0:39

listen. You just have to be intrigued by

0:41

true crime documentaries on Netflix. And if that's

0:43

you, welcome home. Today, I am

0:45

taking you back to a case that started in the

0:48

early 80s, and well,

0:50

it is still going on as of

0:52

this recording. But it's not going on

0:54

because the investigators didn't eventually catch the

0:56

perpetrator. It's going on because the perpetrator

0:58

didn't take the time to get to

1:00

know his victims, so he

1:02

couldn't identify them. His victims

1:04

were usually sex workers, runaways, or just

1:06

women who were hitchhiking. This man would

1:08

eventually have the audacity to tell the

1:11

police he thought he was doing them

1:13

a favor by getting rid of these

1:15

women. But in actuality, as it

1:17

would turn out, many of his victims were

1:19

just young girls, and all of his victims

1:21

were someone's daughter. This murderer

1:24

spent his time in the military having

1:26

as much sex as possible with sex

1:28

workers, and then becoming enraged when he

1:30

contracted a venereal disease due to not

1:33

using protection. After this,

1:35

he figured revenge would be his.

1:37

Join me today as I bring you

1:40

the tragic story of the Green River

1:42

murders, and the investigators who knew exactly

1:44

who the perpetrator was, but they were

1:46

just waiting for technology to catch up.

1:49

Now, let's dig in.

1:51

Military murder is an independent project, and

1:53

it's not endorsed by the Department of

1:55

Defense or any military component. The

1:57

views expressed are those of the host. The

2:00

content of this podcast is not meant to be

2:02

legal or medical advice. Warning. This

2:04

episode contains graphic details of murder

2:06

and is not suitable for young

2:09

listeners. Listener discretion is advised.

2:24

Warning. This case does involve discussions

2:26

of rape, torture, and murder. Please

2:29

listen with care. Our

2:32

story begins in Kent, Washington during the summer

2:34

of 1982. Kent

2:36

is a bustling industrial city today near Seattle,

2:38

but back in the 80s, it still had

2:40

a bit of a rural feel to it.

2:43

The 1980 census put its population at

2:45

23,000. The

2:47

2020 census estimated roughly 137,000

2:49

people. On

2:53

July 15, 1982, two young boys

2:55

were out doing what kids did back then in

2:57

the summer. They were out enjoying

2:59

the sunshine, riding their bikes, and exploring.

3:02

On this day, they were riding near the

3:04

Green River in Kent, Washington. As the two

3:06

boys rode over the Meeker Street bridge, one

3:08

of them noticed something pushed up against a

3:10

post in the water. A closer

3:13

look revealed white sneakers poking out. The

3:15

boys decided to go check it out. So they

3:18

climbed down the bank of the river to get a closer look. And

3:21

then they walked into the water, and that's when

3:23

they saw what they thought was a jacket. As

3:25

they started to get closer, one of the

3:27

boys told his buddy, stop. They were starting

3:29

to see that the denim that they thought

3:31

was a jacket was wrapped around something, and

3:34

beneath, they could see hair moving in the

3:36

current of the water. It

3:38

was the body of a female. Police

3:41

were notified, and soon the victim was

3:43

pulled from the water and transported to

3:45

the King County Medical Examiner's Office. A

3:48

pair of jeans and a blue and white

3:51

blouse were knotted tightly around the victim's neck.

3:53

Inside the front pocket of the jeans were

3:55

the initials W.C., and there

3:57

was a single penny found in the change

3:59

pocket. The body was completely

4:01

nude except for socks and shoes. The

4:04

Emmy could see a bruise on the left

4:06

forearm and a forensic x-ray determined her arm

4:08

was broken in two places higher up on

4:11

the upper arm. The bruise

4:13

and broken bones told the story of a

4:15

violent fight for her life. The

4:17

cause of death was determined to be

4:20

ligature strangulation that included a fractured hyoid

4:22

bone and extreme hemorrhaging in the muscles

4:24

of her neck. The Emmy

4:26

determined that the young woman had died three days

4:28

earlier on July 12, 1982. They

4:32

had no way of identifying the body, so

4:34

the King County Emmy distributed pictures of the

4:36

tattoos that were on the body in hopes

4:38

that they could learn the victim's identity. And

4:41

they lucked out. A local tattoo

4:43

artist named Joseph Yates called the Kent

4:45

Police Department and said that he recognized

4:48

the tattoos as his own work. He

4:50

told them that the victim's name was Wendy

4:52

and that she lived with her mom in

4:54

Pollolip. Investigators were able

4:57

to quickly determine that the victim

4:59

was 16-year-old Wendy Lee Cofield. Wendy

5:02

had been living with a foster family

5:04

after a tumultuous childhood. When

5:06

her parents divorced, she went to live with her

5:08

mom while her sister lived with her dad. Living

5:11

with her mom wasn't easy though. After

5:13

she was removed from her mother's care and

5:15

put into foster care, Wendy started working in

5:18

the sex trade on what was called the

5:20

Pacific Highway South or the

5:22

PHS in the SeaTac area. The

5:25

PHS was well known as a location

5:27

to find sex workers. The

5:29

last time that Wendy was seen alive was when she

5:31

left her foster home on the night of July 8,

5:33

1982. The

5:36

Emmy didn't think that she died until the

5:38

12th, but no one will ever know where

5:40

Wendy was during those days. Less

5:43

than a month after Wendy's body was discovered, on

5:45

Friday, August 12, 1982, an employee

5:48

of a meat packing plant located along

5:50

the Green River in Kent stepped outside

5:53

to have a smoke break along the

5:55

riverbank. As he stood there, he

5:57

noticed something floating in the water. It was the

5:59

body of a man. of a woman. The

6:01

man immediately notified the police and eventually

6:03

the body was removed from the water

6:05

and brought to the King County Emmys

6:07

office. The victim's fingerprints were

6:10

still intact so they were taken and

6:12

sent to a technician to see if

6:14

she was in the system. The body

6:16

also had a heart tattoo on its

6:19

arm with the letters D-U-B, Dubb

6:21

written inside. They got

6:23

a hit on the fingerprints. The woman had

6:26

been previously arrested for sex work just 30

6:28

days prior to her death. It

6:30

was 23-year-old Deborah Lynn Bonner from Tacoma

6:32

and the manner of her death was

6:34

homicide. They didn't know exactly when Deborah

6:36

died but they knew that she had

6:38

been in the water for a very

6:41

long time. Deborah, known as

6:43

Dubb to her family, was also a sex worker and

6:45

had been seen alive on July 25, 1982 when she

6:47

left the motel she was staying at to

6:52

go along the PHS to quote,

6:54

catch some dates. Two

6:56

bodies in 30 days raised a lot of

6:59

concerns and met they needed their best on

7:01

the case. Detective Dave Reichert

7:03

would be assigned to investigate but little

7:05

did he know at the time that

7:07

Deborah was going to be the second

7:09

victim in what would become a string

7:11

or maybe we should call it a

7:13

rope of four dozen murdered women and

7:15

girls that he would work to solve

7:17

over the next 20 years.

7:21

On August 14, 1982, just two days after Deborah

7:24

Lynn Bonner's body was found, two more

7:27

bodies were discovered by a man who

7:29

was on the river rafting. The rafter

7:31

initially thought that he saw mannequins but

7:34

realized I'm sure to his horror that

7:36

they were human remains. The

7:38

bodies were just 600 yards downstream

7:40

from where Deborah's body had been recovered

7:42

in the Green River. The women

7:45

were Marsha Chapman who was found submerged

7:47

in the water. Her body was nude

7:49

and positioned on her back. There were

7:51

several large boulders placed on her to

7:53

hold her down in the river. One

7:56

arm had gotten free and eerily waved

7:58

as the current went by. didn't

10:00

stop the Green River Killer. This

10:10

episode is brought to you by LifeLock. October

10:13

is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so LifeLock

10:15

wants to remind you to update

10:17

your passwords. Using the same

10:19

password across multiple accounts makes you vulnerable

10:22

to cybercriminals. For comprehensive identity

10:24

theft protection, let LifeLock alert you

10:26

to anything suspicious and fix any

10:28

issues. Start protecting your

10:31

identity today with a 30-day

10:33

free trial at lifelock.com/podcast. Terms

10:35

apply. On September 20,

10:37

1982. She

10:43

was last seen at approximately 3 p.m.

10:45

that day near a motel on the

10:47

PHS. Deborah Estes was also

10:49

a known sex worker. On

10:52

September 25, 1982, the remains of a female were found laying under

10:54

an apple tree in South King

10:58

County. The woman had been

11:00

strangled using a pair of men's socks that

11:02

were still wrapped around her neck. The

11:05

body was nude and positioned on its back

11:07

with the legs flexed at the hip and

11:09

the knees bent at a 90-degree angle. The

11:12

body was identified as 19-year-old Giselle

11:15

Laverne. Giselle was a known

11:17

sex worker who frequently met clients while

11:19

walking along the PHS. She

11:21

had last been seen alive on July 17, 1982, at around 11 a.m.

11:23

when she left her apartment saying

11:28

that she planned on turning some tricks on

11:30

the PHS and that she would return later

11:32

that day. Between August

11:34

of 1982 and June of 1983, the bodies of six more

11:36

women were discovered along a

11:41

twisty half-mile stretch of Star Lake

11:44

Road in King County with approximately

11:46

a quarter of a mile of

11:48

distance between each body. The

11:51

area along Star Lake Road is about

11:53

five miles from the locations of the

11:55

remains that had been found earlier. Five

11:58

of the bodies were completely nude, and the body

12:00

was completely and one still had a blouse on.

12:02

All six were strangled. All six

12:04

were known sex workers, and five

12:06

of them were known to work

12:09

along the PHS, and the PHS

12:11

was actually the last known location

12:13

for those five victims. The

12:15

sixth victim had a previous arrest

12:17

for prostitution on PHS, but that

12:19

was not the last place she

12:21

had been seen. What

12:23

interested the task force was that these

12:25

women seemed to have been killed and

12:28

dumped before the first set of remains.

12:30

Remember, that victim was Wendy Lee Cofield,

12:32

and so the task force believed that

12:34

these last six women had been murdered

12:37

before Wendy was murdered and found. It

12:39

was obvious to the investigators that the

12:42

same perpetrator had killed these six victims.

12:44

They based their conclusion on a few

12:46

things. The similarities of the case, like

12:48

victim lifestyle, time and place of disappearance,

12:50

the concentration of bodies at the dump

12:52

site, the cause of death, and the

12:54

condition of the bodies. Terry

12:57

Milligan was 16 when she disappeared on August

12:59

29, 1982. At the time, she was living at the Moonrise Hotel on

13:05

the PHS and was a sex worker.

13:07

Her skeletonized remains weren't found until April

13:10

1, 1984. Her

13:13

blouse was found around her neck and upper

13:15

arms. Her legs were flexed out

13:17

at the knees and hips at a 90-degree

13:19

angle, which led investigators to

13:21

believe that she was posed deliberately.

13:25

On March 3, 1983,

13:27

18-year-old Alma Ann Smith was working on

13:29

the PHS with her best friend and

13:31

roommate. While her roommate was gone with

13:33

a client, Alma was picked up by

13:35

a man in a blue pickup truck.

13:37

When her roommate got back to the hotel they

13:40

lived at, she was approached by a man in

13:42

a blue pickup truck who tried to broker a

13:44

date with her. Alma's scattered

13:46

skeleton was found off Star Lake

13:48

Road on April 2, 1984.

13:52

The skeletal remains of the third body found at

13:54

Star Lake were discovered on March 31, 1984. The

13:56

victim was

14:00

identified as 17-year-old Dolores

14:02

Williams. Her skeleton appeared

14:04

to have been deliberately covered with branches

14:07

and debris and no clothing was located

14:09

with it. Dolores disappeared between March

14:11

8 and March 17, 1983. Her roommate said that

14:13

she had gone out

14:17

on the PHS for sex work and

14:19

vanished from near the bus stop outside

14:21

the same hotel that Alma Smith had

14:23

disappeared from. Unfortunately, no

14:25

witnesses saw the vehicle or the

14:28

person that Dolores left with. 23-year-old

14:31

sex worker Gail Matthews disappeared on April

14:33

10, 1983 as she was working on

14:35

the PHS.

14:38

Her skeletonized remains were found near Star

14:40

Lake Road on September 19, 1983. The

14:45

last time her boyfriend saw her, she was

14:47

sitting in the passenger seat of a pickup

14:50

truck in the southbound lanes of the highway.

14:52

The boyfriend waved at Gail, but she must

14:54

have not seen him because she didn't wave

14:56

back. The boyfriend could see

14:59

that a white man was driving the

15:01

truck, which he recalled either being greenish

15:03

or blue. A week

15:05

after Gail Matthews vanished, a

15:07

sex worker named Sandra Gabbard

15:10

disappeared on April 17, 1983.

15:12

Sandra regularly worked the same bus stop

15:15

as Alma Smith and Dolores Williams. Sandra

15:17

lived with her boyfriend in a motel

15:19

on PHS. On the day she disappeared,

15:21

she gave her boyfriend the $70 she

15:23

had already earned that day and said

15:25

that she was going back out for

15:27

two more dates at the bus stop.

15:29

Seventeen-year-old Sandra's body was found almost a

15:31

year later on April 1, 1984, 100

15:36

feet below Star Lake Road. The

15:39

task force had brought in an expert

15:41

tracker who said that Sandra's body had

15:43

been concealed by a man who methodically

15:45

and calmly made trips back and forth

15:48

from a brush pile to get materials

15:50

to hide her body. The tracker said

15:52

that the man made no wasted movements

15:54

and showed no signs of panic, which

15:57

just makes his case even creepier. The

16:00

last victim found at Star Lake

16:02

was Carrie Roiz, who disappeared sometime

16:04

between May 31st and June 15th, 1983.

16:09

There were no witnesses, so the circumstances were

16:11

not known exactly when she went missing. Carrie

16:13

was also a known sex worker known to

16:16

look for clients in the area by the

16:18

bus stop where two other victims had been

16:20

picked up. Carrie was only 15. Her

16:23

remains were found on March 10, 1985 in a

16:25

swampy area 15 yards downhill from Star Lake

16:30

Road and only 25 yards

16:32

from where Sandra's remains had been found the

16:34

year prior. On April

16:37

30, 1983, 18-year-old Marie

16:39

Malver set out on the PHS to

16:41

find sex work. Her boyfriend

16:43

watched her get into a dark-colored pickup

16:46

with a single white male inside. The

16:49

boyfriend followed the truck going south until

16:51

it suddenly flipped around in a parking

16:53

lot and headed north then turned east.

16:56

The boyfriend lost sight of the truck at that

16:58

point. Three days later on

17:00

May 3, Marie's boyfriend reported Marie as

17:02

missing but lied and said that the last

17:04

time he saw her was at their place

17:07

and that she was going to use a

17:09

pay phone on the PHS. The

17:12

very next day, he called the police and

17:14

told them that he had lied. He actually

17:16

told them the truth, said that Marie was

17:19

a sex worker and had been picked up

17:21

by a trick that he described as a

17:23

man in his early 40s, possibly Mexican or

17:25

Indian. When Marie's dad learned about her disappearance,

17:28

he told the boyfriend that since he was

17:30

the last one to see her, he'd better

17:32

go find her. The boyfriend

17:34

must have been scared and he drove

17:36

around neighborhoods near the PHS looking for

17:38

the pickup truck he had last seen

17:40

Marie drive away in. And

17:43

can you believe it, he found the truck

17:45

parked at a house on 32nd Place South.

17:49

The boyfriend called it in to the local

17:51

PD, which was in the city of Des

17:54

Moines, Washington, of course, because we haven't teleported

17:56

to Iowa yet. Or at all in this

17:58

case. the

24:00

following year. Kelly's sister reported

24:02

her as a missing person about a

24:04

month after her remains were identified. The

24:08

last victim found in the vacant lot

24:10

was actually the second victim that had

24:12

been killed out of the four, and

24:14

that was 19-year-old Andrea

24:16

Childers. Her remains were the ones

24:18

that were found in 1986. Andrea

24:22

had been last seen at a bus stop,

24:24

not on the BHS, with plans to

24:26

go to the South Center Mall. She

24:29

had been arrested for sex work a

24:31

month prior by Seattle PD, but

24:33

as far as anyone knew, she was not seeking

24:35

clients on the last day she was seen, which

24:39

was April 14,

24:42

1983. Andrea's remains were found face down

24:44

with their legs splayed out wide. She

24:47

had been covered by a car fender and

24:49

a wooden tabletop that protected her body from

24:51

the elements and left her more intact than

24:53

some of the other bodies in the lot

24:56

that were found years earlier. In

24:59

May 1984, a man called the Green River

25:01

Task Force and said that he had some

25:04

information about their case. The

25:06

man was Gary Ridgway. The

25:08

police brought Ridgway in and questioned him

25:10

again, but this time they

25:12

administered a polygraph test. Ridgway

25:15

passed the polygraph and denied killing any

25:17

women or having anything to do with

25:19

any of the missing women, and

25:21

apparently the information that he

25:23

provided to the investigators led

25:25

nowhere. With that,

25:27

Ridgway walked out without incident.

25:30

In December of 1984, a sex

25:32

worker named Rebecca reported to the Green River Task

25:35

Force that she had been violently assaulted back in

25:37

November of 1982. She said that she was hitchhiking on

25:41

the PHS when a man came up in a truck

25:43

and offered to give her a ride. She asked

25:46

the driver if he was the Green River Killer

25:48

and he said, no, of course not, and

25:50

he even showed his ID from work

25:53

at the Kenworth Trucking Company. The man

25:55

seemed very meek and unassuming, so Rebecca

25:57

got into the truck along the route.

26:00

she offered him a date, $20 for oral

26:02

sex, and the

26:04

man accepted. Rebecca told the

26:06

man to drive to a secluded area just

26:08

off the PHS, and when they got

26:10

to the secluded area, the man told Rebecca that he

26:12

wanted to go into the woods. She

26:14

agreed, and off they went. The

26:17

man dropped his shorts, and Rebecca knelt

26:19

and began to perform oral sex on

26:21

the man. However, the man

26:23

could not get an erection and suddenly

26:25

accused Rebecca of biting him. He

26:28

shoved her down onto the ground, pushing her face

26:30

into the dirt, and wrapped his arm around her

26:32

neck, in what she called

26:34

a police-style chokehold. Rebecca

26:36

struggled and fought with all she had, telling

26:38

the man that all she had was her

26:40

family and that she didn't want to die.

26:43

Rebecca heroically broke free from his grasp and

26:45

ran to the nearest house to get help

26:47

with the man hot on her heels. The

26:50

man thankfully gave up, and Rebecca made it

26:53

to the house. The occupants

26:55

listened as Rebecca told them how she

26:57

had been attacked by the man. Her

26:59

blouse was torn, and she had visible abrasions

27:01

on her neck. She was terrified

27:03

and was sure that this man had just

27:05

tried to kill her. Because

27:07

she had traded sex for money with

27:10

the man, Rebecca initially hesitated to report

27:12

the assault. But over the

27:14

following two years, with all the publicity

27:16

about the Green River Killer and the

27:18

task force trying to find any leads,

27:20

Rebecca decided to report what had happened,

27:23

and it was reported on Catching Killers,

27:25

a Netflix show, that at the

27:27

time that Rebecca reported this, the task

27:29

force had put together a quote,

27:32

someone out there knows something campaign, end

27:34

quote, where they were offering up to

27:36

a $28,000 reward to

27:39

catch the man dubbed the Green

27:41

River Killer. Now that's roughly a

27:43

reward of $85,000 today. Rebecca

27:46

told the task force that the man was white between

27:49

30 and 35 years old. He

27:51

had light brown hair, and she thought he might

27:53

have had a mustache. He had

27:56

been wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes,

27:58

even though it was November, end quote. outside.

28:01

She remembered his vehicle as a

28:03

1980 burgundy or maroon pickup truck

28:05

with a white canopy. She

28:08

also told the investigators that she saw the

28:10

man's ID card from the Kenworth Trucking Company.

28:13

Detectives used this information to seek

28:15

out a suspect, and they

28:17

looked at all the arrestees who

28:19

had been arrested for solicitation, and

28:21

they quickly found Gary Ridgway had

28:24

been arrested for solicitation, and

28:26

he was a truck painter at Kenworth. What

28:29

are the odds? The task force presented

28:31

Rebecca with a photo lineup of six

28:34

men, and she immediately zeroed in on

28:36

Ridgway's picture. In February

28:38

of 1985, a detective from the

28:40

task force contacted Ridgway and

28:42

asked him about Rebecca's accusations of the

28:44

assault. Ridgway admitted that he

28:46

had dated Rebecca and had actually choked

28:49

her, but that it was a reflex

28:51

because she bit his penis. Ultimately,

28:53

Rebecca chose not to press

28:55

charges, and Ridgway continued to

28:58

be a free man. In

29:07

late 1985, human remains were located

29:10

three hours south of Seattle in

29:12

Tigard, Oregon, a suburb of Portland.

29:14

A construction crew found a skull

29:16

and notified the police. The

29:19

skull would later be identified as

29:21

belonging to 22-year-old Denise Bush, who

29:23

had disappeared from the PHS in

29:25

Seattle back on October 8, 1982

29:29

where she had been living and working as a sex

29:31

worker. More remains belonging to

29:34

Denise were found in 1990 in Tequila,

29:36

which is outside of Seattle. The bottom

29:38

part of her jaw was located that

29:40

included a shunt that had been placed

29:43

a few months before she went missing.

29:45

This meant that she was already pretty

29:47

decomposed when she was moved. A

29:50

few days after Denise's skull was found in 1985, more

29:53

human remains were located in

29:55

Tigard that were later identified

29:57

as 18-year-old Shirley Sherrill. was

30:00

a sex worker from Seattle that was known

30:02

to work the PHS strip. She

30:04

had last been seen between October 20th and

30:06

October 22nd, 1982 in Seattle's International District. In

30:09

August of

30:13

1983, another victim was located

30:15

north of the Seattle-Tacoma Airport.

30:18

The body was found near a water tower in

30:20

a shallow grave under an apple tree. It turned

30:22

out to be 17-year-old Shonda

30:25

Summers. She had last been

30:27

seen during the first week of October of 1982. Her stepfather

30:31

filed a missing persons report within a couple

30:33

of weeks of her disappearance. Shonda's

30:36

mother traveled to Seattle from California to

30:38

search for her daughter, but they were

30:40

not able to locate her. Then,

30:43

on March 21, 1984,

30:45

a baseball field caretaker's dog brought

30:47

home something that you'd think only happens

30:49

in the movies. He had a human

30:52

leg bone in his mouth and brought

30:54

it home to his owner. The

30:56

caretaker called police and a search of

30:58

the woods near the field was conducted.

31:01

Over the course of a few days, the

31:03

police recovered skeletal remains of a young woman.

31:06

However, they were unable to identify

31:08

her and she was dubbed Jane

31:10

Doe Bones Ten. She was believed

31:13

to be a small-statured, left-handed Caucasian

31:15

female who was roughly 15 years

31:17

old. During

31:19

the search for Jane Doe Bravo

31:22

Ten, a third victim was recovered.

31:24

Cheryl Whims had disappeared from

31:27

central Seattle near Judkin's playground.

31:29

Her friends said that she had been involved in

31:32

sex work and that she would frequently hitchhike. They

31:34

said Cheryl wasn't very particular about who

31:37

she took rides from either. Cheryl

31:39

was killed on her 18th birthday on May

31:41

23, 1983.

31:44

Her remains weren't located

31:46

until a year later when

31:48

Jane Doe Bravo Ten was

31:50

found. Cheryl's skeleton was

31:52

located a few hundred feet from Jane

31:54

Doe Ten and about half a mile

31:56

from where Shonda Summers' remains were. All

31:59

three of the women's bodies found in

32:01

this area were nude and their causes

32:03

of death were listed as unspecified homicidal

32:07

violence These are

32:09

not all of the victims the remainder

32:11

I will discuss in part two By

32:21

1986 the Green River Task Force was

32:24

still without any definitive leads as to

32:26

who this prolific killer was Detective

32:29

Riker was still leading the charge five

32:31

years after the task force had been

32:33

established And a really weird

32:35

twist the detective received a letter in the

32:37

mail from an infamous serial killer Ted

32:40

freaking Bundy. Yep, Ted Bundy sent

32:42

detective Riker a letter and in

32:44

it He offered his help in

32:46

finding the Green River killer after

32:49

all he had some experience in this arena Without

32:52

any other leads detective Riker hopped on

32:54

a plane to Florida to talk to

32:56

Bundy in person over the course of

32:59

several interviews Bundy told the detectives that

33:01

he thought that the killer might be

33:03

revisiting the corpses and Having sex with

33:06

them. It was certainly eye-opening information But

33:08

it didn't shed any additional light on

33:10

the actual perpetrator behind the Green River

33:12

murders Meanwhile, the task force

33:15

was being painted in a negative light by

33:17

the Seattle media Who were saying that they

33:19

were spending a lot of tax dollars and

33:22

not catching the murderer? We're

33:24

talking about millions of dollars and thousands

33:26

of hours of work done by law

33:28

enforcement But the body

33:30

count kept going up and the

33:32

search area kept expanding despite their

33:34

efforts There was a political

33:36

cartoon that came out around this time. They

33:38

referred to the task force as

33:40

a task farce in 1987

33:44

the task force had one man at

33:46

the top of their suspect list, but

33:48

nothing directly tying him to the murders

33:50

they continued to grind and dig in

33:53

on Gary Ridgway and Eventually, they were

33:55

able to obtain Ridgway's credit card receipts.

33:57

They found that he had purchased a

33:59

lot more gas than normal in the

34:01

weeks that the victims had disappeared. But

34:04

because they were unable to pinpoint the women's

34:06

exact date or time of death, they couldn't

34:08

directly attach the gas purchases to

34:10

the victims. So I

34:13

just mentioned that Gary Ridgway was

34:15

their main suspect. So

34:17

who exactly was this guy? We

34:20

know that he was a truck painter at Kenworth

34:22

Trucking, but what else did we know about him?

34:25

Well, Ridgway grew up in the SeaTac area near the

34:27

airport and he still lived in that area. Ridgway's

34:30

childhood was fairly normal, but due

34:32

to childhood bedwetting that went well

34:34

into his teen years, his

34:36

mom would humiliate him by washing his genitals

34:39

in front of his brothers. It's

34:41

unclear if it was the fact that

34:43

his mom was still washing his privates

34:45

into his adolescent years or something else,

34:48

but Ridgway would develop a gross sexual

34:50

attraction to his mother and he even

34:52

fantasized about killing her because of this

34:55

attraction. When Ridgway was

34:57

15 or 16 years old, he

34:59

tentatively explored killing people. And

35:01

I say tentatively because he wasn't

35:03

successful. So he came across

35:05

a first grader playing in the woods between his

35:07

house and school. Ridgway asked the

35:10

little boy if he wanted to build a fort with him

35:12

and the boy said sure. But

35:14

then the teenage Ridgway pulled out a pocket

35:17

knife and stabbed the boy in the chest,

35:19

lacerating his liver. Ridgway

35:21

ran away and left the boy for dead.

35:24

The little boy was eventually found and he

35:26

did survive, but it took him weeks to

35:28

recover and he wasn't able to shed any

35:30

light on the perpetrator. So

35:32

Ridgway walked free. The

35:35

little boy would later go on to be

35:37

homeschooled and never return to his old school

35:39

again. Eventually the memory of

35:41

the attack was too much and the young

35:43

boy's family moved to California. So

35:46

more on Ridgway. Ridgway

35:49

had a very low IQ, testing somewhere around

35:51

80. He struggled to

35:53

complete high school but eventually did graduate.

35:56

Once he graduated, he was drafted into the

35:58

Navy and shipped out. He was married

36:00

while he was in the Navy but divorced after he

36:02

found out his wife had cheated on him. But

36:06

he also had cheated on her because

36:08

while he was in the Navy and

36:10

still married, Ridgway frequented many sex workers

36:12

wherever he was located and eventually

36:14

he got gonorrhea. This

36:17

made him very angry and he would

36:19

eventually use this as a point as

36:21

to why he wanted to kill as

36:23

many sex workers as possible. But

36:25

the Navy didn't know about this nor

36:28

would they have cared and Ridgway was

36:30

honorably discharged in 1971. After

36:33

he got out of the Navy, he started working

36:36

as a truck painter for Kenworth Trucking. He

36:38

was meticulous about his work and he

36:41

actually received awards for his perfect attendance.

36:44

Ridgway's son was born after he married his

36:46

second wife but they split up in 1981.

36:50

According to his second wife, he liked to sneak

36:52

up behind her in the woods and choke her.

36:55

Which listen I have so many questions. First

36:57

of all why were they out in the

36:59

woods so much? Like were they hiking or

37:01

what? Anyway, Ridgway met

37:03

his third wife in 1985 at

37:05

a Parents Without Partners meeting. Ridgway's

37:08

third wife would describe him as quiet

37:10

and polite. She said he never got

37:13

angry, was non-threatening, meek and was small

37:15

in stature. Ridgway was rather

37:17

ordinary on the outside. Actually

37:20

when I saw video footage of him, this guy

37:22

kind of reminds me of Rick Moranis, the dad

37:24

from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I mean he

37:26

doesn't look like him but he has

37:29

the same demeanor and stature. Okay

37:31

so that's all I'll say about Gary

37:33

Ridgway for now. Let's get back

37:36

to the investigation. The Green

37:38

River slash Star Lake Murders began in 1982.

37:42

By 1984, Gary Ridgway was on the

37:44

police's radar and eventually they had enough

37:46

evidence to get a search warrant of

37:48

Ridgway's house and they were able to

37:50

get a DNA swab. Unfortunately

37:53

the search of his house didn't reveal

37:55

any connection between Ridgway and the string

37:57

of murders and the DNA was wasn't

38:00

useful during that time either. Investigators

38:02

just had to wait for technology to catch

38:04

up, I guess. But for

38:07

now, while the investigators felt like

38:09

failures, they would later learn that

38:11

their work in obtaining DNA during

38:13

the investigation would pay off much,

38:16

much later. Despite

38:18

the Green River Task Force's efforts,

38:20

which included using female vice officers

38:22

going undercover as sex workers, they

38:25

were getting no closer to finding the man

38:27

responsible for all the murders. In

38:30

1989, seven years after the murders began, the

38:34

40-member Green River Task Force was

38:36

disbanded by King County Executive Tim

38:38

Hill. But the case with all

38:40

the unsolved murders was left open.

38:43

And at the turn of the century,

38:45

they would catch their man. Next time

38:47

on Military Murder. I

38:55

hate multi-parters as much as the next person,

38:57

but I did want to spend as much

38:59

time as possible talking about the victims in

39:01

the case. And I'm not even done talking

39:03

about all of them, because as we would

39:05

later learn, there were dozens of murders linked

39:07

to the same killer. I

39:09

want to say thank you all for listening, and be sure

39:11

to tune in next week to listen to part two. If

39:14

you haven't already, take a quick moment to

39:17

rate this show five stars wherever you're listening.

39:19

This truly does help me reach new listeners.

39:22

And if you're interested in more

39:24

content, consider supporting this show. I

39:26

have over 50 full-length bonus episodes,

39:28

and you can join me on

39:31

Patreon at patreon.com/military murder to learn

39:33

more about bonus episodes. Shout

39:36

out to Myrtle for researching and writing this

39:38

episode for me. My sources for

39:40

this episode include a Netflix show

39:42

called Catching Killers, a documentary called

39:44

Green River Mind of a Monster,

39:46

an episode of Cold Justice, and

39:48

court documents obtained with the Seattle

39:51

Times, and news articles from the

39:53

Seattle Times, the Seattle PI, the

39:55

Death Penalty Information Center, and the

39:57

King County Washington website. was

40:00

created by Mamo Margot Productions. The

40:02

music was created by Tye-Ops. Until

40:04

next time, remember, you never really

40:06

know what someone is capable of.

40:08

So remain vigilant always. You

40:11

have a fabulous week and I'll keep digging

40:13

to bring you part 2 of this episode

40:15

next week. I

40:30

don't want to.