The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer (85 page)

There are, of necessity, no conclusions drawn in the plain, deliberately colorless language of the prosecutor’s summary admitted into evidence in the case against Ridgway, pursuant to his plea bargain. This is not argument, it is evidence, a summary of the admissions Ridgway made after his arrest in order to avoid the death penalty. We can learn a lot from the admissions Ridgway made, especially when they are lined up in the prosecutor’s summary against what the police knew and discovered and the chronology of each victim’s story as she crossed paths with her killer, was murdered, was deposited at one of his dump sites, and then, perhaps, transported elsewhere by her obsessed killer, who wanted to maintain his control over the victim.

What we do learn, in addition, is how the killer grew in confidence and how he applied his experience as police discovered bodies months or even years after he’d deposited them. In my own mind, and from my own personal experience as the task force consultant, I can compare aspects of this case to the Yorkshire Ripper murders in Leeds, England, approximately seven years earlier. Prostitute-killer Peter Sutcliffe, like Ridgway married and living an otherwise normal life, led task force investigators in Leeds on an equally wild goose chase.

Although these two cases have some key aspects in common, the
one thing that stands out in my mind upon a review of the King County prosecutor’s summary of evidence against Ridgway is that the killer usually understands not only the methods police use to investigate a case but also the thinking that supports those methods. This is why killers will change their modus operandi, transport the victims to different locations, and deliberately leave clues in one spot in order to get the police to use vital personnel resources in a vain effort to track down a false lead. In Green River, with the press and community demanding quick answers, police not only had to solve the case, they also had to appear successful as they were doing it. As anyone who has ever worked a serial murder case knows, until the offender is eventually caught, police can’t look successful, because if the press reports that, the killer might leave the area to find new hunting grounds. This is one of the paradoxes of conducting a serial murder investigation. It is also the lure that brings in the amateur and wannabe profilers who spring up like dandelions on television screens in the wake of any announcement that a serial killer is on the loose in a community.

Sometimes the public and even the police are surprised at a serial killer’s lack of remorse. This jumps out at anyone reading the prosecutor’s summary of evidence. Time and again detectives will comment about their amazement that the physical location of a dump site and the tiniest details about that location at that time will be more important to a serial killer than details about the victim. There is a reason for this, which Bundy made very clear, and which the investigators in the Ridgway case focused on. For a serial killer, his dump sites are living places that permeate his memory. This is where his “possessions” are located. He “owns” these locations just as he “owns” his victims. The details of the victims themselves fade into memory, but the details of the dump sites come alive every time the killer drives by to see if anyone has disturbed his property. Ridgway made this very clear to his interviewers, just as Ted made it clear to me.

As one can see from the prosecutor’s summary, whatever Ridgway believed about himself and his victims—and we still may be years away from learning the truth about that—he clearly believed in his own ability to stay ahead of the police. Moreover, because he believed he knew how the police would proceed in their investigation of the victim remains that were turning up all over King County, he actually placed parts of his victims in specific places, knowing that
would create a false lead and trigger a blind-alley investigaton. Too many of these fruitless investigations tend to drain the resources of a task force, make them look inept in the eyes of their commanders, the politicians, and the public, and eventually can result in a level of frustration that cripples their ability to function. Thus, when one reads the prosecutor’s summary, one has to appreciate the determination of my former ad hoc partner, Dave Reichert, now King County Sheriff Reichert, in seeing this case to the end.

Of vital interest to any serial killer investigation is the knowledge surrounding the killer’s first victim. Police usually spend a considerable amount of time interviewing the killer about his first victim because what the killer did and who the killer chose say a lot about the offender and the nature of his later crimes. In Ridgway’s case, he at first refused to admit to any victims before Wendy Coffield. Then in October 2003, he said that it was “very possible” that he killed a women in the 1970s, while living in Maple Valley with his second wife. He described one incident, claiming that he could recall no detail except that “some’n went wrong, uh, with the date and I, I killed her.”

As it turned out, the very first victim was the 6-year-old boy whom Ridgway stabbed with a knife in the incident described in the previous chapter.

Detectives also focus their attention on the last victim because what they learn about the first and last victims and the comparisons between these crimes often shed light not only on the killer, his motivations, and methods, but also upon the evolution of the offender as he moves along the continuum of violence. In Ridgway’s case, he claimed at first not to be able to recall his last victim. He said that he only killed two women in 1985 and then stopped completely. But police confronted him with unequivocal evidence to the contrary.

He had informed detectives of a number of places on Highway 410 where, he said, he had dumped bodies that he was not sure had been recovered. At one of these sites—marked on a map drawn by Ridgway for the detectives—a body had been previously recovered. That victim (who was never part of the “official” list of Green River victims) was Marta Reeves, who disappeared in 1990. As soon as he was confronted with this evidence, Ridgway readily admitted killing the woman—and then admitted that he had continued to kill into the 1990s.

Later, when speaking to a psychiatrist, Ridgway suggested that this was an isolated incident. “In 1990, I … went off the wagon and killed.” Ridgway admitted later that he killed another woman in 1998, but he said that she was an aberration. He admitted to a forensic psychologist that his urge to kill persisted into the 1990s, although he said he could resist it for months at a time.

He acknowledged that he continued to seek out prostitutes until his arrest in 2001, and agreed that this was “kinda like a hunt.” He admitted that the sight of prostitutes was, for him, “like candy in a dish.” Indeed, even after he was transferred in the late 1990s from the Seattle Kenworth plant near Pacific Highway South to the Renton plant, Ridgway continued to drive the Pacific Highway South and Rainier Avenue, before and after work, looking for prostitutes. The crack epidemic had arrived, and Ridgway found that sex with cocaine-addicted prostitutes was cheaper than ever. Ridgway finally admitted that, although he slowed down, he never stopped killing altogether until his arrest in 2001.

According to him, his last killings were, in comparison to those of his more prolific period, the work of an “amateur.” In the 1990s, Ridgway said, he was “semi-retired.”

Although he admitted that his last kill was relatively close in time to his arrest in 2001, Ridgway insisted in 2003 that he could recall absolutely nothing about it. He professed an inability to understand why he was withholding information from his interrogators. He alternatively suggested that he remembered the murder, but did not want to disclose the details, or that the facts were locked away in his head and he could not access them. Ultimately, Ridgway said that the last murder he could recall committing was in 1998.

Of the seven counts of aggravated first degree murder Ridgway was charged with, five of the seven charged victims were found at the first known dump site, the Green River. There, on July 15, 1982, two boys on bicycles on the Peck Bridge in Kent discovered the body of Wendy Coffield floating in the water below them. Sixteen-year-old Wendy Coffield, known to work as a street prostitute along Pacific Highway South in King County, left her foster home on July 8, 1982, and was never seen alive again.

When she was discovered, Wendy was naked, with the exception of her shoes and socks. The remainder of her clothing—jeans, underpants, and shirt—were knotted around her neck like a ligature. An autopsy confirmed that Wendy had been strangled. She suffered a fractured hyoid bone as well as significant hemorrhaging in her neck muscles. In addition, her left humerus (the upper arm bone) was broken. The condition of her body was consistent with death having occurred shortly after her disappearance on July 8, 1982.

In March 2003, a private forensic laboratory, Microtrace, reported that it had discovered tiny paint spheres on the jeans that formed the ligature around Wendy’s neck. The paint composition of the spheres was identical to the DuPont Imron paint used at the Kenworth truck plant where Ridgway worked in 1982. In March 2003, the State charged Ridgway with the murder of Wendy Coffield. In subsequent interviews with the task force, he admitted to killing her and placing her body in the Green River.

Debra Bonner was last seen alive on the evening of July 25, 1982, when she left a motel on Pacific Highway South in King County to “catch some dates.” Debra was 22 and had a history of prostitution; during the previous 30 days, she had been arrested twice for prostitution on Pacific Highway South. Two and a half weeks later, on
August 12, 1982, she was discovered in the Green River. Her body had apparently floated downriver until it was caught in a logjam. There was no clothing on the body. In March 2003, Ridgway was charged with the murder of Debra Bonner. In subsequent interviews with the Task Force, he admitted to killing her and placing her body in the Green River.

In August 1982, 31-year-old Marcia Chapman was living with her three children in an apartment near Pacific Highway South. She was involved in prostitution. On August 1, 1982, Marcia left her apartment and was not seen again.

Ten days later, on the night of August 11, 1982, 17-year-old Cynthia Hinds was out on Pacific Highway South working as a prostitute. Her pimp last saw a man driving a black Jeep picking her up. She was never seen again.

One day later, on August 12, 1982, at approximately one
P.M.,
16-year-old Opal Mills placed a call to her parents from Angle Lake State Park, just off Pacific Highway South. After that call, she was never heard from again. Friends later reported Opal had been involved in prostitution.

On August 15, 1982, a man rafting down the Green River spotted two bodies in the water, approximately 600 yards from where Debra Bonner’s body had been found a few days earlier. The police responded and discovered Marcia Chapman and Cynthia Hinds. They were a few feet apart in the river, pinned to the bottom by several boulders, and nude. Police found Opal Mills’s body on the banks of the river a short distance away.

All three women had been strangled.

On September 20, 1982, 15-year-old Debra Estes disappeared. At approximately three
P.M.
that day, Debra was seen near the Stevenson Motel on Pacific Highway South. She was known to engage in prostitution.

Nearly six years later, on May 30, 1988, construction workers, digging holes for a playground, discovered Debra’s remains in a
shallow grave in Federal Way. Buried with Estes were two items of clothing: a brassiere and fragments of a black knit sweater/shirt with metallic threads. An acquaintance of Debra’s confirmed that she was wearing this sweater/shirt on the afternoon she disappeared.

In March 2003, Microtrace reported that it had recovered tiny paint spheres from the clothing found with Debra Estes’ remains. The paint composition of the spheres was identical to the DuPont Imron paint that was used at the Kenworth truck plant where Ridgway worked in 1982.

In March 2003, the State charged Ridgway with the murder of Debra Estes. In subsequent interviews with the task force, he admitted to killing her and burying her body.

On May 3, 1983, at approximately 2:30
P.M.,
21-year-old Carol Christensen left the Barn Door Tavern in Sea-Tac where she worked as a waitress. She was due to return later that day but never came back. Carol was known to hitchhike. Five days later, on May 8, 1983, her body was found in a wooded area in Maple Valley. She was still dressed, and her body had been posed. She was lying on her back, with two trout placed on her upper torso, an empty bottle of wine across her stomach, and a sausage on her hands. She had been strangled with a ligature.

In 2001, semen from Carol’s body was matched to Ridgway. In December 2001, he was charged with her murder.

In interviews with task force detectives, Ridgway admitted that he killed Carol. He said that he posed her body to “throw off” the task force. Ridgway explained:

And then they had these experts come in and say it was, uh, for the last supper. And it was just, it was, uh, basically, uh, just a, uh, you know, the woman I killed, put clothes back on her and, uh, posed her. It was, uh, it was basically a posing.

He claimed that the items he left with her had no deeper significance; they were items that he happened to have in his house when he killed her that were of no value to him.