The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer (89 page)

Nearly three years later, in June 1985, incomplete remains of both women were found off a rural road in Tigard, just south of Portland, Oregon. This discovery led to speculation that the Green River Killer had moved south. Ridgway would later admit that he killed these women and moved their remains in an effort to confuse the task force.

On October 8, 1982, 23-year-old Denise Bush disappeared from Pacific Highway South. She and an acquaintance were staying at the Moonrise Motel, located across the street from Larry’s Market and the 7-Eleven, at 144th and the highway. This was at the intersection of the sheltered bus stop where Sandra Gabbert and Kim Nelson were working as prostitutes when Ridgway picked them up and killed them. Tina Thompson, Martina Authorlee, and Yvonne Antosh were all staying in motels at this location when they disappeared. Denise left the Moonrise for a pack of cigarettes around midday and never returned. That day, Ridgway was off work for a claimed eye ailment and purchased $26 worth of gas from a station near the Moonrise Motel, where Denise was last seen.

On October 7, 1982, the night before Denise’s disappearance, she met a girlfriend across the street from the Moonrise at the 7-Eleven. When her friend arrived, Denise was talking to a man who appeared to be working on his pickup truck. Denise’s girlfriend described him as being 5 feet 10 inches, between 29 and 30 years old, wearing a blue plaid shirt and boots. The friend thought
the man was driving a dirty or dull green GMC truck with oxidized paint. The hood of the truck was up and something about the man made Denise’s friend suspicious. She later told police that when the man saw her looking at him, he jerked his head around and hid it under the hood as if he did not want her to see his face. She thought he looked like he had something to hide. The friend asked Denise who the man was; Denise dodged the question, but did say that she was going to meet him later. While the truck that Denise’s friend saw did not match anything owned by Ridgway at the time, it was similar to his brother’s turquoise truck.

In the 1980s, police interviewed Denise’s friend about the man she saw at the 7-Eleven. She selected Ridgway’s photo from a montage and said he was the man she had seen talking to Denise the night before she disappeared.

In June 1985, a construction crew discovered Denise’s skull in Tigard, Oregon. Police secured the crime scene, but allowed construction to continue on the far side of the lot. Search crews also recovered Denise’s femur and pelvis. A few days later, a worker discovered more remains at the site that turned out to be those of Shirley Sherrill, who Ridgway also admitted transporting to Tigard.

Five years later, in February 1990, a citizen discovered more of Denise’s remains near Pacific Highway South in Tukwila, among them her mandible and a shunt that had been placed in her skull six months prior to her disappearance. Her skull without the shunt had been found in Oregon five years earlier. The presence of the shunt and mandible in Tukwila proved that Denise’s body had decomposed in Tukwila and that the killer came later and took some of her bones to Oregon.

During interviews with task force detectives in 2003, Ridgway admitted killing Denise and transporting her remains to Tigard, Oregon. He correctly recalled that Denise was African American and correctly estimated her height. Ridgway told detectives he picked Denise up on Pacific Highway South and killed her where her remains were found in Tukwila. He thought that Denise had chosen the place for them to date. He said that the site was “an easy location” and that he probably had been there in the past. The Tukwila site is a minute or so drive from the intersection of Pacific Highway South and 144th Street where Ridgway picked up other victims.

Ridgway said he used his arm to strangle Denise and told her
that if she did not scream, he would let her go. After he killed Denise, he covered her body with some type of plastic.

While Ridgway did not admit that he was the man talking to Denise at the 7-Eleven on the day before she disappeared, he acknowledged that at times he would park there, open the hood of his truck, check the oil, and look for a prostitute. He believed that the people at 7-Eleven knew him by sight—“a steady customer” was how he described himself—and knew that he was picking up prostitutes. He said he would meet the women there and make arrangements to meet them at another location, where he could pick them up without drawing attention to himself.

Ridgway acknowledged that, in an effort to throw off the task force, he moved Denise’s remains and those of Shirley Sherrill to Oregon in the spring of 1984. One weekend, he took his son on what he described as a “camping” trip to Oregon. He transported the remains, with son’s clothes and bicycle, in the trunk of a Plymouth Satellite. Ridgway paid cash for his food and gas on this trip and was careful not to leave any record linking him to Oregon. Based on Ridgway’s statements and financial records, investigators determined that he most likely went to Oregon the first week of April 1984. In 2003, his son recalled taking a last-minute trip with his father to Oregon in the Satellite.

In June 2003, Ridgway led detectives to the site in Tukwila where he killed Denise Bush and left her body. According to a detective familiar with the crime scene, Ridgway led the task force right to the spot where Denise’s remains were found. Ridgway did this despite changes to the area since 1982.

Eighteen-year-old Shirley Sherrill began working as a prostitute in Portland and Seattle in the summer of 1982, just a few months before she disappeared. Around this time, she also worked at the Goodwill store in Seattle on Dearborn Street. Shirley was last seen sometime between October 20 and 22, 1982.

Her pimp, who could not recall the precise date, reported that he last saw Shirley when he dropped her off in Seattle’s International District in the morning. A fellow prostitute reported that she last saw Shirley at approximately four
P.M.
talking to two white men in
a black pickup truck with a canopy. The pickup was “big, possibly a Ford” circa 1977 or 1978. The other prostitute left on a date and when she returned, Shirley was gone. In June 1985, construction crews found most of Shirley’s remains, including her skull, along with Denise Bush’s in Tigard, Oregon.

In 2003, Ridgway admitted killing Shirley. He claimed he could not remember any details about killing her other than transporting her remains to Oregon. Ridgway initially claimed that he had left Shirley at a site in King County and later returned and quickly picked up her skull and a few bones to take to Oregon. In 2003, the task force searched the site and did not find any remains. Most of Shirley’s bones were found in Oregon, not simply the “few” that Ridgway initially claimed he picked up. When confronted with this, Ridgway equivocated on whether he just took Shirley’s bones to Oregon or whether, after killing her, he transported her entire body there.

In the 1980s, the task force discovered another dump site used by the Green River Killer: an area directly north of the Sea-Tac Airport. Three victims were found there: Shawnda Summers, Cheryl Wims, and an unidentified Caucasian female, designated Jane Doe “B10.” Two of the women were found 200 yards apart and the third was a half-mile away. In the early 1980s, the road near where the women were found was largely undeveloped, aside from a few vacant lots, baseball fields and a tow yard.

Shawnda and Cheryl both worked as prostitutes and disappeared within eight months of each other. The background and circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the unidentified woman are, of course, unknown. The remains of all three were found unclothed. The cause of their deaths was unspecified homicidal violence.

In 2003, Ridgway admitted killing the three women. He referred to the North Airport site as one of his “clusters”—an area in which he grouped multiple victims—so he would not forget where he placed them. He was familiar with the area. A former girlfriend said that she and Ridgway had sex near the site and police had contacted him dating a prostitute nearby. He also stated that he took advantage of the frequent flights overhead, and acknowledged that
“I used that noise for advantage for one thing, you know, cut down any, ah, noise in case she screamed.”

The North Airport site has undergone significant development since the early 1980s. A Boeing Company warehouse is now located where the police found Shawnda’s remains. The water tower is still there, and the baseball fields where Cheryl and Jane Doe “B10” were found still exist. A fourth baseball diamond has been added. The vacant lots are all gone and much of the surrounding area has been either paved or developed.

Seventeen-year-old Shawnda Summers was last seen alive sometime during the first week of October 1982. She was known to work as a prostitute along Pacific Highway South. There were no witnesses to her disappearance. Shawnda’s stepfather filed a missing-persons report just weeks after she disappeared. Her mother traveled from California to search for her. They never saw her again.

At the time of Shawnda’s disappearance, Ridgway was working at the Kenworth plant and had killed another woman he picked up on Pacific Highway South, Denise Bush.

On August 11, 1983, Shawnda’s remains were found near the northwest corner of South 146th Street and 24th Avenue South. She had been placed in a shallow grave underneath an apple tree. Across the street and to the south of the dump site was a large, circular water tower. A vacant lot, where homes were frequently placed on blocks before they were moved elsewhere, was located to the south, between her body and South 146th Street.

In 2003, Ridgway admitted murdering Shawnda and placing her body by a water tower near Sea-Tac airport. Though he recalled that she was black, he was unable to recognize her photograph. Ridgway said that he took Shawnda to the North Airport site, had sex with her, and then choked her with his arm. While killing her, he wrapped his legs around her to keep her from moving. He then took off her clothes and jewelry and left. Ridgway could not recall whether he covered Shawnda’s body. He believed he killed her at night and remembered that there was a house on blocks in a vacant lot near where he killed her, approximately four to five feet up off the ground.

In June 2003, Ridgway led task force detectives to the location
where he killed Shawnda and left her body. According to a detective familiar with the crime scene and present with Ridgway during the visit to the North Airport site, Ridgway pointed out and described the specific area in which Shawnda’s body was found.

On March 21, 1984, a dog belonging to the Highline Baseball Field caretaker brought home a human femur. The caretaker called police, and a search began of a swampy, wooded area behind center field at the westernmost baseball diamond, just west of the intersection of 16th Avenue South and South 146th Street. This was a half-mile from where Ridgway killed Shawnda Summers and dumped her body in October 1982.

Over the next few days, police recovered the skeletal remains of Jane Doe “B10.” As searching began on the second day, a bloodhound found the remains of yet a third victim, Cheryl Wims, 200 yards to the north of the crime scene. Repeated attempts by investigators to identify Jane Doe “B10” have been unsuccessful to this day. A forensic anthropologist concluded that the remains were those of a left-handed Caucasian female who stood about 5 feet 2 inches to 5 feet 7 inches and had a healed fracture in her skull. She was about 15 years old.

On the first day of interviews with task force detectives, Ridgway admitted killing a woman near the baseball fields off Des Moines Way. He thought she was Caucasian, in her early twenties, and had brown hair. He thought he picked her up in the Riverton (Tukwila) area. He said he killed her during the day and wanted to make certain she was dead, because he had attempted to kill another woman nearby, which person is still unidentified, but she had escaped.

Over the course of interviews, Ridgway made contradictory statements about whether he returned to have sex with the unidentified woman’s corpse. Police took Ridgway to the North Airport site in June 2003. After some initial confusion, he pointed to the area where Jane Doe “B10” was found.

Approximately seven months after Ridgway killed Shawnda Summers, on May 23, 1983, Cheryl Wims disappeared from the streets
of central Seattle near Judkins Playground. According to her friends, she was involved with prostitution. She would also frequently hitchhike and was not particularly careful about the people from whom she accepted rides. Cheryl Wims was murdered on her eighteenth birthday.

Ridgway was on strike from Kenworth during May 1983 and was very active in his quest for victims. He killed a number of other women during that month, including Carol Christensen, Carrie Rois, Martina Authorlee, and Yvonne Antosh.

On March 22, 1984, police discovered Cheryl’s remains a few hundred feet from Jane Doe “B10” and a half-mile from Shawnda Summers.

In 2003, Ridgway first claimed that he dumped only one victim near the baseball fields near Des Moines Way. This was Jane Doe “B10.” After a task force detective informed Ridgway that there was a second body found at the ball fields, he admitted that he did not keep track of the number of victims he killed there.

Detectives took him to the dump site. Ridgway said the visit jogged his memory and admitted he had killed and left another woman near the baseball fields. Ridgway later recalled walking with a prostitute on the blacktop road just north of the ball field, stopping at a spot off the road, and killing her there. Aerial photos of the crime scene from March 1984 show a paved road slightly north of the baseball field running east to west. Cheryl was found underneath a large spruce tree just off this road. When shown these photos, Ridgway correctly identified where Cheryl’s body had been found.