The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer (92 page)

For several years after her disappearance, the task force received many tips suggesting that Pammy had run away from home and was living in Hollywood, that she had run away to Denver and given birth to a baby girl, and that she was working as a prostitute out of a local motel. The task force investigated the tips, but, despite their efforts, could not locate Pammy. For the ensuing 21 years her fate remained a mystery.

In 2003, task force detectives took Ridgway to Highway 410 in an effort to identify dump sites of undiscovered victims. On one trip, Ridgway asked to stop at a pullout on the south side of Highway 410 across the street from the Corliss Gravel Pit, just east of milepost 26. Ridgway told the task force that he’d placed a body across the street from the gravel pit in a gully. Six days later, the task force found Pammy Avent’s remains in the location identified by Ridgway.

Her body had been placed up against a fallen cedar log that lay parallel to the highway, approximately 50 feet from the edge of the dirt road. The remains were largely intact, due to their position next to the log. A significant amount of the remains were found under three to six inches of dirt, bark, and other debris.

As with most of his victims, Ridgway claimed not to recognize Pammy’s photograph. In fact, his description of the woman he thought he placed in this location was not Pammy, but rather a woman with a deformed leg. Pammy did not have a deformed leg.

No additional victims were found in the area.

Twenty-one-year-old Roberta Hayes worked as a prostitute and traveled back and forth between Portland and Seattle on a fairly regularly basis. She disappeared sometime in early 1987. The last known sighting of her was on February 7, 1987, when she was released from the custody of the Portland, Oregon, Police Department after an arrest for prostitution. It was believed that she was headed back to Seattle.

On September 11, 1991, more than four years after she was last seen, a Washington State Parks employee discovered Roberta’s skeletal remains at the end of a dead-end dirt road located north of Highway 410 between mileposts 36 and 37. The remains were to the east of the road, near piles of debris. A Weyerhaeuser security official later told detectives that the road had been blocked with boulders sometime between September 1986 and April 1987. Roberta Hayes is the only victim found on the north side of Highway 410.

During interviews in 2003, Ridgway provided a detailed description of Roberta’s dump site. Ridgway described a white woman that he killed and placed on the north side of Highway 410. He repeatedly stated that he only placed one victim on the northern side of 410 and accurately described Roberta as having blond/brown hair, being 5 foot 7 inches and skinny. Ridgway’s description of the dump site matched the location where Roberta’s remains were found. He accurately described the end of a dirt road just past a large curve to the east in the highway: a dead end with both man-made and natural debris. He correctly recalled the slope of the terrain and the curvature of the road. He also knew that Roberta’s dump site was just east and across the highway from the dump site of Martina Authorlee.

When taken to Highway 410, Ridgway identified the general vicinity of the roadway, but initially struggled to identify the precise road, which had changed significantly since the murder. But once the changes were described to Ridgway, he correctly identified the road upon which he dumped Roberta’s body. Ridgway was later shown unmarked photos of the roadway, which he immediately identified as Roberta’s dump site. Roberta was not originally listed as a Green River victim.

In the early spring of 1990, 36-year-old Marta Reeves lived apart from her estranged husband and four children. She had moved out in May 1989 due to her cocaine addiction and began prostituting herself. She spent most of her time in the Central District of Seattle and had twice been arrested for prostitution. Marta’s husband last heard from her on the evening of either March 5 or 6, 1990, when she called him looking for money. When her request was rejected, she told him that she would have to work all night. He never heard from her again.

A month later, Marta’s husband received an envelope in the mail from the U.S. Postal Service containing her driver’s license. Her husband showed the license to numerous people while looking for his wife, and reported her missing on April 13, 1990. The driver’s license was later tested for fingerprints with negative results, in part because it had been handled by so many people.

On September 20, 1990, a couple of mushroom pickers found Marta’s skeletal remains approximately 600 feet east of milepost 33 on Highway 410. The remains were halfway down a looping dirt road that spurred off of the southern side of the highway. The police later recovered several pieces of clothing, which were examined for physical evidence with negative results. The remains were identified as Marta’s in January 1991.

Ridgway’s drew a looped road on the south side of Highway 410 and indicated he’d left a body there. He accurately described the location of Marta’s body some 20 to 30 feet into the woods. During the course of task force interviews, Ridgway provided more detailed descriptions of Marta’s dump site, describing the road dropping down below Highway 410 with heavy foliage on either side. He remembered the foliage rubbing up against the side of his truck as he drove down the road. He told the detectives that he drove about halfway down the road and then pulled the body into the woods about 30 feet.

When Ridgway was shown unmarked photos of the dump site as it appeared in 1990, he immediately identified it as the “lower loop road” off of Highway 410. Photographs confirmed Ridgway’s descriptions of the scene, including the fact that the loop road was so narrow that foliage struck the sides of vehicles traveling upon it.
When taken to Marta’s dump site on Highway 410, Ridgway was unable to locate the roadway, but he did point out the correct stretch of highway where the original road, now blocked off and completely overgrown, had been.

Ridgway claimed that he could not recall any details about Marta or her murder. He first told detectives that the victim was black and that he killed her in the early 1980s. When told that Marta went missing in 1990 and that she was white, not black, Ridgway acknowledged, “I killed the one on the loop road. And I just, you know, I killed so many of them, so I had to kind of guess if she was white or black.” He later added, “I get screwed up on time frames.” Finally, Ridgway admitted placing a woman’s driver’s license in a mailbox on one or two occasions. When asked to explain why he did this, Ridgway could only respond, “I don’t know, get back at the family or somethin’, I don’t know.”

Marta was not initially listed as an “official” Green River victim, but was added to the list of Ridgway’s victims after he confessed to the crime.

Nineteen-year-old Yvonne “Shelly” Antosh was last seen on May 31, 1983, at about eleven
P.M.,
when she left the Ben Carol Motel on Pacific Highway South. She and a childhood friend had come to Seattle from Vancouver, British Columbia, and the two were staying together. Shelly had been involved in prostitution for just a few weeks when she crossed Ridgway’s path. The night Shelly disappeared, Ridgway made a cash withdrawal for $20 on Pacific Highway South at 11:44
P.M.
This was an especially active period for Ridgway, who was on strike for most of May 1983, and he devoted this time to what he called his “career.” During that month, he killed Shelly, Carol Christensen, Carrie Rois, Martina Authorlee, and Cheryl Wims.

In October 1983, two boys discovered Shelly’s remains about 25 to 30 yards downhill from the Auburn-Black Diamond Road, south of Big Soos Creek, in King County. She had been placed between two large alder trees. The area was heavily overgrown with swamp grass and other thick vegetation.

On the first day of interviews in 2003, Ridgway informed detectives that he had killed a woman and dumped her body along the
Auburn-Black Diamond Road. He believed the task force had found the body. Ridgway indicated there were two bodies on the Auburn-Black Diamond Road, one of which he had placed “down a hill.” In 2003, police took Ridgway to the Auburn-Black Diamond Road area. According to detectives who were with him on this trip, Ridgway directed them to almost the exact location where Shelly’s remains were found. Ridgway could not provide any specific details concerning Shelly. He recalled that she was “just a white woman … picked her up on Highway 99 … or uh, maybe uh, the Central District.”

Ridgway also said he picked her up and killed her at night. He said he killed her in the bedroom of his house. Ridgway was vague on exactly how he killed her and vacillated between claiming that he killed her with his arm and that he used a ligature.

Ridgway admitted that he dumped three victims, Tina Thompson, April Buttram, and Maureen Feeney, near the intersection of Interstate 90 and Highway 18. All three women worked as prostitutes and were killed within a span of approximately two months. In the 1980s, the task force recovered the remains of two of the women, Tina Thompson and Maureen Feeney. Their bodies were found across the street from each other. In 2003, based upon information provided by Ridgway, the police recovered remains of the third woman, April Buttram, who had been missing for twenty years.

Twenty-two-year-old Tina Thompson disappeared on or around Monday morning, July 25, 1983. She was staying at the Spruce Motel on Pacific Highway South and working as a prostitute. A fellow prostitute reported that their pimp had talked to Tina in the early hours of July 25, 1983, but was unsuccessful in reaching her again later that day. Tina was never reported missing to the police. Ridgway did not work Sunday, July 24, 1983, and arrived at work on July 25, 1983, at approximately 6:45
A.M.

On April 20, 1984, Tina’s remains were discovered near the intersection
of Highway 18 and Interstate 90. Her clothing was missing and her body was wrapped in sheets of plastic. She remained unidentified until June 1986.

During interviews with the task force in 1986, Ridgway’s second wife reported that she and Ridgway had been to the area where Thompson’s body was later recovered. She recalled Ridgway’s stopping his vehicle and urinating there.

In 2003, Ridgway admitted killing Tina Thompson at night and leaving her body near Interstate 90 and Highway 18. He recalled killing her. He initially stated that he could not recognize her photo or remember exactly where he killed her.

Ridgway later recalled a victim who almost escaped him and suggested she was Tina. He said he was trying to strangle her in his bedroom, as was his practice, when she slipped away from him. He said he caught her just inside the front door, and killed her there. Ridgway recalled dumping a body at night at the location where Tina’s remains were found.

In June 2003, Ridgway directed the police to the “Leisure Time” dump site where the remains of another victim, April Buttram, were subsequently discovered. While at that scene, Ridgway offered to lead the detectives to a nearby location where, he said, he’d dumped two other bodies. Ridgway accurately directed the police to the area where Tina’s body had been discovered. He recalled correctly that he put her under some plastic that he found at the site.

Microtrace laboratory reported in Fall 2003 that paint fragments recovered with Tina’s remains are indistinguishable, even after multiple analyses, from paint recovered with the remains of Cheryl Wims, whose body was found at the North Airport dump site, and Delores Williams, whose body was found at Star Lake.

In July 1983, 17-year-old April Buttram left her home in Spokane and headed to Seattle. She shortly became involved in prostitution. Approximately one month later, she became a victim of the Green River Killer. In late August 1983, she disappeared and was never seen again. A significant obstacle to the investigation of April’s case, as it was with the cases of many other victims, was the inability to determine the exact date of her disappearance. She was arrested for prostitution
on August 4, 1983, and released from juvenile detention on August 10, 1983. The police contacted her on Rainier Avenue South on August 18, 1983. Her pimp stated that he last saw her on Rainier Avenue South and believed that it was some time before September 1, 1983. He never reported her missing, claiming that he thought that she had run away. April’s mother reported her missing in March 1984.

Though her body had not been found, due to the circumstances and timing of her disappearance, she was added to the list of Green River victims.

As with other “missing” victims, numerous tips trickled in to the task force claiming that April was still alive. In July 1984, after a news release that April had been added to the list of victims, several individuals claimed that she was working as a prostitute in Tacoma and California. All these tips were investigated. None were ever confirmed.

In 2003, Ridgway admitted killing April. He claimed he recognized her picture and thought he’d picked her up on Rainier Avenue. Ridgway was not completely certain where he placed April’s body but suggested that he buried her under a fern near Lake Fenwick. However, he also stated that she might be the victim he placed at a site north of the intersection of Interstate 90 and Highway 18, referred to as the “Leisure Time” site because Leisure Time Resorts had a camp nearby. He also suggested that the woman he dumped at Leisure Time was someone other than April.

Ridgway said he recalled dumping a woman at the Leisure Time site after picking her up on Rainier Avenue. Ridgway claimed that he returned to the Leisure Time site in the spring of 1984, some eight months after dumping a body there. He said there were only a few bones left at the site, and he picked up the skull, which he transported along with bones from Denise Bush and Shirley Sherrill to Oregon on a weekend trip with his son in 1984. Ridgway reported that he left the skull near an exit off Interstate 5. He said he moved the bones because he thought they would be found and this discovery would confuse the task force. This skull has never been recovered.