The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers (33 page)

A similar incident involved Debra Estes, 15, who made a report to police in late August 1982, concerning a rape. Estes told police that she was walking down the highway when a man in a blue-and-white pick-up truck approached her and offered her a ride. She accepted and climbed into the vehicle. To her amazement, the man pulled out a pistol and pointed it at her head. He forced her to give him oral sex before releasing her into the woods, handcuffed, and driving off. She immediately fled the scene looking for help.

Seeing a pattern emerging that might be related to the Green River murders, the taskforce decided to follow the lead and search for this truck and driver. They hoped that new information concerning the man would give them a break in the case. That September, a butcher named Charles Clinton Clark was stopped by police in his blue-and-white truck while driving along Seattle’s main strip. After a background check was conducted, it was discovered that Clark owned two handguns. Investigators believed that Clark might be the man they were looking for. They obtained his driving licence photo and showed it to both Widmark and Estes. Both women positively identified Clark as their attacker.

Clark was arrested and his house and vehicle were searched. The police found the two handguns that were allegedly used in the assaults. After interrogation by police, Clark admitted to
attacking the women. However, there was speculation as to whether he was the Green River Killer because he was known to release his victims following an attack. Moreover, Clark had solid alibis for the times when many of the Green River victims disappeared.

While Clark was being interviewed for the rapes of Widmark and Estes, 19-year-old Mary Bridgett Meehan disappeared during a walk. Meehan was more than eight months pregnant and went missing near the Western Six Motel. The motel was located on the strip and was a frequent hangout and workplace for many of the prostitutes who fell victim to the Green River Killer.

On 26 September 1982, the decomposing remains of a 17-year-old prostitute named Gisele A Lovvorn were discovered. She had gone missing more than two months before. A biker found her naked body near abandoned houses south of Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. She had been strangled to death with a pair of men’s black socks. Intriguingly, at the time of her disappearance, she was blonde. Yet, when her body was discovered her hair was dyed black. Although her body was not found in the direct vicinity of the now-infamous river, police believed that she was a victim of the Green River Killer.

Between September 1982 and April 1983, approximately 14 women disappeared. Those missing included Mary Meehan, Debra Estes, Denise Bush, Shawnda Summers, Shirley Sherrill, Rebecca Marrero, Colleen Brockman, Alma Smith, Delores Williams, Gail Matthews, Andrea Childers, Sandra Gabbert, Kimi-Kai Pitsor and Marie Malvar. The ages of the women ranged between 15 and 23 years old. All were known prostitutes who solicited in the same area of Seattle. On 8 May 1983, another body was discovered that was later identified as Carol Ann Christensen, 21. Her remains were found by a family hunting for mushrooms in a wooded area near Maple Valley; her head was covered by a brown paper bag. When it was removed, it was found that she had a fish carefully placed on top of her neck and another fish placed on her left breast and a bottle between her
legs. Her hands were crossed over her stomach and freshly ground beef was placed on top of her left hand. Further examination revealed that she was strangled with a cord. Intriguingly, she also showed signs of having been in water at some point, even though the river was miles away. The police speculated that she was yet another victim of the Green River Killer.

During the spring and summer of 1983, nine more young women, many of whom were prostitutes, disappeared. Those missing included Martina Authorlee and Cheryl Lee Wims, 18, Yvonne Antosh, 19, Carrie Rois, 15, Constance Naon, 21, Tammie Liles, 16, Keli McGuiness, 18, Tina Thompson, 22 and April Buttram, 17. The majority of the girls were placed on the ever-growing list of possible Green River Killer murders. However, there were some that police chose to disregard because they were found outside the area where the Green River Killer was known to dispose of bodies.

During the summer, several more bodies were discovered. In June, unidentified remains, believed to be of a 17–19-year-old white woman, were found on Southwest Tualatin Road. On 11 August, the body of missing Shawnda Summers was discovered near Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. One day later, the remains of another body, which remained unidentified, were found at the Sea-Tac International Airport North site. The autumn and winter of 1983 would also yield as many disappearances and even more bodies. Between September and December 1983, nine more women went missing and seven bodies were discovered, all of whom were believed to have been abducted and murdered by the Green River Killer. The missing women, who were mostly prostitutes, included Debbie Abernathy, 26, Tracy Ann Winston, 19, Patricia Osborn (believed to be aged 19), Maureen Feeney, 19, Mary Sue Bello, 25, Pammy Avent, 16, Delise Plager, 22, Kim Nelson, 26, and Lisa Lorraine Yates, 19.

Police then found the body of Delores Williams, who had gone missing on 8 March 1983. Her remains were discovered on 18 September at Star Lake. That same day, the remains of
Gail Matthews, 23, were also discovered at the same location. Over the next few months, the bodies of five more women were discovered.

On 15 October, the skeletal remains of Yvonne Antosh, last seen on 31 May, were found near Soos Creek on Auburn Black Diamond Road. She was one of the few victims to have had a missing person’s report filed on her. Twelve days later, the partially buried skeleton of Constance Naon was found in an area south of Sea-Tac International Airport.

Investigators believed that there were probably more bodies to be found in that area, so they decided to conduct a search with the assistance of a team of teenage explorer boy scouts. On 29 October, during a sweep of the empty land surrounding the airport, one of the scouts found a skeleton covered with rubbish beneath some bushes. The remains were later identified as Kelly Ware, 22. The killer claimed two more victims, whose bodies were discovered before the New Year. On 13 November, following an extensive search of land surrounding an area south of Sea-Tac, the badly decomposed remains of Mary Meehan and her unborn baby were found. Several inexplicable items were found on or near the body, including two small pieces of plastic, a large clump of hair near the pubic region of the body, a patch of skin attached to the skull with fibres on it, three small bones, two halved yellow pencils and some clear plastic tubing.

One month later, on 15 December, the skull of Kimi-Kai Pitsor was found in Auburn, Washington, near Mountain View Cemetery. It seemed as if the killer had found a new burial site to place his victims. It would be the fifth known ‘dumping ground’ used for the disposal of the bodies. By now, the police had called in more investigators. It was feared many more murders would occur in the coming months, and this prediction proved to be correct. On 14 February 1984, the skeletal remains of a woman, who was later identified as Denise Louise Plager, were discovered 40 miles from the city close to I-90. She was the first victim to be found that year, but not the last. Over the next two months,
approximately nine more bodies were found. Some of those found included Cheryl Wims, 18, Lisa Yates, 26, Debbie Abernathy, 26, Terry Milligan, 16, Sandra Gabbert, 17, and Alma Smith, 22. The other victims remained unidentified. All of the girls had one thing in common: a history of prostitution.

In mid-April, a volunteer taskforce worker and psychic, Barbara Kubik-Pattern, had a vision that another woman’s body would be found close to I-90. Kubik-Pattern immediately contacted the police and told them about her vision, but became increasingly frustrated when they failed to act on the new information. Taking matters into her own hands, she and her daughter set out to find the woman. Following the leads revealed by her vision, Kubik-Pattern and her daughter eventually came across another body. Immediately after the discovery, the two women drove to a nearby search area that was patrolled by the police. When Kubik-Pattern informed one of the officers of her discovery, she was rebuffed and even threatened with arrest for obstruction of the guarded perimeter. Angered, she then informed reporters of her discovery. Finally, police officers approached her as she talked with the reporters and asked her to show them the body. Shortly thereafter the police were confronted with the gruesome discovery.

The decomposing remains were those of Amina Agisheff, 36. She had last been seen on 7 July 1982, walking home from her work at a restaurant in downtown Seattle. Agisheff did not fit the description of many of the other victims. She was older and a waitress, not a prostitute. Agisheff was also in a stable relationship at the time of her disappearance and was a mother of two. Although there were obvious differences between Agisheff’s lifestyle and those of the other victims and the location where her body was disposed of, investigators believed that she was also a victim of the Green River Killer.

On 26 May, two children playing on Jovita Road in Pierce County were shocked when they discovered a skeleton. The police were immediately alerted to the new finding. Following a
medical examination, it was discovered that the remains were of 15-year-old runaway Colleen Brockman. Investigators still had no new leads to the identity of the killer, apart from the location of the bodies and the shoe print. After almost three years, the murderous killing spree continued.

Although the murders seemed to have slowed down, they did not cease altogether. Between October and December 1984, two more bodies, identified as Mary Sue Bello, 25, and Martina Authorlee, 18, were discovered. Both bodies were found off Highway 410. The total body count had climbed to 31, although only 28 of the victims were actually looked on as being victims of the Green River Killer.

On 10 March 1985, another partially buried body was found near Star Lake Road. The victim was eventually identified as Carrie Rois, 15. She had disappeared during the summer of 1983. In mid-June, a man bulldozing a patch of land in Tigard, Oregon, discovered the skeletal remains of two more women. The remains were later identified as Denise Bush, 23, and Shirley Sherrill, 19. Both girls were known prostitutes in Seattle. The discovery of the two women confirmed the fact that the Green River Killer’s territory had extended out of the state. It seemed that a new dumping ground had been revealed.

It was not until the winter that the skeletal remains of three more victims were found. The first remains were identified as belonging to Mary West, and were uncovered in a wooded area in Seward Park in Seattle. The other two remains were of Kimi-Kai Pitsor and another unidentified white female between 14 and 19 years old. The unusual aspect of this more recent discovery was that Pitsor’s remains had been found in two different locations. In December 1983, her skull had been discovered in Mountain View Cemetery and two years later the remainder of her body was found a short distance away in a ravine. It was possible that an animal dragged the skull from the body sometime after death; however, there was no evidence that this had occurred. The police believed it was the work of the killer.
Police were uncertain about the killer’s motive for dividing the body between two different locations. They speculated that it was intended to taunt them or confuse the investigation.

During this time, the public became increasingly aware of the lack of results from the police – anger and fear reached a boiling point. The media publicly ridiculed the police for not apprehending the killer after this length of time. To make matters worse, that summer the skeletal remains of three more women were discovered east of Seattle: Maureen Feeney, 19, Kim Nelson, 26, and another unidentifiable young woman. Feeney was the only one of the three whom investigators were able to link to a career in prostitution. The number of victims was quickly climbing towards a staggering 40.

In December 1986, two more bodies were discovered, this time much further away in an area north of Vancouver, British Columbia. Yet again, the killer seemed to be taunting investigators. Even more intriguing was that the partial remains of several other women had been scattered alongside the bodies of the two women. Even though the bodies were located a great distance from the others, there was no doubt in the investigators’ minds that the work was that of the Green River Killer.

In 1987, investigators came upon a suspect by the name of Gary Ridgway (b. 1949) who had previously been under scrutiny. He had been arrested in May 1984 after attempting to solicit an undercover police officer posing as a prostitute. However, Ridgway was released without charge after he successfully passed a lie detector test. Police now looked deeper into Ridgway’s past; they discovered that he had been arrested for choking a prostitute in 1980 near Sea-Tac International Airport. He had pleaded self-defence, claiming the woman bit him, and he was soon after released from police custody with no charge.

The police now had cause to be highly suspicious of Ridgway and decided to delve even further into his past. They discovered that police had stopped and questioned the man back in 1982
while he was in his truck with a prostitute. The prostitute he had been with was one of the women on the Green River murder list, Keli McGuiness.

It also transpired that police had questioned Ridgway back in 1983 in connection with the kidnapping of murder victim Marie Malvar. A witness, Malvar’s boyfriend, had followed the truck to the suspect’s house after recognising it as the one that he’d last seen his girlfriend in.

The police decided to trace Ridgway’s ex-wife in an effort to obtain more information. They learnt from her that he often frequented the sites where bodies had been discovered. Looking back on previous statements, they discovered that several prostitutes claimed to have seen a man matching the suspect’s description regularly cruising the strip between 1982 and 1983. It turned out that Ridgway passed the strip almost daily on his way to work as a truck painter. When they went to his workplace and examined his work records they ascertained that he had been absent or off-duty on every occasion a victim disappeared.