TRACE EVIDENCE: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer (56 page)

“An instrument to be used to make the nonfunctional clothes cutting we see in the murder cases,” Biondi said.

“Are you aware of scissors being found at a murder scene?” Drossel asked.

“Yes,” Biondi said. “At the Brown scene, scissors were found in the ditch where her body was recovered.”

The two rubber
hair bands could have been used to keep the victims’ hair from “entwining or entangling in the ligature,” Biondi said. “Early on there was one very distinguishing dissimilarity between the
cases: Stephanie Brown’s hair was cut. We did not see the hair cutting in the other murders. We later speculated that possibly because no ligature was found with the victim, that the hair was cut to remove the ligature, which was then taken from the scene.”

Drossel was nearing the end.

“The term ‘Green River’ has been brought up at this trial,” he said. “Are you familiar with it?”

“Yes, I am.”

In cross-examining one of the detectives earlier,
Phil Kohn, promoting the defense’s theory that investigators had suffered “tunnel vision” in building their case against Roger
Kibbe, had tried to hint that the I-5 killings may have been committed by the same person responsible for the unsolved Seattle-area killings.

“How are you familiar with that term?” Drossel asked.

“I know some of the investigators who have worked on the case for years. Also, I traveled to Seattle and talked to the Green River investigators on this case.”

“What type of killings were involved in the Green River incidents?” the prosecutor asked.

“Primarily prostitutes who were picked up near the Seattle Airport, an area known for prostitution, and their bodies found in rural areas—body dumps—and by the time they were found usually badly decomposed and with a lot of animal activity.”

“Was the cause of death determined on those bodies?”

“In many of the cases they have no cause of death because of the decomposition and animal damage,” Biondi said. “In at least one case they presumed ligature strangulation because of the presence of a piece of clothing around the victim’s neck.”

“Does the Green River Killer in your mind relate to the I-5 series of victims?”

“I spent an entire day talking to the investigators there, going over all the details of our cases and comparing cases with them,” Biondi said thoughtfully. “I left unable to establish any viable links.”

Phil Kohn began his cross-examination of Biondi by asking if during
the search of any of Kibbe’s residences or storage spaces, any items that could be connected to any of the
victims were found.

“No.”

Biondi still thought that Kibbe might have stashed some of it—purses, ID cards, jewelry—to keep as trophies, like an antelope head on a hunter’s wall.

“In the Green River killings you spoke about,” Kohn said, “where the cause of death was ligature strangulation, what was the implement used?”

“The victim’s clothing,” Biondi said.

“Is it not unusual in a homicide to find that strangulation was the cause of death and that the victim’s clothes was used as an implement?”

“It’s a fairly common manner of strangulation.”

Still, there
were
those apparent similarities, exactly what had caused Biondi to spend a day in Seattle. But rather than provide Kibbe with a scapegoat, Biondi would have turned the tables on the defense’s strategy. Since he knew Kibbe was the “I-5 Killer,” if those killings were done by the person who was responsible for the Green River slayings, ergo, Roger Kibbe had killed forty-one women in the Seattle area between 1982 and 1983 and was himself the long-sought “Green River Killer.”

“In these cases up in Washington”—Kohn wasn’t giving up—“you indicated that the bodies were dumped in a remote area, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“In rural areas?”

“Well, more remote than rural. A lot of the bodies were along the Green River off the highway.”

“But certainly not in an area where the body would be easily located?”

“Correct, heavy underbrush.”

“Not unlike the cases you described on the chart?”

“Yes.”

“In these cases up in Washington, are you familiar with whether the killer would have crossed
jurisdictional lines as you indicated the ‘I-5 Killer’ did?”

“I believe there was crossing of jurisdictional lines; city and county boundaries in that series.”

“When you talk of jurisdictional lines in the I-5 cases, what are you talking about?”

“County boundaries.”

“It is your opinion that the reason it was done in these cases is to avoid detection because two agencies would be involved, is that correct?”

“That’s one of the reasons,” Biondi said. “As I said, I also feel it was
ritualistic in that it allowed some time for the suspect to be with the victim.”

“Did the Green River investigators, if you know, attempt at some point to link their cases to some murders down in
San Diego?” Kohn asked.

“Yes.”

Kohn asked about what type of cases San Diego had, and Biondi summarized what he knew.

Curiously, when the Green River killings stopped in 1985, the San Diego series began—and there
were
similarities. Due to Roger Kibbe’s familial connections to the San Diego area, Biondi had also talked to San Diego detectives during the I-5 investigation. San Diego had ended up with forty-one victims—ironically, the same number credited to the “Green River Killer”—mostly prostitutes picked up in downtown San Diego. Their bodies were found 35 to 45 miles away in the rural Pine Lake area. There had been no evidence of clothes
cutting. Unlike I-5 but similar to Green River, the body-dumping sites had been clustered; bodies repeatedly dumped in the same area, some within yards of where another body had been previously found. San Diego had a city/county task force that predictably became embroiled in politics and infighting, and disbanded. Eventually, a suspect was arrested and convicted of two of the murders; however, San Diego detectives became convinced they had more than one series overlapping and that there were at least two killers, maybe more. Yet, by 1989 the killings had stopped.

Moving on, Kohn speculated aloud that if a killer was looking for women to abduct, control, and kill, “as you’ve indicated these cases are about,” he could easily find a prostitute to get in his car, without looking for stranded motorists. “There would be no guarantee,” he went on, “that Brown and
Sabrah would end up stranded on the road.”

“No guarantees. In their cases, it was happenstance.”

“Doesn’t that distinguish Sabrah and Brown from
Heedick,
Frackenpohl, and
Guffie?” Kohn asked.

“They were all victims of opportunity.”

“They were,” Kohn agreed. “But Brown and Sabrah were victims of an opportunity that was happenstance.”

“By design,” Biondi countered, “if the killer also cruised the highway looking for just such opportunities.”

“But you don’t know that?”

Biondi looked hard at the defense attorney. “That’s
exactly
what occurred in Brown and Sabrah,” he said.

Interestingly, it was Kohn who brought up the name
Karen Finch. “There was a woman named Karen Finch who was stabbed to death?”

“Yes.”

“Were there cuts on her clothes?”

“Yes.”

Biondi understood why the prosecutor had excluded Finch from the list of I-5 victims, but he had not liked it. The fact that they had a
serial killer known to use a sharp instrument as part of his ritual didn’t make it so surprising that one victim ended up stabbed. And in every other way, Finch had fit the victim mold.

“She is not part of the group of deaths you have identified here, is that correct?” Kohn continued.

“That’s correct.”

“The
Finch case has never been solved, is that correct?”

“There’s been no one charged in that case,” said Biondi, who certainly did believe the Finch case had been solved.

On redirect,
Drossel asked if Biondi had taken into consideration in his analysis that the killer had come across different circumstances from one victim to another, thereby leading to slight variations in each case.

“Sure, because we’re dealing with human behavior here,” Biondi said. “One victim may be a fighter, another one may be very passive. One victim may require more control. In the case of Darcie Frackenpohl, perhaps she was a screaming, struggling type, which might account for why she was gagged. That’s not unusual in other serial murder cases I have seen. Some victims require more control than others.”

“Would a person known to cruise highways and visit prostitution areas fit the type of killer you believe is responsible for these cases?” the prosecutor asked.

“Yes. At least two of the cases occurred on Interstate 5. That would require the suspect to traverse that highway until he came across an opportunity. When more came to light about Roger Kibbe, we factored in that he had a number of vehicles with unexplained high mileage, and a reputation for driving great distances.”

Drossel had a last question.

“How do you interpret the common threads in these four murders and the assault case?” the prosecutor asked.

“In my opinion, with the categories we have up there and the analysis that has been done, there is a
signature of one killer in these cases.”

It wasn’t quite enough.

“And again, the categories you’ve used to determine this ‘
signature’?”

“The nonfunctional clothes cutting and the miles transported are the two primary categories. But the cause of death, the body crime scene, the sex motive, just across the board it is a very unique criminal signature.”

“No further questions.”

“All right,” said Judge
Finney. “The witness is excused. People rest?”

Drossel had remained standing. “People rest.”

T
HE DEFENSE
of Roger Kibbe was notably brief.

In his
opening statement,
defense attorney Phil Kohn told the jury: “Mr. Kibbe has met with his counsel and he’s decided not to testify. Nothing is worse in a case than for everyone to sit in the courtroom and wait anxiously for someone to testify, and then the defense rests its case. We are not going to do that. Mr. Kibbe is prepared to rely on the state of the evidence as put forth by the prosecution and by the four witnesses that the defense will present today.”

Robert Shomer, a licensed psychologist, former Harvard professor, and expert on
eyewitness identification, took the stand in the defense’s effort to debunk the prosecution’s witnesses who had pointed the finger at Roger Kibbe—
Carmen Anselmi, James Driggers,
Carol Stockton.

“What are the major ways in which eyewitness identification has been studied?” Kohn asked.

“It’s involved people seeing things, remembering what they had seen, and being tested to see if they can identify something. ‘Identification’ is a fairly simple word but it has a very complex meaning.”

It came out that Shomer’s own testing of eyewitnesses had involved mostly his own college students, and was theoretical in nature. In fact, he had not met or talked to any of the I-5 eyewitnesses.

“In terms of how good people are at remembering faces and identifying them later on,” Shomer said, “on average we get about 80 percent accuracy under ideal conditions. So, people are still not acting like a camera.”

Shomer said physical lineups and
photo lineups were “fine as long as you don’t contaminate that memory by information you present to that person beforehand.”

In a series of three “hypotheticals” presented by Kohn with no names used—in fact, they were the exact circumstances of the prosecution’s three eyewitnesses—Shomer reacted to the information provided, concluding that both time and suggestibility had played major roles in their eventual identification.

“I would have grave suspicions about validity,” he concluded. “From a psychological standpoint, they wouldn’t be called identifications at all.
They would be called statements of someone who really believes what they’re saying. They are not necessarily lying. But from a psychological standing they are not valid identifications.”

On cross-examination, Drossel asked Shomer if he had a reputation as a defense witness.

“I have no idea,” he said.

“You tell us you have testified two hundred fifty to three hundred times. Hasn’t it always been for the defense?”

“So far.”

“And do you believe you continually testify for the defense because you hold some positions on eyewitness identification that are contrary to the views of your peers?”

“Absolutely not,” Shomer huffed.

“This area of eyewitness identification is actually a portion of the studies in psychology, isn’t that correct?”

“I suppose.”

“It’s not a science like medicine, correct?”

“That’s absolutely incorrect. It is more of a science than medicine is.”

A few questions later, Judge Finney sent both the jury and the witness from the room.

From the bench, the judge looked down scoldingly at Kohn. “I don’t think this gentleman is helping your cause in maintaining that what he has done is a scientific endeavor. He is a professional witness. He runs with the answers. There is not one shred of evidence at this point that witness methodology, for lack of a better word, debunking witness identification, is scientific or accepted within the scientific community. I have had over the years several eyewitness experts testify. I have had hundreds of psychiatrists and psychologists testify, and I have never heard anybody try and put the patina on it that this gentleman is trying to do.”

Once the judge had cooled off, Shomer came back for Drossel to finish his cross.

The next witness,
Raymond Farrell, was a master parachute rigger who owned his own parachute company.

Farrell identified the
cordage in the case as Mil C5040 Type 3, “commonly known as 550 cord because it has a break strength of 550 pounds.”

“Is this cord common in your industry?” Kohn asked.

“It’s real common.”

In addition to use in parachute rigging, Farrell said he had sold the cord to dog trainers for training purposes, for clotheslines, and even to a group of musicians once for stringing bongos and African drums.