The I-5 Killer

by Ann Rule

  Randy failed to see why women rejected him. He blamed the women. He felt that they were always standing him up. It never occurred to him that he had hounded the "no-shows" until they had agreed to "dates" that were not really dates, but half-promises born out of desperation.

  Still, enough of them did accept dates with him, and he gathered his successes into his life and into his address book as if he were picking up diamonds with both hands. He had no ethics at all, no compunction about lying to women. He was only treating them as they deserved to be treated. When they refused him, he never let his anxiety show. He held it in. His anger grew, but he somehow knew that he would ultimately have his vengeance.

  Randy Woodfield, for all of his outward glamour, was terrified of women. Behind the brash facade there was a shadow man, and he dared not let that man show. Despite his protestations otherwise, he saw himself as a wimp; the muscled man he saw in the mirror warred with the image he held inwardly.

  As 1980 wound down, Randy thought seriously about leaving Portland. He had many reasons to feel uneasy about staying in the Portland area. He had been questioned about Cherie Ayers' murder, and even though nothing had come of it, the fact that the Portland police had homed in on him made him edgy.

  Randy was far from the innocent lamb. He had been engaged in criminal activities. He liked to operate from a strong financial base, and he couldn't seem to find a job that paid more than the minimum wages offered at convenience markets and fast-food outlets. The solution was simple. He had contacted one of his old prison buddies, Tony Niri. The two joined up for some robberies. The Faucet Tavern first, and then a Safeway store in Vancouver, Washington, among others.

  Niri was con-wise, and he'd instructed Randy on a simple but effective disguise. All one had to do was to plaster several strips of tape across the bridge of the nose, and no witness would be able to describe him afterward. Randy improved on that by gluing on a fake beard he'd bought at a novelty shop. Niri carried a .357 magnum during the robberies, but Randy made do with a toy gun. After the heists, Randy unpeeled the tape and the beard and hid them in his backpack or in his sports gloves. Sometimes they used Randy's car, a "Champagne Edition" gold Volkswagen Bug — but that was a fairly memorable car, so they usually used Niri's.

  Nobody beyond Niri had any idea that Randy was involved in thefts.

  Still, Portland hadn't been very lucky for him. There were all of his blighted liaisons with women, and all of the jobs he'd lost. He planned to move south, seventy miles south, to Eugene. He did not plan to inform his parole officer until the move was made. And perhaps not even then.

  Randy had another friend from his days in the penitentiary: Ralph Wansee. Ralph had moved to Los Angeles after his parole, but he had family in Medford, Oregon, and the two men made plans to meet in Medford for the 1980 Christmas holiday.

  Randy flew into Medford Christmas morning, and the two men spent Christmas Day with Ralph's mother and stepfather. The next day Randy suggested that they go out bar-hopping and looking for women. Ralph agreed, although he was far from the ladies' man Randy purported to be; Ralph had a harelip, which made him shy around women, fearful of rejection. Randy assured him that he had charisma enough for the two of them.

  And indeed he did. On December 26, Randy's thirtieth birthday, he managed to pick up not two women for them, but four. They were in the Bonanza Room of the Sandpiper when Randy brought the first set of women over to the table. Denise LeNoir was a pretty divorcee from Ashland, Oregon, out for the evening after hiring a baby-sitter for her youngsters. Denise found Randy very attractive, although her friend was not as taken with Ralph. The men wanted to party throughout the night, and Denise explained that she had to get home. She did give Randy her phone number, and he promised to call.

  Randy told Ralph not to worry. A short time later, he hit on a pair of beautiful sisters. Lynette Lacey lived right there in Medford, and her sister, Rose, had come up from North Hollywood to visit over Christmas. Ralph and Rose found common ground, since they both lived in the Los Angeles area, and Lynette initially thought Randy Woodfield was something special. They spent the rest of the evening together and made a date for the next night: Saturday, December 27.

  They met again at the Sandpiper and then Lynette and Randy had drinks at her house. Later they drove to Maxi's at the Red Lion to meet Rose and Ralph.

  During their second evening together, Lynette began to think she'd made an error in judgment. For one thing, her date had announced loudly to the cocktail lounge that he was looking for cocaine to buy. For another, Randy did not wear well; he was as insistent and pushy as an oversexed teenage boy. He suggested that he stay overnight with her. When she demurred, he argued that that was the only way they could really get to know each other.

  "I don't think so," she said.

  "You should want that. There's got to be something the matter with you not to." Randy argued.

  She looked at the dark man and thought that she'd been a fool; she was sorry she'd even kissed him. He was coming on so strong, with no encouragement at all from her. As far as she was concerned, the relationship was over before it began. Despite his protestations that she must be frigid or neurotic, she sent him away.

  Before dawn on Sunday morning, both Denise and Lynette heard from Randy Woodfield. Denise was surprised to hear from him at five A.M., and more than a little annoyed because he expected her to drive from Ashland to the Medford airport and pick him up. His plane was fogged in, and he needed a ride to Portland. She explained that her babies were sleeping and she didn't want to wake them.

  "Leave them there," he said.

  Naturally, her answer was no. She wondered that a man she'd met so briefly would expect so much from her.

  Randy called Lynette next to say he was burned out from partying for three straight days and now he'd just missed his plane to boot. He was at the bus station, and he hinted that he'd like to spend the day with her. Lynette wasn't interested. She made small talk and hung up.

  But both women's phone numbers went into Randy's thick little black book. He was particularly interested in Lynette. He wrote to her several times, apparently oblivious of the brush-off she'd given him.

  "If we are meant to be together, it will happen," he wrote. "The stars just weren't right the night we were together."

  She was a little bemused at his bland assumption that she was still interested in him. She did not know, of course, that Randy sent letters like that to dozens of women, that he might just as well have had them run off by the gross on a copy machine.

  He kept writing to her, and after a while she responded. He was very expressive in his letters. She thought maybe she'd misjudged him, and even toyed with the idea that she might visit him some weekend in Portland.

  Neither Denise nor Lynette really expected to date Randy Woodfield again, but they had not seen the last of him, and his contacts with them would one day soon prove to be most unlucky for him.

  Randy Woodfield had claimed to want just one woman, a devoted woman who could be loyal to him. He had told his prison counselors that he longed only to find a good woman, marry her, raise a family, and that together they would work to help others. He had bemoaned the loss of several "special women," wondering why he was initially or ultimately rejected.

  Two days after he struck out with the women in Medford, Randy was trolling again. He was staying temporarily at the New Oregon Motel in Eugene on December 30, 1980, while he scouted out housing possibilities in that city.

  Shelley Janson was spending the Christmas holidays at her father's house in Eugene, home from college in New Mexico. On December 30, Shelley was four days away from her twenty-second birthday. She was a highly intelligent young woman; she maintained a four-point GPA at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She was also very, very beautiful. But Shelley Janson approached life and the possibility of romance with surprising naivete. Despite several disappointing love affairs, Shelley still believed in the "knight on a white horse." At some point
, the perfect man would come along, and she knew she would recognize him the moment she saw him. He would be tall and dark and soft-spoken, sensitive just as she was. They would touch hands, and talk, and fall in love, to live happily ever after. Fate or karma would take care of that.

  Shelley's karma led her to the night of December 30, 1980, to in Eugene. She went there with a girlfriend to check out the possibilities of New Year's Eve parties the next night.

  Shelley and her friend had stood on the edge of the dance floor for only five or ten minutes when a handsome man with curly dark hair approached them. "Excuse me." He smiled. "I think I left my drink on the ledge behind you."

  Shelley turned and saw a man who fit her specifications for the "white knight" exactly. She was afraid he would go away, so she initiated a conversation to keep him at her side. He seemed to respond to her, and she was thrilled.

  His name was Randall, he said, and he was from Portland, but he was planning to move to Eugene. He said he'd just celebrated his thirtieth birthday, and she laughed; he looked only about twenty-five. She demanded to see his driver's license, and saw that he had been born in 1950.

  "I'm a Capricorn too," she said. "I'll be twenty-two this Saturday."

  She was happy that they had something in common. Randall explained that he planned to attend the University of Oregon in the spring and that he'd be taking courses at Lane Community College in the interim. He was going to complete two degrees, one in business and one in health and physical education. She was impressed when he said he planned to find a job bartending and save all his money for his education. The man was clearly going places, and prepared to work hard to finish his education.

  They danced only two dances that first evening; they were too busy talking. And the conversation was heavy, not the usual singles-bar stuff. Randall talked to her about his desires for the future, family, goals, morals. His voice was deep but soft, and he looked right into her eyes with his burning gaze. He told her about a woman in Medford who had refused him, and said he'd just "walked away." He would not force himself on a woman who didn't want him. She felt a little jealous, even though that had happened before she'd met him. But he assured her he cared nothing for the other woman.

  Shelley felt like pinching herself to see if it was all real.

  She regretted only that she had to go back to Albuquerque in three days. They were obviously so right for each other, and Randall was already suggesting that they might want to get seriously involved. Shelley had no way of knowing, of course, that Randall always came on this strong, that he suggested solid commitment to almost every woman he met. She was already falling in love. The hours flew by, and she was amazed when two A.M. came and the bar closed.

  Her friend tugged on her sleeve and whispered, "It's nice to see you so happy again. I'm going to leave you here with him."

  Randall walked Shelley to his car and they stood in the winter chill in the parking lot until it was almost empty. "We were shocked," Shelley recalled to detectives later, "to have those incredible feelings so quickly. We just stood there talking about our feelings."

  Finally they got into Randall's car, his Champagne Edition gold Volkswagen. When he kissed her, it felt right, and it didn't seem to matter that she'd known him only a few hours. They talked and kissed, and she finally asked him to take her to her friend's house because she'd left her purse in her friend's car. The plan was that he would then take her home to her father's house.

  Shelley never went home that first night. Halfway to her dad's house, they mutually agreed that they would go, instead, to Randall's room at the New Oregon Motel. She stayed with him all night. He was very considerate of her. He suggested that it might be too soon for intercourse; he asked only for oral sex. She didn't know that fellatio was his principal sexual focus, that it always had been.

  They spent the day of New Year's Eve visiting her family in Eugene. Randall told her he had arranged to rent a room from a divorced woman who lived with her young son, and Shelley went with him to Arden Bate's home on E Street in Springfield, just east of Eugene, where Randall gave Ms. Bates a check for his first month's rent.

  Shelley hated to spend New Year's Eve without Randall, but he explained he had previous plans to meet friends in Portland and go to a "forties costume party." She went to a party in Eugene, but she thought about nothing but Randall. He was too good to be true.

  On New Year's Day, 1981, Shelley called Randall at his sister's home in Portland and told him that a friend of hers was coming up to Portland and that she could come along. He welcomed the suggestion and picked her up and took her out to TGI Friday. Providentially, Randall's sister was with their parents in Otter Rock, so the new lovers had another night together.

  Shelley could hardly bear to get on a plane the next morning and fly back to New Mexico. But it was too soon for her to abandon college. Still, she knew they would be together again. She wished only that she hadn't forgotten the stuffed panda bear that Randall had bought her.

  She wrote to Randall constantly, scribbling across the blank spaces of romantic cards. Her letters referred continually to how "exciting" Randall was. She vowed to enter a physical-fitness program so that she would be worthy of a man with so much athletic ability. She suggested plans that would let them meet again. She worried that most men might think she was coming on too strong, but Randall's letters to her were full of his affirmation of her plans. She had been dumped on by men before, and she was frightened. But not frightened enough to hold back on her confidences to him. She signed her letters "Your lover always," and each communiqué was more affectionate than the last.

  Randall called her often, and he sent cards and letters too. He encouraged her commitment to him. She wrote that she was proud of him for searching for a job so diligently, and assured him that she would always be there for him if he ever became discouraged. No man could ask for more. A beautiful, intelligent, faithful woman loved Randall Woodfield.

  "By the way, I love you!" she wrote. "I feel so lucky to have you in my life. I hope you are always there with me. … I have been looking for someone like you all my life — and now I've found you. Thanks for walking into my life, Randall."

  The lovers were not separated long, although it seemed forever to Shelley. On January 30, 1981, Shelley flew into San Francisco to wait for Randall, who was driving down the coast to meet her. It was an idyllic three days. They spent the first night at the Hilton next to the airport, and then went to a cheaper motel in San Bruno to spend Saturday and Sunday night. They called it their "Love Boat" weekend. They went to Fisherman's Wharf. Randall wanted to visit Alcatraz, and they toured the island prison for a couple of hours. They were typical tourists, two young people in love. Shelley was a little put off when they never engaged in normal intercourse, but she was so in love with Randall that she thought that would happen all in good time. Perhaps he had her on a pedestal, and felt that oral sex was all that they should do until they were married.

  And they would be married. She was sure of that. On Saturday morning Randall bared his soul to her. He told her that he had been in prison and that he was on parole. He told her about his days with the Green Bay Packers and about his disappointment when it was over. Her shock about his criminal record dissipated rapidly; it was something from the past, and she knew that it would never happen again. And then he proposed to her. She said yes at once. They didn't set a date, but they discussed a late-summer wedding, or perhaps a Christmas wedding. They would definitely be married by Valentine's Day 1982. Randall called his friend Ralph in Los Angeles and asked him to be the best man. He called his parents in Otter Rock and told them he was engaged to be married.

  After such a perfect weekend, Shelley hated to leave to fly back to New Mexico, but she had to wind things up at the university. All in all, the weekend had turned out better than she could ever have imagined. She'd known Randall for only a month, and now they were engaged. He took her to her plane and told her he would be driving back to Eugene up the I-5 freewa
y so that he could stop off at his sister Susan's home in Mt. Shasta and tell her the news about the wedding.

  Shelley was home in Albuquerque by ten that Monday evening, February 2. Randall called her collect at midnight and told her he was only an hour and a half away from his sister's house. He would talk to her soon.

  When Randall hadn't called her again by Wednesday, February 4, she tried to reach him in Eugene. He wasn't there. She was frightened and thought he might have been in an accident. She kept calling throughout the night, and she finally reached him on Thursday morning.

  Randy said he'd had a pleasant visit with his sister, her physician husband, and their children, which was true; he had stopped to spend a short time in Mt. Shasta. As far as any trouble on the road, all that had happened, he said, was that he had gotten a ticket for speeding on the way home, and he thought he would buy a radar detector. Shelley didn't ask him why it had taken him two whole days to get home; she assumed he'd spent the time visiting his sister. He didn't actually say he had, but that seemed the likeliest explanation for his delay in calling her.

  After the San Francisco weekend, Shelley's studies disintegrated; all she could think about was being with Randall. He called her every other day, or she called him. It wasn't enough. She couldn't bear the thought of Randall all alone in Eugene, discouraged about his lack of a job, and herself, just as lonesome, wasting time in New Mexico.

  It helped a little when Randall sent her a dozen yellow roses on Valentine's Day. She put them in a vase where she could look at them when she wrote to him. "I feel like I've just begun on a very happy trail through life. Thanks!"

  Shelley didn't know that Randy had remembered a dozen or more women for Valentine's Day, that each message was intimate, suggesting that a further relationship seemed almost a certainty. She had no idea how many women waited for a call from Randy.