The I-5 Killer

by Ann Rule

  Item 4: One smoking device, (Bong) with residue.

  Item 5: One box of athletic adhesive tape.

  Item 6: A paper bag containing a .38-caliber or .357 caliber gun-cleaning kit.

  Item 7: A cocaine snorter (from vehicle glove compartment).

  Item 8: One box of firecrackers out of the glove compartment of vehicle.

  Asked about the gun-cleaning kit, Randy seemed evasive; he thought it was probably something he'd used before he'd gone to prison in 1975 and that it happened to still be among his possessions. The item seized that appeared to bother him the most was the adhesive tape. He questioned the detectives closely about why they would have taken something as prosaic as adhesive tape as evidence. They replied casually that it was something that might prove valuable to them.

  Indeed, when Loper had seen that tape, bells had rung in his head. He had come down searching for some clue to Julie Reitz's murder only. But he and Bishop, like every lawman in the state, had seen the composite pictures of the I-5 Killer, the man who invariably disguised himself with the use of tape or Band-Aids across his nose, the man who bound his victims with the same tape.

  Was it possible that they had stumbled across a much bigger fish than they realized? Randy Woodfield's verbal consent to search his home had given them a great legal boost. Had they come in with a search warrant, they would have been able to seize only those items specifically listed in the warrant. But Randy's own assumption that he had nothing to fear from the cops had allowed them to seize anything they found. He seemed nervous about the tape, very nervous, but he dared not refuse to let them take it. There had been six rolls of tape in the box; one was missing. They could see that Randy was trying to pretend he wasn't antsy about the tape.

  He failed in that area. The man was clearly covering up something.

  What was it?

  Randy Woodfield drove off in his fancy gold Beetle. Legally, he was free to go. He had lied initially about knowing Julie Reitz, but it was within the realm of possibility that a man who dated scores of women might forget the name of one. The adhesive tape might match the torn edges of bonds retrieved from victims, and it might not, but lab analysis would take time.

  Clearly Bishop and Loper needed more information. They drove back to the little rambler in Springfield.

  Randy Woodfield's car was neither in the garage nor parked on the street near the house on E Street an hour later when Dave Bishop, Neal Loper, and Doug Ashbridge set up a discreet stakeout so that they could observe the comings and goings of the occupants.

  Three P.M. No sign of activity.

  At three-thirty-four a small boy hopped off the school bus and headed for the front door. The detectives spoke with him, and he told them he was Mickey Bates, six years old. "My mom's at work," he said. "I stay with the neighbors till she gets home."

  Mickey told the investigators that Randy had lived in a room in their house for about a month.

  "Where does he go when he goes to work?" Bishop asked.

  The boy shrugged. "He doesn't work. He plays ball with us."

  "Have you ever seen any of Randy's guns?" Loper asked. "Does he have guns like the cops do on television?"

  "No. Randy doesn't have any guns."

  The boy skipped off, unfazed at the sight of three detectives watching his house.

  At five-twenty-four Arden Bates drove up. The trio of detectives identified themselves and explained they wanted to talk with her about her roomer. Oddly, she did not seem surprised to find that police were checking on Randy. She had become a little suspicious of his activities herself, she said.

  Arden explained that she'd met Randy by placing an ad in the paper seeking a roomer. She didn't know where his money came from; he had said that he received a small stipend from state unemployment, and she thought maybe his parents helped him out. "But he spends an awful lot of money," she blurted. "I don't know where it all comes from."

  "What does he do with his time?" Bishop asked.

  "I think he goes to college — or is planning on going to college."

  "What about girlfriends? Women?"

  "I've seen a few he brought to the house."

  "They stay overnight?"

  "I don't think so. I go to bed early because I work hard. But … no, I don't think so."

  And then the vital question regarding the Julie Reitz case.

  "Do you know where Randy was over Valentine's Day weekend?"

  "I think it's quite possible he went to Portland."

  Bishop had an inspiration, one that would prove to be the turning point not only in his case but also in so many others. He asked if Randy Woodfield ever charged long-distance phone calls to Arden's bill, and she said that he did — often. "He calls long distance all the time."

  "Would it be possible for us to take a look at your last phone bill?"

  "Sure. It's in the house."

  Arden handed Bishop the phone bill with calls billed through the middle of February. He scanned it quickly, looking for calls to Beaverton. There were none. But one entry caught his eye. There was a third-party charge from Mt. Shasta, California, billing the call to Arden Bates's phone. The date was February 3. Something clicked in his head. "Shasta" and "February 3."

  The I-5 Killer was supposed to have hit near Lake Shasta in the early part of February!

  Bishop looked up suddenly and saw Arden Bates staring back at him. She was shivering involuntarily.

  "It's him, isn't it?" she breathed. "Randy's the I-5 Killer, isn't he? I've been afraid of that, but I didn't want to say it out loud."

  Bishop would neither confirm nor deny his own feelings. "Can we have this phone bill?"

  "Sure, take it."

  "We'd like to talk to you down at the police station, Mrs. Bates," Bishop said quietly. "I think it would be wise if you and Mickey moved out of here for a while. Can you find another place to stay for a few nights?"

  She nodded, rubbing the goose pimples that dotted her arms.

  "Good. The sooner you and Mickey can get out of here, the better."

  Doug Ashbridge arranged for a continuous surveillance of the residence by Springfield police. It was not yet time to arrest Randy Woodfield: that would be premature. But the officers wanted to be sure where he was.

  Arden Bates threw some clothing into an overnight bag and hurried her son out to her car. She turned back and looked at Dave Bishop and Neal Loper. "You know, he's a really nice guy. I liked him right away when he came to rent the room. If you met him, you wouldn't even think he could do anything violent. You don't think he ever would have hurt us, do you? You don't really think it's him, do you? This is just a maybe, isn't it?"

  Loper smiled at her. "It's just a maybe. We only want to be absolutely sure you and Mickey are safe. When we check out the phone numbers, and when we talk with some of the other detectives on the case, we'll know more."

  "But," she argued, "if he was a killer, I would have known it, wouldn't I?"

  "I don't know," Loper said honestly. "That's what we're trying to find out."

  CHAPTER 15

  Back at the Springfield Police Department, Loper and Bishop put through an immediate call to Redding, California. The phone call from Mt. Shasta might prove to be the one clue that scores of detectives in the Northwest had been seeking. When they reached Detective Ron Kingsley at the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, they asked him to check the reverse directory there to see where Randy Woodfield had been when he made a phone call and charged it to his landlady's Eugene number.

  Loper told Kingsley the phone number. "Our man made that call from Mt. Shasta on February 3, shortly after nine P.M."

  "That's the night of our double homicide in Mountain Gate!" Kingsley responded.

  "That's why we thought this was so important," Loper agreed. "Call us back when you trace the number."

  Kingsley called back within minutes. The call had been made from a phone booth in Jerry's Restaurant in Mt. Shasta. "It's just a fluke that you picked up on it," Kingsley e
xplained. "The name 'Shasta.' Actually, Mt. Shasta is more than fifty miles north of our crime scene, up the I-5. The timing's right. Our victims were killed between six and nine P.M. Keep in touch."

  "You bet. We'll pass information along the minute we get it."

  Dave Bishop and Neal Loper had gone to Eugene to eliminate Randy Woodfield as a suspect in the murder of Julie Reitz. Instead of eliminating him, they'd found he looked good. Now, eight hours later, they found themselves deep in the middle of the biggest case going in Oregon, Washington, and California. Was it possible that Randy Woodfield was the I-5 Killer?

  Dave Kominek and Monty Holloway had barely arrived back in Salem after the day-long meeting in Eugene when the call came from Dave Bishop and Neal Loper.

  "Can you get back down here? We may have something for you. We have a suspect under surveillance who may look awfully good to you. The man looks like your composites, and we can place him in Shasta County on February 3."

  Kominek and Holloway didn't stop to change clothes. They expected to be back in Salem later that night. They called Lieutenant Kilburn McCoy to tell him they were heading back to Eugene and that they'd keep him informed. Kominek left Salem with seventeen dollars in his wallet and no credit cards; he didn't expect to need much money during one evening in Eugene.

  He didn't know he wouldn't see Salem again for almost a week.

  When the Marion County detectives reached the Springfield Police Department, the probe went into high gear. They talked with Arden Bates and went over the dates when Randy Woodfield had been away from her home. Every out-of-town crime had occurred on those nights. According to Mrs. Bates, Randy was an inveterate traveler on the I-5 freeway.

  Kominek looked at the mug shot of Randy Woodfield, and the skin prickled on the back of his neck. He saw that the eyes, the facial features, the coloring, the hair, the thick neck, and the broad shoulders were just like those of the composites he had begun to see even in his sleep.

  Randy Brent Woodfield. An ex-con who'd been sent up for robbery, but the man's criminal history had revealed that there had been oral-sodomy charges which were dropped. That would explain why Kominek and Holloway hadn't found Woodfield's name in their massive search of parolee records; they'd been checking murderers and sex offenders. The sex charges on Woodfield hadn't been in the computer.

  And there was more, so much more. According to medical records at the Oregon State Penitentiary, Woodfield had B-negative blood, just like the phantom man they'd been seeking; he drove a Volkswagen Bug, and, perhaps most telling, Neal Loper had seized a large roll of adhesive tape when he searched Woodfield's bedroom.

  Dave Bishop held out the phone bill that Arden Bates had turned over to him. "He made a lot of calls."

  Excited, Kominek ran his finger down the list of calls. On January 18, the night Shari Hull and Beth Wilmot had been shot, Randy Woodfield had called a Salem number at 9:01 P.M. from Independence, Oregon. He'd called a Newberg number an hour and a half later from Woodburn, north of Salem on the I-5. God, the man left a blueprint of his travels up and down the freeway! On January 28 he called to Medford, and there were collect calls from Medford, Grants Pass, Ashland, Yreka, and Redding between January 29 and February 4.

  Kominek had memorized the roster of crimes and their dates, and the calls followed the lineup perfectly.

  It was going to take thousands of man-hours to find out whom Randy had visited along the freeway and to verify his locations, but the hole in the dike was there.

  The torrent of information had begun to flow.

  The meeting in the Springfield police offices was fraught with subdued excitement and tension. Attending were detectives James Callahan, Jerry Smith, Doug Ashbridge, and Chief Brian Riley from the Springfield department; Pat Horton, district attorney of Lane County; Tony Meyer, Woodfield's Eugene parole officer; Detective Ron Griesel from the Eugene Police Department; Dennis O'Donnell from the Oregon State Police in Eugene; Chuck Vaughn and Jim Pex from the Oregon State Police Crime Lab; Captain Dave Bishop and Detective Neal Loper from the Beaverton Police Department; and Dave Kominek and Monty Holloway from the Marion County Sheriff's Office in Salem.

  The lawmen stared at the blackboard in front of them and watched the damning circumstantial evidence against Randall Brent Woodfield mount, bits and pieces supplied by various detectives.

  Arden Bates: Subject conducts his activities late at night. Subject leaves her residence on dates corresponding with the attacks by the I-5 Killer.

  Subject drives a Volkswagen Bug.

  Subject was in Mt. Shasta just after California murders in Mountain Gate.

  Subject en route to Medford at time of Medford and Grants Pass robberies.

  Subject's prior behavior pattern fits psychological profile established for the I-5 Killer.

  Beaverton victim shot in the back of the head. Previous victims have been shot in back of head, temple, or right side of head.

  Subject fits same physical description of I-5 Killer: 6' ½ ", 170 pounds, athletic.

  I-5 Killer wore gloves similar in all respects to racquetball gloves. Subject plays racquetball frequently.

  Subject has B-negative blood, according to prison records.

  * * *

  It looked promising. Hell, Kominek thought, it looks perfect. The thing to do was to move immediately for a search warrant of the house on E Street and gather more physical evidence before Woodfield had time to destroy it. Dave Bishop agreed with Kominek, as did Ron Griesel of the Eugene Police Department. They could get a search warrant easily enough with Pat Horton, the Lane County district attorney, right in the meeting.

  And then the specter of territorial rights raised its ugly head. Some of the authorities in the Eugene area were bristling; their feeling was that the detectives from Beaverton and Salem were treading on their turf. Bishop and Loper had informed the Springfield Police Department of their intent to question Woodfield, but they had not told Eugene and Lane County authorities before the fact. This suspect might well have committed offenses in other areas, but he was in Lane County now, and whatever would be done with him should be up to Lane County. D.A. Pat Horton was not amenable to direction from detectives from other jurisdictions. He wanted them to play a waiting game. Horton pointed out that Woodfield was home, asleep probably, in the house. He was under constant surveillance by officers watching in sneaker cars. If he left the house, he would be followed. There was no tearing hurry now.

  Horton would not be talked out of his stance. There was a question as to whom the subject belonged. He was a major catch. The jurisdiction that actually arrested him could count on headlines and kudos.

  Now the jealousies flared up. A turf war. It had happened in Los Angeles when county and city wrangled over whom Charlie Manson belonged to, and it had happened in the Ted Bundy case when dozens of departments sought him.

  Horton was adamant that they would do it his way. Lane County would call the shots.

  The days that followed would be, perhaps, the most agonizing of the entire probe for Kominek and Holloway. Parole officer Tony Meyer said he would be willing to arrest Woodfield, as he had violated his parole by moving to Eugene without permission, but Horton vetoed that. The Marion County detectives thought they had their man, but they were being blocked from moving in and arresting him. Bishop and Loper figured that Woodfield was the man they sought. It was not a situation of give and take; it was a tug-of-war, and Randy Woodfield was the prize.

  Springfield Police Chief Brian Riley, described by Kominek as "probably the most professional police chief I've ever encountered," tried to calm the troubled waters. The meeting broke up at three A.M. on that first night. It was finally agreed that Woodfield would be left alone — but watched — and the detectives would meet again the next day.

  Chuck Vaughn and Jim Pex would work all night to analyze the blood and semen stains and to try to match pubic hairs found on Randy Woodfield's sheets to hairs retrieved in the assault on the two young girls in Corvallis. Monty H
olloway would fly out to Spokane, Washington, at five A.M. in a state-police plane through a driving snowstorm to contact Beth Wilmot so that she could look at a mug laydown which included Randy Woodfield's picture. Dave Kominek would stand pat in Eugene; he could not risk driving back to Salem for fear the suspect would again slip through his grasp. D.A. Horton had promised that Kominek and Ron Griesel would be allowed to interview Woodfield the next day.

  Kominek put in a call to Portland to Detective Sergeant Rod Englert of the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office. "Rod, get down here," he said fervently. "We're going to need you as a referee. Your county is one that doesn't want the I-5 Killer, so you can be an impartial mediator. I think we've got him. I'm sure of it, but we may be losing our momentum."

  "I'm on my way," Englert promised, already shrugging on his clothes.

  And then Dave Kominek realized, at four A.M., that he had no funds, not even enough to get a cheap motel room. Chief Brian Riley grinned and offered him the hospitality of the Springfield jail for the four hours until dawn. Not fancy, but warm and dry. Kominek accepted. A jail bunk was better than the backseat of his car.

  Exhausted, Kominek fell fast asleep on the hard bunk. As a professional courtesy, the cell door was left wide open. The fact that a killer who had dismembered his wife was just down the corridor was the least of Kominek's concerns; the mutilation killer's cell was locked.

  Kominek laughs when he remembers the comedy of errors that ensued. "I snore like a truck, and I woke up to see the female dispatcher from Springfield staring at me with a look of panic on her face. She hadn't seen me come in, she didn't know who I was, and she thought that I was a dangerous felon lying there snoring in an open cell, likely to wake up at any minute and run amok. Luckily somebody told her I was one of the good guys."

  Kominek started his second day in Eugene with only three hours of sleep in thirty-six hours.

  Marion County D.A. Chris Van Dyke drove down to Eugene from Salem to back Dave Kominek. The district attorney from Corvallis, Peter Sandrock, with his investigator, Randy Martinek, arrived from that city to attempt to issue a search warrant on Woodfield's home.