The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer

by Robert Keppel; William J. Birnes; Ann Rule

  As the search for “Ted victims” progressed over the week, an ominous scenario began to unfold. No bones other than skull parts were being discovered. Twenty yards up the hillside from Rancourt’s skull, we found what was left of a battered cranium. I was shocked that the maxilla, the bone that had once contained the upper teeth, was completely gone. We never found it, despite our intense search. We located her lower jawbone, which neatly fit into the narrow skull. The fracture lines were evidence that this victim was probably beaten beyond recognition. After eight days of searching, we could account for only three skulls, three human jawbones, and a small hair mass. We found numerous individual bones, but they were all confirmed to be animal bones by Dr. Daris Swindler, a physical anthropologist from the University of Washington. So what did all of this mean?

  Theories of intentional decapitation were quickly dismissed by our supervisors because we didn’t find the neck vertebrae that would have confirmed it. Typically, when a person is intentionally decapitated, the cut is made below the base of the skull because it is relatively easy to sever the vertebrae with the appropriate cutting tool. Thus, neck vertebrae at a site where a skull is found usually indicate that the person was decapitated. For our supervisors, therefore, a lack of neck vertebrae meant no intentional decapitation. Although this logic was not infallible, it was often seized upon by police commanders, presumably to avoid undue fear in the community and increased pressure on themselves to find a “monster.” On the other hand, we were confident that if those vertebrae were once on Taylor Mountain, we would have found them.

  The most popular theory circulating among the police department supervisors was that the rest of the skeletons were obviously outside our search perimeter. If this were true, however, based on crime scene retrieval experience at Issaquah, we should have found other skeletal parts within close proximity of the crania. But what we learned from Issaquah was summarily downplayed.

  My own theory—considered outrageous—was that, for a period of time, the killer had parked the skulls at another location, where they decayed individually, and then dumped his entire load just inside the edge of the forest. The physical evidence, which consisted of leaves in skulls from one previous leaf fall, the growth of the maple branches through and around the skulls, and the lack of any tissue on the crania left me with the feeling that they were exposed to outdoor elements, in one place, where they decayed at the same rate. In other words, they were put someplace else for a period of time and then brought to Taylor Mountain; the killer was moving around the body parts of his victims. It seemed as though nobody in the department wanted to consider my theory seriously—maybe because it gave too much credit to the ability of the killer to manipulate evidence and escape detection. They also probably didn’t want to consider what it would take to catch a killer so remorseless that he could handle the body parts of his dead victims long after he had murdered them.

  Due to the growing intensity of the news coverage of the dump site discovery, I was forced to set up a line across the power line road beyond which no reporter could pass. Most of the press were familiar faces by now: John Sandifer, Ward Lucas, Lou Corseletti, Dick Larsen, and Julie Blacklow. Over the next year, all would become veteran, self-appointed Ted Bundy experts. I was accustomed to coming out of the woods about every two hours to give them a report. Usually, I really couldn’t say much, but I learned 20 different ways to say that we had found more remains. What I didn’t want to reveal was that only skull parts were found. The reporters sensed something was awry because we didn’t bring many large packages out. I felt so uneasy about this that I started bringing small bones out in large packages so no one would be the wiser. We also had to use different radio codes every day because the media had radio scanners tuned into the ESAR walkie-talkie frequency. It was like a game of spy versus spy. After several days, the search process was beginning to wear on me and I got testy with the media. A new television reporter arrived and abruptly demanded that I brief her on everything that had taken place the preceding week. I blew up—which was very uncharacteristic of me—and I told her to get the hell out and go review the news clips. Then I turned around and walked away.

  By the sixth day, I was getting worried about the political aspect of this search. Over 250 volunteer searchers were working the site, a gaggle of 30 reporters was dogging our heels, and Ted Forester and I were the only officers on the scene. No brass! Sergeant Randall, Lieutenant Kraske, and Captain Mackie were conspicuous by their absence. They were career police officers, supervisors in the detective division, and not one of them ever came to the scene. Their absence made me insecure; I began to second-guess myself, wondering whether I was handling the case correctly. The brass were the ones with all the experience. My seven months on this case wasn’t enough time to get off probation, the initial period of time during which the performance of a new homicide detective is carefully scrutinized and evaluated. Surely the brass should have some input on the conduct of this huge case.

  At about three P.M. that same day my fears were assuaged, if only momentarily. Chief Donald Actor arrived at the scene. Finally, someone with authority to talk to the press and give me some relief, I thought. But I would have no such luck. Actor drove right past the press barrier and motioned for me to come over. I asked him if he’d like a tour of the hillside. He said no, he didn’t want to contaminate the scene. Once again, I was stunned. I asked him why no other brass had come to the scene to inspect it. He said that he had told them to stay away so they wouldn’t screw up the crime scene. I felt honored and scared at the same time. What bombshell would he lay on me? He said kindly, “It’s all yours. I’m very impressed by your professionalism and the way you handled the press.” Gee thanks, Chief. I was beginning to feel more inadequate, fearing that if anything went wrong, I’d have a walking beat on Mud Mountain Dam. My fear would return many more times, even in the minutes before my last interview with Ted Bundy. I was on my own.

  The final tally of remains for Taylor Mountain paled in comparison to Issaquah: three crania, three mandibles, two small pieces of a skull, one tooth, and a small blond hair mass. Not one other remnant of a human skeleton was discovered.

  The remains of four women were identified from the sparse skeletal remains we had recovered: Susan Rancourt, who disappeared April 17, 1974, from the library at Central Washington State College; Kathy Parks, last seen May 5, 1974, at Oregon State University, over 260 miles from Taylor Mountain; Brenda Ball, who was last seen May 31, 1974, at the Flame Tavern in Seattle; and Lynda Healy, who was reported missing from her basement bedroom at the University of Washington on January 31, 1974.

  Lynda Healy

  The Lynda Healy disappearance was one of the most intriguing and sinister aspects of Ted’s career as a serial killer. Lynda Healy was probably Ted’s first victim. Had that case been investigated more carefully in the beginning, we might have picked up the cousin of one of Lynda’s old roommates by the name of Theodore Robert Bundy. Lynda, an aspiring psychology student, 5 feet 7 inches tall, slender, with long, dark brown hair, was a truly beautiful young woman. She worked at Northwest Ski Productions, where she broadcast the daily ski report for Crystal Mountain, Snoqualamie Pass, and Mt. Baker. She was expected early at work on that morning of February 1, 1974, to give the report. She was a no-show, unusual for Lynda, who had been well known as a very reliable person. When she didn’t show, someone from Northwest Ski called her house and her housemate checked Lynda’s room only to find the bed neatly made and Lynda nowhere to be seen. The bicycle Lynda sometimes rode the 10-block route to work was still at the house. Because this disappearance just wasn’t like Lynda, the police were called immediately and a missing-person report was filed. Later that day, Lynda’s friends and family checked her room. When covers to her bed were pulled back, a large amount of blood was found near where her head would have rested on her pillow. Further searching revealed that her nightgown was neatly hung behind the strings of beads that were the door to her closet. The nig
htgown was bloody also. The clothing she was wearing the day she was last seen, as well as her red nylon backpack, was missing. The clothing and jewelry missing were a pair of blue jeans, a white smock blouse with blue trim, a pair of brown waffle-stomper boots, a brown belt, and a number of turquoise rings. Also, the top sheet of her bedding was gone.

  When the evidence was discovered, the police were called back to the green three-story residence. The house was a typical multi-person dwelling in the university district. It had several rooms on each floor, a common bathroom on each floor, a front door, a rear door, and a side door. It was, in fact, identical in layout to Ted Bundy’s residence eight blocks away and similar to Bundy’s girlfriend’s house three blocks away. By car, the house was accessible from 17th Northeast and from an alley that parallels 17th Northeast near the rear of the house. Lynda’s room was located on the basement floor, just a small flight of cement stairs down from the side door to the house.

  Police officers photographed the front and side exterior of the house, the stairs to the basement, and Lynda’s room. They quickly collected the sheet, pillow, and nightgown, and restricted access to the room so that they could look for additional evidence. After that, no further processing of the crime scene took place.

  No sign of Lynda would ever be found until her lower jawbone was discovered by the search dogs on Taylor Mountain. I put the very highest personal priority on solving this case and when we finally solved it, we understood that Ted had behaved just like a stalker. Had we investigated Lynda’s death more thoroughly, we might have had Ted in our sights a full six months or more before he showed up that fateful day at Lake Sammamish.

  Donna Manson

  About 60 miles to the south of Seattle is Olympia, the capital of Washington. Nestled in the woods about five miles west of downtown is the campus of Evergreen State College, a nontraditional school where the students could immediately enroll in classes with a focus on what interested them. This was an alternative college where the rigid core course requirements of the other state institutions did not apply.

  It was early evening on March 12, 1974, when Donna Gail Manson was last seen walking across the campus to attend a jazz concert. Like Lynda Healy, she was an attractive coed with long brown hair; she was 5 feet tall and 19 years of age. She was a part of the counterculture population at the college, an individual. If she had disappeared for a couple days, that would not have been unusual. She had done it before. But this time when she left, she would never be seen alive again. Her body would never be recovered. Donna was thought to have been wearing a multicolored red-, orange-, and green-striped shirt; green slacks; a black maxicoat; a Bulova wristwatch; and an oval-shaped black agate ring. Her dental charts would be compared to those of at least 100 female homicide victims over a 10-year period. Ted Bundy would take her body’s location to his grave. All he would say was, “She is somewhere in the mountains, the Cascade Mountains.”

  Susan Elaine Rancourt

  The town of Ellensburg is 150 miles east of Seattle on I-90. Ellensburg is the home of the famous Ellensburg Rodeo and of Central Washington State College, often noted as a teacher’s college. On April 17, 1974, Susan Elaine Rancourt was attending a meeting at the main library with about 100 other people. The meeting ended at ten P.M., and that was the last time Susan was ever seen. She was another pretty coed, 18 years old, 5 feet 2 inches tall, with long blond hair. She was believed to last have been wearing a yellow coat, a yellow shortsleeved sweater, gray corduroy pants, and brown Hush Puppy shoes.

  By May 1974, the precinct squad room clipboards contained bulletins outlining known details about the disappearance of Healy, Manson, and Rancourt, and their physical descriptions, all in the hope that someone would come across them.

  Kathy Parks

  Two hundred sixty miles south of Seattle, along the I-5 corridor, is Corvallis, Oregon, the home of Oregon State University. In the evening hours of May 6, 1974, Roberta Kathleen Parks, a 5-foot 7-inch 21-year-old attractive coed with long, dark brown hair, was last seen in her dormitory. It was thought that she left to go for a walk because she was depressed over her father’s failing health. She was last seen wearing a cream-colored jacket, a navy blue sweater, navy blue corduroy slacks, platform sandals, and silver rings, and carrying a brown purse with a shoulder strap. She was never to be heard from again. We found her remains on Taylor Mountain years later.

  As of June 1974, four coeds were missing from universities that were over 200 miles apart. The individual missing-person circulars listing the few facts known about their disappearances were only reminders of their shattered lives. No one made any connection among these women’s disappearances beyond observing that they were all missing. No one even suspected that the last person they ever saw was the same man. There were no news reporters making even the most casual links among the cases. In addition, there were other missing women, such as Brenda Ball, and not even the investigating officers tied her to the Ted cases.

  By July 1974, the whereabouts of six missing women—Healy, Manson, Rancourt, Ball, Parks, and Hawkins—were mysteries. Their last known locations—the cities of Seattle, Corvallis, Ellensburg, and Olympia—were spread apart by hundreds of miles. No trace of the clothing or jewelry they were wearing would ever be found. It would not be until the investigation began into the disappearances of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund from Lake Sammamish on July 14, 1974, that the real investigation into the “Missing and Murdered Girls Cases,” more popularly known as the “Ted Murders,” would begin in earnest. The similar characteristics of their disappearances were to take shape only after their connections were substantiated by common body recovery sites.

  These were the memories flooding my mind as Ted Bundy described to me how he buried Georgann Hawkins’s severed head.

  2

  Grisly Business Unit: In Pursuit of a Killer

  A Different Kind of Killer

  Seven months of committing murder after murder, each of them invisible, each of them leaving not even a ripple of turbulence on the surface of the water, each of them carried out seemingly without a trace of evidence left behind. This series of events showed that the Ted killer was equipped to survive undetected for the long term. His method of operation seemed flawless, almost scholarly, leaving his hapless pursuers on the police task force very little in the way of clues. Unbeknownst to us, Bundy was practicing his routines for approaching victims almost daily during this period. He was returning to crime scenes and retrieving evidence that would have connected him to the victim. Furthermore, he was reading voraciously from detective magazines and books, gaining valuable information about how police investigators perform their duties. In addition, he knew exactly how the King County Police Department conducted its investigations, because in the early 1970s he researched the crime of rape for the King County Crime Commission, which enabled him to review the actual case files of rape investigations conducted by county detectives. He pored over this information and took steps to cover his homicidal instincts and vicious temper from those around him.

  We didn’t know who our Ted killer was, where he lived, or what motivated his attacks on women. There was very little, therefore, that we could do about him other than follow what few possible leads there were, even if we were led right down blind alleys or into dead ends. Whatever scant information existed had become our case, and it carried the gravest responsibility that had ever fallen upon the shoulders of King County detectives. The locations where each victim had last been seen and the two multiple-body recovery sites were all that was left of this elusive murderer’s trail. A very faint path of possible evidence lay to the east. No visible traces of the killer were left at the crime scenes themselves. But witnesses at the Lake Sam and Ellensburg areas gave some valuable clues that provided an outline of the young man calling himself Ted.

  As a result of our searches at Issaquah and Taylor Mountain and our ongoing investigation of the Ted abductions at Lake Sam, Roger Dunn and I were to oversee the Ott and Naslu
nd missing-person cases. We willingly took on those investigations, even though there wasn’t much we could investigate. We kept these cases on active status in the hope that somewhere, somehow, we would find the facts that linked Janice Ott, Denise Naslund, the mysterious Ted, and the horrible death lairs where their remains were discovered. The whole case ultimately took on the aura of a legend. But the real truth is much more exciting than it has ever been portrayed.

  The newspapers said that Ted Bundy first came into our lives on that bright summer Sunday in Seattle on July 14, 1974, when Janice Ott and Denise Naslund disappeared from Lake Sammamish State Park. However, for Roger and me, the Ted case officially started on the following Tuesday, July 16. It began when the Issaquah City Police chief and his detective, both of whom were wearing long, confused faces, walked into the offices of our Homicide/Robbery Unit of the King County Police Department. They told us about these two young women who had disappeared from the same park on the same sunny Sunday, and asked for our assistance. They wanted us to take over the case—their own detective would help us in any way possible—because they didn’t have the human or physical resources to investigate the mountains of leads that had begun to pile up surrounding the two disappearances. The case was simply too big for a small municipal department.