Ted was starved for our questions and wanted to be sure we knew that he would answer them fully. Ted immediately clarified that he had no desire to play detective. It was not a role he felt capable of playing, he said. I guess he thought we might characterize his help in that way, but he was wrong. We saw him as someone with a different and highly practical point of view.
With the seriousness of a counselor, Ted sensed he had strong insights into and feeling for what was going on in the mind of the man responsible for placing the bodies in the locations the “Riverman” had. Ted was convinced that those sites offered the best opportunity for apprehending the man. For purposes of brevity, Ted used the name Riverman to refer to the Green River Killer.
There was much more that the Riverman was doing at these dump sites than disposing of his victims’ bodies and Ted knew it. How, where, and when the Riverman hunted for, approached, made contact with, lured, and eventually abducted his victims were clues to his frame of mind and his personal motives for killing the women he did. All of this intrigued Ted. As a killer who meticulously practiced each of those things, Ted intimately knew the importance of them to our killer. However, Ted believed that this psychological aspect of the investigation, the police guesswork about the killer’s mind, was a puzzling, time-consuming, complex, and highly speculative exercise that would be less likely to lead us to our man than the kind of hard-core evidence that police dig up from good investigative work.
Ted made the disconcerting point that even if we had some firm answers to how, when, and where the Riverman abducted his victims, those answers could easily have left us a long way from finding our suspect. So what if we found out what turned the killer on? Ted suggested that we still wouldn’t know who the killer was. Unfortunately, that kind of speculation was the part of the investigation that was heavily dwelt upon, resulting in endless lines of inquiry that focused on countless leads that needed to be checked out regardless of the outcome. Ted thought if we got lucky and actually found the killer in this way, it would be called good police work. If not, it was just another wild-goose chase.
Ted revealed that his preferred strategy for catching the Riverman would be to put a newly discovered dump site under surveillance. But before getting into detail about his strategy, Ted asked a lot of his questions about the Green River cases and approached each one of them with the acumen of a skilled researcher. Initially, Ted wanted to know what kind of “scene” the victims were into. He had heard the Green River victims characterized as teenage prostitutes. Ted asked if we thought there were exceptions. He felt that some might have been called prostitutes because they had “reputations,” were party girls, runaways, school dropouts, or delinquents. Perceptively, Ted had drawn the same conclusion about the victim class that we had—it was broader than just prostitutes.
Acknowledging the Riverman’s study of his victims, Ted emphasized that the Riverman had a sensitivity to and knowledge of the “scene”: the lifestyle, habits, movements, hangouts, and likes and dislikes of the women he was hunting from the time he started pursuing his victims. Ted didn’t know how the Riverman obtained such knowledge and understanding, but there was a good possibility that he was very much a part of that “scene” or at least on the fringes of it. Ted was sure that the Riverman’s understanding of this set could only have increased over the past couple of years.
Ted went on to say that the “scene” was more accurately described as a subcultural milieu that included prostitutes, delinquents, runaways, party girls, and their friends and peers who hung out at arcades, malls, and taverns, and who were also into drugs and partying and, generally, whose members were free-spirited and mobile. His point was that somehow the Riverman came to know his class of victims and their lifestyles in an intimate way that allowed him to manipulate and lure them to him. Ted felt that the better we understood the whole scene where the murderer was preying, the better we would understand how the Riverman works and who he is. Frequently, Ted found himself speaking from the Riverman’s frame of reference. From the Riverman’s point of view, that class of victim he chose could not be better; from law enforcement’s vantage point, it could not be worse.
Appreciating the difficulty of our investigation, Ted reiterated the litany of reasons why the Green River murders were hard to follow up on. First, the disappearances were usually not reported until days or weeks after the victims were last seen. Second, their movements were hard to trace. Third, a comprehensive list of their friends and associates was difficult to compile. And fourth, in the beginning, neither the news media nor the police paid the disappearances much attention. All these conditions were ideal for the Riverman, who probably wanted attention as much as he wanted to get caught.
What made the police investigation almost impossible was one of the primary reasons the Riverman continued to operate in the very face of an intense police presence and publicity: his victim pool continued to provide him with ample candidates. Ted described the group of victims as extremely vulnerable because it seemed to be comprised of young women who are, in some respects, bolder, harder to intimidate and control, and more mobile than most people, as well as being inclined to adopt the it-can’t-happen-to-me attitude. Ted’s conclusion was that the Riverman continued to work his territory in part because he was confident of his abilities. He knew the police weren’t close—he might not have had the time or money to go elsewhere, but more important, he still had ready access to his potential victims.
Next, Ted spoke about the different ways the Riverman was approaching and abducting his victims. Ted emphasized the simplicity of his technique. Ted speculated that he could have played the role of a cop, like Bianchi and his cousin had, stalked, and physically carried off his victims. Hadn’t Bundy himself posed as a cop in Utah when he tried to abduct Carol DaRonch in his VW? It’s easy to purchase a police badge, stick it in your wallet, and demand that a streetwalker come along with you for questioning. Once she’s in your car, you can take her to an isolated place where you can talk. By then, it’s too late for her to escape. This process was so simple, we would probably have said, “Why didn’t we think of that?”
However, Ted’s initial sense was that the victims, like the public, were looking for the stereotypical murderer, the Henry Lee Lucas/Ottis Toole type straight out of a B horror movie: the grizzled, older drifter type with sunken eyeballs, salivating lips, and a lewd demeanor. Overall, the Green River victims took steps to avoid such people and any other males they considered strange. And for a matter of weeks or months, they were confident they had been successful in coming up with defenses adequate to the threat of the Riverman, until they met the Riverman, who fit none of their preconceptions.
Ted described the characteristics of the Riverman, and in doing so he could have been describing himself. For the victims, the Riverman didn’t fit their image of a killer and he was able to place them at ease. In spite of what people thought, he was one of the crowd, maybe a peer, maybe a pimp, maybe a john, which was why he was so effective and hard to find. He didn’t do anything out of the ordinary that would help people remember him. His best qualities were that he didn’t stand out or come on strong in a heavy, intense, or threatening manner. Quite possibly, lots of girls he never abducted were approached by him, and he drifted alongside, scoped them out, engaged them in a conversation, dangled a lure or two in front of them, and when they didn’t bite, he casually faded out. Ted’s self-concept was that he and the Riverman were nice guy—easygoing—and looked like many of the men they hung out safely with every day. There was nothing memorable, threatening, or unusual about them; they were just other faces in the crowd. While we thought that Ted was probably right on the money, his comments didn’t really get us that much closer to our man.
Noting that the Riverman was working a relatively small geographic area, Ted was interested in whether any of the victims knew each other. Ted’s next few comments really were indicative of how much Ted thought about how to abduct easy victims. He wondered if any of
the victims carried address books. Ted knew that the telephone was the perfect way to anonymously and facelessly set up a safe rendezvous. In an even more frightening portrait of a predator exploiting his victims’ abilities to find new prey for him, Ted suggested that the Riverman was asking those he abducted for names of friends and for places where they might hang out in order to supplement his existing knowledge of the scene, which he was always looking to expand.
The lapse of time between a person’s disappearance and the time the body was dumped or buried was very important to Ted because it revealed insight into the Riverman’s living situation. Simply stated, if several days elapsed, then a strong inference could be made that the Riverman lived alone in an apartment or house that afforded some privacy, especially for entering and exiting, just like Ted’s apartment near the University of Washington. We had a hard time following up on this possible lead because in 100 percent of the Green River cases, that crucial period of time was unknown.
Next, Ted wondered if any of the girls the Riverman had killed didn’t fit the model of his typical victim. If there were those types of victims, Ted hypothesized that maybe the killer changed his tastes occasionally or made a mistake, thinking one of those exceptional victims was something she wasn’t. Ted also cautioned us not to limit the description of the victims to prostitutes, since the Riverman might have been looking for a general type, rather than someone who was actually a prostitute. Ted believed that the Riverman was hunting for young women who exhibited a certain range of characteristics, possibly a display of sexual promiscuity, which prostitutes as well as hitchhikers, runaways, and barflies demonstrated. More important, Ted pointed out that the Riverman focused on a kind of place or situation, as well as specific victim types. Occasionally, a hapless victim strayed into a situation or place and she was close enough to the Riverman’s profile for him to move on her. Ted emphatically explained that should the Riverman abduct more than prostitutes, then obviously his approaches, lures, and modus operandi were flexible and not tailored specifically to prostitutes. Ted predicted that the Riverman would expand the pool of women he was interested in, but for now he would continue with his present selection pattern.
The space of time between each of the Riverman’s murders was vital to Ted’s understanding of the factors that influenced the killer’s behavior. Ted surmised that when and how often the Riverman abducted his victim depended on what he called internal and external factors. The killer’s need to abduct, the time spans between which might vary and be separated by long periods of time, was an internal factor. External factors, such as the demands of family, job, or school, also came into play. Therefore, the pattern of victim’s disappearance—in the daytime or nighttime, during weekdays or on weekend—would probably reveal work schedules and family responsibilities the killer had. Ted believed that a close analysis of when the Riverman abducted his victims would give insight into his mind and lifestyle. As it turned out Bundy was dead right on this call.
Ted called the whole business about when, where, and how the Riverman abducted his victims the “front end” process. Ted admitted that all the various questions, hypotheses, speculation, lines of investigation, and possible clues were mind-boggling. But the investigation of the body recovery sites, or what Ted called the “back end” process, was just the opposite. Ted believed that the where, when, how, and why of the sites were much less of a mystery and, not coincidentally, offered us the best clues and trap to catch our man red-handed.
Ted most strongly advised that we stake out a newly discovered victim dump site to catch the Riverman. Ted could not think of any objection to his tactic, emphasizing that if the site had a fresh victim, the Riverman was sure to return. Ted was so certain of this because that’s exactly what he had done—he had returned to old dumping sites, over and over again.
Ted divided his plan for surveillance of the fresh dump site into two parts. The first involved those actions of approaching and determining if a fresh find was indeed a Green River victim, and the second was the full-scale surveillance of that site.
Part one of Ted’s plan required that the newly discovered body be kept secret; that would be achieved by sequestering those who found the body. Ted recommended using land-based telephone lines instead of police radio frequencies for communication among task force members to avoid alerting the news media at all costs. Reporters and helicopter news units were all equipped with police band scanners and would phone in any body discovery message to their stations for broadcast. If the Riverman was anything like Ted, he’d surely be watching the five-o’clock news.
The next step of Ted’s plan was to rapidly deploy surveillance teams and equipment to the area and debrief those who had found the body. A review of detailed maps of the area with witnesses would also be required, with initial surveillance posts identified. Teams would take up positions to monitor traffic in the area by recording license plate numbers and types of vehicles traveling key roadways near the site. Team members would be dressed as civilians, and would drive to posts in old, beat-up four-wheelers, pickups, and station wagons. Ted advised that officers should never survey the area from a vehicle and that no officer should have to seek camouflaged cover. And, he stressed, officers should leave no vehicles in the area, nor should people be taxied in and out by police in uniform.
The last phase of part one of Ted’s plan called for a survey team to view the site and determine if it was a Green River site. If it was determined as such, then part two, a full-scale stakeout, would be enacted. As Ted explained part two to us, he warned us about what we should expect from the Riverman. Ted believed the Riverman would first drive by the general area of the site a few times. He might park some distance from the site and hike in. Undoubtedly, the Riverman would closely examine all activity and vehicles in the area before moving in, Ted said. If the Riverman returned to the site with another body, he would drive as close to the site as he could at a time when there was the least amount of activity in the area. And finally, he could be expected to turn up at the site at any time, probably on foot. Ted’s surveillance theory was wonderful except for the fact that we hadn’t found a fresh body at the 20 or so sites we had discovered up to that time. And the way the cases seemed to have petered out, it didn’t look like we would find any new victims there.
Ted closed the second letter by taunting us with what he thought we would be interested in, and he was right. He said that his other ideas included a method of getting the Riverman to come to us, ways of hunting for his dump sites, and his own profile of the Riverman.
Ted Bundy as the Living Witness
Ted’s communication revealed a great deal about his own behavior, in addition to his thoughts about what the Riverman was like. We felt Ted couldn’t talk about the Riverman’s behavior without detailing some of his own experiences. It was almost as though Ted wanted to use the first person rather than the third person to describe the Riverman because he felt he knew the Riverman so well. He crept inside the killer’s mind. These were Ted’s experiences, we believed, lusts and predatory strategies that control-type serial killers shared, not with each other directly, but from a pool common to all of them. From what Ted said, we discerned that each serial killer recognized an “other” on sight, either by description or through perception, and could relay through “others” the things that he couldn’t say at first about himself. It seemed like Ted was able to animate the Riverman as a presence, bring him to life in a way that we couldn’t, see through his eyes, and walk in his foot-steps. That was why it was as if Ted were talking to us at first in a language we couldn’t translate. And that was why it became clear to me that I had to lay the groundwork for confronting him face-to-face—not only to get Ted’s help in finding the Riverman, but also to get the confessions we so desperately wanted from Ted himself.
8
Innocent Victims
The city of Starke, Florida, was the home of the Florida State Penitentiary, a kind of Serial-Killer Central where some of the
South’s most notorious multiple murderers were waiting on death row to have a seat in Florida’s equally infamous electric chair—“Old Sparky.” Dave Reichert and I had the privilege of visiting the town and the prison to make face-to-face contact with Ted Bundy. We had booked a room at the Econoline Lodge, which was about two steps lower than a Motel 6 and our home for two days. We didn’t want our presence to become general knowledge, so we registered under Dave Reichert’s name—the lower our profile the better. If anyone caught wind that we were interviewing Bundy, members of the news media would have flocked to the prison like ants on a bird’s carcass, and that was the last thing we wanted.
But Dave Reichert was an iron-pumping fanatic whose body-builder’s physique was something to envy. He had carted his dumb-bell weights, boom box, and aerobic tapes all the way from Seattle to Starke. While we waited through the hours early in the day before seeing Ted, an upbeat Reichert set up his weights on the motel’s lawn to work out in the Florida sunshine. With his well-developed body rocking on the lawn to an aerobic tape that boomed through the oversized speakers and his weight-lifting technique that made him look more like machine than man, Reichert captivated the attention of the housekeepers, who were peeking out of windows or standing outside instead of cleaning rooms, asking, “Who is this hunk?” Word spread fast among the motel employees about the bodybuilder who’d just checked in. It didn’t take them long to get his name from the front desk and show him their appreciation for the show he’d put on that day. When we left to have dinner and returned later that afternoon, I noticed that the front marquee brightly displayed WELCOME, DAVE REICHERT. So much for incognito. I asked Dave to request that the greeting be removed.
The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer Page 24