With Ted’s suggestion that the publicity and the formation of the task force motivated the Riverman to move out of the area, Dave got the nod from me that it was time to change the subject. Ted would only say so much about a killer’s motivation before he realized he was talking too much about himself. So Dave changed the subject by asking, “Do you think this might be the type of person who would have to tell someone? Say he’s married; I’m not sure he’ll tell his wife. But let’s say he’s got a friend, a close friend; would he talk about it to somebody? Would he have a partner in this or do you think there’s just one person?”
Does the Killer Share His Confidence?
Ted appreciated the new question and turned to answer it with the confidence of complete understanding. “Good question. My best guess is that I don’t think he has to talk to anybody about it. Again, I would not want to assume that if he had, nobody would come forward, but quite frankly, it’s not too probable that he’ll ever want to talk to anybody about it. He’s well composed. This guy has gone for over a year and a half.”
“He’s keeping it all inside,” Dave offered.
“You can’t use labels,” Ted admonished. “He’s got himself under control, a certain amount of control.”
“How long can he keep that up, do you think?” retorted Dave.
“Until you catch him,” Ted stated, sarcastically.
Trying to maintain order in the interview and not play word games with Ted, Dave came back with, “Do you think that he’s going to be able to control himself indefinitely? Will he ever lose control or make a mistake somewhere?”
Apologetically, Ted recognized his flip attitude and simply commented, “Oh, I see what you mean. Good question. Sure, he can make mistakes. And—he has made mistakes.”
“Severe enough to get caught?” Dave asked.
“Oh, well. You know what law enforcement is. It’s oftentimes luck.” Ted was instructing us. He’d been there, he was there, a convicted killer who was highly experienced in the subject. “There’s no question in my mind that you have eyewitnesses all over, people who saw this guy and just don’t know what they’ve seen. The place is covered with eyewitnesses, people who saw him walk up to them, and it went right in through their eyes and right out the back of their heads. He is not a phantom. He is good. He is well composed, and he knows how to approach those people. He knows how to limit the risks, but there’s not a way to eliminate the risks. And, he’s able to do it. The main reason he’s been so successful, apart from his own canniness and wariness, is the fact of the kind of victims he’s dealing with. If he were snatching high-school girls, he would not have gotten as far as he’s gotten because of the nature of the victim. He’s successful because of the kind of victim he’s choosing. Again, if he decides to change his victim class, he’s going to have a lot more trouble. And the reason you don’t have a lot of eyewitnesses, I assume, you may have something along those lines. But the reason you don’t have anything really reliable is, because any time you have a space of days or weeks before the victim is reported missing and no publicity about the disappearance, there ain’t nobody coming forward. No, I don’t think he would have to tell anyone, and he will continue to do it. He will make mistakes, but he’s obviously covered his tracks.”
Since Ted was on a roll, I felt that it was time for him to tell us how to catch the Riverman. Seizing the moment, I cautiously asked, “Do you think there’s something that we can do to draw him to us, draw him out of the woodwork?”
Strategies to Catch the Riverman
As if he were just waiting for the chance to discuss this, Ted said, “Yes. Yes.” Then he explained, “I think there are a couple of things that may sound a little bit strange. But I’ll offer them to you for what they are worth. And my opinion about my ideas has changed radically and significantly. That is, I feel that if you find a fresh body—the likelihood of that happening is somewhat small—and if it looks like it’s a Green River victim, I’d put that site under surveillance. I wouldn’t move in. I think that that sounds a little bit odd to you. I got a twenty-page outline on why I think surveillance should be done and how it would be done. And, let me see if I can back up a little bit and try to make this sound a little bit more reasonable. First of all, I thought the guy was active as hell in eighty-four because there was all this stuff in the media about bodies being found. Well, now I understand that the bodies [showed that] the victims actually disappeared in eighty-three and eighty-two. So, on the surface, at least, he’s not as active in the same way as he was in eighty-two and eighty-three. That’s a fair statement.
“But let’s say, assuming sometime down the line you start to find more fresh bodies, you find a fresh body, somewhat fresh anyway. I would move in, secure the area, try to keep everything off the radio, and set up. I know it’s a lot more complicated than this, but set up a surveillance network on that area. Now you might want to move the body under cover of darkness, because, let’s face it, by the time your man comes back to that site, by the time he gets on top of that body, he’s already to the point where the body was and you’ve already got his number. You’re already going to be in on him. So the body doesn’t have to be there. If it has to be removed, I’d remove it. And I know the instincts that the police system moves in. Everybody is called in and scours the site. The explorer scouts crawl on their hands and knees, and this always fascinated me and appalled me, because I said, ‘Jesus Christ, if they’d only waited, they’d [have] found somebody. The guy would have come right up to them.’ In my opinion, the best chance you have of catching this guy red-handed is to get a site with a fresh body and stake it out. And I realize that you fight a lot of people who have conventional ideas, and they would object to that.”
Amazingly, while Ted was on a roll, talking profusely on a subject, a totally abstract question didn’t faze him. “How about computers?” I asked.
Dave was so enthralled with Ted and his steady flow of advice that he was oblivious to my question. Dave inquired, hypothetically, “How about this? You said there were probably several victims still out there on Highway 410 east of Enumclaw, and they’re going to be skeletal. Do you think he’s going back to the site of those three or to another site?”
“He’s not going back up on 410,” Ted reassured us.
“At all?” Dave questioned.
“No. I don’t think so,” Ted said. “Please don’t rely on me. But I think this guy is not going back up there, not for a while, not for a year or two.”
Knowing that Ted was ready for a question to reaffirm his beliefs, I posed, “You don’t think he has some curiosity as to what the police did to the area where he dumped those bodies?”
“Sure he does, but he’s a very wary character. I don’t mean to tell you that, but I don’t think he’d go back up there, not for a while. He’d balance out the risks first versus his curiosity,” Ted explained.
“In some cases, we found just a skull. We haven’t found the whole skeletal remains. Maybe he wants to find out if we actually found where he placed the body. Would he have that kind of interest?” Dave inquired.
“You got a point there. I would tend to say no because there are lots of other sites where there are remains which haven’t been found,” Ted explained. “If he wants to get his rocks off, he’ll go to those sites. He’s not a thrill-seeker in terms—I don’t think—of trying to tell the police. You may have information to the contrary. This guy doesn’t want to be caught. He doesn’t want to play around. He’s not Son of Sam and he’s not even the L.A. Hillside Strangler. He doesn’t want notoriety. That’s why he’s going to all these lengths to dispose of these people in the way that he has. Some people might read him entirely differently, and I’m just saying what I feel.”
Trying to give Ted the lead, I suggested, “I’m sure you understand what his instincts are.”
“I understand every single one,” Ted replied. “I believe one hundred percent, if this guy was still active and you were still finding fresh bod
ies in eighty-four, why, there’s no question in my mind if you staked out that site, you would snare this guy. There’s no doubt in my mind. Now he’s not as active. My opinion is slightly different, because you don’t know. All you’re finding is remains, and I doubt that he’s going back just to see bones. I have been referring to finding a fresh site, one that he’s actually using.”
Ted was hesitant to talk about what the Riverman might be doing at the site where a body was dumped. I wanted to press him, so I asked, “What do you mean when you say ‘using’? What’s he doing there? Is he just coming there to lay the body out and leave? Or is he there for a period of time?”
Temporarily, Ted avoided answering the questions completely but responded to them partially by saying, “It’s hard to say. My guess is that he is not there for a period of time. He’s coming back from time to time. I don’t say that he’s doing any elaborate ritual or anything, you know. I’m not suggesting that. But I am suggesting he’s coming back to check out the scene. You asked the question, ‘Would he come back after the police found the scene?’ And you cited some reasons why he might come back. Well, for the similar reasons, he would come back before the body was found. Perhaps, even if there were just remains, he would want to check to see what the conditions of the site were.” In keeping with his own necrophilic fantasies, Ted obligingly said, “Because again, he might be seeing if the body has been completely destroyed.”
“You think he talks to them when he leaves?” Dave pressed him with more things he might be doing at the scene.
Ted pushed his point aggressively as if he really were speaking from firsthand experience. “Oh, I’m not sure. But as far as coming back, generally speaking, especially for the recently disappeared victim, that he’s going to be coming back, one, either to look at the scene for whatever reason, like is that body still intact, or has it been disposed of by the predators in the area? Or two, for some other reason such as personal gratification or to dump another body. And some of these sites, of course, are single sites like Pitsor and Brockman. And the two east of Enumclaw are apparently single sites. But even so, I think he’s come and gone. It may be just nothing more than a drive-by, but I’ll tell you what. I know that a surveillance of a site can be accomplished. This guy is not Superman. He can’t see through the trees. He’s good, but he is not infallible. And I think you have the skill and the equipment to stake out a site for a period of time. You can sit on it and collect all kinds of information. If it’s just nothing more than just getting license plate numbers and makes and models of cars that drive by there that look kind of funny. But my guess is that if it’s a good site with a fresh body, you’re going to get more than a drive-by. You’re going to get the guy coming up to the site, on foot or in his car. I realize the stakeout is an enormous moral and logistical problem.”
At this point, Ted was focusing on bodies that were dumped in wooded areas, but the first five victims of the Riverman were found in or near the Green River. I wanted to determine if water sites were as significant to Ted as land sites. So I explained to him: “Coffield was the first victim found in the Green River in Kent police jurisdiction. The second one is Bonner, and she’s a King County police investigation. At the time we’re finding Bonner on August 12, Chapman, Hinds, and Mills are probably upstream in or near the river already. When we discovered Chapman, Hinds, and Mills on August 15, we set up a surveillance of the Frazier Road area, an asphalt road that borders the Green River. There was no surveillance for Bonner or Coffield on that road. What I’m wondering about, considering your theory, were these fresh enough?”
“Oh yeah. No question there,” Ted responded.
“It was immediate publicity that we found the bodies,” I reported. “We obtained over a hundred license plates of people that used that road. Channel Four Television’s helicopter crew filmed the surveillance crews and were shown on the five-o’clock news. What do you think the odds are that the Riverman’s license number was in that group?”
Ted commented that those in the river were a “little bit different than our terrestrial scene—a land dump site. Nevertheless, it’s a good possibility he’s coming by just to check things out to see if there’s any unusual activity. All right. Now, how much publicity was there about Bonner?”
“Well, there was a little more than usual because the news media had tried to make a connection between Bonner and Coffield since they were found so close together,” I answered.
“I mean, was it a big splashy thing? This guy is prone to attention,” volunteered Ted.
“It wasn’t headlines. It was probably in the Northwest section of the Times, at the most,” I replied.
Ted was almost patronizing in the way he brought us back to how to conduct surveillance. “About surveillance of that area. I think that I would go back and look at all your license plates and try to figure out where these cars are registered. You know, and I don’t need to tell you basic police stuff, but you know all this anyway. If there’s anything that’s really out of that area, you might want to ask yourself, ‘Well, what’s that car doing here on that road?’
“If I was the guy and was reading the newspapers and I knew on the twelfth that Bonner had been found and I had been there on the twelfth, I wouldn’t go back. But let’s say he misses that article—unlikely, but possible—if I were in your shoes, I would look at those hundred license plates. I think there’s an outside chance. If I was in your position, that’s what I would look at. And I might eliminate those that are the residents of that vicinity. But somebody that’s out of Pierce County or Snohomish County that’s driving along that road in that three-day period, then I would take a look at that person.”
I asked, “When we’re out at these sites processing the scenes, do you think when it’s finally released to the news media and there are broadcasts on radio and TV, he’d have the balls to get in his car to drive out there and drive by us?”
“That’s a good point,” Ted replied. “If he’s as sure as I think he is, I don’t think he would. But, you know, there are the arsonists types that like to light the fire and stand back and watch the people putting out the fire. You know, in terms of creating a situation where you might be able to draw the guy to you, that’s a good idea. But my guess is he wouldn’t come there. But I wouldn’t overlook it as one of the things he’d do.”
Ted was speaking now as if he himself had played the game he was telling us to play with the Riverman. Perhaps Ted had crossed paths with police units going to and from the dump sites and I still didn’t know it. But I believed he knew exactly what he was talking about as he described the Riverman’s private game of tag with the police and his dead victims. “Let me tell you where I’m coming from,” Ted said. “My emphasis is maybe too narrow, and I was saying surveillance of an undiscovered site that nobody knows about except for you and him. And that to me would be just an ideal situation, perhaps beyond anybody’s capacity to do. I don’t know. Beyond that, if that can’t be carried out, then an idea like you have might be next best step. Who knows, maybe he is a type that gets a kick out of driving a lot. The Riverman is not going to want to get near you, unless he is a little bit off and a thrill-seeker. But he doesn’t look like a thrill-seeker in terms of talking to his victims. Do you follow me?”
Of course I said yes.
Green River Killer’s Fantasies
Given only limited information, Ted tried desperately to analyze the Green River cases prospectively and retrospectively. Not only were we his only source of personal approval and validation at this point in his life, we were bringing hot information about a subject that absolutely thrilled him: murder accompanied by sexual deviance. Therefore, because he wanted to please us as much as possible to keep this relationship going, he volunteered his wildest notion. “I mentioned earlier that I looked at the Green River situation and tried to imagine what’s going through the Riverman’s head. There’s obviously the link between sex and violence. It was not a sexual act or a violent act, per se
, although there is a relationship here. And who knows what factors combine to cause a person to reach this point, where he acts out the way he does. But I think it’s safe to say that the guy fantasizes a lot. That is, he finds ways of vicariously experiencing the thing that gets him off, which is killing young women in this case. One reason for doing it vicariously is, it’s safer. It’s a lot safer sometimes to read a book or go to a movie and maybe a lot more convenient than to run out and actually do it. Let me give you an analogy. You have hobbies, and you’re a skier or a fisherman. I used to be a skier. My hobby is skiing, so when I read magazines, I read something about skiing. I subscribed to Skiing magazine. I always watched the Warren Miller film that came out every fall. And so, that was one way of me vicariously enjoying something that I enjoyed doing. But being able to watch or read about other people is part of the hobby, a fantasy satisfaction. So I think it’s safe to say, in my opinion, if you follow what I’m saying here, the guy who’s killing his women, it’s like a hobby to him.
“Well, it may be more than that. It may be an obsession. But just like anybody else who has an obsession, whether it be fishing, bowling, or skiing, he has ways he can vicariously satisfy it. Maybe he is going to peep shows and reading detective magazines. I think there’s an excellent chance that one way he gets off is by going to look at what they call the slasher films. And I know it sounds weird. Years ago I read about a psychiatrist who said, ‘If you could only photograph everybody who came out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you would have a mug book of all the active violent offenders against women in that particular area.’ And I would have to say that he was right on the mark, generally speaking. And, if I ran up against a dead end in this case and I was really looking for and developing some new exciting leads, first I [would say], ‘Well, how will I take this idea that, in fact, people who want to act out violently also get a thrill out of indulging their fantasies through vicarious means, through media, through books and magazines and films and TV? How could it be done to turn this into an actual technique for developing possible suspects, in this case even?’And [then] I [say], you know, ‘Have a slasher film festival.’”
The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer Page 29