The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer
Page 34
“Yeah, Ninetieth and Aurora on December seventh,” Dave volunteered when he didn’t need to. I would have pulled his plug if I could have to keep him from giving Ted any information.
Glancing at the photo of the Devine body, Ted reverted to his mode of speaking hypothetically, like he usually did when we got too close to his cases. “Well, the obvious presence of clothing. ’Course, this was ten, eleven years ago, and they’re apt to change and will change as he discovers what works and what doesn’t, and studies—but the way the jeans are cut, that’s kind of unique.”
Cautiously, Dave continued by asking, “What are your impressions of the kind of guy that would have done something like this as compared to what we’re looking at?”
Ted was about to reveal an important concept, yet to be written up in any homicide literature at the time. This concept would upset modus operandi purists, those who believed that the characteristics of one murder must be replicated in another in order for both to have been committed by the same person. Ted said, “If he’s capable of it, he’s had ten years to change his M.O. and his—whatever you call them—fetishes or his rituals or his fantasies will change every time, too. So he might be taking the girls’ clothes over one period of time or not. He might be subjecting them to a certain type of abuse at one period and changing the next time. There’s no question about that.”
Dave sustained the hypothetical tone by stating, “But let’s say that our Green River person did this one, but, as you said, his M.O. is different. What was going through his mind back then, you know, just from your impressions of the photographs you looked at? I know it’s kind of difficult when you’re looking at black-and-white photographs, but what do you think his mind is doing then?”
“Well, that’s not much to work with,” Ted pleaded.
“You got the torn or cut pants,” Dave added.
“Oh, yeah. The whys of the cut pants are bizarre. And I don’t know what the autopsy revealed in terms of the presence of semen or any other marks on the body. The cut pants are really odd, boy. You know. Why? Why they’re cut? I don’t think they’re ripped. I think they are cut, unless he performed some sort of sex act right before or right after he left her there and came back and ripped her pants in order to do that. But that’s a little hard to figure. I mean, he didn’t have to hurry. He obviously had control of the situation. So, that’s a little bit bizarre.”
Up to this point, cutting pants and mutilating bodies were classified by Ted as bizarre. But what was most bizarre was the sight of a serial killer in captivity looking at a photograph of what might well have been one of his own kills. From somewhere deep in the recesses of his memory and driven by the still-living sexual lust within him, Ted seemed to be projecting his own motive and patterns onto a phantom killer who was lurking, even then, in the shadows of the Northwestern forests over 3,000 miles away.
10
“The River Was His Friend”
Ted Bundy was downright exhilarated as he described how the Green River Killer might have dumped his victims. When Ted talked about dump sites, he had a fire of excitement charging through his body that was not there when he was talking about abduction sites. His lightninglike hand gestures and his shifting body movements made to emphasize his points reflected his intense pre-occupation with the dump sites. It was almost as if he were there and enjoying every minute of it. These moments illustrated that Bundy and the Riverman shared a common fascination with the corpses of their respective victims. It was from sharing a similar experience that Bundy was able to sense how the Riverman had preselected his body recovery sites as a function of his own common sense, choosing them only after extensive trial and error in sampling many sites.
Theories of Dump Sites
Ted began the conversation about dump sites by coyly explaining that he did not want to talk about what we had already considered. “Generally speaking, it’s hard to say. It’s all speculation. I’m sure you’ve gone over this a thousand times. But for prostitutes missing from downtown Seattle, there isn’t an obviously good, close site where he can just drop them off. He’s got to go somewhere. Therefore, he has driven to Interstate Five, more than likely heading south. Then he easily dropped off victims on the roads that intersected I-Five as he did with Delores Williams along Star Lake Road.”
It seemed that the killer’s direction of travel was an important point in the case for Ted, especially since heading south fit Ted’s pet theory that the killer lived in the Tacoma area, south of Seattle. Ted supported his point by arguing, “He dropped off Pitsor on the Mount View Cemetery Road and Colleen Brockman on Jovita Road, both locations on the way from Seattle to Tacoma. Also, he had traveled east on Interstate Ninety and dropped off Agisheff on Highway 18 and Yates along I-Ninety near exit 38. Other victims were deposited in that same general vicinity. And, of course, Snoqualmie Pass along Interstate Ninety has gotten a reputation for that kind of activity, and perhaps that’s what attracted him there.” Ted had often said that killers learned from previous experiences, and based upon this fact, the Green River Killer would know to dump his victims along I-90 just as Ted had.
Ted had analyzed the dates when each victim was dumped in a specific location. He particularly noted that Abernathy’s and Bello’s remains were found “way out along Highway 410, over thirty-five miles from where they were last seen in downtown Seattle. They were missing toward the tail end of nineteen eighty-three, one in September and one in October. That was about the time that task force members found several bodies that autumn in locations where the Riverman had previously dumped victims, such as along the Star Lake Road and from around the airport strip.” So Ted surmised that the killer would naturally change locations, because he never returned to dump a victim in a location that had previously been found by the police. It was too risky.
With the keen perception of one who had evaded police for years, Ted said, “And I bet he was getting nervous. He said, ‘God damn, they’re starting to find my bodies again.’” Ted seemed to love speaking as if he were the Green River Killer. It was eerie, particularly after the years we spent on his trail, to hear him speak in the killer’s voice. Ted didn’t want to confuse us with his eagerness to explain and he hastened to add, “It’s kind of fascinating to see how this unfolds, and I’m probably running ahead of myself. If I’m confusing you, please ask me questions, but just looking at how this unfolded—I see here by the dates that you found the first five real quick—Coffield, Bonner, Chapman, Hinds, and Mills.” Ted was desperate to answer our questions at this point and responded to them rapidly, without a moment’s hesitation.
Ted tried to prove his point that as the Green River Killer progressed, he became a more efficient killer. “You can see, he changes. Due to the five discoveries, he’s obviously not going to use the Green River anymore, at least not for a while. It was his friend for a period of time. He’s looking for something that’s more effective, so he goes back to dry land with his sixth victim.”
After August 15, 1982, the date Opal Mills was found on the bank of the Green River directly above two other victims who were in the river, the Riverman dumped Giselle Lovvorn, his next victim, on dry land. Ted said, “And Lovvorn is found in September, but still he sticks to these dry land sites with his subsequent victims.” By continuing to dump victims on dry land, the Riverman, Ted believed, had learned that the victim’s remains were not immediately discovered, like those found in the river. Also, when the victims were found, they were nothing more than skeletons and the killer surely took note that this type of dumping provided less physical evidence that could link him to his kills.
Ted was somewhat patronizing when he spoke of his analysis of the cases, saying, “I was able to more deliberately analyze it in my notes here. What I’m saying is, between September of eighty-two and May of eighty-three, you didn’t find any bodies. So, in his mind, he was effective, and he killed how many between those months? You got a whole mess of them that were not found until much later.
Ted enjoyed the hypothetical question because it gave him a chance to make us think that he was guessing, so I asked him, “Let’s say he’s still in the Seattle area and is continuing to kill. Okay? And we found Abernathy and Bello out there, great distances from where they were last seen. What do you think the Riverman’s next step will be?”
Without hesitation, Ted responded, “Well, go with what was working. And, you know, he moved up east of Enumclaw, thirty-five miles from Seattle, to dispose of victims. He’s going deeper into the mountains. He’s trying something new. He’s trying something different. You found three up east of Enumclaw. He probably won’t be going up there anymore, assuming he has been going up there. Obviously, he was up there for a time, and I’ll bet you’ll find another or more up there. At least, in my opinion, four or five more.”
Ted never gave us the credit for finding all the victims dumped in a particular location. According to him, there were always more. Eerily, Ted’s predictions were correct for the dump sites near the Intersection of I-90 and Highway 18 and at the south airport area. More bodies—presumably those of additional Riverman victims—were found in those areas long after our conversations with Ted had ended.
Dave Reichert was concerned about where the Riverman would dump future victims. He asked, “You think he’ll go further east on I-90?”
Ted’s response was somewhat of a surprise since the Riverman had murdered at least 40 women. “Who knows? This guy is learning! He’s trying to find the best way to dispose of those bodies he can think of. He’s just been dumping them in one way or another. He’s burying some, but God forbid someday he finds a secluded well somewhere that no one can stumble across and starts dumping them all down the well, or finding some other effective way, such as burying them in a basement like the gentleman Gacy.” Ted referred to his fellow serial killers as gentlemen, apparently holding them in high esteem. “Because, quite frankly, I think we get a chance to catch him if we can start finding fresh bodies again without him getting the wiser.” Ted sometimes talked as though he was now one of us.
“Let’s see now, you found three bodies in October of eighty-three. And that bothered the hell out of him, I’m sure. ’Cause you found Antosh, Naon, and an unidentified set of bones, all in different locations. So, you know, I’m sure he was starting to get a little bit edgy about leaving any more bodies around in similar locations. I think that’s obvious enough. And it’s no accident that your next bodies, in terms of chronological disappearances, start to turn up near Enumclaw, a location far from your most recent discoveries. No doubt you have more remains in the recent area you haven’t discovered, but they’re your early victims you haven’t found.”
As it turned out, Ted’s predictions on this matter were way off base. He had just told us who we would find east of Enumclaw. But the Riverman’s early victims were not found there, but were later discovered near the Sea-Tac Airport strip.
Choosing Dump Sites
Feeling that Ted probably revisited the Issaquah and Taylor Mountain dump sites with bodies long after his first dump, I asked, “How familiar is he with his dump sites? Do you think they’re accidental finds?”
Emphatically, Ted proclaimed, “Oh, no, no, no, no. I think he’s pretty sure. The Riverman may not select his dump sites with the precision of a geographer or surveyor, but it’s clear that he’s searched down and looked them over in daytime and nighttime. They are places he’s been back to many times after, obviously—places he’s been back to many times.” At this point, I felt Ted was telling us that he, himself, returned many times to his own disposal sites. The excitement in Ted’s voice was a clue, perhaps, that body disposal sites were the location of his violent exhibitions. They were places where he believed he could commit whatever sexual acts he wanted on the bodies of his victims and not be discovered. No wonder he was so excited at the thought of secure dump sites. They held for him the thrill of a honeymoon cabin.
After we took time to flip the tape, Ted tried to systematize his thoughts. He was striving to express himself clearly. “This is just sort of a spontaneous dialogue we’re having here. I’m not approaching it in any organized fashion, and I’ll go over my notes later to see if I miss anything that I’d like to talk to you about,” he said.
I wanted Ted to refocus on the dump sites and tell us what the Riverman would be doing when he returned to them. Ted repeated my question by saying, “He does. He is returning to the dump sites, not just to bring bodies back, but probably in the interim. I think it’s a high probability that he’s returning, if only to drive by. He’s returning to check those dump sites out after he’s dumped a body there.”
Dave wanted to know if he would return after we found a victim. Resoundingly, Ted declared, “Oh no. He wouldn’t touch it with a ten-mile pole. You see, that’s the problem. Again, that’s a whole new subject on surveillance, and we’ll have to get back to that later. But the interesting thing about his dump sites is he uses more than one. He doesn’t put subsequent victims at one site all together and then move to another. Like, I have it in my notes somewhere, not all the girls who were found at one site disappeared sequentially, I don’t believe. They disappeared at different times. So he might dump one here and one there. He didn’t use some, you know, one, two, three, and then go over here one, two, three. He jumped back and forth. Why he did that, I don’t know. It seems a little bit inefficient, but that’s what he was doing. But he’s still coming back to them, obviously. And I think he’s coming back to look at the possibility for returning with more bodies. He’s also coming back to check out and see, you know, the condition of the body. He may be going back for whatever kick he gets out of it. You know, obviously, what he is doing is not normal, so you cannot apply normal standards to it. But my guess is he’s coming back, if just nothing more than just check the site out and drive by or see if it’s been discovered or see if it’s been disturbed. Okay?”
The Bodies Are Clean
Many of the dump site crime scenes offered no more tangible clues than anthropological digs by the time we got to them. Bones were the only remains found of most victims. Some bodies were stripped clean, either by animals or by the Riverman. There was no clothing, no jewelry.
Ted asked his own question. “Why is he doing that? He’s keeping it to a minimum amount of items found, I’d say. No fibers, no hairs. He may have a thing for clothes, but more than likely this guy doesn’t want to be caught. Leaving a victim nude is the best way to leave the least amount of evidence.”
Dave asked, “Do you think he’s saving any of that?”
Ted responded, “Who knows? That’s too hard to say. If he’s being that careful, probably unlikely, unless he really has some sort of thing. But he doesn’t seem like a mentally disturbed individual, somebody who’s just really bizarre. And he’s going about it in a very businesslike, very efficient, way. And I don’t think his type is going to keep anything, if he’s being so meticulous as to leave bodies without any clothing and to try to dispose of bodies as best he can, and he’s learning all the time how to do it better. The Riverman is not the kind of person who’s going to leave stuff around the house, I don’t think. I mean, that’s just my guess. He doesn’t want to get caught. He’s learning more and more. And I’d be fascinated to read a collection of news clippings over this time to see when the publicity, the intensity of publicity built up and receded, or when it intensified, and try to plot his activity, his intensity, his activity level with the publicity. Because the Riverman understands the difficulty of trying to do something when the public is aroused. And maybe that’s the one reason why in the past eight months or so you just really haven
’t heard a lot from him.”
The last known Green River victim was Cindy Smith, missing in March 1984, nine months before we met with Ted. I was curious if the formation of the Green River Murders Task Force two months earlier had any affect on the Riverman’s intensity.
“Oh, sure,” Ted answered. “And you found all those bodies in March and April. And that is the thing he does not like. And it caused him to reevaluate his entire strategy. If it didn’t make him move, it certainly made him rethink what he’s doing. It doesn’t make him stop. It just makes a difference.” Ted felt strongly about this, voicing throughout our conversations that the Riverman would never stop, no matter how many officers were trying to catch him.
Looking for Dump Sites
With that, Dave continued, “To find these sites that are really way out, how does he search for them? Do you think he’s got a reason to be out there? Do you think he’s found these sites before he picks his victim? Or do you think he’s picked up a victim in Seattle and then he’s driven off trying to find a spot?”
“Oh, I think the chances are in favor of him having been there at least before, probably looking for them deliberately,” Ted answered. “Well, I did some analyzing of the mass gravesites that you have on some maps I was sent. Looks like he certainly has returned to one site over and over again and that would lead me to believe that he’s looking for good places. And once he’s found one, he will keep going back to it. Generally, in fact, you see him changing all the time, like east of Enumclaw. He’s starting to spread them out rather than going back to one place again and again. But my guess is he has a type of area in mind. If he hasn’t picked it out before-hand and has a body in the trunk, then he knows what he’s looking for. If it’s not a specific area, like the Star Lake site that he already was leaving bodies at, and if he’s just completely at a loss as to where to drop the next one off, he may just start hunting on his own. But he has an idea of what he’s looking for. Like you say, the turnaround, the deserted areas, the dirt road, or whatever. I’d say that he certainly has in mind what he thinks will be an effective place to leave his victims’ bodies.”