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

by Robert Keppel; William J. Birnes; Ann Rule

  Jane Doe “B10”

  On March 21, 1984, a dog belonging to the Highline Baseball Field caretaker brought home a human femur. The caretaker called police, and a search began of a swampy, wooded area behind center field at the westernmost baseball diamond, just west of the intersection of 16th Avenue South and South 146th Street. This was a half-mile from where Ridgway killed Shawnda Summers and dumped her body in October 1982.

  Over the next few days, police recovered the skeletal remains of Jane Doe “B10.” As searching began on the second day, a bloodhound found the remains of yet a third victim, Cheryl Wims, 200 yards to the north of the crime scene. Repeated attempts by investigators to identify Jane Doe “B10” have been unsuccessful to this day. A forensic anthropologist concluded that the remains were those of a left-handed Caucasian female who stood about 5 feet 2 inches to 5 feet 7 inches and had a healed fracture in her skull. She was about 15 years old.

  On the first day of interviews with task force detectives, Ridgway admitted killing a woman near the baseball fields off Des Moines Way. He thought she was Caucasian, in her early twenties, and had brown hair. He thought he picked her up in the Riverton (Tukwila) area. He said he killed her during the day and wanted to make certain she was dead, because he had attempted to kill another woman nearby, which person is still unidentified, but she had escaped.

  Over the course of interviews, Ridgway made contradictory statements about whether he returned to have sex with the unidentified woman’s corpse. Police took Ridgway to the North Airport site in June 2003. After some initial confusion, he pointed to the area where Jane Doe “B10” was found.

  Cheryl Wims

  Approximately seven months after Ridgway killed Shawnda Summers, on May 23, 1983, Cheryl Wims disappeared from the streets of central Seattle near Judkins Playground. According to her friends, she was involved with prostitution. She would also frequently hitchhike and was not particularly careful about the people from whom she accepted rides. Cheryl Wims was murdered on her eighteenth birthday.

  Ridgway was on strike from Kenworth during May 1983 and was very active in his quest for victims. He killed a number of other women during that month, including Carol Christensen, Carrie Rois, Martina Authorlee, and Yvonne Antosh.

  On March 22, 1984, police discovered Cheryl’s remains a few hundred feet from Jane Doe “B10” and a half-mile from Shawnda Summers.

  In 2003, Ridgway first claimed that he dumped only one victim near the baseball fields near Des Moines Way. This was Jane Doe “B10.” After a task force detective informed Ridgway that there was a second body found at the ball fields, he admitted that he did not keep track of the number of victims he killed there.

  Detectives took him to the dump site. Ridgway said the visit jogged his memory and admitted he had killed and left another woman near the baseball fields. Ridgway later recalled walking with a prostitute on the blacktop road just north of the ball field, stopping at a spot off the road, and killing her there. Aerial photos of the crime scene from March 1984 show a paved road slightly north of the baseball field running east to west. Cheryl was found underneath a large spruce tree just off this road. When shown these photos, Ridgway correctly identified where Cheryl’s body had been found.

  Ridgway said the woman he killed and left there was white even though Cheryl was a light-skinned African American, but he was unable to remember anything specific about her. As with virtually all the victims, Ridgway claimed not to recognize Cheryl’s photograph. He explained that, after killing 60 women, he could not describe her. He had a better memory for garbage that he noticed strewn along the road while walking with his victim than for the woman he’d killed.

  In the fall of 2003, Microtrace reported that paint fragments recovered with Cheryl’s remains are indistinguishable, even after multiple analyses, from paint recovered with the remains of Delores Williams and Tina Thompson, who disappeared in July 1983 and was found at Highway 18.

  Colleen Brockman

  On December 24, 1982, 15-year-old Colleen Brockman, a frequent runaway involved in prostitution, made plans to meet an acquaintance near the Greyhound bus depot in downtown Seattle. Colleen and her friend had checked into a motel in downtown Seattle the night before. They had last spoken to each other around nine A.M. on Christmas Eve and had planned to meet around noon. She never showed.

  A year and a half later, on May 26, 1984, three youths found Colleen’s remains in north Pierce County about 10 yards north from Jovita Boulevard in thick undergrowth. The remains were between the boulevard and a creek that paralleled the road. Also near Colleen’s body was a ditch that carried water from a culvert that passed underneath Jovita Boulevard. A piece of broken concrete culvert, approximately 24 inches in diameter and three feet long, was nearby. The King County Medical Examiner confirmed Colleen’s identity through dental records. Her braces were still on her teeth.

  In 2003, Ridgway admitted he killed a 16-year-old girl in Seattle around Christmas and dumped her body near Jovita Boulevard. He incorrectly identified the year, saying he believed he killed her in 1983 when it was actually Christmas Eve, 1982. Ridgway recalled that Colleen was white, and that she had about $20 on her. Detectives showed Ridgway a photo of Colleen, and he said he remembered the face and was 80 to 90 percent certain that it was the girl whom he killed and dumped near Jovita Boulevard. He said he could not recall whether she wore braces.

  Ridgway said he picked up Colleen in downtown Seattle, north of Chinatown, and killed her in the back of his truck. He remembered that as he strangled her, she begged for her life. He told her, “Don’t fight. I’m not gonna … I’ll let you go.” Then he put his foot into her neck and finished killing her.

  Ridgway said he drove to Jovita Boulevard, parked, and pulled the body 20 feet off the road. He recalled the culvert passing under Jovita Boulevard and described it as 24-inch “tunnel.”

  In June 2003, Ridgway led detectives to the Jovita Boulevard site. According to detectives accompanying him on this trip, Ridgway was able to direct them to within 150 feet of where Colleen’s remains were found.

  The Mountainview Cemetery Victims

  Kimi-Kai Pitsor

  On December 14, 1983, a man walking along Mountainview Drive made a frightening find: a human skull lying along the shoulder of the road. Beneath the skull was a pile of leaves, yet none covered the top, suggesting that the skull had only recently come to be in that location. The man called police. An extensive investigation followed resulting in the identification of the victim as Kimi-Kai Pitsor.

  Eight months earlier, in April 1983, 16-year-old Kimi-Kai disappeared. She was last known to have been in the downtown Seattle area with her boyfriend. According to the boyfriend’s statement to police, he and Kimi-Kai had a disagreement over their relationship, and she ran off and jumped into an older green Ford pickup truck. The boyfriend hinted that Kimi-Kai was intending to engage in prostitution with the driver of the truck. He waited in the area for her to return but she was never seen again.

  After her skull was found, task force detectives were dispatched to the scene, determined that the skull was found some two feet inside the King County line, and assumed responsibility for the case. By that time—December 1983—the local law enforcement agencies were fully aware that a serial killer was working in the area, targeting prostitutes and leaving their bodies in remote outdoor areas. Despite a further search of the area, no additional bones were found.

  Two years later, in December 1985, the rest of Kimi-Kai’s remains were discovered, along with the remains of two other victims, in a dump site down a steep slope across from Mountainview Cemetery. Kimi-Kai’s case was added to a growing number of victims of the Green River Killer.

  Her case was different, however, because there was a potential witness. Kimi-Kai’s boyfriend might have seen the killer, and provided detectives with a description of the man last seen with her. In 1987, when task force detectives began focusing on Ridgway as a suspect, the boyfriend was shown a photographic m
ontage that included Ridgway’s photograph. With some uncertainty, the boyfriend identified Ridgway as the man driving the pickup truck. However, he qualified his identification: he was not “one thousand percent” sure. Moreover, none of Ridgway’s trucks matched the description of the truck seen by the boyfriend.

  In June 2003, Ridgway admitted killing Kimi-Kai. He said that he had picked her up in his girlfriend’s truck. Ridgway’s girlfriend at the time owned a light green 1970s Ford pickup truck with a silver canopy. Ridgway had a fairly clear memory of the events surrounding the murder of Kimi-Kai. On the night he killed her, Ridgway said, he was frustrated because he had a strong desire to kill a woman and “couldn’t find one.” When he spotted Kimi-Kai, he also saw her boyfriend. Ridgway said he was so desperate for a kill that he broke his cardinal rule: never pick up a victim in the presence of a witness. Ridgway said he drove around the corner, and, as he hoped, Kimi-Kai came to his truck. He said she agreed to date him at his house in south Seattle after he promised her he would drive her back downtown after the date. This, of course, was a hollow promise.

  There’s no way I’m going to waste my time having sex with her, pay her $40, or $30 or $60 or whatever. And then drive her all the way back into Seattle. That’s something I wouldn’t do. I would get her there and kill her. I’m not going to waste my money driving all the way back.

  True to his priorities, Ridgway said he had sex with Kimi-Kai, killer her, put her body in the truck, drove to Mountainview Cemetery, and dumped her body.

  Ridgway provided conflicting explanations for the discovery of Kimi-Kai’s skull by the side of the road in December 1983. First, Ridgway suggested that he picked up her skull intending to take it to Oregon with the remains of Denise Bush and Shirley Sherrill. While retrieving Kimi-Kai’s skull, Ridgway said he dropped it and could not find it in the dark. However, in later interviews, Ridgway acknowledged that he had not intended to take the skull to Oregon, but that he had moved it simply to “throw off” the police. After retrieving the skull, he said, he accidentally dropped it while making his way back up the steep hillside. When he tried to locate the skull, his flashlight batteries died. Although he felt around on the ground, he could not find the skull. Eventually, Ridgway said, he gave up the effort and left.

  Questioned further about his motives for moving the skull, Ridgway explained that if the skull was found in a place like someone’s yard, the task force would waste time and manpower searching the area for the remaining missing bones. “[T]hey’ll waste all kind of man hours thinking the rest of the body’s in there.”

  Jane Doe “B16” and Jane Doe “B17”

  On December 30, 1985, two years after Kimi-Kai’s skull was found, task force detectives returned to Mountainview Drive, where a car had gone off the road and down a steep embankment several hundred yards from the place where Kimi-Kai’s skull had been found. Two men employed at the cemetery went down to look at the wrecked car and discovered what appeared to be human bones. When the task force detectives arrived, they immediately realized that this was another dump site. The bones found by the cemetery workers were obviously not those of Kimi-Kai Pitsor because they found another skull, indicating that they had located the remains of another person.

  For the next week, detectives scoured the hillside in search of further evidence. When the search was over, they had found a total of three sets of skeletal remains. One of the remains proved by radiographic examination to be the rest of Kimi-Kai Pitsor. The other two bodies, despite extensive efforts, remain unidentified. They have been designated Jane Doe “B16” and Jane Doe “B17.”

  Although these skeletal remains have not been identified, both were young women. A forensic anthropologist’s examination revealed that Jane Doe “B16” was an African American woman between the age of 20 and 25. She was approximately 5 foot 1 inch to 5 foot 4 inches tall. Her body had been placed along a large fallen log.

  Some 40 to 50 feet uphill east from Jane Doe “B16” were the remains of Jane Doe “B17.” She was lying at the foot of a very large rotten stump on the peak of a ridge. The forensic anthropologist concluded that she was a Caucasian, between 5 foot 4 inches and 5 foot 8 inches tall. She was between 14 and 17 years old.

  Two hundred and fifty yards to the west of these two young women, detectives found the remains of Kimi-Kai Pitsor. She was located about 100 yards from Mountainview Drive and approximately 100 yards from where her skull was found.

  Over the course of the next 15 years, numerous attempts were made to identify the two young women found along Mountainview Drive. Leads relating to Kimi-Kai’s disappearance were likewise investigated but never led any further than the tentative identification of defendant Ridgway. The cases remained open, but “cold.”

  In 2003, Ridgway admitted murdering Kimi-Kai Pitsor and dumping her at the Mountainview site. When he was questioned about the other two unidentified remains, he claimed that he could not recall any specifics about them other than to say that he thought he killed one of the women before Kimi-Kai and one after her. Ridgway said that he staggered their bodies along the hillside, which was consistent with the way the remains were found.

  Ridgway was asked why and how he chose the Mountainview site. He said that he drove up the road and thought, “There’s a fantastic bank and trees. Just an excellent place to dump a woman and I can see ahead when I drop her off.” According to his ex-wife, Ridgway knew the road well. During their marriage the couple lived in the Twin Lakes area, and Ridgway drove past the cemetery on his way to work at the Kenworth plant.

  Investigators asked Ridgway to direct them to the location where he placed the bodies at Mountainview. Ridgway did so and identified the precise location where investigators had found the three sets of remains. Ridgway correctly recalled that he placed two of the bodies closer together and a third some distance away.

  Marie Malvar

  In April 1983, 18-year-old Marie Malvar lived in Des Moines, King County. On April 30, 1983, she went out to Pacific Highway South to work as a prostitute. Marie’s boyfriend saw her get into a dark-colored pickup truck, occupied by a single adult male driver, at a bus stop near a 7-Eleven at South 216th and Pacific Highway South. After Marie got into the truck, the boyfriend got in his car and followed the truck as it traveled northbound on Pacific Highway South. The truck pulled over into a motel parking lot, turned around, and headed southbound on Pacific Highway South. The truck then turned left going eastbound onto South 216th. The boyfriend lost track of the truck at that intersection. Marie was never seen again.

  The intersection at South 216th and Pacific Highway South where her boyfriend last saw Marie is exactly where, just a few weeks earlier, on April 8, Gail Mathews’s boyfriend saw her for the last time. Exactly like Marie, Gail was in a pickup truck heading eastbound on South 216th.

  At the time, Ridgway lived one block south of South 216th, off of Military Road. Military Road is east of Pacific Highway South. Ridgway lived a little more than half a mile from the intersection where Gail and Marie were last seen, and South 216th is the most direct route to Ridgway’s house from that section of Pacific Highway South.

  Three days later, on May 3, 1983, Marie’s boyfriend reported to the Des Moines Police Department that she was missing. Initially, he lied to police, reporting that he had last seen Marie at their residence and that she was on her way to a phone booth on Pacific Highway South. The next day, on May 4, 1983, the boyfriend admitted that he knew Marie was working as a prostitute and that he last saw her being picked up by a trick. He described the trick as a 42-year-old Mexican or Indian male driving a black pickup truck. Later that day, the boyfriend returned to the police station and reported that he had searched the neighborhoods around South 216th and Pacific Highway South and thought he had found the truck that Marie had entered. The truck was Ridgway’s maroon 1975 Dodge pickup. When Marie’s boyfriend saw the truck, it was parked outside Ridgway’s house at 21859 32nd Place South.

  Two Des Moines detectives went to Ridgway
’s residence that day, noticed Ridgway’s Dodge pickup in the driveway, and contacted him. He admitted that he had been arrested for picking up prostitutes in the past, but denied picking up Marie. He also claimed that he had been unemployed for the last year (he was actually on strike from Kenworth).

  Several weeks later, on May 27, 1983, an airport worker discovered Marie’s driver’s license at the Sea-Tac Airport. In the years following Marie’s disappearance, as in the cases of many of Ridgway’s other victims, there were many reported sightings of her. Tips came in that Marie had moved to Hawaii and dyed her hair blonde or that she was working in Hollywood. In February 1985, her family reported that they had heard the rumors that she was in Hollywood, Long Beach, or Tacoma and expressed their belief that she was still alive. In 1986, one tipster claimed to have been with one of Marie’s brothers when Marie had called from California.

  Despite investigation, none of these tips were ever confirmed. Marie’s boyfriend later provided several statements concerning Marie’s last day, and even underwent hypnosis by a psychiatrist retained by the task force in an effort to recall additional details about the man in the truck. None of the later descriptions or details provided any further connection to Ridgway.

  In 2003, Ridgway admitted killing Marie. He said he picked her up, drove her to his house, and killed her there. Ridgway said that Marie fought him, scratching him badly on his inner left arm. Ridgway recalled that he was worried about the scratches when the Des Moines detectives came to his house on May 4, 1983. He said he stood against the fence in his yard to conceal them from the police. Ridgway later attempted to disguise the scratches by burning his arm with battery acid; those scars are still visible today. Ridgway had first claimed that he received the scar from some pimps, but quickly retracted this lie. Ridgway admitted taking Marie’s driver’s license and putting it on the floor in the airport. He said he did so to make it look like she left the state.