Ridgway claimed that he could not recall any details about Marta or her murder. He first told detectives that the victim was black and that he killed her in the early 1980s. When told that Marta went missing in 1990 and that she was white, not black, Ridgway acknowledged, “I killed the one on the loop road. And I just, you know, I killed so many of them, so I had to kind of guess if she was white or black.” He later added, “I get screwed up on time frames.” Finally, Ridgway admitted placing a woman’s driver’s license in a mailbox on one or two occasions. When asked to explain why he did this, Ridgway could only respond, “I don’t know, get back at the family or somethin’, I don’t know.”
Marta was not initially listed as an “official” Green River victim, but was added to the list of Ridgway’s victims after he confessed to the crime.
Yvonne Antosh
Nineteen-year-old Yvonne “Shelly” Antosh was last seen on May 31, 1983, at about eleven P.M., when she left the Ben Carol Motel on Pacific Highway South. She and a childhood friend had come to Seattle from Vancouver, British Columbia, and the two were staying together. Shelly had been involved in prostitution for just a few weeks when she crossed Ridgway’s path. The night Shelly disappeared, Ridgway made a cash withdrawal for $20 on Pacific Highway South at 11:44 P.M. This was an especially active period for Ridgway, who was on strike for most of May 1983, and he devoted this time to what he called his “career.” During that month, he killed Shelly, Carol Christensen, Carrie Rois, Martina Authorlee, and Cheryl Wims.
In October 1983, two boys discovered Shelly’s remains about 25 to 30 yards downhill from the Auburn-Black Diamond Road, south of Big Soos Creek, in King County. She had been placed between two large alder trees. The area was heavily overgrown with swamp grass and other thick vegetation.
On the first day of interviews in 2003, Ridgway informed detectives that he had killed a woman and dumped her body along the Auburn-Black Diamond Road. He believed the task force had found the body. Ridgway indicated there were two bodies on the Auburn-Black Diamond Road, one of which he had placed “down a hill.” In 2003, police took Ridgway to the Auburn-Black Diamond Road area. According to detectives who were with him on this trip, Ridgway directed them to almost the exact location where Shelly’s remains were found. Ridgway could not provide any specific details concerning Shelly. He recalled that she was “just a white woman … picked her up on Highway 99 … or uh, maybe uh, the Central District.”
Ridgway also said he picked her up and killed her at night. He said he killed her in the bedroom of his house. Ridgway was vague on exactly how he killed her and vacillated between claiming that he killed her with his arm and that he used a ligature.
The Interstate 90 and Highway 18 Victims
Ridgway admitted that he dumped three victims, Tina Thompson, April Buttram, and Maureen Feeney, near the intersection of Interstate 90 and Highway 18. All three women worked as prostitutes and were killed within a span of approximately two months. In the 1980s, the task force recovered the remains of two of the women, Tina Thompson and Maureen Feeney. Their bodies were found across the street from each other. In 2003, based upon information provided by Ridgway, the police recovered remains of the third woman, April Buttram, who had been missing for twenty years.
Tina Thompson
Twenty-two-year-old Tina Thompson disappeared on or around Monday morning, July 25, 1983. She was staying at the Spruce Motel on Pacific Highway South and working as a prostitute. A fellow prostitute reported that their pimp had talked to Tina in the early hours of July 25, 1983, but was unsuccessful in reaching her again later that day. Tina was never reported missing to the police. Ridgway did not work Sunday, July 24, 1983, and arrived at work on July 25, 1983, at approximately 6:45 A.M.
On April 20, 1984, Tina’s remains were discovered near the intersection of Highway 18 and Interstate 90. Her clothing was missing and her body was wrapped in sheets of plastic. She remained unidentified until June 1986.
During interviews with the task force in 1986, Ridgway’s second wife reported that she and Ridgway had been to the area where Thompson’s body was later recovered. She recalled Ridgway’s stopping his vehicle and urinating there.
In 2003, Ridgway admitted killing Tina Thompson at night and leaving her body near Interstate 90 and Highway 18. He recalled killing her. He initially stated that he could not recognize her photo or remember exactly where he killed her.
Ridgway later recalled a victim who almost escaped him and suggested she was Tina. He said he was trying to strangle her in his bedroom, as was his practice, when she slipped away from him. He said he caught her just inside the front door, and killed her there. Ridgway recalled dumping a body at night at the location where Tina’s remains were found.
In June 2003, Ridgway directed the police to the “Leisure Time” dump site where the remains of another victim, April Buttram, were subsequently discovered. While at that scene, Ridgway offered to lead the detectives to a nearby location where, he said, he’d dumped two other bodies. Ridgway accurately directed the police to the area where Tina’s body had been discovered. He recalled correctly that he put her under some plastic that he found at the site.
Microtrace laboratory reported in Fall 2003 that paint fragments recovered with Tina’s remains are indistinguishable, even after multiple analyses, from paint recovered with the remains of Cheryl Wims, whose body was found at the North Airport dump site, and Delores Williams, whose body was found at Star Lake.
April Buttram
In July 1983, 17-year-old April Buttram left her home in Spokane and headed to Seattle. She shortly became involved in prostitution. Approximately one month later, she became a victim of the Green River Killer. In late August 1983, she disappeared and was never seen again. A significant obstacle to the investigation of April’s case, as it was with the cases of many other victims, was the inability to determine the exact date of her disappearance. She was arrested for prostitution on August 4, 1983, and released from juvenile detention on August 10, 1983. The police contacted her on Rainier Avenue South on August 18, 1983. Her pimp stated that he last saw her on Rainier Avenue South and believed that it was some time before September 1, 1983. He never reported her missing, claiming that he thought that she had run away. April’s mother reported her missing in March 1984.
Though her body had not been found, due to the circumstances and timing of her disappearance, she was added to the list of Green River victims.
As with other “missing” victims, numerous tips trickled in to the task force claiming that April was still alive. In July 1984, after a news release that April had been added to the list of victims, several individuals claimed that she was working as a prostitute in Tacoma and California. All these tips were investigated. None were ever confirmed.
In 2003, Ridgway admitted killing April. He claimed he recognized her picture and thought he’d picked her up on Rainier Avenue. Ridgway was not completely certain where he placed April’s body but suggested that he buried her under a fern near Lake Fenwick. However, he also stated that she might be the victim he placed at a site north of the intersection of Interstate 90 and Highway 18, referred to as the “Leisure Time” site because Leisure Time Resorts had a camp nearby. He also suggested that the woman he dumped at Leisure Time was someone other than April.
Ridgway said he recalled dumping a woman at the Leisure Time site after picking her up on Rainier Avenue. Ridgway claimed that he returned to the Leisure Time site in the spring of 1984, some eight months after dumping a body there. He said there were only a few bones left at the site, and he picked up the skull, which he transported along with bones from Denise Bush and Shirley Sherrill to Oregon on a weekend trip with his son in 1984. Ridgway reported that he left the skull near an exit off Interstate 5. He said he moved the bones because he thought they would be found and this discovery would confuse the task force. This skull has never been recovered.
Ridgway later joined Leisure Time Resorts specifically because he knew he had
placed a body nearby. “I, um, talked my parents into buying a membership, uh, of the campground there because I could always go up and walk that road and, uh, knowing that there’s a woman there,” he told interviewers.
He said that he and his current wife would camp in the area several times a year and walk their dogs on the road near the dump site. His son also recalled family walks along that road.
In June 2003, Ridgway was taken to the Leisure Time site, and he identified an area where he was “one hundred percent” certain that he had left a body. He claimed that the area was “grown up” and that the trees had been “baby trees” at the time he dumped a body. Historical aerial photographs from the early 1980s confirm that the area had been clear-cut before Ridgway dumped the body in 1983.
In late August and early September 2003, task force detectives conducted an extensive search of the area identified by Ridgway and recovered two human bones. A mtDNA profile was developed from the bones and the results proved it to be April Buttram’s.
Maureen Feeney
In August 1983, 19-year-old Maureen Feeney moved from Bellevue to an apartment in Seattle, and her lifestyle began to change dramatically. Maureen was working at a day-care facility, and around the time of her move, her co-workers had noticed a change in her attitude and behavior. While in Seattle, Maureen became involved with a new boyfriend. The boyfriend eventually admitted that Maureen became involved in prostitution though he denied knowing any details of her activities.
On September 26, 1983, two infractions were written to “Kris Ponds,” a probable alias for Maureen. “Ponds” had the same physical description, birth date, telephone number, address, and employer as Maureen. “Ponds” had been cited in Seattle for jay-walking, a common citation written to suspected prostitutes. The next day, Maureen quit her job at the day-care center. The following day, on September 28, Maureen’s boyfriend reported that she left her apartment sometime in the afternoon and never returned. Ridgway’s work records reveal that he left work around 3:20 P.M. that day and returned to work the next day. Maureen’s family learned of her disappearance from her boyfriend and, on September 30, 1983, reported her missing to the Seattle police. Her family went to considerable efforts to find her.
Nearly three years later, on May 2, 1986, an employee at the Echo Glen juvenile detention center was looking for an escapee when he came across some of Maureen’s remains on the west side of Highway 18 at 105th, a short distance south of the intersection of Highway 18 and Interstate 90. A pull-out and utility shed were near the area. Tina Thompson’s remains had been found two years earlier on the other side of Highway 18. The task force subsequently recovered Maureen’s remains, which were spread out over some distance. Some bones were found near a barbed-wire fence.
During interviews with the task force in 2003, Ridgway admitted killing Maureen. He recalled that he picked her up in Seattle. He claimed that he killed her at night in the back of his truck. He recalled that Maureen was a white woman and had brown hair, and thought she was between 18 to 22 years old.
In June of 2003, while directing task force detectives to the as-yet undiscovered Leisure Time dump site, Ridgway suggested that he show detectives where he dumped two other bodies nearby. He pointed out the area where he left Tina Thompson’s body and also said he had dumped a body across Highway 18 next to a fence and near the shed where Maureen was found. Ridgway recalled that he dropped her off around midnight, and, while he was there, a work crew came by and some lights came on. He also admitted that he had sex with the body after he placed her near the fence.
Tracy Winston
In September 1983, 19-year-old Tracy Winston was staying with her boyfriend at the 99 Motel on Aurora Avenue in the north end of Seattle. She had just finished serving a jail sentence for prostitution on September 12, 1983; later that day she called a man whom she had previously dated and asked him to meet her and give her money to pay her rent. The man drove to the 99 Motel and gave Tracy some money. After paying rent, Tracy asked for and received a ride to the Northgate Mall. The man dropped her off around six P.M. Although another acquaintance reports seeing Tracy three days later on September 15, 1983, it is believed that Tracy disappeared on the night of September 12. She never returned to the 99 Motel and her family had no further contact with her.
In March 1986, two park employees discovered human remains at the base of a large tree in Cottonwood Park in Kent, a relatively small piece of land along the banks of the Green River. The remains were approximately one-quarter mile from the Peck Bridge, where Wendy Coffield’s body was found in July 1982. The remains essentially consisted of a human torso. Despite an extensive search, detectives were unable to find either the skull or any other portion of the skeleton. Without the skull or mandible, an identification of the remains could not be made. However, thirteen years later, in 1999, advances in DNA analysis made identification of these bones possible. The mtDNA profile of the bones revealed that they were the remains of Tracy Winston.
In June 2003, Ridgway admitted he killed the woman found at Cottonwood Park. Ridgway has little memory of killing Tracy. Despite his lack of specific memory, he has convincingly maintained that he was responsible for her death and included her on a list of his victims that he provided to investigators shortly after interviews began in June 2003. Ridgway recalled that he killed Tracy at night and that he dumped her body in or near the park. He previously visited the park multiple times and had sex with one of his wives and a girlfriend, not far from where he left Tracy. He explained why he chose the park as a dump site: “Like Cottonwood Park was a good place, along the river, and it was a while after the other ones were found, so that’s why I chose it.”
Cottonwood Park is within a quarter-mile of where Ridgway dumped the bodies of six other women he murdered: the five women left in the Green River and the unidentified woman, referred to as Jane Doe “B20,” found just off the Kent-Des Moines Road. Ridgway equivocated on the exact location of where he placed the body, eventually deciding that it was not far from the road and likely in the park itself. He was unable to account for those parts of Tracy’s skeleton that have not been found.
The Interstate 90, Exit 38, Victims
Ridgway has admitted that he killed three women—Delise Plager, Kim Nelson, and Lisa Yates—whose bodies he dumped near Exit 38, off Interstate 90. All three women were prostitutes, and they disappeared from Seattle or Pacific Highway South within approximately three months of one another. The bodies of Delise Plager and Lisa Yates were left on different sides of the Exit 38 road, not far from each other. Ridgway placed the body of Kim Nelson a few miles up a dirt road.
Delise Plager
Delise Plager, 22 years old and working as a prostitute in downtown Seattle, was living with a friend in the city at the time of her disappearance, Sunday, October 30, 1983, at approximately three P.M., when she was dropped off at a bus stop in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. She promised to return with a Halloween costume for her friend’s child. She was never seen again. Ridgway was off work the Sunday that Delise disappeared.
Almost five months later, on February 14, 1984, Delise’s remains were discovered at Exit 38 off Interstate 90, underneath a pile of logs. At the time the bones were not identified, possibly because Delise had not yet been reported missing. In April 1984, a friend reported her missing because she thought Delise matched the Green River victim profile. A year later, the King County Medical Examiner identified Delise’s remains through a comparison of medical records.
During interviews, Ridgway stated that he killed and placed three women near Exit 38. He correctly recalled that he placed two women on opposite sides of the Exit 38 road (the old Interstate 90). Delise Plager and Lisa Yates were on opposite sides of the road from each other.
Ridgway recalled that he placed Delise on the south side of the road between two logs. He further recalled that it was raining and that he was in a hurry to dump her. He has suggested that he went back and had sex with the body. Ridgway claimed
to remember virtually nothing about killing Delise other than where he dumped her body. He mistakenly said she was black; Delise was white. Ridgway said he was angry during this period of time because he was forced to work the night shift at Kenworth beginning on November 1, 1983.
In 2003, the task force took Ridgway to Exit 38. He had difficulty pointing out precisely where he’d placed his victims. He accurately recalled that Delise was on the other side of the street from Lisa Yates. He also accurately recalled that the women were left on different sides of a bridge. The Exit 38 road also bridges a stream near the dump sites.
Kim Nelson
Less than two days after Delise was killed, Ridgway picked up and killed another woman, 21-year-old Kim Nelson, who worked as a prostitute in several cities on the West Coast. She was distinctive in appearance, nearly six feet tall with very short, bleached blond hair. Kim came to Seattle in August 1983, and was arrested numerous times.
On October 30, 1983, she was released from the King County Jail and began staying at the Ben Carol Motel at South 144th and Pacific Highway South with fellow prostitute Paige Miley. Two days after Kim’s release from jail, on the morning of November 1, 1983, at approximately eleven A.M., Kim and Paige went to the bus stop in front of the car wash at South 144th and Pacific Highway South. Shortly after arriving at the bus stop, Paige got a car date and left Kim alone at that location. Paige turned her quick car date nearby and returned to the bus stop to find Kim gone. Kim never returned. This was the only time the two had been on Pacific Highway South together.
The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer Page 71