The Green River Killer - Gary Ridgway (Part 1)

Summary

Morbid Podcast: The Green River Killer – Gary Ridgway (Part 1)

Hosts: Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart
Date: July 6, 2026
Episode Focus: A detailed, compassionate, and darkly humorous exploration into the origins, escalation, and investigation of America’s once-most-prolific serial killer, Gary Ridgway – The Green River Killer, focusing on his early crimes and victims.

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Episode Overview

Ash and Alaina launch a comprehensive four-part series on the Green River Killer. Known for their blend of heavy research and irreverent commentary, the hosts explore the chilling beginning of Ridgway’s murder spree in the Pacific Northwest during the early 1980s. The episode focuses on the vulnerabilities of the victims, the slow-building panic in the community, law enforcement missteps, victim-blaming attitudes of the era, and the evolving investigation that would eventually lead to Ridgway’s capture.

The hosts provide important content warnings for listeners: this episode covers sexual assault, attacks on minors, and graphic crime details—all delivered with their signature empathy and honesty.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Scope of the Case & Content Warning

• Alaina introduces the series, noting, "This is going to be a four-part series because we are finally covering the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway... he was, for a long time, the most prolific serial killer in the United States." (02:04)
• Warns of graphic content, especially involving young victims.

Introducing the Early Victims

Wendy Caulfield (16)

• Wendy, the first known victim (spring/summer 1982), is portrayed compassionately. Her troubled home life following her parents' divorce and subsequent minor offenses (stealing lunch tickets, food stamps) led the system to place her in foster care.
• "I don't think this is a kid intending to do things to piss people off... She's just trying to help her mom." – Ash (04:54)
• Wendy disappears on July 8, and her body is found by two boys along the Green River, with pants tied around her neck and evidence of sexual assault. (05:00–07:10)
• Investigation quickly goes cold, echoing a pattern for young women in the area.

The Crime Becomes a Pattern: Subsequent Victims

• Deborah Lynn Bonner (21) found one month later, sparking detective David Reichert’s suspicion due to pattern similarities. (10:04)
• Within days, three victims’ bodies are discovered together:
  • Marsha Chapman (31)
  • Cynthia Hines (17)
  • Opal Mills (16)
• Notably, Opal did not have a history of sex work, challenging the emerging profile. "Opal Mills was clearly a curious outlier among the victims. But the press made no such distinction." – Alaina (23:59)

Community Response & Media Attitudes

• Candid commentary on 1980s victim-blaming, especially toward sex workers:
  • "Sadly, like, it probably made some people feel better if they didn't think it would happen to them instead." – Ash (16:19)
  • Press and officials wrongly lump Opal in with other victims, even misreporting her brother as her 'pimp.' (24:08)

Panic & Law Enforcement Action

• With five bodies found in under a month, the public and police realize this is the work of a serial killer.
  • Task force assembled, compared in scale to the Ted Bundy investigations a decade earlier. (25:34)

Challenges in the Investigation

• Difficulties stem from victim marginalization, lack of cooperation from communities wary of police, and the region's handling of missing persons (especially runaways and sex workers).
  • "At the time there were an estimated 600 teenagers living on the streets of King County... all of whom could have been considered missing persons." – Alaina (29:55)
• Detective work made harder by unreliable missing persons protocol; victims classified as "runaways" or willfully missing, leading to delays and missed connections. (29:00–32:14)

Victim Timeline & Investigation Gaps

• Several stories highlight police reluctance to act on missing sex worker reports, until bodies are found. Example: Giselle Lavorne only identified by tattoo after her badly decomposed body is found. (30:45–33:04)
• The disturbing regularity: "If detectives had looked at the timeline, they would have noticed that the five victims disappeared roughly one week apart.” (31:56)
• Victims’ remains are often discovered out of chronological order, adding to confusion and investigative difficulty. (51:23–54:10)

Behavioral Profiling & First Suspects

• FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit is called in (Mindhunter reference), confirming the serial nature of the killings, but their first arrest of Melvin Foster, a cab driver, turns out to be a dead end. (42:09–43:34)
  • "A few months later, Melvin Foster was officially ruled out as a suspect. And by January, the task force was just right back where they started." – Alaina (43:34)

Escalation & Outliers

Carolyn Christensen (22)

• Mother of five, not a sex worker, found staged with "ground sausage placed atop her hands... two gutted and cleaned trouts across her throat, and an empty wine bottle on her stomach. And maybe most disturbing, a brown paper bag over her head." (46:13–46:35)
• "Picturing this visual is diabolical. I mean, this is like, really fucked up." – Alaina (46:35)
• Staged crime scene appears as an intentional misdirection; detectives trace items to local stores and reasons victim likely entered Ridgway’s car are discussed.

Effects on Community & Broader Impact

• Persistent patterns of violence—targeting the vulnerable—and law enforcement's strained efforts cause panic. The public is desperate, media coverage is both sensationalistic and careless.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the fear and reality of the killings:
  • "They had no way of knowing this murder wasn’t similar to the other stories they had seen. No way of knowing it was the start of something so much bigger and so much more terrifying." – Alaina (08:10)
• On the systematic failures for vulnerable girls:
  • "To look for a missing teenager with a record of prostitution arrests was an even larger waste of time. Many police officers felt this way." (29:48)
• On ritualistic staging:
  • "Whoever killed her had placed a brown paper bag over her head." – Ash (46:26)
  • "That is weird." – Ash, discussing the significance and disturbance of the staged crime scene. (47:39)
• On the killer:
  • "Gary Ridgeway is like a little rat." – Ash (55:14)
  • “He is a literal rat... for that to be the last face you ever see is horrific.” – Alaina (55:19)

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Timeline of Important Segments

• 02:00–03:12 – Warning about case graphicness and context on series structure.
• 03:16–07:10 – Story and murder of Wendy Caulfield; tone-setting for initial investigation.
• 08:10–10:04 – Second victim, Deborah Lynn Bonner, and detective Reichert enters case.
• 12:53–15:49 – Discovery of three victims’ bodies together, including Opal Mills.
• 16:00–18:42 – Victim backgrounds, community context, and criminalization of sex work.
• 23:59–24:37 – Media and official mischaracterization of victims, especially girls like Opal with no sex work history.
• 25:34–26:14 – Task force assembly and echoes of Bundy panic.
• 29:00–32:14 – Challenges of missing persons investigations for sex workers/runaways.
• 42:09–43:34 – Profiling, Mindhunter reference, and false lead with Melvin Foster.
• 46:13–47:15 – Carolyn Christensen’s uniquely staged murder.
• 54:35–55:07 – Acknowledgment of victim count: "The order in which the women were killed would remain something of a mystery for some time... All the task force investigators knew was that the killer hadn't stopped."
• 55:07–57:00 – Ash and Alaina reflect on the sheer volume and tragedy of the killings.

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Thematic Takeaways

Empathy for Victims

Ash and Alaina underscore every victim’s individuality and innocence, stressing how social and policing failures increased their vulnerability.

Critique of Law Enforcement & Media

Repeated criticism of the era’s attitudes toward marginalized girls and women, and the ways in which media “no big dealed” these atrocities.

The Infuriating & Terrifying Nature of Ridgway’s Crimes

Despite the hosts’ signature humor, the horror and scale of the crimes remain front and center.

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Part 1 Cliffhanger

The episode ends with a sense of dread:

• “12 women, and we are in part one.” – Ash (54:41)
• Ridgway's confirmed victim count alluded to: “He was convicted in the end of murdering 49 young women and girls. 49 convicted. Did. And then he later confessed. He admitted to 65.” – Alaina (55:37)

With many more murders and investigative twists ahead, Ash and Alaina set the tone for an in-depth, multi-part series that promises sensitivity, dark humor, and deep research.

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For listeners new to the case or the podcast, this episode provides an accessible yet thorough introduction to one of America’s darkest criminal chapters, all in Morbid’s irreverent but empathetic style.

Transcript

[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

Hey weirdos. I'm Elena.

[Ash]

I'm Ash.

[Elena]

And this is Morbid. Hiya. Hello. This is going to series. I'm just going to tell you right off the bat, honey.

[Ash]

Elena has showed up for work this week.

[Elena]

Yeah, it's going to be a four part series because we are finally covering the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway, which is one we've been just. I don't know, we're not waiting for any particular time to do it. It just is such a. A giant case. People ask for this one a lot. So this is four because he is a wildly prolific serial killer. He was thought for. I mean he was for a long time the most prolific serial kill the United States. Wow. He is not anymore. Samuel Little is. I think he killed 93 people that they know of. But yeah, he. This is a rough one and I want to tell you right off the bat. Yeah, this is rough. It's pretty graphic. I'm not going to get crazy with it, with the details. Yeah. But even just brushing over what's happening is very awful and upsetting. So I just want everybody to know that there is rape involved in this. Some of the victims are younger, like 15, 16. Oh, that's so sad. It's just really sad. So I just wanted to put that out there.

[Ash]

All right.

[Elena]

And now that I've talked about that, I don't feel super comfortable doing any business. Right.

[Ash]

I was gonna say we don't really

[Elena]

need to, so I think we should just get right into it. Yeah, let's do that. So this started off in the early 80s. So in the spring of 1982, 16 year old Wendy Caulfield was struggling at home and at school. Her mother, Virginia, said she had a way of running into trouble. She was real mischievous. I don't think she was what you'd call real trouble. A year earlier, Wendy's parents had divorced and she and her mother moved from the family farm that Wendy grew up on into subsidized housing. Oh, that's like a really big change.

[Ash]

Well, and also, like, it's tough anytime your parents get divorced, but when you're 15, 16, that's rough. And she's lived in this one place her whole life.

[Elena]

I don't like a farm.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

So the only thing Virginia could afford was subsidized housing at the time. She's a single mom now. The disruption definitely proved significant for Wendy. She started drinking at school, hanging out with an older crowd, getting involved with some trouble. Soon after, Wendy would disappear for days at a time. But Virginia never considered her a runaway because Wendy always came back.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

In late winter 1982, Wendy was arrested for stealing lunch tickets from a local middle school, intending to sell them. Oh. The theft resulted in her being sent to a juvenile detention facility for two months.

[Ash]

Jesus.

[Elena]

I know.

[Ash]

That feels like a big leap.

[Elena]

It's wild. So Wendy had only been home for a short time when in late May, she was arrested again, this time for stealing food stamps from a neighbor.

[Ash]

Oh, that's really sad.

[Elena]

And Virginia said she was trying to help me. She thought, yeah, it's just really sad like this. I don't think this is a, a kid intending to do things to piss

[Ash]

people off or just to be trying to get by.

[Elena]

She's trying to help her mom. She thinks she's doing the right thing.

[Ash]

That' really, really sad.

[Elena]

And she's just a little lost. So the second offense Prompted the court to remove Wendy from her mother's care and place her in a foster home and nearby university place, because that always helps us. The facility Wendy was placed in was supposed to have strict rules and a non negotiable curfew. But it seems that the curfew was rarely imposed. On July 8, Wendy left the foster home, planning to visit her grandmother, who lived a few miles away. But she never made it there. And by the next day, Wendy was reported missing. Now, a week later, on July 15, two boys were riding their bikes along the banks of the green river and stopped to rest on peck bridge. Looking over the side of the bridge, they spotted something in the water, Tangled up in the brushes, the brush, and, like, the branches, all that stuff. Looking closer, they realized that the thing in the water was, in fact the nude body of a young woman. And they noticed that she had pants tied tightly around her neck.

[Ash]

Jesus.

[Elena]

Terrified, of course, they ran to the nearest phone and called the police. Now, the discovery was reported to the local papers, which described the victim as, quote, about 25 years old, 5 foot 4, and she weighed about 140 pounds. The girl had no identification on her, and the clothing was not distinct enough to really provide any leads. So detectives asked the press to publish photographs of her tattoos in the hopes that someone would recognize them and come forward to identify her. It took several days, but eventually a local tattoo artist did recognize them as the tattoos he'd given his former girlfriend, Wendy caulfield.

[Ash]

Oh, man.

[Elena]

He told them, I believe she lives with her mother. Then, to correct the earlier press descriptions, he added, she's only 16, which is so sad.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Detectives didn't have a lot to work with here. It seemed unlikely Wendy had been killed where her body was found. Yeah, but her killer had probably placed her body in the river and it was carried downriver until it got hung up on some branches. That meant that she could have been killed as much as a mile from where she was found, and there was no indication where it could have been. The only other evidence were flecks of unusual industrial spray paint on the pants tied around her neck. Oh. But they didn't seem to point to anything, so they were just kind of set aside. According to the medical examiner, the cause of death was strangulation, and it appeared Wendy had been sexually assaulted. But her body had been in the water for nearly a week at this point. And if any evidence was there, it was washed away.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

The investigation into the disappearance and death of Wendy quickly went cold. There were no leads, no evidence. Detectives really had nowhere to go. In this case, Wendy was, according to them, a frequent runaway who struggled with substance abuse and had allegedly been engaging in some form of sex work on and off.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

Which surely had obviously put her into some dangerous situations with some dangerous men. It was a tragic story, but it was one that detectives in the Tacoma region had come to know all too well. Unfortunately, Wendy was one of the countless young women on the streets who disappeared, only to turn up dead a few days later. It was pretty awful.

[Ash]

It's so sad that that was just a regular occurrence.

[Elena]

They had no way of knowing this murder wasn't similar to the other stories they had seen. No way of knowing it was the start of something so much bigger and so much more terrifying. Yeah. Now, on August 12th, one month after Wendy's body was discovered in the river, PD&J Meat Company employee Frank Lenard stepped out behind the slaughterhouse to take a break and smoke a cigar. Decades before this, that slaughterhouse had been built high on the banks of the Green river, where all the blood and slop from the birch butchering process would just be dumped into the river and taken away by the current. Oh, that seems fine. Yeah. Yeah, that seems fairly environmentally sound.

[Ash]

Yeah, for sure.

[Elena]

Luckily, that process of removal had ceased more than 20 years earlier, so the river was clean and beautiful again. But, like, that's what that was built for. That afternoon, Leonard looked out over the river as he smoked his cigar. And just below the slaughterhouse, there was, like, this movement in the current, and it had caused the water to swirl and foam up around a section of gravel and weeds. So it just caught his eye because it was something weird. It seems strange to Frank that such little movement of the water would cause so much chaos, to churn up the water in that day in that way. So, staring at it a little longer, he was like, wait, am I. What am I looking at right now? And then he realized he was looking at a pale object, perhaps a dead animal.

[Ash]

Oh.

[Elena]

So he was curious. So he walked down the little path that led from the slaughterhouse down to the banks of the river to get a better look. And he had taken one step into the shallow water at the bank when he finally saw the outline of a woman's body come into view. The woman was facing face down. Her hair was floating on the surface of the water above her. And there was no doubt to Frank that this woman was very obviously dead. Frank ran back up the bank to the slaughterhouse and called the police to report the discovery. Then he hung up and set about Running around the factory telling everyone what he had found because he was like, ah, no.

[Ash]

I mean, that's horrifying.

[Elena]

By the time officers arrived at the scene, nearly every man working at the factory was crowding around the scene to see the body. Which is like, maybe don't do that. Like, I know humans are curious, but like, that could compromise a scene. Yeah. Now, King County Major Crimes Detective David Reichert was the first detective on the scene. With just seven years on the force, Reichert was already a pretty hardened detective,

[Ash]

I was gonna say, in California in the 80s.

[Elena]

Well, and he had literal scars to prove it. Several years earlier, he was stabbed in the neck multiple times by a suspect after he had broke into a home to rescue a woman trapped inside.

[Ash]

The.

[Elena]

Stabbed in the neck.

[Ash]

First of all, just even once is crazy. Multiple times. Damn.

[Elena]

And he was saving a woman in a house. Like, broke into a house? Yeah.

[Ash]

Holy.

[Elena]

So basically it was gonna take a lot to rattle David Reichert. Yeah.

[Ash]

After being stabbed in the neck, you couldn't tell me shit.

[Elena]

But that afternoon by the river, he said he was deeply rattled by what he saw. It was the body of 21 year old Deborah Lynn Bonner floating face down in the river. And when he arrived, he could see Deborah's hand sticking up out of the water. And he said as. Although, as though it was waving or reaching out for help. Now, the last time anyone had seen Deborah was on July 25, when she left her room at the Three Bears Motel, telling her friends she was hoping to, quote, catch some dates. It seemed likely that Deborah had met a client nearby who had sexually assaulted and strangled her, then dumped her body, nude, into the river. The discovery of Deborah Lynn Bonner's body reminded Reichert of the discovery of Wendy Caulfield's body one month earlier. Yep. Now, after identifying the victim, Reichert got to the address of Deborah's parents and made the unfortunate notification. The Bonners were devastated by the news of Deborah's death. The last time they'd seen her was three weeks earlier, not long before she had told her friend she was going out to make some money. They told the detective that if someone had murdered their daughter, it was probably her boyfriend, Martin. Oh, wow. Who they described as a petty thief with convictions for assault and drug possession. The lead about Debra's boyfriend seems solid, but Reichert had barely had any time to follow up when just three days later, another report of a woman's body had been called into the sheriff's office. And this time it was more than one victim. Oh, in the late morning of August 15th. Now, a man who'd been treasure hunting in a rubber raft on the Green river was shocked when he came upon the horrific sight of two women half submerged in the shallow water along the banks. Their bodies were tangled up in the grass and overgrowth. Not wanting to abandon the scene because he was like, I don't know what's going to happen here.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

The treasure hunter managed to flag down some pedestrians along the shore and asked them to call for police. And Major Dick Krasky later said, in a way, I knew it was something big. I had the same feeling I had when I was a lieutenant. And my boss, Nick Mackey, called me out to Issaquah because they found Bundy's victims. He told me to put on a tie and sport coat and meet him out there. This time, I put on my tie and sport coat and went out to the Green River. By the time Kraski arrived at the river, David Reichert was already there, along with rookie patrol officer Sue Peters. Reichert and Peters could clearly see two bodies floating side by side along the banks. The first woman looked to be in her late 20s or early 30s, while the other one appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties. Both women were nude, and Reichert immediately instructed the assembled officers to start combing the riverbank, looking for any indication of how these people had come to be in the water. While he was interviewing the rafter who discovered the bodies, the treasure hunter, other than the people who responded to his cries for help, he said he'd only seen one other person that morning.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

Not long after he went out on his raft, he said he spotted a young man on the shore.

[Ash]

Not a young man.

[Elena]

The rafter waved at this man and shouted a greeting. Because this guy is just.

[Ash]

He's transforming. Hunting.

[Elena]

He's treasure hunting.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

He's yelled a greeting. And he said. The man waved back politely, then walked back to his pickup truck and drove away.

[Ash]

Spooky.

[Elena]

So that was that. Now, after interviewing the witness, Reichert began walking the banks himself to see if he could make out any trail left by the killer. After walking about two dozen feet down the river, the weeds and grass became really tall and thickly settled. But he didn't want to miss any evidence, and he was, like, doing his fucking job.

[Ash]

Hell, yeah. We love a seasoned detective.

[Elena]

We love when they're like, I will not rest.

[Ash]

Yes.

[Elena]

So he got down on his hands and knees to push through the grass because he said if anything was on the ground, he was gonna find it.

[Ash]

Good I mean, you have four dead bodies now. Women.

[Elena]

This is when he came face to face with the body of a third woman. No. Yes. Three women found in the same spot.

[Ash]

Holy dude.

[Elena]

The young woman on the ground looked to be really a girl. She looked to be in her mid to late teens. And unlike the two bodies in the river, she was still partially dressed. Her shirt and bra had been pulled up to expose her chest, and her pants were tied tightly around her neck. It occurred to Rikert that the killer had probably intended to place this third young woman in the water and saw the treasure hunter. But he'd either been spooked by the sound of nearby activity or become too tired to carry her the rest of the way, so just dropped her in the weeds and left the scene. Now, in the days after this, the three new victims would be identified as 31 year old Marsha Chapman, 17 year old Cynthia Hines, and 16 year old Opal Mills.

[Ash]

My God, just like think of who you were at 16 years old and

[Elena]

17 years old at the end.

[Ash]

That's awful. And even 31, like, literally, you're still a young person.

[Elena]

There didn't appear to be any connection between the young women at first, though they were all either suspected or known to have engaged in sex work in recent months. Now, remember, suspected, because that's not always the case. Yeah, they just, everyone presumed that's how they might have met their killers or killer.

[Ash]

Well, and sadly, like, it probably made some people feel better if they didn't

[Elena]

think it would happen to them instead. And I only mention this, their jobs now, because it does become an important part of the story. That's the only reason. Okay. Because at the time of the discoveries, the Tacoma region was experiencing a rise in sex worker arrests and complaints from residents. By the summer of 1982, the quote, unquote, and this is what one reporter called it, the flourishing prostitution business.

[Ash]

Jesus Christ.

[Elena]

Had become so significant that the sheriff's department developed a task force to address what, you know, the problem. Stricter enforcement of the laws and more severe penalties had cut down on the number of women who openly conducted business on the streets. But out of sight did not mean out of business. And unfortunately, these stiffer penalties and increased risks of punishment meant that most sex workers were unlikely to report assaults or other victimization to the police, because then

[Ash]

they're worried about getting in trouble themselves,

[Elena]

putting them in more danger.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

And it made them far less likely to cooperate with investigators when crimes were committed against others in their community. So it was kind of similar with these Latest victims. As Reichert and the other investigators attempted to find out more about their lives and pieced together their final days as the first and oldest of the three new victims to be identified, detectives had some success digging into Marsha Chapman's history, if only because she had lived more years than the others and some of them had been documented with some arrest

[Ash]

more established like timeline.

[Elena]

At the time of her death, Marsha had been living on the Seatac strip with her three children, ages 11, 9 and 3.

[Ash]

Oh my God. That's awful.

[Elena]

On August 1, Marsha left her apartment and told her children she would be back soon. When she hadn't returned the next day, she was reported missing. Oh, those poor babies. Like the previous victims, Chapman had been sexually assaulted. This is really graphic. I just need to point that out. Okay, she had been sexually assaulted. But it appeared they called the rape almost symbolic rather than biological. Because upon examination, the medical examiner discovered that the killer had shoved several small stones inside of her. Oh quote, so tightly that they had to be surgically removed. What the fuck?

[Ash]

Yeah. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

[Elena]

To Reichert and the other detectives in Major Crimes, this was a significant twist that suggested the killer might not have been able to achieve erection or had perhaps they had to consider even be another woman. Wow. Yeah.

[Ash]

That's wild.

[Elena]

I know.

[Ash]

Oh my God. I have been away for the weekend and I was just telling Elena I can't wait to see my daughter. And by my daughter I mean my dog, Dolores. I miss her so much. I'm obsessed with that woman. I saw a dog that looked like her while I was away and I almost started crying. If anyone gets being dog obsessed, it's Ollie. They deliver fresh human grade food in five drool worthy flavors so that your pup can live their best life too. You could say Ollie feeds the obsession. Ollie's fresh recipes are developed by real chefs with gut friendly ingredients that support better digestion, energy, skin health and poops. We love supported poops. The meals are perfectly portioned and you get a puptainer. Oh my God, that's really cute. And a scoop for easy storing and serving. Ollie offers health tracking too in their app so that you can keep up with your pup's health and see the difference that the food is making in their life. I'm obsessed with all of this. Get ready for both you and your pup to be obsessed too. Head to ollie.commorbid Tell them all about your dog and use code morbid to get 70% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus it's risk free with their obsession guarantee. That's o l l I e dot com morbid and enter code morbid to get 70% off your first box. Ollie feed the Obsession Getting paid twice a month doesn't mean money is scarce, it just feels that way. That feeling makes you do weird stuff like putting things on a card you didn't need to. Earn in removes that feeling. With Earn in, you can Access up to $150 per day of money you've already earned, plus up to $1,000 between paychecks. Standard transfers take one to two business days with no mandatory fees and expedited transfers start at 3.99 and cap at $5.99. 5 million people are already on it and honestly, it's wild it didn't exist sooner. Download Earnin on the App Store or Google Play spelled like Earning money without the G. Type in Morbid under Podcasts when you sign up. It'll really help the show. Earn in is a financial technology company, not a bank. Access limits are based on your earnings and risk factors. Standard cashouts take one to two business days with no mandatory fees. Expedited transfer is available for a fee. Tips are voluntary and don't affect the service available in select states. Terms and restrictions apply. Visit.com for full details. Every good detective needs a partner to support them on important cases. Think of a State Farm agent like your Sidekick, there to help you along the way in your search for coverage. State Farm can help you choose the coverage you need, whether it's for your home, car, boat or even rv. With so many options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you so you can get back to solving all of life's bigger cases. Go to state farm.com or use the award winning app to connect with a local agent and get a quote like a good neighbor. State Farm is there.

[Elena]

The next victim identified was 17 year old Cynthia Hines, the other body found in the water. Hines was also a sex worker and according to those who knew her, she had always felt safe working the Strip because she had what she referred to as a protector. But he was really nothing more than a pimp. Yeah, when detectives interviewed him, he said he had last seen Cynthia on August 11th near the Pacific highway on ramp just off the Strip. He told detectives he watched her get into a black Jeep, but he didn't think to write down the license plate or get a good look at the driver. What a great To Reichert's surprise, 16 year old Opal Mills, the third victim discovered in the grass that day, had no history of sex work. That's why I made sure to point that out. That you suspected.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

And didn't match the profile of the others whatsoever. Opal lived with her family on the outskirts of Kent and had disappeared just three days before her body was discovered. According to her mother, Opal left for work on the morning of August 12th and called later that afternoon from a payphone, which is the last time she heard from her. Kathy Mills told the detective that Opal was excited because she was going to make money painting houses with her friend Cookie. Oh, Opal and Cookie.

[Ash]

Stop it.

[Elena]

I know Kathy didn't know it at the time, but Opal's friend Cookie was Cynthia Hynes. Oh, so there is a connection.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

The detectives learned that for most of her life, Opal had been something akin to a tomboy at first. Okay. And it was only she spent a lot of time with her older brother and his friends, like, doing that kind of stuff. But recently, like, getting to be, like, 15, 16, she was starting to, like, kind of figure out what she liked, and she was starting to get into, like, more, like, typical teenage girl stuff. Yeah. And when she wasn't with her brother because they had a really close relationship or in school, Opal could typically be found in Seattle's Church of God in Christ Church, where her family regularly attended services, sometimes several times a week.

[Ash]

Wow.

[Elena]

To the detectives, Opal Mills was clearly a curious outlier among the victims.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

But the press made no such distinction.

[Ash]

Nice.

[Elena]

In one article published just a few days ago, after the bodies were discovered, a school official. A school official told a reporter that, quote, opal's pimp picked her up from school the day she went missing.

[Ash]

What the is wrong with people?

[Elena]

You want to know who that pimp was? Who picked her up from school?

[Ash]

Was it her brother?

[Elena]

It was her brother just making sure that she got home from school safe. That's nice, but that's cool. Like, don't. Don't bother looking into that. That's fine. The press, man. Sometimes in the 80s, it's like.

[Ash]

Fuck, I was going to say back then, it was so fucking bleak.

[Elena]

At a press conference the day after the bodies were discovered, representatives from various law enforcement agencies saw no reason to keep their suspicions from the public. Dick Krasky told reporters, there's probably one suspect at this time. Basically confirming the speculation in the press that the murders of the five women found in the river were committed by the same person. And there was a serial killer.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

They also made sure the public was aware the victims were all assumed or confirmed sex workers.

[Ash]

But one of them wasn't.

[Elena]

Now, in 1982, the murders committed by Ted Bundy were still fresh in the minds of people living in the Pacific Northwest. Oh, yeah. And the recent discovery of five victims presumably murdered by the same person, sent a wave of terror through the residents of Tacoma. I can't imagine they thought they were done with that. Living in this area at this time, that must have been so fucking scary.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

To demonstrate that they were taking the case seriously and applying what they'd learned from the Bundy case, kraski assembled a 25 person task force to conduct what he assured the press was, quote, the department's largest murder investigation since the Ted slayings in the mid-1970s. Wow. Because the bodies had been in the water anywhere from one to three weeks, it was impossible for the medical examiner to figure out exactly when the women or young girls were killed.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

But based on the last time each of the victim was seen, victims was seen alive, the timeline revealed a killer who was claiming victims with alarming frequency.

[Ash]

Yeah. I mean, to find three bodies at one scene.

[Elena]

The three victims who were found on August 15, for example, were all seen within two weeks of their bodies being discovered. Wow, that's crazy.

[Ash]

This, this reminds me a lot of

[Elena]

the Long Island Serial killer.

[Ash]

It's very similar circumstances covered.

[Elena]

Well, now we can.

[Ash]

Because it's solved.

[Elena]

Yeah. And you know who does a really great job with Alexis Linkletter? Just wrote a book. You should go pre order it.

[Ash]

Let's go see what it's.

[Elena]

Because I did and she's done years of research on this case. She's been at all the court hearings like she's like boots on the ground. Like I would trust her on this case for sure. Not the Green River Killer, the Lisk Killer.

[Ash]

It's called between the Devil and the A True Story of Obsession, Power and the Gilgo Beach Serial Killer.

[Elena]

Yes.

[Ash]

So again, between the Devil and the Tide by Alexis Linkletter. If you go to her Instagram, it's just alexislinkletter. The pre order link is available.

[Elena]

Yeah, I would definitely trust her with that case for sure. So just a little shout out for Alexis.

[Ash]

There you go.

[Elena]

Because that's pretty badass.

[Ash]

Yeah, she's a little bit Alexis.

[Elena]

A little bit Alexis. She's a lot Alexis, I think. But yeah, so that, that's one we'll definitely cover at some point. But hearing this, it just reminded me of it. Yeah, it does. It's, it's, it's got a similar vibe

[Ash]

in a similar scene in some ways.

[Elena]

Yeah, I think so, too. But no matter how you looked at this, five victims in one month was an alarming number of victims in a pretty relatively short amount of time. I mean. Yeah. Now, despite that alarm, the rest of August passed without any new victims. And some in the press and law enforcement were starting to wonder. They were like, did the danger pass? Which I think was like, kind of like presumptive.

[Ash]

Yeah, I was just gonna say.

[Elena]

I was like, I understand you want that to be the case, But I'd be like, stay alert. Yeah, Stay ready.

[Ash]

Too preemptive.

[Elena]

Even in 1982, the public had a vague awareness that some killers were drifters who found a victim or two while passing through a state or town, then moved on. So it was possible that that was what happened in ctac. Now, in the weeks that followed, the members of the task force were consumed with the flood of tips coming into the hotline, and they were sorting the information gathered by the friends and families of the victims at that point. And in fact, they were too busy with their own five victims that it never really occurred to them to look at the open missing persons cases that had come into the department around the time that these bodies had shown up to see if the profiles matched their victims. Okay. Like most law enforcement agencies around the country at the time, the Tacoma police department didn't always approach missing persons cases as seriously as they probably could have or should have.

[Ash]

But I'm sure especially young girls who were known to be or suspected to be sex workers.

[Elena]

Well, and also especially the missing. If the missing person was an adult, they really let it go.

[Ash]

They were just like, yeah, they wanted to be missing.

[Elena]

There was a generally accepted belief among the officers that when an adult went missing, they probably done it on purpose. And disappearing on purpose wasn't necessarily illegal.

[Ash]

All right.

[Elena]

As for teenager, that was a little more complicated, though not taken much more seriously, to be honest.

[Ash]

Yeah, they probably just ran away and they'll come back.

[Elena]

According to author Carlton smith, quote, often when detectives took a missing report involving a teenager seriously, the teenager, when simply located, simply refused to go home. And to look for a missing teenager with a record of prostitution arrests was an even larger waste of time. Many police officers felt this way. That's a quote, by the way.

[Ash]

Yes.

[Elena]

At the time, there were an estimated 600 teenagers living on the streets of king county.

[Ash]

Oh, that's so sad.

[Elena]

Isn't that horrifying?

[Ash]

600.

[Elena]

All of whom could have been considered missing persons. And many of them supported themselves through sex work.

[Ash]

Yeah, I mean, they're young people. Like, what else are they gonna do?

[Elena]

In a practical sense, it would have been impossible to investigate that many runaways. So investigators typically prioritize the reports made by parents or family members because of this. When cab driver James Tindall reported that his friend, 17 year old Giselle Lavorne, had gone missing, the report was filed, and then it got little attention from investigators.

[Ash]

That's unbelievable.

[Elena]

Now, Tindall had met Giselle a couple years earlier, not long after she'd run away from home in Northridge, California. He later claimed that he and Giselle had fallen in love and moved to Los Angeles before finally settling in Seattle earlier that year.

[Ash]

Year.

[Elena]

Not long after getting there, he found work driving a cab. And Giselle supplemented their income with sex work. On July 17, just one week after Wendy Caulfield was murdered, Giselle left their apartment, headed in the direction of the strip to make some money. But she never came back.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

When Giselle didn't meet Tindall at his cab stand later that night, as they had planned, he was concerned. But his concern didn't turn into real alarm until he returned to the apartment and he was like, all of her belongings are still here. Like, this is strange. Not wanting to panic, though, he called around to a few hospitals to see if she checked in. And when he had no luck there, he decided to wait a bit and see if she returned home.

[Ash]

Well, and you have to imagine, too, like, not wanting to panic and also not wanting to get her into trouble.

[Elena]

Yeah, there's a lot of pieces here. Right? But when he still hadn't heard from her the next day, he went to the police department and filed a report. Now, if detectives had looked at the timeline, they would have noticed that the five victims disappeared roughly one week apart from one another. Jesus. With a week long gap between Wendy and Deborah Bonner, it was in that week that Gisele Lavorne disappeared. That's the missing week.

[Ash]

Just a week is crazy.

[Elena]

Every week. Every week.

[Ash]

That's like. You don't run into that a lot.

[Elena]

No. With everything going on at the time, detectives didn't have much time for a missing persons report. Especially according to them. Especially a sex worker with an arrest record. Oh, nice. Because they're not an actual person.

[Ash]

No, no one cares about that.

[Elena]

Tindal tried to explain that it was not in Giselle's personality to just disappear. And he even tried to give them a list of her usual clients, but they weren't interested and simply insisted she turn up and they said maybe, yes.

[Ash]

Let's not think about the five other girls that you have.

[Elena]

Well, unfortunately, the officers that he spoke to turned out to be right. She did turn out up. On September 25, a young man riding his dirt bike on an abandoned road near the airport found Giselle's body hidden in the underbrush. She was completely nude, except for the pair of men's socks tied tightly around her neck.

[Ash]

Sounds familiar.

[Elena]

By the time she was discovered, decomposition had made identification nearly impossible. They were only able to confirm that this was Giselle due to a small tattoo of a bird on her chest, which was strangely still visible despite the changes to her remains.

[Ash]

That's interesting.

[Elena]

Because of the decomposition and exposure to animals and the elements, the medical examiner was unable to determine when Giselle had been killed, but he estimated that she had likely been there for about four to six weeks, which would put her death squarely between when missing.

[Ash]

Deborah. Yep.

[Elena]

With six victims now and no suspects, the public expected a strong response from law enforcement. But after more than two months, they were no closer to identifying a motive or a killer. Speaking on behalf of the Green River Task Force, Pat Ferguson more or less admitted that in a press conference following the discovery of Giselle's body. He said the detectives have speculated on many theories. Maybe the killer was a sexual psychopath, killing for the sake of killing. Or maybe it was some sort of pimp war with the men who lived off these women protecting their territory, saying, like, maybe these men are killing other pimps, women to like, protect their.

[Ash]

I feel like that's kind of a stretch.

[Elena]

Without evidence or any strong leads, there was simply no way to know who was responsible or why.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And little did investigators know. While the task force was just trying to pursue every small lead that came their way, the killer was back out on the streets looking for another victim. And on September 26th, he found her. Like many of the other victims, 16 year old Linda Rule came from a difficult background. She dropped out of school before finishing junior high and started hanging out with a slightly older crowd of kids. A year before, before she went missing, Linda's parents divorced and she moved with her mother and sister to a motel room in the city. In the months that followed, there was a lot of tension between Linda and her mother. There were a lot of arguments. By the fall of 1982, their relationship had kind of deteriorated, and Linda decided she didn't want to live in the motel anymore. So she and her boyfriend, a 24 year old man named Bobby. She's 16 by the way.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Bobby, what the fuck are you doing? They began sharing a room at a nearby Aurora motel. Although she was happy to be, you know, in another environment, neither Linda nor Bobby had stable employment, and money was scarce. So she turned to sex work to support them. On the afternoon of September 26, Linda, dressed in pinstripe jeans and a nylon jacket, told Bobby she was going out to shop for clothes at the Kmart at the nearby Northgate Mall. Then she was going to try to make some money. When she didn't come home that night, Bobby at first said, I assumed she'd been arrested. That's what he told Detective Bob Holt. He said it was daytime, and she would have been working on Aurora in the afternoon. Days later, Bobby had called around to the jails and hospitals looking for Linda, and he checked the places he thought she might have gone, and no one had seen or heard from her since she left the motel on the 26th. Yeah. Bobby kept detailed notes of where he looked and who he spoke to, which he handed over to the police when he filed the report. But it wasn't much help to the extent that the Seattle police looked for her at all. There was no trace of her. So as fall passed into winter, the Green River Task Force toiled away and this huge open office at the Major Crimes Unit, located at the back of the King County Courthouse, where the Bundy Task force had worked the previous decade. Oh, wow. Run primarily by Dave Reichert and former sex crimes detective Faye Brooks, the group fielded endless streams of calls from anxious parents with missing children and the other leads from concerned citizens, which typically went nowhere since the discovery of Giselle La Vorne's body in late September. The killer looked like they had gone a little silent, and months passed without any new victims. Then, on January 31, 1983, a call came from the construction site at the Northgate Hospital. A pipe fitter had been clearing an area next to the hospital when he discovered the mostly skeletal remains of what he thought to be a child.

[Ash]

Oh.

[Elena]

With no soft tissue remaining, the medical examiner could provide very little information other than to say the remains were those of a young woman in her teens or early 20s. The victim's teeth, though, were far more useful, and within a few days, the coroner's office was able to identify the remains as Linda Rule. Now, at the time, the Seattle Police Department's homicide unit was well aware that a serial killer had been killing sex workers and dumping their remains in the Green River. But with the exception of how she'd made money, it didn't seem to investigators that Linda was a Green river case.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

She hadn't been left near the river. The location where she was found was actually quite a distance from where the other victims were found. I guess. Detective Holter told reporters, technically, we're not calling this a murder. We don't have enough to go on for that. But the results are the same. She's dead, and we don't know why or how. Yeah. Which I get. They only found skeletal remains.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

She could have died of exposure. She could have died of something else. Yeah. They can't definitively say she was killed without having that. Like, it obviously seems that way, but, like, they can't be like that. In fact, it would be some time before investigators would actually identify Linda as one of the Green river killer's victims.

[Ash]

Really?

[Elena]

Yeah. We'll get there. Not today, though.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

Despite having successfully profiled, caught and repeatedly interviewed killers like Ted Bundy, criminal psychologists working in the early 1980s still knew like relatively little about the pathologies and behaviors of serial killers. It was kind of new, but in the fall of 1982, the task force, with the help of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, it I want Mindhunter to come back. Give it the stupidest cancellation.

[Ash]

There was like a rumor going around that it was going to come out. A season three was going to come out.

[Elena]

What's up with that?

[Ash]

Where did that go?

[Elena]

I have no idea. If you're listening, you know something. Can you tell us please bring it back. That fucking show ruled. Bring back my show. Exactly. So with the the task force helped, got the help of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit and they put together a profile of the killer, which they shared with the press. King county police spokesman Frank Kinney said it didn't Give us any suspects, but it told us we were probably going in the right direction. It confirms our original suspicions that one person probably is responsible for all the deaths that fall. The FBI's profile led detectives to make their first arrest. Oh, didn't stick. But first arrest.

[Ash]

I was gonna say that's early on.

[Elena]

I was like. And that's it.

[Ash]

I was like, I heard. This is four parts. Interesting that we have an arrest in part one.

[Elena]

They arrested 44 year old Melvin Foster, an unemployed cab driver living with his father in Seattle. Okay. On paper, he checked a lot of the boxes on the profile. He was familiar with the area. He had a job that put him in contact with sex workers, including the victims. He was also known to associate with the local sex workers and the unhoused community. And most importantly, he managed to insert himself into the investigation by offering to act as an informant.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

Although he denied any involvement in the murders, Foster failed a polygraph exam which bumped him up. The position to primary suspect at the time. Okay, which I get.

[Ash]

Hot dog, trench coat.

[Elena]

But okay. But there's a lot more. This other thing I was gonna say, that's not alone. Although Melvin Foster looked like a strong suspect in the context of the FBI profile, there were several things about him that made it unlikely. For one, in March 1982, Foster had sustained an injury where he tore a bunch of cartilage in his knee. So it would have difficult, if not impossible, to carry the weight of a body other than his own. Yeah. There was also the fact that around the time that people began appearing in the river, Foster's car was broken down, so he wouldn't have been able to transport the bodies to the dump sites. A few months later, Melvin Foster was officially ruled out as a suspect. And by January, the task force was just right back where they started. Oh, man. Seven victims, no suspect. Even more curious was the fact that as suddenly as the victims had started appearing, it looked like it stopped again. So it seemed. While the medical examiner had been unable to identify an exact time of death for the last victim, Linda Rule, it was likely that she had been killed around the same time. She went missing in late September. But since the discovery of her body in January, four months had passed without a sign of the Green river killer. It wasn't until May 1983 that the task force was notified of their next victim. But this one wasn't like the others. This one's really upsetting. Just letting you know they're all upsetting. But the way. The way this particular woman is found is very upsetting. 22 year old Carolyn Christensen was a mother of five young children living out by the Pacific Highway South. She was unemployed and struggling to make ends meet. For months she had desperately been searching for work, but as far as anyone knew, she had never engaged in sex work, which made her an outlier. The last anyone had heard from her, Carol Ann was ecstatic because after months of searching, she had finally landed a job waiting tables at the Barn Door Tavern near the highway, which was also just a few blocks from the trailer park where she lived. She had only worked a day or two at the Barn Door when she disappeared on May 3. When Carol Ann didn't come home after a night at work, her mother became anxious and the next day she was reported missing. Five days later, a family discovered Carol Ann's body while they were mushroom hunting in Maple Valley, about 20 miles from the strip where the other victims worked. When they came upon the body, Carolyn was in a half sitting position but had fallen onto her back. Her hands were folded across her chest and there was a small pile of of ground sausage placed atop them.

[Ash]

On top of her hands?

[Elena]

Yep. Across her throat, the killer had placed two gutted and cleaned trouts. And an empty wine bottle had been placed on its side across her stomach.

[Ash]

What the fuck?

[Elena]

And maybe most disturbing, whoever killed her had placed a brown paper bag over her head.

[Ash]

Oh. Oh my God.

[Elena]

Picturing this visual is diabolical. I mean, this is like really fucked up.

[Ash]

And just like, what does that all mean?

[Elena]

That's the thing. Like, what is going on?

[Ash]

It makes me think of the body that's discovered in True Detective.

[Elena]

That's what I immediately thought of.

[Ash]

And with all the like, symbols, all

[Elena]

the shit around it, like, yeah, oh my God.

[Ash]

And this poor woman is a mother

[Elena]

of five who just got promised that she just got a job to help her kids. Kids. And days into that job, this little. Go look up Gary Ridgeway, everybody go look.

[Ash]

Actually, I don't think I have such a long time.

[Elena]

Nasty Little. And he. He's disgusting. He's such a disgusting little.

[Ash]

For real.

[Elena]

But it makes sense that Carol Ann was not immediately identified as one of his victims.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

She wasn't a sex worker. She wasn't found in or near the river. And most importantly, the scene had clearly been staged. Yeah. While the others had just been dumped, you know.

[Ash]

Yeah. That is weird.

[Elena]

According to the medical examiner, Carol Ann had been sexually assaulted. And it appeared her killer had made at least some attempt to redress her before leaving her body in the woods. Her bra had Been put on inside out, and her shoes had been put on, but not laced. The way that the scene was staged to suggest some sort of ritual certainly set her apart from the other victims, but it kind of. It definitely suggested that they were dealing with a sexual psychopath. Yeah, this was not the act of a person who killed impulsively or in the heat of the moment. No, this took planning. This took intentionality. Among the more interesting aspects was the fact that while Carol Ann's body hadn't been found in or near the water, according to the medical examiner, the faint washerwoman wrinkles in the hands and soles of the feet suggest that the body might have been immersed for some time.

[Ash]

That's strange.

[Elena]

Like, you know how when you're in water for too long, you get the wrinkles? That's what she had.

[Ash]

So had he, like, soaked her in a tub or, like, washed her down or something?

[Elena]

It was that last aspect, though, that led investigators to suspect that. That despite the more obvious aspects of the scene and the ritualistic nature of the killing, in this setting, Carol Ann was very likely a victim of the Green River Killer.

[Ash]

Were there other victims later on? Obviously, I know you're gonna tell me, but, like, found like this, like, staged

[Elena]

to this degree, you'll have to see. Okay. Now, if the killer had been trying to throw detectives off with the staging, which was what they did think they were, like, maybe he went so far the other way so we wouldn't even consider him. Yeah. He hadn't been very thoughtful in his approach. Because while it may not have looked like a Green river killer victim, upon first look, a simple check into the evidence in the victim's background proved otherwise. Not only did Caroline Christensen live and work in the area where the other victims had been picked up, but detectives were able to trace the paper bag to a grocery store not far from the killer's usual hunting grounds.

[Ash]

Oh, that wasn't smart.

[Elena]

Which also was, like, good detective work.

[Ash]

Yeah, that was really good detective work.

[Elena]

As for how she wound up with the killer, that would remain a mystery for years to come. But since Carol Ann had no car and was known to walk everywhere, including the several miles to her new job, it was likely that the killer had simply pulled over on the evening of May 3rd and offered her a ride to work. Yeah, how sad is that?

[Ash]

And she's just, like, trying to get to work on time.

[Elena]

She supported five children every day.

[Ash]

So that was probably just a welcome. Like, oh, my gosh. Absolutely.

[Elena]

You're going to help me.

[Ash]

Me?

[Elena]

Like, that's so sad. And of course, this kind of stuff gets.

[Ash]

When you think like, the California, the 80s, you're 22 years old, you don't think anything. Accepting a ride, really.

[Elena]

Nobody was thinking about it. Now, the disappearance and eventual discovery of Carol Ann Christensen's body put an end to the misplaced hope that the Green River Killer had moved on or just stopped killing. In fact, it was only after the killer was arrested that the breaks in activity would be explained. There wasn't.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Elena]

In the meantime, investigators chalked it up to the fact that winter in Washington was very, very cold, and there were far fewer sex workers on the streets than there would be in more warmer months.

[Ash]

Oh, I said California earlier. My bad.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah. And I agreed with you. Honestly, you're near California.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

You know, but with the onset of spring and the promise of warmer weather, the detectives on the task force knew the woman who worked the strip and the surrounding area were going to be back on the streets in much larger numbers. Even with the knowledge that a dangerous predator stalked those same streets, some of them didn't have a choice.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

One of the more frustrating parts of tracking the Green River Killer wasn't just the frequency with which the victims were showing up, but the fact that the discoveries of remains were often very out of order. Okay. Like a woman might appear in one month and her or disappear in one month, and then her remains might not be discovered until several months later.

[Ash]

Right, Right.

[Elena]

And in the meantime, the killer might have claimed several more victims. And that was the case with 18 year old Shonda Leah Summers. The last time anyone saw Shonda was sometime around October 7, though no one could really be sure. She had left her mother and brothers in San Diego several months earlier and come out to live with her father in Seattle, where she had a boyfriend. When Shonda was arrested one night on a prostitution charge, her father was so angry that he refused to bail her out of jail.

[Ash]

Jail?

[Elena]

So she spent the night in jail. After that night, she refused to return home and instead took off with her boyfriend.

[Ash]

Well, she was also probably scared to go home because her dad was mad.

[Elena]

Yeah. By October 1982, Shonda was supporting herself and said boyfriend through sex work. He should have got a job.

[Ash]

Yeah, he definitely should have.

[Elena]

Despite having multiple close contacts in Seattle, nearly a month would pass before anyone reported Shonda missing.

[Ash]

That's weird.

[Elena]

And when they finally did, no one seemed to be able to recall any detail about the last time they'd seen her. In fact, according to Carlton Smith, the details of the entire situation were so murky that, quote, the Seattle police department refused to take any report. Her father, Steve Summers, insisted she'd run off with her boyfriend and would eventually come back. Her boyfriend insisted she'd run off with some new guy and claimed he hadn't seen her. The truth was, no one had seen Shonda Summers for at least a month, because by the time they got around to reporting her missing, she was already long dead. That's so sad. On August 11, 1983, nearly a year after Shonda went missing, a couple on a date to pick apples behind some abandoned houses near the strip stumbled across a badly decomposed body in some underbrush by the apple trees.

[Ash]

Oh, my God.

[Elena]

Not far from where Giselle Lavorne's body had been discovered the previous year. This body was in such an advanced state of decay that identification was impossible. But among the dental records of missing women the task force had collected, there was a match for Shonda Summers. As with many of the other victims, this, again, advanced state of decomposition made it impossible to also figure out a cause of death.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

And there were no obvious breaks or fractures to indicate what injuries she may have sustained. Under normal circumstances, the medical examiner would have closely analyzed the tiny neck bones for signs of strangulation.

[Ash]

I was just gonna ask about the hyoid bone.

[Elena]

Yeah. But by the time Shonda's remains were discovered, animals had scattered several of her tiny bones around the area. Although they couldn't say with certainty that Shonda was a Green river victim, she certainly fit the profile. So she was added to the list as victim number nine.

[Ash]

When she's so close, like, to the area.

[Elena]

What the task force didn't know at the time was that Shonda was, in fact, victim number 12.

[Ash]

Oh.

[Elena]

But the order in which the women were killed would remain something of a mystery for some time.

[Ash]

12 women, and we are in part one.

[Elena]

Yeah. All the task force investigators knew was that the killer hadn't stopped. And as 1983 came to a close, that would become abundantly clear. And we are going to end part one on that, because that's a lot of victims. It sure is for a part one. And I want everyone to sit with that.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Because we have a lot more coming up, which is pretty unbelievable to think about.

[Ash]

Also, Gary Ridgeway is like a little rat.

[Elena]

He is a literal rat.

[Ash]

He looks like a rat.

[Elena]

Like, ugh, he's disgusting. Ew. What a tragic case.

[Ash]

I've never. I know about, like, this case, and

[Elena]

you know some of the details, but

[Ash]

I don't know that I'VE ever listened to full coverage on this, and it's so sad. Well, he.

[Elena]

In case you're wondering and you haven't looked it up or anything, I think he was convicted in the end of murdering 49 young women and girls. 49 convicted. Did. And then he later confessed. He admitted to 65. Yeah.

[Ash]

Oh, my God. How do you. How did he get away with that for so long?

[Elena]

He got away with it for a long time. It was early 80s into the 90s. He's. He goes for a long.

[Ash]

Like almost a decade.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Wow.

[Elena]

And then when you find out who he is, you're like, how the did this little turd get away from it? From everybody?

[Ash]

Wow.

[Elena]

That's unbelievable. It's a. It's a horrific case. It really is. He is a. He's one of the most evil men the world has seen.

[Ash]

And he looks like it too.

[Elena]

He does. He's so gross.

[Ash]

For that to be the last face you ever see is little rat horrific. There's really no great way to transition, but we always have to give you a little bit of a palate cleanser. Yeah.

[Elena]

So we can leave you with a little bit of something.

[Ash]

So let's give you a little fun fact. And I. You know, I didn't even realize that this one would be so necessary. The average person living in Sweden eats about 22 pounds of chocolate per year.

[Elena]

That's pretty awesome.

[Ash]

I'd like to live my life that way.

[Elena]

I was gonna say Sweden knows what they're doing.

[Ash]

They really do. I think they eat the most candy in the world.

[Elena]

Good for them.

[Ash]

Isn't that pretty great?

[Elena]

Have you guys ever had Swedish candy?

[Ash]

Swedish candy. They know what the fuck they're doing.

[Elena]

Get yourself some and do that. Just type in Swedish candy.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And you will find what it is. I'm telling you. Go get some.

[Ash]

I am a sucker for gummy candy. Like, I love gummy bears. I love those squashies that we just recently discovered.

[Elena]

So Swedish candy. There's these one. This one type that's like a little log, like, kind of roll, and it has, like. Sometimes it has, like, creamy kind of stuff in the middle. It sounds weird. I know it sounds gross, but it's got like, gummy on the outside, and it's one of the yummiest things I've ever eaten in my life.

[Ash]

Actually, one of one of you guys sent us Swedish candy one time, and it was really fucking cool of you.

[Elena]

And I think it was called, like, sweet ish candy.

[Ash]

Yes.

[Elena]

Is that what it was?

[Ash]

Yeah. Good fucking memory.

[Elena]

Dude, I wonder if we've mentioned this before. If we haven't, I'm sorry, because that shit was the coolest thing ever.

[Ash]

You kept us fed and if go

[Elena]

find sweet ish candy.

[Ash]

A sweet ish.

[Elena]

It was. Is the.

[Ash]

It was hella sweet and delicious. Oh, I want candy now.

[Elena]

Yeah, we're going to order some. I actually just bought Squashy, so we need some.

[Ash]

All right, well, we hope you keep listening.

[Elena]

And we hope you keep it weird. You know, not to keep it as

[Ash]

weird as everything we talked about today.

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