Little Boy Blue

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Stolen Voices of Dole Valley
Episode: Little Boy Blue
Air Date: November 18, 2025
Host: Carolyn Osorio (with interviews and contributions by Jason and multiple others)

Overview:

“Little Boy Blue” delves into the haunting origins, hidden life, and investigation of a charming yet deadly predator from the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s and 80s. Centered on the “Truck Painter”—a major suspect in the Green River Killer case—the episode paints a chilling portrait of a killer who stalked young women and hid his darkness in plain sight. Through survivors’ testimonies, interviews with investigators, family, co-workers, and exploration of the community’s fear and loss, the episode captures the impact on victims, the dogged but frustrating investigation, and the echoes in a town haunted by secrets.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Truck Painter’s Troubled Childhood

• Family Dynamics
  • Born 1949; the middle child in a volatile household; passive father (Thomas), overbearing mother (Mary).
  • Intense mother-son attachment lingered. First wife remembered:

    “When they were married she had to pressure him into getting his mother’s name removed from his checkbook...” (00:50)

• Red Flags in Youth
  • Academic struggles, bed-wetting until 13, setting fires, animal cruelty (killing a cat).
• Escalation: First Human Victim
  • As a teen, he stabbed a 6-year-old neighbor boy, Jason, in a seemingly random, chilling attack (story recounted in full by Jason, 04:27–10:05).
  • Quote:

    “I always wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody. And he started laughing again.” — Truck Painter to Jason (10:04)

• Aftermath
  • Jason survived, but the attack remained unsolved at the time.

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2. Investigative Breakthroughs and Frustrations

• Task Force Focus

  • By 1987, after five years, investigators honed in on the Truck Painter after reviewing his history and patterns; “six month investigation” (00:02).

• Search Warrant and Evidence Hunt (20:10–38:16)

  • Search warrant for Truck Painter’s house and workplace at Kenworth; forensics took samples but were stymied by evidence (carpet had been replaced/burned).
  • Truck Painter refused to cooperate further or take another polygraph.

• The Disappointing Results

  • Forensic analysis found nothing to connect him:

    “The Washington state crime lab would find absolutely nothing to connect the truck painter to the crime scenes or the victims. Detective Jensen says that was a dark day.” — Carolyn Osorio (38:16)

  • Quote:

    “The majority of the people in the task force are pretty convinced that we had the right guy there, but we just didn’t have the evidence.” — Det. Tom Jensen (38:43)

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3. The Truck Painter’s Adult Life: Relationships and Deception

• Marriages and Control
  • Marcia, second wife: describes a cold, controlling marriage with “no communication, no real relationship” (11:47); feared he’d become violent if she asked questions.

    “He always said that what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me. …He was always in the garage with his cars, working on them, doing something, playing around. All he wanted was food and sex and that was it.” — Marcia (11:38, 11:51)

• New Love, New Life?
  • In 1985, began a relationship with Judith, joining a singles club (24:25–28:41). Their domestic harmony stood in contrast to earlier chaos.

    “If the Truck painter was the grk—a serial killer…—how was it even possible that a new love in his life was the reason that he’d stopped his killing spree?” — Carolyn (24:34)

  • Judith: “He was a gentle lover...just slow and comfortable.” (31:05–32:40)
  • Judith remained loyal through the investigation, married him in 1988, and put the ordeal behind her (42:09–42:24).

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4. Community and Family Perception

• Mother’s Defense
  • Mary (his mother) staunchly defended him as a “real good kid,” ignored warning signs, and was dismissive of the very idea that he could be violent (14:31–16:01).

    “He handles his anger pretty well…he isn’t that kind of a person. He just doesn’t do that.” — Mary (14:98)

• Co-workers Wary
  • Bonita Gilchrist, coworker, describes odd, inappropriate behavior, confessions of “something so bad” he believed God couldn’t forgive, but he never confessed specifics (42:50–44:40).
• Rumor and Paranoia
  • Search and non-arrest led to gossip, shame, and the nickname “Green River” at his workplace.
  • Investigation stoked community suspicion, rumors, and even wild theories of police involvement—especially after the sudden, tragic death of a task force commander (44:40–47:26).

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5. Failures, Frustrations, and the Human Toll

• Missed Warning Signs & Institutional Failures
  • The scope was underestimated; many missing persons reports weren’t taken seriously until bodies multiplied.
  • Youth, runaways, and vulnerable populations were largely ignored by systems meant to protect them.

    “...Missing juvenile problem is that nobody gives a sh-t and especially nobody gives a darn about runaway juvenile…” — Task Force (50:41)

• Enduring Impact on Victims’ Families
  • Families left with torment, unanswered questions, and the pain of being ignored or blamed.
  • Stories of victims Cindy Ann Smith and Debbie Ann Gonzalez—both discovered years later in remote locations, lives stolen too young (61:56–63:44).

    “But the victims...never got the chance to eat popcorn while watching a movie or sing a song in the shower. Their lives were stolen, in most cases, before they even had the opportunity to grow up.” — Carolyn (53:09)

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6. The Haunted Community

• Atmosphere of Fear and Normalization
  • Residents grew up with constant threat, anxiety, and a perverse normalization of discovering remains.
  • Streetwise kids swapped morbid jokes as a shield (54:32–55:29).
  • A friend recalls:

    “My worst fear of playing in that water was that I’m gonna stumble across a dead person.” — Jamie (55:06)

  • The chilling realization: The killer was so ordinary, so unremarkable, he blended in seamlessly.

    “He was just…right down the middle of the lane that wouldn’t distinguish him from any other person...” — Jason (64:21)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I always wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody. And he started laughing again.” — Truck Painter to Jason (10:04)
• “The majority of the people in the task force are pretty convinced that we had the right guy there, but we just didn’t have the evidence.” — Det. Tom Jensen (38:43)
• “...Missing juvenile problem is that nobody gives a sh-t and especially nobody gives a darn about runaway juvenile…” — Task Force (50:41)
• “But the victims...never got the chance to eat popcorn while watching a movie or sing a song in the shower. Their lives were stolen, in most cases, before they even had the opportunity to grow up.” — Carolyn (53:09)
• “He was just…right down the middle of the lane that wouldn’t distinguish him from any other person...” — Jason (64:21)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Childhood and Family Background: 00:02–03:41
• Early Escalations and First Victim (Jason’s stabbing): 04:27–10:14
• Marital and Family Interviews: 11:11–16:01; 24:25–32:40
• 1987 Task Force Investigation, Search, and Aftermath: 20:10–42:09
• Coworker and Community Reaction: 42:24–47:26
• Rumors of Police Involvement/Coverup: 47:26–49:46
• Societal Blindness Toward Victims: 49:46–53:09
• Victim Discovery and Episode Wrap-Up: 61:56–65:14

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Tone & Language

• The episode maintains a tone that blends somber reflection, journalistic rigor, and the lived-in memories of those who investigated, survived, or simply lived through the terror.
• Language is direct, evocative, with careful, at times personal, commentary from host Carolyn Osorio.

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Conclusion

“Little Boy Blue” portrays a killer’s evolution from troubled youth to suspected monster, haunted victims and survivors, and a relentless but frequently thwarted investigation. Through deeply personal storytelling, interviews, and the perspectives of investigators, family, and community, the episode explores not only the mechanics of evil but also societal failures and the enduring trauma left by justice delayed, victims forgotten, and communal innocence lost.

Transcript

[Carolyn Osorio]

Lemonade. This series contains adult language and descriptions of graphic violence throughout. Listener discretion is advised. In 1987, after nearly five Sisyphean years without answers thanks to that vax computer and tons of shoe leather detective work. At long last, the Green River Task Force detectives finally had a suspect in their sights. The man they would refer to as the truck Painter. Their six month investigation had led them down the rabbit hole of the man's past. Apparently, he'd been hiding a shadow self. Dark secrets harbored and collected since boyhood. From Pie in the Sky Media I hi, I'm Carolyn Osorio and this is the Shadow Girls. An in depth investigation into the victims of the Green River Killer. You're listening to episode six, Little Boy Blue. The truck painter was born in 1949. He was the middle child to Mary, who worked in retail and Thomas, who was a bus driver. He had a big brother named Greg and a little brother was named Thomas, who liked to be called Ed. The truck painter's parents frequently argued. His father was described as extremely passive, his mother overbearing. Both of the truck painter's ex wives would later describe a very close relationship between the truck painter and his mother. In fact, his first wife complained that when they were married she had to pressure him into getting his mother's name removed from his checkbook. She felt as husband and wife they should be on the check register together, not his mother. Ironically, my high school friend Jason, the one who grew up next to the Green river by Peck Bridge, his dad Rich lived just a few doors away from the truck painter's family home. When he was a kid near Pack.

[Jason]

Highway, he lived about three houses down from us, him and his brother, you know, we knew each other from kids three years younger. He was held back, I think twice at the school. And then his older brother Greg was a year younger than we knew each other and stuff. But I, I just didn't do anything with him. I, you know, they just didn't do.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The same type of thing. Rich couldn't quite put his finger on why he kept his distance from the family. When Mary was interviewed about her middle son in 1987, she just said her boy was just a regular kid.

[Jason]

He was a quiet boy, but I mean he was typical, typical. Played ball and football, basketball and everything anybody else played. Did he have any hobbies as a child other than you mentioned he was athletic, just putting together airplanes and things like that, you know.

[Carolyn Osorio]

She admitted that academically he did struggle in school and he wet the bed until the age of 13.

[Jason]

Did he read books. He wasn't too good at school as far as he didn't like school. Now, my oldest son, he loved school. He had good grades and everything. Well, when he was in the second grade, he loved it because he just wasn't quite ready to go on to the next grade. He was just a little behind. Did you like TV programs? But that time we didn't have TV anyway. Okay, answer that question.

[Carolyn Osorio]

I wonder if Mother Merry's intuition kept her up at night. When he was little, did she sense that he was hiding secrets? That he set fires for fun? Then up the ante when he coaxed a stray cat into his arms, secreting the animal down into their basement, stuffing it into a cooler. The cat hissing, scratching, clawing to get free. But he closed the lid, knowing he was sentencing that little cat to death. And he wouldn't open it until the next day, knowing full well it would die from suffocation. In the back of Mary's mind, I wonder, did she have an inkling about the little neighbor boy who nearly died? It was her son's first human victim.

[Jason]

It would have been maybe late 63, early 64. Sound about right? Or could it have been? No, it had to be right in there, because I remember, you know, when Kennedy was shot.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Imagine a cute little tyke, six years old, wearing his wee little cowboy boots. A kid rifle slung across his chest, binoculars swinging around his neck, and a cowboy hat cocked to the side across.

[Jason]

The street where the high school is? That's correct. And were you in of the school or behind the school? I was on the side of the school. My grandmother didn't like me being too far away, so I was where the baseball diamond was, is where I was when I made contact with the guys stabbing. Now, how did that contact occur? Some friends of mine were building a fort. They were cutting some trees down. Now, which friends are these? Oh, I couldn't tell you. You don't remember their names? No. Okay. I didn't run around with them too much. They lived down the block. They had cut some trees down across the street next to the baseball diamond. And we were playing in there. And they left to go home to get some things. And while I was waiting around for him, I got a big stick. And I was out there drawing in the dirt in the baseball diamond when an older kid came up to me and asked me where I live. I lived around there. I told him I did. I lived right across the street in that greenhouse. Now, by older kid, what do you mean? Well, I just knew he was A lot older than me. So you were about 6 years old? We figured out I was 6, yes. And by older than you, I. I guess looking back on it now, if you had to guess age, what would you say? I'd say he was, you know, somewhere between six and 10 years older. Now. More than six. Maybe eight or 10 years older than me. So somewhere between 16 and 18? Yeah. 15. I don't think he was 18. He wasn't 18. He had to be, you know, between, like, you know, 15, 16 years old, somewhere in there. All right, That's a good number. And he was white male, Hispanic? No, he was white. He was a white male. Okay. And color of his hair? The second room was brown. It was darker here. Okay.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Then the young truck painter was a teen. He'd been silently observing that little boy playing, waiting for his friends to leave so he would be vulnerable alone, you.

[Jason]

Know, and asked me what I was doing around. Asked me if I like to build forts. And I told him that a couple of friends of mine were building the fort over in the trees there. And he said, you know, have you ever built a grass fort? And I thought that was kind of. I never heard of one. And I was thinking about Indians or something, and I said, yeah, that'd be kind of neat. He said, you know, there's. There's people around here that like to kill little boys like you. That's what he said to you, right? Okay. And I said, no, I didn't know that. I knew there was a high school dance going on. And I asked him, I said, how come you're not at the dance? And he said he wasn't interested in going to the dance or he didn't have his ID or something like that. He wanted me to go over into the forest across the way. And I told him I couldn't do that. My grandmother didn't allow me to cross that road.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Fearful but curious, the little boy followed him into the tall grass.

[Jason]

And it was some woods to the back of the school, lot of tall grass where they mowed around there and kept that clean. So he said, oh, there's some good grass over here. And he was trying to talk me into going across the road again. And I just told him I wasn't going across there. I wasn't allowed over there. So about that time, he told me to duck. Here they come here, you know. Here, Come here. Some of those people, the ones that he said could, that were looking to kill little boys like me, okay. And I just went straight down on the ground. I Just went, you know, face forward, flat in that tall grass. Because we were standing in the middle of a bunch of tall grass on the top of the knoll. There was some trees there, kind of blocking the. Blocking away some small trees. And that's what I told you I had. You know, I had a cowboy hat on and two, you know, holstered two six guns and a rifle and my cowboy boots. And I fell on the ground. And when the rifle I had swung around me with a sling and it was underneath me and it was digging into my chest, and I went to move to roll over a little bit, get it out. As soon as I rolled over on my side, he already had the knife. He was coming down on me with the knife. He had rolled up on his side, like I was rolling up on my side. I couldn't see what he was doing until I was actually rolled over. And then I seen him coming down, and then I. He stabbed you? What part of your body? He stabbed me through the right side in the abdomen, through the liver, just below. Actually. Just below. Actually kind of nicked part of the bottom rib and went through the liver when we both stood to our feet. And I asked him why. Why he killed me. I watched too many cowboy movies, you know. Oh, you asked him that? Yeah. Rather than ask him, you know, why did you stab me? You asked him. Well, I said something like, why did you kill me? You know. And, you know, I saw the blood pumping out of me. And now could he see the blood as well? Oh, yeah, it was profusely. I mean, it was already running down my leg into my boots. And with every heartbeat, it was just pumping out. The whole front of my shirt was soaked. And he started laughing. He had a smile on his face. And he stood there for a minute, and he had his knife in his hand. And I didn't want him to stab me again, but he reached towards me and he just wiped the knife off both sides of the blade. So he wiped it once across my shoulder and twice across my shoulder on the other side of the blade, folded it back up. I always wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody. And he started laughing again.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The teenager waltzed away in high spirits, leaving that helpless little boy to bleed out alone in the wooded green space in the tall grass.

[Jason]

Teacher came out, found me. They took me into the school office, tried to use every piece of God they had to try to stop bleeding. Called the ambulance. They were there pretty quick. Kept asking my name, where I lived. Kept telling them I lived across the street, Greenhouse and they took me to the hospital from there. All right, how long were you in the hospital? Several weeks. Okay, now after you were released from the hospital, where did you, where did you live? Did you go back to your grandparents house? Yes, I did. And how long did you stay there? I stayed there for several more months. Okay. I never returned to the grade school after that. Okay, but you did their home tutor for me because I still had. They had to cut me. They had to cut about a foot open on me to get the liver sewed up. So I had a lot of stitches.

[Carolyn Osorio]

They never did find out who that mousy brown haired teenager was back then. He was perfecting how to hide in plain sight.

[Jason]

Police came out several times. The private detective came out probably about a half a dozen times. He used to bring me comic books every time he'd come. And I don't, you know, I remember looking through, of course, you know, the high school yearbooks and all that. Never really coming up with anybody in the high school yearbook.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Marcia, the truck painter's second wife, never knew about that little boy. She had already learned early on in their marriage not to ask questions.

[Jason]

He always said that what I didn't know wouldn't hurt me, and so he would never, he never told me anything that he didn't absolutely want me to know.

[Carolyn Osorio]

He was controlling and he belittled Marcia.

[Jason]

There was no communication, there was no real relationship. I felt that he just wanted somebody to, to keep a house clean for him and do the shopping and cooking and he was always in the garage with his cars, working on him, doing something, playing around. All he wanted was food and sex and that was it. There was no communication.

[Carolyn Osorio]

She became suspicious toward the end of their relationship when her husband would often come home hours late, sometimes musty and wet, boots muddy. But again, she learned not to ask questions.

[Jason]

Did he ever seem irritated, the fact that you were, that you were asking? Yeah. Did he get angry with you and so that, you know, after a while you got so that you just wouldn't ask and, you know, continue to ask? Yeah. Yeah. And I, I didn't want to aggravate him and get him mad. See, my dad beat my mom all the time, and I didn't. I kind of got scared that he might start doing this because there were a few times that he would start to hit me and then stop. I was raised with a father who beat me all the time too. And I was afraid that if I kept pursuing anything that he would maybe turn into this, and I didn't want that Because I loved him very much and I felt it was better just to leave things like they were. And, you know, maybe it wasn't my business to find out every little detail. And I didn't want to be a nagging wife, you know, and so I wouldn't pursue anything and get definite answers for anything and just took him at his word for stuff.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And the truck painter's mother believed her son could do no wrong.

[Jason]

Has he ever borrowed any of your vehicles? We don't do that. In fact, he wouldn't because he's independent and he wouldn't borrow any of ours. Like I say, he has his own cars. He has no reason to borrow anybody's cars. He just doesn't do that. He can't afford to buy a car. He doesn't dry. So he's. He's really tight. He pinches his pennies. But by golly, he owns. You know, he's buying his house and he's got all his furniture and stuff. He doesn't sponge off of anybody.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Mary would describe her son's obsession with fixing cars and dumpster diving. He was also known to just pull off the highway to troll for garbage.

[Jason]

He's just a real good kid. He's never been a father. There's just no. I can't say anything bad about him except that he's a tight blood and pinches pennies, that's all. Does he share much of his personal life with you? No, he just keeps everything to himself. You know, once you talk to him, you know what he's like. He's an open book, you know.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But detectives pressed had she ever seen her son angry?

[Jason]

He handles his anger pretty well. Has he ever told you that he'd like to hurt somebody? He isn't that kind of a person. He just doesn't do that. I don't think he'd strike anybody if they hit him. He's that kind of a kid. I never thought. Except with Greg, his older brother. They used to fight, you know, when Animal did. But no, you. What you. Have you heard about the Green river investigation and all? Anything following that? I did following a while. I haven't heard anything like it. We're talking about that investigation. He's not interested in. Do you know how he feels about prostitutes? Does that ever come up as a premises. He's never had anything to do with him as far as I. As far as I know. He just. I don't think he ever would because he's all I could say he always never had problem with my girlfriend. So there wouldn't be any reason to go to it. Paid somebody for it.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Do you hear the fragility in her cackle? Is that her tell? Did she really believe what she was saying? Or deep down in that moment, was she hoping it couldn't possibly be true? The Shadow Girls will continue after a word from our sponsors. Well, hi everybody. It's Julia Louis Dreyfus from the Wiser Than Me podcast. And I'm not going to talk about food waste this time. I'm going to talk about food resources. All that uneaten food rotting in the landfill. It could be enriching our soil or feeding our chickens because it's still food. And the easiest and frankly, way coolest way to put all its nutrients to work is with the Mill Food Recycler. It looks like an art house garbage can. You can just toss your scraps in it like a garbage can. But it is definitely not a garbage can. I mean, it's true, I'm pretty obsessed with this thing. I even invested in this thing.

[Jason]

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[Carolyn Osorio]

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[Jason]

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[Carolyn Osorio]

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[Jason]

Connecticut River Valley as a serial killer stalked and murdered women in New Hampshire and Vermont. But this isn't a story about him. It's about the eight women whose lives.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Were cut to too short and one woman who survived to tell us the tale. I'm Jennifer Amell and this is Dark.

[Jason]

Valley, an audio docu series of my personal investigation into a series of unsolved murders that have haunted this region for decades. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And now back to the Shadow Girls. After that six month deep investigation into the truck painter's past, hopes were high that an arrest was imminent. Detective Tom Jensen says it all started falling into place.

[Jason]

One of the elements that went into that with the assault on Rebecca Gardet, statements from the wife about choking and various other things that were learned about him were all things that were part of the probable cause for a search warrant that was executed on his house in 1987. That's when it was the lead up to that probably about a six month investigation led up to that, that warrant.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Remember earlier in the investigation, the bar for a potential suspect was proving that he could be the grk. But now the investigative protocol was putting together evidence to eliminate a suspect.

[Jason]

It was important to interview associates and people that knew them and were with them so you could narrow down the exact date and time and location that they disappeared because that's the only thing you have to incriminate or eliminate a suspect. What were you doing on July 7, 1982? Well, I was on vacation in Montana and if you can prove that you didn't do it. There was a lot of, I would call it backwards police work. We would get a tip on a suspect and what our goal was was to try to eliminate it as opposed to incriminating.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And during the six months investigating the truck painter and nothing they had dug up could eliminate him. The VAX computer was essential in assisting the investigators so that they could finally see this 30,000 foot view of the truck painter and his life. There was one thing that was worrying the larger unanswered question. Why did it appear that the GRK had stopped killing in 1985? I mean, it goes without saying, but I'll say it, it's a good thing. But from an investigative standpoint, given the GRK's history and what investigators knew about serial killers, it just didn't seem likely that he could stop. Even Ted Bundy, the self proclaimed serial killer consultant, was convinced that something had changed in the Riverman's life. Because in his so called expert opinion, the GRK would never stop killing.

[Jason]

Still quite significant to me that after Mary Sibeo drops off like it did, I mean you haven't. Nobody has turned up yet. And I'm not saying he stopped like you say, there's no guarantee he stopped, but he's gotten a lot smarter. Somehow something has changed. Around October of 83 because he may not have moved, he may not have been struck by lightning. You think it's possible that this guy could stop? Well, unless he got. Unless he was born again and he got filled with the holy spirit in a very real way, he's either moved, he's either dead, or he's either doing something very different.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Taking a fresh investigative eye with all that they'd learned over the years, they had to wonder, wouldn't any potential suspect have a significant life event in their history to explain how a serial killer murders over 40 people over a year and a half then just suddenly stops? Had the killer moved on? Was he behind bars or was he dead? Something had changed. But what was it? These unanswered questions plagued the investigation of the truck painter because nothing really changed in his life. That was out of the ordinary. But according to quiet subpoena of his time cards revealed that on every date that a victim of the GRK had disappeared, he had not been on the clock. The truck painter's life was dissected. Other than his divorce From Marsha in 1981, there just weren't any obvious signs of stress in his life. Sure, a divorce is painful, but he'd already been through a divorce once before. Conversely, nothing in his life shed any light on why he might speak stop killing. At the end of 1984, he hadn't moved, hadn't changed jobs and he wasn't in prison and he wasn't dead. There was just one major life change. In early 1985, he started dating a new woman. Her name was Judith.

[Jason]

And. And how was he? What type of man was he? Oh, the best. Nice, sweet, gentle. We're best friends. Okay. So you hang out a lot together? Other. Yes.

[Carolyn Osorio]

If the Truck painter was the jrk, a serial killer who would go down in history as one of the most prolific murderers of all time, how was it even possible that a new love in his life was the reason that he'd stopped his killing spree? The truck painter met Judith at a singles group, Parents without Partners. The social club gathered at the White Shutters restaurant on Pack highway near the Strip. Later, Judith would share with detectives how she met the love of her life.

[Jason]

Well, I got divorced in 1984 and I lived in an apartment with another girl. And at the White Shutters, they had this Parents without Partners and country western music. Is that something you enjoy? Country western? And I went there and that's where we met. And what year was that? 1985. Do you remember what month? February. It was his birthday. Vacation time off? He had a couple days off. I mean, did he have a permanent job? He works at Kenworth. Okay. And at that time in 85, he was working there. He's been there since high school. Okay. And were you working anywhere at that time? I think I was either taking care of a lady and her two children or cleaning house at the time. I've always been a homemaker.

[Carolyn Osorio]

As a local, I'd never heard of the restaurant. A quick Internet search of White Shutters popped up an article from 2001 by Seattle Times reporter Carlton Smith. In the article, Smith describes going to the restaurant to chase down some leads on the GRK case. Smith, along with fellow investigative reporter Thomas Guillen, were dogged in their decades long investigation of the GRK case. In fact, all of their work on the case was later culminated into a book which they co wrote called the Search for the Green River Killer. The True Story of a Man, America's Most Wanted Serial Killer. But back to that article that Smith wrote in 2001 where he details a visit to the White Shutters. I'm including a snippet here because I believe it perfectly captures what I remember it being like in the community, especially in the early days of the investigation, where even a reporter chasing down leads was cause for someone to call in a tip at the task force hotline. Carlton writes, I once made it a habit to check the bar, looking over the middle aged men slumped on their stools, nursing their drinks, trying to envision a serial killer among them. Once I showed a picture of a missing woman to a bartender. A patron reported me as a suspicious Person to what was then the King County Police. The patron, it turns out, was a police reserve officer. While I was wondering about his him, he was wondering about me. And while I was later kidded by police for being a suspicious character, a person of interest, it remains an indicator of the paranoia generated in those days. Back then, it could have been anyone. But in 1985, Judith wasn't thinking about the GRK at the White Shutters. She was enjoying a budding romance with the truck painter over their shared love of swap meets and garage sales.

[Jason]

We'd always go to the swap meet and sell stuff. We're both pack rats. We like to somebody's hobby. We don't like to see stuff going garbage in the landfill. So we'd always. Oh, it was great because my ex husband never let me have yard sales. So you both enjoy swap meet. We have so much fun doing that together.

[Carolyn Osorio]

That apartment that Judith shared with a friend was off Pack highway. And it was close to the truck painter's home. The same residence that Des Moines police officer had been called to after Marie Malvar went missing. A detail he had not shared with Judith when he would take her out for a meal at McDonald's.

[Jason]

We'd sit and hold hands, have a hamper. And you'd go off to work and you'd go home. I'd either go home or go to his apartment. To his house. That was after. I didn't go to his house till after a couple months. Not right away. All right, so how long did you actually date before you started? Started, like going to his house to spend the night? About two months. Two to three months.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And just like the lies the truck painter had told his mother Mary about his ex wives, where he painted himself as the victim. So was the backstory he shared with Judith.

[Jason]

What about? Did he ever say anything negative about Marcia? I mean, not really negative. Did you know why they broke up? They had disagreements. And he would be home when she would be working. She used to be a country western singer and stay out late with the band and groups. And he would be home babysitting. So I don't know all those details. Okay. That's all I can remember. I guess I should just. I'll just ask. He had mentioned that she was unfaithful to him. Do you know anything about that? Why he was. She was probably with some of the band people. Maybe. I have no idea. That's where I met her when I was the Seattle singles. Because I'd never been single. Oh, okay. I was married for 19 years. The first time. What about. And I went to Seattle. Singles first. What about Claudia? Did you ever mention if she was unfaithful or did he have any. She was a high school girlfriend. They got married. He went and did the service, and she dated other men while he was in the service in Vietnam. Did that bother him? He probably did. I know it would bother me if I was a man. No. And going to work.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Within a few months, Judith moved into his home, where she says life was perfect. In her eyes, he was everything she had been looking for. Judith says her relationship with the truck painter grew even stronger, especially after her young adult daughter moved in with them. She saw firsthand how important family was to her new man.

[Jason]

Three years he lived there prior. And my daughter and my. And her boyfriend and a couple babies, they moved in with us for a while, and he helped me. Help take care of my daughters. And were they actually staying with you at the Military Road residence? Yes. And he helped. Well, when I got divorced, my daughter came and wanted to be with me. Prior to that, my daughter was living with me and she met her boyfriend and. Do you just have one daughter? I have two daughters. Both of them living with you, or just the ones? No, just the one.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Investigators would dig into Judith and the truck painter's sex life. She said he was a gentle lover, and if there were any issues, it was because of her.

[Jason]

Your. Your sexual relationship with him, would you consider that normal? I would say it's normal. May or well, normal to maybe a little bit. It's hard for me to say because of some of my. My problems. I don't. I'm not the one that always wants to, you know, engage. Engage in sex or. Sex or relations, but I do. I enjoy it mostly on the weekends and then sometimes during the week. It's not like every single day. If. If you could have.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Sorry.

[Jason]

If he. He could have sex with you every day, would he want to? I mean, is he. If he could. If he wanted.

[Carolyn Osorio]

If he.

[Jason]

If he wanted to, he could. I'm asking, does he have a high sex drive? Higher than you? Probably a little higher than me because of my situation before we met and my first husband was homosexual. Okay. And he would bring men over. Yes. I'm remembering one time when we were out camping on one of the. Out in the mountains or in the parks or trees or someplace green water. I guess that's where it was out where you can just see the stars and everything. We were sitting in the back of the truck and talking, and I let him know that I wasn't used to a man wanting me and things, you know, personal things. And he was gentle. He didn't rush or bush or. He wasn't forward or anything. Any sexual relations have just been, you know, slow and comfortable.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Was the truck painter's new relationship with Judith in 1985 the catalyst for him to stop killing? If he was the GRK, time would certainly tell. In April of 1987, the truck painter's quietly guarded secret life had finally caught up with him.

[Jason]

Foreign.

[Carolyn Osorio]

After a word from our sponsors. And now we continue with the shadow girls at the Kenworth trucking company, detectives showed up with a search warrant which authorized them to take the truck painter into custody, to collect a hair sample, search his locker, and to seize his truck from the plant's parking lot. A former co worker who was at the plant that day says the situation was something she would never forget.

[Jason]

When we were working in Seattle and when they. The police came down there and questioned him in, I think it was 87, people gave him the name Green river. And that carried with him over to all the years that at Kenworth. So you were, you were at Kenworth when the police came there and you think 87? Yeah. They cleaned his locker out and handcuffed him and took him away.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Meantime, another team descended on the rambler where he had lived after his divorce with Marsha, the home he would later share with Judith and her daughter. Forensic scientists removed carpet samples and fiber evidence. But they were too late. Investigators would learn that day when they interviewed the truck painter's younger brother. The old carpet was gone.

[Jason]

He's fixing the house up down there. So what's he. What's he doing to the house? Well, he had to put the new framework around the doors and new doors and replace some windows. Drapes. I don't know about drapes. Carpets. Yeah, he replaced the carpets in there because I got. Had the old ones here. You had the old carpets from his house there? Yeah. In here. Do you still have them here? Nope. Those went out a long time ago. When did he give you those? Shoot, that was about eight months ago. Took a long time to get rid of those dumb things too. Why is that? Well, nobody wants a dingy dirty green. Dirty green. I mean, it was a nasty color green too. Oh, really? Yeah. So he took. He took the carpets out of his house. Yeah. And mainly, you know, like, see the toilet overflowed and it water stained not only the bathroom carpet, but the bedroom carpet right next door because it went under the base wall. Yeah. So this green carpet plus the closet? Yeah, plus. Then time later, his washing machine overflowed. There was water stains every place there too. So he done the whole house? Yeah. So this green carpet was given to you here? Yeah. This was about eight months ago? Yeah, about eight months. How long did you have that? About four, five months. Finally we just ended up burning it. Is that right? Yeah. You know, nobody wanted it.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Detectives asked if the brother was aware that his older brother had been talked to previously by the task force.

[Jason]

Did you know that was talked to by the members of the Green river task force at one time? I don't know. He never said anything to you about that? No. Did he ever say anything to your mom and dad about that? I never heard anything. Then again, they don't always tell me something as they figure it's none of my business. Are you surprised to know that detectives from the Green river task force talked to him before? Now I am. Yeah. Because I never knew that either the.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Truck painter refused to be interviewed by detectives or take another polygraph test. The circumstantial evidence had been enough to get that search warrant. But a judge wouldn't sign off on an arrest since his truck had been towed to the crime lab. The truck painter asked the detectives for a lift to his childhood home where his parents still lived near the Seatac strip. The search warrants were so well executed that they were over before media had even gotten wind. The sheriff's office would issue a press release that a search warrant had been activated, but the person of interest to the Green river task force had not been arrested. Over the years, both the task force and news media had learned to be extremely cautious when announcing developments in the case. Especially after the fiasco with that trapper in 1985 who had endured a four hour long interrogation while the media staked at his home and multiple news outlets released his name as a suspect when he was never charged. Subsequently, the man who they had issued a search warrant for his home work and truck would not be named in the news that day. He would be referred to as the truck painter. It would take a month for the crime lab to process the fruits from those searches. An excruciating wait for detectives. Did they finally have their man? Would this nightmare at long last be over? And when the day arrived when they would finally get the answer to that question, a resounding no. The Washington state crime lab would find find absolutely nothing to connect the truck painter to the crime scenes or the victims. Detective Jensen says that was a dark day.

[Jason]

We didn't arrest him in 87. We had a warrant for a saliva sample from him. Part. That was part of the warrant we got. We got. So we picked him up and got the saliva sample, which. So he was never under arrest and he asked for an attorney. And so he was just released after we got the gauze. The gauze chew. So.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And how frustrating was that? I mean, you've got to just be like. I mean, he just seems like he is.

[Jason]

The majority of the people in the task force are pretty convinced that we had the right guy there, but we just didn't have the evidence. And so it was just a matter of waiting until the science caught up with the evidence that we had.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Did a little of. The Green River Task Force's collective will die that day after all that work, knowing that the truck painter was scot free and back to work at the truck plant. But life for him at Kenworth would never be the same.

[Jason]

Did he say anything to you about being a suspect? Well, everybody knew. Did you ever have any conversation with him? I mean, did you ever ask him why he was a suspect? No. Did you ever hear him deny any involvement? He just. Well, he did make a comment one time that he, you know, drives up and down 99 and so basically he knew. Hang out at taverns or something up there and he knew a lot of the people and that was good. That was just basically it.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Judith says the arrest of her boyfriend was a shock.

[Jason]

1987, April 8th. That was a pretty significant event. Yes. The whole family was shook up. I was shook up and didn't know what in the world was happening and going on.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Judith says that although the news was shocking, the entire family rallied around the truck painter.

[Jason]

They were saying that he looked like somebody. Who's there? The police or the Green River? The Green River. Bunch of people. They said he didn't do it, he didn't do anything. And that was it. No other explanation. So long. And I was with his mom and dad and you know, they. We were all, you know, trying to comfort each other and figure out what all was happening and going on at that time. Can you elaborate on that at all or. What do you mean? Well, what did they say other than comforting each other? Oh, his mom and dad, sure. Well, I remember riding in the truck. They didn't. I'm sorry, I can't remember. Was he angry at the police or did you just. Did he just kind of cooperate and go along with the program or was he mad his house got searched or what do you remember? Or was it just like an everyday Thing? Well, he didn't get upset or real mad, but, you know, we would talk and wonder, did he have much contact with his attorney? He had an attorney. Did he talk to his attorney? Very much. There was some. I don't remember the attorney's name. I'd have to get the papers out and stuff. Did you see any paperwork about it? Yes, I probably did at that time. Do you remember anything that was said in the paperwork? No, I don't remember all that. I put it all in the past.

[Carolyn Osorio]

He convinced his family that he had been the victim of a witch hunt. It was all just a big misunderstanding. His brother Greg, at some point back in the.

[Jason]

Back in the 80s, about driving up and down First Avenue south and why he did it. I mean, very specifically, why did you get yourself involved? I mean, pac highway. And he says, well, just. He didn't like taking the freeway. Well, it seems to be plausible to me. A lot of people don't like taking the freeway. A lot of people today drive, pack, highway rather than go to freeway. Okay, so that's what he told me. And it certainly, like everything else, seemed to be, you know, a rational, reasonable explanation.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And Judith was just ready to put the whole ordeal in the rear view mirror.

[Jason]

We got married in 88. I told him, after three years, it's not getting rid of me, we're getting married. Okay. And what did he think about marriage? He said, okay.

[Carolyn Osorio]

A twist of fate brought a woman named Bonita Gilchrist into my orbit, or more accurately, my mother. Bonita lives in the same senior housing complex as my mom. And when she found out about my work on the Shadow Girls series, she wanted to share her story. What it was like working with the truck painter. Bonita says they were really tight. But after that 1987 search warrant, she too became wary of her co worker.

[Jason]

When they come down to Kenworth and tore his locker apart. And they tore his house apart. Came down. And then after that, I kind of like I said, did you do that? And he said, no, because there's a couple times that when we had Bible study, he said, benita, I done something really bad. And I went, what'd you do? He said, well, I can't tell you. But he said, will God forgive you for anything? And I said, yeah, except for two sins. Blasphemy of the Holy Ghost and suicide. Well, I've done something so bad, I don't think God will forgive me. But he never would tell me.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And she wasn't the only one who had weird feelings about the truck painter, especially when he was up close for.

[Jason]

Displaying any odd or offensive behaviors work? Oh, yeah. And can you describe those to me? He had a strange sense of humor and I didn't feel comfortable around him. One day, in between the booth and the lockers, he put his hands on my shoulders and I turned around and told him, you don't know me that well to touch me and I prefer you not to. And I asked at that time, called the business agent or our shops doing at the time and asked him to talk with him about touching people. Did he? Yeah. And he didn't bother me anymore. Okay. And was that his idea of a joke or what's the point of that contact, you know, just being friendly. So there's hands put on your shoulder softly, or does he put them, you know, just touching. But I, as I say, I didn't really care for the person and I didn't really want him touching me.

[Carolyn Osorio]

After the search warrant was executed and it was revealed to be a bust with no forthcoming arrest, it was perceived as yet another letdown. The task force had failed once again. Each time they came up short, another line of inquiry, belly up. But what was overlooked was all the blood, sweat and tears in an exhausting and often demoralizing investigation. Another letdown for the victims and their families and on the morale of the entire community. This latest blow with the truck painter further deepened anger and frustration that was leveled against the task force. And it ratcheted up. That ever present distrust of police coupled with an apathy toward the investigation and the rumblings continued to grow that the GRK was a cop. They'd always been there. Like a steady drumbeat. It just kept getting stronger and stronger and louder. Especially after the untimely death of one of the task force's newest members. In May of 1987, the newly minted commander of the task force, Captain James Pompeii, died during a recreational dive with some of his co workers in the Puget Sound. Captain Pompeii had a little diving experience and he was in excellent physical condition. He had top of the line gear. An investigation into his death ruled it as accidental. It was a tragedy, not a murder. But this excursion happened just days after the crime lab had sent shock waves through the task force with their announcement that zero physical evidence tied the truck painter to the GRK case. Many just wouldn't accept that Pompeii's death was an accident. The rumor mill inside and outside the sheriff's office persisted. Was Captain Pompey's air tank tampered with because he had stumbled onto information he shouldn't have. There was a belief that his death was part of a larger conspiracy to protect a killer cop. Wouldn't that explain why the GRK case hadn't been solved? Remember those Seattle Times reporters I had mentioned earlier in the episode? Carlton Smith and Thomas Guillen? As it turns out, not only had Smith been turned in as a possible suspect because of his perceived obsession with the case, but Guillen had as well. They were both ultimately cleared by the task force. According to the book that they would later write, around the time of Captain Pompey's death, they were assigned to leave no stone unturned and to answer the question, why was it taking so long to find the killer? Was there anything to the rumors of a larger conspiracy at play?

[Jason]

A lot of people believe there was a cover up, or even worse, police collusion. Could a cop be the Green river killer? Since 1982, there's been another investigation investigative team on the trail, not just of the killer, but the police themselves. We didn't have any, really any real sense of whether or not the police were doing the appropriate thing, whether or not the politics had become involved in this, as it did in Atlanta and as it did in other jurisdictions when this problem happened. We simply didn't know what was really happening with this investigation. We have to be there. We have to tell the public we have to do our job. But we do things differently than the other media, and I hope they respect it. Dian and Smith are investigative reporters for the Seattle Times. We need a little bit more copy for the story. On their own time, they've created an amazing diary of who was where on the SeaTac Strip for every day of the murders. Our responsibility to the public and to our readers was to find out just where what this police task force that had spent the 12 or 15 million, or however much it is at this point, whether or not they were doing their job in a way that the taxpayers had a right to expect that they were.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The focal point of the Seattle Times investigation was on the King County Sheriff's vice unit during the 19821984 timeframe. Was there any evidence to support the theory that the GRK was an undercover vice cop working the strip? These were incredibly stressful days for the sheriff's office and the politicians beholden to a wary public bombarded with news, criticizing not only the rising costs of the task force, but also the lack of progress in finding the killer. And now the task force itself was being openly investigated by the Seattle Times to uncover if One of their own was the grk. At the end of their investigation, the Seattle Times would report that there was no evidence of a cover up or that the Green River Killer was a cop. But the story revealed what investigators already knew. From the very beginning of the investigation. The task force hadn't taken seriously the many missing persons reports in 1983 until it was too late, which wasn't breaking news to the detectives working the case.

[Jason]

The true scope of it wasn't as obvious. From 82 until, say, fall of 1983, they knew that there were people missing, but the bodies hadn't been turning up until the fall. And then the total went from like 6 or 7 to about 10 to 14. Nothing flat. And so it was, it was disturbing and it was, it was something everybody was aware of in police work, particularly in the area that I worked. I worked the area that was Berean, you know, and down towards the river. So that was our part of our jurisdiction.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Missing young people, runaways and vulnerable adults who vanished without a trace wasn't just a problem within law enforcement, but a deeply systemic issue involving the entire community. Remember, Detective Reichert made no bones about how the community felt about teen runaways when he was interviewing Ted Bundy.

[Jason]

We have two detectives that are exclusively devoted to, to looking at the entire missing person problem in 1984, which is quite monumental because missing juvenile problem is that nobody gives a sh T and especially nobody gives a darn about runaway juvenile. So they end up with mountains of lists to go through and verify if they're home or not because nobody has cleared them. They are. This guy's figured out, oh, I know, he's, he's way ahead of us. I mean, he's so far ahead of us, he's. It's unreal.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And Reichert's frustration and anger would never quell when it came to how the victims were treated. He saw firsthand that for many it was simply more convenient to believe that a 14, 15, 16, 17 year old had chosen to continue their victimization and sexual exploitation and prostitution. Even Today, cultural anthropologist Dr. Deborah Boyer says, we haven't fully committed to taking care of vulnerable children. Despite evidence that prior sexual victimization and poverty are well established antecedents to prostitution.

[Jason]

An exploiter comes along, sees the vulnerabilities and says, I'll be your boyfriend, I'll be your father, I'll be your brother, I'll be your protector. I'll take care of you. You won't need anybody but me. You just have to do this for me. So that we can have some money and be able to get along, and you don't have to go back to that abusive situation. And it really happens so quickly and so easily that it is scary. So as a, as a society, do we need to do more to identify kids in. Prevention of abuse in the home is a challenging, challenging problem. If we can have opportunities like the Committee for Children curricula, where kids can tell somebody so that they can get help, so that there can be an intervention, that is one important thing that we can do now. The success of those interventions, we know the difficulties with child protective services and how they are underfunded and the lack of alternative placements and homes. We just have to commit to taking care of children.

[Carolyn Osorio]

As 1987 was wrapping up, Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer, George Michael's Faith and Walk like an Egyptian by the Bengals were the top hits of the day. Three Men and a Baby and Fatal Attraction were the top two grossing movies. But the victims of the Green River Killer never got the chance to eat popcorn while watching a movie or sing a song in the shower. Their lives were stolen, in most cases, before they even had the opportunity to grow up. The GRK's victims included mothers, too, leaving behind children who would never see their mommies again. Over five years had passed since Wendy Cofield's body had been found by those curious boys writing their baby bikes over Peck Bridge on that hot summer day. Half a decade had gone by. So much had changed, and yet one thing remained a constant. The GRK still walked free, and the task force seemed no closer to finding him. As time wore on, many began to accept that the GRK would remain a ghost forever. And as the profile of his victim had been so callously cemented into the local fabric, the worry moved from fear of being a victim to hoping you wouldn't find the skeletal remains of another victim out in the woods. My friend Jason, it changed over time.

[Jason]

You know, when I was in, you know, fifth and sixth grade about, you know, that was very scary. But, you know, as junior senior in high school, it was completely different just because of the nature of the victims and, you know, who I was, other than just always being weird and just always something new and another body, and you're just kind of always looking around the corner, doing a double take, you know, at things as a kid, you know, is there a body over there? Is that just a dog laying down or, you know, you're, you know, skeptical, a little apprehensive.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And my childhood best friend Jamie had similar Concerns Think about all the times.

[Jason]

You played in that water. And although that's what would creep me out, when I went to go float down the river, I'm like, oh, please don't let me run into somebody dead. That was like my worst fear of playing in that water was that I'm gonna stumble across a dead person.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And the feeling that someone you knew could be the grk.

[Jason]

And then I remember Scott and I talking as it got worse and worse and they couldn't find him and they couldn't catch him, Scott and I started looking at his brother.

[Carolyn Osorio]

You can hear a sort of macabre laughter with my friend. And it might be tempting to skew that laughter as insincere or callous, but it really is a byproduct of what it was like for many kids growing up in the 80s. When a serial killer is out murdering young women over the span of decades where people and children are finding bodies and skeletal remains, and all of this is served up to the public as breaking news. And one of the victims families is just unspeakably cruel, what they continued to endure throughout the years. But it just takes a toll collectively on the community when a serial killer just keeps getting away with murder over and over and over again. You might remember the angst expressed by the producer of this show, Brandon Morgan, who from the beginning knew nothing of the Green river killer investigation when we first started. And like so many people that I've talked to, couldn't fathom why it took.

[Jason]

So long and how frustrating it is that they haven't found this guy every time they find a new young girl dead. It's all in the 80s. It's not like the 20s. There was technology in the 80s, like, why did it take so long?

[Carolyn Osorio]

I'll admit in the beginning I was guilty of wanting easy answers too, when I first interviewed Detective Reichert. Walk us through a timeline of the intensity of finding those first five bodies in the Green river. And then how many years until the case kind of went cold and just however you want to, you know, chip away at, at this 30 year saga.

[Jason]

You know, everybody wants to know about the case, so I'll give presentations and they'll give me, you know, 20 minutes. So I have 20 minutes to tell you a story that took 19 years. Right. To solve.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But as I was researching the GRK investigation for over a year and a half during the pandemic, I began to understand on a deeper level why this case is so hard for people to wrap their heads around on the outside, looking in Brandon's outrage of why'd it take so long? Seems a fair question to ask given the amount of time and resources spent on the case. And yet, when you peel back the layers from a different perspective, say from the inside looking out, you begin to understand what a challenging case it truly was from the very beginning. Even looking through the now digitized case files that took years to organize and input into a database, I began to understand the complexity of a case unlike any other in terms of length and breadth. And let's face it, from the beginning, detectives were always in a perpetual state of catch up.

[Jason]

You just learn the facts and stuff and you sort them out. And again, you do, you do take things one day at a time. Is the big tip going to come in today? Or what are we working on today? At the same time, and this is what happened basically in 1984 when we recovered so many remains. We were spending days in the woods recovering victims, bodies and bones, and there was no time or people left over to do the investigative side of it. So that started falling more and more behind. And then we had. As we identified the victims, it was important to interview associates and people that knew them and were with them, so you could narrow down the exact date and time and location that they disappeared.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And their worst fears would be realized. That he had slowed down. But the GRK hadn't stopped in 1985. In June of 1987, a couple of kids were strolling a heavily wooded ravine near the Green River Community College. They were looking for aluminum cans to recycle for change. As they skim the old growth nooks and crannies, they uncovered human remains. The Green River Task Force was called. They roped up the crime scene as they had done far too many times before, because they were now a well oiled machine when it came to collecting forensic evidence. In green spaces across King County, Dr. Bill Hagland was the chief medical investigator who spent countless hours and days on his hands and knees, sifting, digging, searching for evidence. Detective Tom Jensen would say that Haglin would never speculate on who the skeletal remains might belong to at the crime scene, even though it was more likely than not that he knew exactly who it was because he'd spent years collecting and poring over the dental records of missing girls. He was so dedicated to the victims that he had committed to memory the teeth characteristics from their dental X rays. But he had too much reverence for the victims and their families that he wouldn't say who it was until he knew for sure it was A positive match. According to a recent obituary. Bill Hagland, like so many of the task force, gave his own all to the case because he knew well what it was to lose a loved one to a heinous crime. In his late teens, Haglin's own mother, who had struggled with alcoholism, had been stabbed to death in a bar. Obviously, the horror of his mother's death had made an impression. But years later, when he performed one of his very first autopsies, he would record recall pulling back the white sheet, revealing the tiny body of a child who had been beaten to death. Haglin would say that child's murder fueled his work as a forensic scientist and victim advocate during the long GRK investigation. He would say, quote, I thought that child was helpless and innocent. And we are their advocates. We speak for them, we are witnesses for them. And I like that voice. The forested crime scene near the Green River Community College, where those kids were innocently looking for cans and happened upon the skeletal remains that Haglin would later identify as Cindy Ann Smith. Cindy had been last seen hitchhiking on the SeaTac Strip in early 1984. By this time, the task force had meticulously collected more than 9,000 pieces of evidence, which included four sets of unidentified skeletal remains. Their families still had no idea what had happened to their daughters by the end of that summer. In September of 1987, a kid was riding a dirt bike in the woods when he came across human remains just off the remote Auburn Black Diamond Road. The victim, a teenage girl, was nude except for one pink sign. Her remains were found on the same highway where Cindy Smith had been discovered in June. And also Yvonne Antosh's body was found in 1983. Those skeletal remains would later be identified as Debbie Ann Gonzalez. Later, it would be determined that Debbie was not a victim of the Green River Killer. Her murder is still unsolved. According to Debbie's mother, Dorena, the last time she had seen her daughter alive was after an argument. Debbie had wanted to go out and celebrate her birthday with friends. She had just turned 14. Debbie's older brother Joe spoke with Q13 recently and says, like a lot of kids back then, Debbie wanted to go party with her friends.

[Jason]

Teenagers back then, we were different than the teenagers are now. A lot of us were very rebellious and wanted to do what we wanted to do, but, you know, we got to come home and grow up and still, you know, be here and live, live a life she didn't.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The place where Debbie's body was found was deep in the woods and described as a place where teens gathered for keggers and bonfires.

[Jason]

They asked specifically if she was wearing an ankle bracelet with a little charm on it. And she was. I remember her wearing that. We broke down instantly. It was a month and a half that she was out in those woods. When they found her, she was only wearing one pink sock and that ankle bracelet.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Ironically, my friend Jason recalled very well that summer of 1987, because it was that summer when he came so close to finding a victim of the GRK in that same green space.

[Jason]

I recall one night Mark and I were hanging out. I can't, I don't know if we had drink a beer in one of the parks or just hanging out or something. Friday, Saturday night, and a week later they found the body right where we were at. Like, that kind of freaked us out.

[Carolyn Osorio]

What freaked out Jason more than anything was finding out that he had already met the GRK when he was a little boy. He'd shaken his hand.

[Jason]

Nothing stood out about him. So I, I, you know, that's, I remember shaking his hand the first time, but I think there's two other three times in passing possibly. But, you know, as a, at that age, you know, I don't pay attention to your, all your parents, friends, so, you know, not, he was overly friendly, but he wasn't overly weird. He was just, you're, you know, he wasn't rude, he wasn't mean. I mean, just a nice. Came across as a nice, cordial person. Nothing, not overly nice, but just right down the middle of the lane that wouldn't distinguish him from any other person going down the middle of the lane. And so that was, I guess that was it. You know, looking back upon it, I think that's, you know, he got away with so much because no one ever, there's no, nothing distinguishable about him.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Next time on the Shadow Girls. With nothing to lose, desperation leads to inspiration. The Shadow Girls is a Pie in the sky production in association with KSL Podcasts and Lemonada Media. Our executive producer is Brandon Morgan. Post production supervisor is Casey Weyland. Supervising sound editor is Victoria Chang. And edited by Joey Jordan For Pie in the Sky Media, I'm Carolyn Osorio.