The Hail Mary

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Stolen Voices of Dole Valley – Episode: "The Hail Mary"

Podcast: Stolen Voices of Dole Valley
Host: Carolyn Osorio (Lemonada Media)
Episode Date: November 25, 2025
Main Theme:
This gripping episode explores a pivotal turning point in the hunt for the Green River Killer, delving into the late-1980s efforts by detectives and grieving families to break through years of dead ends. The episode centers around the radical decision to open the investigation to the public via a televised event, "Manhunt Live," and the relentless persistence of both investigators and families in a system that had marginalized the victims.

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Episode Overview

• Focus:
  The episode dives into the frustrations, innovations, and determined hope that marked the Green River Killer investigation in the 1980s, when leads had stalled and desperation led law enforcement to try a bold, public "Hail Mary" move: airing a live nationwide crime show appealing directly for tips.

• Key Threads:

  • The impact of class and stigma on police and media response to missing women.
  • The origins and strategies of "Manhunt Live," a true-crime television event seeking public aid.
  • The personal stories of victims, families, and law enforcement.
  • Evolution of investigative tactics, rising use of technology, and the advent of public tip lines.
  • The eventual DNA breakthrough that unmasked the Green River Killer: Gary Ridgway.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Systemic Challenges & Social Prejudice

• Detective Motivations & Public Apathy
  • Former King County Sheriff John Urquhart addresses critiques about detectives not caring due to the victims’ identities:

    • "That is absolutely not true. These people cared about solving this case, about finding this killer, as much as they would any other case. If there is some criticism to be leveled, it's at the public and at the news media because they didn't care, because these were only prostitutes." (00:38)

  • The podcast underscores how media and public attention (and funding) might have been different if the victims had been from wealthier backgrounds (01:35).

2. Law Enforcement Strategies & Personal Stakes

• Detective Drive

  • Host and detective voices emphasize how personal experiences drove investigators, citing Detective Tom Jensen’s sense of identification with victims:

    • "I ran away from home when I was a senior in high school... I could be one of them." (02:02, Jensen)

• Limitations of Technology and Tools at the Time

  • By the late 1980s, they’d gathered 9,000+ pieces of evidence and 30,000 pages of leads, but lacked a tangible link to any suspects (02:24, 20:07).

3. The Birth of Crime Stoppers & Public Appeals

• Merle Carner’s Innovation

  • Det. Merle Carner’s assignment: Find ways to engage the public on cold cases (06:45).
  • Inspired at a Crime Stoppers conference, Carner imagines using TV to leverage anonymous tips for Green River (08:38).

• Creation of "Manhunt Live"

  • Chief Fitzsimons and Sheriff Montgomery (new to King County, not beholden to past politics) back Carner’s radical pitch to go live, entrusting sensitive investigative materials to the public for the first time (08:45–09:37).

• Media Showdown

  • Major skepticism and media irritation erupt when police agree to share info with a television production rather than local press. Concerns about fairness and the sanctity of the case files abound (13:27).
  • Carner defends the plan, emphasizing the power of anonymous tips and cash rewards (13:27–14:47).

4. "Manhunt Live"—True Crime Finds National TV

• Show Structure and Impact (16:41–20:53)
  • Host Patrick Duffy brings star power; the show is part documentary, part live call-in event.

  • "This is the largest single manhunt ever mounted to catch a killer. The cost, more than $15 million..." (20:07 – Duffy)

  • 30 detectives from around the country field tips live. Deliberate misinformation is planted in the script to entice only those with true inside knowledge to call in (17:54, Carner).

5. Profiling the Killer and Strategic Appeals

• Behavioral Science Input

  • FBI profiler John Douglas (of "Mindhunter" fame) shares chilling insights into serial killer psychology:

    • "He's a very sane, very, very intelligent individual... He seeks out the very, very weak and passive type of victim who he can control." (23:08, Douglas)

    • Explains ritual versus modus operandi and the killer’s sadistic compulsions (24:09–25:12).

    • "The violent act is everything. Sex is secondary. It's the aphrodisiac is the hunt and the kill." (24:59, Douglas)

• On-Air Plea to the Killer

  • Detective Dave Reichert appeals directly:

    • "...Many investigators believe that you enjoy the killings. Several of us believe that you are haunted by them..." (25:40, Reichert)

  • John Douglas coached law enforcement in "verbal judo," the art of coaxing confessions or contact (27:04).

6. Victims' Families: Humanizing the Loss

• Stories of Debbie Estes and Tracy Winston
  • Debbie’s mother and sister recount abuse, trauma, the heartbreak of her disappearance, and the family’s search (28:21–32:53).
  • Tracy’s family, unaware her remains had been partially recovered, makes a heartrending call for her return:

    • "Tracy Ann, I couldn't possibly put five years into this brief moment... Even though these things have changed, the one thing that's remained constant, Tracy, is that we love you." (35:56)

7. Strategic Confessions and New Tips

• Big Reveal

  • For the first time on Manhunt Live, investigators publicize that the killer murdered a pregnant woman, hoping it provokes someone to come forward (38:11–38:40).
  • 120,000 calls flood the hotline; 100 million viewers watch (38:40).

• Tip About "Police Impersonator" Suspect

  • A persuasive tip leads police to William James Stevens II, a career criminal who "played cop." He comes under heavy scrutiny, but no hard link is found (41:31–45:44).

8. Disbandment and Persistence

• Funding Cut, but Not Their Obsession

  • The task force is drastically reduced despite ongoing disappearances; detectives keep the case alive on their own time (46:14–47:47).

• Record-Keeping and Advances in Forensics

  • Detective Jensen’s efforts to transfer valuable data ensure evidence is preserved for eventual DNA breakthroughs (48:25–49:37).

9. DNA Breakthrough and Justice

• The Technology Finally Delivers

  • Judges were at first reluctant to allow blood draws, forcing detectives to use chewed gauze to collect DNA (49:59–50:22).
  • In 2001, after 19 years, DNA from long-stored evidence conclusively matches suspect Gary Ridgway (54:20).

• Emotional Payoff

  • Both investigators and families experience bittersweet relief at finally having answers and a suspect (59:59):

    • "...for 19 years, this has been a cloud that's hung over my head. And think of the families... I have to say there were some tears in that room and some hugs." - Dave Reichert (59:59)

• Victims Remembered

  • Opal Mills’ mother keeps her bedroom unchanged; family stories underscore the irreparable loss (62:04).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If there is some criticism to be leveled, it's at the public and at the news media because they didn't care, because these were only prostitutes."
  – John Urquhart, (00:38)

• "I ran away... So I sort of had that connection to the victims... feeling like I could be one of them."
  – Det. Tom Jensen (02:02)

• "Nobody in their right mind thought we could carry this off..."
  – Det. Merle Carner on launching Manhunt Live (13:27)

• "He seeks out the very, very weak and passive type of victim who he can control."
  – John Douglas (23:08)

• "The violent act is everything. Sex is secondary. The aphrodisiac is the hunt and the kill."
  – John Douglas (24:59)

• "If you have kids and they're out on the street, you better go get them, because if you don't, you won't have them. And when they're dead, they're dead. Forever is forever."
  – Debbie Estes' mother (31:22)

• "Why else would he take the time to fully bury her... Was this an indication of a guilty conscience?"
  – Carolyn Osorio (38:40)

• "I considered him my Moriarty..."
  – Investigator on suspect William Stevens (41:54)

• "I pretty much guessed what the answer was going to be. I knew it was probably going to be Gary Ridgway..."
  – Investigator on final DNA results (55:46)

• "Imagine... for all these years, you started out when you were 31 years old... For 19 years, this has been a cloud that's hung over my head."
  – Dave Reichert (59:59)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:38–02:02: Law enforcement’s motivations and public/media indifference
• 05:22–09:37: Genesis of Crime Stoppers and "Manhunt Live"
• 13:27–15:17: Media skepticism and controversy
• 16:41–20:53: "Manhunt Live" show structure and national impact
• 23:08–25:10: John Douglas profiles the killer
• 25:35–26:41: Dave Reichert’s direct appeal to the killer
• 28:21–32:53: Debbie Estes’ family’s account of trauma and loss
• 35:14–36:55: Tracy Winston’s family plea
• 38:40–39:43: Nationwide broadcast response, pregnant victim reveal
• 41:31–45:44: William Stevens: the "police impersonator" suspect
• 46:14–47:47: Funding and task force cutbacks, but detective persistence
• 54:20–59:59: The DNA breakthrough and emotional aftermath

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Tone & Language

The episode mixes compassionate storytelling with determined, often somber reflections from law enforcement and families. Police voices are direct, at times embattled, but reveal deep empathy for the victims. The language is vivid, sometimes graphic when describing violence and systemic failures; families' and survivors' stories are raw, sometimes heart-rending but always respectful. The overall tone is one of perseverance, bittersweet relief after decades of struggle, and enduring human dignity.

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For listeners new to this story:
This episode offers a guided journey through frustration, innovation, and ultimate justice. You’ll walk with detectives as they risk everything on a national TV Hail Mary, hear the heartbreak of families, and witness the turning point that finally brought answers to a case many gave up on—reminding all whose voices historically go unheard.

Transcript

[Carolyn Osorio]

Lemonada. This series contains adult language and descriptions of graphic violence throughout. Listener discretion is advised. By 1988, $15 million had been spent on an investigation to solve what was then the largest unsolved serial killer case in suspects like the unemployed cab driver, the trapper, and the truck painter hadn't panned out.

[John Urquhart]

The criticisms that I've heard from the public, and I've heard it for years, of the task force detectives, and they didn't solve it, this case, for so long because they didn't care, because these are only prostitutes. And I know, and some of them know very well, but I have met or talked to probably every single detective that's been on that task force, certainly everyone inside the sheriff's office that was on that task force, from, from Dave Reichert on down to the civilians that worked on it. And that is absolutely not true. These people cared about solving this case, about finding this killer, as much as they would any other case. If there is some criticism to be leveled, it's at the public and at the news media because they didn't care, because these were only prostitutes. And had they been the daughters of the mayor or a middle class or upper class or a police officer, then they would have probably written more about it, cared more about it, funded it better.

[Carolyn Osorio]

So many dead ends. But to those detectives working the case, I imagine they just tried to keep their heads down. And for Detective Dave Reichert, finding the killer remained an obsession. Superficially, he was a competitive guy. He liked to win. And it would be natural to want to find the grk, this man who had been eluding him for so many years. But it was a deeper connection to the victims and their families that truly drove him.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

There is something about people who go into law enforcement that drives them to want to protect. I'm the oldest of seven kids. I ran away from home when I was a senior in high school. I grew up in a home with domestic violence. So I sort of had that connection to, you know, to the victims in that regard anyway, feeling like, you know, I could be one of them. Never turned out to be one of them.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Fortunately, at that point in the investigation, they had collected more than 9,000 pieces of evidence and entered thousands upon thousands of tips into that database and, of course, eliminated thousands of suspects.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

We had so many suspects that I think most detectives were going, man, this guy really looks good. And as time went on, we sort of, those of us that had. That stayed and had been there since the beginning sort of had our top five. You know, Melvin Foster would have been One of those, there were two or three others that kind of had some similar things. They were on the street. We caught them patronizing prostitutes, they assaulted a prostitute, a prostitute escaped from them. And you know, those kinds of things put you kind of in a high priority box there.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Even with a handful of high priority suspects. And on top of that, scouring cross crime scenes to the point of hands and knees on the ground with tweezers and a magnifying glass, there was still nothing tangible to connect any of it to the killer. And it wasn't like the team wasn't willing to roll up their sleeves and think outside the box. I mean, how many hours and hours of investigative work were spent speaking with anyone who might offer the crumb of a clue, whether it was psychic detective Barbara Kubik Patton or that excursion to get answers from the serial killer Ted Bundy. But there was one thing, and it was an important one that hadn't been on the table. Opening their case files to the outside world, which of course included the GRK himself. From Pie in the Sky Media. 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 seven, the Hail Mary. In 1987, and no doubt his whole life previous to that, Seattle police detective Merle Carner was the most unhollywood person one could meet in terms of pomp and circumstance. But when it came to outside the box thinking and big ideas, he was straight out of la. Carner had a pitch, Cops Making Their Own Movie, featuring task force detectives collaborating with other law enforcement agencies across the country, not for fame and fortune, but to entice the public to help them find the grk. That show would be called Manhunt Live. And Carner admits it was a crazy big idea. I was so impressed by your Manhunt Live. I mean, considering it was back in the late 80s, 1988, I mean, it was pretty impressive.

[Detective Merle Carner]

I was pretty goofy looking. But anyway, it's amazing. There's a lot of things that happened in the, in the last few minutes before we went live, like teleprompters went down and all kinds of things. So a lot of what you saw on the original side was pretty well winging it, you know, all in all, it was very, very successful.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Before we get to the show, let's start with how this self described goofy looking detective would go on to found Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound, where he would become very comfortable behind the camera.

[Detective Merle Carner]

It was the fall of 1987. The Chief of Seattle, Chief Patrick Fitzsimons, called me to his office and he said, I've heard you're pretty innovative. You're a great detective in major crimes. But I want you to take a look at this sheet of paper that I have. And in those days, Carolyn, we had what they called a greenie, which was an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper. And he had 11 things written on there. And he said, I'm taking you out of your unit and I want you to find some program or some answers to these 11 things on my paper here. And he says, then I want you to call me back in a couple weeks, tell me what you found out. So I said, Great.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Those 11 items on that greenie was a call to action to engage the public to help solve cold cases.

[Detective Merle Carner]

Find something that will jump off the page to make citizens feel like they're needed. As it turned out, that was one of the key points to Crimestoppers, that the citizenry involvement that makes it very successful. The other thing was solve cases that were on the books that were what the public would refer to as cold cases. Find innovative ways to get the detectives involved with the public.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Merle kept hearing about the Crime Stoppers organization and was curious.

[Detective Merle Carner]

I didn't understand what Crime Stoppers was. Never heard of it. But it conjured up in my mind that it's probably that the guy in the dog suit, McGruff, not that I have anything against him, but as luck would have it, I, I found out that there was a conference going to be held in Casper, Wyoming. So with the permission of the chief, I, I flew down there and attended what I thought was going to be about 15 or 16 police detectives from around the country. But as it turned out, there was 1500 people there and they're all major crime investigators and so forth.

[Carolyn Osorio]

When Murrell attended that conference, Crime Stoppers had been operating for 14 years. The nonprofit collaborated with media to share cold cases with viewers at home, dangling the carrot of a reward for anonymous information. 1987 was a time before reality television, before Internet sleuths, before true crime podcasts, even before Cops and Unsolved Mysteries. And although rewards have been offered since the Old west days, Crime Stoppers method was that it was low stakes for the person with information. It was totally anonymous and a reward was given even if an arrest didn't lead to a conviction. That inspiring trip to Wyoming sparked an idea.

[Detective Merle Carner]

What if we did a movie about Green river using Crime Stoppers as a tool to take that information?

[Carolyn Osorio]

When Merle Carner brought the concept of manhunt live to the new King County Sheriff, Jim Montgomery. Timing couldn't have been better. In a move to get some new blood to the King County Sheriff's Office, Montgomery had been recruited from Idaho by the county executive, which meant he came to Seattle with a clean slate. He wasn't beholden to the political scene and was open to a fresh idea that in the past might have seemed like heresy. Detective Carner was asking the new sheriff in town to open the investigation not just to a TV production company and release highly sensitive documents from the task force vault, but to a national audience to help catch the grk. The Shadow Girls will continue after a word from our sponsors. Well, hi everybody.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

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[Carolyn Osorio]

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[Family Members of Victims]

River Valley as a serial killer stalked and murdered women in New Hampshire and Vermont. But this isn't a story about him.

[Carolyn Osorio]

It's about the eight women whose lives were cut too short and one woman who survived to tell us the tale. I'm Jennifer Amell, and this is Dark Valley, an audio docuseries of my personal.

[Family Members of Victims]

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. Merle says that the new sheriff's announcement of the Manhunt Live project went down during a press conference. And given the contentious relationship over the years between the task force and the local media, it was quite a showdown.

[Detective Merle Carner]

Finally, Jim says, enough's enough. Going to, we're going to go for it. I'm calling a press conference. Which he did. And Jim, coming from Boise, Idaho to Seattle in the media was a whole different program. They called a conference, you know, a press conference. And he told about this movie concept. Had he briefed the press. It just went off the charts with, you know, everybody was like, what?

[Carolyn Osorio]

Let me just pause real quick because this is a, this is a pretty significant moment because up until then there was a lot of locking of horns between the media and the Green River Task Force. The media feeling like the Green River Task force was holding back information. Obviously the task force is like, hey, we can't give you the information because we need to find the killer. Also there was a history of bad blood between the media and the task force. So there was some really real opposition. I think there was also a little bit of jealousy that, you know, here this producer from, who was. It sounds like a former reporter, former journalist, was going to be getting information that local media hadn't gotten before, related to some of the release of information that had never been released for vis a vis the young girl who was pregnant, also the truck, and that there was someone who got away, which, which wasn't Rebecca Garde Guay who got away. It was another fortunate young woman, girl basically, who'd gotten away. So there's a lot to unpack there.

[Jenny Graham]

But kind of set up the stage.

[Carolyn Osorio]

For what you guys were up against.

[Detective Merle Carner]

Simply put, nobody in their right mind thought we could carry this off. You know, they go, are you a television producer? Are you a writer? Are you a journalist? I said, no, no, I'm just a detective with, I think a pretty good thought and I want to think out of the box. And regardless, I've got the okay and I've got some pretty top flight people that I think can help us. We got a long ways to go. I mean, so there was a lot of public pressure and media pressure, but most importantly, the task force was just going out of their mind. You know, they, they needed help. And when they, when they heard about the concept, they just go, okay, let's do it. But I'm telling you, we've, we've done everything we can at this point. But the real news was they, they've Never. They never really opened it up to the public to offer tips, so to speak, anonymously. And that's the key. When you offer anonymity and then you also offer, in crime, Stoppers always offers a cash reward. And in homicides, we always pay a flat $1,000 to any information that leads to an arrest and charge.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Here's a reporter detailing that press conference.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

The Green river investigation has been frustrating for police and for the media trying to cover the case. For six years, King county police have been frugal with information they've released, a constant point of irritation between police and the media. So today, reporters immediately wanted to know if police were giving Docudrama producers new information that had been withheld from local media. Rest assured that this particular production will.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Not have any information that has not.

[John Douglas]

Been shared, nor, we anticipate sharing with the media future.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

We expect to be as open and forthright as we have always been.

[Detective Merle Carner]

I would not term it new information. I would term it as information that has already been released to the media. We're just enhancing that by taking it to the national public.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

Detective Merle Carner coordinates the Crime Stoppers.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Announcements in King County.

[Detective Merle Carner]

Crime Stoppers wants to know who drove the car.

[Patrick Duffy]

The announcements started in Seattle, King county, just this year.

[Carolyn Osorio]

As Manhunt Live came together, even the selection of the host of the show seamlessly fell into place. Actor Patrick Duffy had played the role of Bobby Ewing on the original TV show Dallas. Patrick was from Seattle and his sister worked for the Seattle Police Department.

[Detective Merle Carner]

There was a gal in our department, her name is Joanne Hunt, but she was the sister to Patrick Duffy. Somehow I found out about Joanne and I had a meeting with her and I said, do you think your brother would be willing to help us work on a movie for Green River? She goes, absolutely. I said, well, would you mind calling him? She goes, now I'll call him. And it just so happened, Carolyn, that their parents had been killed. And I think it was a mom and pop grocery robbery. I think it was in Montana. And he had vowed that anything he could do to help the cops from then on, he would do.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Manhunt live aired on December 7, 1988. Now the show starts off with the host, Patrick Duffy, jumping out of the back of a squad car, lights flashing. And the viewers follow this. No nonsense Duffy as he enters a studio full of detectives sitting behind desks, their hands at the ready to answer phone calls. It's reality TV in its infancy, but it was powerful. From Washington state Sheriff James Montgomery.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

There may be 300 serial killers across the country, here in Seattle, King county, we've got the biggest case in America. He's killed at least 48 teenage girls that we know of.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And most were taken from the SeaTac.

[Family Members of Victims]

Strip, Pacific highway south, not too far from the airport. It's a highly transient area south of.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Seattle near the Green River.

[Family Members of Victims]

That's where they found the first body.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The killer has eluded police for six years, but he's still out there somewhere in America, stalking a highway in search.

[Family Members of Victims]

Of his next victim.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Now it's time for you to stop.

[Family Members of Victims]

Him and help bring him to justice.

[Carolyn Osorio]

On Manhunt Live, Merle gives us a behind the scenes look at how that was put together and that so many businesses donated to the cause.

[Detective Merle Carner]

30 major crime detective friends of mine that I'd worked cases with around the country, and I wanted them to be involved. And we actually got an okay to fly them all to Seattle to be part of that night. You got to look at the production was about half taped and half live. And so they all agreed to fly in. American Airlines flew them all in at no cost. Hotels put them up, food, you know, all that stuff. Their main purpose that night was to take anonymous tips over the phone lines. And you just need to put your head back in. December 1988, computers were the size of our house. You know, there's no cell phones, there's hardline phones. And so everything that came in to the show that night was, was live. And we had. If. If it appeared, Carolyn, that it was a good, really strong tip, that was Dale. We'd transfer those over to an actual Green river task Force member. And if it was somebody that was, say, in the top five of our call, so to speak. Dave Reichert would handle those direct because he was kind of the lead guy during that thing. So we brought on also a guy named John Douglas, one of the world's forensic. He was out of Quantico, the think tank, FBI. He was a serial killer profiler. John was a fascinating guy to talk to. And even when we shot the actual movie, we. The script was written, Carolyn, in such a way as to make people think. And we would purposely say some things of minor consequence in the movie that weren't true. Because we know if there was somebody that knew about the case, they would call and correct us. And if they called and corrected us, that's the calls that were handled directly by Reichert and his team.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And the program took viewers inside the task force war room for the first time.

[Patrick Duffy]

This is the largest single manhunt ever mounted to Catch a killer. The cost, more than $15 million since the murders began. The manpower, over 125 law enforcement officials from a dozen different agencies. There are 30,000 pages of tips and leads, each the result of a grueling investigative process, much of it pioneering police work, especially in the deployment of computers and forensic science. 9,000 items of evidence. Six years of legal exhibits waiting to be presented in a court of law beside each desk. The motivation, 48 unsolved murders.

[John Urquhart]

Are now.

[Patrick Duffy]

The investigators in closed door session with their own professional theories about who the Green River Killer may be. My hunch is the guy is a white male, about 40, single, probably ex military person, right around 40, late 30s, early 40s. I think he's probably in the construction trades. He can get up and move to another area and get a job easily.

[Family Members of Victims]

He has a way about him that gets these girls to come with him. And that's something that we all think.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

About, I'm sure, to me, is more like an animal that stalks a victim, kills a victim and disposes of the remains.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

And you know, an animal is going.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

To seek the easiest, easiest prey it.

[John Douglas]

Can seek to kill for whatever its purpose is.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Some of us have been here for six years looking for this particular.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

A demon of sorts.

[Patrick Duffy]

A lot of us have been here four years.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Some are just here in the last year or two. And we are going to stay at this till we catch this guy. And I think that that's one of.

[Patrick Duffy]

The things that keeps us going, our ego.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

In one case, we want to catch the guy, but there are other victims out there that he's going to take if we don't get him.

[Family Members of Victims]

Well, I think they're all our daughters in a way. We've come to know them better than their families did because of the investigations that we've done on. And I mean, they were just 15, 16 years old. I've got kids that were their age when we were heavily involved in this case.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

He's got to make an atonement.

[John Urquhart]

I don't want to say revenge, so.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

I'll just say justice.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

But the boy owes us, and we're going to try to collect on that.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The show featured One of the FBI's most famous profilers, John Douglas, who's the author of the book mindhunter. Inside the FBI's elite serial crime unit, of which the popular Netflix TV show is based on. Douglas shared his profile of the GRK on manhunt.

[Patrick Duffy]

Live with me from the FBI is Special Agent John Douglas, one of the fathers of the science of profiling. John, what. What's the mindset of a serial killer?

[John Douglas]

Well, Patrick, he's a very sane, very, very intelligent individual who definitely knows right from wrong, who seeks victims to fulfill a compulsion where he can manipulate, dominate, humiliate, and control his victims, both physically as well as mentally. So consequently, he seeks out the very, very weak and passive type of victim who he can control.

[Patrick Duffy]

So what is the definition? Or maybe you can tell us a little more about what pre offensive and post offensive behavior is.

[John Douglas]

Pre offensive behavior is the behavior leading up to. To the crime. We have an offender. These types of offenders have been abused, neglected as a child. They have an extreme amount of anger, frustration, coupled with the need for sadomasochistic types of pornography, coupled with failings in life, financial problems, personal problems. They now begin to surface at the age of 25 to 28 years of age, and now go on the hunt looking for their first kill.

[Patrick Duffy]

And post offensive.

[John Douglas]

Post offensive behavior is the behavior immediately following the crime, which is very, very interesting and viewers should recognize is that the subject becomes just obsessed with the investigation. He generally may maintain a diary, a scrapbook of newspaper clippings. He'll take an artifact belonging to a victim and then give. Give that artifact to the significant woman in his life who he wants to wear a piece of clothing, a piece of jewelry. He may even take this significant woman in his life to a crime scene and have sex with her or to one of the disposal sites and get out of the vehicle and just act very, very strange and odd.

[Patrick Duffy]

I've heard a couple of statements, and you can clear this up. Does. Does the violent act replace sex for these individuals?

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Individuals?

[John Douglas]

Yes, it does. The violent act is everything. Sex is secondary. It's the aphrodisiac is the hunt and the kill.

[Patrick Duffy]

I see. And what about the ritual? We often hear about that.

[John Douglas]

Well, the ritual, we have a modus operandi in law enforcement. We should recognize that modus operandi changes with experience. But the ritual, what he says to the victim, how he taunts the victim, manipulates her, and increasing controls that victim. That is the ritual, which is a constant.

[Patrick Duffy]

I see.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And Detective Dave Reichert is sitting right next to John Douglas and is asked to make a strategic appeal to the killer.

[Patrick Duffy]

Dave, I know that you have something that if this Green river killer is watching, you'd like to say to him, please.

[John Douglas]

Yeah. Thank you very much. You know, I've worked this case for over six years now, and I feel very confident that someone will say, soon be leading us to you when we get this information. No One will care anything about you or your problems. All everyone will want is for you to be punished. Many investigators believe that you enjoy the killings. Several of us believe that you are haunted by them, that you want your own nightmare to stop, that this experience for you has been.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

Been a nightmare.

[John Douglas]

However, this nightmare will not end. It still haunts you during every waking hour. You must contact me soon before someone calls and leads us to you. If we identify you first, no one will care what you think or feel. It will be too late. Please call me.

[Detective Merle Carner]

It's time for us to talk.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But the GRK never did answer Detective Reichert's call, though the task force later would come to know that the GRK had been tracking Reichert from the very beginning of the case. A twisted game that investigators would eventually uncover. But Merle and I talked about Reichert's appeal to the killer in 1988. John Douglas has no doubt advised him on exactly what he should say.

[Detective Merle Carner]

Yeah, totally. It's back in the day, I think the. Some of the terminology that we were trained was verbal judo, we call it. It was basically when you talk to suspects, and I'd sat across the table from hundreds of them in confession, and the idea being you got to get them on your side. Whether you agree with what they did didn't matter. You had to have an understanding and get inside that person's mind so they felt like they're talking to a friend. And that was the whole theme, you know, well, just, it's just us, you know, talk to me, you know, tell me a little bit about what you're feeling, because I understand. And whether it's a child predator, somebody, a sexual deviant or a homicide suspect, there's lots of ways that you can get inside of their head by just talking casually and low keying it because you start pounding the table or doing other things, they'll shut up like a clam. So it's just something you learn. And John Douglas taught us a lot of that, in addition to what we already knew when he came and briefed the Green Irv task force and other people handling the phones.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And many of the victims families were interviewed for the show, including Debbie Estes mother.

[Family Members of Victims]

There are over a million runaways wandering the streets like Debbie Estes, who ran away at 15. In 1982, at the height of the Green river killings, we buried Debbie in a pink child's casket because she, she liked pink and she was a child.

[Detective Merle Carner]

She left home for her fun.

[Patrick Duffy]

After six years, task force investigators had grown close to the family. Dave's own daughter is about Debbie's age.

[Family Members of Victims]

She was little tomboy, you know, she. Liked to play with boys, climb trees. You know, she wasn't afraid of anything. You see there, she's got lipstick on. And I think she was in the sixth grade. She was just getting more out of the tomboy stage into the feminine. When I started finding out what was going on, it was too late because it'd been going on for a while. Debbie was going to Planned Parenthood and getting birth control pills. When she was 11, 12 years old, I found out that she was smoking marijuana. I found out that boys were a lot more interested in her and just being friends. A lot of things that breaks a mother's heart.

[Patrick Duffy]

Debbie's mug shot.

[Family Members of Victims]

They arrested her for prostitution and didn't know who she was. She. She thought it was a game. I mean, that was fun for. For people not to know who she really is. She thought she was getting away with something. You think you're raising your kids normal, you know, you're doing everything right. And how she could get involved in something like that, you know, when she'd never been exposed to it, I couldn't understand it. I just. I couldn't understand it at all.

[Patrick Duffy]

Debbie ran away several times. Then they lost contact with her. Tom and Carol started to search. They began in downtown Seattle, passing out pictures of their daughter. Tom traveled as far as California and Nevada.

[Detective Merle Carner]

It would be hard for any father.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

After all, it's my daughter that I'm looking for.

[Detective Merle Carner]

A kid that I cared about, cared that I.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Kid that I loved.

[Patrick Duffy]

My last born, my baby.

[Family Members of Victims]

We looked for Debbie for six years. Aunt. When they found her, I just thank God they found her. I sat down at the funeral home for three hours telling her all the things that I tried to tell her when she was alive. If you have kids and they're out on the street, you better go get them, because if you don't, you won't have them. And when they're dead, they're dead. Forever is forever.

[Carolyn Osorio]

In a previous Shadow Girls episode, you heard my interview with Jenny Graham, Debbie Estes sister who shared what was going on within the family behind closed doors. Jenny says Debbie ran away from an abusive home.

[Jenny Graham]

Kids do not have the life experience to handle trauma and things the way that adults would. You just. You don't have the life experience. And if you're never taught those things. For me, my life at that point in time was trying to survive, Understand. I was being told in no uncertain terms that if I told, you know, or I didn't toe the line, so to speak. I would disappear and nobody would ever find me. And my stepdad was a truck driver driving all over the place. So, you know, and we had pets that were killed.

[John Urquhart]

So.

[Jenny Graham]

So the man did whatever it is that he wanted and he was never held accountable, ever, ever. He got away with it every single time. And I remember CPS coming to our house and that's where that message came from was my sister and brother told. Okay, my sister and brother told. And CPS came and I'm sitting, I'm what, 11 years old and I'm so sitting, you know, in the house and the social worker is there and so is my rapist. You know, abuser is sitting in the same room right next to me and they're asking me questions about the abuse. And he made it very clear, if you tell, I will kill you. You will disappear. So in my little 11 year old mind, I'm knowing that this woman is going to leave. I don't know who she is and I'm going to be there by myself and nobody ever helps, right? So there I dealt with a little bit of guilt because I didn't say anything that day. Wondering if maybe I had, if my sister and brother would still be alive, if maybe we would have gotten help. But there's no guarantee of that either, you know, with what goes on with our foster care system.

[Carolyn Osorio]

In June of 1988, Debbie's remains were discovered by workers digging post holes at a new apartment complex in federal way. Detective Dave Reichert was a pallbearer at her funeral. At the time of the airing of Manhunt Live, Tracy Winston was considered a missing person who the task force believed was a victim of the serial killer. Tracy disappeared on September 12, 1983. But Tracy's family still held out hope that she was alive. Her mother and brother were featured on the show where they made an appeal for Tracy to come home.

[Family Members of Victims]

Tracy was always very energetic, a very affectionate little girl. And she always saw what she thought was the good side of somebody. She didn't think that anybody would. Anybody would try to harm her. Tracy was always willing to give a hug and she would walk by me and just maybe put her arms around and say, I love you, mom. If she's alive, we want her to contact us. We want her to know that we love her.

[Patrick Duffy]

With us tonight is Tracy's mother and her brother, Kevin. Mertie, when did you last see Tracy?

[Family Members of Victims]

The last time we saw Tracy was on Mother's Day, 1983, five years ago.

[Patrick Duffy]

Do you have any clues whatsoever as to her whereabouts? Where she might have gone?

[Family Members of Victims]

No, we don't. In the beginning, there were some leads, some tips that came in, but they didn't materialize into anything solid.

[Patrick Duffy]

Kevin, it's been five years for you. You must have something you want to say to your sister. If she's watching tonight, what would it be?

[John Douglas]

I'd just like to say that I.

[John Urquhart]

Love you very much.

[Patrick Duffy]

And I want you to come home.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

Yeah.

[Family Members of Victims]

Marty, if Tracy is watching, I do have something I would like to say to her.

[John Urquhart]

Please.

[Family Members of Victims]

Tracy Ann, I couldn't possibly put five years into this brief moment. But a lot of things have changed. Jan and Trish are both married, and they have small children. Danette graduated from Evergreen and has a pilot's license now. Dad teaches a cooking class. And Chip and Kevin have grown so much. Even though these things have changed, the one thing that's remained constant, Tracy, is that we love you. And we want you to come home. Or we want to hear from you more than anything in the world.

[Patrick Duffy]

Thank you both for being here. Tracy, if you're watching, please call. If anyone knows anything about this girl, anything at all, please call us right now. Tracy Ann Winston. She disappeared from the Northgate Mall area in Seattle on September 12, 1983. If you know something about her or about the person who may be responsible for her disappearance, that's why we're here. We ask you to call now.

[Carolyn Osorio]

What they didn't know was that the task force had already recovered a portion of Tracy's remains in 1987. A year earlier, in Cottonwood park, which was roughly a quarter mile from the Peck Bridge. They just didn't have enough to make an identification. In March of 1986, two employees were performing standard park maintenance. When they discovered something near the base of a tree. A human torso without the skull or mandible. The victim couldn't be identified. Thirteen years later, in 1999, advances in DNA analysis revealed that the bones were the remains of Tracy Winston. But it was during the program that that the task force revealed one of its most guarded secrets. Releasing this information now was strategic. They hoped if the killer had confided in a family member. Or maybe someone close to him might have suspected something. Hearing that the GRK had murdered a young, pregnant mother. Would finally be the thing to compel a witness to come forward with information.

[Family Members of Victims]

But the man, whom some have credited with a high IQ has made some very telling, upbring operational mistakes. What you are about to watch is.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Footage from the vaults of the Green River Task force.

[Patrick Duffy]

A police dog tracking the remains of a victim found across the road picks up a new scent. And another body. But this one is different from all the others. It's the first one that's been buried. But why? To find out, police sift every grain of soil. But it's the remains themselves that give the real answer. The killer made a mistake. He murdered someone he didn't count on. A mother eight months pregnant.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Since the days of interviewing Ted Bundy, they still held out hope that the killer had felt remorse for the murder of Mary and her unborn child. Why else would he take the time to fully bury her across the street from the so called airport cluster where he had left his other victims in shallow graves or covered with brush? Was this an indication of a guilty conscience? Coded language in the show was meant for the GRK A guilt trip of sorts. They hoped it would coax him into turning himself in. It was estimated that 100 million viewers tuned in to watch Manhunt Live that night on more than 154 television stations. And 120,000 people tried to call into the Manhunt Live tip hotline that night and over the next few weeks. Some of those tips involved the serial killer murder case. Police were investigating in San Diego. The Green River Task Force had wondered, had the GRK moved in 1985 to San Diego and was now murdering prostituted women there?

[Patrick Duffy]

Officials here have described your cases as being very similar to Seattle's. I have to put it to you bluntly. Do you think the Green River Killer is now in San Diego?

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Well, there are so many similarities between the cases there and the cases here that we cannot ignore that as a possibility. As a consequence, our investigation has been oriented towards maintaining very strong relationship with.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

The Green River Task Force.

[Patrick Duffy]

So if that indeed is a fact and the Seattle and San Diego killers are the same man, what's the total number of victims now?

[John Douglas]

Thank you.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Well, if you consider the number of.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Cases that have occurred in the Northwest and here in San Diego county, we are approaching 100 victims. If you consider all of the cases that have occurred on the west coast, the number may go as high as 200.

[Patrick Duffy]

Well, that's why we need people to call in. Thank you very much, Detective.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But an interesting development came from the show. A tip about a strange guy in Spokane.

[Detective Merle Carner]

But this one was about a guy in Spokane who by the informant was a guy that fit the mold. He. He liked driving a police car. In fact, he had a phony police car in his garage when they actually hit the House. They found a. An ex police car in his garage with D plates. They found police uniforms in his closet, one of which turned out to be a police sergeant from the Seattle pd. So one of the things that we were thinking about in Green river, because we never really had very good witnesses, actually saw somebody being taken. Could it have been a cop? Could it have been somebody that would be trusted, so to speak? And so we had to keep that theme in our mind. And when this call came in about this guy pretending to be a cop, obviously we were interested.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Apparently, William James Stevens II liked to play cop. The day after the show aired, an investigator from the Veterans Administration Fraud Division just happened to call Detective Tom Jensen, who had worked fraud cases before being asked to join the task Force in 1984. Detective Jensen says he was very familiar with Stevens, who became his Moriarity.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

I investigated him for a series of burglaries and thefts in 1978 or thereabouts, and I charged him with like nine felonies or something, and he ended up pleading guilty to three. It was auto theft, burglary, fraud, all kinds of different things. And basically he was just a genius. I considered him my Moriarty, if you're familiar with the Sherlock Holmes.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Sherlock Holmes, Yeah.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

You know, just a very, very, very ingenious guy. And he can think about. Think of scams and things that he could do. And anyway, I investigated him in 78, and he got nine months in jail or something as a result of the charges. And he got to be a trustee. And one day he got to take out the garbage and walked away.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Detective Jensen said that he just escaped when the opportunity had presented itself. And Stevens, incredibly stayed gone for years.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

He hooked up with his former former pal who he'd been involved in him with in crime in 78. And that guy had also escaped from prison in Monroe. So they hooked up, they committed a couple of burglaries, and one of them, they flew all the way to Hawaii and they burglarized a post office.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Isn't that a federal crime?

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Yeah, it is. Okay. But they burglarized the post office, stole a ton of money, money order blanks and a device to print them. And they just printed up all a bunch of money. And then they went down to Oregon and they bought a house in Portland. They installed a secret room. And it was. It was just totally, totally bizarre. And I wrote a tip saying this guy could be. Could be a good suspect, just from the standpoint that he probably want to try something like this to see if he could get away with it because that's the kind of thing he would do. It was an odd duck. As far as I know. He had one girlfriend later on, but I wasn't ever aware of any. Any other women that were in his life other than his mother.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And other circumstantial evidence began to surface. That house that Stevens had bought in Oregon was just a few miles from two skulls that had been found in Oregon. They were determined to be missing girls. Last seen on Pacific Highway. Another investigative thread the task force had been pulling for years. Had the GRK moved to Oregon, where he continued his murderous spree Near Portland. There had been other victims from the area that appeared to fit the GRK's MO vulnerable young women and teens. Eventually, they would catch up to Stevens in Spokane, where, incredibly, he was attending law school. William J. Stevens II was arrested as a prime suspect in 1989 and would become one of the most heavily investigated suspects in the case. They searched his homes in Spokane and Portland, and Stevens had made statements about his hatred of prostituted people. And witnesses came forward claiming that he had shared comments that led them to believe that he had a hatred of women. But ultimately, he was never charged with the murders.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

We ever thought he could graduate from law school and become a lawyer, I have no idea. With, you know, four felony convictions. That was. That was him. Once we found out that he was. He was going to school, which is another story altogether, in Gonzaga and applying for VA benefits and things like that. Like I said, he just. He would just do things to see if he could get away with them.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Well, it sounds like he got away.

[Jenny Graham]

With a lot of stuff.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

No, he did. I don't think he. I would have to say that he did. I think he was charged with a federal offense for possessing firearms or something, because he ended up in a prison and a federal prison back in Springfield, Missouri. And that's when. When he was in prison, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

And so he didn't.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

He didn't live too long after he got out.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Another huge blow to the case that didn't lead to the apprehension of the grk. We'll be right back with the Shadow Girls after a word from our sponsors. And now we continue with the Shadow Girls. In 1990, a decision came down from the powers that be. The Green River Task Force was cut down to the bone. Retired King County Sheriff John Urquhart.

[John Urquhart]

Remember, the task force was still operating and the funding was cut off overnight. And the powers that be inside the sheriff's office went to the fat task force and said, okay, the county executive wants to disband the task force where you're not making any progress. We're not going to spend any more money on it. Take those pictures down. I don't want to see those pictures up there. And they left one detective working that case. And the task force was devastated by that. They were pissed. They were mad. They didn't think that was right because they cared so much, because they really wanted to catch this guy.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Detective Dave reichert says he never gave up on the hunt for the green river killer.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

They pulled pull the funds for the task force. We all saw it coming. The command staff pretty much said, this isn't going anywhere. The community was, it's not going to be solved. And 1990, pretty much collecting remains had sort of tapered off. And I, myself, Tom Jensen and Jim Doyne were the last three left. And Jim and Tom were reassigned to major crimes, where they managed and monitored the case. Because people were still calling in, they were still calling me. I went to patrol. I was promoted to sergeant. I was fortunate to have taken the test, got promoted out of the task force because they did away with it. I went to Burien White center is where I was assigned, which is the area where the green river killer back then was operating. So I spent my graveyard shift looking for. Looking for whomever the killer was and, you know, trying to do my job at the same time because. Because you're obsessed with it still, right?

[Carolyn Osorio]

Even though the task force had been shuttered, victims were still being added to the list. In September of 1991, the remains of Roberta Hayes were found. She had gone missing in 1987. The remains of Marta Reeves were found in 1990. She had gone missing that same year. And Patricia yellow Robe's remains were found in 1998.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

She.

[Carolyn Osorio]

She had gone missing that same year. In August. Detective Tom Jensen was the keeper of the case, protecting the heartbeat of the investigation, Almost as if he was entombed with the ghosts of so many victims. Would they ever find justice?

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Because of my relationship with the computer and my knowledge of the way things worked with the computer and the filing system and everything. As time went along and the tax force task force was cut, I continued to survive until the very end. And in the end, there was just myself and Jim Doyan, who were. Who were the two detectives left. And we were merged back into the major crimes unit. And that was in November of 1990. And from 1990 to 2001, it was just the two of us. And Jim got involved in many other cases, and was not as involved in green river as I was. But during that period of time, that computer that we put together in 1980s, the VAX computer system, it was getting old, creaky. And PCs had been invented so you could store as much on a hard drive of a PC, it says, went into a. This huge machine. And so I spent a lot of time learning how to get the data off the big machine, put it onto a PC.

[Carolyn Osorio]

A series of improbable events would culminate to prove naysayers wrong. Remember the search warrant they had slapped down at the Kenworth Trucking Company back in 1987? It had authorized detectives to collect a hair sample from the truck painter, search his locker, and to seize his truck in the plant's parking lot. But there was something else.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

We took a pair of coveralls out of that locker and we kept it. And in the. In the search warrant, we did ask for blood, because he asked that question earlier. We asked the judge for a blood sample. The judge said that that would be too invasive to stick a needle in his arm. But you can take. You can have him chew on a gauze and collect his saliva.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The new millennium brought a series of improbable events that began to take shape. Former detective Dave Reichert.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

When I became the sheriff, I'm thinking about a way all this time, from 1990 to 1997, how could we reopen this case? And, you know, I believe that God has a plan for everyone. And you couldn't have written this book any different than, I mean, any better really, in my opinion, than what has happened is that the original detective works the case for nine years, gets promoted. The voters in 1996 decide they want an elected sheriff. I had just been promoted to precinct commander in 1996. And in 1997, the sheriff leaves. The voters decided to go back to an elected sheriff. I get recruited from inside the sheriff's office. I was appointed the sheriff sheriff in March of 1997. I ran for election. Now Ron sims appointed me. And he said, okay, if you're going to do this, you got to run. And I had no clue what that meant, But I said, okay, I'll do that. So I ran for Sheriff in 97. My first term as the elected Sheriff started in 98. When I was appointed in 1997, the first thing I did was call an evidence review team together. Five detectives, Four or five detectives locked in a. In a room started to pour over the evidence. I called some of the old detectives together. We had A task force meeting out at Precinct 3 in Maple Valley. Huge discussion on where we should focus our efforts. And everybody agreed. Let's go over the 10,000 pieces of evidence. The first one, the first ones we went over, of course, were, okay, we've got this biological sample. We need to get DNA done on this. So. And then we had some other. We had some forensic paint. So it was microscopic paint spheres on three items of clothing. So the DNA evidence in 1999, we flew it back to the East Coast. There were two labs. They looked at the evidence. The detective went with it and held it on his lap the entire way back there, right in a cooler, frozen. They said, boy, too fragile, too minute. We can't do it. The science hasn't progressed to the point where we can determine a DNA profile on those. Take them back, freeze them, keep them frozen. We'll let you know when the science progresses. So we did that. And in 2001, March, we submitted the DNA, the gauze and the biological samples from 1982. So the 1982 samples from the victims and the 1987 gauze was the samples.

[Carolyn Osorio]

From the victim, like semen or what were the. Okay, so they were from the bodies that weren't. That were still. I don't know how to say this, that weren't bones that were still intact. You were able to collect semen samples back in the, you know, years ago, and you had kept those. Did you keep those because you thought DNA evidence or DNA was coming, that new technology or.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

No, we were only looking for blood type. We wanted to match a blood type. So spermatozoa was collected frozen and the gauze was chewed on. And we were only looking to see if we could match blood types with anybody. We weren't even thinking DNA. In 1982, that evidence, the biological evidence, was collected by the medical examiner's office during the autopsy. And that's. And those are, you know, they have to be intact bodies, fresh. They can't be because, as you know, that's biological material. So it'll naturally decompose too, after a certain amount of time. So we were fortunate to really come across those three victims that had that evidence still intact.

[Carolyn Osorio]

That 14 year old saliva sample taken from the truck painter when he chewed on a piece of gauze connected him to the biological evidence that had been collected so many years ago from the river victims. Finally, the first physical evidence from a suspect that connected him to the case. On September 10, 2001, nearly two decades after Wendy Cofield, Deborah Bonner, Marsha Chapman, Cynthia Hines and Opal Mills were discovered in the Green River. The DNA results came back from the three samples sent from the victims, and they conclusively match the truck painter, Gary Ridgway. Detective Jensen recalls what it was like for him to be the first detective after so many years to get the call from the crime lab with the results of those DNA samples.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Was working outside on my deck on my birthday when I got a call and it was Dr. Hammock who said, you gotta.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

You gotta come in here.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

We need to talk. I had a pretty good idea what she was going to tell me. I called my. My sergeant and I said, we gotta meet with the crime lab as soon as possible. We just did it. Probably because I think that was my birthday fell on Labor Day that year. So unless we probably went in there on 6th or something, something like that, 6 to the 7th.

[Carolyn Osorio]

That must have been so hard to wait.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

It was. It was a hard wait. But, you know, I tell you what, I. I pretty much had an idea what, what we were going to hear because of the fact that we had only. Only three suspects that we know of, that I know of that had DNA on file, and that would have been Gary Ridgeway, Melvin Foster, and I don't know who the other. I don't remember who the third one was, but whoever the third one was, I don't believe he was very viable suspect. So I pretty much guessed what the answer, what the result was going to be. I knew it was probably going to be Gary Ridgeway. So we went in there. They, you know, they had the whole crew at the table there, and myself and Sergeant, they just. They presented the information and showed me the charts, and basically they had a pretty positive match on Marsha Chapman to Gary Ridgeway. And then they had a partial match on Opal Mills to Gary Ridgeway. Like I said, that meeting was probably the 6th or 7th September. Yeah. So the next thing that happened was we go. The crime lab at the time was downtown. It was just across the street from the courthouse. So we walked back over to the courthouse and walked in and walked up to the sheriff's secretary and said, we got to see the sheriff. She says, he's on vacation. I said, well, is he in town? She says, what do you want to know? Or something like that. She was being defensive.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Yeah. Doing her job.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Doing her job. And I wasn't going to tell her, you know, I wasn't going to tell her what's going on.

[Detective Merle Carner]

No.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

When's he going to be back, you know, and not till the 10th, I think. So we made arrangements to go down there. We got back to the office and went in and saw Faye. Faye Brooks was there now, the chief of detectives. And so we went in, said, today we got to have a meeting with the sheriff. We didn't. We didn't tell her what it was going to be about. We got to see him. And I think they all thought I was going to quit because I think that I had put myself in a position where I was invaluable. I was the only one that knew how to find anything or do anything.

[Carolyn Osorio]

I mean, you literally seems like, you know, you were the oracle of the case.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Yeah, I guess that's the way it evolved. And so we got the meeting set for the tent. Rikers probably explained it to you. I said. I explained to him that we had the DNA. And here's the DNA of the suspect, and here's the suspect. And they had the envelope with the picture. He did the old carniac thing. He says, it's a Ridgeway, isn't it?

[Family Members of Victims]

Yeah.

[Carolyn Osorio]

With his. To his forehead.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Yeah. Yeah. So he opened it up, and it was.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

So.

[Investigator familiar with Stevens]

Yeah, there was a lot of tears.

[Carolyn Osorio]

19 years had come and gone since Detective Reichert had been the first King county detective at the scene of the Green River. And now he was the sheriff. And they had finally gotten a physical link to the killer through those DNA samples.

[Detective Tom Jensen]

Detective Jensen and some others came to my office downtown and said, sheriff, we've got this case. We've got something to tell you. And they laid out three separate sheets of paper. One was the DNA profile of Opel Mills. The other one was the DNA profile of Marsha Chapman. Those were the two in the river. Those were the two samples, biological samples. And then Tom Jensen flips over the third sheet of paper and had Green River Killer written at the top. And you could see that the DNA charts matched perfectly. So I said, tom, are you trying to tell me we got the guy? And he said, well, we got him on these. On these cases. And he hands me an envelope and he says, his name is in here. And I said, I don't even need to. I don't even need to open this. It's Gary Ridgeway. And he looked. He looked at me and he said, how do you know that? And I said, tom, you know, we. We've had this feeling all along. And. And I open up, and there's the mug shot of Ridgeway that was taken in 1982 when he was arrested for patronizing a prostitute.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Now I have to I just have to stop you for a second. I mean, after all these years, was your heart pumping when you saw that envelope? When. When it was confirmed? What. What was that like?

[Detective Tom Jensen]

You know, that is. That is one of the hardest questions to, I think, in this case, to answer, because it's. Imagine. Imagine yourself. So to your listeners, imagine that for all these years, you started out when you were 31 years old, and now you're in 2001. I'm 51 years old, and I'm. And I have over the years, collected body after body after body. I've been to home after home after home telling parents that their daughter is dead, that we have the remains, or telling some parents that we found a body, but we don't know who it is yet. And years later, coming back and telling them, living with, you know, every night wondering, will there be someone else killed? Why can't we solve this case? And for 19 years, this has been a cloud that's hung over my head. And think of the families wondering, what happened to my daughter? Who killed my daughter? Why would they take my daughter's life? Why would they do this? What monster took my. I mean, some families kept their daughter's bedroom exactly how it was years and years years later, how it was the day she went missing. And they still celebrate her birthdays and their birthdays. And so when Tom came in and I think there were two. Couple other people there, and this information was. He laid it out on the table. I mean, there was like a moment of intense emotion that you want to just cry, but you're happy. But, you know, the suffering that went into all of this and suffering that it caused people, you know, there. I have to say there were some tears in that room and some hugs.

[Carolyn Osorio]

One of those unchanged rooms belonged to Opal Mills.

[Family Members of Victims]

Opal liked to write stories. She was a real happy person and let it show, because if Opal was for you, you really had a friend. Well, I've kept Opal's room pretty much like she did. Her dolls are still on her bed just like she kept them. You have to go down and you have to identify your child. And she's there with a big silent scream on her face. And you try to understand why, why anybody could do something like that.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Shrouded in secrecy, a select few former detectives were reunited, and the Green River Task Force was resurrected. Next time on the Shadow Girls. The newly united Green River Task Force is hit with a shocking revelation.

[John Urquhart]

She ran up his neck, which we hadn't done before for a long time. And oh, my God. He'd been arrested for soliciting, for solicitation on a john patrol that we didn't know about, we had never heard about because the task force that we had then was so tightly sequestered. Basically, I would, for all practical purposes, wouldn't even admit it existed. And certainly no one in the sheriff's office without a need to know, really knew what was going on. Nobody knew about the DNA hit. Certainly nobody knew we were going after Ridgeway except this very small, select group of people. And to find out that he is out there actively looking for prostitutes. We were gobsmacked by that. Absolutely gobsmacked. Then we read her case and not only had he waved more money at her, but he tried to get her to go around the corner where his truck was parked. And the, the decoys there is. They. They have signals and there is no way they are ever going to get into a car with a customer or go around the corner or go out of the sight of all these people that are watching them because, you know, it's. It's a very, very dangerous scenario. We think he probably would have killed her if he could have gotten her into that car.

[Carolyn Osorio]

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 Whalen. Supervising sound editor is Victoria Chang. And edited by Joey Jordan For Pie in the Sky Media, I'm Carolyn Osoria.