Wishful Thinking

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Stolen Voices of Dole Valley

Episode: Wishful Thinking
Date: October 28, 2025
Produced by: Pie in the Sky Media & KSL Podcasts (distributed by Lemonada Media)
Host: Carolyn Osorio

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Overview

In "Wishful Thinking," the third episode of the Stolen Voices of Dole Valley series, host Carolyn Osorio examines the early 1980s law enforcement investigation into the Green River Killer (GRK) in the Pacific Northwest — a time rife with technological limitations and systemic social attitudes that left young women, especially runaways and those caught in prostitution, extremely vulnerable. The episode reconstructs the chilling environment of the era, spotlights the survivors and victims, and explores the family and community impacts of the GRK's crimes. It also critiques the failures of institutions meant to protect these women and discusses how misunderstanding and marginalization perpetuated the killer’s ability to evade capture.

"Wishful Thinking" interweaves firsthand law enforcement accounts, survivor stories, and voices from victim families, painting both a haunting and humanizing picture of those lost, those who fought back, and the ongoing search for justice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Police Investigation and Limitations of the Era

• No Modern Technology: Investigators in 1982 had no computers or cell phones, relying instead on hand-written crook books and three-by-five cards to organize thousands of leads ([01:29], [03:14]).
  • "We were managing this case in the beginning on three by five note cards. That's incredible, right?" — Detective Dave Reichert, [03:14]
• Task Force Dynamics: The King County Sheriff's Office led the task force, receiving support from local police and the FBI. Despite media focus and public tips, the case’s scale overwhelmed the available tools ([00:07], [02:50]).
• Impact of Ineffective Systems: Missing persons reports for vulnerable adults and minors were frequently ignored or went into bureaucratic limbo, especially if labeled as "runaways" ([21:43]).
  • "There just wasn't a system in place or resources allocated to investigate missing adults or children." — Carolyn Osorio, [21:43]

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The Exploitation of Vulnerable Women and "Pimp Wars"

• Dangerous Relationships: The episode explores how pimps groomed and manipulated young girls under the guise of affection and protection, resulting in trauma bonds akin to Stockholm Syndrome ([05:45], [06:42]).
  • "He pretended to be my boyfriend for a period of time before it was like, okay, you have to do this, you know." — Noelle Gomez, [07:01]
• Violence Embedded in Prostitution: Advocates like Noelle Gomez and Dr. Deborah Boyer emphasize prostitution as inherently violent, not merely transactional. Gomez recounts horrific abuse from pimps and the dangers from "johns" ([11:31], [42:10], [43:52]).
  • "A third of all women in prostitution... somebody attempted to kill them." — Noelle Gomez, [11:38]
  • "Having a pimp is like domestic violence on steroids." — Noelle Gomez, [42:10]

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Law Enforcement Attitudes and Community Apathy

• Institutional Indifference: Retired officers describe the prevailing attitude as containment — keep prostitution isolated and count arrests as "success," while ignoring broader social problems ([08:26], [09:33]).
  • "If we can keep it isolated to one part of town, then we are successful. And that's a terrible attitude." — Ret. Sheriff Steve Davis, [08:26]
• Disconnect and Distrust: Police-community relations were strained, especially with prostituted women, often viewed as criminals rather than victims, further isolating them from protection or services ([12:11], [39:20]).
• Changes in Perspective: Some officers now express regret at the lack of empathy and understanding for these women as trafficking victims rather than willing participants ([37:50]).
  • "A lot of these girls, if they could be doing something else, they would be." — Beat Cop Jim Futa, [37:50]

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The Killer’s Tactics and Missed Leads

• Manipulative Methods: The GRK used deception, including involving his own son to appear harmless, and choosing secluded locations to leave bodies ([22:06], [25:40]). He repeatedly managed to evade suspicion, even during close police encounters ([24:42]).
  • "He conned her by having his son by his side... she couldn't have been more vulnerable, which was something the killer had counted on." — Carolyn Osorio, [23:07]
• Bureaucratic Failings: Lack of data sharing between police jurisdictions meant suspects like the "Truck Painter" could remain undetected despite prior arrests for related offenses ([30:55], [34:30]).

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The Human Toll: Family, Survivors, and Community

• Victims’ Backgrounds: Many victims came from unstable homes, often escaping abusive environments only to face further exploitation on the streets. Childhood sexual abuse is repeatedly cited as a common precursor to victimization ([52:17]).
  • "It's very hard to find anyone involved in prostitution that did not experience some kind of coerced sexual experience early in their childhood." — Noelle Gomez, [52:17]
• Family Trauma: Interviews with family members, like Jenny Graham, reveal the enduring pain, shame, and unresolved questions faced by families whose loved ones vanished ([56:57]–[62:33]).
  • “They did. They just assumed, you know, that these were bad girls that, you know, were just choosing this." — Jenny Graham, [63:18]
• Dehumanization in Media and Society: The victims were generally labeled as "prostitutes" in police and media coverage, while their stories and humanity were ignored ([50:28]).
  • "The only thing you really hear is that the victims were prostitutes... no attention at all would be given to the humanity of the victim." — Carolyn Osorio, [50:28]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the limits of investigative technology
  • Detective Dave Reichert: "Imagine today... it immediately checks all the other information in your database and spits out all the comparisons within minutes instead of us having to do it... taking all day." ([03:37])
• On the cycle of violence
  • Retired King County Sheriff Steve Davis: "...we never won the war on drugs. I was a foot soldier... We never won the war on prostitution. It's still there. It's just changed its shape and form." ([10:36])
• On law enforcement’s relationship with victims
  • Beat Cop Jim Futa: "They waved to me... and that was the idea back then. Move them along." ([39:47])
• On resilient but tragic family histories
  • Jenny Graham: "I didn't have freedom... I was dealing with being raped in the middle of the night and trying to go to school and trying to function..." ([57:07]–[58:39])
• On the continuous threat to women
  • Carolyn Osorio: "Jenny recalls that even before her sister went missing, she was terrified herself about becoming a victim of the GRK..." ([62:04])

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Key Timestamps

• [00:07]–[04:01]: Law enforcement in the early 80s: task force creation, lack of technology, reliance on analog tools
• [05:06]–[07:16]: Deborah Bonner's letter and insight into pimp/girlfriend manipulation cycles
• [08:26]–[11:25]: Systemic police attitude toward prostitution, efforts to "contain," lack of substantive help
• [12:47]–[14:04]: Street rumors about the killer, accounts of violence against women, survivor stories
• [15:04]–[16:56]: Melvin Foster inserts himself into the investigation, becoming suspect
• [21:27]–[22:55]: Discovery of Gisele Lavorne’s body and inadequacy of missing persons systems
• [23:07]–[26:51]: GRK’s use of his son as a tool; descriptions of his manipulative methods and behaviors
• [30:34]–[33:27]: The "Truck Painter" incident and how close police came to catching the killer
• [39:20]–[43:51]: Beat cops’ relationships with women on the strip, bittersweet memories, and evolutions in thinking
• [50:26]–[53:53]: The intersection of sexual abuse, victim vulnerability, and the distorting effects of trauma
• [56:57]–[61:55]: Jenny Graham describes her sister’s disappearance, family abuse, and her brother’s suicide
• [62:04]–[63:18]: Living in fear during GRK’s reign; the reality vs. public perception of victims

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Tone & Style

The episode balances a respectful, empathetic focus on the victims and survivors with the grim realities of the case, incorporating both reflective commentary and raw firsthand testimonies. Law enforcement perspectives are candid about mistakes and missed opportunities, while advocates and relatives keep the narrative grounded in the women's lived experiences and the lasting impact on their communities.

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Conclusion

"Wishful Thinking" is an incisive, deeply human episode that shatters stereotypes of serial killer victims, challenges the systems that failed to protect vulnerable youth, and underscores the necessity of remembering these lost voices for who they were — daughters, sisters, and whole people, not merely "statistics." The episode invites listeners to reckon not only with the crimes themselves, but with the context, biases, and failures that allowed them to continue.

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Next Episode Preview:
A first-person survivor account of escaping the GRK is teased, promising a shift from stories of loss to one of strength and survival ([63:18]–[64:12]).

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Transcript

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Lemonade.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Hi, I'm Carolyn Osorio, host of Stolen Voices of Dole Valley. I want to share another series I host called the Shadow Girls. The Shadow Girls chronicles the Green River Killer investigation, but is centered around the victims. Each week we'll drop an episode of the Shadow Girls right here in the feed. You're listening to episode three. This series can contains adult language and descriptions of graphic violence throughout. Listener discretion is advised. How do you prepare to catch a serial killer in 1982? The answer to that question looks so much different today than it did back then. In the weeks following the river murders, the King County Sheriff's Office cobbled together a task force. Dave Reichert was the lead detective. And local law enforcement agencies offered up support from the City of Seattle police, the Seattle FBI, and officers from the Port of Seattle police, whose jurisdiction was the area around the SEATAC strip. Since the stakeout at the Green river had been a bust because of that news helicopter, appeals were made to the public for information and a new hotline was established for people to phone in tips.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

But keep in mind, when all this started, there were no computers. But the law enforcement at that time, we didn't even have cell phones. They weren't there. It was a totally different time. You'd carry a crook book, which is a book that you'd make up on your own of stuff. Carry your own book so you'd know who are the crooks in my district. And you get their picture in there, you make up a little page for them just so you could kind of know and remember who they were, who we should be on the lookout for or whatever, you know, There was, there was, there was.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And how would you get the pictures? Because this is even booking photos.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

Oh, there are booking pictures.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Okay. So you could like Xerox them off or something.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

Oh, yeah, you just order them and get them that way. But I mean, but as far as there were no cell phones, there were no. There were no computers. There was nothing. Green River Task Force actually got one of the first computers in the county trying to do all this data entry.

[Carolyn Osorio]

That's retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis. Even today, many people, including the producer of this show, Brandon Morgan, who I might add grew up during this time period, was skeptical at how rudimentary the tools law enforcement had to work with in 1982 were at that time.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

And how frustrating it is that they.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Haven'T found this guy every time they.

[Noelle Gomez]

Find a new young girl dead. Like, why, why couldn't they find.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

It's only the 80s.

[Beat Cop Jim Futa]

It's not like the 20s.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

There was technology in the 80s. Like why did it take so long?

[Carolyn Osorio]

The description buried in paperwork wasn't just an excuse or an understatement On a case of this magnitude that captured so much interest in news coverage. How do you effectively track down suspects and identify commonalities between the victims when a major tool at your disposal are three by five note cards? Detective Dave Reichert.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

We didn't have computers and people are shocked when you say that. We were managing this case in the beginning on three by five note cards. That's incredible, right? And so we had no, we had no computers. We.

[Carolyn Osorio]

If you had a, like a simple database, it would have really helped narrow down these 40,000 tips.

[Noelle Gomez]

Well, yeah.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

I mean, imagine today you type in all the information, you type in a name and it immediately checks all the other information in your database and spits out all the comparisons, you know, within minutes instead of us having to do it. Took taking all day to try to come up with those comparisons.

[Carolyn Osorio]

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 three, Wishful Thinking. The GRK investigation was in its infancy when a solid lead began to take shape. A note written on a piece of paper by Deborah Bonner, the second river victim found by that slaughterhouse employee. This letter was given to Detective Dave Reichert by Debra's parents. And it's this lead that commenced an investigative rabbit hole as they looked into a so called pimp war being waged on Pacific Highway. So a few weeks before her murder, Deborah Bonar was afraid for her life. She was terrified. Sitting alone at a bar where she knew her parents were regulars. It was here that Deborah wrote a letter for her parents.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

Deborah.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The letter said that if something happened to her, it was because her boyfriend owed a debt to a drug dealer and if it wasn't paid, she would be killed. Deborah's parents made no bones about how they felt about her boyfriend who they believed manipulated her into prostitution. Noelle Gomez co founded the organization for prostitution survivors. Noelle says she knows only too well how effectively pimps groom vulnerable girls promising love and safety. But they are just promoters looking to line their own pockets. And the sway they hold over these girls is powerful.

[Noelle Gomez]

Stockholm syndrome, right? Like he was messing with my mind. He's toxic, right? He's, he's a sociopath. He's messing with my mind. He's telling me girls do this for free. You know, you could Be getting paid. Like, why would all these things over and over, you know what I mean? These. That made kind of sense, you know what I mean? It was like, well, kind of true, you know what I mean? But he also became what I needed, which was like a father figure, somebody to make sure I was okay, somebody watch over me, somebody to do all of those things and fill that role. And that's what he did.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

How much older was he than you.

[Noelle Gomez]

And how old were you at the time? Not that much older than me. He was not that much older than me. He was only probably maybe 23, 25, 24, and I was 17 at that time. He wasn't that much older than me.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And the trauma bond between a pimp and the prostituted person is rooted in gaslighting and domestic violence.

[Noelle Gomez]

There was a grooming process, right, where he. Because I wasn't just gonna go do this, you know, like, no. You know, I was like, no way.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

And.

[Noelle Gomez]

But I mean, he was my boyfriend. He pretended to be my boyfriend for a period of time before it was like, okay, you have to do this, you know. But there was domestic violence in the beginning of the relationship that started right away.

[Carolyn Osorio]

How truly terrified and alone Debra, or Dub, as she was called by her family and friends must have felt, feeling that her life was in danger by the man who had sworn to protect her because of his drug debt. Was she too ashamed to go to her parents for help again? They had recently bailed her out of trouble, literally using their home as collateral. And they bailed out her boyfriend too, at her request. Was this the reason that she wrote that letter instead of going to them for help? The rumors on the strip spread like wildfire about this so called pimp war. But prostituted women and girls were skeptical. It just didn't make sense. Why would a drug dealer kill a pimp's source of income? The rumor that made more sense on the street was that the Green river killer was a vice cop who worked PAC Highway. How else would he get these girls to go with him? And this distress of police further ostracized prostituted people from cops. Retired King County Sheriff John Urquhart.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

I think there was a feeling in the sheriff's office and with the county council and with the county executive and probably in the city of Seattle. Prostitution has been around forever. If we can keep it isolated to one part of town, then we are successful. And that's a terrible attitude. But that clearly was the attitude in my opinion back then. Nobody ever said it, but it certainly was inferred if they start creeping up to Windermere or they go off Aurora to Broadview or something like that, and that's unacceptable, but if we can keep it to those areas, then we're just fine. And we didn't have any resources to get them to get the sex workers out of the business. All we did is we would put vice detectives down there on an occasional basis, a couple nights a week, maybe arrest them, you know, get an ONA offer and agree, get the ona, put them in jail overnight, and we're successful. Look at our staffs. We've arrested all these prostitutes over a 1212 month period where we're doing nothing to solve the problem.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Urquhart says back then he knew he wasn't solving the larger systemic issues of prostitution.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

But the attitude from other patrol officers, and certainly the attitude from the detectives downtown is, you're a patrol officer. There's nothing you can do. I can sit there and I can watch how many times a car goes around the block and tries to make contact with somebody who I know is a prostitute because I've talked to her. I would pull him over, pull over in uniform and says, hey, what's your name? You know, so and so. So are you working? Yeah. You gonna arrest me? No, I can't arrest you, but don't be doing it here. And she'd go on, do it. But then I'd watch her, and I'd see cars pull over, and if somebody picked her up, I'd pull that car over and I'd read them the riot act. And if I could get the suspect, the guy to agree to. Yeah, that's what I was doing. I'd hook him up and I'd take him to jail. Or at the very least, I'd put the fear of God in them. Or there's also a statute called loitering. King county ordinance. Loitering for the purposes of prostitution. And I would arrest johns for that. All the time. They went around the block, went around the block, went around the block, they were loitering. And if they're contacting prostitutes, then that's loitering for the purposes of prostitution. And I'd arrest them and I'd take them to jail because, you know, you can argue which comes first, the chicken or the egg. We wouldn't have all the johns if the sex workers weren't there. Wouldn't have the sex workers and if the johns weren't there. So you got to go after both of them. So I did that forever. I'm proud of the Work I did. But again, I'm not solving the problem any more than I did as a narcotics detective. We didn't win the war on drugs. I was a foot soldier in the war on drugs. We never won that. We never won the war on prostitution. It's still there. It's just changed its shape and form. All we can do is try to find small wins. And if I saved some girl's life because she didn't get in a particular car or whatever it was, then I was successful.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And Dr. Deborah Boyer says that prostitution isn't about sex, but violence.

[Noelle Gomez]

What we really need to do a lot more work on is to get people to understand the only way you.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Fix this, the only way that you.

[Noelle Gomez]

Really honor the Green river victims is to stop sex buying, is to stop men from buying sex. We need to understand that they are not just nice guys out there. There is a tremendous amount of violence in prostitution. A third of all women in prostitution. And different research reports report that they. That somebody attempted to kill them. And those statistics are much higher for African American women and particularly indigenous women.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Because of the massive distrust of law enforcement. Many of the young women and girls relied on each other to stay safe, sharing stories of violent encounters with men who they would refer to as a sick trick. And at this time, even seasoned detectives sorting through thousands and thousands of tips were shocked by the amount and level of violence against women in the community. A lot of investigative shoe leather was sloughed chasing down leads of wannabe copycats of the grk Then beat cop Jim Futa.

[Beat Cop Jim Futa]

I had taken a report, I got sent down to Harborview Hospital one time, and a girl had a broken leg and a broken collarbone. She was picked up in the old Lewis and Clark Theater and Bowl parking lot, ironically right by a state patrol office that was there. She got in the car with this guy. He takes off driving down, well, 5, 18 or 4:05, I guess it turns into right close to there, and he's going eastbound. And he had told her that he was the Green River Killer and he was going to kill her. I don't copycat. Whatever the situation, I have no idea. She tried to jump out of the car with it going down the freeway, but the door handle on the driver's or the passenger side didn't work. So she got the window down and right by where VIPS is, you know, by sat right at south center where VIPS used to be, is she jumped out of the window. And as the guy's trying to slam on the brakes and hold her in there and she jumped out. And by the time he could get turned around, she hobbled on the free on the shoulder of the freeway, got picked up by somebody and he couldn't go back and get her. She was at Harborview when I took the report. And she was a girl. She survived. Was a girl that lived down in Seward park area.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Soon after the river murders, a psychological profile of the killer was put together by famed FBI profiler John Douglas. The profile stressed that detectives needed to be on the lookout for anyone who inserted themselves into the investigation, especially if they offered advice on how to catch the killer. The day after Deborah Bonner's body had been found, a man called the sheriff's office. He didn't give his name, but blurted out, you should look at taxi drivers. Then he hung up. After Marsha, Cynthia and Opal's bodies were found in the river, the same man called again. This time he asked the operator for a detective. It was during this conversation that Melvin Foster identified himself. He was a 63 year old unemployed taxicab driver who said, I knew all five river victims and I can help you catch the killer. Green River Task Force Detective Tom Jensen.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

Well, Melvin Foster was a classic example of a person interjecting himself into an investigation. And that's how he became, became a suspect. It was about the time that he showed up, was about the time when Riker got his first profile of the suspect from the FBI from John Douglas. And one of the factors that they were, that they pointed out was that the suspect might try to interject himself. And all of a sudden, here comes Melvin Foster and he interjects himself saying, oh, I knew all five of these victims, girls from the river. And this was like probably a couple months after the, after they were found. And so he just popped to the top and he was, he was a taxicab driver in downtown Seattle. Kind of another factor they talked about was the guy likes to drive, he likes to cruise, he likes to just go run around looking at things. So he ticked a lot of the boxes and he became a prime suspect for several months. I mean, he was under surveillance for a couple of months.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Duff Wilson was a crime reporter for the PI back then. And he says Melvin just added to the media frenzy surrounding the case because he wasn't shy around a camera.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

He called police initially to say that he knew some of the victims. So is he an attention seeker? I don't know. I don't think he wanted to be a suspect in it, but I don't know. I can't read his mind. He's a taxi driver in the Strip, you know, and he was a interesting dude, you know, who liked to talk.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But what Foster was saying didn't instill confidence. In this interview, a reporter asks if he's the Green River Killer.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

Did you kill all those women or what?

[Carolyn Osorio]

No.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

But I wish I did. I wish I did know who did.

[Carolyn Osorio]

After revealing himself to the task force, Foster is asked to come down for a witness interview. Not realizing he was on the hot seat, Foster offered the name of a cab driver who he believed was the killer. Detectives asked if he'd be willing to take a polygraph, which he failed miserably. It wasn't long before a warrant was approved to search his property in rural Lacey, which is nearly an hour away from the SeaTac Strip. And they put him on 24 hour surveillance for months. He was definitely a person of interest. The Shadow Girls will continue after a word from our sponsors. Well, hi everybody. Julia. It's Julia Louis Dreyfus from the Wiser Than Me podcast. And I'm not gonna talk about food waste this time. I'm gonna 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. But I'm not alone. Any mill owner just might corner you at a party and rhapsodize about how it's completely odorless and it's fully automated and how you can keep filling it for weeks. But the clincher is that you can depend on it for years. Mill is a serious machine. Think about a dishwasher, not a toaster. It's built by hand in North America and it's engineered by the guy who did your iPhone. But you have to kind of live with mill to understand all the love. That's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive offer. In the 1980s, fear gripped the 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.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Were cut too short.

[Carolyn Osorio]

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 investigation into a series of unsolved murders that have haunted this region for decades. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. And now back to the Shadow Girls. Five days after the surveillance of Melvin Foster was underway on September 25, a man was riding his dirt motorbike in the woods by a little league field just south of the SeaTac Airport. The rider couldn't believe it when he got a whiff of something so foul that he throttled down his bike and followed the scent to some bushes on the ground. He found the nude body of a woman with black socks knotted around her neck. She was laying on her back, her legs spread widely apart. She had been strangled. Even though she wasn't found in the vicinity of the river victims, her murder had all the hallmarks of the grk. This young woman would be identified as Gisele Lavorne, a 17 year old runaway from California. Her boyfriend, a taxi driver, had filed a missing persons report on June 17, the day that she'd last been seen on the SeaTac Strip. That missing persons report he filed on Giselle in 1982 most likely went into the filing cabinet abyss. There just wasn't a system in place or resources allocated to investigate missing adults or children. Complicating matters further, it wasn't a crime for children to run away. When people went to the police looking for their children saying that they could be runaways, police would explain to parents that unless there was an actual cross crime, if a kid ran away, there wasn't anything they could do. It was the same for adults. But prostitution was definitely a crime.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

There was no social services, there was no help. It was a crime, you know, and it was treated as such, you know, and I know a lot of people will debate me on that or say, oh, he doesn't know what he's talking about or whatever, but, but that, that's how back in the day, that's, that's. That's what was done.

[Carolyn Osorio]

That's retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis. He took me on a ride along of the strip near the airport where the GRK trolled for vulnerable people. He took me to the place where they had found Giselle's body. You can actually find remote pretty quick in this area, especially back in the 80s. Even now you still could.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

Yeah, well, I mean this name but you know, like, like kind of pay attention to where we're going just for a sec. Because he had to know the area. And why would you. Why would you deposit a dead prostitute at a baseball field? You know, and basically what it is, it's a private little field, right? And it's surrounded by, you know, woods and a little bit of a swamp that I'll show you real quick, right? And that's where he put them. And people were actually complaining, what is that smell? You know, for a couple weeks, because if you ever smelled a dead body, right, the deputies would have showed up and said, that's a dead body. You know, we're gonna look. I mean, the smell is very, very distinct.

[Carolyn Osorio]

After the discovery of Gisele Lavorne in late September, the investigation continued. But in the coming months, they didn't find any more victims. Many hung their hats on the hope that the killer had moved on. He was incarcerated or dead. But those working the case, the reality of all those missing girl reports that kept them up at night, in their guts, they believed it was wishful thinking. Meantime, under their noses, the Green River Killer was improving his methods of luring, murdering and hiding bodies. Later, the awful truth would be revealed that the GRK had used his own seven year old son as bait. The night he lured Giselle into his truck, he conned her by having his son by his side. He wanted to appear harmless. He wanted her to think, there's no way this john would hurt me with his own son. In his truck, the GRK parked with Giselle on the side of the road at that green space near the airport. He told his boy to sit tight, that he'd be right back. And his son dutifully followed his father's instructions. Watching his father walk into the woods with the young woman under Forrest cover, the killer got behind Giselle. She couldn't have been more vulnerable, which was something the killer had counted on. When he hissed, matthew's coming. Giselle raised her head to see, and in doing so, exposed her neck. The killer was thrilled that his trick had worked. He leaned in, pinning her between his upper and lower arm, choking her until she stopped moving. Detective Tom Jensen.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

A method of picking up these girls, getting him in a position of vulnerability, and then strangling them. And he had them, his doggy style thing going on, and they were just totally helpless. When he got a hold of their neck, that was it.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The killer removed his long black socks, tied them together, roping them tight around her neck, fashioning a tourniquet, clenching his jagged teeth as he twisted and twisted the knot until he was sure Giselle was dead. The GRK left Giselle's body in the woods and headed back to the truck. Where's the girl? Asked the killer's son. The GRK told him that the woman had decided to walk home. Giselle would be the first victim in this green space by the little league field, the GRK's so called south airport cluster. And this wouldn't be the first time that he would use his son as an unwitting prop in his diabolical evil.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

Do you remember going to the airport area of Highway 99 and watching the elevators? This is what you just described. Yes. At the Red Lion. I think it's what it's called. Okay, and again was that you were picked up from your grandmother's house that night, is that right? That's when it started, when my dad would pick me up late at night and we had the Winchells, the Donuts, and we'd stop there and he would pick you up late at night. You were actually at your grandmother's house and he would come and get you? Yes. And what were you doing at your grandmother's house or why were you there? Well, my dad would pick me up. I don't know if he was, because he. This is what he said, that he had the graveyard shift and he'd pick me up, and then several hours later, he picked me up from my mom's house. And sometimes my mom drove me to my grandmother's house. She didn't like to get involved with that side of the family after the divorce. But I'd stay at my grandmother's house and my dad would, later on, after work. That's what I thought. Later on, he'd come and pick me up. And it would be after that that you guys would maybe go grab donuts and watch the elevators at the Red Lion.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

Yes.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

Usually it might have been two or three in the morning. One, two or three in the morning. Because it was really late. That was my next question. That was my next question. As opposed to nine or ten people, you recall? It was very late. It was, it was very late. It was, it was, it was. It was late because I remember I'd be sleeping. Sometimes my dad would. I'd be sleeping and I'd wake up at my dad's house. I, very vague, would remember the trip, you know, wake up and my dad would put me in the truck or the car or whatever. I don't actually. I remember the pickup, the red Dodge Ram, I believe, the pickup. I remember that more than the car. I have little memories of the car that he had going back to the elevators. How often? And do you remember telling other kids about this? I may have told other kids because it was neat, you know, the elevators going down. I didn't know I wouldn't have been able to tell them where it was. How often did you and your dad actually go there and do that? Quite often. It was there for a while. Maybe, you know, even it was pulling off the side of the road to look at the elevators.

[Carolyn Osorio]

We know now that the next day the GRK returned and had sex with Giselle's corpse. Leaving her legs splayed open, dragging her by the black socks into some brush. Before he left her there, he tried removing his socks. He wanted them back, but they were so buried in her neck. He would later explain that he didn't cut the socks because then they'd be no use to him. They'd be unwearable. Ten months after Wendy Cofield's body was found by those boys on the bridge, the GRK would make another mistake. When picking up Marie Malvar, he underestimated not only her, but the lengths that her loved ones would go to to find their daughter. Malvar was on Pac highway when the GRK pulled up in his truck. Her boyfriend watched as she climbed in with the stranger. Marie came from a tight knit family. Her boyfriend had played high school football with Marie's brother James.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

How did you first hear that Marie had disappeared? I got a phone call. I'm not sure who. I think it was Robert Johnson or something. I'm not really sure though. And nobody really took it serious because it was only one day. Next day, you know, she didn't come home one night. So nobody really took it serious. They just said Marie didn't come home. I said, why don't you guys call the jails, Call King county, called Tacoma jail, called Des Moines jail, call all the jails. And they came up with nothing. Did somebody do the calling? I don't know who did, though. But I told Bobby Wood to call. I think Bobby woods drove down to the Des Moines jail down there by. Down the street from that safe where Marie was missing at. They said they didn't have no Marie down there. They didn't shepherd down in King county or anything like that. I think my dad called too. Did you tell your dad about Murray? No, I'm not the one who told him. No. Who did? I really don't even know who told him.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

My dad.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

Was your dad pretty upset? Yeah, very. Who was he upset at? Bobby? Did you ever talk to Marie about working the streets? Yeah. And she kept all she would do is deny it. Yeah, I'm doing nothing. I'm not doing it. Jay, was she using any kind of drugs? Do you take Marie using drugs? All I remember her doing was drinking and smoking pots. See, Marie was. She was always a hard hit one in the family. You couldn't tell Marie right from wrong. She always felt that she knew everything. Every time you try to correct something, I already knew that. But don't practice what she preaches. She was just hard headed. Was Bobby using drugs? Yeah, now he is. Was he back then? Back then, all he smoked was same thing. All he did was drink water.

[Carolyn Osorio]

James was interviewed in 1988 about his sister's disappearance that April 30, 1983 by the Green River Task Force detectives Matt Haney and Dave Reichert. Marie and her boyfriend Bobby were involved in prostitution on Pack highway that day. Bobby had been watching out for Marie when he saw her get into a truck.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

He said he was at a phone booth and watched Marie get into this pickup truck at the corner. And as soon as he see Marie get in that pickup truck, he said he hung up the phone. Whoever he was talking to got in his Riviera and it wouldn't start. Then when he did get it started, he lost sight of the truck. Dream truck.

[Carolyn Osorio]

When Bobby couldn't find Marie, even though he was petrified, he went to Marie's dad. Marie's father didn't approve of him and had tried to break them up before.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

He just said, hey, I swear to God, I don't have nothing to do with this. Don't think I do. I don't know who your sister's at. I'm not hiding her. They was going through a stage where my dad kept trying to get Marie away from him. See, like I said, Marie was so hard that she was going to do what she wanted to do. You can't put her on a leash and just lock her up.

[Carolyn Osorio]

He comes clean with Marie's dad, telling her about how she got into the truck with a stranger. And they go searching the neighborhoods, up and down, back and forth. Looking for the truck.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

No, Bobby woods came to our restaurant. We had a little small restaurant down on East Marginal Way. And I think Bobby woods came there with his cousin. I don't know his cousin's name though. My dad was upset and he wanted to kill him. You know, he sat down and talked to him and I don't know how. The two got hooked up looking for.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Marie in a residential neighborhood. They find the truck, they wait outside and call the police. The Residence and truck belonged to a man who would be referred to in this case as the Truck Painter.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

There was a young girl who was taken from the street to do a date. The pimp saw his girl get into this pickup truck. He tried to follow the pickup truck, lost the pickup truck, couldn't find her all night. Called the father of the girl, and the father came down and they glitched around and finally came up with a house not too far off of Pacific highway south that had a pickup truck parked in the driveway that looked like the one that this girl was in. So they called the Des Moines Police Department. They went to the door, they knocked on the door, they asked about this girl and he said no, never seen her, didn't know anything about her. He hasn't been out that night, doesn't know anything. So they had nothing and had to leave. But this information comes out later. Us young lady was already in the house. And at the time the police were standing there, she was in the house and she had already been killed.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Oh, my gosh.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

He had a battle with her. And in that battle she bit him badly on the forearm. And what he did is saw the cops were coming, so he ran into the garage and he poured battery acid on that bite mark and then put a long sleeve shirt on.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Later, the GRK's son would vividly recall the wound.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

So you remember the scar on your dad's arm? Did it take a long time to heal? I mean, you must, you know, your dad has that scar there. Yes. It's never really healed up, though. And I know that. How do you know that? Because you can still see this. The scar. I mean, it's healed up. It's healed, but the scar is still there. It's not gone. It's a scar. What does that scar look like to you? I think you described it earlier. I don't know how to describe this. I know that. I know that it was. He was having a hard time bending his arm. I remember that because it was something to do with the crease or something like that, or a scanner.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The Truck Painter convinced the police that day that he wasn't involved in Marie Malvar's disappearance. So Marie's name was added to the growing list of missing young women. In 1982, the truck painter was arrested for soliciting prostitution on the Strip. But that police officer who showed up at his house looking for Marie Malvar didn't know that the Truck Painter had been arrested for soliciting prostitution in King county and the home where he lived was in Des Moines, which was a different police department. Without a database, they weren't culled together in one file. The truck painter was on their radar, but he didn't match the profile and he didn't stand out in those two cases. Soliciting prostitution and the disappearance of Marie Malvar was weren't connected at that time. A year into the investigation, the task force was as passionate as ever to bring the killer to justice. But they were still flying blind to a psychopath who appeared to hold all the cards and who seemed to keep them close to his vest.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

Each night you go home wondering who or if or when the next person would be killed. And every day you'd go in expecting and hoping and praying to find that one piece of evidence that would lead to his arrest so that people could walk freely. These young girls would not be victims anymore.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Detectives were constantly on the clock trying to find that one tip that would lead them to the killer. Which meant following so many tips like the so called pimp war that would lead nowhere. And there was so much paperwork, which was maddening because detectives believed inside of all those tips and interviews and evidence were the breadcrumbs that would lead them to the killer. If they just had more time, more resources to organize all that hay to find the needle to justify more money. The task force needed results. And it was hard to overcome the loudest voices in the room who were convinced that the killer had moved on after Gisele Laverne. They hadn't found any more bodies. The nightmare is over. The out of sight, out of mind mantra of those in charge of the purse strings allowed the initial 25 person task force to slowly die by a thousand cuts as 1982 turned to 1983. But there was still that growing list of missing teens and young women like little Colleen Brockman, who still had braces on her teeth when she went missing Christmas Eve 1982. Terry Renee Milligan. Alma Smith. Dolores Williams, Gail Matthews, Carrie Roy, Sandra Gabbert. Appeals from the victims families, like Sandra Gabbard's mom, pulled at people's heartstrings, but seemed to sum up the feeling of many at the time.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

Well, I think the public regards this.

[Noelle Gomez]

Case like they do every other case.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Just like I did until it was my daughter.

[Noelle Gomez]

It only happens to somebody else today.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Jim Futa is the executive director of the Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound. But before Crime Stoppers, Jim had a long career in law enforcement for the King County Sheriff's Office.

[Beat Cop Jim Futa]

I was a beat cop. I worked the airport strip I knew a lot of those girls that were victims. We had a different perspective then. Yes, they were called prostitutes. Yes, they were working together, most of them with pimps. But we. We didn't understand the philosophy of these girls as trafficked victims now has changed, has evolved, and that a lot of these girls, if they could be doing something else, they would be. That is some of the perspective that is. Has changed from the time I was working the street.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Jim says he's haunted by interactions he had with the GRK's victims when he worked as a beat cop on the Strip, particularly his conversations with K. San Lee, who went missing from pac highway on August 28, 1982.

[Beat Cop Jim Futa]

I remember after the first five or seven girls were found in the Green river, they gave us a photo, you know, like a montage of a printout. And I remember telling one girl that I knew. I knew her as Wanda Mercury. Turned out her real name was Kace Ann Lee. And I showed her these pictures, and she used to call me Jimmy. And I would talk with those girls a lot. A lot of them were filled with some pretty good information. But I said, look, two of these girls could be your sister. And she says, oh, Jimmy, he's not going to get mean. She pulls out a little pocket knife, and she was like, Bones, 19 for I don't know how long till they identified her.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Jim says, there just weren't resources out there for these girls. Back then. The directive was, get them off the street, push them somewhere else. We don't care where they go. We just want them gone. And that was the mindset of the community. How has that changed? Especially because you knew the victims, and I'm sure they were like, they called you Jimmy. I mean, how can you not? That's like so sad and sweet at the same time.

[Noelle Gomez]

Because they knew you were a cop, right?

[Beat Cop Jim Futa]

I'm in full uniform in a marked police car. Yeah, they waved to me, in fact, and that was the idea back then.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Move them along.

[Beat Cop Jim Futa]

There were times that there was a hundred of them out there on a warm Friday, Saturday night. And you try to push them along. And there was one girl, I can't remember her name, but I said, what are you doing here? I'm getting ready to go use the phone. Where do you live? Tacoma. And I said, there's got to be 3,000 phone booths between here and Tacoma. Why this one? Oh, I. I'm just out going to go meet a friend. You know, we go through the game and I say, come on now, let's. Let's Move it on. One of them would joke with me that she is exercising. I said, you're not exercising in those stiletto heels. And if she'd say so, the next night you'd see her out there in a pair of satin hot pants and tennis shoes. And what you'd see is she'd start jogging, you know, I mean, almost a comedy kind of thing, you know, but. But we got to know them, got to move them along. But what we didn't realize then, like, what's happening now, is that they were being watched. They had their pimp that was. And I don't think it was for protection. I think it was for. That's my money source, and they're not going to screw me. And I'm paying attention to them. And a lot of those guys, those pimps had more than one girl that.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Was out there walking Steve Davis in about 81.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

I was at Southwest, and I worked it for a while, and I worked the highway. So I was involved then with the girls and everything. And there were dozens and dozens and dozens of prostitutes out there at that time. Right. And we were chasing them all over the place. And one of the things I would always ask him is when I was talking to him, are you aware there's this guy called the Green River Killer out here and you're getting in cars with these guys?

[Carolyn Osorio]

What was their response?

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

What was whose response?

[Carolyn Osorio]

To the girls that you were talking to?

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

You had the honest answer.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Yeah, I do.

[Retired King County Sheriff Sergeant Steve Davis]

They'd blow you off. They'd just simply say, meh. You know, yeah, I'm aware of it. Or I don't care, or not going to happen to me, or. There was. There was no. There was. There was nothing. What I would call. And don't take this the wrong way. The holy response. Are you kidding? Are you serious? There's somebody out here who's killing girls. They were all aware of it, and they were out there doing their thing, and they were going to keep doing their thing.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Noel Gomez says she knows from her own experience as a prostituted person what a lonely and horrible existence it is that Main street and mainstream still don't understand.

[Noelle Gomez]

I ended up just getting in his trap, you know, just. And relying on him for everything. Because having a pimp is like domestic violence on steroids. You know what I mean? It's like, not only do you have to worry about all the people out there, but you have to worry about him, you know? So with him, the domestic violence started right away, but that was what I was used to, because that's what my family looks like. Right. So it wasn't, like, different for me. And he was teaching me. He told me he was teaching me, and, like, I felt like he was, like, being a father. Not a father to me, but, like a good man to me, you know, by teaching me how to be like a woman. Right.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Basically, you were vulnerable. He picked up on that. He could tell what you needed because he was manipulating you. And then he twisted your head around into thinking that this is. This is normal. This is normal life, and you should be making money and getting paid.

[Noelle Gomez]

Yes, absolutely. And then it happened. You know, we went to California. He was like, let's go on a road trip. We're going to go down there to Holly. You know, I was, like, wanting to go to Hollywood so bad. And we went on a road trip anyway, basically, long story short, like, I had no choice but to go out to the boulevard. I had to go out and make money. Like, it just got ugly. She's gonna say that. And that my child life was in danger as well. So at least I was being told that. So he turned from boyfriend slash, trying to convince me to do something to boyfriend slash total sociopath. Like, he was crazy.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Well, like, what would he do?

[Noelle Gomez]

Oh, my God. I mean, you ask anybody on the streets about him, they'll tell you he was crazy. I mean, what would he do to me? Like, use pimp sticks? Those are hangers that you twist up and then you hit people with them. Wire hangers. That's called a pimp stick. He would use those on me. He would beat me. He beat me so bad, I had to get CAT scans on my brain. He broke my nose several times. I mean, you know, you name it. I mean, I rode in a trunk of a car from here to Portland with handcuffs on because he did that. I mean, you. You want to know, really? I mean, it goes on and on and on. Not only do I. Did I have to deal with him, I had to deal with the people, the tricks. Right. Because the tricks are crazy, too. You don't know every time you get in a car if this person's going to kill you or not.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Over a year had passed since Gisele Laverne's body was found near the CTAC airport. It was October 27, 1983. A couple were cycling through the heavily forested, vacant land near Pacific highway when they realized they were looking at the skeletal remains of a human being buried in a shallow grave. Dental records would confirm that the remains were that of Constance N A 21 year old who had last been seen on Pacific Highway, June 8, 1983. One can only imagine the horror investigators must have felt when a forensic scientist at the scene collected a rock placed on Constance that was similar to those found inserted into Marsha Chapman and Cynthia Hines. Anyone who had fooled themselves into thinking that the killer had stopped or moved on surely felt the biggest gut punch of their lives, which was no comfort for the detectives worth working the case. It was about to get worse than anyone could have ever imagined. We'll be right back with the Shadow Girls after a word from our sponsors. And now we continue with the Shadow Girls. Based on the number of dead and missing young women in King county, the Green River Task Force was given the green light to extensively search the that area. Volunteer scouts equipped with rakes and other bushwhacking tools arrived by the dozens. Meantime, German Shepherds trained to smell cadavers were assigned to quadrants. On the second day of that massive search, a dog would lead his handler to the skeletal remains of Kelly Ware. The killer would later admit that a few days after killing Kelly, he went back to her body in the woods. His little boy was asleep in the truck. After another session of their nightly pastime of watching the elevator lights at the Red Lion Hotel on the Strip go up and down as the boy looked at the lights, his serial killer father was looking for his next victim that night. The killer had waited until his boy was good and tired, then drove back to the green space where he had left Kelly the night before. He parked on the side of the road, left his boy in the truck, and went into those woods and had sex with Kelly's corpse. When he went back to his victims, he always chose places that he could see the road. So when he saw the lights of a police car flashing at his truck from the COVID of darkness, he kept his cool. Walking casually out of the woods. The GRK explained to the Port Authority officer, hey, I'm just taking a leak, pointing to his sleeping son. It's late. We're on our way home. But nature called. It made sense to the cop. I mean, what else would a father be doing in the middle of the night with his sleeping child in a wooded green space near Pacific Highway? Another close call and it would be this encounter that the GRK would say prompted him to leave the so called South Airport cluster and move on to another place to murder and leave his victims moldering in the woods, knowing that nature and wildlife would do away his horrible deeds. And the Pacific Northwest was abundant in both. Two weeks after cally Ware's remains were discovered. They were still searching the South Airport cluster site. A handler and his German shepherd Mist were working together. Mist trotted off into the distance and his handler looked down at the forest floor. He noticed some gray colored mold on the ground. The searcher knew that strange colored mold was associated with bodies, so he stepped to the side carefully got to his haunches for a closer look, and realized his suspicions were true. Were those teeth poking out from beneath the dirt? He inhaled deeply, looked down at his notes that confirmed he and Mist hadn't gone over this area yet. He marked the spot, stepped away and cried out for help. The skeletal remains that the handler had found were unique. The two previous victims in the South Airport cluster had been found across the street in shallow graves. The GRK had taken the time to fully bury his victim, Mary Meehan, 18 inches deep, long enough for her entire body. It was during the autopsy that the room went silent, aghast, when the medical examiner realized that Mary, who had last been seen on Pac Highway September 15, 1982, was eight months pregnant. Mary Meehan's baby would never be listed as a victim of the Green River Killer. As I read her file, one of the first people interviewed would say that she lacked street knowledge and wasn't street wise. Mary grew up in Bellevue, a white collar suburb of Seattle. In her file, her mother's occupation was listed as a homemaker and her dad was a businessman. It shouldn't matter where the GRK's victims came from, but what is just as clear today as it was back in the 1980s, many families don't believe that their loved ones were involved in prostitution. And if they were, it wasn't by choice. Martha Linehan from the Organization for Prostitution Survivors says OPS came into being as a place for prostituted people to get support.

[Noelle Gomez]

We've also always been very clear about.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Not focusing on the killer is when the story, most of the press, a lot of the press focuses on him first of all. And the only thing you really hear is that the victims were prostitutes first of all.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Sometimes they'll use the word sex worker.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But usually especially, you know, back in the 90s, it was, you know, a prostitute. And they know no attention at all.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Would be given to the humanity of the victim.

[Carolyn Osorio]

They actually even age wise, there wasn't really a distinction between like these were children, you know, many of them. And not that an adult woman's life is any less valuable than a child's, but there was given no context to sort of what was happening because these.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

People were in the life or believed to be in the life or on the street, they were considered very valuable.

[Carolyn Osorio]

So he got all of the attention, really. And that was very, kind of glorified in many ways. People very interested in that. And, you know, we all are.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

That's kind of human, too.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But we wanted to put the focus.

[Detective Dave Reichert]

On the girls and the women.

[Carolyn Osorio]

We'll discuss the work of OPS in later episodes. Hindsight is a killer in this series. If Ops was operating back in September of 1982, would Mary and her unborn child be alive today? What is clear from reviewing her file is that Mary was running away from something. What that was, we'll never know. A couple of witness interviews claim that Mary confided to them that she'd been sexually assaulted. Was that what she was running away from? Based on statistics, the facts reveal this is more likely true than. Than not.

[Noelle Gomez]

He did the original research here in Seattle that made the link between early childhood sexual abuse and prostitution. There is an intersection between that race and. And also poverty. But we found. We asked the question first here in the late 1970s, what was your. What was your early sexual experience? We found that in, you know, one study was about 75% at that time. We weren't. We probably did not ask that question as well as it would be asked now, 40 years later. But since that time, that study has been replicated multiple times. And it's very hard to find anyone involved in prostitution that did not experience some kind of coerced sexual experience early in their childhood. Molestation, rape, which already set you up and grooms you and interrupts your development in really significant ways that targets you for exploitation. And if you add any other factors in that, it is very easy to feel that you are already somehow spoiled and ready for this. And this is what your life is supposed to be like, particularly if you don't have any options or any family support. So the link has been discussed and researched multiple times over the last 40 years. There's very little, very little dispute about how early childhood sexual abuse can make young women and young men. I also did a study on young men vulnerable.

[Carolyn Osorio]

According to an interview after her death, a friend said that Mary was 14 when she first ran away from home. Mary had been out on the streets for a couple of days and ended up getting frostbitten hands and toes living underneath one of the viaducts in Bellevue. This was back in early 1980. Multiple interviewees would claim that Mary's boyfriend, the father of her unborn child, had beat her up and coerced her into prostitution. A witness would tell detectives, Mary would cry after her boyfriend beat and kicked her. He'd grab her breasts and use them to pull her down to the ground. When she was pregnant, she would cry out in pain, telling him it hurt. Mary had bruises up and down her body from these kicks. And she would confide to me, I don't know what to do. And the friend said, you can get away. You know, you got a long life to live. This witness ended his statement by saying, mary told me a couple of things that she did when she was in school, you know, like ballet dancing, that she was in some kind of a band. And the way that she explained it to me, you know, that she went to school and stuff, and that she had a really good school and life. Mary's investigation file had photos of her body in that grave. She is laying curled up on her side, covered with a white sheet. The impression of her baby bump locked with her in time and terror. The discovery of Mary Meehan's body and the murder of her unborn child left no doubt that a serial killer was operating in King county, and he was evil beyond anyone's imagination. Officials concluded their investigation of the South Airport cluster in October of 1983 without realizing until 1989 that they had made missed a victim. Six years later, the remains of Andrea Childers would be discovered just 40ft away from where they found Kelly Ware. Childers had been concealed in a shallow grave under a car fender and a wooden tabletop. Ultimately, the remains of five women would be found at the South Airport cluster. We know now that five days after Mary Meehan was murdered, Deborah Estes disappeared from a cheap motel across the street from her parents business on Pacific Highway. Deborah's parents had filed a missing persons report, but she didn't want to be found, least of all by her parents. She had dyed her blonde hair black and went by aliases. Jenny Graham, Deborah's sister, says few people knew the hell she and her siblings endured. You said she left trying to find safety. What she found instead was a pimp. It's just so tragic and it. And it feels like. I mean, I don't know, that just kind of blew me over because people were probably like, you didn't know your sister was this.

[Beat Cop Jim Futa]

And.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And I felt you explaining that in so many interviews. And I'm sure people are like, you didn't know. And it's like, I feel like, how would I know? Yeah.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And I know my life the way that it was. You know, you have to imagine extreme Domestic violence, okay? My mom, you know, she worked. She had just enough gas to get to work and back. I remember, you know, her being slammed up against the wall. I remember situations where, you know, she would be told, make me something to eat, but wouldn't say what. So she'd make him something to eat and he didn't want it, and he'd throw it across the room and make her clean it up. It was just kind of one of those things. And I didn't have freedom. I didn't have freedom, you know, I mean, I'm talking about extreme abuse to the point where, you know, at 2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning, I'd be pulling. Pulled out of bed because my stepdad found a dirty dish or something on a dish in one of the cupboards. And I had to pull out every single one of the dishes, everything out of the cupboards, wash everything and put it back. And I had school the next morning. I had to get my mom up for work, wake up, you know, make her coffee to get her up for work. I had to get my siblings ready for school. And I was dealing with being raped in the middle of the night and trying to go to school and trying to function. I just. Like I said, and that doesn't even be. That's a pin prick for. For what life was really like.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Jenny would lose her sister to the Green River Killer, but her brother took his own life, she says, because he couldn't take the abuse, you know, with.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

My brother, and I don't think that we talked about this, but my brother actually committed suicide. Suicide because, you know, because of the abuse that we dealt with. And I was a kid at home in the kitchen washing dishes because I was always working. I was always working, washing laundry, dishes, working in the yard. But I remember watching him start to go across the street and he got hit by a car and he rolled over the hood and he got up and he ran away, right? So I didn't say anything because things were bad enough. You didn't want them to get in trouble. So I never said anything, right? He see, he came, he was fine. You know, he seemed fine. Well, within two weeks, you know, he left the house because they were always running away. And he actually ended up committing suicide the same way. The only difference was this time he walked out on a highway and he was hit by multiple trucks, cars, you know, that type of thing. So, you know, and again, it was. And it was sad because I remember there was a conversation with one of My uncles where he mentioned that my brother had said, I just can't take it anymore. You know, what do you do? Family wise, my mom wasn't strong enough to leave. I tried talking to my one set of grandparents that I had, and it was like speaking to a wall. There was no help.

[Carolyn Osorio]

How old was your brother?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

He had just turned 18, so we were 11 months apart in age. It was real, you know, it was really sad because for both my siblings there, you know, we had funerals for them, but it wasn't. You didn't. You didn't see them. You didn't get to say goodbye.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Jenny, what made you not want to run away? Because you had every reason to.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Well, so I was the oldest and trying to protect my mom. She was trying to work. She was the one paying the bills in the family a lot of the times. And trying to protect my siblings, probably. I think what kept me there was, number one, you also deal with a situation where you don't have to be physically tied somewhere to be mentally tied, that you can't leave. You know, that was one of the main things that. That I remember very well is the message with my mom, because she would try to leave and he would say, I will find you. You know, that that's mentally there. I guess so. There. There was that part of it. But I do think that a lot of it had to do with trying to protect my mom.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Jenny recalls that even before her sister went missing, she was terrified herself about becoming a victim of the grk Walking.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

To, you know, where our house was, was here, and the bodies were being found around here. And the high school is here. So walking to school, I mean, there was a shortcut through the woods that I used to take. I stopped doing that because I was afraid, obviously. So I stayed on the road where there were people in cars and stuff, because girls my age were being found in the woods all around me, you.

[Noelle Gomez]

Know.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So that was awful. And then, you know, on top of that, you're hearing the cruel things that people would say, whether it was sometimes at school, whether it was in the store. It can be, you know, any number of places. And it goes back to again. That's why I called, you know, the. I call them now Washington's daughters. But these were, you know, a lot of them were kids, and nobody understood the story behind the picture. They did. They just assumed, you know, that these were bad girls that, you know, were just choosing this.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Next time on the Shadow Girls. A vulnerable young woman is picked up by a stranger. She has no idea that he is the GRK and to survive, she's in for the fight of her life. And I just got off work and I went to the bus stop to come home.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Where was the location of that bus stop?

[Carolyn Osorio]

200Th and Pacific Highway, south, near the 7 11. It was starting to rain, so I thought I could get home faster by hitchhiking, so. So I stuck my thumb out and.

[Noelle Gomez]

Immediately got a ride.

[Carolyn Osorio]

He pulled up and he looked at me really strange and I said, are you going to Burien?

[Noelle Gomez]

He said, yeah.

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