Green River, Running Red Read online

  Also by Ann Rule

  Heart Full of Lies

  Every Breath You Take

  …And Never Let Her Go

  Dead by Sunset

  Everything She Ever Wanted

  If You Really Loved Me

  The Stranger Beside Me

  Possession

  Small Sacrifices

  Kiss Me, Kill Me

  Without Pity

  Last Dance, Last Chance

  Empty Promises

  A Rage to Kill

  The End of the Dream

  In the Name of Love

  A Fever in the Heart

  You Belong to Me

  A Rose for Her Grave

  The I-5 Killer

  The Want-Ad Killer

  Lust Killer

  FREE PRESS

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 2004 by Ann Rule

  All rights reserved,

  including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

  FREE PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Karolina Harris

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2004056338

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-7641-2

  ISBN-10: 0-7432-7641-8

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.Simonandschuster.com

  In memory of all the lost and murdered young women who fell victim to the Green River Killer, with my profound regret that they never had the chance to make the new start so many of them hoped to achieve.

  Introduction

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part Two

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Part Three

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Cast of Characters

  THE VICTIMS, IN ORDER OF THEIR DISAPPEARANCE

  Wendy Lee Coffield, Debra Lynn Bonner, Cynthia Jean Hinds, Opal Charmaine Mills, Marcia Faye Chapman, Giselle Lovvorn, Terry Rene Milligan, Mary Bridget Meehan, Debra Lorraine Estes, Denise Darcel Bush, Shawnda Leea Summers, Shirley Marie Sherrill, Colleen Renee Brockman, Rebecca Marrero, Kase Ann Lee, Linda Jane Rule, Alma Ann Smith, Delores LaVerne Williams, Sandra Kay Gabbert, Kimi-Kai Pitsor, Gail Lynn Mathews, Andrea M. Childers, Marie Malvar, Martina Theresa Authorlee, Cheryl Lee Wims, Yvonne Shelly Antosh, Constance Elizabeth Naon, Carrie Ann Rois, Tammy Liles, “Rose,” Keli Kay McGinness, Kelly Marie Ware, Tina Marie Thompson, Carol Ann Christensen, April Dawn Buttram, Debora May Abernathy, Tracy Ann Winston, Maureen Sue Feeney, Mary Sue Bello, Pammy Avent, Patricia Anne Osborn, Delise Louise Plager, Kimberly Nelson, Lisa Lorraine Yates, Cindy Ann Smith, Mary Exzetta West, Patricia Michelle Barczak, Patricia Yellow Robe, Marta Reeves, Roberta Joseph Hayes, Jane Doe C-10, Jane Doe D-16, Jane Doe D-17, Jane Doe B-20.

  VICTIMS LATER ELIMINATED AS

  GREEN RIVER KILLINGS

  Leann Wilcox, Virginia Taylor, Joan Conner, Theresa Kline, Amina Agisheff, Angelita Axelson, Patty Jo Crossman, Geri Slough, Oneida Peterson, Trina Hunter.

  THE INVESTIGATORS: 1982 THROUGH 2004

  Green River Task Force Commanders: Dick Kraske, Frank Adamson, Jim Pompey, Bob Evans, Mike Nault, Jim Graddon, Bruce Kalin, Terry Allman.

  Green River Investigators: Sheriff David Reichert, Lt. Greg Boyle, Lt. Jackson Beard, Lt. Dan Nolan, Sgt. Harlan Bollinger, Sgt. Rupe Lettich, Sgt. Frank Atchley, Sgt. Bob “Grizzly” Andrews, Sgt. Ray Green, Sgt. Ed Streidinger, Sgt. D. B. Gates, Sue Peters, Tony McNabb, Bob Pedrin, Bob LaMoria, Fae Brooks, Ben Colwell, Elizabeth Druin, Larry Gross, Tom Jensen, Jim Doyon, Bruce Peterson, Ralf McAllister, Nancy McAllister, Spence Nelson, Pat Ferguson, Ed Hanson, Chuck Winters, John Blake, Carolyn Griffin, Mike Hagan, Rich Battle, Paul Smith, Rob Bardsley, Mike Hatch, Jerry Alexander, Ty Hughes, Randy Mullinax, Cherisse Luxa, Bob Gebo, Matt Haney, Kevin O’Keefe, Jake Pavlovich, Raphael Crenshaw, Katie Larson, Jon Mattsen, Denny Gulla, Cecil Ray, Norm Matzke, Robin Clark, Graydon Matheson, Ted Moser, Bill Michaels, J. K. Pewitt, Brent Beden, Malcolm Chang, Barry Anderson, Pat Bowen, Rick Chubb, Paul Griffith, Joe Higgins, Rick Jackson, Gene Kahn, Rob Kellams, Henry McLauchlin, Ross Nooney, Tom Pike, Bob Seager, Mick Stewart, Bob Stockham, Walt Stout, John Tolton, David Walker.

  EVIDENCE SPECIALISTS

  Tonya Yzaguerre, Cheryl Rivers, Terry McAdam, George Johnston, Chesterine Cwiklik, Jean Johnston, Beverly Himick; Skip Palenik, microscopist, Microtrace; Marc Church; Kirsten Maitland.

  OTHER POLICE JURISDICTIONS

  Investigators from Washington State: Des Moines Police Department, Tukwila Police Department, Kent Police Department, Thurston County Sheriff’s Department, Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department, Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, Tacoma Police Department, Spokane Police Department.

  Oregon: Portland Police Department, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

  California: San Diego Sheriff’s Department, San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, San Francisco Police Department, Sacramento Police Department.

  Nevada: Las Vegas Police Department.

  MEDICAL EXAMINERS

  Dr. Donald Reay, Medical Examiner, King County; Bill Haglund, Ph.D., Chief Investigator, King County Medical Examiner’s Office; Dr. Larry Lewman, Oregon State Medical Examiner.

  THE PROSECUTORS

  Norm Maleng, King County Prosecutor; Marilyn Brenneman, Al Matthews, Jeff Baird, Bryan McDonald, Ian Goodhew, Patricia Eakes, Sean O’Donnell.

  THE DEFENSE TEAM

  Tony Savage, Mark Prothero, Fred Leatherman, David Roberson, Suzanne Elliott, Todd Gruenhagen, James Robinson.

  INTERESTED OBSERVERS

  Barbara Kubik-Patten, psychic; Melvyn Foster, unofficial consultant; Cookie Hunt, spokesperson for the Women’s Coalition; Dale Wells, public defender in Spokane.

  TASK FORCE CONSULTANTS

  Pierce Brooks, former Homicide captain, Los Angeles Police Department, former police chief in Lakewood, Colorado, and Eugene and Springfield, Oregon, serial murder expert; Robert Keppel, Ph.D., serial murder expert; Dr. John Berberich, psychologist; Chuck Wright, Washington State Corrections probation and parole supervisor; Dr. Chris Harris, forensic psychiat
rist; Dr. Robert Wheeler, psychologist; Betty Pat Gatliff, forensic artist; Dr. Clyde Snow, forensic anthropologist; Linda Barker, victims’ advocate; Prof. Fio Ugolini, soil scientist; Dee Botkin, phlebotomist.

  F.B.I. special agents: John Douglas; Dr. Mary Ellen O’Toole, Behavioral Science Unit; Gerald “Duke” Dietrich, Paul Lindsay, Walt LaMar, Tom Torkilsen, John Gambersky, Ralph Hope, Bob Agnew.

  Introduction

  AS I BEGAN this most horrifying of all books in my long career as a true-crime writer, I found myself faced with the same dilemma I encountered some twenty-five years ago. In the early 1970s, I worked as a volunteer at the Crisis Clinic in Seattle, Washington. Two nights a week, I worked an all-night shift with a young male psychology student at the University of Washington as my partner. Together we fielded calls from suicidal and distraught people. I hadn’t published a book yet, but by 1975 I had a contract to write one if the nameless killer of at least seven young coeds in Washington and Oregon was ever caught. As many readers know, that murderer turned out to be my partner: Ted Bundy. By the time I learned that, however, he had left the Northwest and continued his murderous rampage in Utah, Idaho, and Colorado. Convicted of attempted kidnapping in Utah, Ted was extradited to Colorado in 1976 to await his murder trials for eight victims in that state, but he escaped from two jails, making his way to Florida after his second—successful—escape on New Year’s Eve, 1977. There he took the lives of three more young women and left another three for dead in Tallahassee and Jacksonville before he was finally arrested, convicted of murder in two trials, and sentenced to death. After nine years of appeals, Ted was electrocuted on January 24, 1989, at Raiford Prison.

  How many women did Ted Bundy kill? No one really knows for sure, but when Florida detectives told him that the F.B.I. believed his toll was thirty-six victims, he said, “Add one digit to that, and you’ll have it.” Only he knew if he meant 37, 136, or 360.

  Throughout his years of imprisonment, Ted wrote dozens of letters to me, and sometimes made oblique statements that could be construed as partial confessions.

  Initially, I tried to write the Ted Bundy saga as if I were only an observer, and no part of the story. It didn’t work because I had been part of the story, so after two hundred pages, I started over on The Stranger Beside Me. There were times when I had to drop in and out of the scenario with memories and connections that seemed relevant. Stranger was my first book; this is my twenty-third. Once again, I have found myself part of the story, more than I would choose to be in some instances. Many of the men and women who investigated these cases are longtime friends. I have taught seminars at law enforcement conferences with some of them and worked beside others on various task forces, although I am no longer a police officer. I have known them as human beings who faced an almost incomprehensible task and somehow stood up to it and, in the end, won. And I have known them when they were relaxed and having a good time at my house or theirs, setting aside for a short while the frustrations, disappointments, and tragedies with which they had to deal.

  Was I privy to secret information? Only rarely. I didn’t ask questions that I knew they couldn’t answer. What I did learn I kept to myself until the time came when it could be revealed without negatively impacting the investigation.

  So, the twenty-two-year quest to find, arrest, convict, and sentence the man who is, perhaps, the most prolific serial killer in history has been part of my life, too. It all began so close to where I lived and brought up my children. This time, I didn’t know the killer, but he, apparently, knew me, read my books about true homicide cases, and was sometimes so close that I could have reached out and touched him. As it turned out, varying degrees of connection also existed between his victims and people close to me, but I would learn that only in retrospect.

  There were moments over the years when I was convinced that this unknown personification of evil had to appear so normal, so bland, that he could have stood behind me in the supermarket checkout line, or eaten dinner in the restaurant booth next to mine.

  He did. And he had.

  Looking back now, I wonder why I cut a particular article out of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It wasn’t headline news, and it was so brief that it would have been easy to miss. By the summer of 1982, I had moved on from covering six to eight homicide cases for True Detective and four other fact-detective magazines every month and was concentrating on writing books. I was under contract to do a novel at the time and I wasn’t even looking for true-crime cases to write about. But the short item in the “Local News” section was very sad: Two young boys had found the body of a young woman snagged on pilings under the Peck Bridge on Meeker Street in Kent, Washington. She had floated in the shallows of the Green River, her arms and legs entangled in a rope or some similar bonds.

  The paper wasn’t specific about the cause of death, but police in Kent suspected that she had been strangled. Although she had been in the river for several days, no one had come forward to identify her.

  The woman was white, estimated to be about twenty-five years old, and at five feet four, she weighed about 140 pounds. She had no identification on her body, and she wore unhemmed jeans, a lace-trimmed blue-and-white-striped blouse, and white leather tennis shoes.

  Her clothing wasn’t distinctive, but King County medical examiner Dr. Don Reay noted that she had five tattoos on her body: a vine around a heart on her left arm, two tiny butterflies above her breasts, a cross with a vine around it on her shoulder, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle insignia on her back, and the unfinished outline of a unicorn on her lower abdomen. The delicacy of four of the tattoos warred with the motorcycle-gang mark, but Kent detectives still thought that it might be the likeliest lead they had in finding out who she was—if any members of local motorcycle organizations would admit to knowing her.

  I clipped out the coverage of the woman’s death, being careful to save the upper margin of the page with the date. It was published on July 18, 1982. She had actually been found on Thursday, July 15.

  The victim hadn’t drowned; she had been dead when she was placed in the river. When a description of her tattoos was published in area papers, a tattoo artist recognized his work and came forward to identify the victim. She wasn’t a grown woman at all; she was much younger. He knew her as Wendy Lee Coffield. “I think she lives in Puyallup with her mother,” he added. “She’s only sixteen.”

  Detectives located her mother, Virginia Coffield. Although she appeared to be in shock, the woman murmured, “I kind of expected it.” She explained that she suspected Wendy had been working as a prostitute and might have been attacked and killed by a “john.”

  “I know that was the kind of life she chose for herself,” Virginia Coffield said with a sigh. “We taught her the best we could.”

  Wendy Lee’s mother said her daughter had been a good little girl when they were living in the country, but that her “trouble” had started when they moved to Auburn and Kent, both of which were still very small towns compared to Seattle and Tacoma.

  Wendy and her mother never had much money as Virginia struggled to support the two of them after Virginia and her husband, Herb, divorced; they lived in one low-rent apartment after another. There had even been times in the warm summer months when they had to live in a tent, picking blackberries to sell so they could buy food.

  “Wendy dropped out of school—way back in junior high,” her mother said wearily.

  She didn’t say, but Wendy had been caught in an all too familiar vicious circle. Virginia herself was only thirty-six, worn and discouraged beyond her years. Her own childhood had been a miserable time where many of the adults who were supposed to be caring for her were more interested in the fuzzy escape of alcohol. She had come from “a big family of drinkers.”

  Virginia had become pregnant at sixteen and given that child up for adoption. Then she spent two teenage years at Maple Lane, Washington’s juvenile corrections facility for girls. “I felt like I was a misfit; nobody understood me. She [Wendy] was
seeking help just like I did, but they put her out [of juvenile detention] when they should have given her supervision. She just needed a couple of years off the street to grow up.”

  By mid-1982, Virginia and Wendy were living in another rundown apartment in downtown Puyallup. Photographs of Wendy showed a smiling girl with a wide, open face. She could have passed for eighteen or nineteen, but she was only a few years past childhood. After she stopped going to junior high, she had been enrolled in Kent Continuation School in the hope that she could catch up. But she was a chronic runaway, perhaps wanting to leave behind a home where she wasn’t happy, or simply looking for excitement out in the world—or both.

  Her mother had lost control of her. “Wendy just started having trouble,” Virginia Coffield said, explaining that her daughter was known to police for minor offenses in both King and Pierce Counties. “The last thing she did was she took $140 in food stamps from one of our neighbors.”

  One night, when Wendy was fourteen or fifteen, Virginia recalled, she had come home disheveled and upset. “She said some guy raped her while she was hitchhiking. That’s the way she got around. Hitchhiking. I told her that’s what happens.”

  Wendy changed after that and her problems grew. Her theft of the food stamps landed her in Remann Hall, the Pierce County juvenile detention center in Tacoma, and then into a foster home. She became a runaway from there on July 8 when she didn’t return from a twenty-four-hour pass to visit her grandfather.

  Wendy and her mother had lived a hardscrabble existence, and neither seemed to have met the other’s expectations. Fathers drift away and single mothers despair of ever making enough money to keep going. Rebellious teenage daughters make it more difficult as they act out of their own pain. And so it continues. Wendy Lee got caught in the centrifugal force of it. She wanted the things she didn’t have and she took terrible chances to get them. Somewhere along the way, she had met someone who was angry enough or perverted enough to consider her survival in the world insignificant.

  Since Wendy’s body had been found within the Kent city limits, her murder would be investigated by the Kent Police Department. Chief Jay Skewes said that the last time anyone had seen Wendy alive was shortly after she had slipped out of Remann Hall, a week before her corpse was discovered in the Green River. She had been listed as a runaway, but no one had been actively looking for her. There were so many runaways that it was hard to know where to start.