Green River Victim's Bones Also Were Found In Oregon

Human bones found in Tukwila woods last Saturday are those of a Green River murder victim whose partial remains were discovered in Tigard, Ore., in 1985, King County officials say.

It is the most bizarre twist yet in the nation's longest unsolved serial-murder case, investigators said.

This was ``someone who goes back to the site, removes part of the remains and transports them not just a few feet, but drives them somewhere else. That to me is just almost beyond human comprehension,'' said King County Police Capt. Michael Nault last night.

The remains are those of Denise Darcel Bush, 22, who was last seen in a convenience store on Pacific Highway South Oct. 8, 1982. Like most of the the Green River victims, she was a suspected prostitute or frequented areas prostitution occurs.

Nault and Dr. Donald Reay, King County medical examiner, said the identification of Bush's remains this week was made, in part, from the dental structure of the lower jaw bone.

The jaw was found with other bones in a wooded area near South 137th Street and 44th Avenue South in Tukwila's Foster area.

The men would not reveal other factors that helped in the identification and refused to speculate about when the killer may have transported the bones.

Part of Bush's remains, including her skull, were found June 12, 1985, in Tigard, Ore., a Portland suburb. They were mingled with the bones of another victim, Shirley Marie Sherrill, 18.

Sherrill, also a suspected prostitute, was last seen between Oct. 20, 1982, and Nov. 7, 1982, in Seattle.

Yesterday's identification of Bush's remains ``tells us there was a definite relationship between Washington and Oregon,'' said Nault, who briefly headed the Green River investigation and is now head of the King County Police Department's major crimes division. The task force was disbanded Jan. 1.

The remains of four Green River victims have been found in Oregon.

The Green River killer is believed to have slain 49 young women between the summer of 1982 and March 1984.

Bodies of the victims were usually dumped in wooded areas similar to the Tukwila hillside. Forty-one of the victims have been identified.

Nault said King County Executive Tim Hill has given approval for the Green River Task Force to be reactivated.

Nault said police plan to continue searching the Tukwila site today and tomorrow, weather permitting. The killer often dumped more than one body at the same site. Most of the sites have been in south and east King County.

The Tukwila site had never been searched until Tukwila City Councilman Steve Lawrence discovered Bush's remains last Saturday as he was looking over the area, which may be added to the Southgate Park immediately to the north.

Denise Darcel Bush lived in a hotel on the Sea-Tac strip with her boyfriend. The day she disappeared, about noon, she had flipped a coin with him to see who would go for cigarettes at the store across the highway.

Pacific Highway South is less than six blocks from where the bones were found.

Reay, King County's medical examiner, credited his chief investigator, Bill Haglund, with the identification of Bush's remains. A key to the identification was a missing lower left molar, and Haglund remembered from the many dental records he has studied that Bush was missing that tooth.

``He's been over the records so much he must see them in his dreams,'' Reay said.

-- Tomas Guillen, Times staff reporter, contributed to this report.