Suspect In Girl's Death Had Record Of Violence -- Convict Was Eligible For Release Soon

When Michael Kay Green went to prison in 1986 on rape and robbery convictions, he complained openly he was prosecuted because Snohomish County authorities believed he was responsible for the disappearance of 12-year-old Brenda Gere of Clearview.

Green was less than a year from release from a minimum-security facility in Eastern Washington when Snohomish County detectives finally came to arrest him this week in connection with the girl's death.

Just a day after Gere's skeletal remains were found on the Tulalip Indian Reservation Sunday, Green was transferred to the Spokane County Jail until Snohomish County detectives could take him into custody.

Meanwhile, Snohomish County homicide Sgt. Tom Greene said his detectives are investigating whether Green could be linked to three of a group of 12 unsolved murders in the county believed to be the work of at least one serial killer.

The first two deaths were discovered before Green went to prison: Joanne Hovland, 16, whose skeleton was found near Granite Falls in June 1983, and Molly Purdin, 21, found dead of a blow to the head northeast of Index in July 1985. Both bodies were found in remote, wooded locations.

The sergeant said yesterday Green also may be investigated in the death of an unidentified teenager found off a trail in the Canyon Park area, south of the Gere's Clearview neighborhood.

The skeleton was found on New Year's Day 1988, while Green was in jail, but the girl had been dead more than six months and possibly much longer.

Snohomish County Sheriff Jim Scharf called Green a "person of interest" in the Hovland and Purdin cases.

Scharf said the only apparent links between the cases are the wooded dumping sites. Snohomish County medical investigators have not yet said how Gere died.

"Whether he was involved with (Purdin and Hovland) we don't know. Whether we pursue that angle depends on the evidence," Scharf said. "To say he's a key suspect, I don't think that's accurate."

Green, who turned 38 a week ago today, was serving time for first-degree rape in Snohomish County as well as two counts of first-degree robbery and a count of assault in King County.

He was transferred from medium-security McNeil Island Correctional Center, where he had been since Nov. 26, 1986, to minimum-security Pine Lodge Correction Center in May. With time off for good behavior, he was eligible for release next July.

John Heffernan, superintendent of the Pine Lodge prison in Medical Lake, Spokane County, said inmates with relatively good behavior and less than three years remaining on their sentences are eligible for less secure facilities.

"It is part of the phasing-out process," said Heffernan. "It is part of an effort to avoid releasing someone from a maximum or medium facility into the community. And it frees up needed beds in the maximum-security institutions."

Heffernan said Green was well-behaved while at Pine Lodge and had committed only one infraction - possession of contraband Dec. 14, 1988 - while in the prison system. He would not elaborate on the offense.

Veltry Johnson, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said Green was part of a seasonal firefighting crew the Eastern Washington prison provides for the state's Department of Natural Resources. The crews perform basic duties, such as brush clearing.

Green pleaded guilty in January 1986 to robbing an Issaquah florist, attempting to rob a UW student and an assault in a Bellevue parking garage. The three attacks, all against women, came in a two-day period the previous September.

On July 29, 1986, Green was found guilty in Snohomish County Superior Court of first-degree rape in connection with a knifepoint attack on a 25-year-old Lynnwood bank employee on Aug. 13, 1985. He was acquitted on a second rape charge.

Green had fled the area after being charged in the Lynnwood rape but later turned himself in to the FBI in Colorado.

He was charged with robbery in Utah and Idaho involving incidents that allegedly occurred during his flight, but it appears those charges were dropped after his Washington convictions.

It was clear that Snohomish County officials suspected Green was involved in Gere's disappearance even then.

In documents filed in U.S. District Court to support a fugitive warrant against Green when he fled, authorities said a man matching Green's description had been in the area when Gere was last seen walking home from the school bus Sept. 19, 1985.

A neighbor took particular note of Green and his vehicle because the neighbor's young daughter said the day before that a lone male had attempted to break into a residence but had been unable to do so and left.

Snohomish County detectives twice interviewed him about the case and before his rape sentencing.

Green was born in Seattle but graduated from Jackson High School in Portland. He enrolled at the University of Washington in 1971.

Green made the Husky football team that year despite weighing only 170 pounds. In one four-month period, he gained 70 pounds and was given a scholarship his sophomore year.

After red-shirting a year, he became one of the "Body Benders" on the Husky defensive line. Despite being a three-year letterman, he said then he wanted to seek a career as a writer rather than as a pro football player.

"I've tried some experimental writing - to see how far out I could get - and some structured stuff," he said then. "I like to deal with the lost American dream, the problems of the day."

Green, who was unemployed and married at the time of the attacks on women, continued his passion of body building well after graduating and appeared in at least one show in Portland.

Howard Hunziker, owner of Howard's Bodybuilding Shop in Marysville, said Green worked out at his club for about two years and was always friendly.

But Hunziker said Green, who then weighed about 280 pounds, was taking steroids.

"I told Mike's attorney that I thought the steroids were affecting his mind," Hunziker said. "I knew he was taking them and so did other guys around here. But he knew how I felt about them."

-- Reporter Kate Shatzkin contributed to this report.