Were Steroids The Real Culprit In Girl's Murder? -- Green's Violent Spree Followed Use Of Drugs

Two defensive linemen stood out on the 1970-71 football team at Andrew Jackson High School in Portland.

One of them, Wally Remmers, was a natural talent with star qualities. No one was surprised when he went on to win a scholarship and play for Oregon State University.

The other was Michael Kay Green, who made up for his lack of natural ability with hard work on and off the field. Shy, reserved, almost "a Clark Kent figure," his coaches recalled.

But Green, a lean 170-pound boy, surprised everyone after he walked onto the football team at the University of Washington in the fall of 1971. He gained 70 pounds in 3 1/2 months and earned a scholarship, lettering three years.

His coaches and teammates would wonder about that rapid weight gain and whether steroids contributed to it.

Green denies using steroids during high school or college, but he admits taking anabolic steroids in 1983-85, while training as a bodybuilder.

Some believe steroids were responsible not only for pumping up Green's body, but also for twisting his mind, changing him from a bright and determined young man into a violent felon.

Green was convicted Friday of the 1985 murder of 12-year-old Brenda Gere, who was abducted from her Clearview home, murdered and buried in a shallow grave miles from home.

That was the most heinous of a string of crimes Green committed during a nine-week period in 1985. The crime spree began about the time Green began taking steroids after a four-month hiatus that led to severe physical and psychological withdrawal, according to family, friends and court documents.

Increasingly, scientists are discovering that steroid abuse can produce striking psychiatric effects ranging from unexplained aggressiveness to delusions.

What isn't well understood is exactly how the mental side effects might contribute to a person becoming violent. The question is whether steroids create violent tendencies or if they simply ignite an already-violent nature.

But one steroid researcher who reviewed Green's case said steroids likely contributed to Green's criminal behavior. People who knew Green during his school years say they have no other way to explain what set him off.

And after his conviction Friday, Green said steroids contributed to "putting me in the position of being where I am today."

Green is a study in contrasts - a football player with a penchant for writing; a huge man easily intimidated by other men; an intellectual with a mean streak.

SCHOOL YEARS

Green was adopted at birth and moved around with his family during his childhood years before his father, a contract manager for the Pentagon, was transferred to Seattle about the time Green graduated from high school.

His former football coach, Lynn Hewitt, remembers him as "a serious young man, mature in his attitudes and his approach to life."

Green was 6 feet 3, lean and graceful, but he described himself as "the classic asthmatic 150-pound kid . . . a sand-kicked-in-the-face-type person" before he drove himself to spend hours in the weight room adding muscle and bulk.

His father knew the freshman football coach at the UW and helped his son get the chance to try out. Green earned a scholarship after spring drills in 1972.

"He always did have a lot of confidence in whatever he did, and I always respected him for that," said Dave Pear, who played with Green at the UW four years.

Green was not an outstanding athlete, but "he earned whatever he got in football," Pear said. While his teammates were working out on weights together, "Mean Joe Green," as they called him in reference to the Pittsburgh Steeler star of that era, preferred solitary exercise.

The man who wore jersey No. 73 would run stairs or box by himself, sometimes not stopping until his hands were bruised and bloodied.

"He was the kind of guy who had to have his workout every day or things weren't right," said Jim Champagne, another former teammate and a college roommate of Green's. "A lot of people admired him for his devotion to his body."

Green kept to himself but wasn't afraid to share his experimental writing, which Pear recalled as "a little Plato, a little Socrates and a little of what Mike thought about life. . . . It certainly was not on the conservative side."

In a 1974 interview with The Seattle Times, Green admitted to "mild pro aspirations" but said his real interest was in writing. He graduated in 1976 from UW with a bachelor's degree in English.

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

Green's brother, Jeff, also was on the team for a time, and their parents, Delbert and Kathleen Green, were diehard Husky fans. But except for his sister, who was adopted with him at birth, Green's family essentially has dropped out of his life.

Green said he hadn't heard from them since his 1985 arrest. "I'm sure they're really hurt by all this," he said.

His parents and brother told a reporter who called with questions about Green that they did not know anyone by that name.

Despite his stated lack of interest in playing professional football, Green admitted he was depressed when he was not drafted.

For a time, he tried to join professional teams as a free agent. He married a woman with whom he had been living for a year, but their marriage broke up about a year later.

CAREER

In 1977, he took a job as a manager-trainee with Household Finance Corp., then left for another position with Olympic Bank in Everett, eventually becoming a loan officer.

In 1979, he married his second wife, Diana Pittman. Because of financial problems at the bank, he was laid off, and in 1981 began working as a manager for Snap-On Tool Corp.

He and Pittman moved to Phoenix after he received a transfer, and it was then that he began to aggressively pursue power-lifting and bodybuilding with the help of anabolic steroids.

Green said he started working out with some professional athletes who introduced him to steroids. Soon his habit was up to about $200 a month.

Occasionally, he was "stacking" steroids, taking large doses of several steroids. People who knew Green before and after he started using steroids noted a distinct shift in his behavior.

While he previously showed no propensity for violence, no mental problems and no criminal record, Green suddenly became irritable, aggressive and reckless, with rapid mood swings and grandiose beliefs about himself.

According to a former employee who worked with him, Green acted irrationally and aggressively almost from the day he started the job. The four people he managed, all women, kept their distance.

"He threatened to drop-kick us out of the office," said Mary, who asked that her real name not be used. "He once threw a computer off a desk - not bumped it but threw it - and told us to say it fell accidentally after one of the girls put some folders on his desk and didn't move them right away."

Things got worse after Green entered a Mr. Arizona bodybuilder contest but was disappointed with his performance. He took out his wrath on employees and his wife.

Green pleaded guilty to a domestic-violence charge in 1984 for slapping his wife in the face and breaking her nose. Co-workers recall numerous times when Pittman would show up with unexplained bruises.

Finally, things got to a point where his employees couldn't tolerate his abuse anymore, and Mary went to a supervisor.

Police were called to stand by in the building after the supervisor decided to fire Green for sexual harassment.

By that time, Green seemed to be seething inside, tormented by some personal beast. The supervisor said he would blow up for no reason and let forth a torrent of foul language.

When he was fired, Green threatened the supervisor's life. Green then walked back to his desk across from Mary and "just glared at me, like `I wonder how far I can get.' And I thought, `Just hit me. Just go ahead,' " she recalled.

While Green left without any physical violence, the memory of him lingered with his former employees. "For quite awhile after he left here, I carried a gun in my purse. That's how afraid I was of him," Mary said.

For all his bravado with women, however, Green avoided confrontations with men. Though part of his job was to repossess tools from mechanics who weren't paying on their loans, Green always found someone else to do it.

"He said you never knew when one of those guys would pull a gun on you," Mary recalled.

CRIME SPREE

Green and Pittman moved back to Mukilteo to live with Pittman's parents. Green was unemployed but continued to pursue bodybuilding with the idea of becoming a personal trainer. He entered a Pacific Coast bodybuilding contest and trained for about six months. He came in fourth out of four and became very depressed.

He said the steroids "made me basically want to eat and work out," with no energy left over to look for work.

He discontinued steroid use in the spring of 1985, and his depression worsened as he went through withdrawal.

In August 1985, he started using steroids again, in part to end the agony of withdrawal and to ease the aches and pains of his constant workouts, he said.

Suddenly, during a nine-week period, Green went on a violent spree, committing as many as nine felonies, all against lone women.

Green said he wasn't targeting women: "I did not rape any of them, I did not stab any of them, I did not kidnap any of them."

But prosecutors said that's exactly what he did when he happened into Brenda Gere's neighborhood and found her alone in her home after she returned from school.

They believe he likely knocked her unconscious, put her in the trunk of his car and drove to a remote spot on the Tulalip Reservation. There he raped her, stabbed her, struck her in the head and killed her.

A neighbor had written down Green's license-plate number, leading police to Green's doorstep hours after Brenda vanished. Green was questioned twice about Brenda's disappearance but without a body they decided not to charge him. Then, without warning, Green fled. He told his wife he was depressed and intended to kill himself.

That was the last time Pittman saw her husband out of custody. They were formally separated two days after Brenda Gere disappeared, and divorced in 1989.

On Oct. 2, Green surrendered to authorities in the Rocky Mountain National Park near Denver. While on the run, Green called Champagne, who arranged for an attorney to represent him.

During the next year, Green pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery, attempted first-degree robbery and simple assault. He also was convicted of first-degree rape for an attack on a female jogger and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In 1986, Green appealed two robbery convictions by saying he was affected by steroids. An expert was prepared to testify Green suffered a split personality, increased aggressiveness and emotional instability from long-term steroid use. The appeal later was dropped.

After Green was charged with murder, Dr. Harrison Pope Jr., associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, reviewed Green's records in 1991 at the request of defense attorneys who used his review to help persuade prosecutors not to seek the death penalty.

Pope, a leading researcher in the field of steroid abuse, concluded steroid use contributed substantially to Green's criminal behavior "and that indeed his crimes might well never have occurred if he had not been using steroids at the time."

Pope said he based his opinion on the fact that Green never exhibited criminal behavior before steroids, and the reports of family, friends and Green himself about the abrupt personality change.

But the field of steroid abuse research is only about five years old, and there is disagreement among experts about just how steroids affect the mind and whether they can cause someone who previously wasn't violent to become that way.

Pope said the effect on each individual seems to be dictated by the dosage and by a chemical idiosyncrasy that is not well understood.

In some cases, a person could take steroids and experience no psychiatric change, he said. In other cases, a user may develop "a veritable Jekyll-Hyde personality."

Defense attorney Anthony Savage, who represented Green during the murder trial, said he decided not to use a steroid defense because it would have required Green to admit he had murdered Brenda, and Green maintained his innocence.

PRISON

Green was sent to McNeil Island Corrections Center in Steilacoom to begin serving his prison sentence on the rape conviction, apparently adjusting well to life as an inmate.

He received only one infraction - for a positive marijuana test. He worked as the clerk for the lieutenant in charge of his cellblock and was considered "a cut above your average inmate," said Duane Altheide, who was a McNeil Island counselor.

An officer in Green's cellblock, Sgt. Larry Garland, recalled Green being easily manipulated by other inmates.

"He was kind of a wimp with other inmates," Garland said. "Inmates half his size would tell him what to do, and he'd do it. I thought he'd turn around and knock their heads off . . . but he'd just succumb."

One day in idle conversation, Garland said Green made a comment he'll never forget.

"I feel sorry for the public," Garland recalled Green saying suddenly.

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to get out one day," Green replied.

"And I thought, `Holy smoke! We've got a firecracker here.' "

------------- VIOLENT SPREE -------------

-- Michael Green's criminal history:

July 22, 1985: Woman accosted on a jogging trail near Edmonds Community College. She identifies Green at a police lineup, but he is acquitted of assault.

Aug. 13: Green rapes a female jogger at knifepoint on the same trail. He is convicted of first-degree rape.

Sept. 19: Brenda Gere disappears after returning home from school.

Sept. 23: Green accosts a University of Washington student at knifepoint and throws her over an embankment after she screams. He pleads guilty to attempted first-degree robbery.

Sept. 24: Green accosts a woman in a Bellevue parking lot, hitting her in the face. He pleads guilty to simple assault.

Sept. 24: Green approaches a woman in a flower shop in Issaquah a half-hour later and robs her at knifepoint. He pleads guilty to first-degree robbery.

Sept. 25: Green allegedly robs a small apparel shop in Boise, threatening a female clerk with a knife. A warrant is filed, but the case never is resolved.

Sept. 25: Green robs a flower shop in Pocatello, Idaho, using a knife to threaten a woman clerk. He pleads guilty to grand theft.

Sept. 27: Green allegedly robs a woman real-estate employee in Bountiful, Utah, after brandishing a knife. A warrant is filed, but the case is never resolved.

Oct. 5, 1991: Green is charged with Brenda's murder.