Green River Killings Still Going On, Says Grieving Mom

Two pairs of pants are causing a great deal of anguish for Judith Mangan.

One pair was wrapped tightly around her daughter's neck when she was found dead last November near North Bend. The other was tied around the neck of a victim of the Green River killer a decade ago.

To Mangan, the two deaths bear so many similarities that she is convinced her daughter, Nicole French, 19, was killed by the same person who murdered Wendy Coffield, 16, in 1982.

"My daughter is a victim of the Green River killer. The two girls were killed the same way . . . with their pants," says Mangan. "My daughter was strangled with her own pants and he left them tied around her neck."

Her visit to Seattle raises once again the issue of whether the Green River serial killer is still active or whether another serial killer is preying on young women in the Northwest.

Mangan, of Sacramento, bases her observations on what she's read about the Green River case and by studying her daughter's autopsy report.

But police investigators have some reservations.

"We can't blame every killing in this area to the Green River killer," said King County Police Capt. T. Michael Nault. "We readily acknowledge the similarities, but there is no evidential basis for linking them."

Mangan is here this week with her husband, Dennis, and French's daughter, Britney, 3. They came to learn what they can about serial murders in King County and to alleviate their grief, to find closure for Nicole's death.

Mangan said she is compelled to visit the apartment where her daughter last lived, walk the prostitution strip near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and linger by the South King County pay phone where her daughter made a call to friends the night she disappeared.

"Not knowing what everything looks like," she said, "my mind wonders a lot. I envision the worst. I started seeing a psychologist a month ago. I'm looking for a way to go on for life."

Most of all, Mangan wants to visit the small grove of trees where her daughter's body was found.

"I'm going to put a little memorial there, flowers," said Mangan. "I'm going to try and say goodbye."

Trying to establish a connection between two murders committed a decade apart normally would be dismissed immediately. French's recent death, however, comes amid a series of slayings reminiscent of the Green River case.

The Green River killings came to light in July 1982 when Coffield was found in the Green River near Kent. When the abduction of young women on the prostitution strip appeared to stop in early 1984, King County Police declared the reign of terror over. Forty-nine women were killed between the summer of 1982 and March 1984. The case was never solved.

There are plenty of correlations, if not coincidences, in the cases of Wendy Coffield and Nicole French.

Both were white. Both came from troubled homes and ended up on the street with runaways and prostitutes. Both had shoulder-length, light-brown hair, stood about 5-foot-4 and were considered heavyset, weighing more than 140 pounds.

When her body was found, Coffield was nude from the ankles up. Her blue jeans were tied around her neck with a simple under-over knot. Another garment was also around her neck, double knotted. She had been strangled.

French disappeared about 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 6, 1992, after making a phone call near the intersection of Pacific Highway South and South 216th Street. A short time later, her partially clad body was found in a rural, wooded area off the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River near North Bend. Her pants were tied around her neck. She, too, had been strangled.

In both cases, other bodies were left in the area: In Coffield's case, four other women were left in or near the Green River. Two other women have been killed since 1991 and left in the woods east of North Bend.

There is at least one significant difference in the deaths of Coffield and French. According to the autopsy report, injuries to French's wrists and ankles indicate her hands and feet had been bound. None of the Green River victims is believed to have been bound.

However, several other Green River victims were strangled with clothing, including Opal Mills, 16. She was strangled with her pants and left in the Green River a month after Coffield was slain.

Is the Green River killer back? No one but the killer would know, but the similarities in the cases then and now are striking:

The deaths of about half of the estimated 30 slain women whose bodies were left in rural settings in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties since 1984 closely resemble those in the Green River case.

The total would climb to 21 if six missing prostitutes who fit, almost identically, the Green River victim profile are included.

Most of the Green River victims and women killed in recent years were teenage or young adult women who were prostitutes or runaways. They were abducted from the street and were found nude or partially nude. They died of asphyxia.

It appears the killer sgptalked hivictims. He then drove many miles to hide the bodies.

One argument against the re-emergence of the Green River killer

is the infrequency of the slayings in recent years.

While the Green River killer was active, three to five women were killed a month. Whoever has been killing young women since 1984 has, at most, 21 victims.

Is the Green River killer still active? Or did someone else murder Nicole French?