Beyond Green River case: 52 similar, unsolved deaths
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Their names make up a somber roll call of the dead.
Mary. Constance. Tracey. Nicole.
One hundred and one women who, since 1982, had met violent deaths, most by strangulation. Women whose bodies were placed somewhere and later discovered by hunters or shopkeepers or passers-by.
The official list of Green River victims assembled by the King County Sheriff's Office stands at 49, but investigators say the number is a rough estimate at best. The victims fit a general pattern: They were believed to be strangled, and their bodies were left outside. Many were last seen in areas frequented by prostitutes.
A survey by The Seattle Times determined that 52 more women between the ages of 13 and 40 were discovered dead from 1982 through 2000 in King, Pierce, Snohomish and Lewis counties but have not been officially linked to the Green River serial killer.
They fit the same general parameters of the Green River cases, however, except it's unclear how many victims had been involved in the sex trade or lived on the streets.
It's not likely the same person killed all of the women. Were they victims of someone who killed once and never again? Were some slain by a serial killer or killers?
In some cases, the investigative files had not been opened in years. But the arrest of Gary Leon Ridgway on Nov. 30 spurred renewed interest in solving these crimes, law-enforcement officials say.
Detectives in the four counties and across the state are beginning to comb through decades-old cases, hoping for a clue or piece of evidence that may finally lead to a conviction.
They are looking for connections to Ridgway, convicted Spokane serial killer Robert Yates, or other suspects. They are determining whether advances in DNA technology — the critical evidence King County prosecutors hope will tie Ridgway to four of the Green River victims — can be used in their cases.
Ridgway, a 52-year-old truck painter from Auburn, has been charged with aggravated murder in the deaths of four young women — Opal Mills, Marcia Chapman, Cynthia Hinds and Carol Christensen — who were among the first Green River victims to be discovered in a case that stretches back to 1982.
In a search-warrant affidavit prepared for a search of Ridgway's home, King County sheriff's detectives wrote that they think sensitive DNA tests may link Ridgway not to just some of the other Green River killings but to other unsolved homicides in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties.
"With Yates and Ridgway, you've got someone to match these things to," said Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff's Department. "We definitely don't want a homicide case sitting here and find out a few years down the road that it matched Yates or Ridgway."
Troyer also noted that many of the bodies were discovered before DNA technology was widely used and the perpetrators may have been careless about leaving their genetic signatures at the scene.
The families of the victims welcome the renewed attention to two decades of unsolved cases.
"You always hope, when something like this comes up and it's in people's conscience," said Laura Yarborough, whose 16-year-old daughter, Sarah, was killed Dec. 14, 1991, near Federal Way High School. She was on her way to a drill-team competition.
"You're hopeful that people will remember Sarah's case and something will jog someone's memory. But it's also kind of a roller-coaster if it turns out not to be."
Varying backgrounds
According to The Times survey, there are 29 unsolved murders of women in King County, 11 in Pierce County, 9 in Snohomish County, 3 in Lewis County. The women were students, bookkeepers, prostitutes, waitresses and maids. Most led quiet lives.
One was semi-famous: Mia Zapata, 27, who died July 1993, was lead singer in a band called The Gits. She had been beaten, raped and strangled with the drawstrings of her sweatshirt.
Like Zapata, many victims were last seen leaving a bar or restaurant. Others were hitchhikers or escapees from bad homes. Some routinely climbed into the cars of strangers to negotiate cash for sex.
Many of these so-called cold cases are thought to be stranger-to-stranger crimes.
And those are among the toughest to crack.
"When you have a homicide, you're really investigating the victim," said Capt. Pete Carder of the Pierce County Sheriff's Department. "That's next to impossible with some of these transient type people."
Pierce County authorities are focusing on six cases they may forward to King County investigators as part of King County's continuing Green River investigation.
Many have had suspicions
Some families have thought for years their loved one was the victim of a serial killer.
Judy Mangan remembers precisely when she received a call about her daughter from the King County Medical Examiner's Office: 3 p.m. on Nov. 9, 1992.
Nicole French, 19, was found dead in a wooded area near North Bend, her sweatpants tied around her neck. She had traveled from Sacramento to Seattle to start a new life.
But the old life caught up to her: She was arrested for prostitution weeks before she died. She left behind a 2-year-old daughter.
Mangan said someone in the Medical Examiner's Office told her that her daughter probably was a victim of the Green River killer because of similarities between the knot tied around her daughter and knots found in other cases.
Another body was found in the same area around North Bend, leading to speculation that the victims were clustered, one of the defining aspects of the Green River killer.
At the time, police said they were investigating the possibility of a link between French and the other cases, but she was not considered a serial-killer victim.
But in a search warrant the King County Sheriff's Office filed to gather items from one of Ridgway's previous homes, detectives noted that Ridgway had lived there between 1989 and 1997, when two women — French and Sarah Habakangas — were found in the North Bend area.
The warrant noted that "these women meet the same criteria used by the original Task Force members to be included as potential victims of this same killer."
For Mangan, the fact her daughter's case may be among those given new attention comes as a surprise after all these years. She had long ago given up hope detectives would be interested in solving her daughter's death.
"I'm so pleased that all the other cases are being brought up," she said.
Though she would be disappointed if her daughter's death remains unresolved, Mangan said the arrest of a suspect in four of the slayings comes as some comfort.
Two days after Ridgway was arrested, French's 11-year-old daughter — who lives with Mangan — did something she hadn't done in years. Instead of sleeping just under the bedspread, she climbed under the sheets and blankets of her bed.
"I couldn't believe it," Mangan said. "I think it's security. I think it's feeling safe."
Another suspect, too
There was no DNA found in the death of Tia Hicks, 20.
Her body was discovered April 22, 1991, in the bilge of a cabin cruiser parked in Mountlake Terrace on 220th Street Southwest between Highway 99 and Interstate 5.
Hicks, who had disappeared from Seattle, used drugs and sold sex, investigators said.
The Ridgway arrest piqued detectives' interest in discovering Ridgway's travel patterns, and whether he spent time in Mountlake Terrace.
"Where was Ridgway when Hicks was killed? That's one thing we'll look at, at some point," said Mountlake Terrace Police Sgt. Craig McCaul.
But McCaul said he has another possible suspect in mind: Scott William Cox, an Oregon truck driver convicted of murdering two Portland prostitutes in 1991.
Cox, now serving a 25-year prison sentence, had traveled extensively from British Columbia to Mexico and was in Washington more than 50 times from 1989 to 1991.
That led law-enforcement agencies to wonder if he might be responsible for their unsolved cases. Cox was a suspect in an assault on a Seattle prostitute in 1991.
Three in Lewis County
Lewis County detectives are poring over investigative files and coroner's reports on three women whose bodies were discovered there from 1984 to 1991.
One, Monika Anderson, 31, was last seen getting into a brown van on Commerce Street in Tacoma on Jan. 24, 1984. Her body was found Aug. 12, 1984, on a bank of the Chehalis River. King County Sheriff Dave Reichert visited the scene when he was a detective on the Green River Task Force.
"We suspected the Green River killer was responsible for them a long time ago because of the M.O. (killer's methods) and time frame," Lewis County Detective Joe Doench said. "Any law-enforcement agency that discovered a female body at that time, it was discussed at the scene whether they were related to other missing women in the Puget Sound area."
Detectives also are looking at the case of Roberta Strasbaugh, 18, who died September 1985 in Centralia. She was last seen alive walking along a road in Thurston County after her car ran out of gas. Her body was found in a remote area of Lewis County.
'A waiting game'
In a bit of a twist, the Green River investigation may delay the resolution of some unsolved homicides.
Cam Totty, 24, was strangled May 15, 1999, and her body discovered behind an auto-repair shop on Highway 99 in Edmonds.
Police initially wondered whether her death might be related to the Green River slayings, but that was discounted because Totty was found in a city and most of the 49 Green River victims' bodies were hidden in rural areas.
Several weeks after her death, Edmonds Police said they had a "person of interest," an acquaintance seen arguing with Totty the day before her body was found.
Detective Sgt. Mike Drinkwine said his department has sent materials to the Washington State Crime Laboratory for DNA testing. He's hoping a smear of blood, semen, saliva or a trace of skin will provide genetic clues to Totty's killer.
If they get DNA evidence, police may try to get DNA profiles from Totty's associates or people seen with her in the hours before she died, Drinkwine said.
But he doesn't hold out hope that the lab will send back results soon.
The Green River investigation will surely take precedence, causing delays of other unsolved cases, he said.
"For us, it's a waiting game," Drinkwine said.
Research editor Katherine Long and database specialist Justin Mayo contributed to this report. Alex Fryer can be reached at 206-464-8124 or afryer@seattletimes.com.