Daughters are eager for answers
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Marta Kalas Reeves was 36, separated from her husband and four daughters, and selling herself to pay for crack cocaine when she disappeared in the spring of 1990.
Her skeletal remains were found six months later in a marshy area near the spot where remains of three Green River serial-killer victims were found in 1983. The Green River killer is believed responsible for the deaths of 49 women, most of whom disappeared between the summer of 1982 and the spring of 1984.
Now, two of Reeves' daughters hope the arrest of Gary Leon Ridgway in four of the Green River killings and the renewed interest the arrest has created in unsolved slayings will provide answers about their mother's death and bring some measure of justice for her family.
"They keep talking about '82 to '84 like that's all (the Green River killer) has done, and I'm saying, 'Wait a minute. That's not all,' " says one daughter, who asked that her name not be used.
The oldest daughter, Nicole Reeves, 27, of Sacramento, contends police weren't as aggressive as they might have been pursuing cases such as her mother's because of the lifestyles of many of the victims.
"I think because the victims were prostitutes that it wasn't followed up on," Nicole Reeves said. "If there had been just one victim from a family who was willing to chase down the facts with their lawyer and a private investigator, it would have been solved years ago."
She acknowledges, however, how overwhelming the slayings have been for police and says King County sheriff's detectives were generous and helpful in recent conversations. One even described her mother's death as "an unofficial Green River case."
She says she's 75 percent sure the Green River killer killed her mother, but she doesn't discount the possibility that copycat killers are responsible for some of the many other unsolved deaths.
Nicole Reeves, who was 16 when her mother disappeared, has spent years putting the worst memories out of her mind. She says she has never expected her mother's case to be solved.
She remembers her mother as a smart, hard-working woman who was 11 when her family came to this country from Hungary and 21 when she dropped out of college to raise her daughters.
Marta Reeves ran into problems the last two years of her life.
Court records show she had been arrested for prostitution twice in 10 days on Pike Street in Seattle in February 1990. A 90-day jail sentence was deferred if she stayed out of areas of prostitution within the city limits.
The last contact she had with her family was March 5, 1990, when she called her husband. When he didn't hear from her after that, he called police.
Her daughters say their father, who prefers not to discuss his wife's case, tried to file missing-person reports with police but was given the runaround.
It would be Sept. 20, 1990, before the family knew what had happened to Marta Reeves.
A news report had said the remains of an unidentified woman who had been wearing pink, size 6 running shoes had been found eight miles east of Enumclaw, 150 yards off Highway 410. That was a few miles from the site where the remains of three Green River victims were found: Martina Authorlee, who disappeared in May 1983; Debbie Abernathy, who disappeared in September 1983; and Mary Bello, who disappeared in October 1983.
At the time, King County Police Sgt. Spencer Nelson said the Reeves case was stunningly similar to those of Green River victims, but her death fell outside the window of time the killer was most active.
Reeves' daughters say the window should have been expanded.
An autopsy could not determine the cause of Reeves' death. As with many of the official Green River victims, it was ruled homicidal violence, possibly asphyxia.
After Ridgway's arrest Nov. 30, Nicole Reeves, a 1998 University of Washington graduate, called the Green River Task Force.
While veteran Green River investigator Tom Jensen remembered Marta Reeves immediately, he said there were no good leads in her case, Reeves said.
And now, police investigators and the state crime lab are preoccupied with the four murders with which Ridgway is charged.
"They've always been overwhelmed by this case," Nicole Reeves said. "By the time our case came along, and some others, too, I got the feeling it was just gonna float out there and would never be solved."
Duff Wilson can be reached at 206-464-2288 or dwilson@seattletimes.com.