Missing Girl's Remains Found -- Snohomish County Murder Warrant Names Former UW Football Player

Skeletal remains found Sunday on a vacant lot on the Tulalip Indian Reservation have turned out to be the crucial link in a highly publicized 1985 case of a missing 12-year-old Bothell girl.

Snohomish County Medical Examiner Eric Kiesel yesterday determined that bones found by a search team were those of Brenda Gere, who was believed to have been abducted.

Yesterday, a warrant was issued charging former University of Washington football player Michael Kay Green with the girl's death.

Shortly after Gere's disappearance, Snohomish County deputies were investigating Green, but he was not charged because Gere's body could not be found.

Green is currently serving a 10-year sentence in the Pine Lodge Correction Center in Medical Lake near Spokane. He was convicted in 1986 of raping a woman, 25, on the jogging trail at Edmonds Community College in 1985.

Two Snohomish County sheriff's detectives, Sgt. Tom Greene and Detective Joe Ward, went to Pine Lodge Center last night to take custody of Green, who will be booked into the Snohomish County Jail on the first-degree murder charge.

Gere's remains were found in a wooded area on the 13500 block of Marine Drive in northwest Marysville. About 25 members of the search team combed a 50-by-100 foot area with garden tools, and recovered bones, teeth and shreds of clothing. Medical examiners made positive identification through dental structures and pieces of clothing found in the area.

Detectives and volunteers yesterday found six more bones on the hillside near the north end of the reservation.

The bones were found in thick brush around the initial discovery site, said Snohomish County Detective John Padilla.

The first bones and some items of clothing were discovered Sunday by the property owner, who was searching for a water line.

The search team first thought the remains belonged to an adult because of the size of the bones. Gere was 5-foot-3 and weighed 110 pounds.

Gere's mother, Elaine, now lives in Idaho. Her father, Joe Gere, a former sheriff's deputy in San Bernardino, Calif., is deceased.

Gere, the oldest of three children, disappeared after returning home from school. A massive search, complete with psychics, was begun after her disappearance.

-- Times staff reporter Kate Shatzkin contributed to this report.