The Green River Killer - Gary Ridgway (Part 2)

[00:00] Every good detective needs a partner to support them on important cases. Think of a State Farm agent like your sidekick, there to help you along the way in your search for coverage. State Farm can help you choose the coverage you need, whether it's for your home, car, boat, or even RV. With so many options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you, so you can get back to solving all of life's bigger cases. Go to statefarm.com or use the award-winning app to connect with a local agent and get a quote, [00:30] neighbor, State Farm is there. [00:33] Before Legally Blonde, before law school, Elle Woods was in high school. Set in 1995, this Gemini vegetarian knows exactly who she is, until her family moves from Bel Air to Seattle and turns her world upside down. Watch Elle navigate a new city, a new school, frenemies and crushes, all while staying true to herself. Packed with iconic fashion, 90s nostalgia, and a throwback soundtrack, Elle proves one thing. Law school was hard. High school was harder. From the world of Legally Blonde, watch Elle, a new original series on Prime Video. [01:03] Watch now! [01:04] Hey Atlanta, Wayfair's new store is now open. So come on in to see, feel, and shop in person right here at the District at Howell Mill. [01:14] Finally, [01:15] sit on the furniture, test the features, and explore our huge selection of appliances, mattresses, home improvement, housewares, and way more. Plus, enjoy free one-on-one design services and swing by our tasty cafe. [01:28] Visit the Wayfair store today at the district at Howell Mill.

[01:34] Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid. [01:39] Music. [01:58] This is, it's gonna be morbid. He's impatient with me because I needed to finish my sour candy before we started recording. [02:06] To give me the mom look of like. It's because before you said, should we start recording? And I said, fine. And then you were like, okay, wait. It's like, hey. To clarify, I did not say, should we start recording? You said, I don't want to be a dick. I said, I don't want to be a dick because. Megretta's a little scary today, everybody. I am. I feel it. Oh God, don't get them going on that. That's true. [02:28] I love that you said it's true. And then you said, no. No, I just needed to eat my sour candy because one of our listeners sent us a whole box of yummy Canadian candy. [02:42] From Canada. [02:44] What are those called? Can you see? The peach ones? They're called... [02:48] Maynard's [02:50] Maynard's? These are called Maynard's too though, I think. Yeah, I think they're just different flavors. Oh, okay, so I have Maynard's Swedish Berries and then there's Maynard's... [02:58] Fuzzy peaches, I think they're called. Fuzzy peaches, yep. Swedish berries taste just like Swedish fish, but like somehow better, probably because they're not filled with red dye 40. And like, don't send me articles about that. No, I'm serious, don't. I'm serious. I have 47 just landed in my inbox. Oh, man. But, uh...

[03:17] And then the fuzzy peaches are so good and sour. The fuzzy peaches taste like peach rings, but not as gummy. Yeah, better. Yeah. [03:25] And then we got all kinds of chips. If you have access to Canadian food and you're not having the all dressed up chips. Oh my God. What are you doing with your life? What are you doing? My God. They're everything. Because Mikey will bring us some. Now that he lives in Canada. Now that he left us. Now that he doesn't. Do they even like he left us and like I don't even think they eat bacon. [03:47] They don't eat bacon? Well, no, like Canadian bacon is ham, so it was kind of a joke. Oh, I was so... I was like, what? I was like, is that something I just haven't known in my life? No, but like... [03:56] Canadian bacon is ham. Ah. [03:58] That's gross. [03:59] Sorry, I just don't like ham. No, no, no. We hate ham over here. This is not a ham house. It used to, Ma used to make us a different, what did she make us instead of ham? Would she do roast beef? Yeah. Yeah. On Easter. She'd say. [04:10] Oh, I know you don't like him. Everybody else would get ham, but we would get roast beef. But then when I would eat ham at John's grandparents' house for Easter, because I didn't want to be that person. I would eat it smothered in mustard. [04:24] Wow, you're a good person. Yeah, she... [04:27] My girl cooked a ham. I'm not going to. Who am I? [04:30] Oh my God. I'm not going to sit there and not eat it. Oh my God. You're making me feel so bad right now because Drew's family eats ham and I don't eat it. I just eat the sides. Literally, I would cut it into tiny little pieces. [04:43] and eat it. John can tell you. And then I would dunk each little piece completely in mustard. So it was only, I would just taste mustard. Wow. And then I'd be like, this is so good. Thank you for making me this ham. You're such a real one for that. I, I will say I only eat the sides if somebody else cooks it, but I did make a Christmas ham one year and I didn't eat it, but I, I really, I went to town on it. Yeah. I did put all the pineapples and then the cherries. Oh, there you

[05:13] I made one. You're like, but I will not eat other people's. I won't even eat my own. I just, I don't eat ham. Yeah. Sam, I am. I don't either, but. I eat mustard. I do eat mustard. I can't believe how good that is of you. Yeah. [05:27] She was great. I wasn't going to bum her out. Nana. Yeah, Nana for life. Shout out to John's Nana. Yeah. [05:34] And shout out to my family, whose ham I don't eat. Whose ham I will never eat. But I love them. Doesn't mean I don't love you. The love is there. Yeah. And speaking of love, do you guys love reading? I love reading. Do you see that transition? Period. [05:49] Guys. [05:50] Butcher Legacy is coming out. And we're going on tour. It's coming out August 11th. And we'll be at Unlikely Story that night. It's true. We're going to be there. And it's going to be fun. And it's the concluding trap, traptor. Oh, welcome to my traptor. The concluding chapter in this trilogy. [06:10] Remember, Dr. Rimmel is a, it's got a series, but this is a trilogy within it. So this is the concluding chapter in that. All right. And I think you guys will dig it. I think you will too. And I worked hard on it. It's really good. I think you'll love it. So go ahead and pre-order that. It's my favorite one in the series thus far. And honestly, I've heard that from a couple of people, which has made my heart joyful. Not to gosh, but you've grown anyways. I appreciate that. You bet. But like... [06:36] you know, [06:37] Richard Chismar liked it. Patricia Cornwell liked it. I mean... [06:41] Like... [06:42] And we're going to get Stephen King to like it.

[06:44] I'm going to get Stephen. I told Elaine, we really want to get Stephen just like to know who Elena is. Yeah, I just want to be like, hi, Stephen. If we get him on the pod, if we get him to read a book, however we get him to know. Hello, Stephen. But I said, should we just send him like videos of Kristen Cavallari being like, Stephen. Stephen. Stephen, come on our podcast. Stephen. All the many ways that she would say it in the most annoyed tone. So we'll just be like, Stephen. And he'd be like, no. I'm not. I'm not. It's coming on there. [07:14] It's done-zo. Rewatch Laguna Beach, everybody. It's worth it. Best. [07:19] Isn't it on like Netflix now? [07:21] Is it? I think it might be. Oh, shit. I might be spreading misinformation. I was like, I haven't watched it on Netflix? I think it might be now. At least a couple of the seasons. Didn't you buy it on Netflix? [07:31] Thumb streaming service? Like a million years ago. Yeah. Like I think I got it on Prime video because I was like worth it. I mean, yeah. [07:37] But yeah, so that go, you know, pre-order The Butcher Legacy. [07:40] All right. And all that good stuff. And then tell us what you're reading this summer. Yeah, let us know what you're reading. I'm starting to read The Ninth House. Ooh. It's like a spooky fantasy, like dark academia fantasy. I think that... [07:55] Aiden recommended that to me. He's sitting over there. Yeah, I think I have that. I just started it. And I just haven't cracked it open yet. [08:01] I knew it. I've been seeing such good things about it. And it feels really right. [08:07] right now because it's like cozy dark academia I love that got all that shit but it's also paranormal and fun and I think it's one in three and the third one is coming out this fall I believe right September yes see look at me look at that uh so I'm excited to start it because I love starting a little series that I know I just I love starting a fresh book me too I will say one thing I like about summer is I feel like I read more in summer I always feel like I'm going to

[08:37] I'm away a little bit so I like read while I'm away. Speaking of reading, shout out to Daphne Wolsoencroft. Oh yes. Wolsoencroft from the Going West podcast. She was nice enough to send me and Elena her new book which I think just came out so I think it's available. Yeah. Season of Sinking. The Season of Sinking. I'm really excited to start it. Yeah. I read her book Night Watcher and it was really good. Yeah she's awesome. 10 out of 10 recommend so I'm excited to crack into another [09:07] were you so yeah so go get tell us what you've been reading and now greg the episode starts [09:14] Greg, you can clock it. I don't know how to transition out of that. [09:18] Into what we're going to talk about. Because. Yeah. You thought part one was rough. We got more. I think it's. [09:25] I mean, it's just going to keep getting worse. Gary Ridgeway is... [09:31] A really bad guy. I don't think I realized like quite how long his crime spree lasted. Of terror. Yeah. Yeah, it was a long time. He spanned from the 80s into the 90s. [09:42] And I'm just like, ow. [09:44] And he slipped through a couple times, my friends. I hate when that kind of stuff happens. That nothing infuriates me more. Because this could have been stopped. Yeah. Like... [09:55] I mean, unfortunately... [09:57] He wouldn't be stopped quick enough. [09:59] or damage not to like extreme damage to not have already been done but he could have at least been caught and stopped some of this yeah yeah [10:07] So, I mean, part one was rough. We had the task force that had formed the Green River Killer Task Force. Yep. I mean, at this point, they were like talking to Ted Bundy about this shit, trying to get his opinion on what was going on. Yeah. And we'll get into that. But like, yeah, they were trying to get his opinion on. Was he helpful? He claimed he was. I don't. Helpful. I think he just liked the attention. I was going to say he's personally.

[10:37] Well, I'm in the know because we're of one mind. Right. You know, it's gross. [10:43] Ted really was gross. He really was. They all are. So on September 18th, Reichert got a call about another discovery. Reichert is our investigator we've been talking about this whole time. A local resident had been looking for a lost chicken out by Star Lake Road, which is the most chicken. And it's so wholesome. That is wholesome. You're still looking for your chicken? Wholesome for now. And they came across the skeletal remains of 23-year-old Gail Matthews. [11:10] After a quick review of the reports of missing women they kept on hand, the investigators were luckily able to identify the remains as Matthews through x-rays taken after a boating accident that she had been in several years before that. Oh, geez. It's always fascinating to see how they're able to get these because a lot of times dental records come from something like that. Yeah. You know? [11:32] Now, [11:33] Gail Matthews was a little bit of an outlier in this victim pool. Not only was she like slightly older than the previous victims, but her missing persons report was very, [11:43] A lot more detailed than what the detectives were kind of used to at this point. A lot of times they were getting scattered information because a lot of these women were living on the streets. They weren't getting the regular health care that they normally would or anything like that. They didn't see their family as regularly. They didn't see their family, their friends, their, you know, employers that they would be able to like go back and keep tabs on. Now, Gail had been living with her boyfriend, Kurt, in a small apartment out by the airport in 1982.

[12:10] And by the spring of 1983, they had both lost their jobs and eventually they lost that apartment. [12:15] So they drifted around. They were kind of like just stopping from one motel to another for a couple months. Even before they lost the apartment, Gail had always contributed to the bills. She but she never really told Kurt exactly where the money came from. OK, OK. [12:31] He just kind of came and he was like, all right, we'll pay the bills. All right. Sometimes Kurt would win some money gambling at one of the small casinos around Seattle. And they would get, you know, if they got a little more, then they would get something a little more upscale than the usual motel. But other times when they had no money at all, they would have to sleep outside. Oh, wow. [12:49] Now, the last time Kurt saw Gail was on the night of April 22nd, when they went out for a few beers at the VIP tavern. And that was like a few blocks away from the motel. After drinking their beers and playing a couple rounds of Pac-Man, just like chill night, Kurt told Gail he was going to play some cards at another bar nearby. He was hoping to win a little money. [13:08] And he said, I'll see you later. Okay. So Gail was like, cool, I'm going to do my part to try to make enough to get a motel room for a few nights. [13:15] And they just parted ways. All right. [13:17] Later that night, Kurt was walking from one tavern to another when he spotted Gail. [13:23] She was sitting in the passenger seat of a Ford truck stopped at a red light. [13:27] He lifted his arm to wave to her like, oh, hello. And he was trying to get her attention. But something about the scene he said felt very wrong. Like immediately. Did you say a green truck? [13:37] It was just a Ford truck. It's a Ford truck. Okay. Didn't say the color. But he told FBI agent Duke Dietrich later when he reported Gail missing, which was the next day, he said she seemed dazed.

[13:53] She was staring straight ahead. It was bizarre. She was looking right at me, but it was as if she didn't see me. I'm sure she could see me. It wasn't dark out yet. [14:02] So he waved harder, like, hello. And she continued just sitting like stock still. And he said her eyes were just locked on whatever she was looking at. [14:13] What? Yeah. [14:14] And it wasn't just that Gail seemed dazed that he found to be a little odd. He said her body language also looked really strange. In what way? He said she was sitting beside a man that Kurt described as being in his early 30s, wearing a plaid shirt that made him look a little bit like an outdoorsman. Okay. And her demeanor was... [14:34] someone that was very uncomfortable. It looked like she was pressed up against the passenger's door, like sitting as far away from the driver as she could. Oh, that makes me so sad and like stresses me out. And he later told the agent, I don't know how to explain it, but I felt fear, fear for her because I sensed she was in danger. Oh no. So he ran across the road to try to reach the truck. He was like, I want to pull her out of there. Yeah. But by the time he got to the intersection, the driver had pulled away and sped down a side street and he chased after the [15:04] car but he said quickly he realized he couldn't catch them on foot because he's he's running yeah that night he went back to the motel room to wait for gail and he said he told himself i'm just over overreacting like [15:16] this is going to be fine yeah the next morning when gail still hadn't returned he called the police to report her missing but he was told that because he wasn't related to her by blood or marriage he couldn't file an official report that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard in my life where did we come up with this shit because you're not married okay they're still partners like what the fuck people don't have people who love them

[15:41] I'm sorry, but what does a piece of paper change about that? That's what, it's crazy. So unable to file the report or even help, like enlist the help of police, really. Yeah. Kurt decided to look for Gail on his own. He wasn't just going to sit around. Wow, Kurt is a real one. He was a real one. He went to all their usual hangouts and motels, but no one had seen her. He even walked the streets for several blocks during the day and night, asking anyone, all the other women working the area, if they knew anything, but no one recalled seeing her. [16:11] Now, during that period of searching, Kurt's mind said he said he regularly thought about the Green River Killer. Oh, wow. And he thought back to seeing Gail in the truck. [16:21] And he's like, [16:22] Am I just remembering that she seemed like she was dazed or like, [16:27] Did I like put that on that situation? Cause now I'm thinking about it and now I'm worried about it. Like, she's missing. Like, was there real danger or am I, he was kind of second guessing himself, which like is valid, of course. Yeah. And he was like, and maybe like she had seen me waving to her, but like he didn't, she didn't want to alert the driver. [16:46] To put her in more danger if she was in danger. Like maybe she was staring at me, but she couldn't wave. Which made him even more upset. And he was like, and it just ran through his head as he was frantically searching for her in the days after she went missing. Oh, this is heartbreaking. But as the weeks passed without a sign of her, he just... [17:03] couldn't do it anymore. Yeah. No one was going to help him. Which is so shitty. I just can't believe that because he wasn't her like official husband. That he couldn't. And he couldn't file a report. And he said no matter how much time passed, he never believed that Gail just simply left him.

[17:18] No. Because there were people that would tell him that like maybe she just left you. And he was like, no, she didn't. Also, like, can we look into it? Yeah. Can we maybe just see? And then determine once we have some evidence? Now, after the task force identified Gail's remains from the medical records, they immediately began searching the police logs for any arrests or references to Gail Matthews. [17:37] which is when they came across Kurt's call to 911. [17:41] Fortunately for them, it wasn't hard to track Kurt down. In September 1983, he was unfortunately in a Texas jail on a drug charge. The task force had transferred him to, had him transferred to Seattle where he was interviewed by police. And he was actually interviewed by the department psychologist, Dr. John Berberich. Kurt racked his brain for anything that could be useful for the investigators and even agreed to be hypnotized. Wow. Unfortunately, all he could [18:11] information about the driver and the fact that the truck was definitely not new and [18:17] The one thing he was able to say was it looked as though it had recently been primed for paint. Okay. [18:22] So that's interesting. Yeah, and that's helpful. Just one month after the discovery of Gail Matthews' body, more skeletonized remains were discovered in the city, this time in the woods off Black Diamond Road. [18:34] using their usual method of, you know, going through the police reports, the missing persons reports with medical records and the medical examiner's reports. [18:42] The task force was able to identify this new victim as 19-year-old Yvonne Antosh. [18:48] 19 19 the missing person's report had been made by antosh's friend and motel roommate um and that's who she had come to seattle with from vancouver british columbia actually okay investigators showed yvonne's photo to the other women working the strip and a few people did recognize her and one said they remembered seeing her around may 30th but no one had seen her since

[19:11] Based on that report and the autopsy results, Yvonne's time of death was estimated to be around that date. [19:18] Now, the detectives on the task force had barely started digging into Yvonne's background when less than two weeks later, another body was discovered out by the airport. Oh, man. Another young couple picking apples. [19:30] *sigh* [19:31] For that to happen twice is wild. It was in a vacant lot by the airport. They made another terrible discovery. [19:39] The woman tripped and fell onto her stomach into a pile of leaves and [19:44] And her face was just inches from what she said looked like a human leg bone. Stop. Just fell right into it. That is so fucked up. So this woman jumps to her feet and they look closer at what was in fact a leg bone attached to a pelvis. Can you imagine? Nope. Falling inches from somebody's body. And then seeing it attached to a pelvis. Oh my. A few feet away they could see the top half of a human skull sticking out of the dirt. [20:11] Oh my god. Now, because the lot belonged to the airport, the report of human remains was called into the Port Authority, not the Seattle Police or the Green River Task Force. Hello? [20:20] just like the way the jurisdiction works. [20:23] The authorities sealed the area and decided to wait until the next morning to begin the investigation when the light would be better. Yeah. So the next day when the sun came up, this is wild to me. [20:32] The sun came up, the port police arrived at the scene with a troop of local Boy Scouts. Sorry, what? Who they often relied on to help them in cases where a large law enforcement presence was necessary.

[20:45] Hey, but like, um, didn't you know that a body was reported? [20:49] Yeah, that like shocked me. I don't know a lot about the Boy Scouts, so I'm not going to sit here and say that I do. Here's the thing. This was just shocking to me to think about. Boy. Yeah. They're not the Man Scouts. The Man Scouts. They're the Boy Scouts. They're not the Man Scouts. I'm here to put money on the fact that I don't think they were ready to see what they saw. No. [21:09] No, I didn't know that was part of the Boy Scouts. I didn't know that crime scene investigation was part of the whole curriculum. I wonder if it is now. I would like to hope no. Again, I have no idea. Wow, that is... Yeah. Also, like, hey... [21:23] When you need more police presence, why don't you call other police people? It's crazy. That's a crazy idea for you. That's a crazy thought. You guys can like work together. Leg up instead of bringing the boys in. That's nuts. Instead of bringing literal children in. Please bring the man scouts in, a.k.a. the police. The man scouts. The feds. Well, officers from the port police did much of the official work. Apparently the teenage boy scouts spread out across the lot. They were told to look for bones, clothing. [21:50] Anything else that might have belonged to the newly unearthed victim. And we wonder why men need therapy. Yeah. [21:57] A lot. Wow. A lot to take. Wow. As the scouts scoured the lot, one of the teenagers... [22:03] one of the Boy Scouts, stumbled upon a second skeleton. A whole other one? Yep, lying about 50 yards away from the first. Oh my god. Unlike the first body, which had been buried in a very shallow grave, the second skeleton was only slightly obscured by some thick bushes.

[22:20] The body was covered with trash and debris. Oh, that's awful. It was like the killer had deliberately taken his time burying the first victim, but then tossed the second woman in the bushes. Almost like he like wanted the body to be found. Yeah, I'm not sure why. But a few days later, the medical examiner used dental records to identify the first set of bones as those of 20-year-old factory worker Constance Naone, one of the names on their list of women recently reported missing. [22:50] Oh. [22:50] Constance was last seen on June 8th. [22:53] leaving the factory where she worked. And just before she left, she called her boyfriend to let him know she was on her way to see him and expected herself to be there in about 20 minutes. [23:04] when Constance didn't show up. So it was in that small 20 minute span of time. Yeah. [23:09] When she didn't show up that night, he became concerned, and the following day, he reported her missing. [23:15] At the time she went missing, she was living out of her car, a 15-year-old Chevy Camaro that investigators found parked in the lot of the Red Lion Motel. [23:24] It was definitely like cluttered with all her belongings, but it was covered in dust. Like it had been undisturbed for several days. Oh, that's really chilling. The second set of remains belonged to Kelly Ware, yet another name on the task force list of missing women. Kelly had been last seen on or around July 18th. [23:43] It was seen near a bus stop in the area of Seattle known among police as a very heavily trafficked area by drug dealers. Okay. Her killer had taken the time to bury her remains out by the airport. And placed a ring of stones around the burial site.

[23:58] Oh? Yeah. [24:00] Like many of the other victims, the advanced state of decomp made initially just identifying her, but identifying the cause of death as well nearly impossible. Yeah. In fact, the only evidence of note was that when the remains were finally uncovered, one of the technicians found a triangular shaped stone in the region of the pelvis. [24:19] It was kind of impossible to know whether it had simply fallen into the grave. [24:24] when she was buried or whether it had been put there deliberately, but like, [24:29] that had happened before. I was going to say. Their minds immediately went to the discovery of Marsha Faye Chapman, where the killer had literally sexually violated her with rocks. Yeah. So this wasn't completely out of... [24:41] realm of possibility that that was on purpose but they just couldn't tell because the remains were skeletal they were decomposed so badly that there's just no way that's really fucked up so the discovery of kelly wares remains brought the death toll to 13 already yeah that's crazy and there were still countless names on the list of missing women the task force had compiled from the seattle police department's reports [25:04] Now, at first, several investigators had been publicly pretty skeptical that all the victims had been killed by one person because, again... [25:11] This is still new. Yeah. This is a thing. Like the idea of a serial killer. But by the fall of 1983, it was beginning to become... [25:19] nearly impossible to ignore the similarities here not only the similarities but also just the fact that like this was a thing that people do it was a thing

[25:35] you [25:35] When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at GoodToKnowFacts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit GoodToKnowFacts.org. [26:05] At DSW, we ask the important questions like, what shoes are you going to wear? Whether you're prepping for wedding season, festival season, or just planning the ultimate vacay, the right shoes can make or break an RSVP. So own the moment. You've got big plans and we've got just the shoes at the perfect price, of course. Get ready to get ready with Designer Shoe Warehouse. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today and let us surprise you. [26:35] you [26:36] You've tried melatonin, the white noise machine, the blackout curtains, the magnesium, and you're sleeping. [26:43] Fine. [26:44] Not great. [26:45] Just fine. [26:47] At some point, you have to consider the four-year-old pillow is doing more damage than the magnesium is fixing. [26:54] Coop Sleep Goods is running a bundle sale July 9th through the 20th. [26:57] The starter bundle is the move. Two pillows plus a sheet set, 40% off. And we're not saying it'll fix everything. [27:05] We're just saying you've tried everything else.

[27:07] Coop's pillows are adjustable, designed to fit how you sleep, not just tolerated. Mix and match any two pillows at 25% off or go all in on the starter bundle. One real upgrade beats six mediocre ones. Head to coopsleepgoods.com slash comedy. That's C-O-O-P sleepgoods.com slash comedy for 40% off the starter bundle and 25% off all other bundles. [27:33] now although they didn't have any particular suspects on the radar the task force members had a theory about what could potentially be motivating the killer okay king county police captain michael nalt said there's a strong possibility we're dealing with a serial murderer there's nothing to compare with in other u.s cities which is crazy and [27:57] Female, and this is a quote, female prostitutes being killed around major airports. [28:02] So they're literally saying... [28:04] Yeah, we think this is a serial killer, but we don't have anything like this to compare it to. [28:09] female sex workers being killed. Like you don't? Around like airports. [28:15] like because it wasn't like a huge thing that's actually crazy it's just wild to think of i know because now we just live in a world where yeah where it's like we have lots of things to compare this to unfortunately they believe the killer was quote psychologically disturbed and bent against prostitutes [28:31] I mean, I would say so. That's... [28:33] And what they thought was they thought they were killing them for their perceived moral transgressions, essentially. Like they were trying to be like a hero and like rid the streets. Oh, nice. The theory was helpful in hunting the killer, but Nalt also acknowledged that without any witnesses or crime scenes, investigators were struggling to make any progress, really. Like, we can come up with this theory and it makes sense, sure, but like...

[28:59] Where's it really getting us? Like, can we get some profiling done at Quantico? [29:03] Well, let's, let's go. Okay. Now, in most cases, when a killer is on the loose in a particular area, the public would demand more of law enforcement, you know, more law enforcement to come out and actually be present. And more that than getting like psychological theories, you know what I mean? Like they, a lot of times the public doesn't want to hear that. They want to hear that you're physically doing something about it. And that like they're safe. Yeah, [29:33] many others like it, was that the victims, like we've said before, were among the most marginalized people in society, most often to be ignored, if they were ever seen at all, even when they were alive. Right. [29:45] Which is so sad. It's really, really sad. In fact, if anything, Nalt's statements about the killer's supposed moral mission to rid the city of sex workers only strengthened the public's sense of safety, like false safety. Yeah, because it wasn't just sex workers. No, and it's like they would think, okay, well, I'll never end up like a victim because I'm not in that line of work. Right. Which is like not, no, like he's just happening to, because that's like making it easier for him because he's able to get them into a car. Right. [30:15] Thank you. [30:15] you could be potentially just walking down the street you don't know if this guy was just going to start reaching and grabbing people what also it had happened he's offered people who weren't sex workers who were just you know like a server just a ride to work oh exactly a ride to work so that's the kind of thing that bothers me so much in cases like this because it's like don't give people a threat to the public safety it's like no make that people be vigilant here also like we don't have to be so like morally no like with our noses in the air you know especially

[30:45] Especially in the 80s and stuff. And like the 70s, it's like people were taking rides from people all the fucking time back then. It's not just sex workers getting in cars. And it's like, so everyone's a little bit on the radar here. Now, the editor of the News Tribune said it's puzzling why there is so little public outcry over what has become known as the Green River slayings. The public seems to have assumed a detached view of these brutal slayings. [31:13] That is in sharp contrast to the Ted Bundy killings, quote unquote, of the 1970s, when young women, many of them students, were disappearing at regular intervals from Seattle and nearby points. [31:25] So they're at least pointing out like, [31:27] Weird that we're not seeming to give too much of a shit with this. It's like, hey, nobody should be considered less dead. They're a human with families. [31:36] and we like we've said this before wanting to be a sex worker they are doing what they have to do to survive or to take care of people that depend on them and i like it all gets called like a high risk job it's like okay there's other high risk jobs that people do that we wouldn't consider them less dead well that's the thing we don't consider it their fault when something happens police officers have a high risk job do we consider it their fault when they get killed in the line of duty no no no [32:02] Because it's not, they're humans. Right, exactly. And that's like, you can't just say one is more valuable than the other. Well, and it's like, can we maybe just look at these victims as people whose lives were taken away? Exactly. Like, can we really just like boil it down to the tragedy that it is? And that's what I mean. Also, just to clarify, when I say like one is more valuable than the other, I mean the human. Yeah. I don't mean their line of work. I mean, like...

[32:26] The human being to place one, you know, value on one and the lesser value on the other just because of what they do for work is insane. Yeah. It's just yucky. It is yucky. Can we all just be chill with each other? Like, everybody just be cool, man. And nobody's being cool. People gonna people, man. People are gonna people. [32:43] Now, it was not like the detectives had nothing to work with here. [32:48] It was really that, like, it seemed like things changed constantly. And any witness statements that they could get never seemed to match up. [32:56] Like, there was just a lot of chaos here. I mean, he was... [32:58] here, there, and everywhere. So that makes sense. Yeah. And all along, there were suspects every now and then. Like Melvin Foster had been ruled out. We talked about him. Yeah. [33:08] But in late 1983, the task force trained their eye on a new suspect, a guy named Charles Clinton Clark. [33:15] Several of the women working the strip had described a man in his 30s driving a blue and white pickup truck. [33:21] similar to the one described by Gail Matthews, boyfriend Kurt. He was the one who said that he saw her in the car. Yep. [33:28] Clark was a meat cutter at a local butchery. [33:32] And he had a license for two handguns. Okay. He'd also been identified by several of the women on the strip as having been violent to them. [33:40] At the very least, they were able to arrest Clark on sexual assault charges against one of the sex workers on the strip, which, like, good. Yeah. Get him out of here. Get his ass off the street. Which brought them time to continue investigating him as a possible suspect for the Green River case. While the task force and the FBI pursued Clark as their suspect...

[34:00] The killer continued his work. [34:03] As detectives were booking Clark at the Seattle Police Department, 18-year-old Mary Bridget Meehan had just left the room she shared with her boyfriend Ray at the Western Six Motel near the Strip. [34:14] At the time, Mary was eight months pregnant. Oh, my. [34:17] And certainly at this point was not performing sex work. But she had a long history of running away from home and was believed to have occasionally worked the strip to make money. According to Ray, Mary had said she was going to walk down to the movie theater, which was only about two miles away. [34:35] When night fell and she still hadn't come back from the movie theater, Ray started to get worried and he went out to see if he could find her. [34:42] He walked the strip for hours. He was asking all the other women if they had seen Mary, but not had seen her. [34:48] When his efforts finally came up empty, he went back home and called the police. [34:52] and was told he would need to wait a full 24 hours before reporting someone missing. Um, hi, she's eight months pregnant. Can we maybe make a fucking special case here? Seriously. [35:02] And Ray, because I'm like, she's like high risk right now. Absolutely. Can we please go look? Ray waited until the following evening and she still had not returned. So he called the police a second time and finally made a report. [35:13] This time, the officer took the report and filed it with the other incoming communications from the night. And it would be several days before the report of this missing pregnant teenager would be assigned to a detective. That's crazy. And was finally assigned to Detective Earl Tripp. [35:29] Both Mary and her brother Tim...

[35:31] and we're talking about the victim now, were adopted by a couple with two other children in Belleville, Washington when they were young. [35:38] And they were raised just 20 miles from where she would eventually disappear. [35:42] But like, [35:43] Unlike so many of the other victims, Mary's childhood had been mostly a good one. [35:49] Her brother Dennis recalled she would bring home stray cats all the time and hide them in her room. We'd find them and my mom would say, you can't keep them. See how everyone's sneezing? It didn't really work. She went out and brought more cats home. Things changed for Mary though when she reached her early teens and there was like tension that came up from angsty teen kind of stuff. Mary and her brother had always kind of been the more rebellious ones than the other children in the house. But as teenagers, that rebellion became a form of pushing back on their parents' authority. [36:19] which led to inevitable conflict. Of course. In time, Mary started skipping school. She was spending time with older boys. She was 15 when she got her first boyfriend, who was the son of a prominent local businessman. Mm-hmm. [36:33] According to her parents, Mary was, quote, entranced with him. And despite their disapproval, he became her entire world. I mean, when you're 15 and your first boyfriend, yeah. And soon her grades were plummeting and she was staying out for all hours in the morning. Oh, no. Yeah. [36:49] That's must be. [36:51] So horrific because you're so helpless. Yeah, as a parent. For a while, the Mians tried the usual routine, punishments, rewards, anything to get their daughter under control. But eventually they had to accept that nothing they were doing was working.

[37:05] hoping some tough love might be the thing that gets her back on track, they gave her an ultimatum. Either follow the rules of the house or you find another place to live. It's fair to say the means genuinely thought they were doing the right thing here. They didn't know what else to do. [37:18] They kind of run out of any other thing to do. And she was older at this point. Yeah. And they say she was like 16. So they were there. I know. [37:26] And I think they were doing it like... [37:28] yeah like you're not gonna leave something here like you're really not gonna leave and they thought this ultimatum was gonna work this is gonna be the thing to scare her into being like okay yeah but when mary came home one night and found herself locked out of the house she took off and moved out in with her boyfriend oh man now for a time mary's boyfriend was happy to have her there but not not long after she moved in she became pregnant okay okay [37:51] Something neither of them had planned on. Yeah. And this was not long after his 16th birthday. So they're in... [37:58] Pretty difficult. [37:59] situation yeah of course now the boyfriend wanted her to have an abortion okay but mary was devoutly catholic [38:06] and felt very strongly that she did not want to do that. [38:08] And she refused, which is her right. It's her right. Because it's her fucking body. Yep, her choice. Frustrated with Mary's decision, her boyfriend kicked her out of the apartment. [38:17] that they had moved into. And she spent this next several months sleeping on friends' couches, [38:22] until the mother of one of Mary's friends agreed to let her move in. That is so sad. [38:27] In the two years that followed, Mary's life more or less returned to normal, but her relationship with her parents never really healed from all of this.

[38:36] They loved each other. They tried to get it back on track, but it was a complex situation at this point. And they repeatedly had told her in that time if she was willing to follow the rules of the house, they would happily have her live there. But I think she was, according to friends, she was just... [38:51] Not ready to do that. Okay. And I think it was just kind of like a standoff kind of thing. You know what I mean? Like no one was willing to move. And like she's becoming a parent. And she's still young. Yeah. So it's like she's still young. She had plenty of time to do that. [39:04] if life had continued, if this fucker hadn't come into her life, Gary Ridgeway, that this could have all turned around and she could have ended up back with her parents. I think I don't, this was not a relationship that was completely tarnished. You know what I mean? Like, [39:20] She just didn't get the time. I feel like it's so strange, too, just, like, on a different note, like, changing his victim profile to kill a pregnant woman. Yeah. Like, that's a deviation. He didn't really have a victim profile, though, that's the thing. Like, he had a... [39:36] line of work that he went after didn't really have, these women were black. They were white. They were young. They were older. They were mothers. They were single. They were married. Like, [39:47] The real only thing they had in common was the opportunity to grab them or have them come in the car. I'm just like, how? That was really it. And that's crazy because that doesn't happen that often. When you look at the pictures, especially of all of his victims, he did not have a... [40:06] A singular, you know, victim type. That's interesting. Yeah. But this one is like, it's just so heartbreaking. Now, by the time she turned 18, Mary was...

[40:15] Definitely like struggling. She was struggling with some substance stuff and she was asked to move out of her friend's house. [40:21] By then, she had already started spending a lot of time on the streets and was making friends with other young women. [40:27] who were living and working there as well. [40:29] Her friend Dave said she had a fearless nihilistic quality that I really admired at the time. Now I see that we were both just scared of life and it wasn't going very well for us. We were accepting failure as a given and then going from there. Now Dave had been Mary's closest friend in the years after she left her parents' house. And he was so devoted. Like such a devoted friend. [40:50] But once Mary started to fall really far into life on the streets, things started to change a little bit between them. [40:57] still a teenager, Dave's life was filled with, you know, [41:00] Kind of like the type of suburban teen angst that a lot of people experience in their adolescence. It wasn't like super serious stuff. Yeah. But Mary's troubles were like very dire. Like real life trouble. Much more adult. Yeah. Like very different from what he was dealing with. [41:16] And one day, Mary told Dave that a man had approached her at the Seattle Center and offered her money for sex. [41:22] At first, Mary agreed and went with the man. She hadn't done this before. Okay. But eventually she decided she couldn't go through it and told him that. [41:30] Fortunately, this man was understanding and sympathetic to her situation. He even bought her some food and sat with her while she told him about her family problems. Wow, what are the odds? Unfortunately, that's the situation that happened there. How sad is that too? That that's like, whoa, that was the outcome? Yeah. Now Dave laughed the situation off, kind of making a small joke about how she should have asked him for more money. Like, you know, like just making a joke. Yeah.

[41:56] But in retrospect, he said that he could see that this part of her story was like kind of a red flag, a sign that she was going down a much more dangerous path. Yeah. Now, a few months later, Dave started dating a young woman from Bellevue, and the new relationship dramatically changed the dynamic between he and Mary. Yeah, of course. A short time later, they drifted apart and he never saw her again. Oh, that's sad. After that, not because of it, Mary kind of hit rock bottom. And at one point, she did move back in with her parents. Oh. [42:26] finally agreed to abide by their rules, but... [42:29] And this was when she was 18. So she had, like I said, like she, it was not completely demolished. It was like there was time. And at this point she, so she had already had a child. Yeah. But, and I don't know what happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [42:42] Um, [42:43] But... [42:44] Once she moved in, she started dating Ray, who we talked about in the beginning. Ray was the one who reported her missing. And she found out she was pregnant again. So the old tensions flared up between Mary and her parents. [42:57] And she fell back into the old routine of staying out all night, just... [43:02] It just started going in that path again. [43:05] All of this is what made Mary both like and not like the other missing women on the list. [43:11] On the one hand, she had a support system that she knew she could fall back on during desperate times. And her love for and her connection to her family made it unlikely that she would run away without telling anyone. Yeah. Because no matter how bad things got, she was never going to abandon them. And they were never going to abandon her. Like for the most part. Yeah. On the other hand, still just a teenager, she had a stubborn rebellious streak that caused her to act impulsively. Yep.

[43:41] Yeah. So the missing persons report got added to the Green River Task Force list of missing women and was assigned to Detective Jerry Alexander for follow up. [43:50] Now, Alexander started by interviewing Ray, who was obviously the last person to see Mary and the person who reported her missing. [43:58] Now, despite his very obvious love for Mary, Ray ultimately proved to be [44:03] of kind of like little use to investigators according according to one of the investigators quote the detectives doubted many of his answers oh it wasn't so much that they thought he was lying he just didn't seem to know anything okay he said that she had gone to the movies but when they asked whether mary might have gone to make money on the street he said i don't know oh like i think he just was like i don't know what to say [44:26] Mary's other friends proved to be like a little more helpful than that, at least when it came to how Mary was living at the time she disappeared and whether or not she was in fact working as a sex worker. [44:36] Regardless of her pregnant state, the consensus seemed to be that Mary was not resorting to that. Okay. Even not pregnant. Okay. Mary's friends and family spent months looking for her, but there was never any sign of where she disappeared to. But by the end of 1982, Ray had to move out of the motel. And for a while, he kept in touch with her parents, hoping that she might resurface. [44:59] But in time, those calls stopped too, and Mary stayed on the task force missing list. [45:04] until a body was found. [45:06] But... [45:07] In the beginning, she wouldn't be counted among the Green River Killer's victims. Really? Now, the day that she would be found finally came on November 14th, 1983.

[45:17] as technicians continued searching the Bacon Lot where the bodies of Constance, Naone, and Kelly Ware were discovered a few weeks earlier. [45:26] Buried about a hundred yards away from where Constance's body was unearthed. [45:30] a third body was discovered. [45:32] But it appeared that this third victim had been dead significantly longer than the other two. [45:38] During the autopsy, the pathologist noted that the internal organs appeared to all be intact, but were congealed. [45:45] They were just kind of one mess, but they were all there. [45:48] Oh, I didn't know that happened. Yeah. The autopsy also included one very unusual note. [45:54] Quote, in addition, in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen, there were multiple fetal bone fragments. Oh, that's awful. This appears to constitute a complete fetal skeleton. Yeah. So that's when they found out that this was a pregnant woman. That's so fucked. The presence of the fetal bones confirmed that Seattle law enforcement were indeed dealing with a monster, unlike anything they had seen before. Because this was not... [46:17] This was a... [46:19] a full fetal skeleton yeah she was eight months pregnant yeah you're like past viability now later that afternoon the medical examiner matched the teeth in the jaw to the dental records of mary bridget mehan he could not be precise about the time or cause of death but he estimated she had likely died not long after she disappeared on september 15th 1982 [46:39] Thank you. [46:40] Mary Meehan was the last of three victims discovered in the Port Authority lot, but these discoveries... [46:46] Didn't really move the case forward that much, unfortunately.

[46:49] Um, [46:50] reichert recalled later we were finding bones every week [46:54] By late 1983, the task force had already been disbanded once. [46:58] In 1982, after their work failed to make any progress toward identifying a suspect, and a months-long break in the new victims gave them the false impression that the killer had moved on. Oh, man. Following the election of a new sheriff in 1983, the task force was reassembled once the bodies started piling up again. [47:17] One of the investigators said we had over 10,000 pieces of evidence and over 40,000 tip sheets. We did it by Rolodex, files of paper with knobs on the end of a spindle to organize names to find. That's crazy. Now that was from 2024 when they talked about it. So he had to explain to everybody what a Rolodex was, which I thought was at least a little brief moment of levity. Yeah. Remember when we went to the Celtics game and they had a Rolodex and like the players had to like identify what it was. Say what it was. Because they're all like in their early 20s or most of them. I remember we had a Rolodex. [47:47] Remember that right by the phone. Yeah. [47:58] Thank you. [47:59] Obviously, Elena and I talk about true crime pretty constantly, and that does make us a little paranoid about what's out there. That's why it's so important to get a home security system that gives you peace of mind. With SimpliSafe, you can stop crimes before they even start, using their AI-powered cameras to identify threats on your property and alert US-based live agents to take action. SimpliSafe has been a game-changer for me, and the best part is there's no long-term contract.

[48:29] point because I've moved so many times. The most recent one that I set up was probably the easiest, which is wild because like we have a little more space, but we were so used to doing it at this point that it was just a breeze. I have cameras in basically every location, indoor and outdoor. So like don't mess with me, honey. I got a panic button. I got it all and I got it all from SimpliSafe. That gives me so much peace of mind and I want you to experience that same peace of [48:59] to all our listeners. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com slash morbid. That's half off at simplisafe.com slash morbid. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. [49:11] Hi, it's Sierra Miller. I can't wait for you to check out my new collection of shoes and accessories at Designer Shoe Warehouse. If you love shoes as much as I do, then trust me, I got you. From cute sneak arenas to the perfect flip flops to stunning heels, these shoes are all style, no drama. It's a girls' girls summer and DSW has just the shoes. Shop the Sierra Miller Collection right now at your DSW store or DSW.com. [49:39] Bye. [49:41] Feeling stuck with rising ad costs and flat results? Realize Taboola's advertising platform for businesses unlocks growth beyond search and social. [49:49] Taboola's algorithm engages with high-intent users on the open web, accelerating their path to conversion. [49:55] Powered by an AI model trained on over 500 billion monthly signals, Realize delivers smarter prospecting with privacy-safe targeting. The result? Higher conversion rates and scalable funnel at lower cost. To learn more, visit Realize.com slash podcast.

[50:11] Now, because there were few witnesses and even fewer leads, progress was slow, and many of the detectives on the task force spent their days fielding calls about missing girls and women or talking to family members about their missing loved ones. [50:29] In 1983, the task force main suspect we talked about before, Charles Clark, would eventually be ruled out. But he wasn't, he just sucked. He said, you're just a douchebag. He said, you're just an asshole. But he wasn't the only suspect on the team's radar. [50:43] On May 3rd, just days before Carol Ann Christensen's remains were discovered in that really bizarre scene in the forest. With like the sausage and everything, yeah. Bobby Woods called police in Des Moines to report his girlfriend, 18-year-old Marie Malvar, was missing. [50:58] Not wanting to implicate himself in the crime, he was kind of vague about the details of her disappearance. But this just led detectives on the case, assigned to the case, to believe that he probably did have something to do with Marie's disappearance. Yeah, it can't be too vague. Eventually, Bobby did tell detectives the whole story and he was ruled out as a suspect. But someone else took his place. [51:16] Now, according to Woods, he and Marie had gone down to Pacific High Race South to make some money. [51:22] For several months, the couple had relied on a simple system in order to make money and keep Marie safe. [51:28] Now you'll see why he was a little big. Yeah, I'm starting to. They would work the streets, and when Marie found a client and got into the man's car, Bobby would follow behind the car in his car and wait nearby to make sure the transaction went smoothly. Wow. On the night of April 30th, 1983, they went down to the Strip, and Marie was flagged down by a man in a blue and white truck.

[51:48] Oh, I've heard that before. Sitting at the same intersection where Kurt had last seen Gail Matthews just eight days earlier. No. Same hunting grounds. [51:57] Marie opened the passenger's door and got in, and Bobby pulled onto the street as the truck pulled away, keeping a distance to not seem suspicious. Uh-huh. [52:05] Bobby said he followed the truck at a distance for several miles as they drove on the highway. And at times he pulled up to check... [52:13] He like pulled up next to them to check on Marie. He would like look in. At one point he said it looked as though she was upset. [52:20] And he said it looked, quote, as though Marie and the man were arguing about something. Okay. Eventually, the truck pulled off the highway and drove into the lot of a motel. [52:29] Bobby followed and parked his car across the street where he could see them. [52:34] The truck idled in the parking lot. Then the driver pulled out of the lot and got back on the highway. And Bobby followed behind. That's weird. Not long after he got on the highway, Bobby started to feel like something was very wrong. Yeah. Yeah. [52:46] The driver was now going much faster than he had been before, as though he suspected he was being followed. Right. Bobby did his best to keep up, and the two vehicles raced down the highway at high speeds. [52:57] Without signaling, the truck took a last-minute turn off an exit ramp, dumping them back into downtown Seattle. But Bobby followed. Oh, shit. I thought you were going to say he lost them here. After turning off the highway, Bobby spotted an upcoming red light and slammed on his brakes to stop. [53:12] But the driver of the truck went through the red light and drove up a steep hill on South 216th Street.

[53:19] Unable to get through the light or pick up enough momentum, Bobby quickly lost sight of the truck, and it was the last time he'd ever see Marie. That is the most fucked up. [53:29] scenario to know that he is behind her and she knows he's behind her trying to keep up with them and she can't get to him and he can't get to her yeah [53:39] And this guy's just running away from him as fast as he can. Yeah. Like, [53:45] The helplessness that both of them probably felt in that moment is something I can't even comprehend. And like you have to just wonder like how many times have the system worked for them before? Obviously they felt confident enough in it to continue. And it's like... [53:56] did he figure out that he was being followed and then... [54:00] he did this in like, [54:02] on purpose you know what I mean like he did this to punish her kind of thing or was it well was he just going to do it anyway because like they were going to a motel [54:09] So I'm like, was he planning what he actually did and like got pissed and did this? [54:15] Yeah, or did he do, was that, did he always go to the motel beforehand? That's what I mean, like, was that always the thing? Like, you have no idea. Like, why did he pull away and start driving so fast? Or maybe did he pull off in the motel when he realized he was being followed to see if that person would follow. went into the motel and then confirmed it. And then he gets pissed and drives away. Right. And the next day, Bobby went to Marie's father, Joe, and told him what happened. Oh, God. Joe Malvar never liked Bobby Woods that much and blamed him for Marie's recent problems and now for her disappearance. [54:45] Joe demanded that Bobby get in his truck with him and the two men, along with Marie's brother, James, spent the rest of the day driving around the areas surrounding the strip and the area where Bobby had lost the truck the night before. That is such a bleak scenario. Yeah, they're just looking for any sign of Marie or the truck she'd been in when she disappeared.

[55:03] As they drove along South 216th Street, Bobby spotted a street sign at the corner of a small side street that he said he'd been unable to see in the dark the night before. [55:13] The street led down to a small cul-de-sac with just a handful of houses. [55:18] As they got to the end, [55:20] They spotted the truck. Shut the fuck up. With the primer spot on the side. Stop. [55:25] They sat across the street from the house and watched, but there didn't appear to be any sign of Marie, just two men talking inside. Okay. After a while, Joe told Bobby, which like, I kind of love Joe for this. He's like, you get on the street and you ask one of those neighbors if we can use one of their phones to call the police. Yeah, get your ass out there. He was like, you get out of this car and go do this. And he did. [55:44] Now a short time later, Des Moines police officer Bob Fox arrived, and Joe told the officer what they knew. I know that this is like a bad time, but what a savage name. I know, Bob Fox. [55:54] It's a hot name. Like Officer Fox. Moving on now. Sorry. Yeah. Now Fox went to the door and knocked and a few seconds later, a man in his 30s appeared at the door. [56:05] Joe, Bobby, and James. [56:08] watched as the officer spoke to the man in the house. [56:11] The officer occasionally just nodding. [56:13] About a minute later, the door closed. [56:16] And Officer Fox returned and he said, he says there's no woman in there. [56:21] He says there's a court. Who the fuck in their right mind is going to say if there's a woman in there? Well, and don't worry. He also said... [56:27] There hasn't been a woman in here. [56:29] Okay, I believe you. [56:31] I'm like, you don't tell that man. That's not a hot name. I take it back. I was going to say, you will want to take it back. He...

[56:38] Literally said... [56:40] So there's no woman in there. That's like knocking on Ariel Castro's door and being like, hey, are there three women locked inside here? No. Okay, have a good one. Which also it's like... [56:49] I understand that like, [56:51] you need like probable cause and all that. Things need to be followed here, like protocol. I'm like, [56:55] Really? Like, what? What about like, he says there's no woman in there, but like, we're going to watch him. But we're going to figure this out. Especially since we've had no other fucking leads. Yeah, we might as well. So Bob Fox had heard about the Green River killings, obviously, but because he worked in a different jurisdiction, he didn't have any direct involvement. [57:16] and only knew what he'd read in the papers. Like he wasn't getting information that everybody else wasn't getting. But like, can you not call and be like, hey, is there a task force? Can one of those guys sit outside this house? Well, and he said, you know, yeah, I heard about the Green River killings. I know what's happening. But he said the man I spoke to in the house, Gary Ridgway. The Green River killer? I don't know if you know, but that's the Green River killer. Yeah. He said he didn't seem like the serial killer type. I'm sorry, have you seen Gary Ridgway? Has anyone [57:46] is the prototype of what a serial killer looks like in everybody's like immediate mind. I would cross the street if he was walking near me. Same. And not only that, but Aiden just pulled up a [57:58] You got like, yeah, yeah. [58:00] You see that fucker into the door? I'd be like, yeah. [58:04] He probably did a... Yeah, he's so disgusting. He, like, reminds me of somebody.

[58:09] Also, sorry, just his picture grossed me up so much that I lost my train of thought. But also, like, there are serial killers that don't look like what you would imagine a serial killer looks like. Yeah. Everybody, like, I don't personally think so, but everybody thought Ted Bundy was hot. The girls were writing him in prison trying to marry him. Yeah. And he killed a bunch of fucking women. Exactly. And you've already captured him. So, like, hello? So maybe let's not just go off of, like, he doesn't look like one according to me. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. [58:36] So. Oh, that pisses me off. He just made a few notes and filed the report and then moved on with his day. Bob Fox, you silly goose. To Joe Malvar, the experience confirmed his suspicions. [58:47] That Bobby Woods was a liar and he'd never seen a man in a truck. [58:51] But why would he make that up? I don't know what that dynamic was in that family. So I'm just like, you know what? Well, okay. So sorry, that's the father. So he's thinking probably. The father was like, Bobby's lying. Something else happened and he's not telling us. Well, he's probably thinking like Bobby has something to do with it. He said he was probably covering up for something that made Marie leave. [59:09] Which I know that was also probably wishful thinking on his part that like something didn't happen to Marie. Marie left and she's going to come back. He just doesn't want to be. Oh, that's so sad for everyone involved. But no matter what, Marie was missing. So her name went on the list of missing women and her friends and family spent the next several months looking for any sign of where she'd gone. It's awful. Woods did tell a reporter many years later, every night, every single night we go out, no sleep. [59:35] Oh. [59:36] Now, on the night of April 17th, just a few weeks before Marie Malvar went missing, 16-year-olds were.

[59:44] 16 year old Kimi Kai Pizzo was walking in downtown Seattle with who was described as her boyfriend slash pimp. Okay. Okay. [59:56] When she caught the eye of a man sitting in a truck at the corner of 4th and Blanchard. [1:00:01] The man motioned for Kimi to come over to the truck, and the man with her watched as she spoke to this man and got into the passenger's side of the car. Pedophiles everywhere. Yeah. The last thing Kimi's boyfriend slash pimp noticed as the truck pulled away was that [1:00:17] It had a large primer spot on the driver's side door. [1:00:23] Kimi's story was unfortunately very similar to that of some of the other victims. As a child, she was bright-eyed, outgoing, like adorable, sweet, loved unicorns. She also still was a child. Yeah, as like a young child, I should say. Her mother, Joyce, recalled Kimi was very adventurous. She wanted to see how life worked and never took anyone's word for anything. When she reached adolescence, she developed a defiance streak. [1:00:48] and started rebelling against her parents and the rules they established. By her mid-teens, she had fallen desperately in love with a boy. It always starts with a kid. It's so scary. And devoted all of her time to him. And soon she was skipping school, ignoring her curfew, and generally defying her parents. [1:01:06] In February 1983, Kimi left home and moved in with her boyfriend. When money was tight, he suggested, love this, he suggested she try sex work. How about you go get a fucking job, loser?

[1:01:18] Now, at first, they decided to move to Portland, where they heard girls could make better money. [1:01:23] But when that proved not to be the case, they came back to Seattle. And a few weeks later, Kimi was gone. [1:01:29] A few days passed before her boyfriend called the police to report her missing. What a stand-up guy. Yeah. [1:01:35] Unfortunately and shockingly, he had very little in the ways of details about what he saw in the truck, like what man he saw or what he looked like. He was white, looked to be in his 30s. He was driving a blue-green pickup truck with a primer spot on the door. And he said this time it was hauling a little camper. Okay. [1:01:53] Reviewing the missing list, certain things began to stand out to detectives on the task force. That primer spot? Most importantly, there were at least a few witness statements that mentioned the truck with the primer spot on the door. But until they found a match, that lead... [1:02:07] was just that. Yeah. Another thing that stood out among the cases were certain dates. Kimi Kai Pizzo had disappeared on April 17th, 1983, and so had another young sex worker, 17-year-old Sandra Gabbert. [1:02:20] Just three days before that, on April 14th, 19-year-old Andrea Childers disappeared from the same area. [1:02:28] Then just a few weeks later, Marie Malvar disappeared from the strip. [1:02:32] Of course, not every name on the missing list would turn out to be a victim of the Green River Killer, but if even half of the missing were victims... [1:02:40] It painted a portrait of a man that was murdering women at a truly alarming rate at this point. He had been the whole time, but at this point you're like, holy shit. How is he continuing with this like speed? Yeah. Now five days before Christmas in 1983, the task force members learned what became of Kimi.

[1:02:57] On the afternoon of December 20th, [1:03:00] Someone called police to report that they had been walking through Mountain View Cemetery, about 20 miles from the airport. [1:03:06] That's when they came upon a human skull laying on the ground. [1:03:09] Detective Frank Adamson said, we thought the killer was playing with us. [1:03:13] Some of the other investigators thought that maybe it had been hidden and a coyote had carried it out to where it was found. But the detectives in search and rescue teams combed the cemetery for two days and never found any additional remains. [1:03:27] The next day, a forensic dentist was able to identify Kimi's remains from her dental chart. [1:03:32] provided by her mother oh that's awful and right around christmas too that's what she's dealing with her 16 year old child that's horrific because there was only a skull and no other remains they were unable to determine her cause of death [1:03:44] Oh, that's so awful. Now, December passed into January, and the task force started off the new year with a [1:03:51] Period of relative calm? [1:03:53] After Kimi's skull was discovered in the cemetery, two months passed without any additional bodies. Okay. Then, as though he'd been operating on a schedule, the discovery started again. In what would be one of the most strange and incomprehensible phases of the investigation. Okay. The comm was finally broken on February 14th, 1984, Valentine's Day, when a set of skeletal remains were discovered about a half mile from Interstate 90, which is about 30 miles east of Seattle. [1:04:22] It would take more than a year for forensic dentists to identify their remains through old childhood x-rays. They belong to Delise Missy Plager.

[1:04:31] um uh she was working on the streets she was an occasional sex worker who had gone missing october 30th 1983 a brief review of missy's background shows that she also kind of had a life that was pretty similar to some of the other victims she'd been removed from her mother's care and placed into foster care when she was around five years oh that's really tough and she kind of yeah [1:04:56] And she also developed a pretty significant juvenile record. [1:04:59] The last time anyone had seen Missy, she was waiting at a bus stop on Seattle's south side. [1:05:05] One week after the remains were discovered out by Interstate 90, Seattle Post intelligence or reporter Mike Barber, who had been writing exclusively about the Green River killer. [1:05:15] received an anonymous letter at the office of the newspaper. [1:05:19] The letter was in a plain white envelope with typewritten text on the outside. [1:05:24] In addition to the address, the sender had added the note, very important. They had spelled it I-N-P-O-R-T-E-N-T. Domas. Yeah. [1:05:34] When Barber opened the letter, he found inside a white sheet with more typewritten text. But at a glance, it looked like it was complete gibberish. [1:05:42] But then after reading and rereading it several times, he realized it wasn't gibberish. Instead, it was jumbled sentences that were all stuck together with no breaks in between. Oh. It took some time, but eventually the reporter was able to untangle the content of the letter to make it more legible. [1:05:59] Now, if you're not going to be a good person, you're going to be a good person. [1:06:00] The way he would, like, I'll give you one excerpt thing for how he wrote it, but I'll read you the translated version. Okay. So what he did was he wrote what you in one letter, in one letter.

[1:06:11] thing. [1:06:12] And then E-E-D-T-O-N-O-A-B-O-U-T-T-H-E, Green River Man. [1:06:22] What you something, the Green River Man? What you need to know about the Green River Man. Okay. The next thing was don't throw away. First one, broken or dislocate arm. Why? [1:06:32] One blackened river had a stone in the vagina. Why? [1:06:36] Why summon river, some above ground, some underground? Insurance, who got it? [1:06:41] Who's to gain by their deaths? [1:06:43] Truck is out of state. Father had painted in or in river. [1:06:47] Some had fingernails cut off. [1:06:50] He had sex after they did. He smokes. He chews gum. Chance first one blackmailed him. You work me or nobody. [1:06:59] Think changed his MO, businessman or sell man. [1:07:02] Car and motel reservation. Man seen big luggage out of motel was heavy needed help. [1:07:09] keys ID car at road. [1:07:11] out of state cop. [1:07:14] Don't kill in own area, look inside out. One had old scars. [1:07:19] Mom Apple had red wine Lambrusco, some fish, and dumped there. [1:07:24] Any drugs are selling. Head found. Who found it? Where is rest? [1:07:29] When did they die, day or night? [1:07:32] What are in their mouth or is it a trick? [1:07:34] Why take some clothes and leave the rest? [1:07:37] The killer wears at least one ring. [1:07:40] Real estate man is one man.

[1:07:42] Long haul truck driver last seen with one. [1:07:45] Some had rope marks on hands and neck. [1:07:48] One blackened river had oral only. [1:07:51] all strangled, but with different methods. [1:07:54] One black in river had worked for Metro. Most had pimps betting them. [1:08:00] Escort modeling forced them of fear or death. [1:08:03] Maybe pimp hater getting back at them. Who finds the bones? What are they there for? Jesus Christ. Man with gun or knife. [1:08:12] Someone paid to kill others are question mark. [1:08:16] kill who they are or is what they are. Any dead die for the rest. It could be a man Portland worked there. What kind of man is this? [1:08:25] It was a book left at Denny's. It belongs to a cop. [1:08:29] Call me Fred. [1:08:32] What? [1:08:34] Yeah. [1:08:36] The fuck? It was no return address or any other identifying information on the envelope. Just call me Fred. [1:08:43] Okay. [1:08:45] Now, I'm going to say, [1:08:46] To barber? [1:08:48] and everyone else in the newsroom, and probably to all of you. [1:08:53] It seems pretty unlikely that this letter is coming from the killer. [1:08:56] Yeah. Because like, what? [1:08:59] Yeah. They all thought it had been, quote, written by someone who wanted to play detective. He was offering motives that anyone might think of. [1:09:07] Was he offering motives? Sometimes. In there. Kind of? That could have been true, but the letter also appeared to contain a lot of information that was not public. Yeah. Information yet. So it seemed plausible that it could have come from the killer.

[1:09:23] And because of that, Barbara turned the letter over to Dave Reichert at the Green River Task Force just in case. Good idea. After reading the letter a few times, Reichert passed the letter to Tanya Izaguire, the Task Force Fingerprint Specialist. Oh, smart, smart, smart. Who was able to get one clear print off the letter, which was kept on file. Because remember, we're in the 80s now. We don't even have that yet. In the hope that someday they would get a match. [1:09:48] oh man that's gotta be fucking brutal to just be like we'll get the fingerprint but we can't do anything with it yet that's it we just hope someday 1984 brother once they'd gotten everything they could from the letter reichert sent the letter to john douglas at the fbi's behavioral analysis unit oh my goodness for his thoughts and any information that could be gleaned period i brought that up earlier a few weeks later the letter came back to reichert along with douglas's [1:10:18] reflects a subject who is average in intelligence and one who is making a feeble and amateurish attempt to gain some personal importance by manipulating the investigation. [1:10:28] As for the previously unreleased information known to the letter writer, Douglas speculated the writer could have access to the task force files or had a relationship with someone on the task force. Okay. He went on to conclude, it is in my opinion that the author of the written communique has no connection with the actual Green River homicides. Okay. Okay. [1:10:48] As the world's leading authority on serial killers, the task force members took Douglas's determination that the letter was fake as the last word on the matter. And it was filed away with the rest of the other communications that they got from like the public and anything like that.

[1:11:02] It would be more than 20 years before Reichert and other investigators learned that [1:11:08] This is a rare thing, but Douglas had been wrong. And the letter Mike Barber received at the post-intelligencer had indeed come from the Green River Killer. Well, here's the thing. It's like, obviously, John Douglas and, like, profilers like him are incredibly educated, talented people. But they're humans. But at the end of the day... [1:11:30] It's an informed guess. Well, it's an imperfect science. [1:11:35] And so... [1:11:36] It's fallible. It just is. Like John Douglas was rarely wrong, but that was one of the times when he was wrong. But no human is right 100% of the time. Well, and also at this point, [1:11:47] profiling was in its infancy. Like now, we have even more information when it comes to profiling and all that. Like this was a pretty new thing. Yeah. And he was already killing it. So, you know, can't bat a thousand. Oh, that's really rough. And eventually they did fine. So Gary Ridgway did write that letter. He wrote that. That letter is wild. It's wild. [1:12:07] Bonkers. When you were reading it to me... [1:12:11] like it does have a lot of information about the killings. So I'm actually somewhat surprised that that was John Douglas's take on it. I get why his guess makes sense, like being somebody like related to the task force in some way. Because it's like the task force was big. Right. And it's like there could have been people that, you know, they're not supposed to go home and talk about what they're hearing. But you know, some of them are going home being like, can I just tell you what I read today? Or like, can I just tell you what I saw today? Yeah. So that could easily be it.

[1:12:41] But... [1:12:42] I if you're go Google that letter. Yeah, you can. So you can see the way it looks because it's so bizarre. [1:12:51] I wonder why he wrote it that way. Does he ever say? [1:12:54] I mean, I think he's just fucked up. [1:12:57] Yeah. I don't know anything about him as an individual. Not a lot. He's... [1:13:03] Was he married? He's dumb as hell. [1:13:05] We'll get there. Oh, you suck. Because we are going to end part two there. Because I need to step away for a minute. Yeah. That was like two parts in one, to be honest. That's a lot of death. That's a lot of women and young girls losing their lives. [1:13:23] And unborn babies. Yeah. [1:13:25] And he's a piece of shit. He really is. And I hate him and he's gross. [1:13:30] I guess we'll see you for part three. Yeah. [1:13:32] Let's get a fun fact, please. [1:13:34] Whoa. [1:13:35] I didn't know this. [1:13:37] Hawaii gets three feet closer to Alaska every year. [1:13:41] Three feet. That's a lot of feet. [1:13:44] That feels a lot. It's also like, will we have like a reverse Pangea? I was just thinking that. I was like, what's going on? Are they going to like link up when it comes? Yeah. Comes to it? Like when will that happen? [1:13:57] That's wild. Why does that happen? You guys know that? Did you guys know that? Does anybody have any insight? Do Alaskans and Hawaiians know that? [1:14:04] I'm sure they do. I was born in Hawaii and I don't know that. I was not and I didn't know that. I wasn't literate when I left. I wasn't really even a person yet. But damn. Fuck. That's crazy. Reverse Pangea goes crazy. I hope we live to see it. I don't think that we will. Yeah. Three feet is a lot. I know.

[1:14:24] I don't know how far they are, though. [1:14:26] I think that's a good... [1:14:27] I think they're pretty far. I mean, yeah, I would say. Yeah. I'd say they got a little ways to go. I think they're pretty fucking far. [1:14:34] But yeah, if you have insight on that, hit us up. Yeah. Chelsea from Alaska. Chelsea. Let us know. Chelsea. Period. I love you. [1:14:43] I love you a lot. All right. Well, we hope you guys keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird as this. No, fuck that. [1:14:56] And that's so weird that you don't tell us about Hawaii and Alaska's relationship. Yeah, what do you guys know about that? What's going to happen? What do you know? Tell me. [1:15:03] Bye. [1:15:03] Thank you. [1:15:33] Thank you.

[1:16:03] Thank you. [1:16:29] Feeling stuck with rising ad costs and flat results? Realize Taboola's advertising platform for businesses unlocks growth beyond search and social. [1:16:38] Taboola's algorithm engages with high-intent users on the open web, accelerating their path to conversion. [1:16:43] Powered by an AI model trained on over 500 billion monthly signals, Realize delivers smarter prospecting with privacy-safe targeting. The result? Higher conversion rates and scalable funnel at lower cost. To learn more, visit Realize.com slash podcast. [1:16:59] You've tried melatonin, the white noise machine, the blackout curtains, the magnesium, and you're sleeping. [1:17:06] Fine. [1:17:08] Not great. [1:17:09] Just fine. [1:17:10] At some point, you have to consider the four-year-old pillow is doing more damage than the magnesium is fixing. [1:17:17] Coop Sleep Goods is running a bundle sale July 9th through the 20th. [1:17:21] The starter bundle is the move. Two pillows plus a sheet set, 40% off. And we're not saying it'll fix everything. [1:17:28] We're just saying you've tried everything else. [1:17:31] Coop's pillows are adjustable, designed to fit how you sleep, not just tolerated. Mix and match any two pillows at 25% off or go all in on the starter bundle. One real upgrade beats six mediocre ones. Head to coopsleepgoods.com slash comedy. That's C-O-O-P sleepgoods.com slash comedy for 40% off the starter bundle and 25% off all other bundles.