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Serial Crime News - January 2002

The Scotsman
Thu 31 Jan 2002


Police released a graphic of the five-year-old's torso in a bid to gain more information.

 Dan McDougall


Adam Minter was late for work. Like many Londoners on 21 September last
year, his morning had been thrown into chaos by yet another tube strike.

Ahead of Minter lay the murky swell of the Thames almost bursting its banks
after an unseasonal downpour that had sent the last of the summer tourists
running for cover.

As he strode across Tower Bridge into the city the 32-year-old IT consultant
peered through the haze at the familiar flotilla of barges ploughing
downstream to the Thames estuary.

But Minter spotted something else, an unwordly object caught up in the oily
residue of the river close to the north bank. It looked like a body.
Forgetting he was already late, Minter ran along the bank of the river, his
eyes firmly focused on the object bobbing alongside a moored pleasure
cruiser.

He laughed for a second, thinking he'd run after a floating tailor's dummy,
until he saw flapping skin and ragged bones. Filled with dread, he realised
he was gazing at the butchered remains of a child. He pulled out his mobile
phone and called 999.

Within ten minutes the police had fished the body out of the water. Minter's
discovery was more gruesome than he could ever have imagined - he had
spotted the mutilated corpse of a five-year old boy. The legs had been
severed above the knee and arms cut off at the shoulder.

As they examined the body, Scotland Yard forensic officers knew they were
facing an investigative black hole - bodies are not rare in the Thames, an
average of 45 are fished from it each year - but dismembered children are a
rarity.

The police had scant detail to go on - they knew the boy had been
circumcised, that he was probably African, around 3ft 10in tall and about
five or six. The torso showed no obvious signs of sexual abuse, the boy was
well nourished and had been in the water for between one and ten days. What
police didn't know was the boy's identity, where he'd lived or who had
mutilated him. The police named the boy after his finder - "Adam".

Adam's death led to one of the most bizarre murder inquiries in Metropolitan
Police history, embroiling detectives in a macabre web of ritualistic
killings and witch doctors.

One of the most baffling aspects of the case is that no-one has reported a
child of similar description as missing.

In the absence of fingerprints and dental records, Scotland Yard have no
means of identifying the youngster. DNA technology is similarly useless
because there was nothing with which to match it, no grieving relatives to
provide hair fibres as a starting point for scientists.

But one forensic officer had what seemed like an outlandish theory - the
wounds inflicted on the child and the manner of his death bore all the
hallmarks of a ritualistic killing. Adam looked to have been killed by witch
doctors in an ancient black magic ceremony.

"Muti", the Zulu word for medicine, is an ancient form of black magic or
voodoo in which human body parts are used to create special potions believed
to heal people or imbue them with powers. Muti followers believe children's
body parts are more valuable because they are uncontaminated by sexual
activity and thus more "pure and potent".

To murder squad officers the voodoo theory seemed like a shot in the dark,
but they had little else to go on.

Within days of Adam's discovery the Metropolitan police began looking to
Europe and Africa in a bid to find similar murders. They didn't have to look
too far - three weeks before the body in the Thames was discovered the naked
torso of a white girl, aged between five and seven, was found floating near
the Dutch Lake resort of Nulde. The girl had been butchered in exactly the
same way.

The Dutch police were also looking at the possibility of a ritualistic
killing and had contacted detectives in Hamburg, Germany, where a similar
case had been reported. The black magic theory was gaining credibility.

Last month, almost three months after Adam was found, police discovered
candles and sheets two miles upstream from Tower Bridge. A name, Adekoye Jo
Fola Adeoye, had been written three times on the sheet in crude blue ink and
Fola Adeoye inscribed on the candles.

Scotland Yard officers believed they had made a breakthrough and in order to
conclusively link Adam's murder to black magic they already knew where to
look - South Africa, the heart of the Muti ritual.

Six thousand miles from London, in the remote Zulu settlement of Eshowe in
KwaZulu-Natal, North of Durban, the locals had been living in fear after the
bodies of six villagers were found with organs missing. One of the victims
was Bhekinhos Ngema, a nine-year-old boy, whose eyes, tongue and testicles
had been removed by his assailants. What appeared to be the limbs of five
other children had been scattered in the scrubland. The locals knew it was
the work of Muti witch doctors.

Police in the Natal had seen this grim scenario before and suspected witch
doctors were involved. One of the experts involved in the case was South
African academic Dr Hendrik Scholtz. Earlier this week Scotland Yard
officers flew in Dr Scholtz, an world-renowned expert on witch doctors and
black magic, to study Adam's remains.

Dr Scholtz's report details scars on the youngster's torso bearing all the
hallmarks of a ritualistic death and says his murder may have been carried
out as part of an African occult ceremony.

Yesterday Dr Scholtz said the human sacrifice would take place when a small
group of people aiming to obtain supernatural advantages in business or
politics.

"The person is sacrificed to awaken the supernatural force required to
attain that goal," he added: " The nature of the discovery of the body,
features of the external examination including the nature of the wounds,
clothing and mechanism of death are consistent with those of a ritual
homicide as practised in Africa."

Last night Scotland Yard's Serious Crime Group Commander, Andy Baker, said:
"We are looking at the possibility of a ritual murder.

"Muti is a taboo subject in the sub-Sahara, let alone in London, but there
is some suggestion of ceremonies taking place in the UK and strong rumours
that body parts are used. They could be brought in or taken from murdered
bodies. Our fear is it is the first of many.

"The rumours are it is opening up. I don't want to raise the fear factor but
if it is a ritualistic Muti murder others will follow, according to the
South African authorities. With the movement of people around the world and
the spread of this culture it is bound to come here because we have a high
African population. If the murder was ritualistic we believe this is the
first in this country. Our inquiries abroad suggest there are many of these
types of murders across the world."

But police concerns that Muti rituals may be taking place across Europe have
not surprised everyone.

Dr Anthony Minnaar, a South African Police researcher and another
international expert on witchcraft-related violence, told The Scotsman that
ritual Muti killings were becoming increasingly common in the Natal area and
across Africa.

"It is impossible to say just how many missing people in South Africa had
been murdered for their body parts but belief in the power of body parts is
widespread and we believe hundreds of people are killed every year," he
says. "Such is the demand for children's limbs we recently prosecuted a
mortuary attendant for selling body parts. I know these rituals have been
carried down through generations and don't just occur in South Africa, they
are also very common in the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

"Muti witchdoctors believe that while all human body parts are powerful, the
genitals of young boys and virgin girls are regarded as particularly potent.
Sometimes a severed hand, for instance, is often buried at the entrance to a
shop to encourage customers to come in. But often parts are mixed with other
ingredients and they are smeared on the body as medicine against disease and
illness."

Dr Minnaar claims authorities in South Africa play the phenomenon down,
partly because the total number of witchcraft-related killings pales against
the 68 murders a day currently committed in the country. There is also
considerable political sensitivity around the issue.

"Muti raises all those images of Darkest Africa," he says, "and these images
are particularly embarrassing for a government stepping on to the
international stage as a progressive force."

But the South African government suggests otherwise, claiming it is now
starting to take notice of Muti and has established a commission to
investigate witchcraft killings in the Northern Province.

Last year The Commission of Inquiry into Witchcraft Violence and Ritual
Murders was set up to investigate 140 killings since the beginning of the
year in remote areas of Northern Province.

In one recent incident the commission studied a human skull which had been
embedded in the foundation of a new building in Durban to ensure the
business thrived, and are now prosecuting the site manager. They are
currently examining reports that brews containing human parts were buried on
farms to secure good harvests.

But the South African authorities have a battle on their hands - witchcraft
and ritual killing, once confined to remote rural areas, has in recent years
moved into the urban areas.

Last weekend a man was arrested in Johannesburg after allegedly selling a
pair of eyes to a police informer. According to the report, human parts
needed to perform certain rituals can be found easily in the city. As this
sinister trade continues in several countries, little Adam remains in a
London morgue and the man who found him floating in the Thames is none the
wiser as to the boy's killer.

Adam Minter will never forget the vision of the youngster in the water: "I
just hope they solve this. The last thing I expected was black magic to be
involved in the boy's death. I pray no other children get caught up in this
evil."

Guilty verdict returned against Boyd in murder of Deerfield woman

By Terri Somers
sun-sentinel.com
Posted January 30 2002, 3:14 PM EST

It took a circuit jury about 8-1/2 hours over two days of deliberations to convict the son of a prominent businessman of murdering a church-going woman whose car had run of gas.

Lucious Boyd, 42, the son of the late Fort Lauderdale funeral director James C. Boyd, could face the death penalty for killing 21-year-old Dawnia Dacosta in December 1998.

The penalty phase of the trial will begin when the jurors return to the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale on Feb. 11.

The 12-member jury deliberated for 4-1/2 hours on Tuesday and around 5-1/2 hours on Wednesday before returning their verdicts to Judge Ronald Rothschild. The judge, however, will make the ultimate decision of whether Boyd lives or dies.

Dacosta, of Deerfield Beach, disappeared on Dec. 5, 1998, while returning home from a late-night prayer service at her church. Her battered and bitten body was found two days later beside a trash bin in an alleyway in Oakland Park.

During the trial, Boyd testified that on the day Dacosta disappeared, and for several days afterward, he drove a teal-colored church van. It matched the description of the van witnesses saw Dacosta enter at a gas station she walked to after her car ran out of gas on Interstate 95.

Autopsy reports show Dacosta was stabbed 36 times in the chest. But the injury that killed her was a stab wound that went through her skull. An autopsy report shows that markings on Dacosta's body matched the type of screwdriver and saw that were missing from the van, according to court documents. And her body was wrapped in a laundry bag that looked like one missing from the van.

Dacosta's blood was also found on the armoire in Boyd’s bedroom, three months after the young woman was killed.

During the trial, bite marks on Dacosta's body were matched with impressions from Boyd's teeth. Jurors were also told the fingerprints of Boyd's girlfriend and her son were found on the trash bag that was tied over Dacosta's head.

The defense offered a much different theory: Glenn Bukata, the lead detective on the case, planted the evidence as part of a scheme to frame Boyd, lawyer James Ongley said.

Boyd has faced a Broward County jury before and walked away a free man.

In October 1993, he was arrested on first-degree murder charges in the multiple stabbing death of Roderick Bullard, 31. Boyd's attorney successfully argued self-defense to downgraded charges, and Boyd was acquitted.

In four separate rape cases, Boyd was either acquitted or charges were dropped, according to law enforcement.

In addition, Boyd is a suspect in the disappearance of Patrece Lashelle Altson, 19, a girlfriend who was last seen with him in Winter Haven. No charges have been filed against him in that case.

Boyd is also a suspect in the stabbing death of Melissa Floyd, 24, whose body was found on Aug. 13, 1997, near a guardrail on Interstate 95 in Palm Beach County. Floyd's ID card was found in the parking lot of the Boyd Funeral home. No charges have been filed against Boyd in that case, either.

Tips from prisoner send police digging in vain in Akron

01/30/02

Akron

- Jason Roland West delighted yesterday in making chumps of Summit County sheriff's officials.

"It's a game," he said from the Summit County Jail. "I'm like a little kid. I like games. I like getting mail."

He munched on a sandwich and watched televised coverage of sheriff's deputies and a University of Akron archaeologist searching for the left hand of a woman West claims to have killed and dismembered in 1998.

She's listed as Victim 26 on a list of women West claims he has killed since 1992, when he began stealing cars and traveling the country, stalking and murdering prostitutes, he said.

West, 29, is wanted in Virginia for walking away from a car theft charge. The rest of his claims have frustrated police since September, when he sent his first letter to the county sheriff claiming to be the most prolific serial killer in history.

"Doing what I did, killing all of those women. It's obvious I don't have a conscience," he said. "Why would I suddenly get one?

"I don't care that I am playing with the cops. I thrive on it. I feed off of them being naive. I have total control."

Twenty minutes later, he is ushered from the jail into a cruiser and driven to the dig site. He walks to where a dozen deputies have been digging for more than six hours and says, "You haven't gone deep enough."

"They can dig to China," he said, chuckling during the jailhouse interview.

West, who is in jail on burglary and receiving stolen property charges, said his goal is not to get caught.

"I hold all the cards," he said.

A psychologist who visits West at the jail has diagnosed him as manic-depressive and narcissistic.

"It would be great to get out of jail and dump a body on the police department's doorstep," he said. "I can feel it, just thinking about it."

That is the kind of talk that keeps Sheriff's Capt. Larry Momchilov awake at night.

"We have to check out the things he is saying. We have to," he said after spending hours waving a metal-detector over the earth near a large oak tree where West told him to dig.

West said the hand he buried had a ring on the pinkie finger.

University of Akron archaeologist Linda Whitman said she found no evidence that the ground had ever been disturbed near the oak tree.

West said he plans to contact Boca Raton, Fla., police and confess to being responsible for dumping the unidentified, dismembered body of a woman detectives found there. She was found in Boca Raton Lake.

West could not sketch the lake, its access roads or a place of business on the lake's shore.

"It's tough to describe," he said, dropping a pen to the table.

Stayner moves to jail in Santa Clara County

By Michael Baker The Fresno Bee (Published Tuesday, January, 29, 2002 8:10AM)

The former handyman accused of killing three Yosemite tourists was moved to a Bay Area jail cell Monday. Cary Stayner, 40, was transported under extra guard from the Mariposa County Jail to the Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose, said Mariposa County sheriff's Lt. Brian Muller.

Stayner rode in one of four law-enforcement vehicles in a convoy to San Jose from the Sierra Nevada area where he allegedly strangled Carole Sund, 42, and Silvina Pelosso, 16, and sexually assaulted Juli Sund, 15, before slashing her throat.

After a 21/2-hour drive, Stayner arrived at his new cell about 1:30 p.m., Muller said.

"It went very, very smoothly," Muller said. "He will stay there through court proceedings in Santa Clara County."

Last week, Judge Thomas C. Hastings ordered Stayner's trial moved from Mariposa County to Santa Clara County because of publicity in the case.

A hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 4 at a courthouse in the city of Santa Clara, where Hastings currently sits on the bench, said county courthouse spokeswoman Debra Hodges.

The hearing was requested by Stayner's attorney, Marcia Morrissey, who said she may have issues about being ready to proceed with the scheduled Feb. 25 trial. The trial could either be held in Santa Clara or at the main criminal division in San Jose.

Although Stayner has confessed to the FBI, he has pleaded innocent to killing the Sunds and Pelosso. The three vanished on Feb. 15, 1999, from the Cedar Lodge in El Portal near the Highway 140 entrance into Yosemite National Park.

Their bodies were discovered in March 1999. Stayner was arrested in July 1999 in the murder of Yosemite park naturalist Joie Ruth Armstrong, 26. In that case, he pleaded guilty in federal court to avoid the death penalty, and now is serving a life sentence.

Grisly search in woods finds nothing unusual

Summit County sheriff's deputies failed yesterday to find a murder victim's hand -- even with the help of the man who claims he buried it.

After a day of digging yielded no results, deputies brought self-proclaimed serial killer Jason West to the woods behind an Akron middle school where West told them he buried a woman's hand in 1998.

Even though no hand was found, deputies plan to dig deeper.

But it appears time is running out for West, the Summit County jail inmate who claims to have murdered 29 women during the past decade in Akron and other cities across the country.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/krakron/20020130/lo/grisly_search_in_woods_finds_nothing_unusual_1.html

Ritual Murder Has U.K. Cops Baffled

By AUDREY WOODS, Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) - The body of a boy found floating in the River Thames was dismembered in a way that is consistent with ritual murder, an expert said Tuesday as police appealed to the public for information about the child.

The torso of the boy, believed to be 5 to 7 years old and of African origin, was found Sept. 21 near London's Tower Bridge. The body was in orange shorts and had been in the water for up to 10 days.

Police efforts to identify the boy, whom they call Adam, have failed. A reward of $72,500 has been offered for information leading to conviction of his killer.

Dr. Hendrik Scholtz, a South African expert in ritualistic murders who was asked to take part in a second autopsy, said the boy's body bore all the hallmarks of a ritualistic death.

``It is my opinion that the nature of the discovery of the body, features of the external examination including the nature of the wounds, clothing and mechanism of death are consistent with those of a ritual homicide as practiced in Africa,'' Sholtz told a news conference.

Police said they are now looking at whether the killing was part of a ritualistic murder. They also are considering a pedophile killing, a domestic death and other possibilities.

Scholtz said human sacrifice would be staged by a few people in the belief that they would obtain supernatural powers and then be successful in something like business or politics. He spoke at the National Police Training Center in Bramshill, southern England.

Experts had said the boy was around 5. But Scholtz said he thought the boy was probably nearer 7, and the fact that he'd been circumcised may have some relevance. In South Africa, he said, boys are not normally circumcised until age 18, but in other areas of Africa, including West Africa, circumcision is often done much earlier.

Police discovered seven half-burned candles wrapped in a white sheet washed up on the southern shore of the Thames in London. The name Adekoye Jo Fola Adeoye was written on the sheet and the name Fola Adeoye was inscribed on the candles.

Detective Inspector Will O'Reilly told reporters that the name on the sheet was common in Nigeria's Yoruba area, but so far they had not been able to trace anyone of that name in Britain. The sheet and candles have not been positively linked with the death, detectives said.

Police said they have been in close communication with detectives in Germany and Belgium, where three similar cases involving the killings of children whose bodies were disposed of in flowing water have been reported. 

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020129/wl/britain_thames_killing_1.html

Unsealed documents allude to carpet fibers, witness statements

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

By MIKE BARBER AND LEWIS KAMB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS

Police said in 1987 that microscopic fragments of aluminum and carpet fibers, along with witness statements that several victims of the Green River Killer were last seen alive with Gary Leon Ridgway, made the Auburn man a prime suspect in the nation's longest ongoing serial murder investigation.

Those and other secrets, kept under wraps for 15 years, became public yesterday when a King County Superior Court judge unsealed documents related to a search warrant served on Ridgway in 1987.

While police at the time said circumstantial evidence made Ridgway a suspect, the search turned up no conclusive evidence that would support his arrest.

Ridgway, now 52, was charged last month with aggravated murder in the deaths of four young women identified as among the estimated 49 victims of the Green River Killer in the early 1980s. He has pleaded not guilty.

His arrest came after a saliva sample he gave 15 years ago -- along with hair and blood samples -- was tested last year with modern DNA technology. Police and prosecutors say the new test showed that Ridgway's DNA was a full or partial match to semen found on the bodies of three women previously identified as Green River victims. The fourth victim was linked to Ridgway by circumstantial evidence, prosecutors said.

According to the search warrant affidavit and other paperwork released yesterday, investigators in 1987 said they wanted to search Ridgway's property because:

• Metal fragments containing aluminum were recovered from five of the sites where bodies were dumped at Green River, North Bend, Kerriston Road, state Route 18 and state Route 410. "Task Force detectives have learned that aluminum is a metal which is commonly used at the Kenworth Truck Company where Gary Ridgway is employed," the search warrant said.
•  
• "Green polyester trilobal carpet fibers" that appear similar were found at three separate places where the killer dumped his victims: Jovita Canyon, Star Lake Road and Highway 410.

  "According to statements that have been obtained from witnesses who have been inside of Gary Ridgway's house, Task Force detectives have determined that there was, and may still be, green carpet in the bedrooms" of Ridgway's home at the time.

  A previous owner of Ridgway's home provided police with a photograph showing the shade of green of the carpet at the time of its sale to Ridgway in 1981. King County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart said yesterday he could not discuss whether the carpet fibers and metal fragments found at the sites were ever linked to Ridgway.

• Several Green River victims were last seen alive while getting into blue or green pickup trucks in March and April 1983. Ridgway drove a 1975 maroon Dodge pickup truck that was broken down during that time, and instead had access to his brother's 1970 aqua Dodge pickup and his father's pickup truck.
• Witnesses familiar with two of three victims who disappeared during this period -- Alma Smith last seen March 2, 1983, and Kimi-Kai Pitsor, last seen by her boyfriend April 17, 1983 -- tentatively picked Ridgway's face from photo montages.

  Ridgway is charged in the deaths of Marcia Chapman, 31, Opal Mills, 16, Cynthia Hinds, 17, and Carol Christensen, 21.

  Along with Wendy Coffield, 16, and Debra Bonner, 23, they were among the first victims found in the Green River in the summer of 1982.

  Over several years, the mostly skeletal remains of 45 more women would be found in clusters, usually in rugged, wooded areas around South King County, or in a suburb of Portland.

  Investigators have been careful not to identify Ridgway as the Green River Killer, and have said they don't yet know if he was involved with the deaths of the 45 other girls and women -- many of whom were runaways and prostitutes. The so-called Green River Killer might actually be more than one person, authorities say.

  In the1987 documents, released at the request of The Seattle Times, investigators wrote that they saw patterns at the cold crime scenes.

  The mostly skeletonized remains they found in clusters around South King County often were 100 to 200 feet apart. The first victims found in the Green River all were strangled, some with their own clothes. All were nude or partially nude. Some were left at the base of trees, others just over embankments. Many were covered with foliage and brush, though several were covered with Visqueen.

  Visqueen is a thick, plastic sheet that police said Ridgway had access to at his job as a truck painter. At least one witness mentioned in the 1987 search warrant affidavit reported seeing rolled-up plastic in Ridgway's truck.

  The search warrant affidavit also confirms that few clothes or jewelry were found with the victims. Citing FBI special agent John Douglas, a personality profiler, the document says one of the recurring characteristics of serial killers is that they take souvenirs.

  "If items belonging to the victim are missing, he will take them as souvenirs and will in all probability give them to a girlfriend, his wife, or his mother," Douglas is quoted as saying.

  Amina Agisheff, 36, from Ballard, who disappeared while hurrying home after visiting her mother in downtown Seattle in June 1982, was the only victim found fully clothed.

  Agisheff and Christensen are the only known victims who were not tied to prostitution. Instead, police suspect they met their fate while hitchhiking.

  Christensen, found in May 1983 in a wooded area of Maple Valley, was fully clothed but was posed lying on her back, with two trout on her upper torso, an empty bottle of Lambrusco wine across her stomach, and a mound of sausage in her hands, the papers say.

  Also revealed for the first time yesterday were the identities of three women Ridgway dated in the early 1980s. A twice divorced father of one boy, Ridgway met the women through Parents Without Partners, a support group.

  One of the women, who lives in Snohomish, declined to be interviewed yesterday. Two could not be reached for comment.

  One of the women told detectives she had sex with Ridgway up to three times a day, often outdoors in areas near Sea-Tac Airport, Southcenter and North Bend, among other places. During one sexual encounter at a campground near Cle Elum, Ridgway tied her to wooden stakes with nylon ropes before inserting fruit into her, court papers say.

  Two of the first victims found in the Green River had rocks inserted into their vaginas.

  Another girlfriend told detectives that on Christmas Eve 1981, at a single parents dance in the SeaTac area, a "visibly shaken" Ridgway told her "he couldn't believe it himself, but that he'd almost killed a woman." The woman said she believed Ridgway was talking about a prostitute.

  A month before, police noted, Ridgway took a prostitute to an outdoor area for sex. She later told police he became angry and choked her until she pleaded with him to stop, then released her.

  When questioned, Ridgway gave a different account, saying he sent the woman away when she bit him.

  A third woman told investigators she believed Ridgway frequented prostitutes and that he had infected her with herpes.

  The woman, who police say also owned a 1970 off-white or faded green Ford pickup truck that she sold in May 1983, declined to comment yesterday.

  She told police she believed Ridgway saw prostitutes as "things," court papers say.

  During their relationship, Ridgway allegedly told her he contracted genital warts from his former wife in 1970 or 1971 after she "turned into a prostitute" while he was at sea in the Navy.

Partial root canal may help ID skull

By Ian Ith
Seattle Times staff reporter

The person whose skull was found Wednesday in Auburn's Mill Creek had gone to a dentist for half a root-canal surgery not long before disappearing, police said yesterday.

And that detail is giving investigators hope that a dentist in the area will remember the patient who never came back for the rest — and help police find out who the dead person is.

Where to call Anyone with information about the skull's discovery can call Auburn police at 253-931-3080.

Police divers and other search crews yesterday turned up three human vertebrae to go with the skull that was dredged up by a road crew in the creek near the junction of Highway 18 and the West Valley Highway, Auburn police Cmdr. Bob Karnofski said. Police also found four articles of clothing upstream, but they don't know if they are related to the bones.

Some other bones found in the creek turned out to be from an animal.

King County medical examiner's investigators yesterday told police that their initial examination of the skull showed it belonged to a young adult, under 30 and likely under 25. The person likely wasn't extremely poor or transient because of the dental work, Karnofski said.

The victim has been dead a year or two, police said. But investigators still can't determine sex or race. A search of dental records of missing people that police have on file found no matches, Karnofski said.

Auburn police said they planned to continue searching the creek until tomorrow in hopes of finding more evidence.

The skull's discovery created speculation that it was in some way related to the Green River serial killings. The remains of three Green River victims were found nearby in the 1980s. And the most recent home of Gary Leon Ridgway, charged in four of the slayings, is a few miles away.

But King County sheriff's detectives again said they didn't think the Auburn remains are related to the Green River killings, especially now that they know they're only a year or so old.

"Until there's an identification, we don't know for sure," sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart said. "But it's starting to look less and less like it is" connected to that case.

No surprises at unsealing

By Nancy Bartley and Ian Ith
Seattle Times staff reporters

A chip of blue paint found in a blanket. Metal filings and carpet fibers. Can after can of spray paint. And hair and saliva.

All were part of a puzzle that in 1987 Green River Task Force detectives hoped would be solved when they searched Gary Ridgway's home near SeaTac. It took 14 years before DNA evidence collected in that search gave them enough evidence to charge Ridgway with murder.

Edited versions of the search documents had earlier been made public. Yesterday, after a petition from The Seattle Times, King County Superior Court Judge Dale Ramerman unsealed all the documents, revealing a long list of items but nothing new.

The list shows that police in 1987 were focusing — as they are today — on linking tiny, even microscopic bits of evidence to Ridgway. He is charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the 1982 and '83 deaths of four women from a list of 49 believed slain by a serial killer.

Green carpet fibers were found at three body sites, and police were told that Ridgway's home had a green carpet when he bought it. But by the time the house was searched in 1987, the house had been recarpeted.

Police also hoped to match a blue paint sample, found in a morgue blanket in which Carol Ann Christensen's body was wrapped, which they theorize could have come from Ridgway's truck-painting job site.

Documents reveal case against Ridgway
Carpet fibers, aluminum fragments may have raised suspicions of investigators

Associated Press

SEATTLE -- Documents unsealed by a King County Superior Court judge Monday offer a slightly more detailed look at the case against Gary Ridgway, the 52-year-old truck painter charged with four of the Green River killings.

The April 1987 documents are applications for search warrants and results of the searches at Ridgway's former home in Kent, his vehicles and his locker at Kenworth Truck Co. in south Seattle.

Partially blacked-out versions of the documents had previously been made public.

The ones released Monday at the request of The Seattle Times were not blacked out.

They identify former companions of Ridgway interviewed by investigators.

They also describe in more detail why detectives considered him a suspect.

Green polyester carpet fibers were found at three body sites, and Ridgway's home had a green carpet when he bought it, the home's former owner told detectives.

By the time detectives searched the home, Ridgway had replaced the carpet, prosecutors have said.

Furthermore, fragments of aluminum -- a metal often used at the truck company -- were found at five body dump sites.

King County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart said Monday he could not discuss whether the carpet fibers and metal fragments found at the sites were ever linked to Ridgway.

Ridgway is charged in the deaths of Marcia Chapman, Cynthia Hinds, Opal Mills and Carol Christensen.

They are on a list of 49 women -- most of them prostitutes or runaways -- killed between 1982 and 1984.

The first victims were found in or near the Green River in Kent.

Ridgway was arrested Nov. 30 as he left the truck-painting job he had held since 1969.

He first came to the attention of authorities in the 1980s when he was reported to have been the last person seen with several victims.

During the 1987 searches, investigators took samples of Ridgway's hair and saliva.

Advances in DNA technology recently allowed detectives to link him to three of the victims, and circumstantial evidence linked him to the fourth, prosecutors have said.

The documents unsealed Monday list items seized from Ridgway, including cans of spray paint, carpet and paint samples, maps and videotapes.

More Information Released About Case Against Gary Ridgway
Click here to see a video of this story. 
January 28, 2002
 
By Liz Rocca

SEATTLE - Documents from a 1987 search warrant were unsealed Monday by a King County Superior Court judge, and they offer additional details about the case against Gary Ridgway.

The 150-page documents have been sealed for the last 15 years to protect witnesses who were helping police build the case against Ridgway.

The documents reveal that detectives hope to use trace evidence collected at the crime scenes to tie Ridgway to a number of the murders.

The warrant details specific trace evidence collected at a number of Green River crime scenes.

Evidence, according to detectives, that pointed to Gary Ridgway.

At three separate body dumpsites -- including Star Lake where several bodies were found -- detectives discovered a number of green, polyester carpet fibers.

In 1987, they say Ridgway had similar green carpet in the bedrooms of his home.

At five of the sites -- including the Green River where the first victims were found -- investigators discovered something different: metal fragments, containing aluminum.

The search warrant says aluminum is a metal used at Kenworth Truck Manufacturing Company in Renton, where Gary Ridgway is employed.

The warrant also says a number of prostitutes picked Ridgway's photo out of a lineup as looking most like the man they saw with a number of Green River victims just before they disappeared.

Ridgway has been charged with four of the Green River killings. He has pleaded innocent and is jailed awaiting the trial which may be a year or more away.

Sterk defends warrants challenged by Yates' lawyers
Autopsies done by former medical examiner underwent peer review, sheriff says
Related stories

Bill Morlin - Staff writer

Warrants used to search the homes and vehicles of serial killer Robert L. Yates were legal and "can withstand any scrutiny," Sheriff Mark Sterk said Friday.

The county's top law enforcement official spoke out at a news conference he called a day after defense attorneys for Yates filed several motions in Pierce County.

Yates is scheduled to stand trial April 29 in Tacoma on charges of murdering two women in Pierce County in 1997 and 1998 -- after his confessed killing spree in Spokane was over.

Evidence of the Spokane killings will be admitted, the trial judge has ruled, to allow Pierce County prosecutors to show Yates was involved in a "common, scheme or plan" that warrants the death penalty.

One of the defense motions seeks to suppress evidence found in Yates' home and vehicles after his arrest on April 18, 2000.

That evidence would be inadmissible at trial if a judge rules the search warrants were illegal.

Another defense motion challenges the work of Dr. George Lindholm, the former Spokane County medical examiner, who performed autopsies on the Spokane victims.

Lindholm resigned last summer amid allegations of illegal drug use.

Detectives and other forensic experts also participated in victims' autopsies, and Lindholm's work went through routine peer review, Sterk said.

"Everything that Dr. Lindholm did came under the scrutiny of someone else," Sterk said.

Yates' lead attorney, Roger Hunko, also is asking for the trial to be postponed until September and moved out of Pierce County because of extensive media coverage.

"These are the same kind of motions that we would have seen right here in Spokane County if Mr. Yates had been facing the death penalty," Sterk told reporters.

"Our warrants are valid, and they're straightforward," he said. "They're legal, and they're not going to have any problems with them" in Pierce County.

Sheriff's Capt. Cal Walker, who supervised the now-disbanded Spokane Serial Homicide Task Force, said he wasn't the least bit surprised that Hunko is challenging warrants used to collect evidence against Yates.

"It's just basic, standard, routine questioning of what we do," Walker said.

Sterk said detectives working the case may be disheartened by the attack on their work by defense attorneys.

"Maybe some of the detectives will feel, you know, that this shouldn't happen, but the truth of it is that it always happens," Sterk said.

In a case of this magnitude, the sheriff said, defense attorneys are "pushing and hoping" that they will be able to dismantle investigative work.

Evidence found in the Yates home at 2220 E. 49th and in cars and vans he owned allegedly links him to the murders of Melinda Mercer and Connie LaFontaine-Ellis.

The two women led lives tied to prostitution and drugs, like 10 other women Yates admitted killing in Spokane.

He struck a plea bargain in October 2000 and escaped the death penalty in Spokane County.

But in Pierce County, prosecutors are proceeding with their attempts to execute Yates for the murders of Mercer and Ellis.

Yates' defense team is attacking the constitutionality of the state's death penalty law, and citing its inconsistent use by county prosecutors in Washington.

Killer's link to '86 slaying called surprise

Bexar County authorities are convinced that Angel Maturino Resendiz is responsible for the 1986 slaying of a homeless woman.

If they are right, it would be the earliest known killing by a man who has confessed to many slayings.

Maturino Resendiz, 41, labeled the "rail car killer," is on Texas' death row for the 1998 killing of West University Place physician Dr. Claudia Benton.

An automatic appeal of the conviction is awaiting review by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, but Maturino Resendiz wants the appellate process stopped and his execution to proceed.

A competency hearing has been set for July 26 to determine whether he understands the ramifications of his request.

He has confessed to killing 19 people between 1997 and 1999 while traveling the country in empty box cars. Authorities say they have evidence tying him to nine of the slayings and suspect he committed four more. They believe the other six confessions were bogus.

"I didn't think he was killing people back in 1986. That's kind of a surprise to me," said Allen Tanner, Maturino Resendiz's former defense attorney.

Maturino Resendiz confessed to the Bexar County murder in September during an interview with an investigator from the Harris County district attorney's office.

Johnny Bonds said Maturino Resendiz was courteous and gave details about seven murders, but did not provide specifics about locations or dates.

"We've been able to confirm one of them," Bonds said.

Bexar County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Sal Marin said Maturino Resendiz knew details about the 1986 slaying that only the investigator or killer would know.

"There's absolutely no doubt in our mind, based on these unusual sets of circumstances, that he is responsible for the death of this woman," Marin said.

He said Maturino Resendiz knew the woman wore a denim skirt and blouse with Native American designs. He knew how many rooms were in the abandoned farmhouse where the body was discovered and in which room her body was found. He knew she was shot four times with a .38-caliber weapon. None of those details was reported in the media, Marin said.

Further convincing investigators is a report showing the Immigration and Naturalization Service arrested Maturino Resendiz in San Antonio in 1986 for representing himself as an American citizen, Marin said.

The woman was never identified.

Maturino Resendiz said he met her at a homeless shelter and took her on a motorcycle ride. The two of them stopped at the abandoned farmhouse to shoot his gun, he said. He told investigators he shot her because she insulted him.

Bexar County does not intend to charge Maturino Resendiz with the crime. Marin said there is no point, given the number of murder charges already pending against him.

"It would be absurd to come back and file a case," he said.

He said the investigation into the woman's death would be closed.

Maturino Resendiz did not appear in court Friday, when the competency hearing date was set.

State law provides two state-level automatic appeals for capital murder convictions -- direct appeal and writ of habeas corpus. Maturino Resendiz has a separate court-appointed lawyer for each.

Rob Morrow has filed the direct appeal with the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin. That proceeding will be limited to a review of issues that should have been objected to during the initial trial.

State District Judge Bill Harmon will let that appeal run its course. Despite whether such an appeal had been filed, the state would review the case on those merits before proceeding with an execution.

If the conviction is upheld, Harmon will conduct the competency hearing to determine whether Maturino Resendiz understands and is making a rational decision to waive further appeals.

The July date was selected to give the appeals court time to review the case, said Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson.

Wilson said if Maturino Resendiz is found competent and does not pursue further appeals, an execution date could be set in October.

If he is found incompetent, court-appointed lawyer Les Ribnik would request a writ of habeas corpus, the appellate process that covers a broader range of issues, such as introduction of new evidence.

On Friday, Ribnik said reports by two state experts have found Maturino Resendiz to be competent, but a defense expert disagreed.

Ribnik said Maturino Resendiz, who has cut himself several times in prison, generally cooperates with appellate lawyers.

"His mood changes from hour to hour," said Ribnik, adding that his client suffers from depression and anxiety. "It depends on whether he's gotten enough sleep, whether he likes the meals he's getting."

Maturino Resendiz appears to do better when he is given a wedge of chocolate cream pie from one of the vending machines, Ribnik said.

Yates team seeks to move trial, suppress evidence

By John K. Wiley
The Associated Press

SPOKANE — Sheriff Mark Sterk says he is confident the Spokane County investigation of convicted serial killer Robert Yates Jr. can withstand legal challenges by Yates' lawyers.

Lawyers for Yates, who is charged in Pierce County in the slayings of two women in the Tacoma area, are seeking a change of venue in his death-penalty trial and are challenging evidence produced by the Spokane Homicide Task Force.

"It is the defense's job to challenge everything with the state's case, and you can be certain they will do that in this case," Sterk said Friday. "However, our team worked hand in hand with the Spokane County prosecutor's office and we are confident the work we did will withstand these challenges."

Yates pleaded guilty in October 2000 to 13 murders, including 10 Spokane women with ties to prostitution or drug abuse.

He is charged in Pierce County with the slayings of Melinda Mercer and Connie LaFontaine-Ellis. Sterk has said evidence found in the Spokane County investigation ties Yates to the Pierce County slayings.

Defense attorneys on Thursday challenged the validity of the warrants used to search Yates' home and property in April 2000.

The defense attorneys did not elaborate on the reasons they think the Spokane County evidence should be suppressed.

Evidence found in Yates' home and vehicles is expected to be used by prosecutors to try to prove Yates killed the two women in Pierce County as part of a common scheme that involved multiple murders in Spokane and elsewhere.

"Search and arrest warrants were prepared jointly with the prosecutor's office, and we know we did it right," Sterk said.

Yates was transferred to Pierce County in October 2000 after he pleaded guilty in Spokane County to the 13 deaths. He was sentenced to 408 years in prison, but his confession was part of a deal to avoid the death penalty.

His court-appointed attorney, Roger Hunko, is arguing the state's death-penalty law should be declared unconstitutional because it's applied differently in various counties.

Hunko filed at least nine defense motions Thursday, including a request to delay Yates' jury trial from April 29 until September.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge John McCarthy will hear arguments next Thursday on delaying the trial.

Deputy Pierce County Prosecutor Jerry Costello said the prosecution will oppose further delays.

Other defense motions, including the request to move the trial out of Pierce County, will be heard Feb. 20-21.

Mosley -- is he fit for murder trial?

BY DANIEL de VISE

Is Eddie Lee Mosley the illiterate, uncomprehending simpleton that psychologists say he is? Or is he a calculating killer smart enough to read, write, play chess -- and deceive psychologists?

That question will go to a Broward judge when Mosley, a man linked by DNA to eight murders, has a long-delayed hearing on his competency to stand trial.

And now the case has been delayed yet again, thrown into limbo by the transfer of Circuit Judge Joyce Julian to drug court this week. The case awaits reassignment to Julian's replacement, who is yet to be named. More than a year has passed since new DNA testing linked Mosley to murders committed in the 1970s and 1980s.

Prosecutors face an uphill battle. The case has lost its momentum. And two court-appointed psychologists deflated their case in November when they found Mosley incompetent for trial. Judges typically put great weight on the findings of court-appointed psychologists in competency hearings.

Investigators say they remain convinced Mosley has been defrauding psychologists for decades, playing dumb when they ask him the questions that could land him back in court on murder charges.

Fort Lauderdale detective who has investigated Mosley for years.

Prosecutors want to bring Mosley, confined at a mental hospital in Chattahoochee, to trial for murder. To do that, they must prove he is competent: that he understands the trial process and how a courtroom works.

Homicide division chief Chuck Morton divulged few details Friday of what his strategy would be, and Curcio would not comment further. But sources close to the investigation point to a handful of facts that prosecutors are likely to use in their effort to debunk the psychologists' findings:

 Mosley's Job Corps record. Investigative documents show Mosley, 54, worked three-digit math problems and scored 100 percent on some tests administered by the U.S. Department of Labor while he worked for the U.S. Job Corps in the late 1960s outside Detroit. Mosley earned three merit raises, won promotion to ``leader'' status and received specialist pay while in the Job Corps, the documents show.

•  Mosley's Department of Corrections record. While serving time for attempted robbery in 1970 and 1971, Mosley told a prison officer he spent his spare time playing chess and reading the Bible and comic books. Testing revealed a reading level of a 13- or 14-year-old and a 10th-grade education, according to investigative documents.
•  Mosley's Method of Operation. In a series of rapes and murders in the 1970s and 1980s attributed to Mosley, investigators alleged a pattern of behavior that suggested a well-developed criminal mind: Scouting rape locations ahead of time, warning victims not to tell police and outfoxing undercover detectives.

  Steve Michaelson, attorney for Mosley, says investigators have clung to such theories for years in spite of ample psychological evidence that his client is unfit for trial. ``People want him to be smart because they want to prosecute him,'' Michaelson said.

  Psychologists Trudy Block-Garfield and Amy Swan evaluated Mosley last fall for the court and concluded he lived in a perpetual muddle, unable to read or write and only vaguely aware of the world around him. They speculated that this might be the result of oxygen deprivation at birth or a childhood fall from a tree house.

  When asked, Mosley could not name the president or the state capital. When reciting the alphabet, he omitted O, Y and Z.

  He proved similarly vague on the workings of court.

  Wrote Swan: ``Mr. Mosley was not able to define such terms as felony, no contest, plea bargain, attorney-client privilege, or perjury.''
  

'Cowboy Mike' found guilty of assault

TOO EARLY: No link to Green River established

Stefano Esposito; The News Tribune

A human skull plucked from an Auburn creek Wednesday is close to where a Green River victim was found in the early 1980s, police said.

But it was too soon to draw any conclusions about the origin of the skull, found while a state Department of Transportation crew dredged Mill Creek near Highway 18 during routine work, police said. The crew found the skull while unloading a dump truck.

King County sheriff's divers probed the waters of the creek late Wednesday to look for more remains, The Associated Press reported. Investigators also planned to sift through two other dump trucks loaded with material dredged from the creek.

Auburn police asked for sheriff's deputies' help with the investigation, in part because the skull was found not far from the home of Gary Ridgway, charged with aggravated first-degree murder in four of the slayings attributed to the Green River serial killer.

Investigators also were exploring another possible Green River connection Wednesday. The skull was found near a cemetery where investigators found the remains of Green River victim Kimi-Kai Pitsor and some other bones in the early 1980s, said Auburn police Cmdr. Bob Karnofski.

But a sheriff's spokesman downplayed the Green River connection.

"The sheriff's office has no reason to believe the skull found (Wednesday) in Auburn is connected to Green River in any way," said King County sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart.

The skull and any other bones were expected to be handed over to the King County medical examiner, Karnofski said.

Ridgway is charged in the deaths of Marcia Chapman, Cynthia Hinds, Opal Mills and Carol Christensen. Prosecutors say DNA and circumstantial evidence link him to their bodies.

Ridgway, 52, has pleaded not guilty to the four counts against him.

The Associated Press and The News Tribune; The News Tribune

A jury in Payette County, Idaho, on Wednesday found a Northwest man suspected in the death, assault or disappearance of at least six Northwest women guilty of aggravated assault and eluding a police officer.

The charges stem from a police chase last July. "Cowboy" Michael Braae, 41, led police on a chase down Interstate 84 before jumping into the Snake River along the Idaho-Oregon border and unsuccessfully trying to swim to freedom.

Braae will be sentenced for the two Idaho charges on March 15.

Known as Cowboy Mike because of his preference for Western hats and boots, Braae is linked to other Northwest cases, including the killing of Lori Jones, 44, of Lacey. He has not been charged in that case. Braae is charged in Yakima with shooting Marchelle Morgan, 50, of Yelm in the head and critically wounding her in July.

Friday, January 25, 2002

By LEWIS KAMB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Investigators searching through debris dredged from an Auburn creek where a skull was unearthed this week found three human vertebrae yesterday.

Meanwhile, medical examiners were unable to match the skull's teeth to dental records of any missing person on file in Washington state.

State highway workers unloading a dump truck full of muck dredged from Mill Creek at state Route 18 and the West Valley Highway found the skull Wednesday.

Detectives screening through additional debris taken from the creek discovered the pieces of backbone at a dump yard yesterday, Auburn police Cmdr. Bob Karnofski said. Tests later concluded the bones were human, he said.

Divers searching about a half-mile upstream from the dredging site also recovered four articles of clothing -- jeans, shoes and socks. Police are unsure whether any of the clothing is related to the discovered remains.

King County medical examiners determined yesterday that the skull is that of an adult under 30 years of age -- and likely 25 or younger. But officials have yet to ascertain the gender of the victim, Karnofski said.

Forensics tests determined that it likely had been exposed in the creek for one or two years, he said.

Teeth attached to the skull were compared to dental records of about 400 men and women, aged 30 years old and younger, who have gone missing in the state within the past two years. No positive matches were made.

But investigators are hoping that the skull's unique dental work discovered can help them identify the victim.

"It appears that the victim has had good dental hygiene and that there is an incomplete root canal," Karnofski said.

Investigators are appealing to area dentists who had a patient within the past two years who did not return to complete root-canal work to call Auburn police at 253- 931-3080; or the King County Medical Examiner's Office at 206-731- 3232.

Authorities continue to caution against linking the skull as remains of a possible Green River Killer victim. In the 1980s, remains of several Green River victims were found at the Mountain View Cemetery about a quarter-mile from where the skull was found this week. But sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart said yesterday, "There's nothing whatsoever to link this to Green River."

01/23/2002

The Associated Press

AUBURN, Wash. - A human skull was found at Mill Creek on Wednesday afternoon, near where the remains of a Green River serial killer victim were found years ago.

King County sheriff's divers probed the waters of Mill Creek late Wednesday to see if more remains could be recovered. An additional search was planned Thursday.

Auburn police said they were turning the skull over to the King County medical examiner's office. They said the skull was human but it was not immediately known whether it was male or female.

State transportation crews were doing routine dredging of the creek near the junction of West Valley Highway and Washington 18, Auburn police Cmdr. Bob Karnofski said. As they were unloading one of the dump trucks, they found a skull.

The site was two miles from the home of Gary Ridgway, charged with aggravated first-degree murder in four of the slayings attributed to the Green River serial killer.

Those four victims are on a list of 49 women - most of them prostitutes or runaways - killed between 1982 and 1984. The first victims were found in or near the Green River in nearby Kent.

The skull of Green River killer victim Kimi Pitsor, 16, was found in December 1983, about a quarter mile from the skull found Wednesday. Additional Pitsor remains were found nearby in January 1986. Ridgway is not charged in Pitsor's death.

The creek was last dredged in September 2000

Skull found in Auburn creek during road work

Thursday, January 24, 2002

By HECTOR CASTRO
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Highway workers dredging an Auburn creek stumbled across a human skull yesterday, prompting concern that yet another victim of the Green River Killer had been discovered.

King County sheriff's detectives investigating the serial killings were contacted, but Auburn police Cmdr. Bob Karnofski said that was to draw on their resources and expertise in handling outdoor crime scenes.

There was no indication that the skull belongs to another victim in the Green River killings.

"Right now, we don't know what we have here," Karnofski said.

Workers with the state Department of Transportation were dredging an area of Mill Creek -- a tributary of the Green River -- along West Valley Highway near an onramp to eastbound state Route 18.

The work is considered routine maintenance and was last done about 18 months ago.

The sludge from the dredging was placed in three dump trucks, Karnofski said, which were to unload at one of two nearby locations.

When one of the drivers dumped a load, Karnofski said, "Out with the debris came a skull."

The drivers called police, who immediately sealed off the area. The skull was handed over to the King County Medical Examiner's Office, which will try to determine the gender of the person and how he or she died, Karnofski said.

Investigators worked into the evening yesterday hoping to find the rest of the body or other skeletal remains. Some detectives used screens to search through the debris in the other trucks.

Two King County sheriff's divers were called and scoured the area of the creek where the dredging took place.

Last night, crews brought in highway lights to assist in the search.

Today, detectives will return to the area with volunteers and continue to look for evidence, cutting back brush in the area where the skull was found and expanding the search upstream, Karnofski said.

Detectives do not know whether the skull is from remains left where it was discovered, or whether it had washed downstream.

The Green River slayings included the deaths of 49 women in the early 1980s around the Puget Sound area and in Oregon.

Judge to decide where man accused in three Yosemite killings will be tried

January 22, 2002 Posted: 04:20:06 AM PST

Mariposa (AP) - - A retired Santa Clara County Superior Court judge is set to rule today on whether the trial of alleged Yosemite killer Cary Stayner will be held in Santa Clara County or Sacramento County.

At an earlier hearing in Mariposa, Judge Thomas Hastings indicated he was leaning toward Santa Clara County. Court officials in Sacramento County expressed concern about staffing and security for the trial.

Stayner faces a possible death penalty if convicted of the February 1999 murders of Yosemite National Park visitors Carole Sund, her daughter Juli, and family friend Silvina Pelosso.

He is currently serving a life sentence in federal prison for the July 1999 murder of Yosemite naturalist Joie Armstrong.

Judge may allow use of nude photos

By KIM SKORNOGOSKI
Tribune Staff Writer

Ashley Pond's disappearance; related to Bittler murder?

  OREGON CITY - Is there a connection between the murder of Melissa Bittler and the disappearance of Ashley Pond?

Although he has confessed, Stayner has pleaded innocent to killing the trio, who were staying at Cedar Lodge in El Portal when they vanished Feb. 15, 1999.

Defense lawyer Marcia Morrissey filed the declaration Wednesday in response to a prosecution motion requesting the defense turn over information on any expert's mental evaluation of Stayner, 40.

That motion and several others are scheduled to be heard Tuesday and Wednesday in Mariposa County Superior Court.

Besides the prosecution motion, at issue will be a new location for Stayner's Feb. 25 trial and four defense motions.

Morrissey has filed three motions that seek to ban evidence taken while Stayner was in the Fresno County Jail.

The fourth defense motion seeks to dismiss three of six accusations that expose Stayner to the death penalty, on the grounds that evidence does not support allegations of robbery, burglary and kidnapping.

Even if Morrissey is successful with the motion, three other accusations allowing for the death penalty would remain: two related to sexual assault and one to multiple murders.

Before that motion is decided, Judge Thomas C. Hastings is expected to rule on a final location for Stayner's trial.

In October, Hastings agreed to move the trial because of publicity. Five counties were proposed but two -- San Francisco and Colusa -- were dropped because they could not accommodate the proceedings.

At a December hearing, Hastings dismissed Los Angeles County as a possibility and told lawyers to focus on Santa Clara and Sacramento counties. The prosecution said it prefers Sacramento County, but also stated it would be content with either county.

Of the two counties, Morrissey has said she would probably prefer Santa Clara because Stayner was arrested, jailed and interviewed in Sacramento.

Although Los Angeles does not appear to be an option, Morrissey did file this week opinion polling conducted in that county along with results for Santa Clara and Sacramento counties.

According to the polls, conducted by the Oakland-based National Jury Project, Sacramento County had the highest percentage of those that believe Stayner is guilty. Santa Clara County was next, followed by Los Angeles County.

Sacramento County also had the greatest percentage of those who believe Stayner should receive the death penalty if convicted; again followed by Santa Clara County and then Los Angeles County.

The newest motion filed is by the prosecution, which has requested the defense turn over any expert evaluation of Stayner's mental capacity.

Included in the request is any evaluation done of Stayner when he faced charges in federal court for the July 1999 beheading of Yosemite park naturalist Joie Ruth Armstrong, 26. He has pleaded guilty in federal court to Armstrong's murder and is now serving a life sentence.

But before he entered his plea, Stayner underwent several tests, including assessment by a psychiatrist, neuropsychological testing, brain scans and an MRI of the brain.

Morrissey's declaration said that those tests revealed "there are structural and biochemical deficits in Mr. Stayner's brain function; that he suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Syndrome."

The first sign of his disorder "was between the ages of two and four, when he started pulling out chunks of his hair," Morrissey's declaration said about "the compulsive hair pulling, which has continued to this day."

Further: "Throughout his life, Mr. Stayner has also suffered motor tics, perceptual disturbances and intrusive obsessive thoughts, which are consistent with genetically and neurologically mediated neuropsychiatric illness."

Despite these findings, Morrissey said further evaluations still need to be completed and the law allows her to finish the evaluations before supplying them to the prosecution.

If the findings of the evaluations are entered into evidence, the prosecution would have a chance to discredit the results and methodology of any of the studies.

Killer stalks Moscow gays
By MARK RACE
20jan02

A SERIAL killer on the loose in Moscow has murdered eight men, including an Australian petrochemicals expert.

The US Embassy has issued a warning to gay men visiting the city following the deaths of four Russians and four foreigners, including Australian citizen Thomas Nagy-Bachman.

Mr Nagy-Bachman, 41, was found dead in his apartment after having been stabbed in the chest three times.

A report about the murders has been sent by diplomats to the US State Department.

Marked "sensitive but unclassified", it reads: "Comparing notes with consular officials from other foreign missions, we believe we may have uncovered a disturbing pattern of murders of foreign gay men in Moscow."

Diplomats believe the killings may be linked to a gay club called the Chameleon. At least one foreign victim had been there on the night he died and the others were known to have visited.

Mr Nagy-Bachman, a consultant who had been working for Russia's Alfa Bank, was the third foreigner to die.

The first was Welshman Christopher Rees, 34, a television producer who worked for the STS channel in Moscow. He was stabbed to death in September 1999.

American Steve Malcom, 49, was the second to die. The Anglican priest from Nebraska, who was working as an English teacher, was killed in August 2000.

The cable from the US Embassy said Mr Nagy-Bachman's body was found in March last year, but police first thought he was Austrian. It is now known he was an Australian who also had Swiss and Hungarian passports.

A fourth foreigner -- a German -- died three months later.

Police said the body of chef Heinrich-Helmut Kurth, 40, was found near the nightclub.

His death prompted an investigation by US diplomats.

"As we began to dig, and spoke informally to contacts in the gay community, we realised that it wasn't an isolated incident," an official told The Moscow Times.

"We know that the murders may be connected to the club scene."

The embassy passed its findings to a prosector and asked what progress had been made in the Malcom case.

"The prosecutor told us that the Malcom case had been dropped in the absence of further leads," the cable stated.

"The German Embassy has been told that its case has been dropped as well."

US Consul General James Warlickm this week asked the Russian Foreign Ministry to order police to re-open the cases.

State Department spokesman Christopher Lamora said: "We, along with the three other consular offices in Russia, have jointly asked the Russians to take another look at all four cases. They agree to do this. We're taking this very seriously."

Australian diplomats were not available for comment.

January 20, 2002 Posted: 06:05:04 AM PST

By MICHAEL G. MOONEY
BEE STAFF WRITER

The trial of accused triple murderer Cary Anthony Stayner is likely to be moved to Santa Clara County.

Tuesday, during a hearing in Mariposa County Superior Court, Judge Thomas C. Hastings is expected to make a ruling on the trial site.

Stayner would face the death penalty if convicted of killing three Yosemite sightseers.

Although Sacramento and Los Angeles counties technically remain in the running, court officials in those areas are concerned about whether they could handle the trial.

Officials fear that they do not have enough experienced courtroom support personnel, and they also are concerned about whether they can provide adequate security.

During a hearing last month, Hastings said he no longer considered Los Angeles -- the preferred choice of Santa Monica-based defense attorney Marcia Morrissey -- a viable site.

Last month, Morrissey called Santa Clara the middle ground between Los Angeles and Sacramento, the first choice of prosecutors.

Morrissey, who polled potential jurors in Sacramento, Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties, could ask Hastings to consider other sites.

While Stayner's trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 25, Morrissey indicated last month that it may be difficult to meet that timetable.

He was scheduled to return to court Tuesday. Highland Park is a municipality located within Detroit.

Friday, January 18, 2002

By SCOTT SUNDE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The world is full of experts on serial murder.

Just walk the true-crime aisle of your local bookstore and look at the titles. Or punch in "serial murder" on an Internet search and watch the links roll in.

But don't believe everything you read, and know that most of the common wisdom about serial murder is probably wrong.

So what is the profile of a serial killer?

"They say there are no stupid questions. But that is," said Robert Ressler, who has spent much of the past 30 years studying murders and serial killings, first with the FBI, then as a consultant. "What is a serial killer like? It's like saying what is a journalist like or what is a policeman like or what is a minister like."

Ressler interviewed dozens of murderers and other offenders in prison and was an FBI profiler. He was a consultant or researched such cases as the Los Angeles Night Stalker and such killers as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. He's learned enough not to apply generalizations when it comes to serial murder.

The killers might pick women or men, adults or children. The motivations might be sexual. They could be racial. Some killers keep souvenirs of their victims; other take grisly trophies, such as body parts, to maintain in a place of honor in their homes.

And yet in countless investigations of serial killings, frustrated police put in a call for a profiler. They want to know what sort of person could do this and what sort of person they should be looking for.

The search for the Green River killer was no exception.

In the 1980s, King County police turned to an FBI profiler, John Douglas, who provided a report on the possible characteristics of the killer responsible for the deaths of a growing number of women.

Court documents have kept the profile and follow-up work that Douglas did a secret, but some details of a possible suspect have come out: a white man in his 20s or 30s who is divorced and frequents prostitutes.

The problem, at least one key investigator said, is that Douglas' work was general enough to rule in nearly everyone who cruised Pacific Highway looking for a streetwalker.

Investigators later used the profile to persuade a judge to issue a search warrant for the home of Gary Ridgway in the 1980s. He was arrested and charged with four of the killings late last year, after DNA tests allegedly linked him to evidence from the bodies of three of the victims.

In the early 1990s, investigators still were searching for a Green River Killer. They turned to Dr. John Liebert, a local psychiatrist who had been a consultant to the task force investigating the murders.

"I did screen a number of suspects with the remaining people in the task force. I don't know if this individual (Ridgway) was one of them or not," Liebert said.

"They would bring me records of individuals and go over them with me and ask my opinions as to whether I thought they were excellent suspects or fair suspects or, in some cases, whether in my opinion they could be ruled out."

Liebert said he doesn't remember his exact profile of the Green River Killer. But he does remember advising investigators that possible suspects with histories of severe mental illness could be ruled out.

A person with such a history of mental illness "doesn't have the capabilities of doing damage over a long time in a large geographic area."

There are dangers in profiles. Robert Keppel, a former detective and consultant to the Green River task force, takes Douglas' profile to task. In his book on the Green River killings, Keppel describes the profile as so broad that it could have included any number of men in King County.

Douglas did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

In fact, investigators acknowledge that men other than Ridgway met the profile. In 1986 -- a year before Ridgway's home was searched -- investigators got a warrant to search the home of a different man. Investigators also used Douglas' work to obtain that search warrant.

On the other hand, investigators may do themselves no favor by limiting themselves to the outlines of a more narrowly drawn profile.

"They are very invisible," Liebert said of serial killers. "If you look for the obvious, you don't get it. But they are usually right in front of your face."

Don't believe what so-called experts dish out, Keppel warned.

One bit of serial-killer wisdom, he noted, is that the murderer is typically unemployed. He ticked off serial killers or suspects who held down good jobs. Ridgway, for example, worked the same job for more than 30 years. Robert Yates, who has admitted to a killing spree of prostitutes in Spokane, worked in an aluminum plant.

After a bomb went off in 1996 at the Olympics in Atlanta, law enforcement reportedly came up with a suspect who fit the profile of a lone bomber: security guard Richard Jewell.

But Jewell was innocent, which the Justice Department later admitted. There was criticism in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that a profile was developed in a rush, then became a focal point of the investigation, rather than a tool.

Jewell's attorney, Lin Wood, said the profile was the work of the newspaper and that the FBI never developed a profile. A federal law enforcement agent did remark at one point that Jewell might fit the profile of someone who would do the bombing to become a hero, Wood said.

Jewell is suing the Atlanta newspaper.

Today, experts who have done profiling are hesitant to make snap judgments about Ridgway and his life.

At most, Liebert and Ressler were willing to say that certain of Ridgway's characteristics would not rule him out.

Ridgway is white and was in his 30s when the murders were occurring. He has been married three times, had several girlfriends and has admitted to police that he has an addiction for prostitutes.

All of that, Ressler said, could be consistent with a suspect.

Ridgway has been described as meticulous, both in appearance and on the job. He worked in a truck factory, applying blueprints for painting. "Anybody that would do this much and eludes apprehension for this long has to be meticulous," Liebert said.

Co-workers said Ridgway could be gregarious. That's a characteristic that wouldn't rule him out, Liebert said.

"John Wayne Gacy had his photo taken with the governor of Illinois. Ted Bundy was active in politics, and people at the (University of Washington) law school couldn't believe it was him."

Co-workers and others say Ridgway seemed at times religious, reading the Bible at work and trying to save the souls of those around him. Ressler said suspects could "seek spiritual support for what they are doing."

Liebert said he suggested to the task force that the suspect might be religious. "It could be a diversion to lead people away from him," he said.

Bellevue psychologist Edward Schau, who is not an expert on serial killings, is trying to sell a book on what he believes is the Christian symbolism in the Green River killings. He said in an interview that he believes the killer had a deep understanding of religion and religious symbols.

Carol Christensen is one of the women Ridgway is charged with killing. Schau noted her name includes the word "Christ" and two fish -- symbols of Christ -- were left on her body. An empty bottle of wine was on her stomach, and a mound of sausage was left in her hands. To Schau, that is blood and flesh, which also carry heavy religious meaning.

He finds symbols of the trinity in the triangular rocks placed in the vaginas of some of the victims. He notes that one victim was found buried with small pieces of plastic, including one with the number "15" on it.

The Book of Hosea in the Bible notes that 15 shekels of silver was the price to redeem a prostitute or adulterer.

Many of the Green River victims were prostitutes or runaways.

Some experts say such women are perfect targets of opportunity for a serial killer.

"They're not missed. Prostitutes are easy. You say, 'Hey, lady, what's going on? Let's go for a ride.' And they hop in the car," Ressler said.

Liebert said serial killers who murder prostitutes select victims about whom police may find out little.

"When you're dealing with that particular population, you don't get valid information about the victims. There is not a lot of trust between the police and the population he (the Green River Killer) tended to go after."

Prosecutors OK lid on Bar-Jonah’s past
Associated Press
GREAT FALLS (AP) – Prosecutors agreed Wednesday not to mention Nathaniel Bar-Jonah’s earlier convictions of kidnapping and assaulting children in Massachusetts at his February trial on charges of sexually assaulting three Great Falls boys.

Cascade County prosecutors also agreed not to bring up Bar-Jonah’s psychiatric records from his time in a Massachusetts state mental hospital.

Bar-Jonah, 44, is scheduled for trial Feb. 12 in Butte on charges of kidnapping, assault with a weapon and three counts of sexual assault.

Prosecutors said he handcuffed one boy below his apartment stairs, hanged a then-12-year-old boy from his kitchen ceiling using a rope and pulley and fondled those two boys and a third boy.

District Judge Kenneth Neill left open the possibility for prosecutors to use pictures of a naked Bar-Jonah as evidence.

Cascade County Attorney Brant Light said the photos would be necessary only if the defense attacks the credibility of the oldest boy, who was 15 at the time.

The boy told police that Bar-Jonah showed him nude pictures. Police developed film in two disposable cameras and found pictures of the three boys, followed by the naked photos of Bar-Jonah.

Defense attorney Greg Jackson said the photos could have been taken when the boys weren’t at Bar-Jonah’s apartment, and because they were developed by police they couldn’t be the photos that the boy said he saw. He said allowing the photos would only prejudice the jury.

Neill said he would rule on the matter in court, allowing Light to lay the groundwork for the photos before the jury and the defense could object.

Light also said coded writings allegedly talking about eating human flesh would not be included as evidence in the sexual assault trial.

Bar-Jonah’s other trial for the alleged kidnapping and murder of 10-year-old Zachary Ramsay is set for May in Missoula.

Bar-Jonah has been in the Cascade County regional jail for two years on $1.8 million bail.

More officers join missing women probe: Task force grows to 30 in bid
to solve mystery of 50 missing females

The Vancouver Sun
Kim Bolan

Thursday, January 17, 2002
 
 The task force probing the disappearance of 50 women from
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has expanded to 30 investigators, RCMP
Constable Catherine Galliford said Wednesday.

Galliford said 12 additional officers have come both from the RCMP
and the Vancouver police department this month to assist with the
huge work load of the task force, which announced this week an
additional five women have been added to the list of those missing.

"We have an incredible amount of work to do right now with the file
reviews and the gathering of information with regard to potential
suspects, as well as needing resources to send downtown and interview
the women who work in the sex trade in the Downtown Eastside and the
people who frequent the area," Galliford said. "So those are the
things that we really need to focus on right now and that is how we
are going to use these resources."

Galliford said investigators received several tips Wednesday after
releasing details of the disappearances of Mona Lee Wilson, last seen
in November, Dianne Rosemary Rock, who disappeared in October,
Heather Kathleen Bottomley, reported missing last April, as well as
Rebecca Louisa Guno, last seen in June 1983 and Elaine Phyllis Dumba,
who disappeared in 1989, but was reported missing in 1998.
 
"They have received numerous tips and we are encouraging anyone with
information about them to contact us," Galliford said.

The number for the Missing Women Tip Line is 1-877-687-3377.

Police have said in recent years they fear a serial killer may be
preying on the vulnerable women of the Downtown Eastside, many of
whom work the streets to support a drug habit.

Meanwhile, a former teacher of Mona Lee Wilson said the young woman
was hoping to turn her life around when she took a course about four
years ago to help troubled young people find work.

"I was just so shocked to see in the paper today that she is now one
of the missing girls," Joanna Lundy said. "It is just heartbreaking."
Lundy said Wilson was beautiful when she knew her and did not have
the facial scars visible in the most recent photo of her released by
police.
 
"She always wore pink lipstick," Lundy said. "She was very bubbly --
kind of like a little girl."

Lundy recalled that Wilson struggled to overcome a troubled past that
included abuse. She was already living in the Downtown Eastside and
was in the sex trade when she was in the program Lundy taught at a
neighbourhood house in east Vancouver.

"Really, the odds were against her," Lundy said. "I remember her
talking about having nightmares."

Suspect charged with 2 slayings

Police say man kept bodies in his basement

January 17, 2002

BY EMILIA ASKARI AND JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

A 54-year-old man accused of killing two women and stashing their bodies in the basement of his Highland Park home described himself in court Wednesday as "the black Jesus" and "a messenger from God."

Michael Lee Anthony glowered at a cluster of news photographers after his arraignment in 30th District Court and declared:

"You're taking a picture of a black Jesus, your God. . . . I can't stand white folks."

Earlier, Anthony, wearing a green plaid shirt, black corduroy pants and white sneakers, stared silently at the floor as Judge L. Kim Hoagland asked him his name.

She entered not-guilty pleas for him to two counts of first-degree murder and one count of being a habitual offender. Anthony has an extensive criminal history of assaults, including rapes in 1979 and 1991. He has served time in state prisons and was released most recently in 1996.

After Hoagland told Anthony about his rights and declined to set bond, he commented, "This is like history class." Then he asked the judge, "When do I find out what's going on?"

As sheriff's deputies led him in leg chains to a wooden bench, Anthony said, "This system is a laugh. A real joke. That's the honest truth. You're such important people. It's a big joke, big joke."

Detectives said Anthony put one body in a freezer and covered it with clothes. The other body was decaying in another room under a pile of clothing and appeared to have been there for several months.

"When the detective first called me, he thought it was like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie," Wayne County Sheriff Robert Ficano said at a news conference.

Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Cox said both women were asphyxiated. A rope was found with the body in the freezer, which Cox said appeared to have been used to strangle the woman.

The Wayne County medical examiner was trying to identify the bodies using fingerprints and dental records. Two families have come forward with information about missing relatives, but Ficano gave no other details.

Cox said Anthony provided no information on the identity of the women or his alleged role in their deaths.

Investigators discovered the bodies Saturday after receiving a tip that something was amiss in the duplex in the 300 block of Grove, where Anthony lives with his brother and 80-year-old mother. They could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

At the time police arrived at his home, Anthony was hospitalized with an infection that resulted in the amputation of a finger on his right hand. Anthony's mother gave detectives permission to search the basement, where Anthony lives.

Sheriff's Detective Roscoe Jackson said Anthony's relatives have been "very cooperative." Asked how they could not have known about the bodies, he said, "It's possible, the way he lives." Investigators said Anthony used a separate entrance and kept a door between his quarters and the rest of the house locked.

On the porch of the house on Wednesday were two ornate cement planters filled with red silk roses and a chime made of shells tinkling in the wind.

A neighbor, Robert Johnson, said Anthony was friendly but "kind of weird." When he saw authorities removing the bodies, Johnson said, "I was surprised, but I kind of figured he was capable of something like that. He had a history of rape, and everybody who lived around here knew that."

Judge Hoagland set a preliminary examination for Jan. 22.

Mona Wilson

Global BC Poster featuring women missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Members of the RCMP-Vancouver police missing-women task force have added to their investigation five more women who have disappeared from the Downtown Eastside.

That brings the total to 50, and Constable Catherine Galliford, who speaks for the task force, says the number may climb.

Galliford said Tuesday the team is reviewing all missing-persons cases.

"Those reviews are going on every day," Galliford said. "There is every possibility we may see more women added as time goes on."

Of the five women, three went missing last year, including one in October and one in November:

- Mona Lee Wilson, who would be turning 27 today, was last seen Nov. 23 and reported missing a week later.

- Dianne Rosemary Rock, born Sept. 2, 1967, disappeared Oct. 19 and was reported missing to the Vancouver police on Dec. 13.

- Heather Kathleen Bottomley, 25, was reported missing April 17, the same day she was last seen.

Two older cases among the five new ones:

-Rebecca Louisa Guno was reported missing three days after she was last seen in June, 1983. She was 23 at the time.

- Elaine Phyllis Dumba was reported missing in 1998, although she disappeared in 1989.

"These additional five women have a history in the sex trade. They also have a history working in the Downtown Eastside, so they do match the profile we are looking for," Galliford said.

She added that the task force is working closely with agencies in the Downtown Eastside to ensure women working in that area remain vigilant and watch out for one another.

Vancouver police, who started the missing-women investigation three years ago when the number was thought to be 31, had been criticized earlier by some family members for not publicizing the disappearances soon enough, possibly missing out on the freshest leads.

But Galliford said the joint forces team is working to get the names publicized as soon as possible.

"We are really trying to get the names of the missing women out there as fast as we can," Galliford said. "We also are trying to get the photos of these women out there as quickly as we can."

Police have speculated that the high number of disappearances could mean a serial killer is preying on sex trade workers in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Last month, the task force officially increased the number of missing women to 45, two months after a Vancouver Sun investigation found the numbers were higher than police had indicated publicly.

Galliford said Tuesday investigators will begin narrowing down their suspect list of "hundreds" after compiling a data base with all the names and particulars. She said the team is still trying to determine the movements of Seattle area resident Gary Leon Ridgway, charged last month in the deaths of four women who were among the 49 deaths and disappearances attributed to the Green River killer in the 1980s. Most of those women were prostitutes, runaways or hitch-hikers.

Anyone with information on the Vancouver disappearances should call the Missing Women Tip Line at 1-877-687-3377.

Self-professed serial killer denies slayings in past letters

BY CRAIG WEBB
and Stephanie Warsmith

Beacon Journal staff writers
Jason West is either a serial killer or a serial liar.

Yesterday, West stuck by his claim that he has killed 29 women -- despite a November letter he wrote to an Akron Beacon Journal columnist that says otherwise. In the letter, West tells columnist Terry Pluto that he never killed anyone. West says he made up his story about killing women in Akron and across the country to avoid going back to prison in Virginia.

``I have been to all of these places, but I have never killed anybody there,'' he wrote in the letter to Pluto, who volunteers for a jail ministry program.

Yesterday, West dismissed the Pluto letter. He continued to insist that he has actually killed 29 women.

His explanation for denying the murders in the letter? He was conflicted about whether he should have confessed.

``Part of me says, `Jason, tell the truth,' '' West said in a Summit County Jail interview. The other part says, `Don't tell them. Tell them you didn't do it.' ''

Capt. Larry Momchilov of the Summit County Sheriff's Department was not the least bit surprised to hear about West's denial letter to Pluto. In fact, he said, West wrote a similar letter to the sheriff's department in November. But when confronted, West claimed he had lied about not committing the murders because he thought no one believed him, Momchilov said.

So this leaves Momchilov back where he started -- trying to determine if West is a killer.

``Everyone asks if I believe he killed or not,'' he said. ``I say, `I have to believe he did something.' And that's why I'm continuing to work on the case.' ''

Since Oct. 1, West, 28, has written 13 letters to the sheriff's office.

Inmate, Pluto never met

The letter, West said, was an attempt to spur Pluto to help counsel his mother, who was struggling with the thought that her son could be one of the most prolific serial killers ever.

West, who was born and raised in Akron, is wanted in Virginia for escape. He had been incarcerated there after being caught driving a stolen van.

He was arrested here in September on a minor theft charge.

After he began telling stories about murdering women across the country, he was indicted on other charges -- burglary, theft and grand theft -- that ensure he won't be leaving jail soon.

West acknowledged yesterday that he has suffered from severe depression since childhood and has periodically taken antidepressant drugs. He also said he is a compulsive killer who achieves sexual pleasure in the murder of women.

Spending his days in an isolated jail cell, West doesn't dwell on his past, he said. He does think about his failure to reach a self-imposed goal to kill 30 women, however. ``I sleep fine,'' he said. ``Am I happy? I don't know. I don't know what that word means. It's like a foreign word to me.''

It was a letter that prompted the sheriff's office to begin investigating West. In a rambling, 13-page missive sent to the sheriff's office on Oct. 1, West detailed multiple murders he claims to have committed in Arizona.

Other letters followed.

In a Nov. 8 letter, West boasts that he makes serial killers Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy ``look like good little boys.''

Momchilov said another letter -- mailed to the sheriff's department on Dec. 11 -- sent chills up the spines of several women who read it.

A section of the letter is addressed ``to all the ladies out there. ``Today could be your last day,'' it reads. ``So, always be looking around 'cause if I get you, you'll never be found.''

Lie-detector tests

``You're probably wondering why I passed them if I didn't do anything,'' West wrote to Pluto. ``Believe me, I was shocked that I passed them both. The guy who did the tests said he was an expert on giving these tests and that he has been doing them for 20 years. I was thinking to myself, he better get another job.''

West also told Pluto that he isn't crazy, ``just a man who is frustrated and confused. . . . I have been saved, and my mom is a very good person, and she did her best to raise me right, but I just constantly struggle with good and evil,'' he said.

Momchilov said he plans to continue meeting with West. And he and his detectives will continue digging, trying to find evidence to prove or dispute West's claims.

Digging in Akron planned

But, Momchilov said, detectives may ultimately determine that West is lying. ``I always keep in the back of my mind that this could be a hoax,'' he said. ``I know the outcome could be false. But at the same time, we are working at his mercy.''

West, for his part, said he doesn't care if the police or public believes him. And he relishes watching detectives struggle with his conflicting confessions and assertions that he is lying.

``I tell the cops, `If you don't believe me, let me out the door,' '' he said. ``Do you think they are going to do that?

``If (your readers) don't believe me, then I'll move in next door to them.''

Prostitute is 6th woman found dead near Columbus

01/16/02

Columbus

- The discovery of the body of a woman with links to prostitution has led investigators to revisit two other unsolved killings of women in Franklin County.

Police and the county Sheriff's Department are sharing information in the death of Tonya R. Darden, 36, the sixth woman whose body was found dumped in the county in the last 10 weeks. A motorist found Darden's nude body Saturday. She had been strangled.

Darden had one conviction for soliciting in 1994. Chief Deputy Steve Martin described her as a woman who was known to be a prostitute.

The slaying has led police to review the deaths of Kimberly S. Ellis, 26, who was found stabbed to death Oct. 12, 2000, and Dawn Milbaugh Reedy, 22, who was found strangled on Sept. 5, 2001, police Lt. Mary Kerins said. Both women were known prostitutes, police said.

Those slayings are among the deaths of eight women linked to prostitution in Franklin County since October 2000 that remain under investigation.

Authorities allege that three of those slayings were committed by Christian Fuhr, 33, of suburban Whitehall. He is in the Franklin County Jail.

Police spokeswoman Sherry Mercurio said the women's link to prostitution did not mean they were killed by the same person.

"It's a high-risk job," Mercurio said yesterday. "You're more apt to be in the company of violence in that line of work than if you're behind a desk."

Police seek proof of killing spree

BY CRAIG WEBB
and Stephanie Warsmith

Beacon Journal staff writers

Jason West rocks back and forth in his plastic chair in a guarded conference room at the Summit County Jail and rattles off the details of 29 murders he claims to have committed.

His voice is flat. His expression is nonchalant. The only hint of emotion can be found in hand gestures occasionally offered to drive home a point.

Four in Akron. Four more in Louisiana. Two in Alabama. Eight each in Florida and Arizona. One in South Carolina. And two in North Carolina.

There's only one problem: So far police have not found a shred of evidence to connect him to the killings that span a decade.

No bodies. No weapons. No missing persons. Nothing.

Summit County sheriff's officials have dedicated the past four months to determining if West's confessions are fact or fiction. Capt. Larry Momchilov, who has spent more time with West than anyone, said they have taken him seriously because they can't afford not to.

``It's important to the community to not allow this person out if he is making statements that he is going to kill again,'' Momchilov said, while sifting through a thick black binder filled with information on West.

If West's boasts turn out to be true, he would be one of the most prolific serial killersin history.

Sheriff's officials have a few reasons to take West's confessions seriously. He passed two polygraph exams and a clinical psychologist told sheriff's officials he demonstrated ``traits of a serial killer.'' And, sheriff's officials found a pair of women's underwear and an earring that West claims belonged to two of his victims.

Still, Momchilov, a 35-year veteran of the sheriff's department, acknowledges the skeptics and admits he's not sold on West's guilt. But, he hasn't given up either.

``I just want a bone -- something I can convict him on,'' he said. ``We haven't given up. We're not done.''

Coming clean?

The self-proclaimed drifter said he claimed his first victim in Akron in 1992 and only decided to come clean to Summit County sheriff's officials after a prison stint in Virginia stirred his conscience. He decided to fess up in Akron because he would be close to his mother, brother and 8-year-old son who still live in the area.

``I've had a lot of time to think about what I've done, blah, blah, blah and all that stuff,'' he said. ``My conscience has gotten the better of me. It's like that devil and angel thing -- they fought back and forth.''

West said he has been haunted by evil thoughts dating back to his days growing up in apartments in Akron's Goodyear Heights, Kenmore and Ellet neighborhoods.

In his teen-age years, West said, he only did petty crimes, like peeping into the windows of neighbors and breaking into their homes to steal underwear and other small personal belongings. Eventually, he said he began to torture dogs and cats.

West said he fled home and dropped out of Garfield High School his sophomore year to live with a girlfriend. Within a year, he claims he committed his first murder.

Gruesome tale

He said he drove to a secluded place a few blocks away and strangled her. Then, he carried her lifeless body to the basement of his Orlando Street apartment and dismembered her. He placed the body parts in ``two or three'' garbage bags.

During the next 10 years, West claims to have used a similar technique to kill the others. He said he sometimes killed for pleasure and other times for money.

West says he killed three other women in Akron -- one more in 1992 and two in 1998.

He strangled them, shot them or stabbed them.

The only common link, he said, was that his victims were all female -- mostly prostitutes -- and were disposed of in isolated locations.

West thinks his calm demeanor and clean-cut appearance helped him lure victims into his car.

``People think, damn, he doesn't look like a monster,'' he said. ``I guess it would be fine for them to think that. But the things I was doing were pretty out there.''

West said he never forced anyone to get into his car. He said the choice was up to the women: If they got in his car, they chose to die, if not, they chose to live.

Now that he has confessed, West said he's frustrated that detectives with ``big egos and pride'' want to solve this overnight.

No bodies, weapons

``What do you do when you get a letter like that? You take it seriously,'' Momchilov said.

In late October, detectives took West to Arizona, where he claims to have killed eight women. For five days, they dug -- to no avail -- in the desert.

On Monday, more unsuccessful digging was done in the woods behind an Akron school.

Divers searched the Portage Lakes in November and then -- in December and again last week -- probed Nesmith Lake, looking for a gun, a knife and an ax. Again, they came up empty handed.

West's answers to the lack of evidence? He says maybe they didn't dig far enough or look in a large enough area.

``He plays a game,'' Momchilov said. ``His thing is -- I can't convict myself. You have to do it.''

West did provide sheriff's detectives with information that led them to a pair of women's underwear and an earring that he says belonged to two of the prostitutes he killed.

The underwear supposedly belonged to one of the four prostitutes he killed in Akron, while the earring came from a prostitute from Miami.

A week ago today, the sheriff's department asked police across the country for help with the investigation. They sent out Teletypes including information with West's descriptions of his victims and when and where he said he killed them.

Momchilov said he hopes police will compare the information with their missing persons and unsolved homicide reports for possible matches.

In addition to gaining the interest of various police agencies, the Teletypes also caught the interest of media from as far away as Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Interestingly, bones were discovered at a construction site in the Myrtle Beach area this week, but they were found an hour away from where West claims to have killed.

West has a lengthy criminal record, though it consists mostly of nonviolent crimes. For instance, he was convicted of telephone harassment in 1999 for repeatedly calling an Akron police officer who lived in his building.

Officer Jason McKeel said West called him multiple times at night -- often just hanging up, though he once flushed a toilet and then hung up.

McKeel said his impression of West was that he ``has issues.''

Dr. James Orlando, an Akron clinical psychologist who examined West, basically agreed with McKeel's statement when he gave his report to sheriff's officials. Momchilov said Orlando told them West has the ``traits of a serial killer.''

Orlando declined to specifically discuss West.

However, Orlando discussed the traits exhibited by known serial killers -- which include a propensity for setting fires and torturing animals during childhood. And, he said it is possible that someone might research the behaviors exhibited by serial killers and then try to mimic those to gain notoriety.

``It's hard to sort out if they are saying things for attention or if they have truly done the murders,'' he said.

Other crimes

Akron attorney Walt Benson, who is representing West, declined to say if he thinks his client is guilty of the crimes to which he has confessed.

But, he did say, ``The reason behind these mysterious confessions will become self-evident as the case unfolds at trial.''

West is due for a pretrial hearing Monday before Judge Jane Bond.

As for West, he says if the detectives want to dismiss his claims, that's fine -- he'll just kill again.

``I'll be honest. I missed it (my goal) by one,'' he said. ``Thirty (victims) was my number. I had everything. I had an agenda.

``I will kill again. It's not something I have control over.''

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 11, 2002; Page A01

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- They were standing on the corners of these stained streets, selling their bodies for a Canadian $10 bill. Then they were gone. Forty-nine women vanished. No blood. No saliva. No screams heard. No bodies. Just working aliases left behind, entangled with fragments of sad stories.

"How can no one see 49 women?" asked a woman who works these same streets today, some of the most vile streets in Canada, an underworld of drugs, heroin ghosts, prostitution, needles and violence.

"Like, where did they go?" asked the woman, who gave her name as Ann Bravo, 36. "Like, what happened to Laura, Laura, the one who had low blood pressure? What happened to Jennifer? Jennifer was the one who [gave birth] on the corner. What happened to Sara? Girls have disappeared and nobody has seen anything. This is really scary."

This is Vancouver's downtown Eastside, one of Canada's poorest postal codes, Vancouver's low track, as they say. People used to believe that those who ended up on these streets couldn't go any lower. They believed this until the mid-1980s, when prostitutes started vanishing.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Vancouver City Police say that if the same person killed all the missing women, the crime would rank among the largest serial killings in history.

Recently, police here began comparing notes with police in the state of Washington to find out whether a man charged in the so-called Green River deaths there also may be responsible for the 49 women missing in Canada. Gary Ridgway, 52, has been charged in four U.S. slayings after police discovered DNA evidence linking him to bodies found in or near the Green River, south of Seattle.

"He's been charged now with four murders of sex-trade workers. We have 49 missing. The natural assumption is he is a good suspect. But he is one of many suspects, and we have many good suspects," said Sgt. Wayne Clary, who works in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's unsolved homicide unit.

Still, in the 19 years since women started disappearing in British Columbia, no one has been arrested in the cases. Without bodies, police have little evidence to trace.

Investigators acknowledge that they don't really know how many bodies to look for. The transient lifestyle of prostitutes makes it hard to track them, and some of the 49 may still be alive and perhaps have moved to other cities, entered detox centers or taken new identities to leave their old lives behind. Still, authorities say that the pattern of women here one moment, gone the next, makes it clear that many if not all are dead.

The investigation goes on. "All we really have is a starting point: that area," Clary said. "They were last seen there. That's it. The place they call skid row."

They are targeted by "sexual predators," he said, the crime made easier because the women often work alone, without pimps, desperate for money to support heroin and cocaine addictions.

"They are the most vulnerable women," said Deb Mearns, coordinator of the Downtown Eastside Neighborhood Safety Office, which provides support to crime victims. "If you want desperate women or a kid, this is the neighborhood. There are a lot of sexual predators out there."

Out there, outside her storefront office window, is a version of hell: addicts shooting up, threadbare hotels that charge hourly rates for nasty rooms with paper-thin walls, drug dealers doing business in the open, needles carpeting the alleyways, vomit, blood, rubber gloves, used condoms.

"There is hardly a legitimate business left. Most are tied into drugs, money laundering or stolen goods," Mearns said. "One scuzzy hotel room down here costs $325 to $350 a month. If you get $400 a month on welfare, you don't have much left. It's a pretty desperate existence. It's the highest concentration of SROs [single room occupancies] in Canada."

The rooms are at the bottom of the "slide," when addicts "go from using to really using," Mearns said. "A lot started off as children, running away from really horrific pasts. Many will say they are 15 or 16 when they started; by the time they are 30, they look 50."

The faces of the missing women peer out from the posters that police have put up in alleys and hallways. The images seem to be a collage of broken noses, collapsed veins, swollen eyes.

• JOHNSON, Patricia. DOB: 1975/12/02, last seen March 3, 2001. She smiles through what looks like a busted lip. Her eyes seemed to have just been healing from bruises.

• MAH, Laura. DOB: 1943/03/23, last seen Aug. 1, 1985. Her face seems to be lopsided and her cheeks are swollen.

• CRAWFORD, Wendy. DOB: 1956/04/21, last seen Nov. 27, 1999. She presses her lips together and looks into the corner of some unseen room, her skin is red. She is not smiling. Wounds on her face have not yet closed.

"Some of the women, you wouldn't notice them if you stepped on them," Mearns said. "They end up looking quite different from the pictures."

In the beginning, in 1983, when the first of Vancouver's prostitutes went missing, few people wanted to acknowledge the women were disappearing. Then an outcry came from women's groups, applying pressure on the police to take action. Now police put out the posters and a tip sheet for prostitutes about "bad dates," specific men who beat up women.

There is a man out there about 5 feet 6 inches tall, about 55 years old, with short gray hair. He met a prostitute in the "Pat Hotel bar." He took her to an alley, paid $10 to touch her. But when she tried to leave, he started hitting her face and chest. Then he took his money back and threatened to kill her if he saw her again.

There is another man about 5 feet 10 inches tall, 200 pounds, with long red hair and thick, black-frame glasses. He was wearing a green-and-black plaid jacket when he picked up a prostitute and offered her some crack. "He then said he was going to have to kill her," according to the sheet. "He began to suffocate her, when someone came along and chased him away."

Mearns said there are hundreds of predators. Some come in family sedans with baby seats in the back. The women are told whom to look out for, but there is no foolproof method for staying safe. "It upsets the women, but it really hasn't changed much," Mearns said. "The drugs take over and the fear isn't as great."

Dee Cyre, 26, was standing in the rain on the corner of Princess and Cardova. Underneath a candy-green umbrella, her black stockings were ripped. There were scars on her legs where cigarettes had been extinguished. She pressed her knees together, shifted her weight, feeling the cramps of a heroin craving. She stood there waiting for another customer to help feed her $150-a-day habit.

She knew about the missing women, but she stood there anyway. She called it an occupational hazard. "I've been on a couple of really scary bad dates," she said. "They use guns and knives. It's a pretty tough life out there." Her black mascara ran in the rain.

One of her bad dates was in his mid-forties. He had short hair and was clean-cut, but during an encounter in his car he revealed a bad temper. "He had a cell phone and his wife kept calling, asking when he would be home. He kept telling her 10 minutes. And he was sitting with me," Cyre said.

When he hung up, Cyre said, he started hitting her. She grabbed the gearshift, threw the car into park and opened the door. "The next night, they found a girl dead in the same area," Cyre said. "I figure that was him. I was lucky it wasn't me, but it could be next time. Every time you get in a car you are playing roulette. You never know if that is going to be someone that got those other girls."

A car stopped, an old Plymouth. Cyre got in before telling the end of her story.

Katherine Essex looked like a worried single mother standing on the corner. Her hands were in the pocket of her polyester-lined coat. She wore jeans and brown shoes. She and the other street workers down here don't dress up in tights and leopard skin. They are plain. They are the kind of women rejected by escort services and strip joints, a taxi driver says.

Essex said she commutes to this job from the suburb of Barnaby. She has two girls, 5 and 7. They live with her mother. This is the best work she can find. Essex said she knows about the missing women. She has had her own bad dates. "I ended up with one of the guys. He took me out and put a hood over my head and started strangling me," Essex said. "I pleaded with him and told him I had kids. He had taken me out before and he just let me go."

Now, she said, she only gets in cars with men she has been out with before. Better to get hit by a man she knows than one she doesn't, she said.

Ann Bravo stood down the street. Her mouth runs a mile a minute. She said all the women are petrified. Women are disappearing. A friend went to look for a friend and there was no sign of her. "She didn't open her Christmas presents and she didn't open her welfare check," Bravo said.

"Nobody cares," she continued. "Nobody does anything about it. Is this just one guy? Can one guy do such a horrible massacre?"

Her mouth moved fast. She kept turning, looking for customers. "These women were women just like us, except they are not as smart because they are dead."

It was still raining in Vancouver, a consistent rain. The streets were getting washed. One of the posters of the missing women slipped from the building upon which it was pasted. Inside her office, Mearns hung up a revised list of the bad dates next to the poster of 49 missing women.

Acquitted teen-ager charged in new killings

He beat Aurora charges on double-homicide in 2001, is now accused of 3 East Coast murders

By Robert Sanchez and Sarah Huntley, News Staff Writers

A teen-ager acquitted last summer in an Aurora double-homicide is now accused of killing three people and shooting four others during a monthlong murder rampage along the East Coast.

The revelation wasn't a bombshell to Colorado authorities who arrested and unsuccessfully prosecuted Joshua Wayne Andrews, now 19. Andrews was accused in the April 3, 2000, shooting deaths of his brother, Roman M. Martin, 19, and his brother's girlfriend, Krisunda Temple, 15, at an Aurora home.

Sheila Hampton, the jury forewoman who signed paperwork acquitting Andrews in July, said she was "shocked" at the new allegations.

"There's no way to process the way I feel about it," Hampton said Wednesday. "It kind of blows you away."

Andrews was arrested Tuesday in New York City, along with 22-year-old Jamel Crawford, this time accused of killing three people in northern Virginia and then robbing a New York bodega and shooting a civilian employee of the transit police.

If extradited to Virginia, Andrews and Crawford could face the death penalty.

"Having investigated the double homicide here in Aurora and knowing the level of violence involved then, it doesn't surprise me at all," Aurora police Detective Chuck Mehl said of the East Coast cases, adding that he and fellow investigators worried about Andrews' potential for violence.

In the spring of 2000, police linked Andrews to the deaths of his brother and his brother's girlfriend. Temple was shot eight times, including twice in her face, according to coroners' records. Martin also was shot eight times.

Andrews' mother, Imani Taymullah, maintained his innocence, saying in court records that she "prayed and looked into Joshua's eyes, and I know he did not commit this crime."

Taymullah was not available for comment Wednesday, but she earlier said in a victim impact statement that her son was a "scape-goat" because he is "poor, black . . . and has a criminal history."

During Andrews' trial in July, Arapahoe County prosecutors tried to paint a picture of a teen-ager who had been fighting with his brother for several weeks. Martin, court documents say, shot a phone jack while Andrews was talking on the phone.

But his public defenders argued that the two brothers were involved in a drive-by shooting on a rival gang and that one of those gang members likely killed Martin and his girlfriend.

Hampton, the forewoman, said prosecutors failed to prove the case "beyond any doubt in our minds." One problem, she said, was that prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves.

"We felt like (Andrews) did it, but it couldn't be proven," Hampton said. "It's not that the defense did a great job as much as it was prosecutors not proving it. All we needed was one or two credible witnesses."

"The (jury's decision) certainly was not satisfying for us," Arapahoe County District Attorney spokesman Michael Knight said Wednesday. "We thought we had a case against him, but I guess that's just the system."

None of Andrews' former public defenders was available for comment.

Andrews has a juvenile arrest record in Colorado dating to his conviction in an attempted aggravated robbery case in 1995, Arapahoe County prosecutors said. Then 12, Andrews was sentenced to two years' probation.

Andrews and Crawford were captured Tuesday after running a red light in the South Bronx.

The pair had been the target of a law enforcement dragnet launched after they were identified in the three Virginia homicides.

"These are individuals who, for whatever reason, quickly developed an insatiable appetite for killing," Prince William Assistant Commonwealth Attorney James Willett said at a news conference Tuesday in Virginia.

One man was killed over an apparent drug transaction in Prince Williams, Va., on Dec. 12. On Jan. 2 two more men were killed; a survivor is cooperating with police. Police also linked Andrews and Crawford to a shooting and robbery at a store in Stafford, Va.

Investigators said Andrews and Crawford surfaced again Monday night during a robbery at a small Spanish grocery store in Queens, where they shot the clerk.

The fleeing vehicle slipped on an icy patch and careened onto the front lawn of an off-duty transit employee, police said. When the resident came outside to investigate, one of the men shot him.

Crawford, like Andrews, also has a criminal history. In 1997, he was convicted in the shooting death of a 20-year-old man in Virginia Beach, Va. He was scheduled to appear in court last week on unrelated firearms charges.

Asked on Wednesday whether she regrets acquitting Andrews in the Arapahoe County case, the forewoman paused.

"At the time, I think it was the right thing to do," Hampton said. "It's a little too late now."

---

The Moscow Times
Moscow, Russia
Thursday, Jan. 10, 2002. Page 1
U.S. Warns Gay Expats About Killers
By Megan Twohey
Staff Writer

Vladimir Filonov / MT
The embassy said two of the murdered foreigners visited the Chameleon night club.


The U.S. Embassy is urging Americans to "exercise caution" after four foreigners and four Russians were killed in the past two years, apparently after picking up someone from a gay club in Moscow.

The embassy has pushed prosecutors and police to reopen the cases and determine whether the murders are linked, but with no success so far. U.S. General Consul James Warlick said Wednesday he has asked the Foreign Ministry to step in.

The embassy issued the warning on Jan. 3 in a warden message, which was distributed by e-mail to Americans living in Moscow. The sense of urgency, however, comes through more clearly in a cable -- labeled sensitive but unclassified -- that it sent to the U.S. State Department on Dec. 1. 

"Comparing notes with consular officials from other foreign missions, we believe we may have uncovered a disturbing pattern of murders of foreign gay men in Moscow," said the cable, which was first obtained by The Washington
Blade, a gay publication in Washington, and then by The Moscow Times.

"Even if these murders are not connected, we believe that they suggest a sufficient level of danger for gay AmCits traveling to and residing in Russia that we should find a way to share this information with the AmCit community," it said.

At least one of the victims had been at the Chameleon club the night he was killed, and another was known to frequent the club, the cable said. Three of the four foreigners were found stabbed multiple times in their apartments and robbed, it said.

Some members of the gay community in Moscow are convinced the murders are connected and that the Kazarma club, which is housed inside the Chameleon club, is the link.

The first of the four foreigners to be killed was British citizen Christopher Rees, in September 1999. The Moscow Times reported at the time that Rees, 34, who worked as a television producer for CTC television, was found stabbed to death in his apartment on Tverskaya Ulitsa. His co-workers had become alarmed when he failed to meet his driver downstairs. 

Steve Malcom, an American, was the next to be found dead, on Aug. 27, 2000, also of multiple stab wounds. The Associated Press reported that he was a 49-year-old teacher and had been dead for six days when police found his
body in his apartment. Audio and video equipment had been stolen.

In February 2001, Australian citizen Thomas Nagy-Bachman was found stabbed to death in his apartment, the cable said. Police at the time described him as an Austrian and said the body was found in March. He was working in
Moscow as an independent petrochemical consultant and had previously worked for Alfa Bank.

According to the cable, the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported in November that police had arrested a suspect in Nagy-Bachman's death -- a soldier from Kursk who prostituted himself for money.

The fourth foreign victim was German. On June 23, 2001, "Heinrich-Helmut Kurth was beaten to death so brutally as to render his face unrecognizable after leaving the Chameleon club," the cable said. "Rees was also known to frequent this club."

Kurth, 40, who worked as a chef at the Sheraton Palace Hotel, was found on the street, on Bolshoi Tishinsky Pereulok, and was taken to the hospital, where he died of massive head injuries. Police at the time said he was killed in an apparent robbery.

After consulting with consular officers at other embassies, U.S. officials said they decided several months ago that the cases could be connected and approached the gay community in search of more information.

"As we began to dig and spoke informally to contacts in the gay community, we realized that it wasn't an isolated incident and that there have been four Russian gay men killed during the same period," an embassy official said Wednesday.

"Anecdotally we know that the murders may be connected to the club scene. Right now we can't say that it's one specific club or that they're all linked, but we've been trying to find out."

The U.S. Embassy has urged the Prosecutor General's Office to look into the murders.

"The prosecutor told us that the Malcom case had been dropped in the absence of further leads, but thanked us for passing along the information. ... The German Embassy has been told that its case has been dropped as well," the
cable said.

Telephoned on Wednesday, the Prosecutor General's Office said it would have some information on the cases soon.

The embassy official said the police were also asked to reopen the Malcom case, but a couple of weeks ago they sent a letter saying they had looked into the various murders and found no link.

A spokesman for the British Embassy refused to comment on any specific case, saying only that "any murder of a British national is taken most seriously."

A spokesman for the German Embassy said, "We are trying to widen our database of murder cases of foreign homosexuals before making a conclusion. ... If, after a lengthy investigation, the Russian authorities declare that
there is not a connection, we will accept their conclusion."

Calls to the Australian Embassy were not returned Wednesday. While once a gay club, Chameleon, which is located on Presnensky Val, is now considered straight. But inside Chameleon is the gay club Kazarma. According to the web site listings of Afisha, Moscow's leading Russian-language entertainment magazine, Kazarma is considered the top gay hangout in the city, with naked young male students from Moscow circus schools dancing on stage and the availability of private cabins.

It also has a reputation for being downright menacing. 

"To the best of my knowledge all the murders were connected to Kazarma," said Nikita Ivanov, international editor of Russian gay and lesbian web site Gay.ru, which has posted a warning against going to the club.

"It's not your regular kind of gay club," he said Wednesday. "It is an inherently dangerous place. The kind of people who congregate there are like hustlers, male prostitutes from the provinces and bad neighborhoods of Moscow."

Gay.ru has received no reports of violence at other gay clubs, he said, but has received more than a dozen reports about robberies in front of or in the immediate area around Chameleon and about murders connected to it.

"My suspicion is that the motive behind these crimes is economic," Ivanov said. "They're committed by some poor boy from the provinces who has ended up in Moscow a criminal and prostituting himself."

Tamara Zhikhareva, Chameleon's financial manager, recalled one case two years ago when a regular foreign customer had been killed in his apartment and police had questioned the club's personnel. She said she could not remember the name of the customer and refused to say whether the victim had picked up his partner in the club.

Zhikhareva said Chameleon has become quieter since it shifted away from catering to a gay clientele a year ago.

"Today it is a safe place where all clients have to pass through strict face and passport control," she said in a telephone interview. "As for the foreigners, they enjoy special treatment -- our guards keep an eye on them so that nobody extorts money from them."

The Kazarma club also is undergoing a transformation, she said. "Kazarma is dying now," Zhikhareva said. "This year it will be reoriented to a regular youth club."

Ivanov, however, said he has received complaints from expatriates that the security men at Kazarma turn a blind eye to crimes against foreigners or actually point out foreigners to the perpetrators.

---

Man apologizes for murders; police find no evidence for claim

01/08/02

Donna J. Robb
Plain Dealer Reporter

Akron

- A self-proclaimed serial killer has issued an apology to the families of alleged victims. To spare the families any more grief, I will not try to get off on some kind of insanity plea or try and look for mistakes in the justice system. I deserve what I get, even if it means death," Jason R. West wrote in a statement he gave to Summit County sheriff's detectives who are investigating West's claim that he had killed at least 30 prostitutes since 1992.

The apology is vague - no victim is named, and West, 28, has not been charged with killing anyone.

He is serving time in the Summit County Jail for having a stolen car, while police search for the remains of even one body that would corroborate West's claims to have killed young women in Akron; Tucson, Ariz.; New Orleans; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Miami, Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and Montgomery and Birmingham, Ala.

"He says he can still smell his victims' perfumes. He gives detailed descriptions of tattoos and body piercings," Capt. Larry Momchilov said yesterday.

Momchilov has been interviewing West at the jail since September. Momchilov said West has never held a job and survived by stealing cars, stealing from homes and robbing prostitutes.

So far, detectives have located women's underwear at one location West described and an earring at another location, Momchilov said. But they have found no human remains.

Momchilov was waiting yesterday for fresh leads. Saturday, he sent a detailed description of West's alleged murders to police departments across the country, hoping to match West's claims with unsolved murders or missing-person reports.

West wrote: "I am not blaming my upbringing or my family for my madness. I chose to kill and could not fight the urges to kill. I want to spare my family any future pain. I'm not here to say I'm sorry for what I've done and I'm not writing this to explain my actions to society.

"Some might say I'm a monster . . . and to be honest, you're right. "

---

Story required years of experience

2001-12-18

When the Green River killer story broke Nov. 30 with the arrest of Gary Ridgway, nailing it down took six hours and 200 years.

Six hours was the amount of time we had to produce five pages of coverage for the next day's edition. Two hundred years is an estimate of the professional experience behind the effort, which on that night involved about 20 Journal staff -- reporters, photographers, a graphic artist and several editors.

Two hundred years is probably low. At least five current staff members -- Bruce Rommel, Dean Radford, Mary Swift, Doug Margeson and Duane Hamamura -- were working for what are now are the Eastside Journal and South County Journal on July 15, 1982, when the first victim of the Green River killer was found. Those five alone combine for more than 100 years of journalism experience, and each has contributed to our Green River coverage over the years.

At least another dozen current Journal staff members have also worked on the story, and our files contain hundreds of photos, documents and news accounts -- many of them exclusive -- which is how we have been able to stay ahead of other media in reporting the story and providing perspective and background.

Hamamura's work on the story goes back to Day One.

He was the first and only newspaper photographer on the scene when police officers (Kent didn't have detectives back then) pulled the body of Wendy Coffield, 16, from the river. His photos from that day are now signature images of what became the largest unsolved serial murder in American history, and they have been published nationwide. One is on the cover of a nearly 500-page book on the crimes, ``The Search for the Green River Killer,'' by Carlton Smith and Tomas Guillen.

On Aug. 12, 1982, another body was found, but police declined to say how Deborah Lynn Bonner died, and no connection was made to Coffield.

Then came Aug. 15, 1982.

Radford was working that day. It was a Sunday afternoon. Two boys, Galen Hirschi and Robert Anderson, were riding bikes less than a half-mile from the newspaper office, when they spotted a woman's body in the river. Police investigated, found two more bodies, and the search was on for the Green River killer.

Reporter DeeAnn Glamser was on the scene in time to talk with the boys that day, and Radford re-interviewed them last week, nearly 20 years later.

To Radford and others who have worked on these stories over the years, the victims aren't just mug shots from a police file. They are real people -- daughters, friends, sisters, neighbors, wives, girlfriends, mothers.

When Radford talks about victims in the case, he refers to them by name -- Wendy, Marcia, Opal -- and he thinks about their families.

It was Radford's idea to come back last Sunday and tell the story of Wendy Coffield, the very first victim attributed to the Green River killer, even though Ridgway hasn't been charged in her death. Radford wanted readers to have a more complete picture of the fragile lives behind the grim details and to better understand how it all began.

Wendy was a troubled girl, but she was only 16 when she died, leaving a hole in her mother's heart. ``We don't have Christmas,'' Virginia Coffield told Radford. ``We just quit.''

All the major Seattle media will be covering today's arraignment of Gary Ridgway, charged in four of the 49 Green River murders, but the story of the very first victim is one they won't think to tell.

They weren't there.

---

Murderer on Death Row Loses Final Md. Appeal

By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 5, 2002; Page B02

Convicted rapist and murderer Steven Howard Oken lost his final appeal before Maryland's highest court yesterday, landing him first in line for execution among the 11 men on Maryland's death row.

Oken has one final, unlikely appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court. But if a Baltimore County judge signs his death warrant early next week, as prosecutors have requested, the final chapter in his legal fight to prevent execution would play out within eight weeks.

That would place his execution on a collision course with the 2002 session of the Maryland General Assembly, where a sizable contingent of lawmakers have pledged to rally for a death penalty moratorium.

If the U.S. Supreme Court denies Oken's appeal, "that means we're out of bullets, and he would likely be executed," said his attorney, Fred Warren Bennett.

Oken raped and killed three women over 16 days in a rampage fueled by drugs and alcohol. When he finally was arrested in a Maine hotel in November 1987, one woman's blood was spattered on his gun, and brain tissue from another was smeared in his hair.

His case has offered little in the way of emotional fuel for the opponents of capital punishment who fought unsuccessfully in Annapolis last year for a moratorium. They argued that a disproportionate number of poor blacks are sentenced to die in Maryland.

But unlike in the high-profile cases that drove moratorium efforts elsewhere in the nation, guilt has never been questioned in efforts involving Oken's case. He had the means to hire high-powered attorneys. And he is white.

Oken's best hope of escaping lethal injection came late last year, when the Maryland Court of Appeals halted executions while it considered a novel challenge to the state's death penalty for eight months.

In December, the court ruled 4 to 3 that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in a New Jersey hate crimes case did not invalidate Maryland's death penalty. The decision came in the case of Lawrence Borchardt Sr., who in May 2000 was convicted of murdering an elderly Baltimore County couple in their home two years earlier. Oken used the same grounds for an appeal that was also rejected.

Even death penalty opponents have viewed the possibility of a successful challenge by Oken as unlikely, because the Supreme Court hate crimes ruling specifically said it did not apply to capital cases.

Instead, said Bennett, the narrow defeat has left Oken in a precarious spot.

"That was really the last argument I had," he said.

Short of a successful appeal, or a legislative remedy, the Oken case will fall to Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D), a death penalty supporter. Glendening has said that he thoroughly reviews each death penalty case on the individual merits. He has approved two executions as governor and commuted one death sentence to life in prison.

---

Families of Murder Victims Make Appeal for Information

Crime: The private pain of unsolved homicides becomes public during a news conference at LAPD's 77th Street Division.

By JILL LEOVY, TIMES STAFF WRITER

Record documents bomber's last hours

2002-01-06

The Oklahoman

Copyright 2002 The Oklahoman

They called it "Operation ELM TREE."

Operation Elm Tree
Records of McVeigh's incarceration

Federal prison officials put that name to the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and documented minute by minute his last day.

The 29-page official record, called the execution facility log, was released to The Oklahoman last week.

It reveals some new details surrounding the June 11 execution, which was recognized worldwide last week as one of the most significant events of 2001.

McVeigh, 33, was put to death at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. He was executed by lethal injection for the deadly 1995 attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

His last 27 hours were spent in the execution facility, a one-story, red-brick building also known as the "death house."

The official log, typed mostly from guards' handwritten notes, features on its cover a picture of the Survivor Tree.

"The only living thing that survived the blast at ground zero was a 70-year-old American Elm Tree, which still stands today as part of the memorial to the victims of the Oklahoma City Bombing," reads the caption on the cover. "Hence the name for this operation."

McVeigh was moved to the execution facility at 4:25 a.m. June 10 and showered an hour later. When the water was at first cold, he said, "This is cruel and unusual punishment."

McVeigh spent much of his final hours sleeping or watching TV, including the news channel CNN. Officers wrote he was smiling and laughing at one TV program.

But officers noted McVeigh at times was restless, grimaced, paced, and tossed and turned in his sleep. He was given the antacid, Maalox, shortly after his arrival.

He wanted only orange juice for breakfast June 10.

Warden Harley Lappin delivered his last meal, two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream, at 12:11 p.m. June 10.

Officers were so meticulous in keeping the log that they made eight more notes about the ice cream, concluding when he finished the second pint three hours later and the second container and spoon were removed from his cell.

A radio was brought to the execution facility at 5:50 p.m. June 10 so McVeigh could listen to a religious broadcast.

McVeigh had trouble sleeping his last night. He turned off his TV at 9 p.m. but 10 minutes later was "very restless, moving blankets around." Seven minutes after that, a guard wrote, "Inmate lying in bed, staring at ceiling."

Before going to sleep, McVeigh asked that his lights be turned on at 3 a.m. June 11 so he would wake up. Guards noted, "He also stated he appreciated this."

McVeigh did wake up at 3 a.m., to watch television. His execution then was only four hours away.

At 4:29 a.m., his attorneys, Rob Nigh and Nathan Chambers, visited. They left 20 minutes later.

At 6:07 a.m., McVeigh turned the television on for the final time. Two minutes later, he was stripped and searched, and a deputy coroner checked him for any signs of abuse.

At 6:13 a.m., McVeigh was given new underwear, socks, shoes, khaki pants and a white T-shirt. He then signed a waiver to avoid an autopsy.

At 6:18 a.m., guards placed McVeigh in restraints in his cell and a prison chaplain gave him last rites there. He then was moved to the execution room.

At 6:34 a.m., according to the log, "Inmate McVeigh is secured to the execution table. All restraints are checked for security and circulation. The IV insertion process is initiated."

The witnesses were in place by 6:57 a.m. and a transmission to victims in Oklahoma City began at 7:05 a.m., after a temporary malfunction.

At 7:06 a.m., according to the log, "Warden asks inmate McVeigh if he wishes to make a last statement. There is no response from inmate McVeigh. Warden then reads the Warden's statement."

The warden then asked U.S. Marshal Frank Anderson "if we may proceed." The marshal checked by phone with the Justice Department's Command Center and informed the warden to proceed.

The log notes the first injection began at 7:08 a.m., the second injection began at 7:10 a.m. and the third injection began at 7:12 a.m.

Among the log's last entries is: "Warden announced that inmate McVeigh died at 7:14 a.m."

---

Tuesday, 8 January, 2002, 20:49 GMT

Police probe prostitute deaths

Dental records were used to identify Hayley Curtis

Police say the body of a prostitute found almost 200 miles from where she disappeared could be linked to the death of another woman.

Hayley Curtis, 23, vanished from the Mile Cross area in Norwich last October.

But police from the city were alerted by colleagues in Hampshire when ramblers found a body in a shallow ditch near Petersfield.

Now detectives are examining possible links with the death of another prostitute and the disappearance of another woman.

 

Awaiting results

Officers are also trying to piece together how the body came to be 187 miles away from where Miss Curtis lived.

A post-mortem examination carried out on the body has not yet revealed a cause of death and Hampshire police are awaiting toxicology results.

Nina Terry, a spokeswoman for Norfolk police, said a team of 30 officers is investigating the death of Miss Curtis.

She added they are also looking at possible links to the death of 16-year-old prostitute Natalie Pearman who was found strangled 10 years ago in the Ringland Hills area of Norwich.

And she said police are looking at similarities to the disappearance 18 months ago of another prostitute, 29-year-old Kellie Pratt, who is still missing from Norwich.

Ms Terry said: "Any similarities will be looked into but we are not linking the three cases at present."

Ramblers found Miss Curtis's body close near a slipway to the A3 in Petersfield on Saturday afternoon.

Detective Inspector Tony Adams, second in command of the Hampshire investigation, said he was working closely with Norfolk police on the case.

No injuries

A Hampshire police spokeswoman said the post-mortem revealed that there were no external injuries.

The body was found clothed and partially covered, but had been disturbed by animals.

Ms Curtis' family said they did not want to comment on the investigation.

Hampshire police spokeswoman Pauline Davey said: "Hampshire and Norfolk detectives are now working closely together to establish the circumstances of her death."

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Story required years of experience

2001-12-18

When the Green River killer story broke Nov. 30 with the arrest of Gary Ridgway, nailing it down took six hours and 200 years.

Six hours was the amount of time we had to produce five pages of coverage for the next day's edition. Two hundred years is an estimate of the professional experience behind the effort, which on that night involved about 20 Journal staff -- reporters, photographers, a graphic artist and several editors.

Two hundred years is probably low. At least five current staff members -- Bruce Rommel, Dean Radford, Mary Swift, Doug Margeson and Duane Hamamura -- were working for what are now are the Eastside Journal and South County Journal on July 15, 1982, when the first victim of the Green River killer was found. Those five alone combine for more than 100 years of journalism experience, and each has contributed to our Green River coverage over the years.

At least another dozen current Journal staff members have also worked on the story, and our files contain hundreds of photos, documents and news accounts -- many of them exclusive -- which is how we have been able to stay ahead of other media in reporting the story and providing perspective and background.

Hamamura's work on the story goes back to Day One.

He was the first and only newspaper photographer on the scene when police officers (Kent didn't have detectives back then) pulled the body of Wendy Coffield, 16, from the river. His photos from that day are now signature images of what became the largest unsolved serial murder in American history, and they have been published nationwide. One is on the cover of a nearly 500-page book on the crimes, ``The Search for the Green River Killer,'' by Carlton Smith and Tomas Guillen.

On Aug. 12, 1982, another body was found, but police declined to say how Deborah Lynn Bonner died, and no connection was made to Coffield.

Then came Aug. 15, 1982.

Radford was working that day. It was a Sunday afternoon. Two boys, Galen Hirschi and Robert Anderson, were riding bikes less than a half-mile from the newspaper office, when they spotted a woman's body in the river. Police investigated, found two more bodies, and the search was on for the Green River killer.

Reporter DeeAnn Glamser was on the scene in time to talk with the boys that day, and Radford re-interviewed them last week, nearly 20 years later.

To Radford and others who have worked on these stories over the years, the victims aren't just mug shots from a police file. They are real people -- daughters, friends, sisters, neighbors, wives, girlfriends, mothers.

When Radford talks about victims in the case, he refers to them by name -- Wendy, Marcia, Opal -- and he thinks about their families.

It was Radford's idea to come back last Sunday and tell the story of Wendy Coffield, the very first victim attributed to the Green River killer, even though Ridgway hasn't been charged in her death. Radford wanted readers to have a more complete picture of the fragile lives behind the grim details and to better understand how it all began.

Wendy was a troubled girl, but she was only 16 when she died, leaving a hole in her mother's heart. ``We don't have Christmas,'' Virginia Coffield told Radford. ``We just quit.''

All the major Seattle media will be covering today's arraignment of Gary Ridgway, charged in four of the 49 Green River murders, but the story of the very first victim is one they won't think to tell.

They weren't there.

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Bodies match missing-women profiles

Global BC Poster featuring women missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Ry Rong, 21, was found in a remote part of Delta last September dying of a drug overdose.

All three women whose bodies have been found dumped in remote areas in recent months were sex-trade workers in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and a police task force probing the disappearance of 45 other women is looking into the deaths.

Constable Catherine Galliford, who speaks for the RCMP-Vancouver police missing women's task force, confirmed Monday it is working with Delta and Surrey police to investigate the cases.

"We are working closely with Delta police as well as Surrey RCMP," Galliford said, adding that the possibility all three met with foul play is part of the probe.

The Vancouver Sun has learned that the latest victim was Angie Williams, a tiny 31-year-old native woman who had struggled with a drug problem and worked off and on as a prostitute in the Downtown Eastside.

Williams' sister, Eliza Willier, confirmed Monday that a body found in an isolated part of south Surrey last month has been positively identified as her sister's.

No cause of death has been determined, but Willier believes her sister met with foul play.

"There is no bloody way my sister would be out in Surrey in the middle of nowhere. I know that. There is no way. She didn't own a car. She would not be out there," Willier said.

"I fear that this is all connected."

A few months before Williams was found dead, two other women, both 21-year-old sex-trade workers who were friends and worked in the Downtown Eastside, were dumped, overdosed and alive, in isolated parts of Delta. Both women later died.

Surrey RCMP Constable Tim Shields said Monday investigators there are working closely with and exchanging notes with Delta police, who are probing the deaths of Ry Rong on Sept. 3, and Lily Nuon, who was found June 24.

Shields said there is still nothing to suggest the deaths are murders and are connected, but all avenues are being investigated, especially given the larger missing-women case.

Rong had been featured in three pornographic films before her death and was not a heavy drug user, her former employer and close friend George Marion said Monday.

Marion, who runs Cyberexotica Multimedia on Vancouver's east side, said in the months he knew Rong, he never saw her use drugs and does not believe she was an addict who would have overdosed.

Marion is convinced Rong, whom he met last March and saw four days before her death in September, was murdered.

Marion said he knew Rong was not a heavy drug user because his performers had to take drug tests and all hers were clean.

He showed full-body nude photos of Rong to prove his point. "Does that look like someone who was on drugs?" he said of the attractive young woman with shoulder-length brown hair.

Marion said he only learned of Rong's fate from a Sun article last month, even though he had been calling Vancouver police to try to report her missing.

He has since met with two Delta police investigators.

In the case of Angie Williams, Willier said her sister made a frantic call to their aunt days before she was last seen Dec. 9, and showed up at the aunt's home distressed and fearing for her life.

"She was just bawling. She was crying and she was scared. She showed up at 3 o'clock in the morning," Willier said, adding her sister had apparently escaped from a house in Vancouver where she was being held against her will. "She feared for her life that night."

Within days, Williams had disappeared and her frantic family filed a report with Vancouver police and was putting up posters in the Downtown Eastside, unaware that Surrey RCMP had already found a body and was asking for help with identification.

"We found out from a person downtown who said that it sounded like the girl they found in Surrey," Willier said.

Willier said her family is devastated about the loss of the woman they called "an absolute angel," who was committed to beating a drug problem to regain custody of her children.

In the case of Rong's death, Marion said: "I can't accept that some scumbag just dumped her out there to die.

"Whoever it was could have just as easily dropped her off at Hastings and Gore and an ambulance could have taken care of her."

Marion said Rong knew Nuon and tried to bring her into the studio for a screen test. But he said Nuon was obviously a heavy drug user and not suitable for a porn film so he turned her down.

Nuon's body was found off Nordel Way by a worker with the highways ministry. Police know she was still alive when dumped because she was found clutching a branch at the scene.

Rong was found still breathing about 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 3 in the 4100-block of 104th Street, a rural spot near the dike beside Boundary Bay. She was rushed to hospital, where she later died.

Toxicology reports indicated both Rong and Nuon overdosed, though police said they treated the deaths as suspicious because neither of the women could have reached the spot where they were found on their own. No vehicles were found nearby in any of the three deaths.

Both Nuon and Rong were Cambodian. Rong came to Canada as a small child, eventually ending up in the foster system.

He said she was working in porn films to earn enough money to help her younger sister, who was also in a foster home in another province.

Marion said police have to do more to find out what happened to Rong, the other two dead women and the 45 who have disappeared without a trace.

"I feel the police are simply labelling these girls as disposable," Marion said.

Ian Brady's book does not include any signs of remorse

Moors murderer Ian Brady's book on serial killers is due to go on sale in the UK.

The book is to be published on Tuesday despite objections from the relatives of his victims.

The Gates of Janus, Serial Killing and its Analysis, attacks religion, human nature, the behaviour of elites in human society, police chiefs, authors, journalists and judges.

Brady also suggests academics and police chiefs use killers as their personal vehicle to fame and fortune.

Turnaround Publisher Services backed the book's publication.

Its managing director Bill Godber said prior to Tuesday's publication: "We thought long and hard about the various problems associated with the title but we believe that it will be of considerable interest to criminologists, the police and the general reader.

Reprints

He said demand had already been exceptional.

"The book has already sold out in the US and a reprint will be put in hand immediately."

In analysing notorious serial killers, Brady notes: "In actuality, subconsciously or consciously, the serial killer has emotionally chosen to live one day as a lion, rather than decades as a sheep.

"Once the killer has committed the first or second act of homicide, he will gradually accept his own acts as normal, or supranormal, and that of the rest of humanity as subnormal and weak."

Brady, 62, is a patient at Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside.

Brady writes: "You will presently discover that this work is not an apologia.

"Why should it be? To whom should I apologise, and what difference would it make to anyone?

 

Daughters are eager for answers

By Duff Wilson
Seattle Times staff writer

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."

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Beyond Green River case: 52 similar, unsolved deaths

By Alex Fryer
Seattle Times staff reporter

	GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Gary Ridgway

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 [email protected].

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Death-penalty decision delayed; Ridgway's hearing now set for April

By Seattle Times staff

	STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Gary Leon Ridgway, charged in four slayings attributed to the Green River killer, stands in King County Superior Court yesterday flanked by lawyers Todd Gruenhagen and Mark Prothero, who asked for a delay in the death-penalty decision.

King County prosecutors won't decide until April whether they will seek the death penalty for Gary Leon Ridgway, a truck painter charged in four slayings attributed to the Green River killer.

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell granted Ridgway's attorney's request yesterday that prosecutors delay their decision from Jan. 18 until April 22. Defense attorney Mark Prothero had asked for more time to prepare information to persuade the prosecutor's office not to seek the death penalty.

Ridgway, 52, of Auburn, appeared wearing a white jumpsuit printed with the words "Ultra Security Inmate."

He has pleaded not guilty to four counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

Ridgway, who is being held without bail at the King County Jail, is charged in the deaths of Marcia Chapman, Cynthia Hinds, Opal Mills and Carol Christensen. They are on a list of 49 women thought to have been killed by the same person between 1982 and 1984.

In court yesterday was Deniece Griffin, who knew Hinds and Mills. She took off her glasses, wiped tears from her cheeks and hugged a friend's child while Ridgway signed a form indicating that he understood and accepted the process.

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Judge OKs delay in death-penalty decision for Ridgway

Thursday, January 3, 2002

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A superior court judge has approved a delay in a decision on whether to seek the death penalty against Gary Leon Ridgway, a truck painter charged in four slayings in the Green River Killer case.

King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng had planned to make his decision by Jan. 18 -- 30 days after Ridgway, 52, of Auburn, pleaded innocent to four counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

Ridgway's lawyers asked for more time to gather information they hope will dissuade Maleng from seeking the death penalty.

Maleng agreed, and Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell on Thursday approved a delay until April 22. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for April 29.

Ridgway is charged in the deaths of Marcia Chapman, Cynthia Hinds, Opal Mills and Carol Christensen. Prosecutors say DNA and circumstantial evidence linked him to their bodies.

They are on a list of 49 women -- most of them prostitutes or runaways -- killed between 1982 and 1984. The first victims were found in or near the Green River in Kent.

Ridgway is being held without bail at the King County Jail.

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A serial killer analyzes serial killing
The 1960s "Moors Murderer," Ian Brady, still haunts the British psyche. His recently published book shows why.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Stephen Lemons

Jan. 3, 2002 | Ian Brady's darkly handsome visage is forever floating to the surface of Great Britain's collective psyche, a sleek, brooding specter of malevolence and sadism that the tabloids and the broadsheets simply cannot leave alone. The most iconic image in Brady's portfolio of infamy was snapped in 1966 as he was being tried for three of his five murders of Manchester children and teens during a two-year killing spree. Sitting in the back of a police car on his way to court, the stylish, Scottish-born sociopath exudes an imperious nihilism as foreboding as it is seductive.

In one particularly sinister, oft-used head shot, a defiant Brady looks like he could give suspected terrorist mastermind Mohammad Atta lessons in ghoulishness. On February 29, 2000, the Sun took up the whole front page with this picture and the bold legend "Brady: Let Me Leave This Cesspit in a Coffin." The story told of the murderer's campaign to starve himself at Ashworth Mental Hospital, near Liverpool, where he's a permanent resident. So far British justice has been unwilling to intervene, and his keepers have been force-feeding him.

The most chilling photo is from 1987. In it an older Brady, in sunglasses and surrounded by policemen, returns to the Saddleworth Moor, near Manchester, to help find the grave of his very first victim, the lovely, 16-year-old Pauline Reade, whom Brady had consigned to the earth some 20 years before. When they uncovered the corpse, it was apparent that her throat had been cut and that she had been sexually assaulted. To this day, the body of one other victim, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, has never been located on the moors where Brady says he buried him.

Given the recurring simulacra of horror, it's understandable that all hell broke loose in Albion once American publisher Adam Parfrey of Feral House revealed that he would be releasing a manuscript the child killer had produced under the tutelage of acclaimed crime and occult writer Colin Wilson. Titled "The Gates of Janus: Serial Killing and Its Analysis," the book is a mixture of sociology, psychology and philosophy wherein Brady theorizes that serial murderers rise above the "bovine conformism" of the human herd. He then goes on to dissect the work of his peers: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Peter Sutcliffe (aka the "Yorkshire Ripper"), among others.

Here in the States, where few but the most ardent crime buffs know about the homicides Brady and his paramour Myra Hindley perpetrated in the early '60s, the book has been selling online since September. The book's journey to the shores of Brady's homeland has been far more tortuous. Ashworth Mental Hospital initially objected on the grounds that their privacy rules had been violated, but they eventually relented. Relatives of the victims called the book obscene on principle, and pundits raised Cain because Parfrey paid a $5000 advance.

"Ian Brady doesn't see a cent," asserted the L.A.-based Parfrey when asked about the deal. "The proceeds go to Benedict Birnberg, Brady's solicitor, who has reconfirmed to me that the money goes to Ian's 90-year-old mother. [Brady] has no way to spend the money; no commissary accounts, nothing. After all, he is trying to kill himself."

A British court cleared the way for the book to be released in Britain, where it became available in stores on Dec. 4, but that only provided more fodder for Fleet Street's insatiable minions. British journalists leap at any opportunity to write more about their caged pet demon, now 64 and decrepit. In the '60s, when both Brady and accomplice Hindley escaped the hangman's noose by a few months because of the abolition of the death penalty in Britain, reporters clamored for blood. More recently, when Brady's appeal for the right to stop eating failed, one cheeky tabloid started a "Post a Pie to Brady" effort to "keep the evil bastard alive." Even the far more sophisticated Guardian ran a commentary by columnist Hugo Young on March 2, 2000, in which the author demanded that both Brady and Hindley rot in their cells.

"The Moors Murderers have no parallel in the culture, no equal in the almanac of foul, remembered crimes," wrote Young. "A vast publication industry has been built on their continued existence unhanged, after butchery which 10 years earlier would have sent them to the gallows."

This national obsession strikes me as a sort of fetish, like the mania for Nazism that an endless march of films, books and documentaries will never slake. But why Brady and not some other notorious psychopath? Certainly there have been more successful killers in Britain and in the States, murderers far more monstrous in their modus operandi. For example, Charles Manson, though iconic, doesn't get nearly the amount of spilled ink in America that Brady gets in England. Part of this intense hatred has to do with the nature of the crime itself and the climate in which it took place. The early '60s was a more innocent time, in some ways, or at least better about keeping its hypocrisies hidden. Both Brady and Hindley were young and good looking, and on the surface they seemed like any other working-class couple of the era. With Brady, then 27, dressed in collar and jacket, and Hindley, then 23, in her bleached-blond bouffant and go-go attire, the two of them together could have been up to nothing more fiendish than a hot time at the local disco.

 

They met while working for a small chemical corporation near Manchester. Brady was a stock clerk with a criminal past, having done some time for petty thievery. He planned to execute future criminal enterprises, and maintained connections to Britain's underworld. More significantly, Brady was an intellectual with unusual predilections. Hitler, Dostoevski and De Sade were a few of his favorite authors; "Crime and Punishment" and "The Possessed" were his favorite books. Already he had declared himself an enemy of society, and he was but one step away from the Dostoevskian hypothesis that if God is dead, all things are permitted.

Myra Hindley, however, was nothing close to an intellectual. By all accounts, she was a completely average young Catholic girl with an affection for animals and children, perhaps a bit more naive and easily led than most. Not long after she went to work at the same firm as Brady, she fell in love with him. He spurned her for some time before coming around, but once he did, Hindley became slavishly devoted. Brady introduced her to S/M and amateur pornography, and filled her credulous noggin with his peculiar blend of moral relativism and the Marquis de Sade. She became his willing apprentice, his faithful servant. When his talk of criminal enterprises turned to talk of murder for pleasure, she procured his young victims for him, offering them rides or otherwise luring them in for the kill.

Together Brady and Hindley used the young boys and girls they abducted for sexual gratification, on occasion forcing them to pose for pornographic shots before raping and killing them. They buried the bodies on the moors, and sometimes even enjoyed picnics and tea parties on the graves. The snapshots they took of themselves in these gay vignettes later led investigators to the graves of 10-year-old Leslie Ann Downey and 12-year-old John Kilbride.

What gave the pair away was their attempt to recruit Hindley's brother-in-law David Smith. Smith walked in on Brady as he was finishing off 17-year-old Edward Evans with an ax in the council house Brady and Hindley shared with her grandmother. But instead of joining their homicidal cabal, Smith went to the cops, and that was the end of the duo's bloodstained adventures. On May 6, 1966, they both received life in prison for their crimes.

For many years, Hindley insisted that Brady alone killed their victims and that she was an unwilling accomplice. She later changed her tune and expressed sorrow for her deeds, all in the hopes of winning parole. But whenever the parole idea has been floated in the press, it's immediately been shot down. Brady for his part has demonstrated very little remorse and a longing to die unless his situation in the mental hospital improves. At one time hospital administrators allowed him access to a word processor and let him transcribe books into Braille for the blind, but no longer.

In his introduction to the book, Colin Wilson quotes from one of Brady's letter to him, part of an ongoing, 10-year correspondence between the two:

 

My life is over, so I can afford honesty of expression those with a future cannot. If I had my time over again, I'd get a government job and live off the state ... a pillar of society. As it is, I'm eager to die. I chose the wrong path and am finished.

 

Brady comes off as far more bellicose in "The Gates of Janus." Janus is the two-faced Roman god of doorways and beginnings, the entity from which January derives its name. The choice of this title implies several layers of meaning: Brady looking backward at his own actions; Brady as a duplicitous man with two sides to his personality; and so on. Janus' temple in the Roman Forum was a double-gated structure with high symbolic value to the Roman state. When the gates of Janus were closed, the Roman Empire was at peace. When they were open, it indicated that Rome was at war. In Brady's book, at least, those metaphorical gates are open, and it is with civilization that he does battle. Hence Brady's quote from Shakespeare's "King Richard III" at the beginning of the first chapter: "Let us to it pell-mell; if not to Heaven, then hand in hand to Hell." Like a modern-day incarnation of Milton's Satan, Brady delivers a discourse that is twisted, self-serving and strangely persuasive. Quoting liberally from the likes of Dylan Thomas, Byron, Nietzsche, Sun Tzu and Buddha, Brady mocks what he regards as the rank mendacity of the status quo. Society's laws and morality derive from the ruling classes and their need to maintain their collective position at the pinnacle of the food chain, according to Brady. In his eyes, these assorted generals, politicians, lawyers and so on are just as rapacious and cruel as any serial killer. He asks:

 

 

How many centuries would you suppose it would take for freelance "criminals" and "madmen" to equal the numerical carnage the "law-abiding" and "sane" can achieve in such a comparatively short span of time? One should cultivate discrimination in accepting or respecting one's moral "superiors." So often they certainly are not.

Brady may be technically correct here, but with a few more Osama bin Ladens in the world, freelance psychopaths might one day even the score. This skewering of modern mores takes up the first half of the book, with the second half given over to a far more intriguing section wherein Brady examines the crimes of his fellow serial killers. Like a literary critic analyzing his favorite novels, Brady takes on the mantle of a murderous eminence grise -- a professorial Hannibal Lecter holding forth on the practitioners of his métier.

Speaking of Richard Ramirez, known as the "Night Stalker," Brady in fact compares serial killers to writers, as they both pursue "the quest for immortality" with serial killers using "a knife rather than a pen, skin rather than paper." He further states that "anything less a medium than human material" is no substitute for the "actual experience of writing on living and breathing pages." Considering Ramirez's delight in raping and humiliating his victims before consigning them to oblivion, this commentary is especially chilling.

Brady is quite clear that he regards a certain class of serial killers to be superior beings, gods by their own choice. For him, John Wayne Gacy was "the perfect psychopath." And Ted Bundy takes on the mantle of some bloody demiurge:

 

Life was too short to be restricted and deformed by the selfish designs of the already privileged. [Bundy] would thoroughly enjoy giving them a lesson in idiosyncratic "justice," and lead them on a dance worthy of Zarathustra, "lover of leaps and tangents," monster of divine laughter! A Dionysiac demon was rising from the abyss of his subconscious, eager to take flight, sink talons and teeth into living flesh, savor the blood, rip out the soul.

 

Brady wanted his book to be published under the pseudonym "Francois Villon," the renowned 15th century criminal/poet of France, but his publisher persuaded him to use his own name. Brady barely touches on his own crimes, and Feral House's Parfrey says Brady's solicitor has an autobiography under lock and key. One wonders if Brady is toying with us from his living grave at Ashworth, trying to whet the public's appetite for his life story, to be published on his death.

Certainly, Brady commands an audience. Something about the mournful poetry of the moors and the folie à deux between Brady and Hindley has snared the imaginations of many in Britain and out. Manchester-bred rock star Morrissey wrote a controversial Smiths song, "Suffer the Little Children," wherein Brady's victims call out from the grave, "Oh, find me ... find me, nothing more/We are on a sullen misty moor."

American novelist Peter Sotos makes incessant references to the case in his work, and on the cover of his book "Tick," there's a picture of Pat Hodges, a little girl Brady and Hindley enlisted to read newspaper accounts of the children they had "disappeared" into a tape recorder. Painter Marcus Harvey incurred the wrath of visitors to the much-maligned 1997 "Sensation" show in London with a portrait of Hindley that viewers pelted with eggs.

Brady's writings, as macabre and vengeful as they are, cannot be easily dismissed, even for those who find them repulsive and repugnant. They offer a unique moral lesson, a glimpse into the abyss of a damned soul as well as an illustration of the reductio ad absurdum of the moral relativism Brady espouses. In the end, that moral relativism is the slipperiest of ethical slopes, leading those who embrace it without hesitation to the sort of self-made hell in which Brady evidently now dwells.

---

Notorious mass murderer allowed out on day passes

Murder suspect faces new escape charges
Braae allegedly hit guard but was quickly subdued

Associated Press

PAYETTE, Idaho _ The Payette County prosecutor's office is charging Michael "Cowboy Mike" Braae after he allegedly attacked a guard and attempted to break out of the Payette County Jail.

Authorities say Braae, an itinerant suspected in the murders of several women in the Northwest, slammed his cell door into a jailer Saturday during a routine security check.

The guard called for help and Braae was quickly subdued. No one was seriously injured. Payette County Sheriff Bob Barowsky said Braae was never in danger of being able to leave the jail.

Barowsky said Braae used sheets and a pillow to make it look like he was in bed. He pushed the door into the guard, who fell backward but managed to alert others with his radio. Another guard and four inmate workers rushed from the kitchen and subdued Braae.

Barowsky said it was unclear how the cell door was unsecured. Braae had recently returned from making a phone call. He may have used a piece of a plastic cup to jimmy the lock.

Braae, 41, is also known as "Cowboy Mike" because of his preference for western hats and boots. He is being held in Payette County on charges of eluding police and aggravated assault stemming from his July 20 capture. He led officers on a car chase, shot at them and jumped off a 40-foot bridge into the Snake River before being taken into custody.

Police were looking for him in their investigation into the deaths, disappearances, rapes or assaults of seven women in Washington and Oregon.

Braae had been placed in an isolation cell after making degrading comments to female corrections officers, Barowsky said, and he remained there after he tried to break the teeth off a plastic fork and partially shredded a blanket to make a lasso.

Braae will be tried Jan. 22 on the Idaho charges. He is also suspected in the deaths or disappearances of six other women dating back to late 1996.

Wednesday, January 2, 2002

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PAYETTE, Idaho -- A man accused of trying to murder a woman in Yakima -- and under investigation in the death of one woman in Lacey and the disappearance of another -- slipped out of his cell briefly Saturday night before he was subdued by four inmate workers and a guard, the Payette County sheriff said.

Inmate Michael "Cowboy Mike" Braae, 41, attacked a guard before he was brought under control by a second guard and the four workers, said Sheriff Bob Barowsky.

It was not clear how Braae opened his cell door. The door might not have been properly shut after Braae was let out to make a phone call, or Braae may have used a piece from a plastic cup found in his cell to jimmy the lock, Barowsky said.

Braae, known as Cowboy Mike because of his preference for Western hats and boots, is being held in Payette County on charges of eluding police and aggravated assault linked to his July 20 capture. Idaho State Police say he led officers on a car chase, shot at them and jumped 40 feet from a bridge into the Snake River before he was caught.

Police were looking for him as part of an investigation into the deaths, disappearances, rapes or assaults of several women in Washington and Oregon.

Braae is to face trial in Payette Jan. 22 on two counts of aggravated assault against a police officer and one count of eluding police.

After his trial in Idaho, Braae may face extradition to Yakima, where he is accused of attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of Marchelle Morgan of Yelm in July, and also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Braae also is being investigated in the death of Lori Jones of Lacey, who was last seen alive with him in July.

He has not been charged in that case.

Slaying suspect scuffles with guard at Idaho jail

By The Associated Press

	Michael "Cowboy Mike" Braae
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PAYETTE, Idaho — Michael "Cowboy Mike" Braae briefly got out of his jail cell over the weekend and attacked a guard before being subdued by four inmate workers and another corrections officer, according to Payette County officials.

It was unclear how Braae got the cell door open Saturday night, county Sheriff Bob Barowsky said.

Braae, 41, is being held on charges of eluding police and aggravated assault stemming from his July 20 capture. Idaho state police say he led officers on a car chase, shot at them and jumped off a 40-foot bridge into the Snake River before being arrested.

Police were looking for him as part of an investigation into the deaths, disappearances, rapes or assaults of several women in Washington and Oregon.

Saturday evening, Braae used sheets and a pillow to make it look as if he were in bed, then pushed the cell door open and into a corrections officer who was checking on him, Barowsky said.

The guard fell backward, and Braae tried to wrestle the officer's radio away so he could not report anything, but in the scuffle the guard pushed a button that alerted another officer, then four inmate workers from the kitchen. The other officer pulled Braae off the guard.

No one was injured.

Braae, known as Cowboy Mike because of his preference for Western hats and boots, was in an isolation cell, where he had been placed after making degrading comments to female guards.

Braae is to face trial in Payette on Jan. 22 on charges of aggravated assault against a police officer and of eluding police. After that, he may face extradition to Yakima, where he is accused of first-degree attempted murder in the shooting of Marchelle Morgan in July and faces a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Braae also is being investigated in the death of Lori Jones, a Lacey, Wash., woman last seen with him in July. He has not been charged in that case.

Detectives in other jurisdictions are looking into whether Braae is linked to other disappearances and assaults. The cases include:

• Velina Larson, 37, a homeless woman last seen in a Portland suburb in September 1997. Her remains were found in a vacant lot in January 1998.

• Deb VanLuven, 45, of Lacey, last seen in March 1997. She had been a regular at the Olympia bar where Jones was last seen with Braae. For a while, VanLuven and Braae shared a Lacey hotel room, where neighbors reported frequent screaming.

• Phyllis Lewellen, a Kelso woman who disappeared in December 1996.

• Susan Ault, 39, a waitress, who vanished from Rosburg in Southwest Washington after she was seen arguing with Braae last June 24.

• A 1999 attempted killing and rape of a woman in Pierce County. No charges have been filed in those cases.

Police Probing Deaths of 12 Women

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. –– Delores Turner has found a way to cope with the unanswered questions about the death of her 33-year-old daughter, whose body was found dumped in a vacant lot nearly two years ago – she simply doesn't ask them.

But Turner's 16-year-old grandson isn't so understanding about the killing of his mother, Seriece Johnson.

"He wants to know who did this," Turner said in a recent interview. "I say it doesn't matter if we find out, because God knows."

Answers have been slow to come in the deaths of Johnson and 11 other women whose bodies were found since 1999 in this impoverished city or the surrounding metropolitan area that stretches across the Mississippi River into St. Louis.

Until recently, the East St. Louis Police Department had turned down offers by the FBI to help investigate the deaths, insisting on solving the crimes alone and making little headway. But the department has a new chief now, who gladly works with the FBI, Illinois State Police and the St. Louis and St. Charles, Mo., police on the cases.

"There is somebody or several people out there killing folks," said Chief Delbert Marion, a 24-year department veteran who took over in September. "Eventually, they're going to get caught."

Authorities believe they've made progress in determining whether the deaths were the work of a single serial killer or of multiple killers who prey on the same type of victim: poor black women who sell sex to support their drug or alcohol habits.

Police say they have a suspect in four of the killings – including Johnson's – in which the bodies were found in East St. Louis. The suspect, whom police won't identify, is now in prison on an unrelated charge. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the other killings are linked in any way.

Marion insists his beleaguered department – underfunded and overburdened – is up to the task. But he admits he doesn't have the staff to assign anyone to the cases full-time – and probably wouldn't if he did, since leads are drying up.

The cash-strapped city of 31,000 people has shrunk its police department from more than 90 officers three years ago to 61 today, Marion said, while the population and high crime rate haven't diminished.

"If we had more police officers patrolling the streets, people wouldn't come here and feel they can get away with dumping bodies," Mayor Debra Powell said.

At first, the deaths drew little attention. In a city plagued by drugs and violence, the discovery of the first decomposed body in an abandoned house in November 1999 hardly seemed out of the ordinary. Police say the victim was a drug user who frequented dangerous areas.

But the gruesome discoveries continued, within about a 10-mile radius. The bodies of two more women, one of them Johnson, were found three months later under a train trestle on the other side of town. Two more were found months after that nearby – one by a dog that was seen chewing on a human bone.

One was found in St. Louis; two more a few miles away in St. Charles. Another was found in Washington Park, close enough to this city that the East St. Louis Police Department is investigating the death.

There are similarities. Eleven of the 12 women were black. Each was a heavy drug user or drinker, police say, and most sold sex when they needed money. But none was a prostitute in a conventional way, said Lt. Ron Henderson, head of the homicide division in the St. Louis Police Department.

That makes the crimes harder to solve, Henderson said, because the victims didn't have a pimp or a network of other prostitutes to keep track of them.

Some of the women were killed in similar ways, by strangulation or a blow to the head; in many cases, the bodies were too decomposed to tell. Some had ligature marks on wrists or ankles. Some had been stuffed into trash bags; a few were found only feet apart.

St. Charles Sheriff's Lt. Dave Kaiser said it's been hard finding witnesses to cooperate – even if they knew the victims. "These murders don't seem to worry them," he said.

Equally puzzling is why East St. Louis police didn't work with other authorities earlier in the investigation.

The mayor says former Chief J.W. Cowan never needed the FBI's help because he was making progress on his own. She declined to describe that progress, saying to do so would compromise the investigation. Cowan, now retired, could not be reached for comment by The Associated Press.

The man who said he made the offer, FBI agent Reggie Joseph, has said he doesn't know why Cowan never took him up on it.

The FBI's acting agent in charge of its Fairview Heights office, Matt Iskrzycki, won't discuss the past, either. "We're continuing to help, that's all I can say," Iskrzycki said.

Religion The Motivation For Green River Killings?
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December 21, 2001
 
By Liz Rocca

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KING COUNTY - Could the Green River murders be motivated by a twisted view of religion?

A local psychologist insists they were.

Dr. Ed Schau, a clinical psychologist in Bellevue, says he's been trying for years to convince police, but no one will listen.

Gary Ridgway, of Auburn, has been charged with four of the Green River murders. He has not been convicted.

So it isn't clear who the Green River killer is, or if he's actually been caught.

Whoever the killer is, Dr. Schau believes he has insight into what drove him to take the lives of 49 women.

According to Schau, the killer left critical clues at a number of the Green River crime scenes.

In particular, Dr. Schau points to the body of Carol Christensen.

When she was found by mushroom hunters in a wooded area outside Maple Valley in May of 1984, it was clear her body had been deliberately staged.

"The first element to recognize is that her head is covered with a paper sack" says Schau, relying on his memory of a crime scene photo police showed him 4 years ago.

"Across her throat is a fish," says Schau "Another is across her left breast, or her heart. You see the obvious religious symbolism."

The fish are well-known symbols of Christ, says Schau.

But there's more.

Christensen's hands lay on top of her stomach, one across the other. In one hand a patty of meat, in the other a bottle of wine.

To Schau, the meat and wine are symbolic of the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ.

But the wine is important too.

"It's not just any wine," says Schau. "The brand of wine is Lambrusco."

"In baptism, one is washed in the blood of the lamb. The bottle was laid out so you could clearly see the label," he said. "To me it's clear the killer meant to send a message."

Dr. Schau believes the Green River killer is a religious psychotic, who has twisted his knowledge of scripture to suit his deadly needs.

"I believe he's projecting on to these victims his own guilt, his own need for redemption."

Schau says a number of the Green River bodies bore religious symbols. For example, the first five victims were found in and around the Green River.

"I believe he participates in the ritual of baptism," says Schau.

Schau believes the killer put the women in the river to baptize them.

Police have also confirmed pyramid-shaped rocks were found in their bodies.Schau sees the rocks as a symbol of the trinity - the father, son and holy spirit.

"So what you also see there is an attempt to say, by the killer, that not only have I murdered these women and punished them, but the punishment is also a form of their healing."

Years ago, Schau took his theory to the Green River Task Force.

Some detectives dismissed him. Others just listened.

But Schau believes his theory is critical insight into the mind of the killer.

"I did believe and I continue to believe that it's the most important profile element among all the elements they might have," he said.

Over the years, some Green River detectives have wondered if there was a religious element to the murders.

But most believe the Green River came in to play only because the killer hoped to wash away evidence, not sin.

---

Judge rejects lawsuit by Strangler victim's family
by J.M. Lawrence
Tuesday, December 25, 2001

State investigators still have the right to keep bodily fluids, jewelry, sweaters and photos taken 37 years ago from the Boston Strangler's last victim, a Suffolk judge ruled yesterday.

``So long as the criminal investigation remains ongoing and the items are required as evidence, the plaintiffs have no right to possess that evidence,'' said Superior Court Judge Vieri Guy Volterra.

Volterra threw out a lawsuit filed by the family of Mary Sullivan. She was 19 when she was found strangled to death on Jan. 4, 1964, in her Beacon Hill bed with a ``Happy New Year'' card propped against her foot.

Sullivan's family called the ruling disappointing and vowed to solve her murder themselves.

``We're going to gather the evidence and let the public decide,'' Sullivan's nephew Casey Sherman said yesterday.

Earlier this month in Washington, a team of scientists announced that DNA tests conducted on Sullivan's exhumed body show confessed Strangler Albert DeSalvo was not her killer.

His relatives and Sullivan's kin have said they believe attorney F. Lee Bailey coerced the handyman rapist into claiming he was the Strangler.

DeSalvo confessed to killing 13 women from 1962-1964 but was never charged. He was shanked to death in prison in 1973.

Sullivan's relatives are close to naming a man whom they believe killed the young woman, according to Sherman.

``The minute we put him at the (crime) scene, we'll file a wrongful death suit that day,'' Sherman said.

Attorneys for the families say the case will continue in federal court.

Beth Stone, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Tom Reilly's office, said yesterday the state's investigation is stalled only because the DeSalvo family refuses to provide a blood sample for DNA testing against the fluids taken from Sullivan in 1964.

``Once again the court has backed us up in our insistence that this investigation be done in a professional and impartial manner,'' Stone said. ``We hope the plaintiffs use this as an opportunity to allow us do our job and move forward with DNA testing.''

The AG has not subpoenaed the sample.

Volterra said the court cannot interfere in the investigation.

``While this court has sympathy for the Sullivan and DeSalvo families, it cannot involve itself in nonjudicial decisions such as determining how, when and whether a criminal investigation will be conducted,'' Volterra said.

Sullivan's younger sister Diane Dodd had requested the state return items including a charm bracelet she gave Sullivan as a child. But out of 14 pages of things taken from Sullivan's home, the state has located only six pages of items, according to Sherman.

---

KOMO 4 News Exclusive: A Witness In The Green River Case?
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December 26, 2001
 
By Liz Rocca

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KING COUNTY - Gary Ridgway, charged with four of the Green River murders, was arrested a few weeks ago.

But should it have happened 18 years ago?

KOMO 4 News was granted an exclusive interview with the two men whose amateur detective work first led the Green River task force to Ridgway.

Robert Woods remembers the night -- April 30, 1983 -- when 18-year-old prostitute Marie Malyar disappeared. Woods, who was Malyar's boyfriend and -- he admits -- her pimp, was watching from a nearby parking lot as Malyar stood at a bus stop on Pacific Highway South looking to turn a trick.

Within minutes, her first date drove up to the curb.

"The way he sped up on her, the way he sped up on her was what caught my eye more than anything," Woods said.

Woods watched as he saw her get into a pickup truck.

"It had a primer spot up by the tailgate, up by the back wheel, from what I remember," Woods said.

Woods says he was alarmed by the way the truck sped away. Johns always drove away slow, he said.

Woods jumped in his car and followed. He pulled alongside the truck and caught a glimpse of Marie.

"All I seen was a lot of hand movements. Yea, a lot of hand movements. I don't know if she was talking fast, if she was hysterical or what," Woods said.

But the truck sped away again, and disappeared.

Three days later, Woods told Maria's father Jose Malvar that his daughter was gone. Malvar insisted the pair go looking for that pickup truck with primer spot.

After half a day's search, they found it.

"And when we went into the cul-de-sac I pointed the truck out," Woods said.

Turns out, the truck was parked in front of the home of Gary Ridgway.

Jose Malvar and Woods called police. But when officers questioned Ridgway, he denied knowing anything about Marie's disappearance.

Police were stymied.

Woods had only seen the driver's profile and couldn't say for sure it was Ridgway.

"They said they couldn't do nothing about it," Woods said.

Meanwhile, Jose Malvar said, "I was angry, very angry because... what happened to my daughter?"

Today, Gary Ridgway is charged with four of the 49 Green River murders.

Looking back, Jose Malvar and Woods are frustrated and angry.

"People would still be alive today, I truly believe that," Woods said.

Woods and Jose Malvar wish police had pressed harder 18 years ago, when their amateur sleuthing led police right to Ridgway's door.

It was Jose Malvar's tip that eventually led detectives to take a saliva sample from Ridgway in 1987.

Police say crime lab analysts later used the samples to match Ridgway's DNA to three of the Green River victims.

---

Bar-Jonah trial set in Missoula
The Associated Press
GREAT FALLS (AP) – District Judge Kenneth Neill says he has confirmed a May 13 trial date in Missoula for the murder trial Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, who is charged with kidnapping and killing 10-year-old Zachary Ramsay more than four years ago.

Neill said previously he planned to have the trial in Missoula but only recently did he make certain that a courtroom would be available on that date.

Bar-Jonah, 44, was charged one year ago in the Ramsay case.

Before the May 13 trial, Bar-Jonah is scheduled to be tried on Feb. 12 in Butte for the alleged sexual assault of three Great Falls boys.

For more than two years, Bar-Jonah has been held in the Cascade County regional jail. His bail is set at $1.8 million.

---

Police: Murders Of Two Gay Men May Be Connected Men Both Lived In N.E. Miami, Helped Those In Need

12/31/2001

By MARK STEVENSON / The Associated Press

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Authorities in this rough border city are again trying to convince people they've broken a series of rape-murders that have claimed 76 young women since 1993.

The latest arrests — two men charged with killing eight women whose largely skeletal remains were found in a gully in November — are similar to previously ballyhooed apprehensions. There is no physical evidence, and the case against the men is based on confessions they allege were extracted by police torture.

Bodies of women continue to turn up in the desert, as do allegations of sloppy investigation and evidence tampering by police, charges that also dogged cases against the previous 20 men arrested.

Even some investigators are upset. One top investigator for Chihuahua state police, who asked to remain anonymous until his resignation is made formal, said the most recent arrests appear to be a frame-up.

Opening a blue plastic bag, he took out a yellow-brown, jawless skull of a woman. "We found this two days ago, not a mile from police headquarters," he said.

It is unclear how the woman died. Her skull had probably lain in the desert for at least six months and may have been partially chewed by dogs or desert rats after her death — a common fate for the young victims whose bodies have turned up by the dozens around Juarez, which sits across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

Most of the 76 victims were mere skeletons, but forensic tests on better-preserved corpses determined they had been raped, beaten and strangled. They were all young, slim, dark-haired and were last seen walking on a street or boarding a bus. All were found partly clothed.

"The only thing we know about the real killers is that they will keep on killing," the investigator said.

President Vicente Fox was so upset by the continuing murders that he ordered federal investigators onto the case — and he said he would accept help from the FBI, a serious step in a nation touchy about interference from its northern neighbor.

State prosecutors have broadcast a half-hour videotape of heavily edited confessions by the two suspects in the eight rape-murders discovered in November.

The women apparently were killed over a span of 15 months. The two men were arrested three days after the bodies were found as prosecutors faced a public outcry over yet another spate of murders.

The suspects — bus driver Victor Garcia Uribe and his friend Gustavo Gonzalez Meza — are shown on the tape woodenly answering off-camera prompting about their alleged participation in the slayings.

"Yeah, some of them were wearing little strap blouses that practically didn't cover anything," Gonzalez Meza is heard saying in one of the few points at which he shows any emotion.

The tape also features an unidentified young girl saying Garcia tried to seduce her aboard his bus and a woman who claims he raped her in a car in 1996.

Defense lawyers say the two suspects were tortured into confessing, the same claim made by most of the 20 suspects arrested since 1994 for previous murders. Only a handful were ever convicted, and some of those convictions were overturned on appeal.

Prosecutors deny the men were tortured. But Carlos Gutierrez Casas, warden of the prison where the two suspects are detained, said a medical report he ordered shows the men had injuries, "mostly bruises," when police brought them in.

Two days after making that statement — and on the same day he agreed to allow The Associated Press to interview the prisoners — he was replaced as warden, and the interview was canceled. Prison officials would not say why he was replaced.

Prosecutors said they could not release the unedited tape of the confessions. "But I was there when they confessed, and Gonzalez Meza told me if we hadn't stopped them, they would have kept on killing," said Juan Carmona, a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office.

Theories have multiplied — and been discarded — about possible motives in the murders. Among the speculation: The women's deaths were taped for "snuff" films. They were killed in a satanic ritual. The slayings were an initiation rite for drug traffickers.

Carmona said the men testified they "did it for kicks, for fun."

There is no physical evidence linking the two to the murders. Prosecutors decided not to take DNA samples from them, even though genetic evidence was recovered from a woman killed in a similar fashion around the same time.

The soon-to-resign state investigator said police had removed a back seat from the alleged murder vehicle to make it appear better suited to carrying out the crimes. He also said police might have tried to substitute urine samples in drug tests to further incriminate the suspects.

Reporters visiting the scene soon after the bodies were discovered reported finding women's underwear and other articles possibly related to the killings that had been overlooked by police.

The families of the murder victims — most of whom still have not been positively identified — say they want police to look for solid, physical evidence in the case, not more questionable confessions.

"I am not convinced these men are the ones," said Celia de la Rosa, 41, whose 19-year-old daughter, Guadalupe, disappeared in September 2000 and was identified as one of the eight victims found in November. "Some of the things they said in the confession didn't match where my daughter was, or what she was wearing."

"I want solid, professional evidence, not more speculation, because that hurts worse than the truth," she said.

Associated Press

    IONE -- One of the state's most notorious serial killers was denied parole Thursday for the ninth consecutive time and will continue serving a life sentence for the murders he said he committed at the command of voices in his head.

    Herbert W. Mullin said he killed 13 people before his arrest in February 1973. He was convicted of 11 killings in Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties.

    After a two-hour hearing, the California Board of Prison Terms determined Mullin was unsuitable for parole at this time and denied it for four years, said Sean McCray, employee relations officer at Mule Creek State Prison, where Mullin now is kept.

    In a written release, Santa Cruz County Assistant District Attorney Ariadne Symons said Mullin never should be released from prison "due to the number and magnitude of his crimes, their senseless and horrific nature, and the risk he would pose to the community if he were released."

    Mullin, who claimed insanity, testified that he killed on telepathic orders from his father and that he did so to prevent a major earthquake predicted for January 1973.

POSTPONEMENT: Defense attorneys need more time

December 28, 2001

The Associated Press

Prosecutors have agreed to delay until April 17 a decision on whether to seek the death penalty against Gary Leon Ridgway, a semi-truck painter charged in four slayings in the Green River Killer case.

King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng had planned to make his decision by Jan. 18 - 30 days after Ridgway, 52, of the Federal Way area, pleaded not guilty to four counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

But Ridgway's defense attorneys asked for more time to gather information they hope will persuade Maleng not to make it a capital case.

The delay still must be approved by a judge. A hearing was scheduled for Jan. 3 before King County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell, prosecutor's spokesman Dan Donohoe said Thursday.

Ridgway is charged in the deaths of Marcia Chapman, Cynthia Hinds, Opal Mills and Carol Christensen.

They are on a list of 49 women - most of them prostitutes or runaways - killed between 1982 and 1984. The first victims were found in or near the Green River in Kent.

Ridgway was arrested Nov. 30, as he left his job at Kenworth Truck Co. in Renton, where he had worked as a truck painter since 1969.

Results from recent DNA tests linked him to three of the victims, and circumstantial evidence linked him to a fourth, investigators said.

He is being held without bail at the King County Jail.

Lawyers want 3 extra months to work on case against death

Friday, December 28, 2001

By TRACY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Attorneys for Gary Ridgway will ask for three more months to put together arguments why King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng shouldn't pursue the death penalty against him in four Green River slayings.

Under state law, Maleng has until Jan. 17 to decide if he will seek to have Ridgway executed, if convicted. Ridgway's lawyers are now asking that the deadline -- 30 days from his Dec. 18 arraignment -- be pushed back to mid-April.

Maps, photos more headlines

The defense team is preparing a "mitigation packet" about the 52-year-old commercial truck painter from Auburn and needs more time, attorney Mark Prothero said yesterday.

Such a packet can lay out various factors that may or may not apply to Ridgway, such as whether a defendant suffers from mental problems, lacks a criminal history or seems unlikely to pose a danger if he is locked away for life. The information is not generally made public.

A brief hearing is set for Thursday before King County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell. The defense request for a few extra months isn't unusual, and prosecutors won't object.

"We generally will allow defense attorneys more time to prepare a mitigation packet," said Maleng's spokesman, Dan Donohoe.

The case is far more complex than most. The King County Sheriff's Office has been investigating the slayings for nearly two decades, creating a mountain of reports and potential evidence that Ridgway's lawyers won't begin reviewing until next month, Prothero said.

Ridgway is charged with four counts of aggravated murder, a crime that carries only two possible punishments: execution or life in prison. A life sentence in Washington means just that -- there is no possibility of release.

If Maleng decides to seek the death penalty -- and Ridgway's attorneys are convinced he will -- it would take a unanimous jury both to convict the man and to set the stage for execution.

Ridgway is charged in the deaths of Marcia Chapman, 31, Opal Mills, 16, Carol Ann Christensen, 21, and Cynthia Hinds, 17. Authorities say recent DNA tests tied the man to three of the victims, prompting his arrest last month in the early 1980s slayings.

Investigators say they don't yet know if Ridgway had anything to do with the deaths of 45 other young women -- many runaways and prostitutes -- between 1982 and 1984. They say the so-called Green River Killer could be more than one person.

Ridgway has pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set.

Wrongful-death suit filed by kin of Green River victim

SEATTLE — The mother of a Green River victim has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Gary Leon Ridgway, the 52-year-old Auburn man charged with four counts of aggravated murder.

"It's to keep (Ridgway) from making any money off books and whatever," Kathy Mills said yesterday.

Mills, a church secretary who lives in Covington, said she is represented in the lawsuit by Seattle lawyer William Bailey.

Her daughter, 16-year-old Opal Mills, was one of the first known victims in the Green River case, which police have said involves 49 women either missing or found dead.

Ridgway is charged with killing Mills, Cynthia Hinds and Marcia Chapman in August 1982 and Carol Ann Christensen in May 1983.