GREEN RIVER: GRK’s Other Victims

Gary Ridgway AKA the Green River Killer murdered women in Washington state from 1982 to 1998, but possibly could have continued killing until 2001 when he was finally apprehended. Ridgway confessed to 71 murders but was only prosecuted for 49. So who are these other 22 victims? A local true crime researcher has put together an extensive list of murdered, missing, and unidentified women- to try and figure that out. On this episode of Washed Away we’ll be talking about the unknown victims of the Green River Killer.

Seeing the faces of all of these women just breaks my heart. And it’s hard to believe there could be so many other victims still out there… I highly recommend reading all three parts of Savannah’s research which you can find here, here, and here.

Sources for this episode include: Reddit, The News Tribune, CNN, King County, and The NYT.

If you have any information about the missing or murdered people discussed in this episode, please reach out to the King County Sheriff’s department - you can email them at Greenrivertips@metrokc.gov

Transcript-

Ashley: Gary Ridgway AKA the Green River Killer murdered women in Washington state from 1982 to 1998, but possibly could have continued killing until 2001 when he was finally apprehended. Ridgway confessed to 71 murders but was only prosecuted for 49. So who are these other 22 victims? A local true crime researcher has put together an extensive list of murdered, missing, and unidentified women- to try and figure that out. On this episode of Washed Away we’ll be talking about the unknown victims of the Green River Killer.

Savannah: Gary Ridgway was able to confess to 71 murders. I mean, he confessed to remember killing 71 people and admitted as well, that he, he doesn't know how many people he killed.He doesn't seem to have a really good recollection. He himself has said in recent years that he thinks that he left at least 80 bodies in king county alone. And people like David Reichert and, you know, Bob Keppel and other people who are all in agreement as a task force thinks that it's probably 80 to 100 is a, probably a more accurate count for Ridgway's victims.

Ashley: That’s Savannah, a true crime researcher and writer that lives here in Washington state. I found her on Reddit where she goes by the name Quirky_Motor and she recently posted a three part deep dive on all of the potential victims of Gary Leon Ridgway, known by the media as the Green River Killer. She mentioned Dave Reichert and Robert Keppel, who were both on the Green River Task Force in the 80s and 90s. Reichert was the King County Sheriff at the time and Keppel was a Senior Criminal Investigator. You’re gonna hear a lot of names and dates in this episode and it might be hard to keep track, so I apologize in advance. I’ll try to be as clear as possible as Savannah and I go through all of the cases that could be connected to Gary Ridgway.

Savannah: People always think, okay, Ridgway killed people with high risk lifestyles. So they're looking at people are transient, you know, history of sex work, hitchhiking, all these things. But when you actually look at Ridgeway’s victims, they're really, really varied. And so it makes the victim pool so much bigger than people initially thought

Ashley: When the Green River Killer was caught in 2001 and prosecuted for his many crimes, he was offered a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. The terms of that deal included that Ridgway would help investigators locate and identify the remains of some of his victims whose bodies had yet to be found in King County, which is where Seattle and the suburbs around it - including the Green River - are located. And in the future, if prosecutors could prove that Ridgway murdered victims outside of King County, the death penalty would allegedly be back on the table. However, in 2018 the Washington state Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was unconstitutional and it has since been abolished here. But just south of us in Oregon… it’s technically still legal, though there has been a moratorium on executions since 2011. I bring this up because Savannah thinks the threat of the death penalty is why Ridgway wouldn’t confess to certain murders, like the ones he possibly committed in Oregon.

Savannah: The biggest ones are probably Tammie Liles and Angela Girdner. Their bodies were found in Oregon. Some, some people truly think that Tammie and Angela were not green river victims and that they just were victims of another predator. But others think that these were the two women he killed actually outside of Washington state. 

Ashley: Interesting. Do you know why, other than the timeframe, why they're kind of looked at as, as Ridgeway victims? 

Savannah: Yeah. You know, specifically Tammie Liles was actually, she was from north Seattle, but she worked like many of the girls that she worked, you know, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland from other, the girls went to Yakima, Vancouver. Um, they kind of worked they called it the circuit, right. So worked in Seattle for a while and then they'd hear, oh, the money's better in Tacoma or, or there'd be a warrant out for their arrest. And so Tammie was from Seattle, she was working, um, on the strip, on the Sea-Tac strip when she went missing. So because of that, um, she was always considered a Ridgway victim. Now, Tammie has kind of a strange story. She left her home in 1982. Um, she's from the Everett Snohomish area. And she, you know, told her family, she kind of, you know, like many of them had kind of a transient type lifestyle, told her family, see ya. 

Savannah: Now they, after they didn't hear from her for a while, they reported her missing. And then in 1984, they got a call from Tammie or at least someone pretending to be Tammie. And she talked to her family on the phone and she said that she was living and in Tacoma and she met someone, she was going to get married. And so her family called the task force and took her name off the list. They said, oh yeah, Tim is fine. Then in 1988, they still hadn't heard for Tammie four more years passed. They don't hear from Tam. And so they report her missing again. So it was kind of an odd situation. Police have always wondered if the woman that called them in 1984 really was Tammie And the truth is, you know, we'll never know whether that woman who called was Tammie or not, but either way, Tammie Liles remains were actually found, I believe in like the Portland medical examiners office in the late 1990s. 

Savannah: As just a Jane DOE. They didn't know who she was. And then they were cleaning out the medical examiner's office. And they were like, oh my gosh, Jane DOE back here. And she was able to be matched as Tammie Liles in 1998. And that's when they realized she's from Seattle area. She was known to work the Sea-Tac strip and was last seen in either 82 or 84, right in the middle of Ridgway's spree. Now Tammie often worked in Portland and the area that, um, was kind of known for, for sex work in Portland was it's called the camp. And Tammie, while she was working in the camp, made friends with Angela Girdner. She wasn't known to work in Seattle. She was actually a high school student. So because Tammie and Angela often were seen together, working together, Angela was thought of as a possible Ridgway victim as well. 

Savannah: And Tammie and Angela's remains were actually found together. So because of that, that's why we can really say that Angela, we believe is a Ridgway victim. If, if Tammie is right, but if Tammie's not a victim, then that just opens a lot of possibilities now because they're in Oregon because their bodies were dumped in Oregon. Um, Ridgway has kept pretty mum about their cases. Ridgeway did kill two women in Seattle or in the Seattle area who he then dumped in Portland. And that was Shirley Sherrill and Denise Bush. And we know both of those women were last seen alive in Seattle. So because of that, he has been charged with those because he committed the crime in Seattle. And the only crime he committed in Oregon was just dumping, dumping the bodies there. And that dump site was only a mile from where less than a mile from where Tammie and Angela were found. So yeah, so either they're victims of Ridgway or it's the world's biggest coincidence,

Ashley: Another way to try and figure out whether certain murder victims are connected to Ridgway is by their cause of death. He strangled his victims, usually with his hands. But because most of these women’s bodies were found years after they were killed, there was really no way to know for sure how they died. Again, Ridgway did confess to killing 71 people but only received consecutive life sentences for 49, one of which was added on later. Just because a murderer has been arrested and convicted, doesn’t necessarily mean that closure has been given to families and that’s especially true in this case because there are just so many other possible victims. It’s hard to imagine really… that at least 71 people… though likely many more… who were daughters and sisters and mothers, who had goals and dreams and simply just the right to exist in this world as women - had all of their lives cut short by one man. During Ridgway’s trial, there was actually a minute a silence held for each of the 49 victims… that’s almost an hour of silence. Those of us that consume a lot of True Crime content are rarely phased by gruesome details and victim counts, so I wanted to take a second to really let that number sink in. And what’s worse is the way that all of these victims are often spoken about… because a majority of them were sex workers. 

Savannah: You know, people for whatever reason, they always remember that Ted Bundy abducted two women in one day. But what people don't seem to realize is that Gary Ridgway was killing women more frequently than once a week for almost a year, which makes him frankly, incredibly terrifying, um, which is pretty, pretty sickening also. Um, it's a really weird thing that happens in the true crime community, but because Ted Bundy was interviewed about Ridgway in the late 1980s by Bob Keppel, while he was sitting on Florida's death row, it really seems that Bundy was able to twist the narrative about Gary Ridgway and Ted Bundy always sets forth this narrative, that Ted was a, you know, quote unquote smart killer. He killed low-risk victims. And he thought of himself as a very savvy criminal. And he thinks that Ridgway who, you know, we didn't know was Gary Ridgway at the time, but who he thought that the river man was just killing street people and was not a sophisticated criminal. And for whatever reason people think that is true. Even though these are words out of Ted Bundy's mouth, he's like, do we really want to believe Ted Bundy about anything? Cause I don't, I don't. So I think that's allowed, you know, it's really allowed this narrative to be twisted. 

Ashley: You’ll often hear people say that Ted Bundy helped catch the Green River Killer, but the truth is he didn’t. DNA caught Gary Ridgway. But Bundy did talk to the task force about the mentality of a serial killer and ways he thought they could track down the quote unquote Riverman. So we already went over the possible Oregon victims, now let’s discuss the people who Ridgway admitted to killing in Washington state, but wasn’t prosecuted for - either due to lack of evidence or because their bodies have yet to be found. Unfortunately in so many of these cases there’s very little information to go on. Kasee Ann Lee was only 16 when she was last seen on August 28, 1982 when she left her home to walk to a nearby store just east of Pacific Highway South. Her husband reported her missing 2 days later. Patricia Ann Osborn was 19 when she was last seen on October 28, 1983 near the 99 Motel on Aurora. She had a date that night. And then there was Kelly Kay McGinnis…

Savannah: Those three women are women that Ridgway confessed to killing, but because we don't have a body, he has not been prosecuted. Now, if, if a body of one of those women is found, that will just be added to his life sentence. I think his initial plea deal was for 47 murders. Now it's up to, um, you know, 49 Ridgway specifically said, yes, I killed them. But because we don't have their bodies, he has not been officially prosecuted, but they are on the official green river list for Kelly Kay McGinnis, Ridgway knew specifically, he killed her. Now Kelly Kay was more of a, um, she, she did sex work, but she was more of a high class call girl. She worked at a hotel and she was from a very wealthy family and she dated, you know, wealthier John's really so Ridgway remembered picking her up specifically. 

Savannah: And I think because maybe she's a little different than his other victims. Um, at least with where he pitcked them up, he told police that he killed her and then took them to a body of someone who matched that description. But wasn't actually Kelly Kay McGinnis. He actually took them to a body of a girl named April Buttram but from who was a different girl, but physically, they looked very similar. So while he has admitted specifically to killing Kelly Kay McGinnis, because she's never been found, he's never been prosecuted for that one. Kasee Ann Lee also same things. Do you remember picking her up around a certain time? He remembered killing her, but because we don't have her body and same thing with Patricia Osborn, he was able to remember killing them, but without a body, without any corroborating evidence has not been added to his plea deal. 
Ashley: There are also Ridgway victims that have been found, but never identified: often referred to as Bones 17 and Bones 20. A third victim, Bones 10, was finally IDed in early 2021 thanks to DNA. We now know she was Wendy Stephens from Colorado. 

Ashley: So now that, uh, Wendy has been identified, there are two unidentified victims, that's bones 17 and bones 20. And I think I saw that you submitted a tip on who you thought bones 20 might be. 

Savannah: I did. I’ve actually submitted a couple. So one woman who was actually found twice was, um, was bones 17. Some of her bones were found in 1984. And then someone else found a school in like the same area in 1986, I think. And they were determined to belong to the same person. So you know, animals move things around, you know, Western Washington is so wet. I mean, I know that, you know, Ridgway would partially burry people and they, you know, part of him would like get sucked down into the mud. Um, just, I mean, cause it's just so wet and he did like to put a lot of people on, you know, stream beds and things like that. I have submitted a couple people, you know, in the past, I thought it was possible bones 17 were. But when I heard back from the green river task force, it was kind of interesting. I believe I emailed them. And they said that they think bone 17 is actually a girl named, uh, Diana Munyon from Mississippi. I don't know how they know that, but it seemed almost like they were maybe just waiting for some confirmation. She does look quite a bit like the, um, the reconstruction. 

Savannah: As for bones 20. There's a, a young woman who went missing from this area of the state Eastern Washington, who I've always, I don't know. It's one of those things who really don't know very much about her at all. One of those Charley project pages, it says, you know, a little information available, but her name is Cherry Greenman. As far as I can tell from, from what her family has to say, she was kind of a free spirit. She was known to hitchhike and work odd jobs and she's 20 years old and she was last known to be alive in 1976. And one thing we know about bones 20 is that, um, they’re, the bones of a female, we don't have her skull. So we don't know what her race is. And we don't have any really estimation of what she looked like. 

Savannah: But the medical examiner thinks, seems to think that she passed away in the late 1970s. And you know, Ridgeway doesn't think he killed anyone in the seventies, but he admits as possible, which is really terrifying. But because of that, I've just always wondered if Cherry Greenman was a victim of Ridgway.

Ashley: How do you not know if you killed people in the 70s? I know he’s a serial killer, but wouldn’t he remember the first people he killed or when he started killing better than anyone? That detail is just so chilling to me. And then there’s the possible Green River Killer victims, the cases that could fit. The many women who were murdered or who remain missing.. that could be linked to Ridgway based on location, dates, and other clues. And this list is incredibly long so I’ll tell you about a few of them and link to the full list in my show notes. Linda Adams was only 15 years old when she was last seen in Yakima, Washington in 1978. She was a chronic runaway who was last seen walking down a road and she may have been hitchhiking. Rhonda Burse was 21 years old when she was last seen getting into her car after her shift ended at the Flame Tavern in Burien where she worked as a dancer. That was in 1977. Louise Sanders was last heard from in February of 1981. She called a friend to make lunch plans but then canceled because she was meeting a “date.” She disappeared from downtown Seattle and she was 35 years old at the time. While there aren’t many other details about how and when these women disappeared, there are photos and descriptions of what they looked like. I’ll be sure to link to those in my show notes as well. I asked Savannah if she had come across any common misconceptions about the Green River Killer while she did her research, here’s what she had to say.

Savannah: There's a couple of things that people are just plain wrong about Ridgway with. You know, Ridgway is a lot, he's a much more sophisticated criminal than people realize. And I'm not saying that to try to praise him because that's obviously disgusting. I'm just trying to, I think it needs to be addressed. You know, Ridgway didn't have adaptive difficulties. He kept down a job, kept a clean house. He, you know, was married. They will like his bosses said he had a perfect attendance record at work. He wasn't late. And those are all things we call adaptive skills. So Ridgway, he didn't have any lack of those adaptive skills. And as far as we could tell, he was obviously convincing enough to convince women to get into his car, even ones without high risk lifestyles. So he had to have had some sort of charisma or ruse to do that. And also, I mean, just frankly, I just don't think he was dumb and it just, it totally does a disservice to his victims. He killed a hundred people. 

Savannah: You can't be stupid and kill a hundred people and get away with it. Ridgway actually used massive counter measures, things Bundy never even thought of, he was constantly altering his cars so that his car was never seen on the strip twice, putting canopies on them. He was painting them. And I mean, he did all sorts of stuff. Ridgeway convinced, daycare workers, um, a culinary student, a couple of others who are waitresses, people who had no connections to the scene, he convinced them to get his car somehow. So people always say, oh, Bundy was so charismatic and he has such a high IQ and he was so smart. And that's, that's what he says about himself.
Ashley: I’m a big fan of this new attitude in the true crime community around Bundy. He wasn’t hot, he wasn’t smart, he wasn’t a rock star, he was a monster. And I hope this is applied to other killers as well. We should focus on victims and not killers. When I saw Savannah’s research on reddit and all of these names catalogued with such care and detail, it inspired me to do this episode. I only cover cold cases… unsolved crimes, missing persons… and I know that Gary Ridgway has been caught and technically many of his murders are considered closed cases, but for all the people he killed or possibly could have killed that have yet to get any sort of justice… or closure, I felt they deserved an episode too. And hopefully we can help bring more attention and more awareness to their cases. 

Savannah: You know, the task force still has a website, they have a phone number and they have a email address and they really do want people to submit tips still. But I think for whatever reason, since Ridgway is in jail, people think that the story of the green river killer is over and done and it's not.
Ashley: If you have any information about any of the missing or murdered people discussed in this episode, please reach out to the King County Sheriff’s department - where the task force remains somewhat active - you can even email them: Greenrivertips@metrokc.gov
Washed Away is a Cosmic Bigfoot production. You can find the show notes for each episode at washedawaypodcast.com, that includes photos/transcripts/sources/and more. Follow the show on instagram and twitter @washedawaypod. And please remember to subscribe or follow Washed Away wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like my work, please leave a 5 star review or tell a friend about the podcast. I’m Ashley Smith - and I’ll have another episode ready for you very soon.