The Green River Killer

The Right Hand of the Lord has Struck with Power

The cold rain drove against the pavement, splattering and blurring the reflected glare from the neon lights. On such a desolate night he held out little hope for a connection. Still, he breathed evenly, calmly. These many years later, the fire smoldered in him as a warm and soothing lover, as companion rather than pursuer. Nothing like the early days, when he felt as relentlessly chased by the flames of his emotions as the women he pursued.

His mission almost consumed him. He learned much with the passage of time. The fool walks in darkness, but the wise man has eyes. He shook his head at the memories of near misses and police just around the corner. There is a season for everything. A time to kill and a time to heal. Better is the patient spirit than the lofty spirit.

He scanned the deserted sidewalks that fronted the cheap motels, car lots and taverns. There, a bit of movement, a woman stepping out from the covered doorway of a convenience store. She seemed headed toward the bus stop on the corner, but a gust of wind and rain drove her back under cover.

He was stopped at a light across the street, sitting in his idling car, warm and comfortable against the chill. Again the woman edged forward, this time pushing a red umbrella out against the wind, blocking his view of her. The light turned green as she raised the umbrella over her head. He watched her eyes move from left to right. Their eyes locked. No, she isn't looking for a bus. She's a Jezebel, about to come home to the Father. For our God is a consuming fire.

He thought of his mother. How hard she worked and sacrificed, how pure and holy was her daily offering. Her presence buoyed him, comforting images held in reserve: her soft, broad back as she busied herself at the kitchen sink; kneeling in prayer before the shrine to the Blessed Mother in the corner of the living room; waving to him as he sprinted for the school bus.

Driving north under the light, he turned sharply into the Burgermaster parking lot on the corner of 100th N.E. He'd negotiate his way through the lot, gain access to 100th, and then head back to Aurora. But entry to 100th was blocked. A steady stream of movie goers was exiting a feature at the Oak Tree Cinema. He looked at his watch: a few minutes past ten. It took another five minutes before he could get back onto Aurora, this time heading south.

The rain was letting up. He jerked his car into the bus zone, but she was gone. He cursed, took a deep breath, and then chided himself. No problem. Yes, there is a season for everything. A time for searching. A time for losing. He smiled. Maybe she would repent and be saved. Her time is near. Keep your eyes open, for you know not the day nor the hour.

An investigation that spanned two decades

The Green River rushes and tumbles out of the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, knifing its way through steep and rugged gorges onto the flats of southeast King County. From there, the river spends itself out, meandering a slow and winding path west to the Kent valley, and then northwest to Seattle and the Puget Sound.

In August 1982, the body of a murdered woman was discovered floating on the Green River, close to a cattle slaughterhouse located on its banks. Three days later, a short distance upstream, the bodies of two other young females were found submerged face up in the river. A third corpse was stumbled upon nearby on the riverbank. It was later confirmed that all four victims were prostitutes. Well over a year would pass before the terrifying implications of these river murders would be revealed.

According to the King County Police Department, the Green River killer strangled and murdered forty-nine young women. In fact, we have no way of knowing how long the list of dead women actually is. Some authorities believe that the Interstate-5 corridor of Green River victims stretches from Seattle to Portland and on through to San Diego. Forty-nine victims? Fifty-two? Hundreds? Does the killer even know?

After the first four victims were discovered, the King County Police Department mounted an immediate and intensive investigation – while unaware, for over a year, of the killer's continuing rampage. In January 1984, the police formed a task force; millions of dollars and thousands of police hours were consumed over the next several years. The victim count continued to rise as more bodies were found.

The victims, for the most part prostitutes and runaways, were offered up from seedy, less-then-respectable streets: the Seattle-Tacoma (SeaTac) Airport strip, and the fringes of downtown Seattle and Aurora Avenue – old Highway 99 – as it stretched northward through the combustion of neon commerce.

The bodies surfaced both in water and on land, which led to speculation that two, not one, killers were at work, each with his own modus operandi. More of the early victims were associated with water, while most of the later victims were dumped in wooded areas; river versus land would prove to be more of a chronological than geographical distinction.

The victims were generally discovered in clusters, scattered throughout southeast King County. The first cluster was found along the Green River; thus the river lent its name to the subsequent investigation.

Nearby SeaTac Airport yielded two clusters on port property, one on the north side and the other immediately south of the airport. Star Lake and Mountain View Cemetery lay farther south of the airport; a cluster of victims attached itself to each. Two more clusters were found much farther east, close to Interstate-90 near North Bend, a gateway town to the Cascade Mountains. Farther south, deep within the forests of southeast King County, a cluster surfaced on the Mount Rainier side of the logging town of Enumclaw. Several solos also dotted this map of murder.

Authorities believe the Green River killer crossed the Columbia River and ventured into Portland, Oregon, 180 miles due south of Seattle. Two clusters yielded four victims in the suburbs south of Portland. The victims were positively connected back to Seattle. A series of killings in San Diego also was noted for its similarity to the Green River killings. A positive determination could not be made to prove that the serial killings of Seattle and San Diego were linked – nor was the possibility dismissed.

For several years the temperature of the Green River investigation was maintained near the boiling point. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the City of Seattle and the Port of Seattle – that is, the airport jurisdiction – contributed officers to the Green River King County Task Force. The doors of other jurisdictions, such as those of Portland and San Diego, had to be pried open to get any cooperation whatsoever.

Over 4,100 persons identified as possible suspects were divided into A, B and C lists, with priority suspects on the A list. Several times the police were sure they had found the killer: a couple of taxi drivers, a trapper, a Navy veteran, a law student. The circumstantial evidence was compelling in each case. Polygraphs were taken when possible. Search warrants were issued. Still, no arrest.

It was as if the killer, close by and watching, was deliberately teasing them. The police were furious as they reluctantly considered the possibility that the killer was a cop. But how else could this guy be so lucky? He seemed to know their every move.

A parade of detectives and supervisors marched through the lengthy investigation. Major Richard Kraske, who had hunted serial killer Ted Bundy in the 1970s, led the initial effort. Captain Frank Adamson was chosen as the first Green River Task Force commander and expressed confidence that the police were close to making an arrest. Adamson was succeeded by Captain James Pompey; later, Pompey by Captain Bob Evans. Vern Thomas handed the sheriff's baton to James Montgomery. The buck stopped at the office of the County Executive, an elected position. Tim Hill was elected to succeed King County Executive Randy Revelle. The corner was turned onto the 1990s, and no solution was in sight.

The bizarre was close companion to the macabre. A self-proclaimed psychic, Barbara Kubik-Patten, haunted the investigation. She met regularly with the principal early suspect, Melvyn Foster, and then she pestered the police with her inside information. One day, Barbara claimed to see a vision. She gathered her two small children into the family car and charged out to where the police were processing a new victim site in the countryside off Interstate-90. Denied access, she drove down nearby back roads, got out of her car, wandered around for a while in the woods with the kids in tow, and then – incredibly – discovered another victim covered by a tarp.

Television, radio and newspapers competed furiously for every lead. The police, angry with the media for their intrusion, accused them of obstructing the investigation. However, the police later elicited media cooperation in order to generate new leads.

And throughout all of this, women's groups protested and paraded. On July 15, 1986, the Women's Coalition to Stop the Green River Murders began a protest outside the task force headquarters, a vigil that lasted forty-six hours – one hour for each of the Green River victims projected at that time. The police offered the protesters coffee and donuts, but were able to give them very little satisfaction about the progress – or lack of it – of the investigation.

By 1990, the search for the Green River killer had slowed almost to a halt. The size of the original task force of forty detectives and officers had been reduced over the years as failure and politics dictated new priorities. As of 2001, the King County Police Department still maintained an active investigation: Sheriff Dave Reichert, first lead investigator for Green River, remained publicly committed to the pursuit of the killer; a single detective, Tom Jensen, devoted most of his work to the continuing search.

Cindy Smith is the last woman pictured on the Green River montage of victims, her disappearance dated sometime in March 1984. The Green River Task Force had been formed only a few months earlier. Smith was one of only two victims attributed to the Green River killer who died subsequent to the creation of the task force. After a twenty-one-month-long killing spree, a rampage unparalleled in the history of the United States, the Green River killer slipped away that spring with hardly a trace, leaving frustratingly few clues to his identity.

In 1982, the Green River was attached symbolically to the murders of forty-nine women. Twenty years later, the river continues to flow into the Kent valley. Many of the nearby farms have been paved over, offering up their plowshares for the swords of suburban industry. The Green River no longer nourishes rich soil, and the memory of the violence and mayhem wrought on its banks barely lingers. Still, the Green River survives as a symbol of death and the greatest unsolved serial murder mystery in U.S. history.

Profiling the Green River killer

The Green River investigation amassed truckloads of evidentiary material, but little was decipherable. The King County Police Department became expert in the assessment and evacuation of each victim site. A standard operating procedure evolved, with the recovery effort defined by the allocation of specific roles and responsibilities among both police and medical examiner staff.

With some serial murders, the victim sites show elements of staging, a deliberate and dramatic arrangement of the body of the victim to communicate some message. Staging may include the placement of objects on or near the victim. Where staging is present, both setting and body display provide clues to the intentionality and psychology of the killer. With the Green River killings, however, there appeared to be few signs of staging.

Carol Christensen, the twenty-first Green River victim, was strangled to death in May 1983. Some would argue that only this murder was truly staged. However, strong evidence previously held privately by the police has come to light showing that another setting was staged, that of the river victims found on August 15, 1982. For the sake of clarity, I refer to these settings as the river and the Christensen stagings in this book. The separate burials of the bodies of Constance Naon and Mary Bridget Meehan, discovered within a month of one another in the fall of 1983, also exhibited elements of staging. Together, these four victim sites comprise the symbolic heart of the Green River killings.

The profiling of serial murderers generally recognizes four types of dominant motives which appear central to homicidal behavior: visionary; mission-oriented; hedonistic; and power/control.⁽¹⁾ The mission-oriented killer has a tendency to target a particular category of persons for extinction. In the case of targeting prostitutes, the motive may be at least partially religious, reflecting a need to rid the community of what is perceived as morally perverted.

The detectives on the Green River Task Force were trained to question suspects about their religious feelings and beliefs. While religious motives appear to have been considered, they were not explored in depth, nor has an interpretation of the religious symbolism of the Green River killings ever been made public. In particular, certain elements of staging, the symbolic elements, were never interpreted – at least not publicly – from a religious perspective.

The pieces of the Green River puzzle begin to fit together when the religious element is recognized. The stagings are religious in content; in addition, they exhibit religious themes held in common with one another. The first commonly shared religious aspect in the river and Christensen stagings was the prominently displayed symbol of Christ, first found in the form of rocks in the vaginas of the two river victims, and then as two dead fish placed upon the Christensen victim. Each of the two rocks was in the shape of a pyramid. Rocks and fish would appear on any short list of concrete – easy to hold in one's hand – symbols of Christ. A stone or rock is used as a symbol of Christ in scripture, while in early Christianity, a fish became a symbol for Christ. The fish is still used frequently today, often displayed on the back and front ends of cars.

The second shared aspect of the two stagings is baptism. In an early profile of the Green River killer, the FBI's John Douglas wondered whether the submerging in water of some of the victims might have been a form of baptism. Douglas was referring to the river staging. Carol Christensen may also have been submerged in water before being brought to the site in the woods where she was discovered shortly after being taken from the streets. The possibility of the killer performing and staging a baptism is reinforced by the presence of the symbols of Christ. Since the stagings are religious, and given the probability of immersion in the Christensen case, baptism is a reasonable inference.

The apparent scarcity of symbolism associated with most of the Green River victims suggests that the killer was extremely careful not to reveal himself. He did not wish any evidence to be interpreted so well that he might actually be discovered. Why, then, did the killer engage in obvious symbolism in the river and Christensen stagings? It appears that he did want to make some kind of statement, that he wished to lend a signature to his actions. He could not restrain himself and offered a puzzle, with both verbal – symbol as language – and visual dimensions.

This particular language may, at first, be difficult to understand. It is not that it is complex, or even dense. Rather, the difficulty lies in comprehending how religious symbols and rituals may be assimilated by someone consumed by such perversity and taken to – or over – the psychotic edge, where religious belief decompensates – breaks apart; psychically splits – and becomes delusion. Murder as a symptom of religious inspiration stretches the imagination.

Scripture and ritual affect religious persons in different ways. Many religious people do not know the difference between Torah and Thessalonians. Others are quite knowledgeable about scripture and/or the role of ritual. Some experience scripture and ritual in a highly personal way that defies the community context in which religious symbolism is embedded. For these few, symbols of scripture and ritual break loose and are desymbolized. Desymbolization⁽²⁾ refers to the loss of original meaning, as symbols become symptoms of a disordered mind – source material for the psychotic process.

In some ways it is easier to speculate about the psychological processes that underlie the Green River killings, for example, the presence of rage, or complexes associated with a nagging mother or a father hated for his absence or his cruelty. Or to ask such questions as: did this serial killer torture animals as a child? The greater challenge with the Green River slaughter is to explore outside the parameters of what is generally accepted about serial killers. Only by leaving this box can we begin to comprehend the religious dimension of these particular murders, opening ourselves to the recognition of such psychological and religious themes as guilt, desire, impurity and the paranoid process.

My involvement with Green River begins

Green River showed up in my office one day many years after the last presumed Green River victim, Cindy Smith, had perished. I wasn't thinking of religious themes as I listened to my traumatized client relate a story of rape. The assailant was fairly well known to the client and a good description was provided. Something struck a chord.

I pondered the problem for a time and one day walked down the hall and into the office of a colleague, Dr. David Smith. Dave is a well-regarded forensic psychologist, with a particular expertise in police psychology. Much of his early career was spent in evaluations of violent offenders. He has toiled in public safety for most of his career, providing assessment and treatment services for law enforcement. His colleagues are police chiefs and sheriffs.

Dave had consulted with King County Police on Green River. I asked him what he knew about the description of the Green River killer. He recalled what I had previously heard him talk about, that he was likely an outdoors type, perhaps with a connection to Portland, probably pretty bright. He pointed me to The Search for the Green River Killer, a book on Green River by two Seattle Times reporters, Thomas Guillen and Carlton Smith. He indicated that I would find some profiles in the book.

I thumbed through the non-indexed book, stopping to read various sections. I didn't find the profiles particularly enlightening, but I was intrigued by John Douglas' comment about the possibility of baptism. In another part of the book I came across the authors' description of the staging of Carol Christensen, with a fish on her throat and another on her left breast. Yes, I thought to myself, this is obviously religious. Why don't the authors talk about it? Did the police follow up on this?

In retrospect, I am struck by my naivété. It's not that I rushed into this project, fully expecting to be taken seriously because I could say yes, this really is baptism and the symbolism is religious. I did my homework.

I obtained a Lectionary, the book that details the order of the Catholic rituals (as a Catholic, this was the most convenient reference text at hand), including prayers and scripture readings. I reasoned that if this was baptism, then the ritual of baptism might suggest something else about the crime scene. I simply picked up a book and started reading. It took a few months to put a draft together describing the river staging and the Christensen staging.

I was enthusiastic. Dave made a call and introduced me to Tom Jensen, then the detective in charge of the Green River investigation – what there was left of it at that time. He also talked with Bob Keppel, who had consulted on Green River – and subsequently wrote a book on it – and was chief criminal investigator for the State Attorney General's office.

Here's the rub, and what I think was a continuing problem in my engagement with law enforcement. I didn't know how seriously my client's assailant should be taken as a Green River suspect. However, I did propose his name (after ethical and legal considerations regarding my client's confidentiality had been addressed), to the King County Police as a possible Green River suspect.

I offered King County Police both a theory about Green River symbolism and a possible suspect. Given the profile considerations I had come to appreciate by that time, I thought that this guy should be taken more seriously than most of the 4,000 or so suspects in their files. In fact, he was already the subject of a police investigation because of his assault. I thought he should be taken seriously, but I didn't propose him as some kind of definitive, can't miss candidate.

At any rate, I blended the interpretation with a possible suspect. I didn't hear back from either Jensen or Keppel. I understood – barely – how they could dismiss this person as a suspect. What was troubling to me over time was the apparent dismissal of the interpretation of the symbolism. It had – and has – such obvious profile implications.

The Green River murders in an apocalyptic context

Putting aside for now the obscure symbolism, how could the police have missed the meaning in the few obvious symbols placed before them, such as the dead fish draped across Carol Christensen's throat? One response is that the police were simply ignorant when it came to deciphering anything religious in this case – or perhaps in all cases. A more sympathetic answer is that the religious symbols were not recognized because they were so out of context. Authentic religious symbols were not merely altered, undergoing some slight psychological twist. The placement of the symbols went far beyond the community's understanding of their proper home.

The symbolic content of the Green River killings had been severed from its moorings. In the following chapters the interpretations of the symbols left at the Green River stagings are attached to scripture and religious ritual. We must refer to scripture and ritual, that is, the source material, in order to grasp the psychotic transition from the religious to what is out of contact with reality as most would experience it.

It became apparent that the symbols of the Green River killings could be found within scriptural texts associated with rituals such as baptism. Scripture lies as bedrock for Green River. Plunge beneath the surface and discover how scripture, ritual, metaphors and symbols are juxtaposed in mosaic relation to one another. Follow the winding riverbed. This is a river leading to darkness, one that we can penetrate only so far. This interpretation attempts to convey a "feel" for the devolution of ritual – from how it is understood by the community to how it was personalized, in a perverse way, by the killer.

The Green River killer knows scripture as a kind of first language, one as familiar to him as such daily conventions as "Hi, how are you?" In the following chapters, references will be made to specific scriptural passages, especially those that reveal symbols associated with Green River. This is not intended as a kind of proof texting, that is, the proving of some idea by citing Bible verses. A particular text may or may not have been on the killer's mind when he used the symbol.

To suggest particular passages is to enter into the killer's language system, in which he has assimilated certain symbols and metaphors as a natural part of how he thinks. Certainly, the Green River killer knows the scriptural passages; more significantly, he expresses the symbols as a part of his everyday discourse, tailored in the moment of murder for those who have "eyes to see, or ears to hear." (Dt 29:3) The victim sites scream of horror. The symbols waited silently with the bodies as subtle and yet persistent forms of speech.

The Unabomber killed three people and injured twenty-three during his anti-technology campaign. The search for the Unabomber stretched over eighteen years, from 1978 to 1996, in what turned out to be the most expensive and time-consuming hunt for a serial killer in U.S. history. The key to the surfacing of Theodore Kaczynski as a suspect was found in the self-revelation of the Unabomber published in the New York Times and the Washington Post. The signature of the Unabomber – anti-technology bomb attacks masking a deep seated paranoia, inferiority and alienation – was at last recognized by the brother of the suspect, David Kaczynski.

An understanding of the symbolism present at the Green River killing sites is necessary for understanding the psychology of the killer. As with the Unabomber and his manifesto, the symbolism with Green River may lead us to the thinking, motivation and background of the killer. The religious dimension of the Green River killer's personality has never been understood or declared, yet the complexity of his religiosity represents the most significant clue, to date, to his identity.

In Waco, Texas, in 1993, David Koresh and his Branch Davidians were consumed in an apocalyptic fire. If we have learned anything from the travesty of Waco, it is an understanding of the need to delve into the psychology of the religious zealot, to interpret the situation from that individual's point of view. Communication with Koresh and anticipation of his response to conflict and provocation failed because the Federal Bureau of Investigation believed him to be nothing more than a sophisticated scam artist, one who would ultimately act to preserve himself. Instead, the conclusion was apocalyptic, a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy when the FBI failed to comprehend the genuineness of Koresh's religious belief system.

The word apocalyptic comes from the Greek and means "to disclose" or "to uncover." The apocalyptic remains central to our understanding of David Koresh. He believed he was called by God, as prophet and Christ figure, to unlock the Seven Seals of the book of Revelation and thus reveal the full meaning of the Bible and initiate the end times. The Green River killer sees the world through the same sort of apocalyptic lens.

The language of apocalyptic writing is rich in symbolism.⁽³⁾ Neither the rocks found in the vaginas of the Green River victims, nor the fish draped across the throat and heart of Carol Christensen, were accidents of river turbulence. These symbols of Christ were veiled communication – messages from a psychotic killer. They spoke to the world then – or at least to the police, who failed to hear – and still speak to us years later, intentional messages to the community about the struggle between the forces of good and evil.

In the book of Revelation, judgment and damnation are punishment for those who do not heed Christ's invitation for salvation; those who recognize Christ receive vindication and eternal reward. A messianic victory will lead to a reign of peace and justice that will last one thousand years (Revelations 20:1-6). The Green River killer continued his murderous rampage into the 1990s, anticipating Armageddon, the final cataclysmic clash between the forces of good and evil.

The Green River killer neither rants nor raves, nor does he babble Bible verses or flail wildly at demons on a full moon cycle. He is cold, deliberate and very much in control. He monitors and manages his demons. He sees himself as a prophet poised at the millennium, calling us to repentance and a thousand-year reign of peace. A holy and righteous crusade, and this self-appointed right hand of the Lord has struck with power.

Annotations