Green River - Red Sea

Earlier, the man had hidden the car more than a mile away and crossed the fields on foot, taking half an hour to scout the river and nearby roads on each side of the slaughterhouse. A few cars had passed and, with each one, he slipped into the grass and trees. If the police lay in wait after what happened Thursday at the slaughterhouse, then they were better at this cat and mouse game than he, and that was highly unlikely. His survey complete, he felt safe enough to bring the 1971 Dodge Dart to the river.

He backed the four-door sedan onto the tractor path that led to the field. At two o'clock in the morning, with no moon, the pale green car was nearly invisible as it lay facing the road under a canopy of tall grass. He got out, letting the door chunk softly back into place, the only sound against the chirping of the crickets on this warm August morning.

He waited by the car, allowing several minutes to pass. As before, he had planned carefully. So much in this world is left to chance, but not the will of the Father. He thought for a moment about his own father: the raised hand, the curses, the solemn blessing before each meal. His father would not have understood this, concerned only that his son get the job – any job – done right. Abruptly, the man walked to the rear of the car and unlocked the trunk.

He stared for a few seconds at his treasures, nodding his head as he focused on his sacred task. Daughters of Oholah and Oholibah, your hands drip with the blood of your debauchery and whorings. You have drunk your mother's cup, a cup of affliction and devastation.

Carefully, reverently, he disentangled one body from the other and hoisted it over his shoulder. Just like packing out a deer. As he struggled to get the body properly positioned, he lowered the trunk with his free hand. Yahweh says to stone you, so that women will not ape you again. Yes, yes, I will stone you and purify you, with the rock of salvation, and bring you to new life.

The man switchbacked down the steep riverbank, dropping to his knees at the edge of the water. He rolled the dead woman off his back and into the river until she was fully submerged. Then he straddled her body, water flowing about his knees.

Looking straight into the woman's eyes, he willed new life into her. Taking hold under her arms, he drew her upper torso from the water, then plunged her beneath the surface – once, twice and finally a third time, whispering the words known so well to Christians: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Slowly, he walked back to the car – no need to hurry. He carried his second treasure to the river and continued with his ritual exactly the same as before. And still there was more to do that night.

Frank Linard was going about his everyday work at the PD & J Meat Company slaughterhouse on the bank of the Green River when he spotted Debra Bonner. Of course, he didn't know that was her name, or that her nickname was Dub. All he knew was that a naked woman was floating dead in the water. Excitement prevailed among the workers at the slaughterhouse for a few hours; police came and went. The next day was business as usual.

Debra, a "woman of the night," had gone about her work in a quiet way. Prostitutes generally prefer anonymity. When Debra was found dead there was barely a rustle from the media: she was an unfortunate and unknown victim. The police figured the killer probably would be found among the people she knew. Few people really cared about Debra Bonner – family and some friends, and that was about it.

The situation changed dramatically following Robert Ainsworth's float down the Green River the following Sunday, August 15, 1982. Ainsworth was treasure-hunting the river on that peaceful afternoon when a man on the bank directed him to a car motor in the water. Floating down a bit farther, Ainsworth was shocked to find two dead women staring up at him, their eyes wide open, their features blurred by the ripples of the water. The women were fully submerged, weighted down with rocks, one naked, the other in a blue dress. Ainsworth turned to look behind him: the man on the riverbank had disappeared.

The police's surprise matched Ainsworth's when they discovered a third corpse in the tall grass alongside the river, face down, unclothed but for a pair of blue slacks knotted around the neck with a bra pulled up, breasts exposed. The discovery of these three victims exploded into the public's consciousness. The dead women in the river were identified as Marcia Chapman and Cynthia Hinds; Opal Mills lay on the riverbank. The three rested just a short distance from the slaughterhouse where Debra Bonner had been found three days earlier. It was later confirmed that all four women had been prostitutes.

Although the police would debate for some time whether Debra Bonner was connected to the three victims found on Sunday, and whether, in fact, the woman found on the riverbank was even a victim of the same murderer as were the two in the river, there was no debating the public interest and alarm that followed. The King County Police Department had its hands full. It kept the autopsy results to itself. Several years would pass before word got out⁽¹⁾ that Marcia Chapman and Cynthia Hinds, the two women submerged in the river, had been found to have rocks shaped like pyramids in each of their vaginas.

King County Police sought specialized help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In September 1982, Allen Whitaker, the agent in charge of the Seattle office, arrived at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia. The FBI had recently established a behavioral sciences unit; psychological profiling of serial murderers was one of the services offered. Whitaker handed a packet of materials prepared by King County Police to FBI profiler John Douglas. Douglas went to work on developing the first profile of the Green River killer.

Much of Douglas' profile referred to a general type of inadequate personality: a probable high-school dropout with average to slightly-above-average intelligence, a chronically unemployed or underemployed smoker and beer drinker who was raised in a single parent home by a nagging, verbally and physically abusive mother. The father would be rarely seen. Douglas also referred to characteristics more directly tied to the material evidence at hand: the killer was an outdoors person, in good shape, who did not mind getting wet or soiled.⁽²⁾ This person also had a good knowledge of the local area.

Douglas included a prescient observation. He wondered if the placement of the bodies in the river indicated some religious element, maybe even a form of baptism. But his prescience was, unfortunately, only recognized in hindsight.

The full flood of Green River victims also went unheeded for many months – and then years – to follow. In fact, a full year passed before a sobering realization took hold: the killer was still at work. Many prostitutes were missing; this cold reality slowly dawned on the police as skeletons continued to surface, now on land. Over time, these new victims were identified from the dental records of missing prostitutes.

The Green River killer continued to murder, but now he concealed his victims. The horror of those few days in August was merely a portent of the holocaust to follow. The investigators of the deaths at the river proceeded with their work, unaware that the killer was nearby – and still active.

In late November 1983, a year after the first consultation, John Douglas flew to Seattle on the invitation of the King County Police. Work pressures were intense, with increasing demand for Douglas's expertise. He had barely immersed himself again in the Green River case when he fell sick. Two fellow agents found him in his hotel room, comatose for well over a day, the right hemisphere of his brain ruptured because of a high fever. Douglas survived his bout with viral encephalitis, but barely, and would not work again for many months. His insight about baptism went unnoticed and was never developed.

While supposition about the internal fantasy life of a serial murderer was well-known,⁽³⁾ why didn't investigators pick up the trail regarding the religious nature of the killer? As Douglas had postulated from the onset, the river staging suggested baptism as a religious theme. This theory is more complex than the simple identification of river and flowing water, but the starting point for interpretation is the ritual of baptism [See essay: Christian Experience of Religious Ritual.] It may well have been the violent imagery and metaphorical language of biblical scripture, interpreted literally, that fueled the killer's lust for murder.

Baptism in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches is intended to create an identification with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. This identification is accomplished in the rite of immersion: the baptized person is submerged underwater. The submerging is a symbolic form of entombing, and thus the baptized person identifies with Christ in his death. When the individual comes out of the water, he or she comes forth from the tomb with Christ, and thus is being raised up with Christ.

To reinforce this experience, Christians in the early centuries sometimes constructed baptismal pools in the shape of tombs. Those being baptized went down three stones steps into the pool, and then ascended three other stone steps on the opposite side. The steps represented the three days Jesus spent in the tomb.

The rocks found on the bodies of the two women in the river had a practical significance: they kept the bodies submerged. While overlooked at the time, however, a symbolic significance may also have been attached to the rocks.. Both literally and metaphorically, the rocks helped entomb the women being baptized. The resurrection of Christ was signified by the removal of the stones from his tomb. Perhaps intentionally, with the removal of the stones from the "entombed" women, their bodies rose out of the river. Identification with Christ's resurrection was complete.

In scripture, the symbolic importance of rock cannot be overstated. Abraham is a rock to his people (Isaiah 15:1-2). For the Psalmists, God is a rock (Peter 18:2). Peter is a rock upon whom Christ's church is built (Mt 16:18). Christ himself is referred to as a rock (1 Peter 2:8).

The rocks on top of the women may even have had further symbolic meaning. One of the readings from the baptismal ritual or ceremony refers by implication to the newly baptized as living stones.

Prostitution represents idolatry, a belief in false gods, in both the Old and New Testaments (a theme which will be elaborated upon in later chapters). Prostitutes are "not people." Christians are "living stones."

The pyramid-shaped rocks in the vaginas of the submerged women also carried special symbolic value. In fact, the same reading in the baptism ritual which refers to the newly baptized as "living stones" includes a reference to Christ as a living stone.

According to the Christian ritual of baptism, the newly baptized are united to Christ the cornerstone. With Christ they form a new unit, a new temple.

The reference to Jesus as a stone, or cornerstone, is also found in the liturgy immediately following the baptism ritual for Easter Sunday.

The killer may even have intended further symbolism by placing rocks in the vaginas of his victims. "If any man is in Christ, he is now a new creature." (2 Corinthians 5:17.) This union can also be expressed as "Christ is living in me." (Galatians 2:20) The result, in any case, is that the individual is joined to Christ. Union with Christ is thus achieved. The implication of the rocks is that virginity and purity were restored.

The rocks in the vaginas of the victims, apparently specifically chosen for their pyramid shape, added to the potential complexity of the symbolism. A pyramid-shaped rock presumably has triangular elements. While the primary metaphor is identification with Christ, the triangular elements also suggest identification with the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In scriptural references to baptism, a person is "washed, consecrated, and made upright in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:11) The baptized Christian is a temple of the Holy Spirit and an adopted son or daughter of the Father because of the spirit communicated to him (Galatians 4:6).

That the penetration of the bodies with rocks contains a sexual meaning seems clear, even if the implications are not. The unraveling of the sexual meaning depends upon a more in-depth knowledge of the killer, but the baptism ritual itself contains a sexual metaphor. In the early church, one of the most important rituals of the year was a baptism vigil, an elaborate service held on the night before the Easter celebration of the resurrection. After spending all of the season of Lent in fasting and prayer, candidates for baptism were "reborn" with Christ in a baptismal ceremony. During this service, which is still performed today in some denominations, powerful sexual imagery can be found in the dipping, or "impregnating," of the Paschal Candle in the water of the baptismal font as a symbol of new life. Commentators on baptism have suggested that the crucified and risen Lord fills the water with the power of Christ's holy spirit, and "fructifies" the water, so that the water may beget new life in the church.

As a part of the Holy Saturday ritual, the Pascal Candle is dipped three times into water, symbolizing the penetration of water by the Holy Spirit. Phallic fire is drawn into the stainless womb and water of the baptismal font.

For the killer, the otherwise ordinary and comforting aspects of ritual were appropriated in a personal and idiosyncratic manner. An erotic transformation occurred. The sexual perversion of rocks in vaginas metamorphosed as a mystical idealization of marriage with Christ. Baptism led to union with Christ.

The killer took the symbol of rock, removed it from the community's tradition and shared understanding, and conferred personal meaning on it. In his mind, he was acting out an internal conflict of pathological dimensions, and making sense of it in his own perverse reality. He stood for God, translated God's will and raised himself above everyday human morality, thereby easing his own intense internal struggle and cleansing himself of wrongdoing. The purity of his ideal of union with Christ justified a lifting of the moral plane to a sacred dimension in which special rules and exceptions applied. Sexuality was idealized, and baptism was sexualized.

The symbols and metaphors that occur in the Bible and in religious ceremonies occur as part of the ritualistic practice of a particular religious community. When rituals and symbols are taken out of the religious context and appear in a secular setting, or in conjunction with an event that is diametrically opposed to the commonly held meaning, they may not make sense to the people who encounter them, or may not be recognized at all. Once they are seen for what they are, and are interpreted, however, the mental state of the person who has taken those symbols and metaphors out of context is exposed. In this light, the symbols and metaphors are symptoms of and signposts to the internally-driven world of a person who is mentally disturbed.

Even a heinous crime such as a murder can include all the elements of religious ritual. The symbols and metaphors as they occur in this context are to be understood by the "initiated," carry the meaning of a special relationship with the divine, and are expressed in a deliberate, organized process or pattern of preparation, ceremony, and dismissal/disposal. Where standard investigative techniques may fail, becoming alert to the potential for the possible meaning and religious significance of the signs, symbols, and rituals may offer important clues to the developmental, psychological, and psychosocial makeup of their perpetrator.

Apparently, within the internal fantasy world of the Green River killer, the river victims had been "redeemed" through the sacrament of baptism, and as a result, each was symbolically joined to Christ.

Douglas's insight about baptism barely gets us to the water's edge of the meaning of these two stagings. The complexity of the symbolism with another victim, Carol Christensen, builds upon the river staging, draws us further into sacramental ritual, and prepares us for a return to the river.

A religious ritual is a symbolic action, the purpose of which is to enact or re-establish a relationship with the divine. The sacraments of baptism and holy communion, the ceremonies of marriage and burial – these are examples of religious rituals; they contain words, symbols/symbolic acts, and a pattern of worship that are understood and in some sense expected by the community gathered.⁽⁴⁾ For the purposes of the discussion here, some primary components inherent in religious ritual are affect, symbol, and pattern.

Because the religious person possesses a sense of a divine force operating on his or her life and in the world, the affective, or emotional, character of religious rituals is a primary component of the experience. The feeling or sensation of knowing that a divine power which is greater than oneself exists is fundamental to the practice of religion, and is carried forward through certain primary rituals, known as sacraments.⁽⁵⁾ Religious rituals, then, work to foster an emotional response that might range in diversity from a sense of comfort and well-being to ecstasy, from the quiet meditative state following a distribution of communion to the boisterous, rollicking and free-flowing joy of a pentecostal healing service. By the experience of these emotions, a special attachment is formed among the individuals and within the community to these "life-changing" moments of higher meaning, of presence with the divine.⁽⁶⁾

Ritual contains a symbolic component because the presence of the divine must be inferred. The signs and actions of ritual are conferred to the real world; at the same time, these signs and actions have the power of symbolizing, as well as carrying into effect, the dynamic bond between what is human and what is divine. In faiths such as Catholicism, it is believed that sacraments such as baptism, Eucharist (Holy Communion), and marriage actually create encounters with God.⁽⁷⁾

Repetition and pattern also play a central role. Rituals by definition follow a reasoned, deliberate path of logical steps. In religious rituals, therefore, certain words or actions are expected to take place at the beginning (e.g., opening prayer, or praise), certain elements of ritual happen in the middle (e.g., confession, or symbolic ceremonies like water on the head in baptism, or the ring ceremony of a wedding), and certain elements occur at the end (e.g., closing song and benediction). There is a sense of order and logical progression that enables the fuller impact of the symbolic elements and the emotional response.

Religious rituals are intended in part to bring about spiritual moments where the human and the divine interact in relationship. A main emphasis of religious ritual, therefore, is purification: to prepare ("purify") persons for moments of presence with the divine. Since God is understood as being beyond human, the closeness of humans to God cannot be achieved unless humans are first purified. Purification, therefore, is a process of ritual that allows persons to present themselves before God. At the same time God maintains the condition of otherness.

Especially through symbolic uses of fire and water, humans can – while not denying the difference between themselves and God – temporarily be "purified" and thus approach God and participate in the divine. Impurity has little to do with the reality of sin and the conscience of a sinner. Impurity is the transgression of the difference between the human and the divine.

In early Christian experience, spiritual community was marked by the gathering of the faithful for celebration of the Eucharist (the bread and the wine of communion are symbols of the body and blood of Christ) and other sacraments. Today, the mainline Christian churches – Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant – place a particular emphasis on the communal and social aspects of liturgical and sacramental ritual.⁽⁸⁾

Rituals associated with sacramental life, such as baptism, are a part of the public prayer, or litany, of the various churches. The litanies of religious rituals are expressed in a rhythmic merging of the proclamation of God's word, in scripture and homily, with a patterned flow of gestures, movement, song and meditation. Further, liturgical prayer is generally organized according to a calendar of seasons and feasts, reflecting centuries of traditions that attend to the connection between God and humans expressed through natural and historical events.

The central resource for Christian ritual and liturgy is the Bible. Through the biblical scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, Christians hear the word of God. Scripture relates the story of God's covenant with his people. God's word animates the Exodus story through the commandments made at Sinai, and through the nourishment of Israel in exile. Scripture also tells the story of the faithful acts of the people of God, of the people who hold a shared belief. The Promised Land and the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah in the Old Testament, and the death and resurrection of Christ in the New Testament, contain the symbols and metaphors that are used in and give special meaning to Christian ritual. The religious person listens to scripture for parallels between the words God speaks in the Bible and his or her own experience, balancing personal interpretation with the norms of the community and the traditions of which they are a part.

The oral tradition of the word of God from the very first Hebrew civilizations gradually emerged as the written scriptural text of the Hebrew Bible, also called the Old Testament.⁽⁹⁾ In the New Testament, the Christian identity – from the birth and baptism of Christ until his death and resurrection, and the stories of the early church – also relies on a great store of scriptural tradition and metaphor. Through the religious rituals established in the Christian church, which incorporate the scriptures and prophecies of both the Old and New Testaments, the Christian comes to understand and experience God. Through the life of the church community, the symbolic nature of fire, water, bread and wine are witnessed and authenticated. The rituals and symbols are part of a shared story. Religious rituals exist within and for the community.

(1) C. Smith and T. Guillen, The Search for the Green River Killer (Onyx, 1991), p. 42.

(2) C. Smith and T. Guillen, The Search for the Green River Killer (Onyx, 1991), pp. 106-107.

(3) "Several things about the [Green River] crimes were immediately obvious to Douglas. In the study with fellow BSU agent Robert Ressler and Boston nurse Ann W. Burgess, the agents had found that virtually all serial murderers' offenses were related to an internal fantasy process that had begun prior to the crimes, often years before. The fantasies were frequently led by a fusing of pornography and violent imagery that allowed the fantasizer to see himself in complete control of his victim."
— C. Smith and T. Guillen, The Search for the Green River Killer (Onyx, 1991), pp. 104.

(4) "In the religious context, then, commitment to the belief system brings with it a sense of meaning and purpose to one's human existence and suffering; it conveys a sense of significance and purpose in death; it confirms the believer in sharing in the life of a community of believers that form the in-group, and it indicates an ethic of salvation, a code of morality and ritualized praxis pointing the way toward right living and the ultimate fulfillment of human destiny."
— W. W. Meissner, S.J., M.D., Thy Kingdom Come: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Messiah and the Millennium (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1995) 255.

(5) While different Christian faiths ascribe to various interpretations regarding the experience of the divine, the principal remains the same as in Catholicism, which is "a religion of ritual signs and symbols through which we encounter the realm of the divine and the spiritual. There are seven such ritual signs with which Catholicism is historically identified. They are called the sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist (the Mass), Marriage, Holy Orders (including the priesthood, the episcopate, and the diaconate), Reconciliation (Penance, or Confession), and Anointing of the Sick (formerly known as Extreme Unction)."
— Richard P. McBrien, Inside Catholicism, Barbara Roether, edit., (San Francisco: Collins Publishers, 1995) 9.

(6) "Human life has meaning and value only insofar as it is anchored in mystery, insofar as emotion in the presence of the mystery of life and death calms metaphysical anxiety instead of exalting it by speculation, insofar as man loves life in spite of death (and this is the only love that is not sentimental), knowing that mystery is everywhere around him and in him as well. Human life has meaning and value only insofar as man respects himself, others, and all that is alive and existing – as mysterious phenomena meant to pass away – while feeling or know that in spite of the ephemeral nature of all things, nothing has being outside of mystery."
— Paul Diel, Symbolism in the Bible: The Universality of Symbolic Language and its Psychological Significance, Paul Diel, San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986) 6.

(7) "In Catholic teaching a sacrament not only visibly signifies the invisible, active presence of God, which is also called grace; a sacrament actually causes what it signifies. The word grace means 'gift' or 'favor.' The 'gift' is God, and the 'favor' is eternal life. Sacraments both signify and communicate this 'gift' or 'favor' known as grace. God is not only present as an object of faith in a sacrament; God actually achieves a spiritual effect in and through the sacrament. A sacrament, therefore, is both a sign and a cause of grace. In fact, the grace of a sacrament is always given unless the recipient is in the state of mortal sin, that is, of total alienation from God.

As causes of grace, sacraments mediate between God and humanity. A sacrament brings God to people, and people to God. God acts in the sacraments to communicate divine life, or grace; people act in the sacraments to express their adoration, thanksgiving, sorrow for sin, and their needs and hopes."
— Richard P. McBrien, Inside Catholicism, Barbara Roether, edit. (San Francisco: Collins Publishers, 1995) 11.

(8) "Even when the divine-human encounter is most personal and individual (as in private prayer, meditation, or even mystical experience), the encounter of God and humanity remains always communal because it is made possible by the mediation of a community of faith, the Church. …And just as the communal is the necessary context and condition for humanity's encounter with God and for God's encounter with humanity, so the realization of community is also the objective and the goal of the divine-human encounter itself."
— Richard P. McBrien, Inside Catholicism, Barbara Roether, edit. (San Francisco: Collins Publishers, 1995) 12.

(9) "… both [Jews and Christians] know that the Christian Bible has two unequal parts; the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jews may take offense at having their sacred scripture referred to as "old" by comparison with the conclusion of the Christian Bible. But both groups, including sophisticated literary critics of either confession, have invariably spoken of the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament as the same work under two different names. But they are not quite the same work. The distinctive, broad movement of the Hebrew Bible from action to speech to silence is not matched in the Old Testament, whose movement is from action to silence to speech. The contents in either case are the same, but the arrangement is not. The Old Testament shifts the great prophetic collections – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets – from the middle to the end, leaving in the middle what we called earlier the books of silence, including Job, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther."
— Jack Miles, God: A Biography (New York: Vintage Books, 1995) 16-17.