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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. Episode 168. I am your Norwegian host, Tomas Rosland Weyborg Thun. We left off part 5 in my Green River series with the vigilante hunt for Giselle Laverne.
Tonight, I bring to you the tale of her fate and the continued hunt for Gary Leon Ridgeway. Enjoy.
As always, I want to publicly thank my elite TSK Producers Club. Their names are...
Thank you.
I am forever grateful for my elite TSK Producers Club, and I want to show you that your patronage is not given in vain. All TSK episodes will be available 100% ad-free to my TSK Producers Club on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast. No generic ads, no ad reads, no jingles. I promise.
Tindall, the real-life taxi driver vigilante, was hot on the tail of Peaches and Pretty Tony.
He was sure the pimps had taken his girlfriend, Giselle. And even though he repeatedly had went to the cops, they always shrugged him off. However, the Green River case had shaken up the King County police force, and with the Bloodhound media napping at their heels, the police realized they had to get results. And so it was.
that in mid-August, police had decided to drop in on Tyndall to see what he knew. Trip came with Detective Reichert. They showed Tyndall pictures of the dead girls and asked him if he knew them. Tyndall admitted he might have seen the girls around,
but once again implored the detectives about looking into Pretty Tony and Peaches and his missing Giselle. Detective Reichert let him down by repeating that there were no known pimps who used those names. Tyndall asked police to publicize Giselle's disappearance.
But Reichardt declined. If they did that, Reichardt said, they would have to do the same for hundreds of people. It just wasn't practical. Reichardt and Tripp then left. Tyndall didn't know it then, but Reichardt hadn't let down Tyndall as a matter of routine. He actually wanted to see whether Tyndall might be a good suspect in the murders. In the meantime...
Tyndall called Hilda Bryant, a television reporter for KIRO, the television station. Hilda had been covering the story of the Green River murders. Telling her about how police refused to help him, he followed up by asking her if her television station could do a story about Giselle's disappearance and maybe publicize the dangers of Peaches and Pretty Tony.
But Hilda told Tyndall the same thing the police had said. They couldn't very well broadcast Giselle's pictures, Brian said, or soon they would have to do the same for hundreds of similarly missing teenagers. And they certainly could not air anything about two nicknames who might not even exist.
Tyndall was by now growing extremely frustrated. His vision of himself as a savior figure, like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, was coming apart at the seams. Finally, in desperation, Tyndall contacted a psychic in you in Idaho. He gave the woman a vest Giselle had worn.
A few minutes after giving her the vest, the woman put the garment aside and said, and I quote, Well, she's dead. She's laying face down without any clothes on, in mud. There's a big tangle of bushes next to her. I think they're like briar bushes. Something's around her throat, and she's not in water. She's not far from home. End quote.
Tyndall began driving the back roads of the Sea-Tac Strip looking for tangled, brushy areas not far from home. There were, Tyndall soon learned, hundreds of such locations. Unlike in the movie, Tyndall did not go on a violent rampage. He simply gave up and found a new girlfriend. Imagine, if you will, dear listener, several nights earlier, the 17th of July, 1982.
The by now well-known maroon pickup truck slowed to a stop, and the driver leant out of his window at the young woman standing alone under a street lamp. Hands on hips, Giselle Laverne strode towards him. "Looking for a good time, honey?" she called in a wary voice. He gestured her into the vehicle. "Just one more week."
That's what the seventeen-year-old Giselle had promised her taxi-driving boyfriend days earlier, when he had urged her to give up the seedy life of prostitution she had fallen into. Giselle was a bright, pretty blonde, with an IQ of one hundred and forty-five, who, though a little wild, could have been a success if she had put her mind to it.
She was planning to move back from Seattle to her California family and get a normal job. But first, she needed just a little more money. She climbed into the pickup truck. She was surprised to find that this particular John had an eight-year-old boy sitting beside him. Giselle wasn't easily shocked.
And surely a father who picked up hookers with his son beside him was no weirder than the average weirdo sprawling the strip. They reached a quiet wooded spot, and the man told the boy to stay in the truck. He led Giselle away from the road, paid her, and said he wanted sex. If Giselle was worried about anything, it was that the child might follow them. After they finished,
The man, in an urgent voice, hissed, "'Who's coming?' Instinctively, Giselle looked up. Doing so, she stretched her head upwards, her thin neck fully exposed, an arm clamped around her throat, and, as she fought hopelessly, the hole tightened and tightened. After several minutes, all Giselle knew was darkness.
Where's that lady gone? The boy asked when his father returned to the truck. She decided to walk home, came the gruff reply. In the following days, Gary Lee on Ridgeway returned alone to have sex with Giselle's decomposing body. Later, he could not remember exactly how many times.
Tyndall, aka Catnip, the psychic, had been almost right. Lovarn had been discovered less than five kilometers away from where she lived. She was nude, lying on her back with her legs spread apart. A pair of men's socks, black, had been tied together and knotted tightly around her neck. Her clothes, boots, and the clutch purse with the condoms and the knife were nowhere to be found.
Because Lovaren's body had been found on Port of Seattle property, the Port Police had legal jurisdiction. The Port sent its officers to the scene to secure the area, but decided to call in the King County Police to handle the investigation, as the Port had no expertise in homicide investigation.
The following morning, an assistant medical examiner arrived at the scene shortly before 10 a.m. The detectives and Kraski greeted him in a light rain. The police had already cleared away most of the brush. The pathologist and one of his assistants put plastic bags around the hands. The body was badly decomposed, but not yet skeletonized.
The pathologist and his assistant slipped the remains into the regulation blue body bag. Shovels of the dirt from underneath the body were poured through small screens into buckets in an effort to isolate any trace evidence. None was found. An hour later, the medical examiners left, taking the last of Giselle LaVarne with them.
Detective Keppel, of Ted Bundy fame, had made a prediction about the killer, saying that he might move further and further away from his first dump sites in order to find fresh and virginal sites to use. On the 15th of October 1983, another partial skeleton was found, this one far to the east of the Green River, the airport or Star Lake Road.
the latest sight was over the side of a steep embankment near a creek at one hundred and fortieth avenue southeast and auburn black diamond road about thirty-two kilometers from the strip even farther by road it would seem that keppel was proving to be right again by now the number of bodies found were stacking up in what seemed to be an endless river of death
The dump sites were scattered all along and around the Green River in a widening circle, like an impact diagram of a nuclear bomb. On the 14th of November, 1983, the latest skeleton to be found broke apart when it was removed from its shallow resting place.
As with earlier identified victims, Neon, Antosh, Lovorn, Summers, and still unidentified remains found at Star Lake, the grave was covered with cut branches. The medical examiner's office carefully placed the bones and the rotting flesh that still remained into separate packages. A port officer with a video camera recorded the entire exhumation.
The pathologist at the scene first removed the skull and jaw and sent them immediately to the medical examiner's office so identification efforts could begin. Several fibers were recovered from a patch of skin that remained on the skull. The following day, the pathologists conducted the autopsy, served by a port detective and a technician from the state crime lab.
A paper sack contained hair found with the body, and a third bag contained material removed from around the feet. A fourth package contained the remainder of the torso, arms, and legs, placed on a sheet when removed from the grave.
The torso was caked with wet dirt. Some of the dirt had fallen away from the left side, revealing the left arm to be lying along the left side of the body. Also noted at this time, there was a fairly large amount of black here, around the pubic region. Fibers were recovered by the crime lab at this point. The soil was removed from the body and sieved.
The pathologist proved further into the torso as detectives watched. He dictated as he worked. I quote.
For the most part, the internal organs are reduced to a homogeneous, foul-smelling mass. Examination of this reveals recognizable fragments of heart, probably right ventricle, a somewhat more solid mass which probably represents liver, right kidney, diaphragm, and portions of the lower gastrointestinal tract. End quote. The pathologist stopped talking for a moment and looked closer.
"'My God!' he said, and pointed to something inside the torso. The pathologist stated, and again I quote, "'In addition, in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen there are multiple fetal bone fragments. This appears to constitute a complete fetal skeleton,' end quote. The victim had been pregnant, very pregnant.'
Whoever had killed this woman was so devoid of human compassion and decency that he had taken the life of a woman about to give birth. No one present said anything, at least for the record. At the end, the pathologists removed the remains from the sheet. The remaining mud and debris were sifted carefully for any other evidence.
Nine different items were covered, including three small bones, two halves of a yellow pencil, two halves of a clear plastic tube, and two small pieces of plastic, one about a half-inch square with fifteen printed on one side. No one could say what it was. Later that day, a forensic dentist examining the teeth left in the skull and jaw made a positive identification.
The pregnant woman had been Mary Bridget Meehan, the 18-year-old woman who had gone out for a stroll the 15th of September 1982 and had never returned. The next day, the police held a press conference. Three more young women missing. The new captain, Michael Nault, told the reporters, bringing the total of missings to seven.
The total of known dead was eleven, and possibly twelve, if one counted the still unidentified skeleton that had been found near Star Lake. The killer was still active, said Nault. It was clear that the police were dealing with a serial murderer, but beyond that, detectives had little help to focus them in their investigation.
the new missing persons nolte continued were sandra k gabbard seventeen who had last been seen in april tina thompson twenty-six thought missing since the thirty first of october and a third woman twenty-two missing since august
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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night.
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Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. It was clear that something had to be done. Something more than simply investigating each missing persons case and each corpse found raped and murdered.
Decisive action was taken in January of 1984 when the Green River Task Force was formally created. On the task force were both Keppel and Detective Reichert. The Green River Task Force was headed by Captain Frank Adamson, who previously headed the Police Department's Internal Affairs Unit.
During the first few months of Adamson's assignment, drastic changes took place. He first decided that it would be in the investigation's best interest to relocate the task force headquarters to the Berrien County precinct, which was near the airport and closer to where the crimes were occurring.
Following Keppel's advice, Adamson divided up various tasks and assigned them to individuals within the team. It was believed that this method would facilitate a more thorough organization, integration, and assemblage of the vast amounts of information and lead to more successful results in the case.
Smith and Gwilym led one team composed of seven investigators, and one sergeant team leader was assigned to handle the victims of the Green River Killer. Another team of similar construction was assigned to information pertaining to probable suspects.
Adamson then assigned three detectives to a newly constructed crime analysis section, whose duties involved the follow-up of leads and analysis of possible trends and methodologies utilized by the killer, as well as other pertinent information relevant to the case.
22 police officers were also assigned to the Task Force Proactive Squad, which developed new strategies to monitor prostitute activities on the Strip and any unusual events or dealings in the area. Moreover, a new strategy was imposed by Keppel that changed the investigators' focus from a suspect's possible guilt to the suspect's possible innocence.
The implication of this strategy allowed investigators to quickly eliminate people under suspicion who had alibis and instead concentrate on more probable suspects. The suspects that remained were prioritized according to their threat.
Those who were most closely linked to the victims, fit the profile of the killer and his movements, were put in category A. Those who were less closely linked with the crimes were assigned to categories B or C, before being eventually eliminated. Just when it seemed as if the newly revised task force was better prepared to capture the Green River Killer, the inevitable occurred.
On Valentine's Day, 1984, a man searching for Mars stumbled over the skeletal remains of a human being near a state park not far off Interstate 90, about 64 kilometers east of Seattle. Within a short time, officers assigned to the task force were present at the scene.
A search of the area was made as the medical examiner's office came to collect the remains. But no other bones were discovered. The skeleton, the experts said, had been that of a young woman. The location of these remains was far away from the killer's normal dumping ground, as had been seen with other locations. The killer was moving farther and farther away from the Green River.
By now the names of missing girls were many: Case Lee, Terry Milligan, Denise Bush, Shirley Sherrill, all from 1982, followed by Carrie Roy, Sandy Gabbard, Marie Malwar, Kelly McGinnis, Debbie Abernathy, Mary Bello, Tracy Winston and Patricia Osborne, all from 1983. In addition, there were by now twelve known victims.
Wendy Cofield, Dub Bonner, Marcia Chapman, Cynthia Hines, Opal Mills, Mary Meehan, Giselle LaVorn, Shonda Summers, all those from just six months in 1982. In addition, there were Yvonne Antosh, Connie Neon, and Kimi-Kai Pitzer from 1983. To top it off, they had four murdered bodies that were still unidentified.
Over the next two months, approximately nine more bodies would be found. Some of those found included those of Cheryl Wims, 18, Lisa Yates, 26, Debbie Abernathy, Terry Milligan, 16, Sandra Gabbert, 17, and Alma Smith, 22. The other victims remained unidentified.
Most of the girls had one primary thing in common, a history of prostitution. Although it appeared as if the Green River Task Force was making few advances in the investigation, distinct patterns began to emerge that allowed the team to create a more accurate profile of the killer and his movements. The killer seemed to have several dumping grounds where he would dispose of the bodies of his victims.
With the exception of Meehan, the bodies that were discovered were found partially buried or covered with garbage or foliage. Most of the bodies had been found off of isolated roads, in or near illegal waste dumping areas.
The FBI's profiler, John Douglas, concluded that the bodies were dumped in the areas because the killer thought of the women as quote-unquote human garbage. In 1984, the victims' remains were concentrated in the areas of Mountain View Cemetery and North Bend, off of or near to Interstate 90.
The victims were also disappearing from two primary areas, the strip and the downtown area of Seattle. The task force worked under the assumption that Killer worked or lived close to the area where he was disposing the bodies. The task force determined that the areas where the bodies were found when plotted on a map roughly formed a triangular shape
it was believed that the killer might live somewhere within that triangle an important discovery was also made in april when the skeletal remains of some of the missing persons were found
Shoe impressions, possibly that of the killer, were revealed when investigators removed the brush that partially concealed the bodies. Upon examination of the prints, investigators learned that they were made by a size 10 or 11 man's walking shoe. And so it was, dear listener, that something quite strange occurred. In mid-April of 1984,
A volunteer task force worker and self-professed psychic, Barbara Cubic-Pattern, claimed to have a vision that another woman's body would be found close to Interstate 90. Cubic-Pattern immediately contacted the police and told them about her vision, but became increasingly frustrated when they failed to act on the new information.
Taking matters into her own hand, she and her daughter set out to find the woman. According to Barbara, they followed leads revealed by her vision. And sure enough, Cubic Pattern and her daughter eventually came across another body. Immediately after the discovery, the two women drove to a nearby search area that was patrolled by the police. When she informed one of the officers of her discovery,
She was rebuffed and even threatened with arrest for obstruction of the guarded perimeter. Angered, Kubik Pattern informed reporters that were stationed nearby of her discovery. Finally, members of the task force approached her as she talked with the reporters and asked her to show them the body. Shortly thereafter, the police were confronted with the gruesome discovery.
The decomposing remains were that of Amina Agishev, 36. She was last seen on the 7th of July, 1982, walking home from her work at a restaurant in downtown Seattle. Agishev did not fit the description of many of the other victims. She was older than the other victims and a waitress, not a prostitute.
Agishev was also in a stable relationship at the time of her disappearance and was a mother of two. Although there were obvious differences between Agishev's lifestyle and those of the other victims and the location of where her body was disposed,
Investigators believed that she was the victim of the Green River Killer due to the MO the killer had used killing her and the location of her body. Now, dear listener, I do not like to judge morality, talk politics, and certainly not discuss religion on this podcast. However, I do not think there is such a thing as psychics.
If there were, their abilities would have been researched a long time ago by the scientific community, and by now they would be considered mainstream and utilized. Also, if there were such thing as a psychic, the laws of physics would need to be altered, which I find far-fetched. What I think happens.
is that Barbara Cubic Pattern was a very talented amateur investigator, and she used the information she obtained from working as a volunteer on the Green River Task Force to deduce possible dump sites the killer might have used. She took her daughter to such a place, and her deductions proved correct. This does not make her a psychic. Up until 1984.
The Green River Killer had made no attempt to communicate with police or the press. In movies and novels, serial killers are often portrayed as evil masterminds, toying with the authorities by leaving clues and sending letters. The truth is that the vast majority of serial killers never tried to communicate anything to the public or the police.
They simply want to hurt and kill again and again and again, not be famous. However, as with all things, there are exceptions. The Green River Killer did send the media a letter, and he did so in a way reminiscent of enigmatic killers such as the Zodiac, who also sent letters to the press.
On the 20th of February, 1984, the killer posted a letter to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The typed letter has no spaces between words and is titled, What You Need to Know About the Green River Man. It was signed, Call Me Fred.
The letter was marked, Don't throw away, and the envelope was marked, Very important. The content of the letter revealed information not publicly available. And now, your humble host will transcribe this letter to you, dear listener. The letter is written like a list. I quote, 1.
First one, broken, and, or on, dislocate arm. Why? Two, one placed in river had stone in the vagina. Three, wise one in the river, some above ground. Four, insurance, who got it? Five, whose or what to gain by their deaths? Six,
Truck is out of state. Father has painted or in river. Seven. Some had fingernails cut off. Eight. He had sex after they dead. He smokes. He chews gum. Ten. Change first one blackmail him. Eleven. You work me or nobody. Twelve. Think he changed his M.O., businessman or salesman. Thirteen.
Can and note reservation. Fourteen. Man seen. Big luggage out of motel. Was heavy. Needed help. Fifteen. Where's clothes? Some rings and mish. Sixteen. Out-of-state cop. Seventeen. Don't kill in our area. Looking outside. Eighteen. One had old scars. Nineteen.
Mom had red wine lombroso. Some fish and dumped there. Twenty. Any drugs or selling. Twenty-one. Head found. Who found? And where is rest? Twenty-two. When did they die, day or night? Twenty-three. What turn there? Mouth Christine for trick. Twenty-four. Why take some clothes and leave rest? Twenty-five.
The killer wears at least one ring. Twenty-six. Real estate is one man. Twenty-seven. Long-haul truck driver last seen with one. Twenty-eight. Some had rope marks on neck and hands. Twenty-nine. Not legible. Thirty. All strangled, but with different methods. Thirty-one. One black and worked for Metro. Thirty-two.
Most had pimps belittling them. 33. Escort slash modeling forced them off fear of death. 34. Maybe pimp hate. Get back at them. 34. Again. Who finds the bones? What are they there for? 35. Man with gun or knife. 36. Someone paid to kill one another? 37. Kill whore?
Sit what they are. This might be kill all whores. That's what they all are. 38. Any dead differ, suffer, then rest. 39. It could man mean Portland. Some work there. 40. What kind of man is this? There was a book left at Denny's. I got this out of it. It belonged to a cop. Call me Fred.
On the 26th of May, two children playing on Jovita Road in Pierce County were shocked when they discovered a skeleton. The police and task force were immediately alerted to the new finding. Following a medical examination, it was discovered that the remains were that of 15-year-old runaway Colleen Brockman.
Investigators still had no new leads to the identity of the killer, apart from the location of the bodies and a shoe print. After almost three years, the murderous killing spree continued.
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And so it is that we end part six in the tale of the Green River Killer. This series is probably going to be the longest running on this show. So as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. Finally, I wish to thank you, dear listener, for listening.
If you like this podcast, you can support it by donating on patreon.com slash theserialkillarpodcast, by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, facebook.com slash theskpodcast, or by posting on the subreddit theskpodcast. Thank you. Good night, and good luck.
