With $15 million spent and no solution in sight, authorities are thinking of disbanding the Green River Task Force and say that the elusive serial killer of as many as 49 women may remain unknown forever.
Forty to 50 people remain under investigation in the nation's worst serial murder case. Without some breakthrough, those queries should be completed in about a year, said King County Police Capt. Robert Evans, head of the unit.The task force was formed in 1984 to probe the deaths or disappearances of as many as 49 young women, most with links to prostitution, in the Pacific Northwest from the summer of 1982 to early 1984. The case takes its name from the river near where the first five victims were found.
Police spokesman Dave Robinson said the county alone has spent some $15 million on the case, which investigators admit could wind up as much a mystery as the identity of Jack the Ripper, the unknown person who mutilated and murdered five prostitutes in London a century ago, or the Zodiac killer who stalked San Franciscans two decades ago and sent taunting notes to authorities.
Five months ago, a former law student who was also a prison escapee was labeled a "viable suspect" by investigators. But William Jay Stevens II, 38, was cleared in the case Nov. 30.
Other men studied by the task force have not even reached "viable" status. For example, a 34-year-old man was arrested Nov. 16 in Vancouver, British Columbia, in a police-style car found to contain guns, knives, Mace, a machete, 10 feet of rope, pornographic videos and identification listing eight addresses and various names. Investigators have speculated that the Green River killer posed as a police officer to trap his victims.
But Evans said the man arrested in Canada apparently spent too little time in the Seattle area to rank higher than "not very likely."
Evans and Sheriff James Montgomery said the 19-member task force probably would lose a detective or two next month.
A budget for 1990 approved by the County Council would cut two detectives from the major crimes unit, which houses the task force, and at least one probably will come from the Green River probe, Montgomery said.
At its height, the task force had separate offices and involved about 70 staff members from Seattle, Tacoma, King and Pierce counties and the FBI.
While task force members still work almost full-time on Green River, "they're awfully close to being melded in (with the major crimes unit) right now," Montgomery said. "1990 is probably going to be the transition year."
Without significant new leads, he said, "I think the ability to specifically identify the task force will disappear," probably after January 1991.
Besides 41 known Green River victims, the case includes the disappearance of eight others who fit the victim profile, generally young and linked to prostitution or other street life.
"Murder and prostitution go hand in hand, and they have since the very beginning of time, I believe," Evans said.
Four were found near Portland, Ore., one not far from Tacoma, one in a Seattle park and the rest around King County.
Cause of death was listed as strangling in the first five cases, but authorities have cited only "homicidal violence" since then.
"There was clothing found at some of the sites ... but the absence of clothing is a significant factor at many of the sites," Evans said.
Since the first five bodies were found, most of the remains have been little more than bones.
Investigators are even undecided on how many killers were involved.
"I don't think there is a dominant theory," Evans said. "It could be two, maybe even three, separate serial murder cases."