Mapping the Green River Crime Scenes: KIRO-TV News Report, 1986

A 1986 KIRO-TV report on the Green River Task Force's hope of using a computer mapping system, borrowed from Bellevue traffic investigators, to re-map the sites where victims had been found.

Subject

Gary Ridgway

Recorded

March 28, 1986

Runtime

1:57

Content warning: Concerns the Green River murders of young women and girls; no graphic detail.

The Report

This is a two-minute KIRO-TV Eyewitness News report from Seattle, dated March 28, 1986, and released by the station from its archive. It describes a surveying and mapping system the City of Bellevue used to investigate traffic accidents, which the Green River Task Force hoped would help it study the sites where victims' remains had been found. Gary Ridgway does not appear and is not mentioned: at the time the killer was unidentified. The report is narrated by the reporter, who signs off as Hilda Bryant, with a short explanation of the maps by a man she names only as Brown.

Historical Context

The first known Green River victim, Wendy Lee Coffield, was found in the Green River in King County, Washington, in July 1982. The killings continued, and many victims were left in wooded areas south of Seattle. King County formed a task force in 1982 and a much larger one in January 1984 under Capt. Frank Adamson. By 1986 at least $10 million had been spent on the investigation, and in September 1986 the task force's staff was cut. Ridgway, who had been a suspect since 1983 and had passed a polygraph in 1984, was not arrested until November 30, 2001, after DNA testing of samples taken from him in 1987.

Circumstances of the Report

The report explains the problem the task force faced: dump sites so large and so rough that searching them risked destroying evidence, and measurements that were less accurate than detectives wanted. It shows an instrument that measured distances and angles at a scene, with the data logged in a field book and fed to a computer to draw a detailed map.

What the Report Covers

According to the report, the computer maps could be redrawn at different scales and could show one kind of evidence or all of it, letting detectives look at parts of a scene and test different ideas of what had happened. Brown gives the example of showing where every cigarette butt had been found. The reporter closes by saying the task force wanted to buy its own system, to go back over the old body sites and to use at the scenes it expected to find in the future.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The report captures the Green River investigation four years in, still calling it "this country's worst unsolved serial murder case", and shows investigators looking to new technology for help with sites that had been hard to search and record.

Archival Importance

It is contemporary local coverage from the task force era, preserved and released by the station that broadcast it.

Important Caveats

Ridgway is not heard, seen or named; the report predates his identification by fifteen years. The station's title ("Search for the Green River Killer") refers to the investigation in general; the report is about crime-scene mapping, not a search operation. Whether the task force bought a mapping system is not stated in the report and has not been verified. The reporter's name is as heard in the sign-off, and Brown's first name and role are not given.

Reporter: The Green River case has posed special problems for investigators since it all began back in July of 1982. Bodies have been found in heavily wooded areas. The sheer size of many of the killer's dumping sites has made it hard for police to reproduce crime scenes for study. Searching sites meant tramping over rough terrain, possibly destroying evidence, and taking measurements that might not be as accurate as detectives had hoped.

Reporter: This machine may help. It's part of a surveying and mapping system used by the City of Bellevue to investigate traffic accidents. The Green River Task Force hopes it will someday help crack this country's worst unsolved serial murder case.

Reporter: Here's how it works. This instrument is used to measure distance and angles at the crime scene, and it helps detectives pinpoint specific areas within the site. In this case, those bits of information can be invaluable. All measurements are logged into a field book and eventually fed into a computer, which organizes the information into a detailed map. This is the kind of map that would be used by the Green River Task Force.

Brown: This is the end result. We can redo the map at various scales, and we can display various kinds of evidence, or we can display all the evidence. It gives us a lot of flexibility.

Reporter: That flexibility means detectives can recreate the crime scene and play out different scenarios on what might have happened. They can look closely at specific areas or components of the crime scene.

Brown: As an example, a cigarette butt: if we wanted to see where all the cigarette butts were on the map, we could display that.

Reporter: Brown says the task force would like to buy its own mapping system to go over the old body sites again, and to use on the crime scenes they expect to find in the future. Hilda Bryant, KIRO Eyewitness News. [01:56 to 01:57: no speech in either machine source; clip ends.] ---