The war in Vietnam still raged and he stood a good chance of being drafted, so he joined the navy. Before he was sent to his duty station in San Diego, he got married to his steady girlfriend, Heather. They had a “military wedding,” as he described it, at Fort Lawton in Seattle.

She was a year younger than he was. They were married by a military chaplain in August 1970, and she moved with him to San Diego. They seemed to get along all right for the months he was in training in California, although he was on a ship for several days each week. When he was in port, they had sex a few times a day. Other than that, they didn’t do much that was very exciting, but she seemed happy enough to him.

And then he shipped out to sea for several months. She was alone in a strange city in a strange state. Neither of them was very mature, and they began to accuse each other of infidelity. Since writing was difficult for him, his letters weren’t particularly tactful.

Actually, they were both cheating. He didn’t feel that visiting prostitutes when he was away from home should count, as he had a very strong sex drive. He formed fleeting relationships with a half-dozen Filipina prostitutes. She was bored and lonely, and moved in with another young woman—a girl who was married to a marine. And she began to date, too.

He checked into sick bay because it hurt to pee, and was told that he had a venereal disease. He was very angry about that because he had already had gonorrhea once. Maybe he thought it was like the measles or mumps and he wouldn’t get it again, but he was really steamed this time. Apparently the cautionary films shown by the navy failed to make an impression on him. He had rarely worn condoms, but a long time later he insisted he didn’t blame the Filipina prostitutes. They had always treated him well and introduced him to more exotic sexual practices than the missionary position.

He had been an angry boy and his rage grew when he became an adult, although he kept a very tight lid on it. He was still drifting and apparently had no insight at all into his own motivations for doing things.

His bride recalled that when he returned from sea duty, she confessed to him that she had been so lonely that she had dated other men. He would steadfastly deny that he ever knew for sure whether she had been unfaithful and assert that he didn’t question her at all when he was transferred to Washington and she suggested he drive back to Seattle on his own.

He left his young wife in San Diego. It was a fatal blow to their marriage. He prevailed upon her to come back to Seattle, and she did, but she stayed only a week, telling him “This marriage isn’t working” as she left for the airport.

Inside, he had never been that sure of himself, and being cuck-olded hit him harder than it would most men. He branded his wife a “whore” and they were divorced less than a year after their marriage.

He wasn’t soured on marriage, however. He was anxious to meet another woman, one he could trust. He quickly began frequenting places where he could meet women, and he dated three or four of them in rapid succession, although none of his relationships lasted more than a few months.

And once he had discovered prostitutes, he patronized them, too.

23

IT TOOK A WHILE for Jerry Alexander to track down Bridget Meehan’s old boyfriend Ray. The Port of Seattle detective was still assigned to her case since her body was found within his department’s jurisdiction. Ray was pretty foggy at first about his life with Bridget, but his memory grew clearer with every contact. Finally, he admitted that Bridget had been working the Strip. Asked if he remembered any particular johns, he recalled her talking about one who drove a blue sports car with a vanity plate.

Alexander ran the vanity plates through the Department of Motor Vehicles in Olympia and got a hit on the second one that seemed right. It was for a blue Karmann Ghia whose registered owner lived within two miles of the Strip.

The man was in his thirties and seemed normal enough, almost meek in demeanor. He admitted readily that he occasionally paid for sex, and that he’d been with Bridget. “I’m attracted to girls with big breasts, and I saw her walking her dog near Larry’s,” he said. “She had a lonely look about her.”

He didn’t seem a likely suspect; his answers were forthright, and the task force detectives had questioned hundreds of men who had either been turned in by tipsters or arrested by undercover officers posing as “prostitutes.” Many of them seemed far more sinister than this guy.

Alexander ran the man through records and got somewhat shocking results. He had a record as a mental case. Another detective had contacted him on a report totally unconnected to the Green River murders. “He’s 219-5/16th,” the other officer said. (In Washington State, mental cases are referred to as “220s” because police officers back in the very early days received a bonus of $2.20 for arresting such potentially dangerous subjects.) “He thinks he’s a spy, he’s suicidal, and sometimes he carries a nine millimeter.”

But he probably hadn’t killed Bridget Meehan; he had a solid alibi for the time period when she disappeared.

AS 1983 DREW TO A CLOSE, Sheriff Vern Thomas pleaded with King County politicos for funding that would allow the investigation to be expanded, and while some listened with concern, at least one voiced his doubt that the county’s image would be much improved by spending taxpayers’ money on investigating the murders of “hookers.”

It was an appalling comment, but it reflected the opinions of some citizens. It was an odd November. While some people were angry at the girls who were forced to work the streets even though they were frightened, there was another contingent accusing the task force of failing to care about the victims just because they were prostitutes.

The solid citizens marched, carrying signs that said “Clean up our community!” and “No more prostitution!” Little League moms walked beside their uniformed sons, and mothers pushed their babies in strollers with balloons tied to them. They carried signs in their parade that demanded action. One woman said she was terrified that the Green River Killer might start abducting “nice” girls and killing them.

Seventy-five people crowded into the South Central School District boardroom and demanded that the sheriff’s office do more about keeping prostitution away from their children.

“We’ll never stop prostitution,” the businessman who had organized the meeting announced, “but get them out of our community!” The self-righteous businessman backed down only a little, allowing that probably the dead girls were somebody’s daughters and their parents must be grieving.

Lieutenant Dan Nolan, a seasoned and dedicated investigator, who had been working the Green River cases for months, suggested a whole new concept to many of those outraged citizens. Perhaps they might exert a little pressure on the johns, rather than condemning the girls they paid to have sex with.

To the people who had gathered there, it seemed a very backward way of approaching the problem. They nodded as someone said that everybody knew that it was the prostitutes themselves who were the cause of the problem. Scarlet women with no respect for themselves. Trollops. Promiscuous women who chose the lazy way to make a living. They had seen hookers in movies and knew what they were really like.

And they were so wrong. Offering sex for money is not a profession that glorifies women; it is a profession born of desperation, poverty, alienation, and loneliness. But one of the men who had sponsored the citizens’ protest dismissed prostitutes easily, saying, “They do it because they really like sex.”