To the detectives who had virtually abandoned their own families in their desperate search for the killer, the criticism coming their way was like pouring salt into an open wound. On the more positive side, a reward was suggested for information leading to the arrest of the Green River Killer. It began with a $500 donation, and by November 25, 1983, grew to $7,600.
It was easy to pick apart what the investigators had done—or had not done—in some critics’ eyes. Experts were brought in to look at the Green River probe thus far and recommendations were made. Dick Kraske, Dave Reichert, Fae Brooks, and Randy Mullinax tried to take the evaluations with an open mind, but it was difficult for them. Unless someone had been in the trenches of a ghastly series of homicide cases, how could they know what it was like?
Some of the advisers who were asked to look at the way the cases had been handled did know, because they had been there. Bob Keppel, once a King County detective, had been a lead detective on the Bundy case and was now assigned to the Criminal Division of the Washington State Attorney General’s Office. In his new position, Keppel had taken a second look at a number of cases that had stalled in the cumbersome wheels of justice and brought some of them to trial with resulting convictions. He was also visualizing a computer program called HITS that would “collect, collate, and analyze the salient characteristics of all murders and predatory sexual offenses in Washington.”
Keppel had used an almost “stone age” computer to try to winnow down all the suspects turned in during the search for “Ted.” Bob Keppel was a very intelligent and organized investigator who was making a name for himself with his emphasis on cross-referencing reports, suspects, dates, times, places. Even though computers were not really a large part of homicide probes in the early 1980s, they were not unknown, and Keppel was ahead of the game in that department. He would stay with the Green River Task Force far longer than he expected to.
Despite a temporary lull, both Keppel and Dave Reichert believed the homicides were still going on. They were the yin and yang of the task force, with Reichert’s tendency to seek action and Keppel’s analytical approach. Occasionally, they would frustrate and even anger each other, but they were both dedicated to tracking down the same quarry, so they worked it out. If there was one thing Bob Keppel had learned, it was that no detective should become overly possessive of his case to the detriment of the real goal. And no department should get involved in a “turf war” over a high-profile investigation.
F.B.I. special agent John Douglas, whose forte was profiling, flew into Seattle in late 1983 to take a close-up look at what was happening in King County. Douglas, for reasons entirely separate from the Green River cases, would be lucky to leave this investigation alive.
In early December, he collapsed in his hotel room with tachy-cardia and a fever nearing 106 degrees. His brain was seizing and he was near death when fellow F.B.I. agents checked his room because they hadn’t heard from him. John Douglas was diagnosed with viral encephalitis and would not be able to work on the Green River cases, or any others, for six months. As it was, his recovery from paralysis and threatened brain damage was remarkable. In the years since, Douglas has been involved in any number of high-profile cases, including the JonBenet Ramsey murder, and has gone on to write several best-selling books.
Before he became ill, however, Douglas had suggested a technique that might be successful if the task force should ever be sitting across a table from a viable suspect. To allay feelings of deep embarrassment and shame and to elicit admissions that were ugly and shocking, Douglas said the questioners could separate the person in front of them into two categories: “the good Sam” and “the bad Sam.” That would allow him to disconnect from what the “bad Sam” had done.
It was a great idea—if they ever got that close. But as Christmas, 1983, approached, morale was down in the Green River Task Force. The few detectives working the cases complained of the same things the “Ted” Task Force had hated: sitting in a stuffy, cramped office; sorting though mountains of paper, tips, and notes; trying to find the common denominators that might lead them to a suspect they could interrogate.
The detectives who tracked the wraithlike killer had worked overtime for more than a year, but received virtually no support from the public because they hadn’t arrested anyone and seen the case through to a satisfactory trial and a conviction.
Dick Kraske was transferred from the Criminal Investigation Division in late 1983, trading jobs with Terry Allman who had been commanding the North Precinct. Frank Adamson would be taking over the Green River Task Force.
Kraske had had a lot of bucks stop at his desk in the Bundy investigation, and it had continued during the Green River murder cases. In many ways, Kraske had the toughest job in the toughest serial murder case in America. “The first year of the investigation was anything but the model for interagency and interdepartment cooperation,” he recalled. “A lot of it could be attributed to the anxiety surrounding the leadership and what the commitment would be to the investigation. One of the many problems with the Bundy case had been the ‘buffer zone’ between the leadership and the ‘person in charge of the investigation.’ ”
For Kraske, who had been deeply involved in both the Bundy and the Green River cases within the space of seven years, that meant that the sheriff himself should have been ready to step up and be responsible for whatever happened in the Green River cases, as well as help get the funding the investigation desperately needed. But there were three sheriffs during the late seventies to 1983, and Kraske felt he had no support from any of them, not until Vern Thomas became the head man.
The 1982–83 Green River budget was a little under $10,000. One day, far in the future, the task force tab would be estimated at $30 million, and even that wasn’t enough. But in 1983 that would have sounded like an impossible brave new world of forensic science and its attendant costs.
“That is not to say I am abdicating from any mistakes that were made during my involvement,” Kraske said. “It’s just that it would have made things a little less difficult if you had known that you had the support these investigations demanded.”
Kraske saluted Sheriff Vern Thomas, and executives Randy Revelle and Paul Barden because they were committed to helping the task force as it metamorphosed over the years.
Years later, Dick Kraske would comment wryly that a lot of people probably believed that he had retired in 1984 when he left the Green River Task Force. But that wasn’t true at all. He would serve the King County Sheriff’s Office for another six years, some of his best years on the department, although he almost died from internal bleeding in 1985. Doctors could find no cause and he recovered. Anyone who ever worked on a serial murder task force could probably identify the cause easily enough. Ulcers, migraines, heart attacks, bad backs, accidents, and even cancer seem to stalk them.
Over the years, this endless investigation would prove to be, quite literally, a man-killer.
In November 1983, when Vern Thomas became the new sheriff, he brought in all those in command positions to discuss a battle plan for a second task force. Everyone agreed that they needed more money and more personnel. The transition wasn’t easy. Dick Kraske would have liked to stay with the hunt. An intense man, a stickler for details, Kraske had done a good job, but he and his detectives had not been able to catch the Green River Killer.
In many ways, Kraske had been working at a disadvantage. The terrible scope of the murders was hidden at first, so in the first years, the Green River Task Force was inadequately staffed. The original task force had only five detectives, with three more detectives working other unsolved homicides in the sheriff’s office. The eight of them shared five cars. Their early-day Apple computer wasn’t backed up by a surge protector. It was 1982 and 1983. Most people didn’t know what a computer was, and were even less prepared for power surges.