It seems strange to read my own comments to Iwata as I gave my thoughts on who the Green River Killer might be and what drove him: “[He] either possesses superior intelligence, or he’s so streetwise or con-wise that he makes up for whatever [lack of] intelligence he might have…. The antisocial personality always sounds sincere. The facade is absolutely perfect.”
In the same article, F.B.I. special agent Bob Ressler commented, “Most of these people are very, very human. The majority are normal in appearance and conversation, and certainly not insane or bizarre. They’re not strapped in chains or straitjackets, and that’s what makes them so dangerous.”
The media coverage was accelerating, not just in western Washington and Portland, Oregon, but spreading into other states. Finally, on May 23, 1984, Frank Adamson and the rest of the task force got a much-needed right arm, a smart and gracious media spokesperson: Fae Brooks. Fae knew the Green River cases as well as anyone. She and Dave Reichert had worked on them in the very beginning. As the media liaison, she could tactfully stonewall the press without ever ruffling reporters’ feathers.
Fae Brooks had joined the King County Sheriff’s Office in 1978 as a patrol officer, the realization of a longtime ambition. She had once been a legal secretary, but her uncle was assistant chief of police in Washington, D.C., and she wanted to be a cop, too. She began on patrol out of the Burien Precinct, which now housed the Green River Task Force, and quickly moved up to be a detective in the Sexual Assault Unit. Brooks had been a recruiter for the department, too. She dismissed any thought that it was difficult for a woman, an African American at that, to go up through the ranks. “As long as you are a competent officer, it doesn’t make any difference who you are.”
She would prove that—and then some—over the years, moving up through the ranks.
ON MAY 26, reporters would clamor again for information. More bones had been found, this time near Jovita Boulevard, not in King County, but five blocks into Pierce County. The skull still had metal orthodontic braces on its teeth. Colleen Brockman, fifteen, who had believed that the men who picked her up on the SeaTac HiWay and sometimes took her out to dinner really cared for her, had lain for a year and a half undiscovered. The fate that her friend “Bunny” had feared had caught up with Colleen.
By June 16, 1984, the official toll of Green River victims was twenty-six. Eighteen of them identified; the rest only bones.
Tracy Winston was still missing, along with Kase Ann Lee, Debra Lorraine Estes, Denise Darcel Bush, Tina “Star” Tomson/ Kim Nelson, Shirley Sherrill, Becky Marrero, Mary Bello, Carrie Rois, Patricia Osborn, Marie Malvar, April Buttram, Pammy Avent, Mary Exzetta West, Keli Kay McGinness, Martina Authorlee, and Cindy Ann Smith. Maybe some of the unidentified bones would prove to be those of the missing. Perhaps not.
And, almost certainly, there were young women missing who had never been reported, girls who either had no close relatives and associates or who were believed to be living somewhere else or traveling.
There were new tips coming in, and some unresolved suspicions about prior suspects. In July 1984, Melvyn Foster told reporters that investigators had given him a “ride” to Seattle from his Lacey home, bought him lunch, and spent several hours showing him pictures of dozens of women and asking him questions. “It was all quite civilized,” he commented with aplomb. He had been happy to share his experience and knowledge with them. He appeared to be somewhat pleased that the task force detectives had failed to arrest a viable suspect.
Foster bragged to Barbara Kubik-Patten that he and Dave Reichert were now “good buddies,” and that Reichert was going to show him all the dump sites. He still had a kind of love/hate relationship with the police. Foster wanted very much to be part of law enforcement, and continued to offer his services as a “consultant” to any department that would listen to him. His father’s home was in Thurston County, so he went to Neil McClanahan and Mark Curtis, high-ranking detectives in the sheriff’s office, and offered to help them “clean up prostitution” in Olympia, Washington’s state capital. One place he suggested they investigate was the “Roman Bath,” where he said he himself had had sex with women. Curtis and McClanahan checked with King County on Foster’s status and were told to go ahead and listen to Foster if they wanted to.
He would soon be cleared by the Green River Task Force of any guilty knowledge in their cases, finally omitted from the suspect roster during Frank Adamson’s command.
“We bought Mel’s car for $1,200 and processed it to the nth degree—even using the F.B.I.’s criminalists,” Adamson recalled, “but we found nothing. There was a handprint on the trunk of his car, a small print, and we wondered if it was from a small female or a child. It was from his daughter. We cleared him because we were so thorough in searching his vehicle.”
Every so often, Foster would get into trouble with the law, usually a scuffle of some sort. Once, he pulled a knife on a driver who cut him off in traffic. Still, he faded rapidly from the headlines, no longer “a person of interest.”
Wendy Coffield’s parents sued the State of Washington for negligence in not keeping careful enough track of her. They had hoped that she would be incarcerated for several years so that she might have a safer environment, and they were angry that she had been released to a facility without bars and locked doors. In the end, their suit went nowhere.
ON SATURDAY, July 31, 1984, I received a phone call from a man named Randy who said he lived in San Francisco with his grandmother. He said he’d read The Stranger Beside Me and decided to call me about two men he’d met in jail: Richard Carbone and Robert Matthias. Randy said he was quite sure they had killed at least some of the Green River victims, and they had also told him they had robbed a bank in Seattle. He gave me very detailed descriptions of Matthias and Carbone, right down to their prison tattoos. He was frustrated because he said he had called the task force and left a message for Bob Gebo, a Seattle police homicide detective on loan to the Green River investigation, and he hadn’t yet heard back. I explained how many leads the task force investigators had to follow and that I was sure Gebo would get back to him when he could.
Three days later, I heard from Matthias himself. He said Randy had given him my number. He claimed to be afraid that his life would be in danger on any trip back to Seattle with detectives. I told him not to worry; I’d relayed his message and been told that Detective Paul Smith of the task force would be coming to San Francisco to talk to him.
Matthias called me several times, telling me about his dysfunctional childhood, and then he confessed to killing some of the Green River victims. But he broke into tears when I tried to pin him down about dates, seasons, and locations around Seattle. I’ll admit I almost bought his story at first, because he was very, very, convincing. “Tell me something,” I said, “because I’m curious. If you are involved in the situation up here, you would have either had to be very good-looking, drive a really nice car, or have a great gift of gab, because the girls were so frightened they wouldn’t get in a car with just anyone.”
“Two out of three,” he said. “I don’t like to brag, but I’m good-looking. I appear to be very, very nice. I can get people to trust me and feel comfortable with me in the first five minutes I talk to them. It’s mainly the way I talk. I sound very naive when I want to. My tattoos throw them off sometimes, though, and I have to talk faster.”
I didn’t really trust Matthias, but he knew enough about the Green River cases for me to keep up a dialogue with him. Still, it was becoming obvious to me that he wanted to learn more from me than he wanted to tell me the truth. I deliberately avoided giving him any locations or information about the victims. Matthias thought they had all been pretty brunettes, and I let him think that. He was wrong about the manner of death, too. He mentioned using a gun, and said they had been beaten and cut, as well as strangled.