Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer (22 page)

Later that evening, Sergeant Metzger reached
Detective Mike Machado by telephone at home and assigned the case
to him. Metzger informed Machado of the circumstances surrounding
the body's discovery and advised him not to respond until morning.
He instructed Machado to report in at the office by 8 A.M., at
which time they hoped they would have further details for him.

The next morning, Machado checked in at the
sheriff's office half an hour earlier than advised. He met with
Sergeant Metzger and Detective Jim Strovink, who was also assigned
to the case. Deputies John Gilliland and Jeff Lamarche were also
instructed to go to the site. Since they would be dealing with an
outdoor crime scene in a remote area, Machado also requested the
assistance of Detective Mark White, a tracker.

Clackamas County Medical Examiner George
Coleman, who had been to the site the previous evening, informed
Machado that the body was almost mummified and appeared leathery
and shiny. He didn't know the sex of the corpse, he said, but it
was nude. The body was in a prone position, with dead leaves and
debris around it. He said that a hand was visible, but it was
unusually positioned, as if the body had been tossed into the
ferns.

When they arrived at the crime scene an hour
and a half later, they were met by Reserve Deputy Dennis Ward, who
was guarding the logging road about 200 feet from where the body
was located. All of the officials parked their cars at that
location to avoid disturbing any potential evidence that might be
present both on and off the roadway, and the number of people
allowed to enter the crime scene was kept to a minimum for the same
reason. Ward had been guarding the location all night, and it
showed in his face.

Walking up the grass median of the dirt road,
Ward led Machado, Strovink, and White up to where the body was
located. From the road, Ward pointed out a visible portion of the
body. Detective White, the tracker, then took the lead and they
walked toward the corpse using a pathway that had been used the
night before by the responding officers. White moved slowly,
inspecting the plant life as they went in. When he approached the
body, he looked carefully at its covering.

"The damage that's been done to the ferns and
pieces of wood appears to be old damage," White told the others.
"The ferns covering the body appear to have been broken off, not
cut. The ends are jagged and rough."

The body was visible from the waist down,
nude, and there was no clothing in close proximity to it. The upper
torso pointed toward the southeast, and the legs pointed to the
northwest. The left leg was lying under the right leg and was
straight. The right leg was bent with the ankle lying on top of the
left leg near the left ankle area. There was a white plastic bottle
lying next to the left leg, its spout facing the ankle, and a rusty
can was nearby. Deputies Gilliland and Lamarche entered the area
and began photographing everything. The fact that the victim was
nude left no doubt that they were dealing with a homicide.

At 10:22 A.M., when they were finished with
the initial phase of the photography, George Coleman, the medical
examiner, entered the scene and began removing brush from the
victim's body. He pulled ferns off of the upper torso and head
areas, completely exposing the corpse. The victim's left arm was
extended straight out from the shoulder in a direct parallel line
with the body, and the right arm crossed under the torso with the
right hand lying down between the legs. There was significant
maggot activity in the groin area, and it was obvious that large
amounts of putrefactive liquid had oozed into the underlying brush
and soil.

The skull bone was exposed where the scalp
and curly, light brown, almost blond hair had slipped back during
the process of decomposition. It was noted that the victim's left
foot was missing, apparently severed just above the ankle, and was
not visible in the immediate area. The lawmen didn't know whether
the missing foot was the work of animals or the perpetrator.

Three minutes later, as Coleman continued
pulling ferns and brush from the area of the body, another body was
exposed. Coleman, suddenly taken aback by the discovery, stopped
what he was doing and called out to Machado. The second body, they
observed, was in a fetal position on its right side facing the
northeast. The left arm was extended and the hand was open, the
fingers extending straight out. Both feet were missing, apparently
sawed or cut off at ankle level. It was by now obvious that the
missing feet were not the work of animals. The body was also nude
and decomposed. Everyone cleared the area except Lamarche, who
remained to continue taking photos.

When Lamarche was finished, Machado and
Strovink started from the road's edge and began seizing evidence as
they worked toward the bodies. In addition to collecting evidence,
their objective was to clear a manageable area around the bodies
where they could work without fear of contaminating or otherwise
inadvertently destroying potential evidence that might be
present.

As they worked, they collected soil samples,
dead ferns that had covered the bodies, the white plastic bottle
and rusted can, and a piece of fiber cord, red in color. Machado
also found a glass bottle near the head of the first body, an empty
Bud Lite beer can near that victim's left hand, and a small clear
liquor bottle in the stand of ferns that overlooked both bodies. At
12:30 P.M., Strovink called out to Machado.

"Hey, Mike!" he said. "You'd better get over
here. I just found another one."

"Another what?"

"Another body!"

Machado noted that the third body was about
fifteen feet north of the first two corpses. It was resting against
a tree in a supine position, and the left arm was extended
vertically. Like the others, it was nude. Putrefactive odor was
strong, and Machado observed a gaping cut or incision that extended
from the area of the groin upward to the sternum. He could see the
vertebral column and the left iliac bone through the opening. He
saw maggots moving about, concentrated on and near the right side
of the head.

Realizing that he had a much more serious
situation on his hands than he'd initially thought, Machado ordered
everyone out of the forest and down the road to the parking area.
Machado decided that Gilliland, Lamarche, and Strovink would
process the roadway leading from the parking location to the body
location, seizing evidence, so that they would have access to the
body locations without disturbing any evidence. He also decided
that additional personnel would be needed and that it would be
necessary to set up a command post.

In order to maintain security and prevent
unauthorized police band listeners, particularly newspaper and
television reporters, from learning about the outdoor human cluster
dump, Machado left the area and contacted Captain James Grolbert by
telephone. Grolbert, in charge of the Clackamas County Sheriff's
Office Operations Division, agreed with Machado's suggestions and
assured the detective that he would begin activating additional
personnel and equipment immediately.

Machado arrived back at the crime scene at
2:30 P.M. Minutes later, Senior Deputy D.A. Dennis Miller arrived
accompanied by Deputy D.A. Andy Aubertine and D.A. Investigator Tom
Kusturin. Strovink provided them a brief review of the scene so
they would be aware of what the detectives were working with.
Afterward, Machado and Strovink discussed how they were going to
proceed, finally deciding that each scene would be processed the
same, if at all possible. Each scene was to be divided into
twenty-five-by-twenty-five-foot grid sections and labeled by
letter. Afterward, each scene would be processed in order of body
discovery, starting with additional photographs, a search of the
area, and measuring and photographing of evidence. Also, in lieu of
identification, each body was numerically labeled in the order
found.

At 5 P.M., Deputy Robin Swanson of the
sheriff's department canine unit arrived with her tracking dog, a
German shepherd named Colt. Colt and Swanson immediately began
searching in the vicinity of the bodies. Fifteen minutes later,
Colt found Body #4. It was approximately 40 feet north of Body #3,
resting in a supine position deep within brush and blackberry vines
and partially covered by a mound of dried dirt. The pelvis and
lower vertebral column was tilted somewhat vertically toward the
left, exposing a portion of the rib cage. There were no clothes on
or near the remains.

The corpse, unlike the others, was largely
skeletonized, an indication that it may have been there longer than
the others. The skull was almost completely devoid of flesh, except
for a small amount of leathery, dried, and desiccated tissue in the
left parietal-temporal region. Long, unattached reddish brown hair
remained around the skull. There was a small band of leathery skin
that passed around the lower lumbar vertebral region and,
similarly, around the left femur. The body was so decomposed that
Swanson could detect no putrefactive odor. The scene was carefully
processed just like the others, and no attempt to move the remains
was made.

At 6:35 P.M., Reserve Deputy Jim Brown,
assisting with the search for more bodies and the seizure of
evidence, called out to the others that he had found Body #5. It
was located about fifty yards west of Body #4 in a small triangular
open area in the woods, separated from the other bodies by the
road. Like the other four, Body #5 was nude.

Body #5 was actively decomposing but
partially mummified. It was in a prone position, its head facing
downward into a large growth of bracken fern. The right side of the
skull was skeletonized, but not to the extent that Body #4 was, a
further indication that Body #4 had been there perhaps a few days
longer. The hands were bound behind the back with a dark green,
one-inch-wide belt that could have been a dog collar, and there
were several circular and irregularly shaped defects in the lower
back and right buttocks. The right foot had been cut or sawed
off.

By the time the search was called off for the
first day at 7:20 P.M., there was considerable talk among
investigators and area residents alike that the Green River Killer
had moved south into Oregon from Washington state. After all, in
1985 Oregon authorities in Washington County had found the remains
of four young women near the Portland suburb of Tualatin, two of
which were identified as Denise Darcel Bush, twenty-three, and
Shirley Marie Sherill, eighteen, both Seattle-area prostitutes
whose deaths were attributed to the Green River Killer. The other
two Washington County victims, found close to the town of Tigard,
were not officially linked to the Green River Killer, but they had
not been officially ruled out, either.

Because the Molalla forest bodies had been
cluster dumped at an outdoor location like the many victims of the
Green River Killer—named after the river where the first several
victims, mostly young women and teenage girls, were found—Machado
duly notified the Green River Task Force in Seattle. He spoke with
Detective Dave Reichert and provided an opportunity for the Green
River Task Force to send a representative to Oregon so they could
watch the progress of the Molalla forest case more closely.

Although the search had concluded for the
day, security remained heavy. Reserve deputies were posted around
the clock at all points of entry, and additional guards were
stationed at the cordoned-off sites. Machado and Strovink also
remained at the scene overnight, but neither slept well. They
couldn't stop thinking about the atrocities that had been
committed, nor could they help wondering how many more bodies they
would find.

Chapter 13

By early the next day, a mobile radio command
post had been established in a van parked down the hill from the
body sites. Since Sheriff Bill Brooks and his investigators
anticipated that the search for more bodies and additional evidence
might take several days, the mobile command post served to link the
searchers and detectives to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office
headquarters in Oregon City. A large, open-sided tent was also put
up to provide the searchers shelter from the scorching, late summer
heat as well as the intermittent drizzle that occurred from the
ever-changing atmospheric conditions for which Oregon is so well
known. As an added comfort, Chief Deputy Sheriff W. Risley Bradshaw
brought his personal motor home to the site and left it there for
those who were required to remain overnight.

As approximately seventy members of the
Clackamas County Sheriff's Department and Sheriff's Reserves
mobilized and headed to the crime scene to assist in the search,
numerous members from the Clackamas County Sheriff's Law
Enforcement Explorer Post No. 715, the Multnomah County Sheriff's
Search and Rescue Explorer Post No. 631, the Marion County
Sheriff's Office Explorers, and investigators from the district
attorney's and medical examiner's offices also arrived at the
forest site. Many would be involved in clearing away brush and
vines so that others could begin a hands and knees, inch-by-inch
search of the areas in grid patterns. Soil in and around the body
sites would also be collected and sifted through screens in a
procedure many lawmen refer to as "shake and bake" that would, they
hoped, yield useful evidence. Because the searchers were working
with small spoons and brushes, the operation could have been
mistaken by an uninformed outsider as an archaeological dig. The
explorers would do the actual searching in a wide area of the
hills, and in some cases use ropes for rappelling the cliffs.

Deputy Bob Davis was assigned to do the
gridding of the area, which comprised extensive measuring and the
setting up of compass readings. Davis also assisted John Gilliland,
who had been assigned to seize evidence, when it came time to
measure evidence discovered within the grid areas.