Northwest Serial Killer All-Stars

Here's another recently published article of mine (Oregonizm #2). I apologize if you've already read it. (Also, I've linked Kip Kinkel because I know he's not as well known outside Oregon-- and the morbid community).
Warning: It's not for the faint of heart.

Maybe it’s the rain, or the surplus of titty bars, or all the coffee we drink. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because there’s so many goddamn white people* up here. Whatever it is, one thing’s for sure: we certainly seem to have more than our fair share of serial killers in the beautiful Northwest. In fact, not only do we have what seems an excess of ‘em, but quite a few did such a bang up job they’re right up there with the best the nation has to offer. And so, without further ado, here are our All-Stars:

* serial killing is almost exclusively a white male past time.

1) Ted Bundy- 30 victims
If there was such a thing as a national Serial Killer All-Star Team we’d never have to bitch about our guys always getting left off it. Not with ol’ Ted lacing ‘em up for us. Ted Bundy, you see, was the Kobe Bryant of psychopathic corpse-fuckers. And he’s all ours. Sure he eventually took his talents on the road, but he was raised right here in the NW. And it was here he honed his skills and began fleshing out his all-star resume.

As the Casanova of serial killers ol' Ted was a ground breaker. He was handsome and intelligent and, therefore, didn’t have to sneak up on his victims. Instead he sweet-talked them to their doom. He showed the world that, rather than always being some hunchbacked misanthrope lurking in the shadows, your neighborhood serial killer just might be the home-coming king. And that scared the shit out of everyone.

In the beginning, Ted worked exclusively in and around the campus of his alma-mater, the University of Washington. Sometimes he liked to lure these sweet, young coeds into his car and sometimes he just sneaked into their dorm rooms. It didn't really matter because either way they ended up battered, brutalized and screwed six ways 'til Sunday. It was fun-- but after 11 victims Ted decided it was time to hit the road.

Maybe he’d started to feel the heat, or maybe he’d just realized that no matter how fast he worked he’d never be able to kill all of those fucking Huskies. Who knows? Whatever the reason, he enrolled in the University of Utah law school and high-tailed it to Salt Lake City. Once there, though, his studies were definitely not first and foremost in his mind.

In 1976, just two years after he began his bloody spree, Ted was convicted of attempted kidnapping and sentenced to 15 years in the Utah State prison. Even though it wasn’t the murder conviction the authorities had worked for, at least they were hopeful he'd be off the streets for a while. Instead, he wouldn’t even stay there long enough to start enjoying the sodomy.

Just over a year later Ted found himself in Aspen, awaiting trial for a 1975 murder he’d committed there. It was a small town, though, and the police were dumb as chimps. In short time Ted escaped and spent a week on the run. And then, not six months later, he slipped out of the same jail and headed for Florida.

Later, in Death Row interviews, he would say he felt this time behind bars had changed him, perhaps doused his killing rage. He’d hoped to settle into a new identity and leave all the ugliness behind. He was, he would soon find out, dead wrong.

Just a week after arriving in Tallahassee, Ted broke into a Florida State University sorority house. He was not just in the mood for a good ol’ fashioned panty raid, though. Instead he savaged four women there, killing two and severely injuring the others. And then, just an hour later, did the same to another female coed in her apartment a few blocks away.

Where once he prided himself on seducing his victims, he was now a mindless machine. Hannibal Lecter on tweak. He tore at the flesh of his victims with his teeth, beat one woman’s head flat into her pillow with a tree limb. Ripped another girl open from crotch to asshole with a can of hair spray. He was a full-fledged maniac now and it would soon cost him his life.

Within the month Ted Bundy would be caught for the final time and convicted when his teeth were shown to match the bite marks on one of the dead sorority girls. He spent a few weepy years on Death Row, lamenting that so many people hated him, and finally fried in the electric chair on January 24, 1989.

Fun Fact: Jane’s Addiction’s song “Ted, Just Admit it,” with its “Sex is Violent” refrain is about Bundy.

2) Gary Ridgway (The Green River Killer)- 46 victims
Like Bundy, Gary Ridgway is another home-grown, corpse-fucking All-Star. During interviews, in fact, he told police he often returned to the dumpsite to screw the decomposing body-- at least until there were just too many maggots. He also said that on at least one occasion he busted a nut with one while his young son slept only feet away in his truck. As you can see, his credentials are impeccable.

The only thing strange about Ridgway's case is that he is officially tied to only 46 murders. Now these may already seem like Michael Jordan-type numbers but, if you look at the dates, you’ll realize that there’s something odd about this final tally. That’s because although he was arrested in 2001, all but two of his victims died between '82-'84.

“Well,” you may be asking yourself, “what the fuck was he doing those other 17 years, playing Scrabble?” If so, you’re not alone. And it was because of the sheer incompetence of the Seattle Police force that his Hall of Fame career lasted so long.

Gary Ridgway, you see, was well known to the Seattle Police, even before the dead hookers started piling up. Here, in fact, are a few of their run-ins:

1980: Ridgway is arrested and accused of choking a prostitute near the Sea-Tac airport.

1982: He is questioned with a prostitute who was later added to the Green River list.

1983: The police interview Ridgway when a man tells them he last saw his missing hooker-girlfriend with Ridgeway in his dark pickup truck. Ridgway denies it and so the matter is dropped. This even though a month earlier another prostitute is last seen in a dark truck with a man matching Ridgway's description. Both women end up on the Green River list.

Now, fast forward to 1987: after 4 ½ years and a body count pushing 40 the police set its sight on a “new” suspect. They learn from Ridgway’s ex-wife’s that he often visited the dump sites of the victims, in fact most of the sites are along his daily drive to work. They also find that Ridgway was off-work during each disappearance. Then they get “bodily samples” from him.

Now wait a minute, you may be saying. They had him in 1987? Fifteen years before he was officially charged with the crimes? How the hell did that happen? Well, the answers to that question are really just goddamn disturbing.

In 1987 all the aforementioned evidence the police had gathered was deemed insufficient. It wasn’t until 2001, nearly 20 years after the first murders, that the case was reopened and forensic samples of the victims and a few suspects were sent for DNA testing.

So what’s strange about all this? First of all, DNA testing has been used since 1988 to narrow suspect lists and strengthen cases. So what happened? Well, it appears the Seattle Police was simply sitting on Ridgway and his victims’ forensic samples. Why? Who knows. Perhaps it was because there were no new bodies to add to the list and stir public outcry. Hell, they were only hookers anyway. But what any criminal psychologist will tell you is that serial killers cannot just stop. They can slow down for a while, perhaps. But quit cold turkey? Nope. Once they begin, they kill until they are either caught or die.

So what does that mean? Did Ridgway rape and kill forty-some women from 1982-84, then one in 1990 and one in 1998 (the only murders attributed to him) and no more? No way. Not a chance. There are almost certainly many more bodies strewn around Seattle and across the Northwest. And only Gary Ridgway knows where they are. Happy hiking.

Fun Fact: In a scene copied in Silence of the Lambs, Seattle Police repeatedly interviewed Ted Bundy on Death Row in Florida, hoping he could help crack the case.

3) Randall Woodfield (the I-5 Killer) - at least 18 victims
If Ted Bundy was the “Casanova” of serial killers, then ol’ Randy Woodfield was the "Tom Brady”of psycho sum-bitches. Not only was he tall, dark and handsome, but he was a star athlete to boot. At 20 he seemed to have it all; too bad it wouldn’t last. Woodfield, you see, was one of those guys who hit their strides at 19 and then find their twenties to be a succession of disappointments.

In the spring of 1974, after two standout years at Portland State, Woodfield was drafted by the Green Bay Packers. Sounds impressive, sure. But, truth is, he never even made it out of training camp. Ol' Randy was only 23 years old but already his lifelong dream of playing in the NFL was fucked.

Once home, though, Randy didn't spend a lot of time lying around feeling sorry for himself. Instead he found another outlet for his competitive spirit: accosting women at knife-point in Portland area parks. There was a lot of running, grunting and patting of butts, just like playing football. And it really got his adrenaline rushing. If only there could’ve been the roar of the crowd... oh, and if only that last bitch hadn’t been an undercover cop. As it was he found himself heading to the State Pen barely a year after being drafted.

Four years later Woodfield came out prison with a world-class case of blue balls. At first he took a job as a bartender and tried the "get the underage chick drunk" rape thing. But it was slow going, and not anonymous enough. And that's when things got ugly.

Over the next six months Woodfield spent most of his free time cruising I-5 from Seattle to northern California in his VW Bug. He found if he hit fast-food restaurants and convenience stores late at night he had a good chance of catching young females working alone. Then he could rob the store, rape and/or kill the woman and be on the highway before the cops even knew anything was up. In fact, he especially liked sodomizing his victims and then shooting 'em in the head at the exact moment he blew his wad. It was fun while it lasted.

Twenty-five years later Randy Woodfield still sits in the Oregon State Pen, serving two life sentences for a vicious double rape and murder he committed in Keizer, Oregon. He has no chance of parole. He spends his free time working out, wooing women through the mail and proclaiming his innocence to anyone who is crazy enough to listen.

Fun Fact: Woodfield bartended at Beaverton's Faucet Tavern (now known as The Dublin Pub) and it is there he met at least one of victims. He also bartended at the Cheerful Tortoise in Portland for a short time.

4) Keith Jesperson (the Happy Face Killer) - at least 8 victims
At 6 foot 6" 240 lbs. Keith Jesperson was a behemoth without a conscience. Before strangling his victims he often enjoyed beating them bloody with his fists. He is, therefore, what this All-Star team needs if we’re ever gonna make it to the finals: someone not afraid to hack the shit out of Shaq.

Keith Jesperson spent his childhood working his way up the animal torture/kill ladder. He started at age six, bashing in the skulls of gophers; by his early twenties he was up to strangling cats, then dogs. Then, at age 35, when he felt he really had the hang of it, he picked up a half-retarded drunk chick at the B&I Tavern in SE Portland, took her home and strangled her. She would not be the last.

Soon after Jesperson took a job as a long-haul trucker. In this line of work he found he could pick up a hooker, kill her and then head off down the highway. It also allowed him another favorite pastime: dragging some of their bodies under his semi's wheels until they looked like nothing more than big bags of meat pudding. What bothered him was that he wasn’t getting any credit for his accomplishments. Where were the accolades? The shoe endorsements? To remedy this Jesperson began writing letters to the Oregonian, bragging about his killings. He signed them with a simple drawing of (you guessed it) a happy face.

Finally, after a few years of this one-sided correspondence, Jesperson did something stupid: he killed someone he was dating. Oh yeah, and then he sent off a letter he would soon regret, one to his brother in which he confessed to his crimes. Intelligence, it seemed, was not one of his strong points-- not that such things ever bothered Bob Whitsitt.

After "confessing" to more than 160 murders, Keith Jesperson was finally convicted of 2 murders in Oregon and one each in Washington and Wyoming. He is now serving consecutive life sentences in the Oregon State Penitentiary. He spends his days working out, shooting free throws and praying for the return of Trader Bob.

Fun Fact: Early in the investigation a Troutdale woman, hoping to end an abusive relationship, “confessed” to helping her boyfriend dispose of one of the Happy-Face bodies. They were convicted and spent 4 years in prison.

5) Jerry Brudos (the Lust Killer)- 4 victims
Before Ted Bundy, before Gary Ridgfield, before most Police Departments had even heard of serial killers, there was Portland's own Jerry Brudos-- the George Mikan of NW serial killers. When he was caught in 1968 P-Town's Police Force was aghast. They'd never seen anything like him. And, although he only has 4 victims to his credit, don't think this cross-dressing freak with a shoe fetish was lazy. No, he was just thorough. Very thorough. He took his time with each of his special lady friends, painstakingly extracting multiple sick pleasures from each and every one.

First there was 19 year-old encyclopedia sales-girl who knocked on Brudos' door while his wife and kids were away. After assaulting and killing her (and repeatedly screwing her corpse) Brudos sawed off her left foot. This he put it in his freezer before dumping the rest of her body in the Willamette River. He had an extensive collection of stolen women's pumps, you see, and he needed something to model them on (can you say shoe endorsement?). This kept him occupied for awhile, at least until the foot began to rot. Then it was hunting time again.

Next there was the girl whose car had broken down on the side of the road. It was easy getting her into his garage after promising to fix it. Almost as easy as trapping her in there and strangling her, right under the nose of his oblivious wife. Then, after screwing her corpse for a while, all there was left to do was lift it into the air via a hook-and-pulley system and he was ready for hours of fun. It hung up there for several days, like a pale, pink piñata. Just perfect for dressing up and taking photos of. And masturbating to.

Then there were the attempts at abductions while dressed in drag, and the attempts at fashioning paperweights out of breasts carved from his victims. He was, as you can see, bat-shit crazy. And this made him careless. Careless enough to start hanging out on the OSU campus, hoping to lure a co-ed into a date. Careless enough to want to talk to them of the newly discovered corpses found floating in the nearby Long Tom River. And, finally, careless enough to return for a "date" with a co-ed who had just gotten off the phone with the police.

Jerry Brudos died in prison on March 28, 2006. His final days were spent doing what he enjoyed most: sitting alone in his cell, thumbing through his shoe catalogue collection and fiddling with himself.

Fun Fact: Before his death in 2006, Brudos was Oregon's longest-serving inmate at 36 years.

6) Kip Kinkel- 4 killed, 25 wounded
Alright, so Kip "Revenge of the Nerds" Kinkel is technically a spree killer. So what? He's got All-Star written all over him, no matter where you file his papers.

It all started one fine spring morning in the spring of 1998. Kip had big plans that day so he made himself a nice, big bowl of cereal--it's the most important meal of the day! Then he gathered up his school things (his book bag, his jacket, his Glock and his .22s) and headed for the door. He turned to yell goodbye to his parents, then remembered he'd blown both their brains out the day before. Oh well, no big deal. It was off to school to see if he could talk some sense into those popular kids. Tell them the Purple Nurples and Atomic Wedgies they gave him were growing a bit tiresome. Perhaps they'd see things his way today! He smiled, pulling his backpack close as he skipped off to the bus stop… I'm pretty sure you know the rest of the story.

Kinkel is now in the Oregon State Pen, serving 4 life sentences. He has many new friends. Sure they also like playing tricks on him, but at least that's not his underwear being wedged up between his butt-cheeks.

7) Dayton Leroy Rogers- 8 victims (at least)
For a short time in the late 1980's Dayton Leroy Rogers ran amok in the P-town metro area, slaughtering hookers. Known as "Steve the gambler" to Portland's whore-corp, Rogers also had a reputation for liking his sex rough. No one really knew how rough until one August 1987 night in a Denny's parking lot near West Linn, Oregon…

Just a quiet, late night "Moons Over My Hammy." That's all they wanted, these hungry night-owls. But no, it wasn't to be. Instead there were the screams of "Help, I'm being raped!" from that naked chick sprawled out on the asphalt at the back of the parking lot. And the hack-hack-hacking of that crazy knife-wielding motherfucker hunched over her. And the foot race to his truck, the license plate number, the blood.

Police were able to trace the truck's plates to Rogers' auto-shop in Woodburn. There they found blood in the truck and a partially burned shoe in the shop's furnace. After his arrest the authorities also tied Rogers to seven bodies dumped on a private farm south-east of Molalla, all of them mutilated-- some even missing their feet. On June 7, 1989, Dayton Leroy Rogers was sentenced to die by lethal injection. He's still there, on Death Row, dreaming of amputee hookers.

8) Ward Weaver- 2 victims
Ward Weaver, Oregon City's own CSI-celebrity, was not the sharpest knife in the ribcage. Why else would he kill his daughter's two best friends, bury one under his "hot tub patio," the other in a bag in his tool shed, and then, when the heat is on, try to rape his son's girlfriend? (It's called anonymity, dipshit-- look it up).

And, just like Keith Jespersen, if not for the media circus surrounding his psycho-shenanigans this retard might have faded quickly into the mists of time. But it was 2002: the networks were pimping the "child abduction" fear factor and Weaver, professing innocence to every news-bimbo with a camera crew, was the lead story for the better part of the year. Hell, he even gave interviews standing on the concrete slab covering one of his victims.

He's now residing quietly in prison, serving two life terms without the possibility of parole-- and dreaming of KATU's Anna Song.

9) Christian Longo- 4 victims
In a year (Dec. 2001- Dec. 2002) that saw 3 Oregon fathers slaughter their families, Christian Longo stood out. That's because where Robert Bryant put the shotgun in his own mouth and Edward Morris was caught soon after in Baker City, Christian Longo used his new found freedom to take off to Cancun, Mexico for a well-deserved vacation.

Married at 19, a father at 22, it just seemed ol' Chris Longo had never gotten the chance to sow his wild oats. Here he was, only 27 years-old-- saddled with a wife, 4 kids and an ass-load of debt. He just needed a break and who could blame him. So, after dumping his family's corpses in the cold waters around Newport, Oregon, Longo scrubbed the blood from his hands and headed of to Cancun, Mexico.

He spent a couple of carefree weeks there: drinking, dancing, smoking weed and getting laid. You know, the high life; not a care in the world. Well, at least not until they showcased him on "America's Most Wanted" and some Canadian bitch he'd met recognized him.

After a trial that lasted less than a month, Christian Longo's jury found him guilty of murdering two of his children and sentenced him to death by lethal injection. He still sits on Death Row to this day, basking in his lack of responsibility.

10) Cesar Barone- 5 victims
Cesare Barone liked his women mature. No, I mean MATURE. In fact, if you'd have come across his personal ad in 1991, just before he started his rape/kill spree, it might have read something like this: "YHM seeks GMILF (GM=Grandma) to torture, sodomize & kill. Turn-ons: knobby hands, loose flesh and Depends."

After raping and strangling his 71-year old neighbor in Florida in 1979, Barone seemed to take the next decade off. Maybe he spent his time peeking under the tables at his neighborhood bingo parlor or masturbating himself raw as he watched The Golden Girls. Who knows? Whatever he was up to it kept his demons in check until 1991 when he moved to Oregon and set his sights on his 61 year-old Hillsboro neighbor. She was only the beginning, though.

After raping and strangling this temptress, Barone shot and wounded his next victim as she drove home from work. Then, after assaulting her in her car, he dragged her into the street and shot her in the head. Barone managed two more before his luck with the ladies ran out, including a 51 year-old who died of a heart attack during her ordeal. He now sits on Death Row in Salem, with only his memories of all that wrinkly sex to pass the time.