Case file 0053
The Green River Killings: A Plea Did Not Finish Every Search
The conviction count and the continuing work of finding people belong to different parts of the case.
Wendy Lee Coffield's body was found in the Green River in July 1982. Four other women's bodies were found nearby within a month. King County's account names Debra Lynn Bonner, Marcia Faye Chapman, Opal Charmaine Mills and Cynthia Jean Hinds among those first discoveries. [S1]
The prosecution decades later
Ridgway was arrested in 2001. The county records a 2003 agreement requiring truthful information about his King County murders in exchange for prosecutors not seeking death. On November 5 that year, he pleaded guilty to forty-eight aggravated first-degree murders. [S1]
In 2011, Ridgway pleaded guilty to Rebecca Marrero's murder, bringing the conviction total to forty-nine. [S2]
Keeping the dates separate avoids assigning the later total to the earlier plea proceeding.
The work beyond conviction
The sheriff's public investigation page continues to seek help with people still missing and remaining identification work. It lists Kassee Ann Lee, Kelly Kay McGinnis and Patricia Ann Osborn as missing and their cases as uncharged. [S1]
A name on an investigative list is not automatically a count in an offender's conviction. Missing, unidentified and judicially proved are different descriptions, each important to the families concerned.
The Green River label names a location and an investigation. The people who were killed had names before the case had one. The guilty pleas supplied extensive legal accountability while leaving searches that cannot be measured solely by the sentence.