“Green River Killer” Gary Leon Ridgway Elizabeth Sabie Florida International University “Green River Killer” Gary Leon Ridgway In the summer of 1982, while playing in the woods, children found the body of a young teen was floating in the Green River in King County, Washington. Sixteen year old Wendy Lee Coffield was found strangled with her own panties and tossed into the river like a piece of refuse. Her murder sparked an investigation that spanned three decades. Coffield 's body was the first of many found in or near the Green River in a murder spree that remained unsolved for twenty years. The victims were young women, often prostitutes or runaways, who hitchhiked along Highway 99, a dilapidated stretch of the Sea Tac Highway known for its strip clubs, drugs, and seedy motels (Montaldo). While the majority of the murders occurred between 1982-1984, police had little success in tracking what they soon realized was a serial killer. Within a year the police had found four more bodies of young women, and they formed a task force to apprehend the Green River Killer. It became apparent that the killer had chosen this stretch of highway to hunt for his victims. The women found here lived in such ways that no one really noticed if they went missing. This proved even more problematic for the task force, because they were searching for a killer who had committed the murders months prior. The bodies had decomposed and it was extremely difficult
The Green River Killer Type of Trace Evidence Used: Paint Date of Case: 1982-1987 Location of Case: Seattle, Washington, U.S. Summary of Case: Gary Ridgway was suspected of being the Green River Killer. A microscopic search of his clothing showed that paint spheres on his clothes were identical to paint spheres on six of the victims. The paint was identified as Imron, a paint manufactured before 1984. On top of that, two of the victims related to Ridgway through DNA evidence. Ridgway confessed to the murders of 48 women to avoid the death penalty.
Shawcross, now in Watertown, New York, went on a murder spree that included the deaths of 11 prostitutes. The third victim was Dorothy Blackburn, a 27-year old drug addict and prostitute. Her body was found by Rochester, New York indicating that she
The book Black Hearts is written by Jim Frederick and tells the story of all the controversial accounts one infantry unit ran into while on deployment in Baghdad, Iraq. The book is a documentation, captured accounts and events written down to tell the crazy story these soldiers went through. The specific unit Frederick writes about and what Black Hearts is about is 2nd brigade of the 101st airborne infantry division. “Black Hearts” was the unofficial insignia of 2nd brigade. Frederick covers one platoon in particularly and their ethical dilemmas they encounter while on deployment. 1st platoon, Bravo Company, 1-502nd Regiment is the unit the book covers. Many things on deployment unfold poorly for this platoon such as having little
August 22, 2000 Sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Nicole Patterson with no minimum period.
The book Last Man Out by Mike Lupica the boy in the book (Tommy) has many memory moments/flashbacks about his dad, the memory shows us about the conflict he has with his father and having to deal with him being gone.
In the Pulitzer Prize winning civil war novel Killer Angels, Michael Shaara covers five days of the historic battle between the Northern and Southern United States at Gettysburg. Both the North and the South fought for freedom, although they did not have equivalent definitions of freedom. The North and the South were unwavering in their beliefs and their hope for a better United States, but what the two butted heads the most on was slavery. The South was a primarily agrarian region which relied heavily on the agriculture of crops like cotton and sugarcane, both of which required intense manual labor, unlike the North who was more so industrialized; however, as William Preston said, it was not cotton that was “the south’s king” but it was slavery that made them so prosperous. The South relied on slavery because having many workers to tend to these cash crops without having to pay them saved farmers and plantation owner’s money that they could use to buy more slaves that put out more work leading to more land for more crops, or to have more money to pay their taxes. Many Southerners like William Preston thought that owning other people was their divine right as white men. The Civil War was started over the North and South’s conflicting views on whether they had the “civil” right to own or not own slaves. The Northern and Southern states developed themselves much differently than one another because of their agrarian versus industrialized economy. As the states developed they
In late 1799, Guliemla 'Elma' Sands lived in a boarding house located at 208 Greenwich Street, New York City. In December of 1799, the young woman enjoyed a secret love affair with another tenant on Greenwich Steet, Levi Weeks, a local carpenter. The two had plans to elope, and when Elma left her home on December 22nd, she hoped Levi and herself would return as a married couple.
During the summer of 1984, Calvin Johnson trudges knee deep through a swamp in the wetlands of South Georgia. As snakes brush past his legs, he marches in line with nine other men, each dressed in an orange jumpsuit, swinging a razor sharp bush axe in collective rhythm. His crew entered the swamp at dawn and they will not leave until dusk. Guards, armed with shotguns, and equally violent tempers, ignore the fact that the temperature has risen well above 100 degrees and push the men even harder. Suddenly, an orange blur falls to the ground and a prisoner from Wayne Correctional Institution lies face down in the swampy floor. As guards bark orders at the unconscious, dying man, Johnson realizes "the truth of the situation, and the force of
Henley informed the officer that he was the individual who had made the call and indicated that Corll was lying dead inside the house. After confiscating the pistol and placing Henley, Williams and Kerley inside the patrol car, the officer entered the bungalow and discovered Corll's dead body inside the hallway. In custody, Henley explained that, for almost three years, he and David Brooks had helped procure teenage boys some of whom were their own friends for Corll, who had raped and murdered them. Corll had paid $200 for each victim he or Brooks were able to lure to his apartment. Henley gave a statement admitting he had assisted Corll in several abductions and murders of teenage boys, informing police that Corll had buried most of his victims in a boat shed in Southwest Houston, and others at Lake Sam Rayburn and High Island Beach. Henley agreed to accompany police to Corll's boat shed in Southwest Houston, where he claimed the bodies of most of the victims could be found. Inside Corll's boat shed, police found a half-stripped car, which turned out to have been stolen from a used car lot in March, a child's bike, empty bags of lime, and a box full of teenage boys' clothing. Police begin to excavate Corll's boat shed on August 8, 1973. Police began digging through the soft, shell-crushed earth of the boat shed and soon uncovered the body of a young blond-haired teenage boy, lying face up and encased in clear plastic, buried beneath a layer of
The short story “Greasy Lake” by Tom Boyle is about a young man and his friends who thought they were some real bad characters. The main character and his two friends got into a series of events that started with almost killing a young man for no reason, to almost raping a young woman which made them reconsider how they wanted to live the rest of their adolescent life. During that night, the narrator underwent a series of events that caused the destruction of his mom’s car and the shattering his self-image. Throughout the short story “Greasy Lake”, you can find points that Boyle’s use of the first person colors the story in some situations while causing bias views to show though in others.
In this essay I intend to explore the narrative conventions and values, which Oliver Smithfield presents in the short story Victim. The short story positions the reader to have negative and sympathetic opinion on the issues presented. Such as power, identity and bullying. For example Mickey the young boy is having issues facing his identity. It could be argued that finding your identity may have the individual stuck trying to fit in with upon two groups.
Early the next morning of December 8th, the lifeless body of Debbie Carter was found strangled in her small apartment. The murder of Debbie Carter flipped this small, rural, bible-belt, town on its head. People were outraged, overwhelmed, and stunned that such a thing could happen in this town to a young, beautiful girl whom everyone had known. This gruesome act put enormous pressure on local law enforcement to find the atrocious criminal. Finger prints, hair, and blood spatter was carefully collected from the scene.
Gary Ridgway was a truck painter and he had a special place where he would go and dump his victims; in and around the green river. The first body was discovered in the green river by passing pedestrians in spring of 1982 it was the body of young 16 year old Wendy Lee Coffield and she was strangled to death. (Seattle times 2003) It seems that the green river killer didn’t care what age a girl was he was cynical enough to have sex with her and kill her. Age was defiantly not a factor; he viewed women as objects
The short story On The Bridge by Todd Strasser is about two boys, Adam and Seth, who are hanging out after school on a bridge that overlooks the highway. Seth was the character that demonstrated maturity towards the end of the story. He showed some examples of this when Adam got them into some trouble. For example, when Adam flicked his cigarette onto the windshield of a car below the bridge, the drivers came up behind them. “But suddenly he [Seth] noticed that all three guys were staring at him. He quickly looked at Adam and saw why. Adam was pointing at him.” It was this point where Seth started to question his friendship with Adam, because they had gotten into trouble because of Adam, and then he blamed it on Seth. After the men left, Seth
In Prolux’s short story 55 Miles to the Gas Pump, a drunken rancher named Mr. Croom hides a secret from his wife. He gets drunk and falls off a cliff. After his death Mrs. Croom’s curiosity sets in. She cuts a hole in the roof and reveals twelve dead women. Some of the women she recognized from missing posters. The women were badly beaten, some covered in paint, and one covered in newspapers. Mr. Croom had the attic locked for twelve years.