number would eventually reach 48. 48 women or maybe more. and that he would spend the next 20 years pursuing one way or another the man who came to be called the green river killer. nor could he have appreciated that finding that third body, the one on the bank and not in the water, the body of opal mills, would turn out to be of critical importance. ultimately in tracking down a suspect. we were three days behind him. that s the closest we had ever gotten to him. the body was in tact, the ligatures were there. we were able to find bodily fluids there. fluids containing dna that 20 years later would point back to one man. of course, back in 1982, dna was unknown as a crime fighting tool. sheriffs investigators desperate to find the killer me tikticulous ly employed the methods they had at that time. reichert had 20 detectives on the trail. but it soon went cold. and the community grew
impatient, fearful and angry. denise griffin knew all three women found at the green river that august 15th. they died in a very brutal fashion. very brutal fashion. opal mills was her best friend. opal was a fighter. the fact that she had a lot of scratches on her knuckles, nails broken which meant to me that she fought. but for her to have fought and lost i think was probably i think that s the thing that scares me the most. bodies kept turning up week after week. the task force was working hard but at the end of three months they came up empty. politicians fretted about all the money being spent with no results. and ordered the sheriff to pull all the cops working the case. all but one. dave reichert did not give up. i became the sole investigator from about end of september to about august of 1983.
the almost-nude bodies of the two young women, floating, pulsating by one account in the current. reichert was yet to uncover yet another gruesome site. when i arrived there, my job is to find a way down to the river that s going to disturb the least amount of evidence. as i m working my way down, we find opal mills on the bank just off to the right as we re pushing aside grass that s five to six feet tall, and i saw her bare legs. suddenly, it s three dead women, all strangled, all sexually assaulted. all three, cynthia heins, marsha chapman, opal mills, all engaged in prostitution. now the total stands at five. any doubt is gone. reichert realizes a warped and vicious killer is stalking women who work the sea-tac strip. what dave reichert could have never imagined was that the
fusive kind of guy. so it s sometimes hard to know when he s having a great moment. tom, you don t seem like the kind of guy that would run around the room slapping high fives, but you had to be tempted. it had been almost 20 years. can you even smile about it? sure. was that a smile? so you re pleased. to say the least? i was elated. the dead pan detective decided to play a little guessing game with his old pal, the sheriff. he came into my office and he says sheriff, there s the dna profile on the marcia chapman evidence and flips over the other piece of evidence and says here here s the dna profile on the opal mills evidence. and then he flips over the last piece of paper and says here s the dna profile on our suspect. and they all matched. and he didn t give me the name right away. so that was it? and, here, by the way? yes. i think we may have just broken the biggest case in u.s. history? right. well, i did jump up out of the chair.
and gets in the car. sheriff reichert did allow himself one small moment of satisfaction. i couldn t resist, at least standing in the hallway as he was taken from the regional justice center to the king gary ridgway was charged in the deaths of four of the green river victims. the three found together on august 15th, opal mills, marcia chapman and cynthia hinds and carol christensen, whose body was discovered the following may. he pled not guilty. matching gary ridgway s dna with the evidence left in the bodies of the murder victims was only the beginning of the next phase of the green river be answered. other victims on the list.