Wendy Stephens: Green River Bones 10 Solved via IGG

On March 21, 1984, skeletal remains were discovered in a dense swampy thicket adjacent to the Highline Soccer Fields near South 146th Street and 16th Avenue South in SeaTac, Washington. Designated by detectives as "Bones 10," the remains were situated in the heart of the killing grounds utilized by Gary Leon Ridgway, the infamous Green River Killer. For thirty-six years, she remained a faceless statistic among Ridgway's admitted forty-nine murders.

Discovery, Scene Architecture & Ridgway's Confessions

The burial site in SeaTac was a known cluster dump area. The remains of another young woman, Cheryl Wims, were located just yards away. During his 2003 plea agreement with the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, Ridgway admitted under oath to murdering the girl known as "Bones 10" between 1982 and 1983. He described strangling her and discarding her body in the wooded buffer between the soccer fields and the roadside.

Forensic anthropologists estimated the victim was between 12 and 18 years old, standing approximately 5 feet 1 inch to 5 feet 5 inches tall. She had suffered perimortem neck trauma consistent with ligature strangulation. Because she was a runaway who had traveled cross-country, local Pacific Northwest missing persons registries yielded zero matches.