Notorious serial killer's victim identified after 40 years as runaway girl, 15

21 December 2023 , 23:43

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After nearly four decades, a victim of the Green River Killer was identified as Lori Anne Ratzpotnik, 15 (Image: Kings County Sheriff's Office)

A victim of the Green River Killer was identified as a teen runaway nearly 40 years after her body was discovered.

The King County Sheriff'S office said two sets of human remains were found in Auburn, Washington, along a steep riverbank in 1985. It took decades to identify the remains. At the time, the Green River Task Force assumed lead of the investigation. The team was established to investigate a series of bodies found in the woods adjacent to the Green River in Washington state in the early 1980s.

The sets were dubbed Bones 16, identified as Sandra Majors in 2012, and Bones 17, identified this week as Lori Anne Ratzpotnik who was a 15-year-old teen who ran from home in 1982, according to the sheriff's office. Authorities said the teen had lived in Lewis County, which is about 75 miles away from Auburn.

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Gary Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder in 2003 (Getty Images)

The Green River Killer was eventually identified as Gary Ridgway, who in 2002 led officials to the location where he dumped the victims. The serial killer pleaded guilty to the murders of those two victims in addition to 46 other woman and girls, which he confessed to the following year.

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The remains were identified through DNA testing by Parabon Nanolabs, a Virgina-based company that provides DNA phenotyping services for law enforcement agencies. The lab developed a new DNA profile. Lori's mother provided assistance with a saliva sample, which the University of North Texas used to confirm the remains were Lori Anne's through comparison testing.

Two of Ridgway's victims remain unidentified (AFP)

Authorities suspected Ridgway was responsible for the disappearances of three women in Seattle but had no evidence (AFP)

Ridgway's first murder victims were found in 1982 and the killer was arrested in 2001. He had taken a plea deal in 2003, in which he confessed to all the murders he had committed in King County to avoid capital punishment. Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder in the first degree. He remains confined to the walls of the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla with no possibility of parole.

Although Ridgway admitted to all his murders, he was unable to "supply any significant information that would assist" in the identification of two victims, according to King County who laid out details of the investigation into the Green River Killer on a page on its website.

Additionally, there are three women, Kassee Ann Lee, Kelly Kay McGinnis and Patricia Ann Osborn, who went missing in the Seattle area in the early 1980s. They are still missing today and remain on the official Green River Homicides list, but Ridgway was never charged in their disappearances.

Mataeo Smith