Genetic Genealogy Helps ID Victim of Green River Killer [View all]
Source: AP News
SEATTLE (AP) — Genetic genealogy helped identify the youngest known victim of one of the nation’s most prolific serial killers almost 37 years after her remains were discovered near a baseball field south of Seattle.
Wendy Stephens was 14 and had run away from her home in Denver before Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, strangled her in 1983, the King County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday. Ridgway terrorized the Seattle area in the 1980s and has pleaded guilty to killing 49 women and girls since 2003. Four of the victims — including Stephens — had not been identified.
“Ridgway’s murderous spree left a trail of profound grief for so many families of murdered and missing women,” King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said in a written statement. “We are thankful that Wendy Stephens’ family will now have answers to their enormous loss suffered nearly 40 years ago.”
Researchers at the DNA Doe Project, a volunteer organization that uses publicly available DNA databases to find relatives of unidentified victims, helped make the identification...
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/seattle-57d6512358f4196842aa236ec989741c
- Feb. 18, 2011, file photo, Green River Killer Gary Ridgway listens during his arraignment on charges of murder in the 1982 death of Rebecca "Becky" Marrero at the King County Regional Justice Center in Kent., Wash. Genetic genealogy helped identify the youngest known victim of Green River Killer Gary Ridgway- the Pacific Northwest serial killer who admitted killing dozens of women and girls- after her remains were found almost 37 years ago near a baseball field south of Seattle. Wendy Stephens was 14 and had run away from her home in Denver in 1983, the King County Sheriff's Office announced Monday, Jan. 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
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