quote:

Originally posted by kho:
unfortunately, I have two.

in 1967 I was 12 years old at summer camp in Hendersonville North Carolina sitting on a horse. There wa a mid air collision between a passenger jet and a private plane directly above the camp. Big exposion, plane parts and bodies falling all around me. Horse took off, I fell off. Very lucky nothing hit me and I not hurt from the fall.

The second was Sept. 11. I was in Ny on business, arrived at an office in a building at Water and Broad streets. The first plane had hit the World Trade Tower a couple of minutes before - probably while I was coming up in the elevator - and people were standing at the window in a conference room watching flame and smoke from the tower. As we watched the United flight came into view from the left, not all that much higher than we were, banked left and we watched it go straight into the tower. What I remember most is my total incomprehension of what I had just seen.

quote:

Originally posted by StorminNormin:

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Hey I was just conveying information,no intent to criticize your actions. It is not common knowledge by the actions I observe.

All good. Crazy some of the stuff we are taught at one point to later find out is totally off base.

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Originally posted by 400m:
I keep coming up with things. In high school I dated the daughter of a Bolingbrook Il. police officer. He worked with that idiot Drew Peterson.

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Originally posted by 911Boss:
Not sure if this counts, but one of my first “big case” crime memories was when Ted Bundy was killing in the Seattle area.

I was 12 years old and had a morning paper route delivering the Seattle Post Intelligencer. The case was riveting to me and I remember reading the news reports in the papers I delivered. Fascinating stuff, and while it sounds wrong, I remember almost being upset (probably not the best word choice) when the murders stopped in my area and he moved on. It was like reading a good book and not wanting it to end.


When TB was identified and captured, I again followed the story through his escapes and other crimes until finally caught for good in Florida and sentenced to death. I remember celebrating the news of his execution and the case finally being “closed” for good. I had been “following” his case for about 15 of my 26 years of life at that point.


Overlapping with Bundy was Gary Ridgway, the “Green River Killer”. I had already left the area when his first victim was found in 1982. I was in the Marines but still kept up on the news “back home”. As the GRK body count grew, it reminded me of Bundy and I remember hearing how a King County Detective went to Florida to interview Bundy and discuss the Green River cases with him. I was intrigued that these two prolific and notorious murders were essentially from my “home town”.



Fast forward to 1992, I’d been out of the Marines for a couple years. Bundy was long gone and the Green River case seemed to have come to a dead end. No new victims were being found, leads had dried up. The Green River Task Force still existed, but had been severely reduced and the case was essentially relegated to “cold case” in status if not in name. It was at this time I was hired by the King County Sheriff’s Office to work in the 911 Communications Center.

As a Call Receiver in the early 90’s I took a number of “Tips” from callers on the Green River cases. While not frequent, such tips were not uncommon the first few years I was there. Some seemed legit, but never seems to pan out while others were clearly from folks not completely in control of their mental faculties. Regardless, every tip got written up and sent off to the task force. As time went on they became less frequent and those that did come in were increasingly hard to believe as the tipsters were more likely to have mental deficiencies than not.

In time, even the infrequent tips stopped. Lots of theories about why the GRK stopped. The killer died, he moved, he was arrested and incarcerated for something else, a would-be victim was able to kill him and never reported it. It all just became a mental exercise at some point.


It stayed that way until spring of 2001 when all of a sudden there was a lot of “secret squirrel”, hush-hush stuff going on. Rumors started spreading around the department, new evidence? New suspect? The Green River Task Force which had existed pretty much in name only for years was now getting additional staffing. Something big was going on. Everyone had heard something but no one knew anything.

Those in the know kept everything close to the chest better than anything I had experienced up to that point and in all the time since.

By 2001 I had been a Supervisor in the Comm Center for 5 years. I was one of the people who called out the Major Crimes folks and specialty units to respond to major events. Part of my job was giving initial info to the media on high profile, in-progress calls. My duties also included calling the Duty Officer and many times, even the Sheriff himself in the wee hours to advise of the really big stuff.


The Sheriff at that time was Dave Reichert, the same Dave Reichert who 15 years earlier was the young Detective who had travelled to Florida to discuss the Green River case with TB.

Rumors swirled for a few months, but then sort of died down. No new rumors and no one talking about it so it just drifted out of mind for most of us until November 2001 when things started buzzing again. On Nov 30, 2001 I was at work and running the Comm Center desk, I was one of very few non-commissioned folks that day to be let in on the secret - they had DNA evidence and they were going to make an arrest.

I picked the Dispatcher to be assigned the Tac Channel the team would be on when the Sheriff’s Detectives and Deputies went into the Kenworth paint plant in Renton WA to take Ridgway into custody. By the time the Major Crimes detective advised ”One in custody, code 4” everyone in the room knew what was going on and with that transmission the Comm center erupted in cheers and applause. We all witnessed history first hand that day.


In the aftermath of the arrest I read reams of probable cause statements, charging documents, etc. as the info became available. Some I was only privy to through my employment however much of this is available to the public. I will caution you that once read, it may haunt you. His crimes were documented in gruesome detail, his chilling confessions and statements, the brutality with which his victims suffered even after the release that death brings. From what I have read and heard from officers involved with the case, if ever there was a soulless demon unleashed by satan himself to bring suffering to the world it is Gary Ridgway.



Fast forward again to February of last year. I was finishing out my 30 year career with KCSO assigned to the records unit. We had been in a temporary work space while asbestos mitigation work was being done in the Records area of the King County Courthouse. With the work completed I was tasked with returning old paper case files from temporary storage and put them back into the Lektreiver storage unit. (Big mechanical rotating thing that holds records - looks like this )


While loading files, I came across a number of large 3-4” three ring binders with a case number and the name “Bundy”. I was able to spend almost an hour going through the original, handwritten notes and reports from the Ted Bundy investigation. I assumed in this day and age such documents would have been digitized and archived. Nope, still in the original binders and set for indefinite retention. I don’t know if I am weird, but it just made me awestruck to have those original documents in my hand.


It almost seemed like kind of an “alpha-omega” moment for me. Bundy gave me my first real understanding of the evil men do at a relatively early age and that awareness was reinforced with Ridgway’s crimes. It’s even possible these cases sparked my life long interest and support for law enforcement.

When my initial USMC enlistment was up, I was planning on becoming a police officer. I ended up re-enlisting for another 6 years instead and when I did get out being a cop wasn’t an option. The 911 gig however was a perfect fit and an extremely fulfilling career. Even having taken tips over the years, I would have never guessed I would be tangentially involved in the GRK conclusion.

Then as one of my last duties in a 30 year career, being able to hold the original documents from the case that opened my pre-teen eyes to the real world after spending nearly half my life in support of law enforcement, it just seems surreal to me at times.



Wow, this sure ended up being a lot longer than I expected it to. Seems like someone needs to chime in ”Ok grandpa, let’s get you to bed…”