Remains of Green River Killer victim identified as runaway 15-year-old Lori Anne Ratzpotnik
A victim of the Green River Killer was identified nearly four decades after her body was found.
Two sets of human remains were found in Auburn, Washington, along a steep embankment in 1985, according to a news release from the King County Sheriff's Office. At the time, the remains were investigated by the Green River Task Force — set up to investigate a series of bodies found dumped in the woods along the Green River in Washington state in the early 1980s. The sets were identified as Bones 16 and Bones 17, the sheriff's office said.
In 2002, the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, led officials to the location and said he had placed victims there. He pleaded guilty to the murders of those two victims, as well as 46 other women and girls, in 2003. In 2012, the set of remains known as Bones 16 was identified through DNA testing as Sandra Majors.
It wasn't until this week that investigators were able to conclude that Bones 17 were the remains of Lori Anne Ratzpotnik, a 15-year-old who had run away from home in 1982, the sheriff's office said. Ratzpotnik had lived in Lewis County, about 75 miles away from Auburn.
Investigators worked with Parabon NanoLabs to use forensic genetic genealogy testing on the remains. The lab was able to develop a new DNA profile. Razpotnik's mother provided a saliva sample to detectives, and the University of North Texas carried out DNA comparison testing "which confirmed that they were Lori Anne's remains," the sheriff's office said.
Ridgway's first murder victims were found in 1982 and Ridgway was arrested in 2001. In 2003, Ridgway agreed to plead guilty to all murders that he had committed in King County to avoid the death penalty. Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder in the first degree, according to King's County, and remains imprisoned for life without a chance of release at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
Two victims remain unidentified: though Ridgway admitted to their murders, he could not "supply any significant information that would assist" in their identification, King County said in a page dedicated to the investigation into the Green River Killer.
The county also said there are three women — Kassee Ann Lee, Kelly Kay McGinnis and Patricia Ann Osborn — who were last seen in the Seattle area in the early 1980s. They remain missing today and "are listed on the official Green River Homicides list," but Ridgway was not charged in their disappearances.
The county noted that authorities are also looking for three missing women, one of whom is unidentified, who have been missing since the early 1980s. One of the women was an associate of Tammie Liles, another victim of Ridgway's. Police have asked that anyone with information about these women, or any other crimes linked to the Green River case, contact them.
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Kerry Breen is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University's Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News' TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.
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