TIGARD, Ore. — With DNA technology, investigators the last known remains of the Green River Killer have been identified almost 40 years after the victim was last seen.
While using forensic genetic genealogy testing on the bones, they were able to develop a DNA profile. They concluded and identified the victim as Tammie Liles.
According to a release from the King County Sheriff’s Office, in 1985 the remains of two unidentified women were found near the Tualatin Golf Course near Tigard, Oregon. These women were identified as Tammie Liles and Angela Girdner.
That same year two other women were found nearby off Bull Mountain Road.
Green River detectives assisted with this search and identified two women as Denise Bush and Shirley Sherrill. Both were on the Green River Missing persons List and were last seen in the Seattle area in October 1982.
In 2002 and 2003, Gary Ridgway was interviewed regarding these findings and admitted to killing Bush and Sherill and stated that he “moved the bones of each to the Tigard site sometime later.”
At that time, Ridgeway denied any responsibility for the murder of Lines and Girdner. But in 2003, Ridgway again led investigators to a site on the Kent-Des Moines Road where he claimed that he had left a victim’s body.
In the area, detectives found several bones and some teeth, but no skull or major bones. Samples of the remains were sent to the University of North Texas who obtained a DNA profile for the victim.
After uploading to DNA profile to NDIS, a national database that contains the DNA profiles of missing people and unidentified remains, no identification was made and the remains were labeled at “Bones #20.”
In November 2003, Gary Ridgeway known as the Green River Killer plead guilty to the murder of Bones #20, Denise Bush, and Shirley Sherrill, along with 45 other victims, and was sentenced to life in prison. He also pled guilty later to a 49th victim.
While Liles was identified as a victim in 1988, the discovery of Bones 20 in King County, subsequent forensic testing that occurred last year has confirmed that the remains belong to Liles.
In 2022, King County Sheriff’s Office met with Othram representatives and discussed the Bones 20 case.
In August 2023, Othram contacted KCSO when they successfully built a DNA profile for the victim and their in-house forensic genetic genealogy team had tentatively identified Bones 20 as Tammie Liles.
To confirm this match, the mother of Tammie submitted a DNA sample to the University of North Texas. This confirmed that Bones 20 belonged to Tammie Lile.
Throughout the 1980s, Gary Ridgway terrorized and evoked fear in the state of Washington. He was convicted of killing 49 women but he has confessed to 71 murders, but investigators believe that he killed more.
At his sentencing in 2003, he referenced the women who had not been found or identified by saying, “[to] the ladies who were not found, may they rest in peace. They need a better place than where I gave them.”
Ridgway is currently serving life in prison at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
