On a spring day in Seattle, Washington, April 17, 1983, a 16-year-old Caucasian female named Kimi-Kai Pitsor vanished. She was last seen in the downtown area of the city. According to her boyfriend, they had an argument, and he saw her get into an older model green Ford pickup truck. That was the last time she was ever seen alive. Her disappearance marked the beginning of a long and painful period of uncertainty for her family, a mystery that would become entangled with one of the most
notorious serial murder cases in American history.
The initial search for Kimi-Kai yielded no answers, and her case grew cold. It wasn't until eight months later, in December 1983, that a significant break occurred. A person walking near the Mountain View Cemetery in Auburn, a city south of Seattle, discovered a human skull. This skull was later identified as belonging to Kimi-Kai Pitsor. The discovery of her partial remains confirmed the worst fears of her loved ones, but the story of what happened to her was far from complete. The rest of her body would not be found for another two years, in December 1985, located on a steep slope across from the cemetery where her skull had been found. Her remains were discovered near those of two other unidentified victims, a grim testament to a predator haunting the area.
For two decades, Kimi-Kai's murder remained officially unsolved, though it was linked to the string of slayings attributed to the so-called Green River Killer. The case, along with dozens of others, perplexed investigators. A suspect, Gary Leon Ridgway, had been on law enforcement's radar for years but there was not enough evidence to charge him. Advances in DNA technology finally provided the breakthrough needed. In 2003, as part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, Gary Leon Ridgway confessed to a horrific number of murders, including that of Kimi-Kai Pitsor. He admitted to picking her up and killing her. Ridgway was convicted of 49 murders, though he claimed to have killed many more, and is serving multiple life sentences. His confession brought a long-awaited, albeit somber, resolution to the disappearance and death of Kimi-Kai Pitsor, confirming her as a victim of the Green River Killer. No other suspects were ever implicated in her death.
