In the summer of 1983, a young woman named Constance Elizabeth Naon, a 19-year-old Caucasian female, vanished from the Seattle area. She was last seen on the evening of June 8, 1983, near South 188th Street and Pacific Highway South. For months, her whereabouts remained a mystery, a painful void for her family. Tragically, on October 27, 1983, her remains were discovered just south of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, ending the desperate search but opening a new chapter of grief and a
long quest for justice.
Constance's disappearance and death became part of a terrifying wave of unsolved murders that haunted the Seattle area in the early 1980s. Young women, often runaways or those in vulnerable situations, were disappearing with alarming frequency, their bodies later found in desolate, wooded areas. A sense of fear gripped the community as a serial predator, who would come to be known as the Green River Killer, continued his reign of terror. For nearly two decades, Constance Naon's murder, along with dozens of others, remained a cold case, a source of unending pain for her loved ones, including her mother, Helen Dexter.
The breakthrough in the long-stalled investigation came years later with advancements in DNA technology. In 2001, a truck painter from Auburn named Gary Leon Ridgway was arrested and linked to several of the murders. As part of a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty, Ridgway agreed to cooperate with investigators and confess to the full extent of his horrific crimes. In his chilling confessions, he admitted to the murder of Constance Naon, along with 47 other women. Ridgway was sentenced to 48 consecutive life sentences, finally bringing a measure of closure to the families of his many victims, though the pain of their loss would forever remain.
