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scene. The killer had been there many times—if not to leave a body, definitely to scout out the area. The more we thought about the dump site, the more it seemed that these were no random catch-as-catch-can murders, but were premeditated, with escape routes and victimdisposal already planned out. For example, the distance from where the victims were last seen to the dump site indicated that the offender was not overly concerned about traveling some distance with a victim in his car. He was confident that he could elude the police and dispose of the body between the time when the victim was reported missing and when the official search began. The fact that we found no clothing remnants on the remains was evidence that the killer did not want his victims found with their own clothing, which might contain trace evidence that could be linked to him. He must therefore know how police collected evidence and developed theories of the crime from the remains at the crime scene. The killer probably saw for himself the results of predators scavenging human remains, since one body was there for over a month before the other two were discarded. How many times had he visited the dump site to note the progress of the corpse’s decay and the way wild animals scattered the remains? He must have stepped over his first victim to leave the other two.
    It was my own rookie detective theory—crude both in empirical substantiation and manner of induction, and nothing more—that the killer was more than simply an opportunistic preplanner. I had concluded that he was rehearsing all of his options. The killer’s modus operandi, I felt, was dynamic and he was willing to change it out of convenience and necessity, leaving his clear signature as only a fantasy in my mind. The conditions of the crime scene were indicative not only of extensive pre-event planning but also post-event planning and superb execution, leading to the conclusion that the offender previously had been successful at committing murder. This killer was more experienced at cold-blooded murder than any of us were at watching people like him. Somehow I sensed he knew this and he knew he could get away with it. He was so elusive and so aware of his ability to strike and disappear that he was especially dangerous. His methods would make him almost as invisible as a shadow in the darkness. He was a community’s worst nightmare, a stalker of their daughters who was able to strike with impunity and invincibility. I had come up with this theory after a week’s investigation of the Issaquah bone yard. These ideas that were jelling within my head were no more than quivering bits of probability waiting to be confirmed by more substantial evidence. As it turned out, the killer’s own confession would prove me correct.
    However, my theory was not even mildly supported by most police personnel at the time. Most of the homicide behavioral theorists on the case, especially the hot dogs from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, expected that any day a crazy psycho would be found running down the street with a bloody knife in his mouth and screaming “Mother.” They did not go for the subtlety of the murderer’s methods that I had envisioned.
    As for tangible evidence, we identified the remains of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund, the missing persons from Lake Sammamish State Park, as the result of the search at Issaquah. In the less than two months since the women had been murdered and dumped there, their bodies had thoroughly decomposed and their remains had been scavenged and scattered over the hillside by animals. There were also other bones, extra pieces of vertebrae and leg bone belonging to a third victim whom we were unable to identify.
    Those extra bones rattled in my mind for the next decade. It would not be until Ted Bundy’s chilling and detailed confession to me in his final days before his walk to the electric chair that we would know the identity of that third set of remains. Ted