‘Green River, Running Red’ by Ann Rule

Green River, Running Red

(Audiobook)
True crime writer Ann Rule tells the story of the Green River killer in this extraordinary book. Researching the case for more than twenty years, she later discovered the perpetrator had carried out many of his grisly crimes close to where she lived and had even attended her book signings. America’s most prolific serial killer is known to have murdered at least 49 women and evaded detection until he was caught in 2001. The author sifted through thousands of documents, police records and photographs to bring this harrowing tale to life, detailing the lives of the many victims, their stories and their deaths.

This is not a book for the faint-hearted – packed with gory details and scene-of-crime minutiae, Rule outlines how the police investigation team went through many permutations before they eventually apprehended the killer. At a time when DNA evidence was virtually unheard of, the Green River Task Force struggled to find links that might tie any of the victims to a particular person. Fighting the quirks and whims of political enthusiasm for the case, the detectives were often left with only a skeleton crew, and some members even followed up leads in their spare time.

This is a disturbing story of an apparently mild-mannered but deeply troubled individual and the trail of bodies he left across King County, Washington.