Ted's Film Festival Idea, 1984

Bob Keppel and Dave Reichert met with Ted at the Florida State Prison on November 17, 1984 with the goal of discussing strategies for catching the Green River Killer. Keppel describes one of Ted's more outlandish ideas in his book The Riverman:

“I mentioned earlier that I looked at the Green River situation and tried to imagine what’s going through the Riverman’s head. There’s obviously the link between sex and violence. It was not a sexual act or a violent act, per se, although there is a relationship here. And who knows what factors combine to cause a person to reach this point, where he acts out the way he does. But I think it’s safe to say that the guy fantasizes a lot. That is, he finds ways of vicariously experiencing the thing that gets him off, which is killing young women in this case. One reason for doing it vicariously is, it’s safer. It’s a lot safer sometimes to read a book or go to a movie and maybe a lot more convenient than to run out and actually do it.

Let me give you an analogy. You have hobbies, and you’re a skier or a fisherman. I used to be a skier. My hobby is skiing, so when I read magazines, I read something about skiing. And so, that was one way of me vicariously enjoying something that I enjoyed doing. But being able to watch or read about other people is part of the hobby, a fantasy satisfaction. So I think it’s safe to say, in my opinion, if you follow what I’m saying here, the guy who’s killing his women, it’s like a hobby to him. Well, it may be more than that. It may be an obsession. But just like anybody else who has an obsession, whether it be fishing, bowling, or skiing, he has ways he can vicariously satisfy it. Maybe he is going to peep shows and reading detective magazines. I think there’s an excellent chance that one way he gets off is by going to look at what they call the slasher films. And I know it sounds weird. 

Years ago I read about a psychiatrist who said, ‘If you could only photograph everybody who came out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you would have a mug book of all the active violent offenders against women in that particular area.’ And I would have to say that he was right on the mark, generally speaking. And, if I ran up against a dead end in this case and I was really looking for and developing some new exciting leads, first I [would say], ‘Well, how will I take this idea that, in fact, people who want to act out violently also get a thrill out of indulging their fantasies through vicarious means, through media, through books and magazines and films and TV? How could it be done to turn this into an actual technique for developing possible suspects, in this case even?’ And [then] I [say], you know, ‘Have a slasher film festival.’

I’m trying to tell you something here that you might think is a little bit odd, but I really can tell you I don’t think it is. Let’s say that there’s a film in a can somewhere that hasn’t been distributed or released in the Pacific Northwest, and it’s a particularly violent film that appeals to Friday the 13th or Halloween followers, that deals with death and young women, a violent murderer and young women. There have even been a few out recently that dealt with the death of young prostitutes. I don’t know if you have kept up with that kind of stuff. Hopefully going to all the trouble and not being too obvious about having five or ten of these movies playing all at once somewhere, I thought, ‘What would I do if I was trying to narrow down and bring this guy to me?’ I would try and get the bloodiest, coolest slasher movie that’s out there in a can which has never been broadcast or shown in the Pacific Northwest. I would pick two theaters, one in Seattle and one in the Tacoma area, outside of the general vicinity where these girls have been disappearing. I’d find a certain theater that was out and away from other activities so that people who came to the theater would have to park right in front of it. You know what I mean? As opposed to a downtown theater, where they’d park away. I’d get the cooperation of the theater owner and the film distributor. I would see if I could find a really vivid, lurid sex murder kind of flick. There are some pretty good choices out there, if you looked around for them.

For a couple of weeks or so, I would assure that the film was well publicized in the Seattle/Tacoma newspapers, with the most lurid photos in the film section depicting the girls being held with a knife to their throat and the whole thing. Kind of the glitzy, guaranteed to arouse those kinds of passions, which, quite frankly, are unfortunately very unhealthy to arouse in people. I mean in the kind of sex and violence tendencies. Then for a period of a couple of weeks, I would photograph everybody that came in and out of those theaters. 

Now, I know this sounds weird, but believe me, it isn’t. I’d photograph every male that came in there, and I’d try to correlate the guy’s photograph with the license plate number of his car. Once he got out of the car, you’d have people in the lot. That’s a lot of work, but just follow me and do what you want. You have people in the lot, and they would be writing down makes and models of cars as they arrive. Basically, as they were coming in, they’d be filmed, maybe even videotaped, coming in singly. Have them come through a turnstile or something. And later on, go back and correlate the photographs with the car evidence. I think you could correlate the photographs with the automobile, because that would be the only way you could link a face with something concrete which you could follow up on later, see? And that way you would have some way to follow up.

And, quite frankly, I really believe if you have the resources to do this, and any eyewitnesses at all, or if you in the future have any eyewitnesses, you would have them look at photographs that you took of these people coming in. You would put them in a mug book of the males that were coming in the theater. After a couple weeks of film showing in Seattle and Tacoma, you would have a collection of individuals that I would think would truly amaze your Crimes Against Persons detectives. Not just you as a task force, but I think you could take that book of photographs and show it to victims in unsolved cases of assaults against women, and you would have people coming out of the woodwork. Men who, generally speaking, are as normal as the day is long, who really are highly controlled individuals, but who indulge their violent fantasies, not only in acting out but vicariously through the media. Their names are on no computer, their fingerprints are in no files, and the only time you ever see them come out in public is to view some of these movies, a way for them to get off. There’s no other way you can reach them. There’s no other way you could find them. It’d be like, you know, bees to honey.

And what you would have after a couple of weeks is a pile of photographs, and hopefully you could correlate the photographs with the particular car or vehicles. You would have also a whole pile of suspect vehicles or you could go through and see if you have any suspect vehicles you’re interested in. Are any of these showing up in the lots? If you have any potential eyewitnesses, are any of these showing up Have a way of sorting the license plates of the vehicles showing up and see if any come from particularly a long distance away. If a guy drives from Auburn to Bellevue to see this kind of a movie, what does it say about him? It says he’s really into sex and violence. And, hey, there’s no better indicator of whether a man is capable of this kind of act, of killing all these women, than if he has that interest and goes out of his way to indulge that interest. That is, if there’s any hook out there that predicts whether a person is capable or is disposed toward killing in the way the Green River man kills, it’s whether or not he is interested in sitting down and viewing all of these gruesome movies. I know that’s a generalization. But I can’t think of a better way to tap into a whole reservoir of potential suspects who are interested, obviously, in sex and in violent sex and murder when it comes to young women than that.

“You don’t think he’d go to any type of pornographic film? You want graphic sex murder, right?” I asked to clarify. All the while Ted was talking about his strategy, he was becoming intensely excited, so we let him go on and didn’t suggest that what he was proposing was entirely illegal. Even if we did learn who the killer might be, we’d lose our ability to deal with him because we’d have no probable cause to pursue the investigation based on the killer’s attendance at a slasher film festival.

Ted spoke faster and became more articulate. Emphatically, he replied, “Sure. Get right down to his basic instincts. It doesn’t have to be prostitutes. This guy is not going to go to the Deep Throat type of thing. He may or may not vacillate, but the clear link in this case is that he’s going to be on whatever kinky sexual thing he has; if he has anything peculiar, [it] has gone way beyond just sex. There’s that fatal link between sex and violence. The key is here. And so, the kind of stuff he’s interested in is not just a skin flick, but he’s more into vicariously experiencing what he loves to do, whatever he can do, and that’s go out and kill young women. And, quite frankly, the closer the movie, the book, or whatever it is comes to that, the more interested he’s going to be in it.”