The last known set of remains linked to the Green River serial killer in Washington state belonged to a teenage girl who had previously been identified as a victim, authorities confirmed on Monday. But officials said there are “other unsolved cases” that may be connected to Gary Ridgway.
The remains were identified as those of 16-year-old Tammie Liles, the King County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release . She was from Everett, Washington, north of Seattle, according to local media reports.
Authorities had previously identified another set of partial remains — known as the Bones 20 case — as also belonging to Liles. There are no other unidentified remains believed to be connected to Ridgway, known as the Green River killer , according to the sheriff’s office.
Ridgway preyed on girls and young women in the Seattle area who were in vulnerable positions, including sex workers and runaways, in the 1980s and 1990s. He was long a suspect in the Green River killings – so called because the first victims were found in the waterway, which runs through suburbs south of Seattle. Detectives were unable to prove his role until 2001, when advances in DNA technology allowed them to link a saliva sample they had obtained from him in 1987 to semen found on several victims.