The bridge where Wendy Lee Coffield was found

This is the location where the body of Wendy Lee Coffield was found.

It is called Meeker Street Bridge, and it is situated in Kent, Washington.

Coffield is believed to be the first victim of Gary Ridgway, a serial killer who murdered at least 49 women between 1982 and 1998.

Murder

Coffield was a 16-year-old from Puyallup. She was a junior high dropout and runaway who had recently escaped from a juvenile detention center in Pierce County. Police stated that she had a history of working in the sex trade.

She grew up in poverty and frequently moved between low-rent apartments. At one point, she and her mother, Virginia, lived in a tent and made money by selling foraged blackberries.

During his confession, Ridgway stated that he picked up Coffield on a highway and drove out to his "usual spot," where they had sex in his truck. He claimed that he then "got behind her" and started strangling her with her own clothing:

I'm saying, "Stop moving, and I'll let you go." And that was over and over again. But I wasn't going to let her go.

After strangling Coffield, he dragged her down to the river and pushed her into the water.

Discovery

On July 15, 1982, two 15-year-old boys, Gallan Hirschi and his friend Robert, were cycling home across the bridge when they noticed an object stuck against an old post on the southern side.

At first, it looked like a bag. However, after wading out to investigate, they saw human hair and a jacket.

When police recovered Coffield's remains, they found that she was partially clothed. The medical examiner's office determined that the teenager had been strangled.

Because she was reported missing on July 8, 1982, and her body was badly decomposed, she had likely been dead for at least a week.

Investigators obtained a lead by publishing photographs of her tattoos in local newspapers. A few days later, a tattoo artist came forward and recognized the designs. Coffield's mother positively identified her shortly afterward.

In the early stages of the investigation, some police officers theorized that the deaths might be related to a "pimp war" or "drug involvement."

By the time The Spokesman-Review published an article about Coffield's case, the bodies of four more sex workers had turned up in the waterway.

Ridgway's decision to dump his victims in this river led to him being nicknamed the Green River Killer. The discovery of Coffield marked the beginning of an investigation that spanned more than a decade. Before the year was over, Ridgway killed 15 women.