Officials: 3 possible Green River victims in Lewis County

CENTRALIA — Authorities said they are looking at three cold case homicides in Lewis County from the 1980s and ’90s for possible connections to the Green River serial killings.

Investigators have uncovered nothing specific to link the deaths of the three women to Gary Ridgway, but the crimes have common elements, sheriff’s Sgt. Dusty Breen told The Chronicle in a story Friday.

The victims disappeared from Pierce and King counties and were transients or involved in prostitution or drugs. Their bodies were dumped near Interstate 5.

Ridgway, 64, pleaded guilty to killing 49 women in King County. He was spared the death penalty under a deal with King County prosecutors to cooperate in the search for bodies and is serving a life sentence at Washington State Penitentiary.

He recently talked with Seattle station KOMO and said he may have more victims, but he has refused to talk to Lewis County detectives. If convicted of a killing outside King County, Ridgway could face the death penalty.

King County sheriff’s officials say Ridgway is a pathological liar, a sociopath and most likely does not remember all of the women he killed or where he dumped their bodies.

Here are the Lewis County cases under consideration:

o On Aug. 12, 1984, Monica Anderson, 32, of Tacoma was found in the Chehalis River. Like many of Ridgway’s victims, Anderson was a known drug user and prostitute, Breen said. She died from asphyxiation.

o On May 5, 1985, Susan L. Krueger, also known as Susan Stuebe, 41 or 42, was found along Lacamas Creek near Toledo. She died of blunt-force trauma to the back of her head. Krueger was a transient, Breen said.

o Mignon Hensley, 21, was found in a bushy area half a mile east of I-5 along U.S. Highway 12 on Aug. 5, 1991. She was last seen leaving a strip club. Authorities were unable to determine her cause of her death.

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