Randall Woodfield
Randall Brent Woodfield is an American serial killer, serial rapist, kidnapper, robber, burglar and former football player who was dubbed the I-5 Killer or the I-5 Bandit by the media due to the crimes he committed along the Interstate 5 corridor running through Washington, Oregon and California. Before his crimes, Woodfield was best known for having played for the Green Bay Packers. Before his capture, Woodfield was suspected of multiple sexual assaults and murders.
A native of Oregon, Woodfield was the third child of a prominent Newport family. He began to exhibit abnormal behaviors during his teenage years and was arrested for indecent exposure while still in high school. An athlete for much of his life, Woodfield played as a wide receiver for the Portland State Vikings and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1974, but was cut from the team during training after a series of indecent exposure arrests.
In 1975, Woodfield began a string of robberies and sexual assaults on women in Portland, which he committed at knifepoint. Between 1980 and 1981, he committed multiple murders in cities along the I-5 corridor; his earliest-documented murder was that of Cherie Ayers, a former classmate whom he had known since childhood, in October 1980. After committing numerous violent crimes, Woodfield was arrested in March 1981, and convicted in June of the murder of Shari Hull and attempted murder of her co-worker, Beth Wilmot. He was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 90 years. In a subsequent trial, he was convicted of sodomy and improper use of a weapon in a sexual assault case, receiving 35 additional years to his sentence.
Woodfield has never confessed to any of the crimes of which he has been accused or convicted. Though he has only been convicted of one murder and one attempted murder, he has been linked via DNA and other methods to numerous unsolved homicides in the ensuing decades. Authorities have estimated his total number of killings to be as many as 44. CBS News named him one of the deadliest serial killers in American history. He is currently incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary.
Early life
Childhood
Randall Woodfield was born on December 26, 1950, in Salem, Oregon, the third child of an upper-middle-class family. His mother was a homemaker, and his father was an executive at Pacific Northwest Bell. He has two older sisters, one of whom went on to become a doctor and the other an attorney. The Woodfield family was "well-known and respected" in their community.Woodfield was raised in Otter Rock, Oregon, a small seaside town approximately north of Newport. Popular among his peers, he was a football star at Newport High School. Though his childhood was by all accounts stable, Woodfield began to exhibit sexually dysfunctional behaviors during junior high school, particularly exposing himself in public. While in high school, Woodfield exposed himself to a group of teenage girls on Yaquina Bay Bridge and was arrested. His football coaches helped conceal the incident to prevent him from being ousted from the team, though his parents forced him to attend therapy after the incident.
College years and football career
After graduating from high school, Woodfield's criminal record was expunged and he attended Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Oregon, later transferring to Portland State University in Portland in 1970, where he played for the Portland State Vikings as a wide receiver. At Portland State, he was active in Campus Crusade for Christ, an evangelical Christian student group, and lived in an apartment located on the South Park Blocks.Gary Hamblet, Woodfield's football coach, recalled: "When he was with me, he was the nicest, most gentlemanly kid I ever knew. He was quiet and polite, hard-working and real coachable." Other teammates and peers of Woodfield recalled him as "soft-spoken" and "kind of a loner" who "didn't have a lot of friends," but noted his athleticism.
Despite his thriving in college, Woodfield was arrested on several occasions for petty crimes: first in 1970 for vandalizing the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, and later in 1972 for public indecency in Vancouver, Washington. In 1973 he was arrested again for public indecency in Multnomah County, Oregon.
Woodfield chose to drop out of college three semesters shy of graduating with his B.S. in physical education, and was selected as a wide receiver in the 1974 NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers in the 17th round. Woodfield tried to establish himself with the Packers during Coach and General Manager Dan Devine's last season, but could not shake his problems with a trip across the country. He signed a contract in February 1974 but was cut during training camp, failing to make the team's final roster.
After being cut by the Packers, Woodfield played the 1974 season with the semi-pro Manitowoc Chiefs and worked for Oshkosh Truck.
First crime spree
Woodfield left Wisconsin in late 1974 and returned to Portland, feeling disgraced by his failure to maintain his football career. In early 1975, several Portland women were accosted by a knife-wielding man, forced to perform oral sex and then robbed of their handbags. Law enforcement responded to the string of crimes by having female police officers act as decoys.On March 3, 1975, Woodfield was arrested after being caught with marked money from one of the undercover officers. Upon interrogation he confessed to the crimes, blaming poor sexual impulse control, which he claimed was a result of his use of steroids. In April 1975, Woodfield pled guilty to reduced charges of second-degree robbery. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was freed on parole in July 1979 after having served four years.
Murders and subsequent crimes
First murders
On October 9, 1980, Cherie Lynn Ayers, an X-ray technician and former classmate of Woodfield, was raped and murdered in her apartment at SW Ninth Place in downtown Portland. Her body was discovered on October 11 by her fiancé. She had been bludgeoned and stabbed repeatedly in the neck. Ayers, a University of Oregon graduate, had known Woodfield since second grade, having attended the same schools in Newport.During Woodfield's prior four-year imprisonment, he and Ayers had corresponded via letters. Suspecting Woodfield's involvement in Cherie Lynn's murder, Ayers' family provided his name to law enforcement. He was questioned but refused to sit for a polygraph test. Homicide detectives found his answers generally "evasive and deceptive" but, because his blood type did not match semen found in the victim's body, no charges were filed.
One month later, on the morning of November 27, Woodfield arrived at the north Portland home of Darcey Renee Fix, 22, planning to assault her. Woodfield had known Fix during college as an ex-girlfriend of one his close friends. Douglas Keith Altig, 24, was at Fix's home when Woodfield arrived. Both Fix and Altig were subsequently bound and shot to death execution-style in the home, and Fix's.32 caliber revolver was missing from the scene. Due to his acquaintance with Fix, Woodfield was questioned about the murders, but law enforcement found no concrete evidence pointing to his involvement.
I-5 Bandit robberies
After committing the murders of Fix and Altig, Woodfield began a series of robberies throughout the Pacific Northwest: On December 9, 1980, Woodfield, wearing a fake beard, held up a Vancouver, Washington, gas station at gunpoint. In Eugene, Oregon, four nights later, on December 13, he raided an ice cream parlor. On December 14, he robbed a drive-in restaurant in Albany, Oregon. During one of the robberies, Woodfield wore what appeared to be a Band-Aid or athletic tape across the bridge of his nose, similar to nasal strips worn by football players. On December 21, Woodfield accosted a waitress in Seattle, trapping her in a restaurant bathroom and forcing her at gunpoint to masturbate him.By January 1981, law enforcement had dubbed the robber the "I-5 Bandit", given his apparent preference for committing crimes along the Interstate 5 corridor. On January 8, he held up the same Vancouver gas station he had robbed in December, this time forcing a female attendant to expose her breasts after he emptied the cash register. Three days later, on January 11, he robbed a market in Eugene. The next day, January 12, he shot and wounded twenty-year-old grocery clerk Susie Benet at a store in Sutherlin, Oregon.
On January 14, a man matching the description of the I-5 Bandit and wearing a false beard invaded a home occupied by two sisters, aged eight and ten. He ordered the girls to undress and sexually assaulted them, forcing the older girl to perform fellatio. Four days later, in Salem, a man matching the same description entered an office building and sexually abused two women, Shari Hull and Beth Wilmot, after which he killed Hull and wounded Wilmot, leaving her for dead. On January 26 and 29, he traveled to southern Oregon and committed robberies in Eugene, Medford and Grants Pass. In the latter location, two females, a clerk and customer, were assaulted by the robber.
Later murders
On February3, 1981, the bodies of Donna Eckard, 37, and her 14-year-old daughter, Janell Charlotte Jarvis, were found together in a bed in their home in Mountain Gate, California, north of Redding. Each had been shot several times in the head. Forensic tests showed that the girl had also been sexually assaulted. The same day in Redding, a female store clerk was kidnapped and raped in a holdup. An identical crime was reported in Yreka, California on February 4, with the same man robbing an Ashland, Oregon motel that night.Then on February 9, in Corvallis, a man matching the I-5 Bandit's description held up a fabric store, tying up and molesting the clerk and her customer before he left. Three days later, robberies committed by a man matching the I-5 Bandit's description occurred in Vancouver, Olympia, and Bellevue, Washington. The Olympia and Bellevue incidents included three sexual assaults.
Upon an impending visit to Portland, Woodfield planned a Valentine's Day party at the city's downtown Marriott Hotel, inviting friends and acquaintances from college. After no guests came, Woodfield drove to the Beaverton home of 18-year-old Julie Reitz, whom he had met while working as a bouncer at The Faucet, a bar in Portland. He arrived at her home around 2:00a.m. on February15. Around 4:00a.m. he raped and then shot Reitz in the head, killing her. Police investigating the scene determined that Reitz had a glass of wine with her attacker and had also begun to prepare coffee; a package of instant coffee was discovered on the kitchen counter, and water in a kettle had been left to completely boil away.