A victim of the Green River killer has been identified through DNA testing as a Lewis County teen last seen in 1982, according to the King County Sheriff’s Office.
Lori Anne Razpotnik’s remains, found about 38 years ago in Auburn, were referred to as “Bones 17.” The Sheriff’s Office contracted with a forensic DNA technology company, which was able to develop a new DNA profile to identify Razpotnik, officials announced Tuesday.
She’s one of 49 women and teenage girls serial killer Gary L. Ridgway was convicted of murdering between the early 1980s and late 1990s. All but one of the other victims has been previously identified.
Razpotnik ran away from her Lewis County home at 15 years old in 1982, and her family never saw her again, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Three years later, a car went off the road and down an embankment near Mountain View Cemetery in Auburn, several hundred yards from where 16-year-old Kimi-Kai Pitsor’s skull had been found in 1983. Investigators discovered two other sets of human remains at the site.
The Green River Task Force was called in and oversaw the investigation, dubbing the two victims as “Bones 16” and “Bones 17.” The rest of Pitsor’s body was also found in the embankment about 100 yards from her skull.
Ridgway, arrested in 2001, later agreed to disclose the locations of still-missing victims’ graves as part of a plea bargain with King County prosecutors. Investigators asked Ridgway in 2003 to direct them to the location where he placed the bodies at Mountain View. Ridgway complied, and he identified the precise location where investigators had found the three sets of remains.
Virginia-based Parabon Nanolabs concluded “Bones 17” was Razpotnik, and the University of North Texas completed DNA comparison testing with her mother’s DNA sample, confirming the findings.
The other victim found at the site, “Bones 16,” was identified in 2012 through DNA testing as 20-year-old Sandra Major. Major was last seen climbing into a truck in North Seattle in 1982, and her cousin contacted the Sheriff’s Office in 2012 because he believed Major may have been one of Ridgway’s victims. DNA samples from Major’s siblings proved that was the case.
When questioned by investigators in 2003, Ridgway claimed that he could not recall any specifics about Major’s and Razpotnik’s murders.
Ridgway pleaded guilty to murdering Major and Razpotnik in 2003, and is serving 49 consecutive life sentences at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
Before Razpotnik, Ridgway’s most recently identified victim was Wendy Stephens, whose remains were recovered in 1984 from a swamp behind a baseball field near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. She was identified in 2020.
Another set of remains, “Bones 20,” is still unidentified.
