A convicted rapist awaiting trial for the murder of an Everett woman in 1984 has now been charged with a second cold case murder.
Mitchell Gaff, 68, was charged last week by Snohomish County prosecutors with first-degree murder in connection with the 1980 death of 21-year-old Susan Vesey. Gaff was also charged two years ago for allegedly murdering 42-year-old Judy Weaver in 1984.
Prosecutors described the two cases as strikingly and shockingly similar" in a court motion.
Gaff was convicted in the 1980s of assault, burglary and two counts of first-degree rape. He was convicted of raping two teenage sisters, 14 and 16. Juries found that Gaff was a sexually violent predator and he was civilly committed on McNeil Island before being released in 2006.
A doctor later determined Gaff was a “sexual sadist,” with “increased risk of committing predatory acts of sexual violence.”
Vesey was found dead by her husband in her Everett apartment in July 1980, and she was strangled, bound, beaten and raped.
In 2024, Gaff was booked into jail in connection with the killing of Weaver, who was similarly found dead in her Everett home in June 1984 after she had walked back from work.
Gaff, who was 26 at the time of Weaver’s slaying, broke in, attacked Weaver and used drawstring and telephone extension cords to strangle her, according to the charges filed in Snohomish County Superior Court.
DNA was not yet a forensic tool in the early 1980s. Weaver's and Vesey's cases went cold.
Law enforcement began looking back into Weaver’s slaying in 2020, and forensic testing discovered a mixed sample of male DNA from one of the cords that bound Weaver's wrists, which matched Gaff’s sample in CODIS, the national law enforcement database of DNA profiles for convicted offenders, according to the charges.
Detectives used a ruse to secure chewing gum from Gaff, providing them with a secondary DNA match.
In 2017, detectives attempted to refer Vesey's now-deceased husband, Ken Vesey, for murder charges, but prosecutors declined the referral. In January 2025, Ken Vesey called the police department and discussed his dissatisfaction with investigators' work on the case. The Everett police detective who had handled the 2024 Weaver case reviewed Vesey's file and discovered "startling similarities between the two murders, which occurred four years apart, according to charging documents.
In July 1980, prosecutors allege, Gaff entered Vesey's apartment and attacked her, binding her with electrical cords. Ken Vesey found her body in the morning after working an overnight shift in Seattle, charging documents state. An autopsy discovered she had significant internal injuries and died from asphyxia due to ligature strangulation, according to charges.
Similarly to Weaver, Vesey had been brutally raped. Her 2-year-old daughter and infant son were found in the apartment, unharmed.
The crime scene had been significantly disturbed by Ken Vesey and a responding medic who cut the cords around her wrists and neck, turned her over and attempted CPR, according to the charges. There were not signs of an obvious struggle or forced entry, the charges state.
Last year, the Washington State Patrol crime lab tested the electrical cord, and two pieces cut from Vesey's body tested positive for Gaff's DNA, according to the charges. There is no evidence Vesey and Gaff knew each other, the charges say.
Gaff has pleaded not guilty to both charges. A jury trial is set for September in Snohomish County Superior Court. If convicted on either charge, he will be in prison for life.
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