Murders under a microscope

Elgin scientist's discovery key to solving Green River killings

By Daniel Duggan
STAFF WRITER

  ELGIN — A local researcher known for investigating high-profile crimes helped crack the case of the Green River killing spree, which came to an end last week.

  Wednesday, Gary Ridgway pleaded guilty to the murder of 48 women in the Seattle area. And Ridgway's attorney said that if it weren't for Elgin resident Skip Palenik and the microscopic specks of paint he found on five victims, there would not have been a confession.

  "We were able to connect these five victims who had nothing in common other than being prostitutes and victims," Palenik said from his Elgin office Monday.

  The key was something he saw that was not visible to anyone else, a hallmark of Palenik's trade as a forensic microscopist.

Investigators seek help
 

  Police in Oregon were stumped when the bodies of murdered prostitutes were turning up from 1982 to 1984. In some of the first cases, the bodies were found in the Green River near Seattle, giving the case its name.

  Police pegged Ridgway as a suspect in 1984, but did not have the evidence to go beyond questioning him. Detectives continued to suspect him, however, and in 1987 police searched his house and took a saliva sample.

  The investigators had a breakthrough in November 2001, when police used DNA technology to link Ridgway to four of the murdered women. He was charged with four counts of murder based on the DNA evidence.

  Ridgway's attorney, Tony Savage, said at that point he was planning to take the case to court. He said the argument could be made that Ridgway was nothing more than a customer of the women.

  "The argument was that Gary was purchasing what they were selling, and that it didn't mean he killed them," Savage said Monday.

  By the summer of 2002, prosecutors started working with researchers to find a link other than the DNA evidence to seal the case.

  They turned to Palenik — as many investigators of high-profile crime cases have over the years — to sort through the thousands of microscopic particles in the victims' clothing to find that link.

  He started looking and discovered particles of a type of paint on several of the victims.

  "There was this paint everywhere," he said.

Rare paint traceable
 

  Palenik and his assistant, Sara Wallbridge, started vacuuming the nearly invisible particles from the victims' clothing with special filters.

  They found microscopic specks of paint in the clothing of five of the victims. It was a rarely used type of paint that could be identified as the type Ridgway used at his place of work, Palenik said.

  Imron paint is used in small amounts for the most part, mainly by the makers of Kenworth Trucks — where Ridgway was a painter.

  Palenik said the link stands out.

  "This is a high-end type of paint," he said. "You don't find it in a lot of places. It's known to be used exclusively with Kenworth."

  Palenik made the extra step of contacting the DuPont corporation, which manufactures the paint, to confirm the link.

  The thousands of particles people come across in the course of a day all stick to their clothing, Palenik said, leaving a roadmap of the places they have been.

  In this case, small paint particles fell on Ridgway at work, then were embedded in the seat of his car, for example.

  "If the victim sits in the car, then the paint is in their clothes," he said.

  The discovery made a strong enough link to get the top prosecutor in the Green River case, Jeff Baird, on a plane to Chicago to take a look at what Palenik had found.

Turning point in case
 

  Paint was discovered on the clothing of two out of the four women initially found to have Ridgway's DNA on them, resulting in the arrest. Palenik discovered that three additional women had the paint on their clothing and positively identified it as the type of paint Ridgway used at work.

  "The DNA didn't connect the women to each other, just to Ridgway," Palenik said. "(The paint) connected them to each other and to him, and to the environment where he worked."

  Savage said Palenik's discovery marked a turning point in the case.

  "When this paint business came up, here you have something other than DNA — it's a particular paint you can link to Gary — and you start saying 'Well, here are seven dead women and they can all be linked to Gary one way or the other,' " Savage said. "What are the odds of that happening by accident?"

  Shortly after the paint evidence came out, Savage said he started looking at other options besides going to trial. In June, he struck a deal with prosecutors in which his client would plead guilty to the 48 counts of murder on the condition that they would not seek the death penalty.

  Wednesday, Ridgway made the 48 individual guilty pleas.

  Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in King County, Oregon — where the murders took place — said the evidence that came from Palenik's company, Microtrace, was "crucial" to the case.

  "It gave the prosecutors the ability to add three more charges of murder," Donohoe said. "And it added to the compelling case the prosecutors were presenting in court."

Previous work on case
 

  Oddly, Palenik came across the Green River killings in the mid-1980s, he said, when he was teaching some classes at the Seattle Crime Lab.

  Palenik was in the office of George Ishi, the head of the lab at the time, and was talking about the Green River case. Ishi said that when an arrest was made in the case, he would want Palenik to look at the evidence.

  Because there was no arrest at that time, Palenik didn't look at the evidence. If he had, he said, the case could have been broken 20 years ago.

  "Had I looked at the stuff in the '80s, we would have found the same stuff we found now," Palenik said. "It would have been a great investigative lead."

  The conversation took place before Ridgway was questioned in 1987, Palenik said, and would have given investigators reason to question some of the answers.

  "In that case, when they asked him what he does for a living, and he said, 'I paint trucks,' they would have been able to say 'we have some more questions for you.' "

Example of craft
 

  Palenik has spent the last 30 years looking at a minute world through a microscope, examining fibers, pollens, grains, dirt and thousands of other items too small for people to see with the naked eye.

  In his career as a forensic microscopist, Palenik has worked on some of the best-known crimes in the country and has made breakthroughs merely by discovering microscopic particles in clothing.

  His case list includes the Unabomber, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Atlanta child murders, JonBenet Ramsey, Jaclyn Dowaliby and the Martin Luther King assassination.

  He has exposed fake art and a counterfeit Hitler tunic. He examined the 2000 presidential election Florida ballot chads.

  At the age of 57, Palenik has no plans of hanging up his microscope. He owns his company, Microtrace, and will be bringing his son on board in the near future.

  He speaks fondly of the discovery in the Green River case partly because of its impact on his science of "trace forensics," something he says is not used like it should be.

  "I've spent my whole life trying to get people to look at this microscopic trace evidence," he said.

  He points out that the investigators' psychological profile of the killer had him as a transient who did not live in the area.

  "He turned out to be a guy who lived in the area and had the same job for the last 30 years," Palenik said. "All they got right was that he was a white male."

  The Green River case stands out, he said, as a statement of the power of trace forensics.

  "It's very satisfying, not to have someone go to jail, but that I was brought in to solve a certain problem," he said. "And as a scientist, it's the ultimate vindication when you do what you came in there to do."

11/11/03

originally published at: http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/couriernews/top/e11murder.htm