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I-5 Killer:
Randall Woodfield (1984)

Ann Rule
(as Andy Stack)

I-5 Killer is the third book in Ann Rule's Andy Stack trilogy of serial killers. The I-5 Killer, also known as the I-5 Bandit, found his female victims along Interstate 5 that runs from Washington to California, and he came to public attention in 1981 when one victim survived. When police turned up a lead on a sex offender named Randall Woodfield, they found evidence linking him to several victims. Despite the fact that he had been a top student and a good-looking athlete with professional football prospects, this young man clearly had troubles. By the time he was thirty, he had raped over fifty women and murdered eighteen or more.

In April 1987, Woodfield filed a $12 million libel suit against Ann Rule for her 1984 best-selling non-fiction account of Woodfield's life and crime spree. Oregon’s federal court dismissed the lawsuit on statute of limitations grounds in January 1988.

Randall "Randy" Woodfield was born on December 26, 1950, in Salem, Oregon. Woodfield came from a middle class family with no evident signs of dysfunction. He made good grades, and high school coaches recognized his natural athletic talents, making him the star of Newport High School's football team. When Woodfield started to expose himself in public, everybody laughed it off at first, and members of the coaching staff suppressed his first arrest to keep him eligible for the squad.

In August 1970, while attending college in Ontario, Oregon, he was picked up again  This time it was for vandalizing an ex-girlfriend's apartment. Two years later, in Vancouver, Washington, he was arrested as an adult on charges of indecent exposure and received a suspended sentence. In June of 1973 he was arrested again in Portland for indecent exposure and received more suspended time.

The arrests in the early 1970s for "petty crimes" did not prevent Woodfield from being drafted in the 1974 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers as a wide receiver, but he was dismissed from the team that same year after more than a dozen arrests for indecent exposure.

In early 1975, Woodfield robbed several Portland women at knife point and forced them to perform oral sex. On March 3, he was arrested by an undercover policewoman after stealing marked money from her. In April, he pled guilty to reduced charges of second-degree robbery and received a sentence of ten years in prison. Four years later, in July 1979, he was freed on parole. 

In 1979, Woodfield started a two year robbery spree, holding up gas stations, ice cream parlors and homes along the Interstate 5 freeway. Several of his female victims were sexually assaulted, murdered, or both.

On October 9, 1980, a former classmate of Woodfield's, Cherie Ayers, was raped and murdered in Portland. Woodfield was picked up for questioning but refused to take a polygraph examinations. Homicide detectives found his answers generally "evasive and deceptive," but his blood type did not match the semen found inside the victim's body, and he was not charged.

A short month later, still in Portland, Darci Fix and Doug Altic were shot to death in Altic's apartment. Even though the female victim had been formerly involved with one of Woodfield's closest friends, police had nothing to suggest that he was the killer.

On December 9, 1980, a young bandit wearing a fake beard held up a gas station in Vancouver, Washington. Four nights later, in Eugene, Oregon, the same man robbed an ice cream parlor and on December 14 robbed a drive-in restaurant at Albany. A week later, in Seattle, the the bearded gunman trapped a waitress in the restoom of a chicken restaurant and forcing her to masturbate him. Twenty minutes later, a smiling bearded gunman robbed another ice cream parlor.

January was another busy month for the "I-5 bandit." On January 8, he robbed a Vancouver gas station a second time, forcing a female attendant to expose her breasts. Three days later, he robbed a market in Eugene. On January 12 he shot a female grocery clerk in Sutherlin, Oregon. n Corvallis on January 14 while wearing a fake beard, he invaded a home occupied by two sisters, aged eight and ten. He forced the girls to disrobe before giving him oral sex. In Salem, four days later, he killed Shari Hull and wounded another woman, after sexually abusing both of them. He ended the month on January 26 and 29 with robberies in Eugene, Medford, and Grant's Pass where he fondled a clerk and female customer.

On February 3, 1981, Donna Eckard, thirty-seven, and Janell Jarvis, her 14-year-old step-daughter were found dead in their home at Mountain Gate, California. Both of them had been shot several times in the head and the young girl had been sodomized. The same day, a female clerk was kidnapped, raped and sodomized after a holdup in Redding. An identical crime was reported from Yreka, on February 4, and the bandit robbed an Ashland motel that same night. Five days later, in Corvallis, he held up a fabric store, molesting the clerk and her customer before leaving. On February 12, he committed three robberies in Vancouver, Olympia, and Bellevue, Washington with the last two stops including three more sexual assaults.

On February 15, a former girlfriend of Woodfield, Julie Reitz, was shot and killed at her home in Beaverton, Oregon. By February 28, police investigation had focused on Woodfield but by that time the I-5 gunman had struck three more times, in Eugene on February 18 and 21, with a final sex assault in Corvallis on February 25.

On March 3, 1981, interrogation of Woodfield led to a search of his apartment where the police found evidence linking him to the murder of Reitz and attempted murders of two other young women. On March 7, he was taken into custody after several victims picked him from a police lineup. He was charged with the murder of Julie Reitz and the double murder of Donna Eckard and Janell Jarvis. By March 16, indictments were coming in from various jurisdictions in Washington and Oregon, including multiple counts of murder, rape and sodomy, attempted kidnapping, armed robbery, and possession of firearms by an ex-convict.

In October 1981, the courts in Salem got to Woodfield first where he was tried for the murder of Shari Hull, as well as charges of sodomy and attempted murder. He was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life at the Oregon State Penitentiary. He also received an additional 90 years for convictions of the other crimes. By December, convictions of sodomy and weapons charges in Benton County, Oregon, had added 35 more years to his time. Despite his apparent links with at least 13 homicides and numerous other crimes, the I-5 killer did not go to court on the majority of his crimes. Because of the unaffordable expense of an endless string of trials, the state was satisfied to know that Woodfield would be off the highways for at least a century.

By 1990 Woodfield was suspected in approximately forty-four homicides. In 2001 and 2006, DNA testing linked him to two additional murders in Oregon from 1980 and 1981.

Ann Rule's Full Length Bestsellers
with Case Background
 

• Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal(2007) - Tells the story of a Georgia dentist named Bart Corbin, and how two women, a beautiful dentistry student named Dolly Hearn, and Bart's wife, Jennifer Barber Corbin, found themselves fatally involved with Corbin over the course of two decades.

• Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer-America's Deadliest Serial Murderer (2004) - This is the extraordinary true story of the most prolific serial killer the nation had ever seen -- a case involving more than forty-nine female victims, two decades of intense investigative work...and one unrelenting killer who not only attended Ann Rule's book signings but lived less than a mile away from her home.

• Heart Full of Lies: A True Story of Desire and Death (2003) - An idyllic Hawaiian wedding held the promise of a wonderful future for handsome, athletic Chris Northon, an airline pilot, a confirmed bachelor-turned-devoted family man; and Liysa, an acclaimed surf photographer, loving mother, and aspiring Hollywood screenwriter. But few, including Chris, had seen Liysa's other side -- her controlling behavior and dark moods, her insatiable hunger for money and property. And no one anticipated the fatal outcome of a family camping trip in an Oregon forest. Liysa soon revealed herself as a victim of domestic abuse that culminated at the campsite, where she shot Chris in self-defense. But crime scene evidence led detectives to wonder if Liysa was a killer, not a victim.

• Every Breath You Take: A True Story of Obsession, Revenge, and Murder (2001) - Although happily settled securely in a loving second marriage, and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila never truly escaped the vicious enslavement of her ex-husband, multi-millionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer -- and a violent, controlling sociopath who subjected Sheila to unthinkable abuse in their marriage, and terrorized her for a decade after their divorce. When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge. Shelia had said, "If anything ever happens to me... find Ann Rule and ask her to write my story."

• And Never Let Her Go: Thomas Capano: The Deadly Seducer (1999) - On a June evening in 1996, 30-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, secretary to the governor of Delaware, vanished without a trace following a restaurant rendezvous with her secret lover of more than two years: Thomas Capano. One of Wilmington's most prominent and respected figures, a millionaire attorney and former state prosecutor, "Tommy" was a charming, soft spoken family man. But in the weeks and months that followed Fahey's disappearance, investigators would gradually uncover the shocking truth: Capano was a steely manipulator driven by power and greed -- and capable of brutal murder.

• Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, A Mother's Sacrifice (1998) - Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother. A small-town girl with a genius IQ, she achieved an enviable life: her own medical practice, a handsome physician husband, three perfect children, and an opulent home in an exclusive Kansas City suburb. But when a raging fire destroyed that home and took two lives, the trail of clues led investigators to a stunning conclusion.

• Dead By Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (1995) - When attorney Cheryl Keeton's brutally bludgeoned body was found in her van in the fast lane of an Oregon freeway, her husband, Brad Cunningham, was the likely suspect. But there was no solid evidence linking him to the crime. He married again, for the fifth time, and his stunning new wife, a physician named Sara, adopted his three sons. They all settled down to family life on a luxurious estate. But gradually, their marriage became a nightmare....

• Everything She Ever Wanted: A True Story of Obsessive Love, Murder, and Betrayal (1992) - For their wedding portrait, petite Pat Taylor and handsome Tom Allanson posed as Rhett and Scarlett.  Less than two months later, their dream exploded in terror and murder: their beautiful home mysteriously burned to the ground and Tom was convicted of the brutal slaying of his mother and father. Pat's only brother had died in a puzzling suicide, her grandparents-in-law were poisoned with arsenic, and no one -- from her wealthy employers to her own children -- was safe when Pat Allanson didn't get her way. It took Georgia lawmen more than two decades to stop her for good -- if indeed they have.

• If You Really Loved Me: A True Story of Desire and Murder (1991) - David Brown was a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty-two. When his beautiful young wife was shot to death as she slept, Brown's fourteen-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, confessed to killing her stepmother. The California courts sentenced her harshly: twenty-four years to life. But thanks in part to two determined lawmen, the twisted private world of David Brown unfolded revealing a trail of perverse love, twisted secrets, and evil mind games. Did David Brown convince his own daughter to prove her love by killing for him?

• Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder (1987) - A shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood.

• The Want-Ad Killer - Written as Andy Stack (1983) - After his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to manipulate, rape, and bludgeon women to death--using want ads to lure his young female victims.

• The I-5 Killer - Written as Andy Stack (1984) - As a young man, Randall Woodfield had it all--a star athlete, good looks, and an award-winning student. Working in the swinging West Coast bar scene, he had more than his share of women. But he wanted more than just sex. An appetite for unspeakable violent acts led him to cruise the I-5 highway through California to Washington, leaving a trail of victims along the way. As the list of the dead grew, the police mobilized to stop a twisted killer who had 44 known deaths to his name.

• Possession - A Novel (1983) - Joanne Lindstrom's camping trip to Washington's Cascade mountains goes terribly awry, leaving her husband dead and Joanne's only hope for survival in the hands of a twisted stranger. (This is Ann Rule's only novel. Based on a real Northwest Case.)  

• Lust Killer - Written as Andy Stack (1983) - To his neighbors, Jerry Brudos was a gentle man whose mild manner contrasted with his awesome physical strength. To his employers, Jerry was a fine worker. To his wife, he was a good husband. And to the Oregon police, Jerry Brudos was the most hideously twisted killer they had ever unmasked.

• The Stranger Beside Me - Ted Bundy: The Classic Story of Seduction & Murder (1980) - Ann Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass-murderer. Little did she know that Ted Bundy, her close friend, was the savage slayer she was hunting.

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