Going West: True Crime - The I-5 Killer // 104

Episode Date: January 20, 2021

In the early 1980’s, a string of murders, rapes, and robberies occurred mostly along a highway throughout Washington, Oregon, and California. The man wore tape over his nose and a fake beard and often help up various gas stations or small shops before sexually assaulting the workers and fleeing. This is the story of the I-5 Killer, also known, as Randall Woodfield. *BONUS EPISODES* patreon.com/goingwestpodcast *CASE SOURCES* https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2012/05/serial_killer_randy_woodfields.html https://www.oxygen.com/mark-of-a-killer/crime-news/i-5-killer-randall-woodfield-green-bay-packer-serial-killer https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/americas-deadliest-serial-killers/9/ https://murderpedia.org/male.W/w/woodfield-randall.htm https://krazykillers.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/sexy-serial-killers-seduced-the-media-and-seriously-snafud-groupies/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Heath and I'm your other host, Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in today. We just released our first bonus episode of the year on Patreon and that episode is on the Tita family and seriously that case is insane. It plays out like an action movie. It's crazy. So if you're looking for bonus episodes, head on over to our Patreon which is patreon.com slash Going West podcast. It's also in the description of this episode and check that out along with a bunch of other bonus episodes. Yeah, I'm actually surprised that this particular case has never been made into a movie

because it is literally nail biting. It's insane. Yeah, it's seriously crazy and we were going to cover it on Going West, but we decided to save it for a bonus episode because it's just so good. So check that out if you're interested. And just to clear something up before we get into today's episode, a lot of people have asked us on social media how Patreon works and you just click on the link and you join. We have a couple different tiers. We have a $5 tier and a $10 tier.

It builds you the first of every month and you get new bonus episodes every month for the $5 tier you get one for the $10 tier you get two. So we just released a bonus episode that works for both the five and $10 tiers. And yeah, so it just builds you every month and it just costs you about five or ten bucks a month and it really helps the show. Yeah, so again, head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast and subscribe. So now about today's episode. I feel like we don't often cover serial killers, but we've both really wanted to cover this case for a while, and it's an Oregon case, and a lot of it actually happens where Heath

and I live, so we decided it was time for that. Yeah, I've been interested in this case for a really long time and I know a lot about it But there's obviously still some details that I don't know so I was really excited to cover this one All right guys, this is episode 104 of going west, so let's get into it In the early 1980s, the most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world.

The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world.

The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. The most famous city in the most famous city in the world was the most famous city in the world. In the early 1980s, a string of murders, rapes, and robberies occurred mostly along a highway throughout Washington, Oregon, and California. The men were taped over his nose and a fake beard and often held up various gas stations and small businesses

for sexually assaulting the workers and fleeing. This is the story of the I-5 Killer, also known as Randall Brent Woodfield, who went by Randy, even though he didn't really like the nickname, was born on December 26, 1950 in Salem, Oregon, and had two older sisters. The family was pretty well to do in middle class since Randy's father was an executive at Pacific Northwest Bell, which is a telephone company, while his mother was a homemaker who focused on raising the kids. And interestingly enough, Randy actually had a very loving and functional family.

He was well liked by his peers and was very popular in school in Newport. And by the way, Newport is an awesome town on the Oregon coast. It's pretty much where Randy and his sisters were raised. Just about an hour and a half drive from Salem where Randy was born. I love Newport. It's such Randy was born. I love Newport. It's such a great place. I know Newport is really awesome. And more specifically, they lived in a much smaller town called Otter Rock, which only

hosted about 225 people in those days. But Otter Rock is right next to Newport. So while attending Newport High School, Randy quickly became a standout football player and decided that he wanted to pursue the sport. Meanwhile, one of his older sisters worked on becoming a doctor and the other an attorney. So all the Woodfield kids, or should I say teens, seemed to have exciting futures ahead of them. But even though Randy was really popular and really well liked, he definitely had some behavioral issues Growing up that were hard to ignore Starting around the time that Randy reached puberty He had a bad habit of exposing himself to random older women. This just sounds so weird

Anna in public so he would literally go around and just pull it out for people to see. Like, why, I don't know why you would do that. I wonder what age he did this, because it was when he was in middle school. So I'm assuming probably around the age of 13. I see. Um, which is still weird. Yeah. Yeah. He also showed some signs of having some kind of anti-social behavioral issues,

which made him rub a lot of people the wrong way. And it all just got worse as he got older and grew into himself. During his high school years, there was an incident that led to his arrest, which involved Randy showing his genitals again to a bunch of teenage girls who were hanging out on a bridge in Newport. But since he was a minor, he got out of this situation pretty easily. But his high school football coach did find out and they just Kind of swept it under the rug so that they wouldn't have to kick him off the team since the coach thought that he was a valuable player

But his parents were of course not happy about him doing this Especially since they were hoping that he kind of would have grown out of this whole exposing himself thing So their solution was to send him to therapy for a little while. Which I think was a good move on their part because they know their son has potential, but he needs help and hasn't gotten it all these years of exposing himself, and now he's in high school and still doing it. So it's time to figure out what's going on under the hood.

Yeah, I don't understand. I guess I just don't understand the need to expose yourself. I don't know, and that's why I think it had to do with something psychological because he did it so often, and he's going to keep doing it as we'll see. And you're just kind of like, what are you doing? Like, why do you keep doing this, and you're a grown-ass man? Yeah, well, we do know that he is kind of an egomaniac but we'll get into that later. But the therapist didn't really see this whole exposing himself thing as a problem.

They just thought that he was exploring his sexuality and it went wrong. And regarding this incident and arrest with the girls on the bridge, it was expunged from his record when he turned 18 and graduated from high school. So now he's legally an adult, he's gotten therapy, and his record is clean. And just to clarify, I feel like the reason why the therapist didn't see this as a strange thing to do is because this was also the late 60s. Yeah, this was a super different time, and we'll kind of get into that as well a little bit later in his crimes, but yeah, they definitely didn't take these kinds

of things very seriously back then. So in 1969, Randy headed to Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Oregon, which is all the way in Eastern Oregon on the border of Idaho. And here, he continued playing football. He played just one season with this school before then transferring to Portland State University in, you guessed it, Portland, Oregon. But before leaving the small city of Ontario, Oregon, he was arrested for the second time in his life, but the first time in his adult life.

This time, it was for ransacking his ex-girlfriend's house. So there was a young woman named Sharon who he had become obsessive over and they started dating. But after a short time, she stopped showing interest in him, which a lot of women did because he just didn't really have that much to offer. He's fucking weird. Yeah.

So, his retaliation method was to go to her parents' house, vandalize her bedroom, and take this stuffed animal that he had previously given to her. But there was very little evidence that he committed this crime, so he was ultimately found not guilty and was free to carry on. But Sharon was like, he did this, but you know, if you can't prove it, then you can't prove it. In 1970, Randy headed to Portland State University and was a wide receiver for the school's football team, the Portland State Vikings. During this time, he also joined the campus crusade for Christ group, which is a Christian

parachurch organization for the students, and he started working as a burger chef at a Portland area restaurant. Funny enough, he seemed to really impress a lot of adults, but his peers were just not into him. For example, his fellow teammates thought of him as a loner who didn't have many friends and a very soft spoken guy, who was a bit odd. The kind of odd you couldn't really put your finger on though. Meanwhile, his university football coach thought of him as an incredibly nice, gentlemanly and easy person to coach. Despite some positive claims about him and joining the campus crusade for Christ, Randy continued to

offend. During his time at Portland State University, he was arrested multiple times for indecent exposure and public indecency, but he was only convicted for two of these incidents. But somehow, he was able to keep these arrests under wraps because in 1974, when he was just three semesters away from graduating with his bachelors and physical education, he was drafted into the NFL by Wisconsin's own Green Bay Packers. So this guy, who's a fucking weirdo, exposing himself all over the place, is able to be drafted by the Packers. And I think again, back in these days,

they really just, maybe they didn't look into it or because they couldn't just Google search him and find these records. They just didn't know and they drafted him and that was that. Yeah, I feel like it was probably a lot easier for him to cover up his record back then. It just seems like nobody really looked into anything that this guy was doing.

Exactly. And Randy really wasn't the best football player because he was picked in the 17th round. Yeah, that's pretty late. Yeah. And the NFL was very different in those days. And if this was happening today, I could pretty much guarantee he wouldn't have been drafted into the national football league

at all. Regardless, Randy Woodfield moved across the country to the midwestern state of Wisconsin to start his football career. In a local newspaper who covered a scrimmage between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears, quoted Randy saying, I'm pretty excited. I'm just really thankful for the opportunity. Randy saying, I'm pretty excited, I'm just really thankful for the opportunity. But before the actual football season started, Randy was already cut from the team. And the Packers have never officially released the statement on why he was released from the team, but many believe it was because they found out about his sexual crimes. Either way, this enraged Randy. He had told all of his Portland buddies

along with his family that he had been drafted into the NFL, and he had put a lot of pressure on himself to become this huge success. So, to be released from the team before he even had a chance to play, was a massive wound to his ego. Yeah, and again, like we mentioned earlier, this guy is an egomaniac, and he thinks that he is just God's gift to the earth, but he gets cut before he can even take one snap on this team. Like that's pretty sad, and so this led him to just have all this built up anger inside of him.

Yeah, big ol' reality check. But Randy didn't go right back to Oregon after he was cut. He actually stayed in Wisconsin but moved to a different area. More specifically, Oshkosh, so he could start playing for the semi-pro football team, the Manitawak Chiefs. And he did this in hopes of being recognized by the Packers so he could potentially rejoin down the line. And these teammates didn't seem to love him either because, again, Randy was just a bit off.

His teammates later remembered that he seemed like a ladies man and always talked about the girls he was talking to and getting with, but they thought he was just a liar and an exaggerator. But after his first season with the Chiefs, again, Randy was cut, and again, it's believed that it had to do with his off-the-field behavior, rather than poor playing. There was just a lot of talk about him even though he didn't have a criminal record in Wisconsin. But he did have 10 open cases against him for indecent exposure just from that past year.

10 in the year. Yeah, 10 inde decent exposure incidents. And it's only ten that have been reported. So it's possible that there have been others too. Exactly. So this guy just cannot stop doing this. So Randy again was heartbroken and enraged about being dropped from yet another football team.

So in late 1974, he headed back to Oregon and that's when things got really bad. Although Randy hadn't finished college, he decided against returning. So 24-year-old Randy Woodfield went from job to job and seemed to be downspiraling. And this makes a lot of sense to me because he's probably thinking in his mind, hey, I'm an NFL player, like, I'm not gonna go back to, you know, doing some regular job, I'm not gonna go be a physical therapist, like I'm an NFL player. Yeah, so now his ego is even bigger, and he just thinks that everyone owes him something. Right, everyone's against him as well.

And, you know, he was very braggy about this whole NFL thing, which I get it, you know, that's awesome that you got drafted and it's definitely something to talk about if it's something you're proud of although you did get cut, but he kinda makes it his whole personality like I was drafted into the NFL and I'm the best. Right, it's just not a good look. A few months after Randy returned to the West Coast in early 1975,

horrible crimes started occurring in the Portland area. They were all very similar crimes and involved women being held at knife point and forced to perform oral sex on the man before running off with their purses. All of these women described their attacker to be athletic and handsome, so in other words, this man didn't look like the monster you may be picturing. But instead, a fairly muscular, good-looking young guy. And that's not to say that good-looking people can't commit crimes, but it can be very deceiving. And I think it can shock a lot of people that someone that has good looks is doing something so terrible.

So I just thought it was worth mentioning. Right. So Portland police got the idea to have a female officer dress in street clothes and act as a decoy, so that if the assailant tried to rob her, police would be close by so they could catch him. And this sting operation actually worked, because on March 5, 1975, while the female officer strolled through a park, he ran up to her holding a pairing knife and demanded she give

him all the money she had. So first of all, very interesting choice, a herring knife, which, you know, as most of us know, is a little small, little kitchen knife. And I read a couple different reports here. So one source said that he was actually able to rob this officer and run off without being caught, and he was only caught later because he used the money that he had taken from her because they marked the bills. But another source said that he was arrested while the robbery was taking place. But either way, Randy Woodfield was caught and arrested for robbery.

But after he was interrogated, he tried to convince the investigators that he was a good person, a good Christian man who didn't smoke or drink, and he committed his life to Christianity, that he was just down on his luck and committed the crimes likely because of the side effects from his steroid use. He also mentioned that he was only on steroids to help with his physique for the NFL, and he thinks that they could have upped his sex drive in a negative way. In back in these times, people really didn't make the connection between being a peeping Tom and moving on to more intense and serious criminal acts.

But I think all of us could look at this now and say, well, that was a huge sign and it was definitely overlooked. And it was. Randy's charges were reduced to second degree robbery, and the following month, he pled guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. But Randy served just 4 years in prison and then was let out on parole. When he got out of prison, his friends threw him a party. Shortly after his release, he also attended his high school reunion in Newport, Oregon, and reconnected with a lot of his old classmates, bragging about his very short, time in the

NFL, and leaving out his criminal record. I would have hated to be an ex-classmate of Randy Woodfield and having to sit there and listen to him ramble on about his NFL days. But he continued to kind of fail at life. He got a job as a bouncer at a bar, but lost it not too long after. He was consistently being dumped by girls because they thought he was boring and strange, but he had a big ego like we keep saying. You know, he was now a 29 year old man who was still muscular and

What someone could sit her hands up so he thought he was owed the world He even sent in a photo of him showing off his physique to play girl magazine and they sent him a letter back saying Congratulations, you've been selected for a possible publication in Playgirl's Guy Next Door feature. Oh my god. I'm sorry. Yeah. That is so cringey. Yeah, but he never heard anything else from them. And as you can imagine, this sent him into a rage yet again.

And this is when things got even worse. He's just like, damn it! Nobody wants to see me naked! Anyway, on October 11th, 1980, a 29-year-old woman named even worse. It's just like, damn it! Nobody wants to see me naked! Anyway, on October 11, 1980, a 29-year-old woman named Sherry Ayers, who worked as an X-ray technician, was found dead in her Portland Oregon apartment. She was raped and stabbed, but ultimately her death was caused by blunt force trauma to her head along with knife wounds to her neck. Randy was immediately considered a suspect for her murder after police found numerous

letters in her apartment that were sent from Randy while he was imprisoned at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. They had gone to school together from about 2nd grade until high school graduation and then reconnected somehow while he was in prison. And when he was released, they hung out at their reunion and started seeing each other afterwards. Although Randy had never committed murder before, that we know of, his criminal past was hard to ignore and police wondered if maybe things got romantic with Sherry and she just rejected him.

So they brought Randy in for questioning, and although he didn't admit to committing the crime, he was acting and answering questions in a way that gave them pause. He seemed guilty. Yeah, and I read that he even said that he didn't know who she was when they originally asked if he knew of her, and he kind of just said no. When they had this evidence that they literally wrote letters together and so they're like okay huge red flag. Yeah, how do you lie about that? You've known her since the second grade.

Which this happens a lot in cases where people will deny things and we're like okay wow now you really look guilty. But then he did later say oh I do know her. But yeah, nice job. Exactly. But since this was the early 1980s, there wasn't much DNA testing that they could do to put them at the scene of the crime. But with what menial DNA testing they did have, they collected blood and semen and didn't find that either match to the crime scene.

Randy didn't want to take a polygraph and kept his answers short and sweet, so they just didn't have enough on him. The following month on Thanksgiving Day morning, there was another murder in Portland. This time it was 22-year-old Darcy Fix and her 24-year-old boyfriend Douglas Altig. They were both at Darcy's home in North Portland where they were bound and killed execution style with Darcy's 32 caliber revolver, and yet again, Randy had a connection to the case.

One of his old teammates at Portland State University used to date Darcy Ficks. Now although this murder was different from Sherries, police were able to make the connection to Randy Woodfield and they brought him in for questioning again, but with no physical evidence against him, they unfortunately had to let him go. Which must have been so frustrating for police because here's this guy with a criminal history, and you feel very confident that he committed a murder one month ago, and now there's another murder he's connected to, and he still can't pin in on him? That just sucks, because he's going to do it again and what can you do?

Yeah, exactly. Less than two weeks later, on December 9, 1980, the first of the I-5 Bandit crimes were committed when a young athletic man wearing a fake beard robbed of Vancouver Washington gas station at gunpoint, which by the way is right next to Portland, Oregon. Four nights later, down in Eugene, Oregon, which is about a two-hour drive south from Vancouver, Washington and Portland, a man robbed an ice cream parlor. This man also appeared to be wearing a fake beard along with tape on his nose. Some said it looked like a bandaid and others said that it was like athletic tape.

Then the next night yet another business was hit. This time it was a drive-in restaurant near the city of Albany, Oregon, which is one hour north of Eugene. And again, by a man with a fake looking beard. For one week, things seem to settle down. But then on December 21, 1980, a bearded man with tape on his nose, rated a fast food chicken restaurant, and trapped a waitress in the bathroom while he forced her to give him a hand job at gunpoint. And by the way this happened in Seattle. And for all of our international listeners, or for those who are unfamiliar with the Pacific

Northwest, Seattle is just a four hour drive from where the most previous crime took place near Albany. So these crimes were all in close proximity to each other. Vancouver, Portland, Albany, Eugene, and Seattle are all along the I-5 freeway. And because of this, the media started calling that tape-nosed, fake bearded man, the I-5 bandit. And we put all the composite sketches on our social medias, by the way. There is one in there, it's the third row first photo, and it's so creepy, like that

is the face of nightmares, and it looks really different like that is the face of nightmares and it looks really different from the others, so go take a look. The next attack took place a couple weeks later on January 8th, 1981, and it was at the same Vancouver gas station that he had robbed almost exactly one month earlier. But this time, he forced the female attendant to show him her breasts while he took all the money out of the cash register. Three days later, he went back to Eugene, Oregon, where he robbed a market. Then one day later, he showed up in Sutherland, Oregon, which is just an hour drive south of Eugene, where he robbed a small grocery store and in the process

ended up shooting a female employee, and luckily she didn't die from her injuries but she was wounded. From here, it just really escalated. On January 14th, a man who was believed to be the i5 bandit did something a bit uncharacteristic. He entered a home in Corvallis Oregon, which is right next to Albany, where he found an eight-year-old girl and her ten-year-old sister. He then forced them to perform oral sex on him before fleeing the scene and popping up in Salem, Oregon four days later. I know, so this was kind of like a turning point because he looked just like the description of the I-5 Bandit, and now he's sexually assaulting children.

So now everyone's just so freaked out because they're like, oh my God, this guy is just gonna do anything. Yeah, and he's striking everywhere. It's not just in one place, he's, you know, going on tour with his crimes. Yeah, that's a really good way to put it. And imagine like, because we live in Eugene, and it's like, imagine being here, or even in Oregon anywhere while this is happening. Like, that's just, ugh, I can't imagine. Right, you never know where he's gonna strike next.

In Salem, he went into an office building and sexually assaulted two women, 21-year-old Sherry Hull and Beth Wilmot. During this attack, Sherry was murdered and Beth was injured and sodomized. By the end of January, he committed three more robberies, another in Eugene, one in Medford, and one in Grand's Pass, both of which are in southern Oregon along the I-5. And during the robbering Grand's Pass, he also committed another sexual assault on a female customer and a female clerk. Then in February, the crime stretched down to California.

On February 3, 1981, in Reading, California, the I-5 bandit held up a restaurant and then kidnapped, raped, and sodomized in 18-year-old waitress from that restaurant. Later that day in Mountain Gate, California, he struck again. But this time, he murdered a 37-year-old woman named Donna Eckerd and her 14 year old daughter Janelle Jarvis by shooting them both multiple times in the head. It was also determined that Janelle had been sodomized. At this point, things were getting so bad that women who lived along the I-5 were terrified to go to work, go to the store, and they were even just scared to stay at home because

he seemed to be striking everywhere. And the media was warning everyone to be extremely cautious at all times. Throughout all these crimes, those who knew Randy Woodfield remembered him not having a job, yet always seeming to have cash on him, which struck them as odd and some of them even asked him how he had money, but he always responded with things along the lines of his parents lent it to him. So Randy, with absolutely nothing going on at this time, was very capable of taking road

trips every couple days or so if he chose to. But he wasn't on detectives radar for these crimes, and really no one was at this time because, although people had the same general description for the i5 bandit turned i5 killer, the composite sketches looked very different, and again we did post these and you can see for yourself that it looks like, I think there's like 9 or 12 of them, it looks like 9 or 12 different people. But everyone had the same thing to say, that the man was athletic and often wore a fake beard and or tape on his nose.

He always carried a 32 revolver, which, remember, Sherry Ayers had a 32 revolver stolen from her home when she was murdered. And the man would almost always sexually assault a woman present and or kill someone execution style and he would almost always rob the business or person. So very very similar traits and like we said, I mean, as the crimes continued on, he kind of started adding more things like he added saw to me, he added, you know, sexually assaulting children, but it was still kind of in the same ballpark of crimes by the same type of person. Come Valentine's Day, there was yet another murder. An 18 year old girl named Julie Wrights had been warned by her mother, Candy, to be very

careful with everything she does because there was a dangerous man in the area. And crazy as it is, later that night at around 4am, Julie was raped and killed execution style in her home by said man. She lived in Beaverton, Oregon, which is directly south west of Portland and very close to the city. So, Julie would often go into Portland to hang out with friends and go to bars, and more specifically the faucet, which is the bar that Randy Woodfield happened to be a bouncer at months prior. He would always let Julie in even though he knew that her ID was fake, so glancing at her home address was very easy for him to do on numerous occasions.

But it's been said that Julie and Randy had previously been on a date, and regarding the night that she was murdered, it appeared to police that she had a glass of wine with her attacker, and was preparing coffee when he raped and then murdered her around 4 a.m. And they know this because there was no sign of forced entry and there were two glasses of wine at the scene as well as instant coffee on the counter and water in the kettle. And no one else came forward regarding hanging out with her that night and if there's two people there drinking wine, they put the pieces together and they were like he was there in her home Chilling drinking wine with her. She was preparing coffee and then he was just set off somehow

Right, so he knew her they knew each other somewhat and on that day which was Valentine's Day again Randy Woodfield wasn't too happy anyway He had arranged and set up a Valentine's Day party at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Portland and invited a bunch of people he knew from college along with the few friends he had and local people he knew. But no one showed up. So with that scratched to his ego, he flew off the handle and drove to Julie's house. The I-5 killer would strike three more times after this. Twice more in Eugene on February 18th and 21st, and then on February 25th, he sexually

assaulted someone in Corvallis, so another offensing Corvallis. But as of February 28th, Randy Woodfield became a suspect for all of these terrible crimes. There were two women who were able to give a pretty good description of the man who sexually assaulted them and attempted to commit their murders. They said he was an athletically built white man with brown hair, a mustache, like a porn stash, and a short beard, who was between the ages of 25 to 30. He stood at about 6 feet tall and appeared to weigh around 175 pounds.

While police were investigating Julie's murder, Randy came up and they realized that he matched the exact same description as the i5 bandit and killer, and by the way when he was questioned for Julie's murder again denied knowing her, so this is just a trend for him. Then, one of the surviving young women identified Randy in a photo lineup and also identified his voice. She said she could never forget it because it was so gentle and almost polite, but the things he was demanding severely contradicted his tone. Oh, that just makes it even more creepy, you know what I mean? No, it does.

Because it's not like he's angry and he's screaming at you to do something. He's just like very calmly telling you what to do. Yeah, I found so much online that said that he had a very gentle, gentle, like personality and a gentle voice and I just, I haven't heard it, but I'm kind of curious, but I'm also kind of scared to hear it. It just sounds like it'd be awful. So much rage inside, but little of that was shown. little of that was shown. On March 5, 1981, after over four months of terror, police brought 30-year-old Randy Woodfield down to the Salem Police Department for questioning. He didn't admit guilt to any of these crimes, but police knew that they had the right guy. So they

issued a search warrant of his Springfield Oregon apartment, and Springfield is the town that's right next to Eugene, and they found some pretty damning evidence. Not only did he have athletic tape that matched the description of what was on his nose as well as tape that was found to bound some of his victims, but he also had a used 32-caliber shell casing just sitting in a gym bag. Police had more surviving victims come down to identify their attacker in a lineup and they all picked Randy Woodfield, kind of hard to miss, I guess.

A couple days later on March 7th, he was formally charged with multiple counts of murder, rape, sawdemy, illegal possession of firearms, armed robbery, and attempted kidnapping through Oregon and Washington State. And I won't touch on this too much because I'm not a psychologist, but I was reading how a lot of people believe that he had problems with women because he was essentially always in a house with women only and he resented it.

Because his dad worked a lot, so his mom kind of became the sole disciplinarian and always let his sister do things that he wasn't allowed to do. And she would say things like how they were allowed to do it because they were older and could be trusted, which made him incredibly angry and bitter. But he essentially worshipped his mom and all he wanted to do in life was please her, and he never felt like he was good enough for her. And I just thought that was interesting, since we always tend to look at serial killers' childhoods

and see if it has anything to do with the monster that they became, and because he had such a quote, unquote, normal upbringing, I kind of wondered like, well, I feel like something had to have happened and it seemed like he was really resentful of women being in charge of him. Yeah and that seems to be kind of a trend with serial killers. They usually have kind of a domineering mother and I don't know anything about Randy Woodfield's mother. Maybe she's not that way at all but I do find that that's kind of interesting. Well, I read a lot about how his mom and his parents in general were pretty great parents.

Not that she would discipline him necessarily, but just that, you know, he didn't get to do whatever he wanted to do. She would just parent him because she was his parent and he didn't like that. I think in some cases like this, there are people who are just really entitled. They just feel like they can do whatever they want or say whatever they want. And when they get put in their place, they hate it. Well, Randy was definitely that way. So when Summer arrived a few months after his arrest, Randy was put on trial for the murder of 21-year-old Sherry Hull, who remember was the woman sexually assaulted

and murdered in her office in Salem, and he was also tried for the sodomy and attempted murder of her young coworker Beth Wilmot. And it couldn't find Beth's age at this time, but she looked very young from the photo of her, so I'm assuming she was between the ages of 18 and 21. Randy was ultimately found guilty of the crimes and was sentenced to life in prison plus 90 years. And the Oregon District Attorney who prosecuted this case was actually Chris Van Dyke, who's the son of Dick Van Dyke the actor, and he later said that Randy was, quote, the coldest, most detached defendant that he had ever seen. With that, 30-year-old Randy Woodfield was sent to the Oregon State Penitentiary, a place he had already spent four years for his previous arrest on 2nd degree

robbery six years earlier. However, later that year, he went back on trial for more crimes. In October of 1981, Randy Woodfield was put on trial for more sodomy and weapon charges, but this time for the waitress that he had sexually assaulted in a restaurant bathroom near Albany, Oregon. She lived to tell the tale and was one of the victims who positively identified him in a photo lineup. Although he pleaded innocent, Randy was found guilty of these crimes by a trial jury, and he was sentenced to an additional 35 years in prison, meaning he now had a life sentence

plus a total of 125 years. And there are so many more charges that people wanted brought to him, but considering he's never getting out of prison, the state of Oregon figured that his existing sentence was definitely enough. Because having all those other trials would be really expensive for the state, so they left it at that. But they do believe that he's responsible for at least most of the I-5 Bandit and I-5 Killer Crimes, if not many more. In 1984, so three years after he was sentenced, the famous crime author Anne Rool wrote a true crime novel about him called the i5 Killer.

And it's all about Randy's life and his crimes, but considering Randy was maintaining his innocence, he filed a $12 million libel suit, which essentially means that Anne was supposedly spreading lies about him in this book and it was hurting his reputation, but the suit was dismissed by the federal court. And by the way, you know, there is so much to this case, he did so many things, so obviously we had to kind of condense it for this episode, but if you're interested in learning more about it, I definitely recommend reading that book, the I-5 Killer by Anne Rule. As time went on, more and more victims came forward, and by just 1990, Randy was suspected

to have murdered at least 44 people. And as more years passed and DNA testing became more advanced, Randy was positively linked to more murders. So he can say he's innocent all he wants, but his DNA was found at multiple crime scenes. In a letter that he wrote back to a journalist while he was in prison, he stated, you only care to know why murderers strike out an anger or rage. How should I know? What a question, Jenny. Care to write more personally, share a photo, talk once by phone, your choice, chow, Randall Woodfield. Gross. Yeah, that's so too.

So it's clear that Randy is still lying and lonely behind bars, but since entering the Oregon State Penitentiary, he's been married three times in divorce twice. Oh my god. He even had a short fling with Diane Downs, who for those of you who haven't listened to our third ever episode of Going West, she was convicted in 1984 for murdering her daughter and attempting to murder her other two children in Springfield Oregon, which remember is where Randy lived until his 1981 arrest. There are letters between them that prove to be romantically inclined, and in one letter to Diane in prison from Randy in prison, Randy asked her if he had permission to masturbate to her photograph.

But when the media asked Randy if they were dating, he denied having any romantic relationship with her. But as we know, many letters state otherwise, so it seems he was trying to act above the relationship with his big old inflated ego, but he's not. And even more so, Randy joined MySpace in 2006, and on his account it stated, I'm Randy, I'm 55. I spend the remainder of my days in prison because I've committed a murder along with many other crimes.

I once tried out for the Green Bay Packers. The only reason I didn't make it is because the skills I had to offer, they didn't need at the time. Ugh, gag. Yeah, this is hilarious because he, so he does admit that he committed murder, but kind of plays it down by saying he committed A murder, and then casually discusses that he only didn't make it with the packers because he just didn't need his skills at that time.

Sure thing, Randy. Randy Woodfield is currently 70 years old and remains incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Oregon. A place he will remain for the rest of his days. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and next week we'll have an all new episode for you guys to dive into. I know a lot of you guys probably did know this case or at least knew of it, and we usually like to cover lesser-known cases, but sometimes we like to throw in slightly bigger cases

or serial killer cases just to kind of give you guys something different. Yeah, and I had a lot of fun talking shit. It was lovely. Yeah, he sucks. So, thank you guys also to everybody who has joined our Patreon recently. Again, in the beginning of the episode, we talked about the new episode that we just released on the Tita family. Super, super freaking crazy case. Again, that's like a movie. It's so insane. So, I hope you guys are enjoying that that episode and for those who have not joined, if you're

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