The I-5 Killer: Randall Woodfield

WEBVTT

1
00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:43.240
Discretion advice. This is ten minute
murder. Outside of the obvious example of

2
00:00:43.439 --> 00:00:48.119
Oj Simpson, allegedly, there aren't
many cases of a football player who was

3
00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:52.320
drafted to an NFL team and then
took a dark path in life which led

4
00:00:52.359 --> 00:00:57.479
them to commit murder, Aaron Hernandez
and Sergio Brown being a couple of others.

5
00:00:58.159 --> 00:01:02.479
But unfortunately, in the case of
Random Woodfield, this is exactly what

6
00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:06.879
happened, and that was because after
spending a short time with the Green Bay

7
00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:11.719
Packers in nineteen seventy four and ultimately
getting cut from the team before he could

8
00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:15.959
play a snap, he'd be driven
by a self imposed shame to commit a

9
00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.920
series of rapes and murders between Washington, Oregon, and California, with the

10
00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:25.760
path of destruction he took across the
Interstate five corridor, leading to him being

11
00:01:25.799 --> 00:01:32.120
given the name the I five Killer. Randall Woodfield was born on December twenty

12
00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:36.879
sixth, nineteen fifty into an upper
middle class family in Salem, Oregon.

13
00:01:37.599 --> 00:01:42.280
But while his two older sisters later
took the academic path in life, with

14
00:01:42.359 --> 00:01:46.480
one becoming a doctor and the other
an attorney, Randall was instead far more

15
00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:51.280
interested in the world of sports.
Specifically football. To him, it was

16
00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:56.599
a way to express himself and scratch
his competitive itch, something he developed while

17
00:01:56.640 --> 00:02:00.640
growing up in nearby Otter Rock,
a small seaside around eight miles north of

18
00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:06.599
Newport. That said, forasmuch as
he enjoyed being on the gridiron, and

19
00:02:06.680 --> 00:02:09.719
for as popular as his talents there
made him amongst his peers, there was

20
00:02:09.759 --> 00:02:15.319
a far darker inclination Randall had,
which he felt unable to control. By

21
00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:21.719
simply playing football while still in junior
high school, he'd begun exhibiting what would

22
00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:27.240
later be described as sexually dysfunctional behaviors. Basically, he had a habit of

23
00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:30.879
exposing himself to girls in public.
Of course, given how good of a

24
00:02:30.879 --> 00:02:36.000
football player he was, his football
coaches tried to brush all of this under

25
00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:40.159
the rug so that he could continue
playing unhindered. But while this was enough

26
00:02:40.159 --> 00:02:44.840
to stop him from being dropped by
the team, his parents insisted that he

27
00:02:44.919 --> 00:02:47.560
go to therapy. Not that this
did very much to get rid of those

28
00:02:47.599 --> 00:02:52.639
desires. All it seemed to do
was help him to suppress them as he

29
00:02:52.719 --> 00:02:55.879
continued to get better and better at
football. By the time he got older

30
00:02:55.919 --> 00:03:00.400
and transferred to Portland State University.
In nineteen seven, he was chosen to

31
00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:07.039
be the Portland State Vikings starting wide
receiver. Still, though, his issues

32
00:03:07.080 --> 00:03:10.879
with getting into trouble continued in spite
of his success on the field. Later

33
00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:15.840
that same year, he was arrested
for vandalizing an ex girlfriend's apartment, and

34
00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:21.159
that was minor compared to two years
after that, he was booked again where

35
00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:25.319
he once more exposed himself to a
group of girls in Moltnomah County. So

36
00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:30.199
at that point, deciding to jump
before he was pushed, Randall dropped out

37
00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:35.400
of college before he could graduate,
a pretty big blow to his ego,

38
00:03:35.719 --> 00:03:39.919
but something he ultimately repaired when during
the nineteen seventy four NFL Draft he was

39
00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:45.599
selected by the Green Bay Packers during
the seventh round. It was a huge

40
00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:50.039
achievement and signaled that big things were
in future for the boy from Otter Rock.

41
00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:53.639
Unfortunately, though, the next few
months didn't exactly play out as he

42
00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:59.800
planned, because despite having a lot
of natural talent, he soon learned that

43
00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:03.039
the level of competition in the NFL
was on another level to what he'd been

44
00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:08.080
used to before. That meant that
he was no longer the big fish in

45
00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:12.879
the small Pond, he struggled and
was cut during training camp that February,

46
00:04:13.479 --> 00:04:16.600
all before he even got a chance
to play a single NFL regular season game.

47
00:04:17.160 --> 00:04:20.439
And sure, he would still get
to play football on a semi professional

48
00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:25.639
level when he signed with the manatoauc
Chiefs not long after this, but that

49
00:04:25.879 --> 00:04:30.360
just wasn't the same and Randall's eyes, his inability to make it to the

50
00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:34.800
packer's official roster represented a massive failure
on his part, and that bred a

51
00:04:34.839 --> 00:04:40.639
sense of shame and resentment within him, which quickly mixed with his sexual delinquency

52
00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:45.519
issues to create a situation where just
one year later, he had left that

53
00:04:45.560 --> 00:04:49.879
semi pro team in Wisconsin and returned
to Portland, beginning a series of robberies

54
00:04:49.959 --> 00:04:56.079
and sexual assaults. Several women in
the area accused him of holding them at

55
00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:00.160
knife point and forcing them to perform
oral sex on him. Needless to say,

56
00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:04.399
it didn't take long before Randal got
caught doing this, and so when

57
00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:09.920
police had him in custody, he'd
confessed to his crimes. He was sentenced

58
00:05:09.959 --> 00:05:14.879
to ten years in prison, with
him ultimately being released on parole after four

59
00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.480
years. That said, it doesn't
appear that his time behind bars did anything

60
00:05:18.519 --> 00:05:24.360
to rehabilitate him, because pretty quickly
after he got out, Randal continued with

61
00:05:24.439 --> 00:05:29.839
his wave of rapes, with him
now having graduated to outright murdering the women

62
00:05:29.959 --> 00:05:32.879
after he was done with them on
more than one occasion. The first known

63
00:05:32.959 --> 00:05:39.000
victim was Scherie lenn Eyers, an
X ray technician and an old friend of

64
00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:42.240
his from school. He'd met at
with her some time on the evening of

65
00:05:42.279 --> 00:05:46.800
October ninth, nineteen eighty, and
after dragging her back to his apartment in

66
00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:51.399
downtown Portland and there raping her,
he bludgeoned her across the head and stabbed

67
00:05:51.439 --> 00:05:56.879
her in the neck. Once Shari's
body was discovered soon thereafter, Randal became

68
00:05:56.920 --> 00:06:00.040
a prime suspect because of the fact
that he had been known to correspond with

69
00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:04.519
Shari during his time in prison,
and the suspicions that he was involved only

70
00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:10.399
got worse when he refused to take
a polygraph test because his blood type didn't

71
00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:14.160
match the seamen found in the victim. At the time, he wasn't formally

72
00:06:14.279 --> 00:06:18.199
charged. Instead, he escaped any
consequences and picked right back up where he

73
00:06:18.279 --> 00:06:25.160
left off by killing an old college
acquaintance named Darcy renee Fix on November twenty

74
00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:29.000
seventh of the same year. After
that was over, he'd gotten away with

75
00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:33.000
murder once again. He began a
series of high profile robberies throughout the Pacific

76
00:06:33.079 --> 00:06:38.639
Northwest along the I five corridor,
with many of the women he came across

77
00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:42.879
during these crimes being forced to commit
sex acts on him before he let them

78
00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:46.959
go. So prolific was he becoming
at this point. By January of nineteen

79
00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:51.800
eighty one, police had taken to
labeling him the I five bandit, as

80
00:06:51.839 --> 00:06:57.519
they were yet to identify him as
Randall Woodfield. That said, the moniker

81
00:06:57.560 --> 00:07:01.480
of mere Bandit wouldn't last for lawng
because by the time mid February came around,

82
00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:06.439
multiple additional women would be victims of
Randall's wrath, and four of these

83
00:07:06.600 --> 00:07:13.040
would be outright killed. Twenty year
old sherry Lynn Hull, thirty seven year

84
00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:17.519
old Donnelle Eckart, fourteen year old
Janelle Charlotte Jarvis, and eighteen year old

85
00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:23.560
Julie Anne Reetz had all met their
ends by February fifteenth, and on top

86
00:07:23.600 --> 00:07:27.439
of that, twenty year old Susy
Bennett, twenty year old Beth Wilmot,

87
00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:31.839
and three additional unnamed women would also
be assaulted and left fearful for their lives

88
00:07:31.879 --> 00:07:38.120
after their encounters with the former football
star, but these are only the confirmed

89
00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:42.439
victims, because as many as forty
four other murders would later be linked to

90
00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:46.879
Randall Woodfield too. Luckily, police
were able to stop him before he could

91
00:07:46.920 --> 00:07:50.519
do any further damage. On February
twenty eighth, nineteen eighty one, a

92
00:07:50.519 --> 00:07:55.680
payphone call log was able to show
he had made calls from a number of

93
00:07:55.759 --> 00:08:00.000
sites near where the murders had taken
place, with this being all the evidence

94
00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:03.120
that was needed to bring him in
for questioning, and while Randall would not

95
00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:07.959
confess to any crimes here, a
subsequent search of his home revealed enough evidence

96
00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:13.120
to charge him with murder, rape, sodomy, attempted kidnapping, armed robbery,

97
00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:18.560
and illegal possession of firearms in both
Washington and Oregon. Not long after

98
00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:24.120
that, he was tried in Salem
and ultimately convicted of the murder of sherry

99
00:08:24.199 --> 00:08:26.920
Lynn Hull, with this being enough
to put him behind bars. Even if

100
00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:31.559
he hadn't technically been found guilty of
the other murders, he was almost certainly

101
00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:37.159
responsible for Chris Van Dyke, the
district attorney for Marion County at the time

102
00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:41.960
of the trial stated, when asked
afterwards, quote, Woodfield is the coldest,

103
00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:46.720
most detached defendant I've ever seen,
and this was the reason the judge

104
00:08:46.759 --> 00:08:52.000
presiding over the case ultimately saw fit
to sentence him to life in prison plus

105
00:08:52.159 --> 00:08:54.559
ninety years. And by the way, Chris Van Dyke is the son of

106
00:08:54.600 --> 00:08:58.840
actor Dick Van Dyke. That would
not be the end of his sentencing,

107
00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:03.200
because later the same year, in
October, a second trial was held in

108
00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:09.960
Benton County, Oregon, and Randall
was also convicted of sodomy and weapons charges,

109
00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:13.399
with all of this adding a further
thirty five years to his existing sentence.

110
00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:18.600
As it stands today, he remains
locked up at Oregon State Penitentiary,

111
00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:24.519
with it looking highly unlikely he'll ever
breathe a breath of freedom again. Could

112
00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:28.919
things have turned out differently for both
him and as many victims if the butterfly

113
00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:33.360
effect had seen his football career thrive
rather than end in such disappointment. I

114
00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:37.960
suppose it's possible, but there's no
way to know, because whether he'd made

115
00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:41.039
it to the griniron or not,
he was clearly already a man with multiple

116
00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:46.840
deep rooted issues, and so it's
entirely possible he would have found another excuse

117
00:09:46.120 --> 00:10:05.120
to kill. That's ten Minute Murder
for today brief and binge able true crime.

118
00:10:05.720 --> 00:10:09.159
I'm Joe the host, and I
really appreciate you listening. If you're

119
00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:13.480
new to listening to Ten Minute Murder, welcome, hit subscribe wherever you're listening

120
00:10:13.600 --> 00:10:16.039
right now, and that will more
easily help you catch up on all the

121
00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:18.320
back episodes of the podcast. Now, keep in mind, if you're listening

122
00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:22.399
to this on YouTube, it's audio
only, and all of the episodes are

123
00:10:22.440 --> 00:10:26.879
not on YouTube. A big bulk
of them are on YouTube, but there

124
00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:31.519
are many that aren't on YouTube.
So find a podcast app that you like.

125
00:10:31.960 --> 00:10:35.679
If you use Apple, I would
suggest using the Apple Podcasts app.

126
00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:37.919
That's a great one. I also
use Spotify. I have an Apple phone.

127
00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:43.840
I also use Spotify pretty interchangeably.
If you're an Android, I don't

128
00:10:43.879 --> 00:10:46.919
know what to tell you because I
don't know anything about Android phones. I

129
00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:50.039
hear the great I wouldn't know,
but Spotify also works on Android, and

130
00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:54.679
there's a host of others Pandora,
many others. But anyway, my point

131
00:10:54.759 --> 00:10:56.840
is, if you are listening on
YouTube right now, you can listen on

132
00:10:56.879 --> 00:11:01.399
any other podcast listening app and you'll
get one hundred percent of the episodes.

133
00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:05.720
And if you like this episode,
leave a rating and review wherever you can,

134
00:11:07.039 --> 00:11:11.039
because that helps the show grow.
Now, I've been informed recently that

135
00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:13.399
I don't give my email address out, but I still manage to read emails

136
00:11:13.399 --> 00:11:18.399
from people that listen. How is
this possible, Well, it's because I

137
00:11:18.440 --> 00:11:22.440
actually do give my email address out
sometimes during this part of the podcast.

138
00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:26.960
But also it's in the show notes
of every episode that I do, and

139
00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:30.159
it's on the website as well.
But I'll give it again now and make

140
00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:33.960
a better effort to mention it in
the future. Joe at ten minute Murder

141
00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:37.679
dot com. Joe has an e. By the way, it's a silent

142
00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:41.559
e Joe at ten minute Murder dot
com. You can email any questions or

143
00:11:41.639 --> 00:11:46.720
comments or anything else. I don't
always have time to respond to everyone,

144
00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:50.440
but I do read them all.
All right, that's it. Thank you

145
00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:54.360
for listening to another ten Minute Murder
podcast episode. I'll see you on the

146
00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:56.600
next one. Bye.