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The I-5 Killer: Randall Woodfield · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Discretion advice. This is ten minute murder. Outside of the obvious example of
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Oj Simpson, allegedly, there aren't many cases of a football player who was
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drafted to an NFL team and then took a dark path in life which led
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them to commit murder, Aaron Hernandez and Sergio Brown being a couple of others.
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But unfortunately, in the case of Random Woodfield, this is exactly what
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happened, and that was because after spending a short time with the Green Bay
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Packers in nineteen seventy four and ultimately getting cut from the team before he could
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play a snap, he'd be driven by a self imposed shame to commit a
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series of rapes and murders between Washington, Oregon, and California, with the
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path of destruction he took across the Interstate five corridor, leading to him being
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given the name the I five Killer. Randall Woodfield was born on December twenty
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sixth, nineteen fifty into an upper middle class family in Salem, Oregon.
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But while his two older sisters later took the academic path in life, with
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one becoming a doctor and the other an attorney, Randall was instead far more
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interested in the world of sports. Specifically football. To him, it was
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a way to express himself and scratch his competitive itch, something he developed while
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growing up in nearby Otter Rock, a small seaside around eight miles north of
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Newport. That said, forasmuch as he enjoyed being on the gridiron, and
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for as popular as his talents there made him amongst his peers, there was
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a far darker inclination Randall had, which he felt unable to control. By
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simply playing football while still in junior high school, he'd begun exhibiting what would
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later be described as sexually dysfunctional behaviors. Basically, he had a habit of
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exposing himself to girls in public. Of course, given how good of a
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football player he was, his football coaches tried to brush all of this under
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the rug so that he could continue playing unhindered. But while this was enough
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to stop him from being dropped by the team, his parents insisted that he
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go to therapy. Not that this did very much to get rid of those
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desires. All it seemed to do was help him to suppress them as he
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continued to get better and better at football. By the time he got older
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and transferred to Portland State University. In nineteen seven, he was chosen to
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be the Portland State Vikings starting wide receiver. Still, though, his issues
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with getting into trouble continued in spite of his success on the field. Later
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that same year, he was arrested for vandalizing an ex girlfriend's apartment, and
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that was minor compared to two years after that, he was booked again where
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he once more exposed himself to a group of girls in Moltnomah County. So
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at that point, deciding to jump before he was pushed, Randall dropped out
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of college before he could graduate, a pretty big blow to his ego,
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but something he ultimately repaired when during the nineteen seventy four NFL Draft he was
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selected by the Green Bay Packers during the seventh round. It was a huge
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achievement and signaled that big things were in future for the boy from Otter Rock.
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Unfortunately, though, the next few months didn't exactly play out as he
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planned, because despite having a lot of natural talent, he soon learned that
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the level of competition in the NFL was on another level to what he'd been
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used to before. That meant that he was no longer the big fish in
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the small Pond, he struggled and was cut during training camp that February,
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all before he even got a chance to play a single NFL regular season game.
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And sure, he would still get to play football on a semi professional
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level when he signed with the manatoauc Chiefs not long after this, but that
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just wasn't the same and Randall's eyes, his inability to make it to the
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packer's official roster represented a massive failure on his part, and that bred a
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sense of shame and resentment within him, which quickly mixed with his sexual delinquency
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issues to create a situation where just one year later, he had left that
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semi pro team in Wisconsin and returned to Portland, beginning a series of robberies
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and sexual assaults. Several women in the area accused him of holding them at
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knife point and forcing them to perform oral sex on him. Needless to say,
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it didn't take long before Randal got caught doing this, and so when
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police had him in custody, he'd confessed to his crimes. He was sentenced
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to ten years in prison, with him ultimately being released on parole after four
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years. That said, it doesn't appear that his time behind bars did anything
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to rehabilitate him, because pretty quickly after he got out, Randal continued with
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his wave of rapes, with him now having graduated to outright murdering the women
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after he was done with them on more than one occasion. The first known
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victim was Scherie lenn Eyers, an X ray technician and an old friend of
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his from school. He'd met at with her some time on the evening of
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October ninth, nineteen eighty, and after dragging her back to his apartment in
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downtown Portland and there raping her, he bludgeoned her across the head and stabbed
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her in the neck. Once Shari's body was discovered soon thereafter, Randal became
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a prime suspect because of the fact that he had been known to correspond with
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Shari during his time in prison, and the suspicions that he was involved only
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got worse when he refused to take a polygraph test because his blood type didn't
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match the seamen found in the victim. At the time, he wasn't formally
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charged. Instead, he escaped any consequences and picked right back up where he
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left off by killing an old college acquaintance named Darcy renee Fix on November twenty
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seventh of the same year. After that was over, he'd gotten away with
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murder once again. He began a series of high profile robberies throughout the Pacific
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Northwest along the I five corridor, with many of the women he came across
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during these crimes being forced to commit sex acts on him before he let them
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go. So prolific was he becoming at this point. By January of nineteen
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eighty one, police had taken to labeling him the I five bandit, as
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they were yet to identify him as Randall Woodfield. That said, the moniker
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of mere Bandit wouldn't last for lawng because by the time mid February came around,
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multiple additional women would be victims of Randall's wrath, and four of these
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would be outright killed. Twenty year old sherry Lynn Hull, thirty seven year
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old Donnelle Eckart, fourteen year old Janelle Charlotte Jarvis, and eighteen year old
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Julie Anne Reetz had all met their ends by February fifteenth, and on top
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of that, twenty year old Susy Bennett, twenty year old Beth Wilmot,
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and three additional unnamed women would also be assaulted and left fearful for their lives
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after their encounters with the former football star, but these are only the confirmed
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victims, because as many as forty four other murders would later be linked to
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Randall Woodfield too. Luckily, police were able to stop him before he could
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do any further damage. On February twenty eighth, nineteen eighty one, a
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payphone call log was able to show he had made calls from a number of
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sites near where the murders had taken place, with this being all the evidence
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that was needed to bring him in for questioning, and while Randall would not
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confess to any crimes here, a subsequent search of his home revealed enough evidence
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to charge him with murder, rape, sodomy, attempted kidnapping, armed robbery,
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and illegal possession of firearms in both Washington and Oregon. Not long after
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that, he was tried in Salem and ultimately convicted of the murder of sherry
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Lynn Hull, with this being enough to put him behind bars. Even if
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he hadn't technically been found guilty of the other murders, he was almost certainly
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responsible for Chris Van Dyke, the district attorney for Marion County at the time
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of the trial stated, when asked afterwards, quote, Woodfield is the coldest,
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most detached defendant I've ever seen, and this was the reason the judge
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presiding over the case ultimately saw fit to sentence him to life in prison plus
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ninety years. And by the way, Chris Van Dyke is the son of
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actor Dick Van Dyke. That would not be the end of his sentencing,
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because later the same year, in October, a second trial was held in
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Benton County, Oregon, and Randall was also convicted of sodomy and weapons charges,
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with all of this adding a further thirty five years to his existing sentence.
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As it stands today, he remains locked up at Oregon State Penitentiary,
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with it looking highly unlikely he'll ever breathe a breath of freedom again. Could
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things have turned out differently for both him and as many victims if the butterfly
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effect had seen his football career thrive rather than end in such disappointment. I
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suppose it's possible, but there's no way to know, because whether he'd made
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it to the griniron or not, he was clearly already a man with multiple
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deep rooted issues, and so it's entirely possible he would have found another excuse
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to kill. That's ten Minute Murder for today brief and binge able true crime.
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