The I-5 Killer

With the 428th pick in the 1974 NFL draft, the Green Bay Packers selected. . . one of the most violent killers in U.S. history. No one is saying football led Randall Woodfield down his dark path—but did it perhaps deter him from it, at least for a while?

BY L. JON WERTHEIM

Even as crime scenes go, this one was sensationally gruesome. Shari Hull, age 20, lay splayed naked on the floor, blood pooling near her matted hair, brain matter seeping from her skull and spackling the carpet. She was surrounded by her discarded clothes. Gradually her moans and her deep, labored breathing diminished until her body was drained of life.

Some time around nine o’clock on the evening of Jan. 18, 1981, Hull had been nearing the end of her Sunday-night shift, cleaning the TransAmerica office building in the central Oregon town of Keizer. She was preparing to leave when she was grabbed by a man who’d somehow managed to enter the building. He was strikingly handsome, maybe six feet tall, blessed with a torrent of thick, curly brown hair and eyes to match. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. Corralling Hull with one hand and holding a gun in the other, he walked her down a hall. Soon he saw another cleaner, 20-year-old Lisa Garcia.

The assailant took both women into a back room and ordered them to the floor. After sexually assaulting them, he shot them each in the back of the head. This, it would later be revealed, was generally in keeping with his M.O.: some sexual act followed by a .32 bullet to the rear of the skull. But while Hull died of her gunshot wounds, Garcia survived by feigning her death, lying motionless on the floor with slugs lodged in the back of her skull. As soon as her attacker left, she called the police. En route, one officer noticed a thickly built man fitting the assailant’s description standing at an intersection—but this was more than a mile from the attack; it would have taken a hell of an athlete to make it that far so quickly on foot. So the policeman drove on.

For weeks afterward Garcia worked with detectives to crack the case. Little did she know, this attack was one of many allegedly carried out by the same man; she was helping track one of the most notorious serial murderers in U.S. history. Nicknamed the I-5 Killer, he had threaded a trail of almost unspeakable brutality up and down the upper left corner of America, killing in California, Oregon and possibly Washington. His orgy of violence started in the mid-1970s; by the time he’d gotten to Hull and Garcia, he’d already amassed a sizable necrology. Many more murders would follow.

Based on DNA evidence and advancing crime lab techniques, the I-5 Killer’s body count has climbed through the years. Cold case detectives have conservatively put that number at a dozen, though a few journalists and armchair detectives believe he’s responsible for as many as 44 deaths. And that doesn’t include a string of more than 100 other crimes, mostly robberies and rapes, that bear his hallmarks.

The I-5 Killer’s victims were mostly from the same subset: petite, Caucasian women in their teens or 20s. Sometimes they had declined his sexual advances and the killings seemed to be acts of retribution. Other times he didn’t know his victims at all. But he had his way with them and then snuffed out their lives because he could.

And then there’s this small detail, which Garcia shared with detectives and which surfaced again and again across the I-5 Killer’s crimes: He wore what appeared to be a strip of athletic tape over the bridge of his nose, in the manner of a football player at the time. Which stood to reason. Because not long before turning into one of America’s most depraved and remorseless serial killers, Randall Woodfield had been drafted by the Green Bay Packers.

The new coach had to have been torn. He wanted to pump up the Portland State program he had just taken over, and placing a guy in the NFL would go a long way toward that. But he also knew that if he oversold a player, he’d lose credibility. So on that fall day in 1973, as Ron Stratten sat in the bleachers of Multnomah Stadium—now Providence Park, home to MLS’s Timbers—he chose his words carefully.

An NFL scout had come to see Randall Woodfield, the Vikings’ leading receiver. He had been impressed with Woodfield’s hands and athleticism. But when he asked Stratten for further assessment, the coach wavered. “Randy runs decent routes,” Stratten said with enthusiasm, “and he’s good to the outside.” He spoke positively about the speed that enabled Woodfield to run high hurdles for the school’s track team. But he also mentioned Woodfield’s glaring deficiency: He didn’t like getting hit. Not by the safety. Not by the linebacker. Not by anyone.

The I-5 Killer, recalled by his former teammates and coaches

“He was the nicest, most gentlemanly kid I ever knew. Years later, a reporter from a San Francisco newspaper called me and asked, ‘Do you know a Randall Woodfield? Did you know he’s the I-5 killer?’ I said, ‘That can’t be. Probably the wrong Randall Woodfield.'”

—Gary Hamblet PSU receivers coach from 1972 to ’73

When Stratten was named Portland State’s head coach, a year earlier, it had marked a rarity. Though scarcely acknowledged at the time, he was just the second African-American in the modern era to hold that position at a predominantly white school. Stratten was only 29, less than a decade removed from playing at Oregon. And as a former linebacker, he was quick to notice receivers who resisted cutting across the middle of the field. “It’s a point of character,” Stratten told the scout. “Woodfield doesn’t have that.”

To Stratten, this softness, this dislike of confrontation, was in keeping with Woodfield’s genial personality. It wasn’t just that Woodfield was, in the cliché, coachable. Maybe more than any other player on the team, he seemed to seek out the staff for companionship and counsel. “He was always bopping by our offices before heading to class,” recalls Stratten. “It was like he just wanted to hang out with us.”

Teammates’ and coaches’ memories of Woodfield vary wildly. Some remember him as unassuming and quiet, if a bit odd. “He really didn’t fit in,” says Anthony Stoudamire, who was a freshman quarterback at PSU in 1973. “He’d make out-of-the-blue, off-the-wall statements.” Stoudamire’s brother, Charles (both are uncles of 1995–96 NBA Rookie of the Year Damon Stoudamire), was a halfback on that team; he recalls Woodfield for his vanity. “[Randall] was always grooming himself. That even carried over to the way he played. He seemed like he was more interested in looking cute out there than getting the job done.” True as that may have been, the pride Woodfield took in his appearance was justified. He was six feet, with negligible body fat, well-defined muscles and a sly smile framed by what today might be called a pornstache. To trade in understatement, he did not struggle to find female companionship. “He was a suave, sophisticated fella,” says Jon Carey, a PSU quarterback in ’72. “Confident in himself, but not to the point of being cocky.”

Woodfield may have been best known at PSU, though, for his devotion to the Campus Crusade for Christ and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. A former teammate who spoke on the condition of anonymity recalls, “It seemed real important to him that he come across as someone who would do the right thing—almost like it was keeping him together.”

Armed with the resources—and facing the public relations pressures—of a modern-day NFL team, the Packers would have conducted a detailed background check on Woodfield. And the proverbial red flags would have flapped wildly. Raised mostly in the picturesque Oregon mid-coast town of Otter Rock, Woodfield grew up in a fiercely middle-class home. His father had a steady managerial job at the phone company Pacific Northwest Bell; his mother was a homemaker. Woodfield had two older sisters, who would babysit him. The family was well-known and well-regarded in the community. Outwardly, Woodfield appeared to be the portrait of normal. But in high school he was caught standing on a bridge and exposing himself to females. His parents sent him to a therapist, who, by all accounts, was not overly concerned by a teenager’s exploring his sexuality. According to law officials, Newport High’s coaches knew about the situation but, wanting to protect their star, chalked it up to an adolescent’s lapse in impulse control. Police say that when Woodfield turned 18, his juvenile record was expunged.)

“He was a little strange—maybe stranger than we thought. You just had a bad feeling about the guy, like there was something underneath his mask.”

—PSU teammate who asked not to be named

Later, at Treasure Valley (Ore.) Community College, where Woodfield played football for one season before transferring, he was arrested for allegedly ransacking an ex-girlfriend’s home. (With little evidence, he was found not guilty in a jury trial.) At PSU, Woodfield was arrested multiple times for indecent exposure. (He was convicted twice.) Stratten, who didn’t recruit Woodfield, says he didn’t learn of those arrests until years later. “If I had known,” he says, “I would have said something [to interested NFL teams] for sure.”

As it was, having done little in the way of intel, Green Bay remained interested in Woodfield. In the first round of the 1974 NFL draft the Packers selected Richmond running back Barty Smith, who would go on to start 42 games in seven seasons. The next day they used their 15th-round pick on Dave Wannstedt, a natural-born leader who never played a down but who went on to become an NFL head coach. Two rounds later, with the 428th pick, Green Bay took Woodfield.

These may not have been the dynastic Packers who won the first two Super Bowls, in the 1960s, but this was still a celebrated franchise. Woodfield was offered a one-year contract to serve as a “skilled football player” for $16,000. The deal came laden with bonuses: an extra $2,000 if he caught 25 passes that fall, $3,000 if he caught 30. “Here’s what you need to keep in mind” about those figures, says Bob Harlan, who as assistant GM handled the team’s contracts that year (and whose son Kevin, now a prominent broadcaster, was a Packers ball boy back then): “When Bart Starr made $100,000, people thought he was overpaid.”

Woodfield’s contract also stipulated that he keep himself in peak condition, avoid consorting with gamblers and wear a coat and necktie in public places. He signed almost immediately. The money enabled him to quit his job at a Portland-area Burger Chef. But beyond that, this was all validation. He was on the verge of playing in the NFL. “Everyone made such a big thing when he was drafted,” one of Woodfield’s roommates told The Oregonian. “He put a lot of pressure on himself to make it big.”

That April, Woodfield attended a minicamp in Scottsdale, Ariz., an innovation of Green Bay coach Dan Devine. As special teams coach Hank Kuhlmann explained beforehand in a letter to players, the minicamp would be “a get-acquainted period so that in July we can all start working toward our common goal, ‘The Championship.’ ” Afterward, Woodfield returned to Portland galvanized, impressed with the speed of the other players but confident he would make the team.

Per the Packers’ request, he spent the next months staying in shape and working on his pass catching. In June the team sent him a first-class plane ticket, along with instructions for an airport limo pickup that would take him to the team’s training camp in De Pere, Wis. Woodfield declined, opting instead to drive out from Oregon. When he arrived, his bio in the Packers’ media guide listed him at six feet, 170 pounds and assessed him as follows:

In July, Woodfield was among the rookies who competed against the Bears in a scrimmage at Lambeau Field. Writing in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Cliff Christl, now the Packers’ team historian, sought out Woodfield for a quote. “I’m pretty excited,” the young wideout said. “I’m just really thankful for the opportunity.” Woodfield survived early cuts and reported to friends in Portland that he was acquitting himself well, that he felt as if he belonged.

The Packers thought otherwise. They released Woodfield on Aug. 19, 1974, before their season began. Woodfield would later contend—not unreasonably—that his prospects were hindered because Green Bay was stressing a run game that season. Police would contend that the team had other reasons. (Packers officials declined to comment for this story.)

Rather than return to Oregon, Woodfield remained in Wisconsin, settling an hour and a half west in Oshkosh, where he played for the semipro Manitowoc Chiefs and moonlighted as a press-brake operator. (We pause to point out the irony: Manitowoc, the 24th-largest city in Wisconsin, would be the setting for the acclaimed 2015 Netflix documentary Making a Murderer.) While he would have preferred to spend his Sundays at Lambeau, Woodfield reckoned that, playing on Saturdays nearby for the Chiefs, maybe Packers execs would notice him and reconsider their decision.

Teammates from that stop recall Woodfield as a “smooth operator,” a “ladies man” and a bit strange. Fred Auclair, a teammate and roommate, recalls Woodfield bringing home a trinket he had acquired at a local Christian bookstore. “How much was that?” Auclair inquired. “Well,” said Woodfield, “it wasn’t really for sale, so I stole it.” Woodfield, adds Auclair, “was on the phone all the time, telling tall tales. He had a woman in every port, it seemed.”

As Woodfield had at Portland State, he ran precise routes and distinguished himself with speed in Manitowoc. In the 1974 Central States Football League championship game he caught a pair of passes for 42 yards, though the Madison Mustangs beat the Chiefs 14–0. The Packers, meanwhile, went 6–8 and, as a team, averaged only 13 completions per game.

“It shocked me when he [went to jail]. If there were 100 guys on the team, he’d be the 99th guy I’d suspect to do something like that.”

—Tim Temple PSU secondary coach in 1973

After the season, though, Woodfield was dropped by the Chiefs. No reason was given publicly. There were murmurs, however, that the team had off-field concerns. (The Chiefs, along with their league, disbanded in 1976.) While there are no public arrest records for Woodfield in Wisconsin, a detective would later learn that Woodfield was involved in at least 10 cases of indecent exposure across the state. As one Wisconsin law enforcement officer recalls, years later, Woodfield “couldn’t keep the thing in his pants.”

By multiple accounts, Woodfield was devastated by being cut. “Deeply hurt,” was the phrase The Oregonian would later use. And, curiously, Woodfield acted as if he knew there would be no more invitations from other teams. With his ambitions of being a pro football player killed off, he drove back to the West Coast. And then the rampage started.