Free Republic

Ren Hatt, the mayor of Green River, died in a crash Friday night on U.S. Highway 6. “Our community is heartbroken today,” the city posted Saturday on its Facebook page. According to a news release from the Utah Highway Patrol, Hatt was headed east on U.S. Highway 6 about eight miles west of Green River, when a westbound semitrailer truck drifted into oncoming traffic. The semitruck collided with the Hyundai Palisade that Hatt was driving, killing him, UHP said. The semitruck driver was not injured, according to the release. Officials said they were not sure what caused the semitruck driver...

The remains of the last known victim of the Green River Killer have been identified as a Washington State teen – though investigators say there may still be other unsolved cases linked to the infamous murderer. The partial remains were identified as belonging to Tammie Liles, of Everett, the King’s County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) announced. “With this identification, there are no other unidentified remains associated with the Green River Case,” the sheriff’s office said. The incomplete set of bones and teeth were first discovered in 2003, when serial killer Gary Ridgway – known as the Green River Killer – led...

Bones discovered along a hillside in 1985 have been identified as belonging to a victim of the notorious Green River Killer, deputies in Washington said. DNA identified the remains of 15-year-old Lori Anne Razpotnik decades after she went missing, the King County Sheriff’s Office said in a Dec. 19 news release. Razpotnik was one of 49 women Gary Ridgway is accused of killing in the 1980s and 1990s in Washington. She ran away from her home in Lewis County in 1982 and never returned, deputies said.

The search for life beyond Earth is one of the grandest endeavors in the history of humankind -- a quest that could transform our understanding of our universe both scientifically and spiritually. . . . The search for life beyond Earth is one of the grandest endeavors in the history of humankind -- a quest that could transform our understanding of our universe both scientifically and spiritually.

FULL TITLE: Seattle's Green River killer confesses to slaying nearly DOUBLE the 49 women he's convicted of killing in first ever interview A Seattle-area truck painter who was unmasked as the Green River serial killer has claimed he murdered up to 80 women over two decades - nearly double the number he was convicted of killing. Gary Ridgway is currently serving 49 consecutive life sentences in a Washington state prison. But in a series of interviews conducted over the past five months, he is now claiming there are significantly more victims and he says he is coming clean to help...

The tectonic plates of Middle East politics are shifting fast. Egypt’s Arab spring may have run into the sand of anti-democratic Islamism, but the days when oil-rich Arab sheikhs colluded to hold Western economies to ransom will soon end. Massive shale oil and gas discoveries across the West, Israel’s rising status as a Middle East energy powerhouse and a deepening internal rift over strategic policy are all colluding to hasten OPEC’s demise. In June, Kuwaiti oil minister Hani Hussein’s commented, “Oil from the Middle East will always find a home. And we have to see more research to get a...

<p>SEATTLE — In a deal with prosecutors, Gary Ridgway (search) is apparently close to securing what authorities claim he denied his many victims: life.</p> <p>Ridgway was scheduled Wednesday to plead guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder, making him the nation's deadliest serial killer (search), sources told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.</p>

SEATTLE - The man suspected of being the Green River Killer has agreed to plead guilty next week to the murders of 48 women in a deal that would spare him from execution, two sources close to the case told The Associated Press. Gary Leon Ridgway, a 54-year-old truck painter arrested in the serial killer case in 2001, will admit to murdering 42 women on investigators' list of Green River Killer victims as well as six women not on the list, said the sources, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity. The numbers of killings he pleads to "could change...

Link post: Geology Picture of the Week, July 7-13, 2002