Mike Riemer ...Still Think He's Guilty?

[kane7474]

Originally Posted by Hambone2421

I just think its odd that a killer risks being seen dropping the child off at a crowded shopping area.

It is odd unless you consider the killer was Joseph henry burgess who was know to kill un married couples in that general area . He thought he was doing gods work so obviously isn't going to kill the child. He killed the other couple and used the tube sock as a calling card . Same with Diana and mike

[LilMissKryssy]

I don't think it was mike at all. If he planned on killing Diana but didn't want to kill his daughter, why do it when he's with his daughter then? It makes no sense to me. Plus, he walks off deep into the woods just to kill himself? Its very rare for serial murderers that prey on strangers to kill their own spouse/significant other/family member. The green river killer and BTK are prime examples. They don't murder their own family members. The first murder victims were found right next to each other so I definitely believe a third party killed both couples and Mikes body just wasn't found for 20 years.

[TheCars1986]

This case now has a Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minera...ington_murders

No real new developments, but there is a picture showing the vicinity of the murders, and how remote it is.

[TheCars1986]

http://thinkingsidewayspodcast.com/t...e-sock-killer/

Podcast discussing the case. Very interesting. Only halfway in, but the hosts say that they talked to "sources" regarding the Cooper/Harkins murders, and that the man who was seen looking for Harkins shortly before his murder (about damage to Harkins motorcycle) was questioned, and the cops could not find any evidence to tie him to the murders. They did not rule him out per se, but they at the very least know the identity of this man.

[TheCars1986]

Saw a rerun on the Farina hosted episodes today. What was interesting was they had an update, and it had to be after Farina passed away, because he said "let's go to one of our team members with the details" and a random guy came on in a voice over and described how Riemer's skull was found, and that the cause of death could not be determined.

[VethixoDisco]

I saw this one today, and I honestly don't know what to think. I know Mike's skull was found, but it could've been suicide.

I think it's likely that a 3rd party was involved though. It was possible for Mike to have dropped Crystal at K-mart, but that seems out of the way, unless Diana was killed elsewhere and was hidden in the car when Crystal was dropped off, but there was blood in the passenger seat so I doubt that theory.

I'm assuming it was a 3rd party, possibly a love interest. Diana's murder was no doubt a crime of passion, so I wonder if there was another man in her life? It's possible she was having an affair, but she wouldn't leave Mike for the other guy, and he killed them both in a jealous rage. Ties in with that card that was left.

Then you have the tube sock, so it's hard to say if the killer was the same one who killed the other couple, or just another murderer who used the tube sock as a red herring. The love triangle possibility is interesting. Maybe it was someone they both knew, hence the dropping off of Crystal.

[TheCars1986]

Found this article from 1985, which predates the Riemer/Robertson murders. It mentions another couple who was murdered prior to Ruth Cooper and Stephen Harkins, and how the cases might be connected. It makes no mention of a tube sock, however. And Cooper and Harkins were murdered with a gun, while La Vine and Smith were murdered with a knife. I only bring this up because there was a man who's fingerprint was found on La Vine and Smith's car, Billy Ray Ballard Jr., and he plead guilty to their murders 4 years later. He was a trucker and was arrested and was serving time in Wyoming for abducting, raping, and torturing, and murdering 2 women at the time that the fingerprint match was found. Ballard was from Montana, and would make frequent trips to Wyoming and Washington. I'm not sure as to his whereabouts at the time of Harkins/Cooper and Riemer/Robertson's murders, but I thought that he could be a possible suspect in the case.

More info about Kimberly La Vine

More info about Ed Smith

ETA: I was typing this as I was listening to RobinW's podcast about this case. I should've finished it before I posted it.

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Found this article from 1985, which predates the Riemer/Robertson murders. It mentions another couple who was murdered prior to Ruth Cooper and Stephen Harkins, and how the cases might be connected. It makes no mention of a tube sock, however. And Cooper and Harkins were murdered with a gun, while La Vine and Smith were murdered with a knife. I only bring this up because there was a man who's fingerprint was found on La Vine and Smith's car, Billy Ray Ballard Jr., and he plead guilty to their murders 4 years later. He was a trucker and was arrested and was serving time in Wyoming for abducting, raping, and torturing, and murdering 2 women at the time that the fingerprint match was found. Ballard was from Montana, and would make frequent trips to Wyoming and Washington. I'm not sure as to his whereabouts at the time of Harkins/Cooper and Riemer/Robertson's murders, but I thought that he could be a possible suspect in the case.

More info about Kimberly La Vine

More info about Ed Smith

ETA: I was typing this as I was listening to RobinW's podcast about this case. I should've finished it before I posted it.

Yes, I also became pretty intrigued by Billy Ray Ballard when I read that. The frustrating thing is that I've never been able to find out the exact time he was arrested for the murders of the women in Wyoming. Obviously, if it happened before August 1985, then that would rule him out a suspect here.

[TheCars1986]

There has been nothing about this case in the last 10 years since Riemer's remains were found. Which is odd.

[freakbook]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

There has been nothing about this case in the last 10 years since Riemer's remains were found. Which is odd.

Agreed. I've been waiting to hear an update since the announcement but nothing ever came.

I wonder if they just considered it a murder/suicide and closed the book?

[TheCars1986]

https://www.cosmicbigfoot.com/episod...iana-robertson

Some very interesting nuggets from the cold case detective currently working the case. Diana was found nude from the waist up, and her bra was used as a ligature to tie her hands together. Male DNA was found on the ligature, and they sent Riemer's teeth to be tested against this in 2020. I haven't seen anything since 2020 to report what the results were (and if they were ever even done). The detective seems to dismiss the tube sock theory and believes Riemer is the one responsible. There is one part of the story that I have never heard before, and IMO, is very damning to Riemer:

Originally Posted by Detective Pat Beall

He [Riemer] picks her [Diana and her daughter] up at about seven o'clock in the morning and they start with the trapping routes and they, we have visualized a little that people actually saw the two of them, you know, at different locations where they dropped the boat in. He drops the boat in and floats up river and she meets him a little further over at, you know, at another place he's checking his traps and things like that.

So they were doing that down in the, um, Puyallup area. So they're all together. And the kid is, the kid’s with her, and they're all in the truck and, you know, everything seems hunky dory. And then sometime shortly after eight o'clock, he'd go to his father's house. Well, two of them go to the father's house. They go in the house, the daughter, and Riemer go into dad's house, but mom's not there at that time. So we don't know what happened to mom, between when they started trapping and things like that. Dad offers, “Hey, you want some pancakes and bacon breakfast?” “No, no, no. We got to go dad” blah, blah, blah, gets in the car. And they disappeared. Shortly after that, the little girl’s dropped off at, they didn't have Walmart back then, Kmart there in Spanaway. Back in the day was the last business complex before you got out in the boonies.

Here he is describing finding Riemer's remains:

Originally Posted by Detective Pat Beall

Now the skeleton isn't totally intact because of animals. And so they search an area. They get the dogs out there and they searched the area and they find, you know, maybe half of the skeletal remains in a area, but within maybe a 50 yard radius of where the skull was found. In the skull, through the eyeball, going up through the skull was a tree growing up. They cut the tree, of course. So, they can take it into count the rings. And it goes back 35 years. It goes back to the number of years of the tree that his body was there. So his body had been there for a long time.

Within a year or two, I mean, you know, you don’t, the assumption is that something happened. He walked across the road and died there. Now whether he killed himself or he was injured from a scuffle, or we don't know that. We'll never know that. His dad said he had a 22 caliber pistol with him that he always carried. And that pistol's never found, but who knows up in those woods, it could be from A to B, there is such a great area. There's no way you can search it all. But now when you go out and you map it and I'm looking at the map right now, from where the vehicle was found to where he is sitting or laying down, or the majority of his bones, were is… by the way a crow flies… around 1500 feet. Not very far, you know, it's very easy to walk if you're injured or whatever. Now we know he didn't shoot himself in the head because the skull is intact. You know, there's no bullet trauma or whatever in the skull. So, you know, we'll, I don't think we'll ever know how he died.

[freakbook]

.

[Huskerz85]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

https://www.cosmicbigfoot.com/episod...iana-robertson

Some very interesting nuggets from the cold case detective currently working the case. Diana was found nude from the waist up, and her bra was used as a ligature to tie her hands together. Male DNA was found on the ligature, and they sent Riemer's teeth to be tested against this in 2020. I haven't seen anything since 2020 to report what the results were (and if they were ever even done). The detective seems to dismiss the tube sock theory and believes Riemer is the one responsible. There is one part of the story that I have never heard before, and IMO, is very damning to Riemer:



Here he is describing finding Riemer's remains:

If Mike killed Diana and then committed suicide, could he have hung himself??

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by Huskerz85

If Mike killed Diana and then committed suicide, could he have hung himself??

I suppose it would be possible, but it would seem unlikely that his body would have been missed for over 25 years if that was the case. I would also imagine remnants of the rope or whatever he used would have been found in that general area. This new information on the one hand seems to make Riemer the likely suspect, since he was with Crystal when they stopped at his father's house, but Diana was nowhere to be found at that time. On the other hand, the detective makes it seem like Riemer was either walking back to or away from the truck when he died. Which wouldn't indicate a suicide, IMO. It would strike me as if he was attacked away from where Diana was murdered.

[freakbook]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

https://www.cosmicbigfoot.com/episod...iana-robertson

Some very interesting nuggets from the cold case detective currently working the case. Diana was found nude from the waist up, and her bra was used as a ligature to tie her hands together. Male DNA was found on the ligature, and they sent Riemer's teeth to be tested against this in 2020. I haven't seen anything since 2020 to report what the results were (and if they were ever even done). The detective seems to dismiss the tube sock theory and believes Riemer is the one responsible. There is one part of the story that I have never heard before, and IMO, is very damning to Riemer:



Here he is describing finding Riemer's remains:

I don't understand how he can dismiss the tube sock theory when Diane and the other female victim both had tube stocks tied in a very similar fashion. Unless he thinks Mike did the tube sock as a red herring, in which case doesn't make sense if he believed Mike committed suicide

And if Mike did indeed went to his father's house, then why didnt he just leave Crystal there instead of dropping her off at Kmart?