The Tube Sock Murders

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Two couples murdered four months apart in Washington state, the women both sexually assaulted, with tube socks tied around their necks. Could it be a serial killer? Other cases in the area bearing similarities have since been closed, but these two remain connected and unsolved. Is the Tube Sock Killer already in prison? Is he dead? Or is he still out there, waiting to be discovered?

The Tube Sock Murders and related cases occurred in rural regions of the Seattle metropolitan area, located in the Northwestern United States, including seven counties that encircle Seattle. The area’s population in the mid-late 1980s was approaching 2,500,000. Today it’s more than 4,000,000, which is over half of Washington’s population overall. It’s the birthplace of major companies like Amazon, Starbucks, and Microsoft, and it’s also known for infamous serial killings. Ted Bundy operated in Seattle and the state park wilderness regions in the early 1970s, and Gary Ridgway followed in the 1980s. 

Missing: Stephen Harkins & Ruth Cooper

On Saturday, August 10, 1985, 27-year-old Stephen Harkins and his girlfriend of three years, 42-year-old Ruth Cooper, were about to become the victims of another area killer. 

That day, the couple attended a friend’s wedding reception in Tacoma, Washington, and then headed into the mountains for a weekend camping trip, something they enjoyed doing together often. Stephen was a truck driver and lifelong resident of Tacoma. Ruth was a machinist and mother of five from Portland, Oregon. She had moved to Tacoma six years prior and was now living with Stephen. 

The couple set up their makeshift camp in a clearing within the densely forested and undeveloped state land of southwestern Pierce County. Their remote campsite sat between the Harts and Tule Lakes near Roy, Washington, just east of the Nisqually River. Stephen and Ruth were most likely killed that same night, sometime after going to sleep. 

Discovered: Stephen Harkins

The following Monday, 72-year-old local man Walter Funk spotted a Volkswagen station wagon in the area where Stephen and Ruth had been camping. When Walter saw the Volkswagen again on Wednesday, he decided to investigate. The vehicle belonged to Stephen Harkins, and Stephen’s lifeless body was lying in a sleeping bag on the ground next to it. 

An autopsy determined that Stephen died from a single gunshot to his forehead. Ruth was nowhere to be found, but the couple’s dog was located a few hundred yards away, also shot in the head. Because many of Ruth’s personal belongings were still at the campsite, including her shoes, police believed she had been kidnapped and murdered as well. 

Discovered: Ruth Cooper

Despite investigative efforts and Ruth’s family hiring a private dog handler to search the area, it would be more than two months before she was located. On October 26, 1985, two hunters walking at the dead end of 8th Avenue South, a little over a mile from Stephen and Ruth’s campsite, spotted a skull with long, black hair. 

Search and rescue dogs located Ruth Cooper’s headless body the following day, about 50 feet from her skull, hidden in dense brush. Ruth’s purse and ID were near her body, and a tube sock was tied around her neck. An autopsy revealed that Ruth was shot in the abdomen and that the tube sock was likely used to control her during a sexual assault, not to strangle her. 

Stephen Harkins and Ruth Cooper’s murders remain unsolved today. The only suspect in this case is an unidentified man who showed up at the wedding reception shortly after Stephen and Ruth departed. Allegedly, this man told at least one guest that he was looking for Stephen in order to settle a dispute over damage he did to Stephen’s motorcycle. 

Missing: Mike Riemer & Diana Robertson

On Thursday, December 12, 1985, less than two months later, 36-year-old Puyallup, Washington native Mike Riemer planned to check his traps located along a 30-mile stretch of the Nisqually River in Pierce County. This includes the Tule Lake area where Stephen Harkins and Ruth Cooper had been camping and found murdered. Mike worked as a roofer in Seattle but trapped wild game in the winter months to make ends meet. That morning, Mike stopped by his father’s house to borrow gas money. Mike specifically mentioned his plans to check his traps in Morton that day and pick up overtime roofing work the next day and over the weekend.

As he often did, Mike took his girlfriend, 21-year-old Diana Robertson, and their 2-year-old daughter, Crystal, trapping with him. Mike had another daughter from a previous relationship, and his relationship with Diana was complicated. Mike and Diana lived separately despite sharing a child, and police say they responded to a number of calls to Mike’s apartment for domestic violence and harassment. Mike had once slashed Diana’s tires and twice been arrested for assault against Diana. 

On October 19, 1985, Mike was served a restraining order after an incident where he kicked in Diana’s door, held her down, and rubbed her face into the carpet, leaving marks. The couple had reconciled since then, but the restraining order was still in effect when they left together with their daughter on December 12. 

Mike’s father would later say that he never liked Diana. He claimed that Mike had tried to leave Diana on several occasions, but she would write him letters, call, and beg to get him back. Diana’s sister said Mike was a jealous abuser who Diana had “let back in.” Diana’s mother claimed that Mike had threatened to kill Diana, however, she also said, “I never worried about Diana when she was with Mike.” We can’t know with certainty what the relationship dynamics were at the time, but the evidence of domestic violence is noteworthy. 

In the original Unsolved Mysteries episode covering this case, we learn that Mike, Diana, and Crystal are also heading out to find a Christmas tree on December 12. There’s no other source for this detail, so was it true, or was it added to heighten viewers’ emotions? What we do know for sure is that Mike’s 1982 Plymouth Arrow was a compact pickup truck loaded down with two propane tanks, a boat motor, and several animal traps, and it already had a small boat tied to the roof. It’s not likely that a Christmas tree could be added to what Mike was already hauling plus whatever he collected from his traps that day. 

Today, this detail is sometimes used to provide insight into Mike and Diana’s relationship. Either it’s evidence of their reconciliation or a ploy Mike used to lure Diana into the woods in spite of the restraining order. But the Christmas tree detail upon which all of this speculation is built might not even be factual in the first place. 

We can assume instead that on the December 12 trapping trip, as was their routine, Diana and Crystal would sit in the truck when Mike stopped to check a trap nearby, using his boat to access many of them. Mike always carried a holstered .22 caliber handgun with him while checking his traps, mostly in case the animals were still alive or injured. The family usually left early in the morning and returned by 1:00 or 2:00 pm. 

As soon as Mike Riemer’s father realized his son hadn’t come home from trapping on December 12, he filed a missing person’s report. Police determined that the area was too large to begin searching, so family and friends began organizing their own search efforts. 

“Mommy’s in the trees”

Three days later, a nurse recognized the photo of a little girl who was being reported as missing, along with her parents, on the news. She had recently treated the girl for minor cuts and bruises. 

In the early evening hours of December 12, employees at a Spanaway, Washington KMart noticed the girl in front of their store. No one had seen her being dropped off, and when an employee asked where her parents were, the girl seemed, “stunned and silent.” The employee took the girl to the store’s toy department while they waited for police to arrive, noting that she “walked through the store without saying a word.” 

That little girl was two-year-old Crystal Robinson. The Kmart where she was found was about 35 miles or so north, via Route 7, of where Crystal’s father would have finished trapping earlier that afternoon. Crystal’s grandmother Louise, Diana’s mother, identified her after the nurse’s helpful tip. Once the initial joy of being reunited with her grandmother passed, Louise said Crystal was “moody” and “not happy…She’s always looking around now, she’s withdrawn. Her personality definitely isn’t the same.” When asked where her parents were, Crystal only responded, “Mommy’s in the trees.” 

Mike Riemer’s father hired a private investigator who uncovered the only potential eyewitness: a Red Cross volunteer bell ringer who claims they saw Mike’s red truck with its white canopy parked in the Spanaway KMart lot sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 pm. This would have been right around or after sunset, no one else confirms it, and the eyewitness didn’t see the vehicle move or any people getting in or out of it.  

Discovered: Diana Robertson

As a retired Washington state game warden, Mike’s father, Lloyd Riemer, was one of the most qualified individuals to search for Mike and Diana, and he led volunteer efforts along with checking Mike’s traps several times a week himself. In the end, none of it paid off. 

But on February 18, 1986, a man and his dog, driving north on Route 7 stumbled upon a major break in the case. The man turned off the main road and stopped to let his dog out. The dog ran up a nearby logging road, and the man followed for about a mile and a half. He eventually spotted Mike’s abandoned truck and then Diana’s remains nearby, which he at first mistook for a deer carcass. Mike and the gun he carried with him on trapping excursions was nowhere to be found. The site (general area) was surrounded by dense forestland in Lewis County, just west of Mineral, Washington. Lloyd Riemer had passed the logging road several times but hadn’t checked it because Mike didn’t trap there. 

Mike’s truck would yield intriguing but inconclusive evidence. An empty manilla envelope was sitting on the dashboard with the words, “I love you, Diana,” written on the front. Diana’s mother insisted that the handwriting was Mike’s, but lab analysis hasn’t confirmed that. It’s impossible at this point to say whether the envelope played a role in DIana’s murder, let alone exactly what that role could be. Bloodstains were found on the truck’s front passenger seat, and while tests proved that it was human blood, it was too degraded to extract DNA from or even be typed.
Diana Robertson’s badly decomposed remains were conclusively identified by dental records. She was nude from the waist up, and her killer had tied her hands together and tied a tube sock around her neck. Like in Ruth Cooper’s murder, investigators believe the tube sock was used for control, not strangulation. The two socks were compared and found to have matching knots, but they were not from the same manufacturer or batch. An autopsy revealed that Diana had died from multiple stab wounds, and there were “indications she may have been struck” as well. 

Suspect: Mike Riemer

With Diana Robertson found murdered, her boyfriend and his gun missing, and considering his history of domestic violence, there was now more suspicion than ever that Mike Riemer had killed Diana, dropped their daughter off at a random KMart, and fled. Some even began to suspect him of murdering Stephen Harkins and Ruth Cooper as well. Investigators agreed that “if we knew he was alive, he would definitely be a suspect.” 

But Mike’s father persisted in finding his son and promoting his innocence. Lloyd Riemer continued searching and increased the reward for information. Lloyd also pointed out that while Mike was an experienced outdoorsman, he had left his winter coat in his truck, and temperatures on December 12 had been around freezing. Since Mike disappeared, he hadn’t contacted either of his daughters or his father, and he hadn’t taken money from his bank account. He didn’t collect his last paycheck, either.  

Discovered: Mike Riemer

Lloyd Riemer’s wife had died in 1983, two years before their son disappeared. Lloyd passed away in 1993, never knowing what happened to Mike. 

It wouldn’t be until March 26, 2011, when a hiker would come across Mike Riemer’s partial remains less than a mile from where his truck and Diana’s remains had been discovered. The hiker spotted a skull with a large tree growing out of it and showed it to a friend, thinking it was a bear skull. The friend recognized that the skull was human, and they reported the finding to police. The tree growing out of the skull was 35 years old, meaning Mike died close to the time he disappeared. Investigators also recovered a lower jawbone with teeth, a rubber boot, pieces of clothing, and an ID card too weathered to read. 

An autopsy could not determine Mike’s cause of death, but did note that there was no indication of him being shot or receiving any trauma to the head. On one hand, this discovery strengthens the theory that Mike was murdered along with Diana, especially since it makes the case more similar to the way Stephen Harkins and Ruth Cooper were found. But detectives still can’t rule out that Mike killed himself after killing Diana, and they have yet to recover his .22 handgun.

Missing & Murdered: Edward Smith & Kimberly DaVine

There was one more double homicide in Washington in 1985, and even though this one has been solved, it’s so similar in nature that it’s often mentioned along with these two unsolved cases. Could the convicted killer, Bill Ballard, be responsible for the unsolved Tube Sock Murders as well? 

Twenty-six-year-old Edward Smith and his fiance, 27-year-old Kimberly LaVine, were killed on the evening of Saturday, March 9, while on a sightseeing trip. The New England-area couple had moved to Kent, Washington in the previous summer and worked together as accountants in Seattle. Their abandoned Toyota Corolla was found first on March 10 at an overlook above the Columbia River along Interstate 90, northeast of Vantage, Washington. 

Edward’s body was discovered later that same day in a gravel pit 15 miles away in Beverly, near the Wanapum Dam. Autopsy results revealed that Edward’s throat had been slashed, and his hands and feet were bound with rope. Police believed that Kimberly had been kidnapped and murdered as well. Robbery was a potential motive since there was no money on Edward or in his car. 

Kimberly LaVine was still missing when news broke of Stephen Harkin’s murder and Ruth Cooper’s disappearance, five months later and nearly 200 miles away. Then just one week later, on August 19, Kimberly’s skeletal remains were finally discovered about two-and-a-half miles south of Edward’s body, hidden by shoulder-high sagebrush. Kimberly’s hands and feet had been bound, but an autopsy could not determine her cause of death. 

Convicted: Bill Ballard

Meanwhile, on August 8, 1,000 miles away in Glendo, Wyoming, Bill Ballard robbed a gas service station in broad daylight, kidnapped the store clerk, and drove her on his motorcycle to a secluded area by Glendo Lake. He raped her and left tied her to a tree, and then attempted to kidnap another woman in the area before fleeing. By September 21, Bill Ballard was another 400 miles away in Aspen, Colorado, evading fugitive warrants in both Wyoming and Idaho states. Police arrested him in Aspen for smoking marijuana in a downtown alley and extradited him to Wyoming to face his charges in the Glendo case. 

Several months later, Bill was transferred from Platte County to the Fremont County jail for a mental health evaluation. On March 11, 1986, Bill escaped from prison and wasn’t captured again until March 16, over 300 miles away in Hardin, Montana. Although he no longer had his motorcycle, Bill was known to hitchhike. He was captured after being hospitalized for a drug overdose and returned to Wyoming. On June 10, Bill pleaded guilty to five felony counts related to the Glendo robbery, kidnapping, and assault, and he was sentenced to 55-90 years in Wyoming state prison. 

In April 1989, police announced a major break in Edward Smith and Kimberly LaVine’s double homicide case: AFIS had just matched Bill Ballard to a fingerprint left on the hood of the couple’s abandoned vehicle. Investigators would also link Bill to the crime through his boot prints and the type of rope he used to bind Edward. In 1991, Bill pleaded guilty to the murders, but it’s unclear what sentence, if any, he received. He is currently 69 years old and serving his sentence from the Glendo case in Wyoming prison. 

Edward and Kimberly’s case bears striking similarities to the 1985 Tube Sock Murders. And it’s possible that Bill Ballard, fleeing from Glendo, Wyoming on his motorcycle on the afternoon of August 8, could have traveled 1,200 miles west in time to murder Stephen Harkins and Ruth Cooper the night of August 10 in Roy, Washington. But did he do all that just to travel another 1,300 miles back east to Aspen, Colorado where he was arrested a month later? 

Bill was in police custody by September 21, 1985, and except for a five-day stretch in March 1986 when he escaped, he’s been in prison ever since. Therefore, he could not have murdered Mike Riemer and Diana Robertson.  

Missing: Jay Cook & Tanya Van Cuylenborg

Yet another double homicide is often linked to the Tube Sock Murders, and this one wouldn’t be resolved until 2018. This case involves 20-year-old Jay Cook and 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg, a young couple from Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada, who had been dating about six months. Jay’s father asked him to pick up parts needed for his furnace business from a supplier in Seattle. Jay invited Tanya to join him, making it the couple’s first trip out of town together. Jay’s father provided money for a hotel room, but Jay planned to pocket the money and camp out in the van in Seattle instead. 

The pair left on Wednesday, November 18 and should have returned the next night. They were seen taking the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington. Eyewitnesses sighted them in Hoodsport at 8:00 pm, asking for directions to Bremerton, Washington. They stopped for gas at a station in Allyn at 9:31 pm, where the attendants reported the couple “appeared untroubled” and “didn’t display any stress.” Jay and Tanya purchased a ticket for the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle at 10:16 pm, and while investigators believe they made the 10:35 pm ferry ride, no one recalls seeing them on it. No one saw them alive or heard from them again, and the couple’s families reported them missing on November 20.  

A week of discoveries

A man taking his daily morning walk in Skagit County, Washington discovered Tanya Van Cuylenborg’s body in a rural, wooded area on November 24. She was nude from the waist down, lying at the bottom of a steep embankment off of Parson Creek Road near the town of Alger. Police recovered plastic ties near her body, but there was no other evidence that she had been bound. A small caliber shell casing was found nearby, but no murder weapon. An autopsy confirmed that Tanya had been raped and killed by a single, close-range gunshot to the back of her head. 

Later that same day, police were called to another location where Tanya’s wallet and keys had been discovered in an alley behind a tavern on North State Street in Bellingham, Washington. The distance between the two sites was a 14-mile drive on Interstate 5. Near Tanya’s wallet with her ID, investigators also recovered a box of small caliber ammunition, partially used, and surgical gloves that were coated on the inside with talcum powder, making it impossible to lift fingerprints. 

The next day, investigators spotted the couple’s copper-colored 1977 Ford Club Wagon van sitting in a parking lot near a Greyhound bus station, just two blocks away. Witnesses first noticed it there on November 21. The van held even more clues, including a money order for furnace parts that proved Jay and Tanya never reached their destination. Plastic ties like the ones found near Tanya’s body were found in and around the van, and they contained an unidentified DNA profile. Tanya’s semen-stained pants were in the van too, and that DNA was later matched to unidentified DNA from Tanya’s vaginal swab and the DNA from the plastic ties found with the van. 

Because cash, traveler’s checks, and Tanya’s camera were missing, police at first considered a robbery motive. They also considered Jay Cook a suspect while he was still missing, but that wouldn’t be for long. 

On Thanksgiving Day, just five days after the couple went missing, two hunters would discover Jay Cook’s remains in a rural part of Snohomish County, over 60 miles from Tanya Van Cuylenborg, via Interstate 5. Jay’s body was covered in a blue blanket under a bridge at the Snoqualmie River. Weathered plastic ties were also found nearby, but again there was no other evidence that Jay had been bound. Jay’s killer had made a garrote of two red dog collars woven together with twine and shoved a pack of cigarettes down his throat. Jay died from the combination of strangulation and asphyxiation. He also suffered multiple blunt force trauma to the back of his head from nearby rocks. 

Convicted: William Talbott

It wasn’t until 2018 that a genetic genealogist linked DNA from Jay and Tanya’s case to 55-year-old William Talbott. His palm print was also a match to the one found on the couple’s van’s back door. At the time of the 1987 murders, William was a 24-year-old delivery truck driver in the Seattle-Tacoma area. He lived periodically with his parents in Woodinville, Washington,  was never a suspect, never interviewed or investigated, and never the subject of a tip

William was, however, a drug and alcohol user prone to violence and estranged from his family because of it. His police record includes an indecent exposure charge and a misdemeanor assault charge in 1985 that stemmed from kicking his sister so hard that he broke her tailbone. He sexually assaulted the same sister when she was 11 and he was 13, tortured the family cat, and physically bullied his disabled father, threatening to kill him by running him over with a car. 

Despite the DNA match, William pleaded not guilty to killing Jay and Tanya, claiming he had consensual sex with Tanya and knew nothing about the murders. In June 2019, a jury found William guilty of two counts of aggravated first degree murder after deliberating three days. He was given two life sentences without the possibility of parole. 

In December 2021, the ruling was reversed based on William’s claim that the court seated a biased juror. William also argued that his defense was not allowed to present evidence that two brothers confessed to the murders while in prison, even recalling the unpublished detail of shoving cigarettes down Jay Cook’s throat. Since those brothers’ DNA didn’t match the unknown profile, they were ruled out. William accused investigators of having tunnel vision, focusing solely on him and excluding other evidence in favor of the DNA match, and that the DNA only proves sexual contact, not rape, murder, or any other circumstances of the crime. 

In December 2022, William’s sentence was reinstated. The only reversible error from his original appeal with the seating of a biased juror. William had originally moved to excuse the juror after she expressed doubts regarding her ability to be impartial when hearing evidence about Tanya Van Cuylenborg’s assault and murder, since her own mother was a victim of domestic violence. The judge overruled William’s motion, arguing that the juror could be “rehabilitated” since she made statements like “I would try to be fair” and “I will give it my very best.” William still had the ability to challenge the juror’s selection by appealing the final jury panel, but he accepted it, thereby waiving his right to appeal that juror’s seating in the future. 

We can expect more appeals from William Talbott in the future, and he remains a person of interest in the Tube Sock Murders. He lived in the region, and if he was still a delivery truck driver in 1985, he had a reason to be traveling through the areas where both couples lived and were murdered. 

Additional persons of interest

Michelle McNamara also examined the Tube Sock Murders on her blog, True Crime Diary. Her hottest lead was Joseph Burgess, a man suspected in the 1972 Vancouver Island, British Columbia murders of Leif Carlsson and Ann Durrant, as well as the 2004 murders of Jason Allen and Lindsay Cutshall in Jenner, California. Joseph’s crimes span the western United States and southern Canada, and fingerprints connect him to a string of remote cabin robberies along the way. 

However, there is no evidence linking Joseph to the homicides or the Tube Sock Murders. If Joseph Burgess did kill, his motive was robbery or religious retribution, not sexual gratification. The couples he’s suspected of killing were found together, surprised in their sleep, shot to death, and not hidden, tied up, beaten, or sexually assaulted. Joseph was shot to death in a standoff with police in 2009. 

Michelle also mentioned serial killer Robert Yates, whose first murder in 1972 was of Patrick Oliver and Susan Savage in Walla Walla, Washington. Robert shot the young couple while they were picnicking, raping Susan first. He would later target sex workers, but some of those murders took place in the vicinity of the Tube Sock Murders. Robert was finally arrested in 2000 when one of his victim’s blood was found in his car, and then his DNA linked him to a dozen unsolved cases. His DNA was also tested against the Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg case, but it wasn’t a match. Robert Yates was sentenced to death for his crimes, and that was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2018. 

Ronald Shroy and his 1977 murder of Eric Goldstrand and Lliana Adnak in Lane County, Oregon is another avenue Michelle considered. Ronald was never a suspect in the Oregon murders, and he committed suicide in February 2021 after a domestic violence incident. In September 2021, a genetic genealogist linked Ronald to DNA from the 1977 Oregon case. Eric and Lliana’s bodies were somewhat separated and both were shot to death, somewhat similar to the Tube Sock Murders, but there was no sexual assault. Ronald Shroy has no other known crimes.

Finally, Michelle also researched John Kelley, who confessed to the 1988 murders of Douglas and Rozina Anderson in Crescent City, California. Rozina was sexually assaulted, and both she and her husband were shot to death while camping in their van. In 2012, John Kelley had been connected to another murder through DNA and spontaneously confessed to the Anderson couple’s murder once he was apprehended. All of John Kelley’s known crimes were limited to the state of California, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  

Current investigative avenues

The cold case detectives investigating Mike Riemer and Diana Robertson’s murders are hopeful that DNA will eventually solve the Tube Sock Murders, whether that leads them to Mike or a serial killer suspect. Today, they are working on obtaining a DNA profile from a ligature used to tie Diana’s hands, as well as a profile from Mike’s remains. It’s unclear if DNA evidence was recovered from the Stephen Harkins or Ruth Cooper crime scenes, but detectives have alluded to it. If there is testable DNA in either case, local police still face the challenge of prioritizing the time and funds it takes to analyze the DNA over more recent cases. 

Until that happens, we won’t know for sure if Washington’s Tube Sock Killer is dead, in prison for another crime, or living free, perhaps wondering if some day his past will finally catch up to him. 

Additional Resources

Edward Smith & Kimberly LaVine case 

Stephen Harkins & Ruth Cooper case

Mike Riemer & Diana Robertson case

Jay Cook & Tanya Van Cuylenborg case

Michelle McNamara’s research