The Tube Sock Killings: Unsolved 1985 Pacific Northwest Murders

The Harkkins and Cooper Murders

• 💔 In August 1985, Stephen Harkkins (27) and Ruth Cooper (42) were found murdered near Tulle Lake in Pierce County, Washington, after failing to show up for work.
• 🔫 Stephen was found shot in the head while sleeping in his sleeping bag, and their dog was also shot.
• 💀 Two months later, Ruth's skull was found, followed by her body, with a tube sock tied around her neck, though the autopsy later indicated death by a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

The Smith and Levine Murders

• 🩸 Five months prior, in March 1985, Edward Smith and Kimberly Levine were abducted and murdered. Their bodies were disposed of near a gravel pit on the Columbia River.
• 🔪 Ed's body was found with his throat cut, while Kimberly's remains were not discovered until August, near where Ed was found.
• 🚗 A fingerprint lifted from their car led to a suspect, Billy Ray Ballard, who was extradited from Wyoming and pleaded guilty to a life sentence to avoid the death penalty, though he was later found to have no connection to the Harkkins and Cooper case.

The Reamer and Robertson Murders

• 🌲 In December 1985, Mike Reamer (36) and his girlfriend Diana Robertson (21) went missing while looking for a Christmas tree near the Nisqually River.
• 🚶‍♀️ Their two-year-old daughter, Crystal, was found alone at a Kmart 30 miles away, stating only that "Mommy's in the trees."
• 🔪 Diana's body was discovered in a snowbank in February 1986, stabbed 17 times and with a tube sock tied around her neck, similar to Ruth Cooper's case.
• 🕵️‍♂️ Mike Reamer's body was not found until March 2011, over 25 years later, within a mile of Diana's discovery, with a partial skull and boots, but the cause of death remained inconclusive.

Suspects and Theories

• 🏍️ A suspect in the Harkkins and Cooper murders was a man with whom Stephen had a feud over a damaged motorcycle, but no evidence linked him to the crime.
• 🇨🇦 Joseph Burgess, a suspect in a 1972 couple's murder in Canada involving a similar shooting of sleeping victims and their dog, surfaced in New Mexico in 2009 and was killed in a shootout with deputies, but had no direct link to the tube sock killings.
• ❓ Theories suggest either Mike Reamer killed Diana and then disappeared, or an unknown serial killer targeted both couples, with the tube sock serving as a distinctive, albeit unexplained, calling card.
• 🧬 Foreign DNA was found at both crime scenes but has not been matched to any suspect, leaving the tube sock killings officially unsolved.