DNA evidence submitted in Tube Sock Killer case

Victims' families have new hope that a homicide task force is getting closer than ever to identifying a possible serial killer, known for intentionally leaving knotted tube socks at crime scenes. The victims were all killed while enjoying hiking and camping in the Pacific Northwest.

Detectives would love to match the nickname to a real one and for the first time in 26 years, and they are heading in the right direction.

Steve Harkins could be best be described as Grizzly Adams with a smile. He and his longtime girlfriend, Ruth Cooper, loved to go camping -- just lay outside and stare at the stars.

Harkin’s brother, Michael, sat down with KIRO Team 7 Investigator Chris Halsne for his first interview since his brother was murdered more than two decades ago.

Harkins says Steve was unforgettable in looks and personality.

“He was the magnet of the family. He attracted people right and left. He was very charismatic. Everybody liked Steve.”

On a pleasant August weekend in 1985, the couple attended a friend's wedding reception, and then headed straight out to Tule Lake near Roy in south Pierce County.

They were never seen alive again.

Harkins says police didn’t mince words when describing his brother’s death.

“I was told my brother was murdered. He was found in his sleeping bad with a .22 slug in his head.”

He was shot while he slept, along with his dog -- but Ruth Cooper was nowhere to be found.

Months later, hunters, walking along a dead-end road near Eighth Avenue South, discovered her remains; body and purse in one spot – her head some distance away -- with a tube sock still tied around her neck.

Detectives wondered if the sock was significant. Six months later, at another murder scene just 15 miles away near Mineral Lake in Elbe, the mystery answered itself with the discovery of Diana Robertson's body. 

Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Stacy Brown recently told Halsne, “The tube sock was found around her neck and, at the time, we were told that it was used as a control mechanism rather than something to strangulate her with.”

The Robertson murder was a lead story news for weeks around Christmas of 1985, but not because of the tube sock connection. Police kept that detail from the public. Somebody repeatedly stabbed Robertson, left her to die along a dirt road, then dropped her 2-year-old daughter off at a Spanaway K-Mart -- unharmed. The murder victim's missing boyfriend, Michael Riemer, became the obvious suspect. His dad, Lloyd, told KIRO-TV at the time, that wasn't possible.

“Maybe they were in the wrong place at at wrong time. I'm hoping for a clue of some kind so I can find ‘em.”

Reimer never surfaced. Detectives tell Halsne they tracked down leads, but privately, they had a gut feeling that Reimer killed Robertson and might have murdered Harkins and Cooper. The cases faded, unsolved and forgotten.

Michael Harkins always felt police never really took his brother’s case seriously, thinking Steve was just another long-haired biker.

“I know they ran down the leads they actually had, but did they really do a lot of digging? I kind of think they blew it off, myself. That was always the impression we got. We never could get any information out of them, so I'm not left with any other impression, ya know?”

Then, out of the blue, on March 26, 2011, after all those years of nothing, Phil Reynolds and his neighbor stumbled onto a major clue in the woods off Highway 7, west of Mineral Lake.

Reynolds told KIRO Team 7 Investigators, “He (Phil’s neighbor) kicks the lid of a vacuum cleaner over. Thought it was a rock, so he kicked that and it ends up being the skull.”

It was the skull of Michael Reimer -- the supposed murder suspect -- lying just a few hundred yards from where his girlfriend's tube sock wrapped body was found two decades before. 

Reynolds says, “It was actually pretty clean, being under that cover. I suppose that helped, but like I said, it had a big hole in the side here, in the skull -- in the temple -- where he got hit pretty hard with something and no teeth at all. Just the upper part. I was amazed.”

Police sources tell Team 7 Investigators Reimer's shallow grave held one of his rubber boots and some weathered clothes, but no gun that would indicate he committed suicide.

Lewis County Chief Deputy Brown, says that's a game changer.

“It would appear he is not a suspect at this point.”

So who is? KIRO Team 7 Investigators tracked down long-ago witnesses who say Steve Harkins was feuding with a man over damage to a motorcycle just prior to his death, but there is another possibility.

“This could be the handiwork of a serial killer,” Brown told Halsne in an exclusive interview about new progress in this case. “But we don't have anything definitive that would tell us that. Right now, we are still trying to collect all the evidence.”

According to Pierce County Detective Ed Troyer, there is some DNA from the tube sock killer crime scenes that hasn't been tested and that might lead detectives in the right direction.

“There is new evidence in this case," Troyer confirmed to Team 7 Investigators. “We've gone back and taken a look at it and if there's anybody else that needs to be interviewed or if the evidence tells us something. Hopefully, it will lead to a resolution.”

That’s something that Harkin's brother, Michael, says his family deserves after a lot of years of suffering and wondering.

“I would love to have closure for my parents. Obviously, I'd love to have closure for myself too. I loved my brother, but I would love to have closure for my parents before they pass on. I think they've earned that.”

Detectives from Pierce and Lewis counties consider this a "very active case", but they really need someone with information about the murders to step forward. We've posted a timeline with exclusive material about these four homicides that might help spark witness' memories.