Pod Insights Criminology Diana Robertson and Mike Riemer About this episode On December 12th, 1985, 21-year-old Diana Robertson and her boyfriend 36-year-old Mike Riemer of Puyallup, WA took their two-year-old daughter, Crystal, up to a forested area in the mountains near Tacoma. Crystal was found at a Kmart 30 miles away, and the mystery of what happened to Diana and Mike began. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Diana Robertson and Mike Riemer. Diana's body was found months later but that only intensified the mystery. A tube sock was found wrapped around her neck. Mike's remains were found 25 years later, but the discovery answered few questions.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
0:37 Speaker 01 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 381 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.
0:43 Speaker 00 And this is Mike Morford.
0:45 Speaker 01 Mr. Morford, how you doing this week, buddy?
0:47 Speaker 00 I'm doing good. I'm trying to get a little juice, a little energy going and get going here this morning, but I'm doing all right besides that. How you doing?
0:55 Speaker 01 I'm doing great. Man, the weather is amazing up here. It's in the seventies during the day, dips down to, let's say, you know, the forties at night. I kind of dig that. I wish it would stay like that all the time, but I know it's not going to. I sleep really well when it's, uh, when it gets a little cool.
1:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, I hear forties and that scares me because I try and get in the pool every day and do a little bit of swimming and it's not real good in the forties.
1:21 Speaker 01 Nah, you gotta get into that polar club, man, you know? Ice cold water, it's supposed to be good for you. But let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Rockin' Rose, Julie Aguirre, and Dana McNeil. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it.
1:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, thank you so much for that support. It really helps us out. For anyone else that would like to help the show, go to patreon.com/criminology to get started.
1:48 Speaker 01 All right, let's jump into this week's case. And this one may be familiar to you if you're a fan of the show Unsolved Mysteries, because there was a pretty memorable segment about this case on that show. Over the years, there were reports that this case was on the verge of being solved, thanks to potential DNA examination and technology. But here we are, 40 years later, still searching for answers. We're talking about the murders of Diana Robertson and Mike Reamer.
2:20 Speaker 00 On December 12th, 1985, 21-year-old Diana Robertson and her boyfriend, 36-year-old Mike Reamer of Polyup, Washington, took their two-year-old daughter, Crystal, up to a forested area in the mountains near Tacoma. The trip had multiple purposes. First, Mike, who was a trapper, wanted to check and tend to his traps. This is something that Mike did almost daily, and Diana and Crystal had gone with him many times. But this day, they also wanted to pick out and cut down the perfect Christmas tree for the coming holiday. Usually, while Mike would set out to check his traps, Diana and Crystal would stay behind in Mike's truck. It should have been a fun little family outing, and likely the start of a tradition, with Mike
3:02 Speaker 00 being a man who loved the outdoors, and the trio living near so many beautiful wooded areas. As fun as it is as a child to go to a Christmas tree lot with your family, it must be even more magical to be able to pick your own tree from the entire forest, and then watch your dad chop it down for you before taking it home to decorate. The trip into the wilderness on this day for the family should have been one that they'd always remember, and instead, it turned into a nightmare.
3:28 Speaker 01 Later that afternoon, little Crystal was found wandering alone at a Kmart in Spanaway. She was by herself, and there was no sign of anyone who knew her. Employees eventually called for authorities, who took Crystal into custody, took her to the hospital for a medical evaluation, and placed her into a temporary foster home, since her identity was unknown at that time. At the same time, Diana's mother, Louise Conrad, was worried because her daughter hadn't called when she got home from her trip as she said she would. Mike's father, Lloyd, was also worried. He and his son had dinner together every night, since he had been widowed two years earlier. But on this day, his son hadn't shown up.
4:14 Speaker 00 The trio was reported missing and their family was unaware that Crystal had been picked up at the Kmart. With no contact from the couple, their friends decided to search the woods. They weren't sure exactly where Mike and Diana had been heading the day they disappeared, but they did know where Mike usually went first and some of the routes he took when he went to check his traps. They searched for hours but found no sign of them. After three days, a nurse at Mary Bridge Children's Medical saw a news segment about Crystal being found at the Kmart. She had been reported missing along with her parents and she recognized her. A foster parent had brought her in because she had some bruises and scrapes. She was sure it was Crystal, so she called in the tip.
4:55 Speaker 01 Crystal and her grandmother Louise were reunited. According to the Port Angeles Daily News, all two-year-old Crystal was able to tell her grandmother about what had happened was that mommy is in the trees. Her grandfather Lloyd said, she's too young to talk. All she wants to do is play. Even though she was young and couldn't express herself well, it was clear Crystal had gone through an ordeal of some kind. Her grandmother Louise told the Olympian, she's withdrawn. Her personality definitely isn't the same. And, you know, a lot of people sort of immediately begin letting their imaginations run wild at that phrase. Had
5:39 Speaker 01 she seen her mother running through the forest, desperately trying to escape some stranger? Or did she see Mike chasing her? Did she mean Diana was literally up in the tree? Like someone had strung her up and left her hanging? But the phrase in the trees doesn't have to be as ominous as it sounds. Remember, it was almost Christmas and they were going to chop down their own tree. When they headed up to the mountains, they likely told Crystal that they were going to see the tree. So more if we have an unfolding mystery. Two people
6:16 Speaker 01 are missing. A two-year-old is, is found at Kmart and, you know, she's not able to give much in the way of details, right, to authorities or even to her grandfather, her grandmother. She's two years old.
6:36 Speaker 00 I think anyone that's ever talked to a two-year-old, they can sometimes not relay what they're trying to say. And you just have to try and coax little things out of them. Maybe try and use words that they can understand, but their vocabulary is so limited that they can't always tell you details. And in this case, if Crystal knew something, there was just no way she could express it to where it would make sense at that point.
7:05 Speaker 01 But this phrase "in the trees" had to have, you know, authorities baffled. What does that mean?
7:12 Speaker 00 While Crystal's grandparents were happy to have her home, they were worried sick about Mike and Diana. And police began searching the area where they believed the family had visited for clues. The couple remained missing well after the holidays were over. Finally, in February, Diana was found, but it wasn't good news. Someone who was walking their dog in the woods near the very tiny town of LB, Washington, which is about an hour or so from Tacoma, stumbled upon her remains. Diana was lying on the ground next to Mike's red 1983 Plymouth Aero truck. This was 30 miles away from the Kmart where shoppers found Crystal by herself. The area where Diana and the truck were found is about an hour or so from Tacoma, where it was thought that Mike had his trap set, and about 30
7:56 Speaker 00 miles from Spanaway, from where little Crystal was found wandering.
8:00 Speaker 01 So the obvious question that comes up is, how did Crystal get to this Kmart? I mean, when you think about it being 30 miles away from where, you know, Mike's truck was, where Diana's remains were found, I mean, there's no way that Crystal walked 30 miles to this Kmart. So how did she get there?
8:25 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think it's highly unlikely she could have even walked a mile from that wooded spot where they were at, because, you know, there's a lot of wilderness. It's very rugged. There's animals. You know, you've got all kinds of creeks and...
8:40 Speaker 00 Things she can trip on. So a two-year-old out there would wouldn't stand a chance of getting very far. So, you know, this is almost a mystery within a mystery now. First, what happened here? And second, who brought Crystal to that Kmart?
8:56 Speaker 01 Investigators descended on the scene. By the time Diana's body was found, there were at least four inches of snow on the ground, which certainly didn't help with the investigation. There were blood stains on the truck's front seat. After more than two months in a truck in the woods, the blood was useless for the tests available at the time. Investigators were only able to determine that it was human blood, but they couldn't pinpoint even a blood type to be able to match to a suspect later. It was absolutely clear that Diana had been murdered. She was stabbed 17 times. And when her body was found, there was still a tube
9:37 Speaker 01 sock tied tightly around her neck. To investigators, the repeated stab wounds seemed like a crime of passion. And since Mike was nowhere to be found, investigators first and pretty immediately believed that Mike was responsible for Diana's murder. This was backed up by the fact that someone had taken Crystal and dropped her in an area where they knew she'd be recovered, which further made them suspect Mike.
10:05 Speaker 00 There was an envelope found on the dash of the truck that had a message written on it that read, "I love you, Diana." It's unclear whether there was anything inside the envelope, and we don't know how long it had been there. Diana's mother believed that the writing matched Mike's and said that he had signed other cards to Diana in exactly the same way. But according to Detective Nizer of the Lewis County Sheriff's Department, the FBI could not confirm that it was Mike's writing. Detective Nizer was intrigued and puzzled over the envelope and the writing. In the Unsolved Mysteries episode, he asked, "Why did someone put that there? Was it Michael Riemer as a final goodbye, Diana? I'm sorry." Or was it someone who put it there to throw off the authorities and make them think that?
10:46 Speaker 01 And we've talked about it before, Morph, but you know, Unsolved Mysteries back in the day, that was such a great show. I mean, part of it for me was Robert Stack. I don't know, that guy just has a voice, kind of a presence. To me, he really made that show.
11:06 Speaker 00 Yeah, he was the perfect fit. He had that trench coat on all the time. And the episodes, you know, the segments that they did on a lot of the cases are very memorable, including the one they did on this case.
11:17 Speaker 01 But as we go through, you know, these details, this is a perfect fit for Unsolved Mysteries because we have mystery after mystery here.
11:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's, it's, it's almost three mysteries in one. You've got who committed this murder of Diana? Where's Mike? And then who brought Crystal to that store?
11:40 Speaker 01 And how do they all kind of interconnect? Police learned from talking with those who knew Mike and Diana that their relationship was certainly not perfect. And at times it was a mess. Just weeks before they disappeared, things got bad enough that Diana actually filed for a restraining order against Mike. According to Diana's sister Darlene Robertson, in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, Mike beat her up and took everything out on her. She said he would even do that classic projection thing. He blamed her for things that he did. If he was seeing somebody else, he would turn
12:21 Speaker 01 it around like Diana was seeing somebody else and justify it in his own mind. Mike and Diana had been on and off, especially recently because of the way he treated her. And he had been arrested for domestic violence in the past. The most recent arrest was just two months earlier. Mike hadn't only reportedly hit Diana during heated arguments. He had terrorized her, slashing her tires and kicking down the door of her apartment. Her mom told Unsolved Mysteries that Diana once admitted that Mike had threatened to kill her and that he could get away with it. There was also an upcoming trial date set in January for the most recent domestic
13:06 Speaker 01 violence charge. Detective Pat Beal with the Lewis County Sheriff's Office told the Washed Away Podcast that on the morning Mike, Diana and Crystal went out to the woods for Christmas tree, they set out at 7:00 a.m. and that around 8:00 a.m. Mike showed up to his dad's house with Crystal, but Diana wasn't with them. Lloyd Riemer offered his son and granddaughter breakfast, but Mike declined, saying they had to leave. If this is true, it seems that this may point to a scenario where Mike murdered Diana and then brought Crystal to his dad's home before dropping her off at the Kmart and then ultimately heading back to the woods.
13:50 Speaker 01 But if Mike did kill Diana, he'd likely be covered in blood. How likely is it that he would visit his father with blood all over him? Though police seemed open to the idea of someone else being responsible for Diana's murder, the more they looked at Mike's background, the harder it was to rule him out.
14:09 Speaker 00 If Diana was willing to take Crystal out into the woods on a day trip with Mike, it seems like things were going all right between them at the time. She perhaps would have asked for the restraining order to be dropped on her own if things kept going well. Just going back to the theory that Mike had dropped Crystal off at the Kmart so that she would be found and be safe, there were arguments for and against him being the one that dropped Crystal at the Kmart. Yes, there were better places to leave her. He could have stopped outside a friend or family member's house instead, but their hometown was further than the Kmart. And when you're in the state of mind he could have been in if he had just murdered Diana, he might not have been thinking clearly. But if Mike is the one that dropped Crystal off at the Kmart, one major question comes to mind.
14:53 Speaker 00 Why would he drive back, park the truck next to Diana's body, and then venture off?
14:58 Speaker 01 Police did consider some things that may have ruled Mike out. You know, if he was on the run, he didn't have a vehicle. His truck was left behind. He also apparently left behind a $300 paycheck, which today would be like leaving behind nearly a thousand dollars. Money that he could use if he was on the run. Mike also had another child from a previous relationship. So it wouldn't just be Crystal that he was abandoning. Still, it wasn't hard for investigators to imagine that things got out of control between Mike and Diana, and Mike murdered her, then panicked and took off.
15:42 Speaker 01 But again, if Mike was responsible, why didn't he take his truck? How did he get Crystal to the store 30 miles away? And then walk away from it with no car and no one seeing him? And back to your point, Morf, wouldn't he be covered in blood? There's never been a mention of Crystal having any blood on her when she was found. But it seems likely that some blood would have had to transfer if Mike had stabbed Diana almost 20 times. And then you think about him walking with Crystal and probably having to carry her at only two years old, at least to the truck, and then probably out of the truck at the Kmart.
16:27 Speaker 01 And then there's the question of how did he get Crystal not to follow him? When he left her there at the Kmart?
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17:55 Speaker 00 Some investigators theorize that Mike went off-grid and lived out in the woods. He was an experienced outdoorsman. He was a trapper. He could conceivably live off the land. But we don't have any indication that he had enough supplies to permanently live off the land, let alone survive a harsh Washington winter. Investigators were left to wonder what happened to him. After 25 years, they've received at least some answers. In late March 2011, his skull was found in the woods near Mineral, Washington, only about a mile from where Diana's body had been found next to his truck. There was no sign of trauma to the skull and no cause of death could be determined. Stacy Brown, chief deputy of the Lewis County Sheriff's Office, told The Olympian,
18:38 Speaker 00 "The fact that we found him lets us know he's not out there running around, but it doesn't necessarily change what we have to work with to figure out what happened." Some people even wonder if Mike just got caught in one of his own traps somehow. If his remains had been scattered by animals over time, it's possible that if the rest of his skeleton was discovered, there would be a trap around one of his arms or leg bones. Around one of his arm or leg bones.
19:02 Speaker 01 So more of, you know, 25 years is a long time to wait to get some answers. And, and obviously it's a big thing. Mike's skull being found, but what does it really tell us? I mean, obviously it tells us that he's deceased, but other than that, what light does it really shed on the case?
19:25 Speaker 00 Yeah, and this is presents yet another mystery and a mystery that has multiple mysteries within it. It's like, how did he die? You know, they're unfortunately, they don't have enough of the remains to, to make any determinations. They can just say that from the skull, there was no trauma to the skull, but that doesn't rule out a number of different kinds of causes of death.
19:50 Speaker 01 And does it shed any light on whether he's responsible for Diana's murder or not? I don't know that it does. If anything, you know, a lot of people might take that as, well, he, he could have been a victim as well.
20:07 Speaker 00 And I think as an investigator, here's a whole old case that you're hoping to get a break in. And then when you sort of get a break, it doesn't really lead to any resolution.
20:19 Speaker 01 For what it's worth, it doesn't seem that Diana's family believed Mike was responsible for her murder. Diana's grandmother, Mabel Walden, told the news Tribune that she believes that the killer left her great granddaughter unhorned because they didn't figure she was old enough to understand. The killer likely knew that because of her young age, Crystal wouldn't be able to describe anything useful, especially if they were a stranger. If Mike didn't kill Diana and he too was a murder victim, then a third party likely took Crystal to the Kmart. And if that's the case, it seems they likely had some kind of humanity or decency because they could have easily murdered her as well, or left her to die in the wilderness.
21:04 Speaker 00 Obviously whoever committed this murder. It was terrible, cold-blooded, savage, brutal. They also tied a tube sock tightly around Diana's neck. So on one hand, you know, they're, they're cold-blooded, but if that same person brought Crystal to that store, it shows some kind of decency on some kind of level, I think, that he just didn't murder her too, or leave her out there to fall victim to animals, or whatever else might happen to her. So it's kind of a contradictory behavior if the person that murdered Diana also brought Crystal to that store.
21:46 Speaker 01 Well, I think you could look at it a couple of different ways. You know, first off, you could go with the angle that, you know, maybe this was someone who knew the family on some level and just didn't have it in them to harm Crystal, or it could be a cold-blooded killer, because I think this does happen, who actually has that one line they won't cross. And, and that's killing a child. But they're perfectly fine killing, you know, adults. I, I think that is possible.
22:25 Speaker 00 Yeah. And then we have those types of killers that will murder anyone with no hesitation and no afterthought. It's kind of interesting, the, the differences. If Mike wasn't the killer, perhaps he was even the first victim. Maybe he crossed paths with someone while checking his traps and was killed. And then the killer went back to Mike's truck where he killed Diana before taking Crystal to the Kmart using his own vehicle. Then again, Diana could have been attacked first. And when Mike returned to his truck after checking traps, he was ambushed. But if that's the case, the killer would have then had to move his body. A third possibility is that the killer murdered Diana and then sat out on foot and found Mike, killing him where he encountered him and leaving his body there. Most people
23:07 Speaker 00 that knew Mike said that he often was armed with a pistol, so perhaps he was attacked before he could use it. And maybe Crystal is held as some kind of leverage to get Mike and Diana to comply.
23:18 Speaker 01 So if Mike and Diana were killed by another person, the question is why? There was no evidence that they were robbed. There was no sign of sexual assault. Did someone have a beef with them? Follow them and then attack them under the cover of the woods? If Mike and Diana knew their killer, they may not have been on guard that they were in danger. But there's another scenario that they could have crossed paths with a random cold-blooded killer. There are actually a few cases that are eerily similar to this one, but there is one that we know of that is nearly identical, even down to the location, with a very specific clue that indicates that a serial predator may have been prowling
24:03 Speaker 01 that area, just four months before Diana and Mike went missing. And only 15 miles away from where Diana's remains would eventually be found, another couple met a terrible fate.
24:16 Speaker 00 On August 14th, 1985, a man named Stephen Harkins was found dead in a wooded area near Tool Lake in Pierce County. This is an area where Mike was known to set his traps. Stephen was obviously camping there. His body was still in a sleeping bag that he never had a chance to get out of. It was clear that whoever killed him had managed to creep up on him while he was asleep. He had been shot just once in the forehead, a fatal shot. He had been camping with his girlfriend, Ruth Cooper, but she wasn't at the crime scene. The two had been reported missing a day earlier after not showing up for work.
24:48 Speaker 01 On October 26th, two months after Stephen's body was found, Ruth's skull was found near Harts Lake, about a mile and a half from where Stephen and their dog were found. Two days later, Ruth's purse and the rest of her remains were discovered by a search and rescue dog, only 50 feet from where her skull was found. There was a tube sock tied around her neck. And according to Lewis County Sheriff's Department Detective David Neiser, the knot used to tie the tube sock around Ruth's neck was identical to the knot in the tube sock around Diana's neck. However, Ruth had been shot, just like Steven,
25:29 Speaker 01 though she had been shot in the abdomen, which is what ultimately killed her. We know that Mike wasn't shot in the head and Diana wasn't shot at all, only stabbed and strangled. Steven and Ruth's dog was also found dead about a week after Steven was found. It had been shot. Was the dog killed because it was barking and maybe that barking would have alerted others? It's also possible that it was shot because dogs are more likely to attack an armed stranger than a two-year-old would be. Or does this point to different killers, indicating one had a soft spot for a child and the other didn't care about animals?
26:14 Speaker 00 The mention of the similar murder with the victim having a tube sock tied around their neck is certainly interesting. But frustratingly, there are no mentions of whether the tube socks belonged to either of the victims. And we also don't know if they may have been a match to each other and thus a pair. This would go a long way to helping definitively connect the murders or establish them as clearly separate cases. Knowing that investigators were able to look at the knots on both tube socks and say the knot is the same is pretty powerful. But it seems likely they would have noticed that the socks were a match. If they are a match, police haven't released that detail. The fact that the cases have not been officially linked despite this glaring similarity may indicate that investigators don't think there's a real connection. It's just an odd
26:57 Speaker 00 detail that seems like a tantalizing similar clue found on two victims in reasonably close proximity and timeframe.
27:05 Speaker 01 Another interesting detail about these tube socks is that despite both victims having them on their necks, strangulation wasn't the cause of death for Diana or Ruth, even though they were found with the tube socks still tied around their neck. Maybe this is more of a calling card left by their killer, if their killers are one and the same. If you look up the tube sock murders online, you'll actually see a different case pop up. In March of 1985, college sweethearts Edward Smith and Kimberly Labine took a trip to Grant County, Washington. The day after they left for their quick getaway, Edward's
27:46 Speaker 01 body was found in a gravel pit near the Wannapum Dam, which is just off the Columbia River. His throat had been cut, killing him. When he was found, his hands were still tied behind his back. Two weeks later, their car was found. It was 10 miles away from Edward's body. Only one fingerprint that didn't belong to either Edward or Kimberly was lifted from the vehicle. In August, five months after Edward was found dead in that gravel pit, Kimberly's remains were found. By this time, her skeleton was all that was left. She was found two miles from where Edward was found.
28:26 Speaker 00 Edwards and Kimberly's case was cold for four years. Finally, in 1989, that one fingerprint found on their vehicle returned a match. Former truck driver and current Wyoming State Penitentiary inmate Billy Ray Ballard Jr. had touched that car. The crime he had been convicted of was violent. Investigators had no doubt he was capable of two murders. He had abducted, sexually assaulted, and tortured two different women. Ballard took a plea deal, avoiding a potential death sentence for the murders of Edward and Kimberly with a guilty plea. As intriguing as this guy Ballard seems as a potential suspect, he was already behind bars by the time Diana and Ruth were killed.
29:06 Speaker 01 In 1986, 25-year-old Kristen Edwards was found dead in the woods in Missouri with a pair of socks tied around her neck. 34 years later, Kenneth Avery Jr. was arrested and charged with Kristen's murder. He was 25 in 1986. So that's two other killers, at the very least, who used socks in a murder or murders and left their victims in the wilderness. So I think when we consider this, and maybe tying tube socks around victims' necks and leaving them dead in the woods is not as uncommon as it seems. In 2011, retired Pierce County
29:48 Speaker 01 detective Art Anderson told the Seattle Times that "it may just be coincidence that tube socks were used." Although he had once worked on the case, this also doesn't sound like an official confirmation that we're looking at two different killers.
30:05 Speaker 00 If the knot in the tube sock was identical in both cases, it may just mean that this was the easiest way to tie a sock around the neck of a struggling victim. But it could point to one killer. Some people even theories that Mike could have killed the other couple four months earlier and then killed Diana, placing socks on both of the female victims' necks. There was also the idea that Mike had heard of those earlier murders and tied a sock around Diana's neck after he killed her so that it would look like she had been the victim of the same killer. The socks are just a tantalizing piece of information that may or may not connect the cases.
30:39 Speaker 01 But more if it is very strange to me that, you know, there are a number of murders in the Northwest where victims have been found with tube socks around their necks. And add to that, you know, the fact that the socks weren't the cause of death, right? They weren't strangled with the sock. So why was it left there? I mean, it's almost like a sign. The killer is trying to...
31:11 Speaker 01 Say something with the sock or you know, that's their signature or whatever you want to call it.
31:18 Speaker 00 Yeah. And the police, at least one of them, by what he's saying, almost seems to brush off the fact that the case is connected. I'm not sure, you know, why he's coming to that conclusion. You know, we don't have all access to all of the material he has, obviously. Maybe he knows something that we, we don't know that they've held back, but you've got two couples murdered relatively close to each other in a span of what, four months? The victims are separated and the two female victims both have tube socks around their neck. And not only do the two victims have tube socks on their neck, but the knot is the same.
32:01 Speaker 00 So to me that screams, the possibility is there that these two victims were killed by the same person. Or there's a copycat that's trying to throw off police. But how would they know to tie the same exact knot as, as the first victim? So that's, to me, it, it makes me think that there's somebody that may be responsible for both of these murders. And then add to that, in both cases, the female victim and the male victim are found, you know, super far away from each other, but they were separated. So when you compare those two cases, it's, there's a lot of similarities there. And I hope the police dove into that thoroughly to explore that possibility.
32:45 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, to me, the tube sock thing is just so strange. There has to be something to it. Now you mentioned the possibility of a copycat. And I, I do think you have to look at that in many cases, right? If your intent is to kill somebody and there's thought to be, you know, a maniac on the loose who is using a signature, it's very possible. And I'm sure people have done it in the past, they're already intent on killing. And so they weave in this signature in the hopes that their murder will be tied in with this other killer.
33:30 Speaker 00 And it makes me think about that question we often ask, what's more frightening? Are there two killers using a similar MO? Or is one maniac out there committing all of these attacks? That's frightening.
33:45 Speaker 01 One odd similarity between Mike and Diana and Ruth and Steven is that with both couples, there was a 15 year age gap. Mike was 36, Diana had just turned 21, Ruth was 42, and Steven was 27. This really seems like a weird coincidence, unless you believe some serial killer was somehow targeting and attacking victims with a 15 year age difference. But in both cases, as you said, more if the couples were separated, they were found apart from each other, despite knowing that the person should be in the area in some pretty thorough searches.
34:28 Speaker 01 It took a long time to find Ruth and even longer to find Mike. We've already talked about Mike being in the woods to check his traps, but it's not hard to imagine that Ruth could have tried to run after hearing a gunshot and the fact that it took a search dog to find a person's skeletal remains just 50 feet from the location of the skull shows how difficult it can be to find things in that kind of environment. There are several active and inactive serial killers over that timeframe who have operated in Washington state. And it's pretty shocking just how many there were in one place. And a lot of them left their victims in the woods.
35:12 Speaker 01 It wouldn't be impossible for them to also stumble upon new victims there, perhaps while they were disposing of other victims.
35:21 Speaker 00 Another tragedy in this case is that Crystal grew up thinking that her father could have abandoned her at the Kmart after killing her mom, not even making sure she was safe with someone before he took off. Now, although she might not have all the answers in the case, just knowing that his body was in the woods the whole time, she doesn't get to have any hope of seeing him again and knows that he isn't out there somewhere living his life, happy without her. So perhaps that helps her. Crystal has chosen not to speak to the media about her parents' murders. It's hard to blame her. After all, she was just two years old. She doesn't remember anything and can't help in the investigation.
35:58 Speaker 01 And obviously you have to feel for Crystal. Not only did she lose both of her parents, you have this cloud hanging over the whole thing. Did her father kill her mother? Did her father abandon her at the Kmart? I mean, that's, that's a lot to process, to deal with.
36:22 Speaker 00 Yeah. And I, with all that baggage, I don't blame her for not wanting to keep talking about it as an adult, especially if there's nothing she can add to the story. Although I wonder if it, you know, if it was ever considered, or if she was even too young for hypnosis, but maybe hypnosis, you know, I've read of a lot of younger people that were witnesses being put under hypnosis and actually remembering details. So I wonder if she's ever thought about doing that, to help in the case, or police have ever asked her to do that. That would be interesting.
36:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, that would be, but I don't blame her at all for not wanting to speak out about it. I'm sure it's a very painful subject that she lives with every day. I don't blame her for not wanting to, to really talk about it. It's been four decades and we still don't know who killed Diana Robertson or how Mike Riemer died. We don't know of any clear suspects. Crystal deserves answers and her parents deserve justice. Mike Riemer's father died in 1993 without ever knowing what happened to his only child with a lot of people believing that his son was a killer. There's still hope
37:37 Speaker 01 that this case can be solved. Detective Pat Beal told the Washed Away Podcast that DNA evidence was recovered from Diana, but because of a backlog at the lab, they still can't rule Mike in or out. Maybe that DNA will one day yield a profile that can be used to do genetic genealogy.
37:58 Speaker 00 If you have any information about the murder of Diana Robertson or the death of Mike Riemer, you can contact the Pierce County Sheriff's Office by calling 253-287-4455. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can call the Pierce County Crime Stoppers, 8800-222-TIPS.
38:16 Speaker 01 So Morph, as we wrap up this case, you know, like we said earlier, there's a lot of mysteries here. There's mysteries wrapped up inside mysteries. You have the death or the murder of Diana, you have the death of Mike. The big question is, how are they related? Were they both victims or did Mike kill Diana? You also have the question of how Crystal got to the Kmart. And then you kind of have this overarching question of, you know, these tube sock murders and whether they're all related. There's a lot going on here.
39:02 Speaker 00 Yeah. And I wonder if, if any one of those little mysteries within the mystery could be solved, then maybe it would be like a domino effect and it might lead to answers in the other parts of the mystery here. And You know, we may get some, some kind of answers and then maybe it'll reveal all the answers if, if just one part of the mystery can be solved.
39:23 Speaker 01 Yeah. Well, the good news is they do have some DNA. Um, I don't know, you know, if it'll be a slam dunk because if it turns out to be Mike's DNA, well, what does that prove? We already know they were together. I don't know that that is going to definitively say that he killed Diana. Now, if you got a mystery DNA, that would probably be more helpful.
39:52 Speaker 00 Yeah. And I think the jackpot would be if there were DNA on, you know, say the socks in each case that we talked about, and somehow those DNA profiles proved on two different victims to come from the same person, then that would make it more likely that we're dealing with a serial killer here.
40:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, I would agree with that 100%. You know, this, this backlog, and we've talked about it before. I, I get it. There are constraints, resources, right? Time, money. But man, there is a lot of evidence in crime labs around the country or in, in evidence rooms that if tested, could provide answers on a lot of cases. It's just a matter of, you know, how do you get to all of it?
40:43 Speaker 00 The good news is because it's so common now to be doing this kind of work, more and more agencies are adopting it, more and more people are doing the work. There's more labs doing it. And, you know, you would think that's going to lead to the cost coming down some. So maybe cost won't stand in the way. But if it's just a simple backlog, there's a lot of people that do these kind of things for free, uh, just because they want to hone their skills, build their resume. So, you know, and a lot of cold cases like this, if there's any DNA evidence and, you know, Money is an issue. I think that should be less and less of an issue.
41:24 Speaker 01 Well, hopefully this is one where at some point in the future, we get some more information. There's no guarantee that, you know, just having DNA is going to solve this case, but it could go a long way. I know a lot of people are fascinated with the tube sock murders in general, because there are quite a few of them. Like I mentioned, right in the Northwest, it does seem like such a strange thing to me. To kill someone and then wrap a tube sock around their neck.
41:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, that's a really interesting clue. And, you know, because in these two cases, we talked about where that wasn't the actual cause of death, it seems like that's something else, like a signature, a calling card, whatever you want to call it. It doesn't seem like it was a primary weapon to use to kill these victims. So, you know, I think that's got to be explored to see if it's possible that this was one person committing these crimes.
42:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely. But that's it for our episode on Diana Robertson and Mike Riemer. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review, leave a rating. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really goes a long way.
42:45 Speaker 00 If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major platform. Just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. And you can go to our website, criminologypodcast.com to get news and listen to old episodes. And if you want to join a Facebook discussion group, check out Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans on Facebook.
43:04 Speaker 01 That's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike.
43:14 Speaker 00 And Morph.
43:14 Speaker 01 We'll talk to you next week.
43:16 Speaker 00 Take care, everyone.
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