A Famous Serial Killer And His Tie To The Tri-Cities
On November 1st, 1978 the body of Lisa Martini was found in her apartment. The teenage girl was was found by her boyfriend late that afternoon. She was naked, sexually assaulted, stabbed, and left to die. Her killer wasn't found.
Kennewick Police had little luck closing the case and bringing Martini's killer to justice. Then in 1983 the case seemed to solve itself, or so they thought, as a man being held in Texas was confessing to unsolved murders around the United States.
Martini and her boyfriend lived at the Clearwater Square Apartments on Clearwater Ave at the time of her murder. Henry Lee Lucas admitted to committing roughly 600 murders to law enforcement agencies in Texas and a number of other States.
Lucas had been convicted of killing his mother in 1960, served 10 years and was released in 1971. Lucas admitted to killing two women, Becky Powell and Kate Rich, upon his arrest in 1982. It was at this time he claimed responsibility for multiple murders.
Lucas said he not only murdered Martini, but also killed 16-year-old Krisann Baxter of Spokane nearly a month earlier. Charges began to pile up against Lucas in multiple jurisdictions as a result of his confessions, including in the case of Lisa Martini.
Even when Lucas began to recant scores of murders, the charges in the Lisa Martini case stayed until the turn of the 21st Century. That was when then Benton County prosecutor Andy Miller filed a motion to dismiss the charges in may of 2001, two months after Lucas died in a Texas prison.
Miller stated DNA from blood collected on a towel in Martini's apartment did not match Lucas. Martini's murder would eventually be solved but her killer would not be brought to justice,
DNA from Martini's body was tied to King Arthur Bradford who was a neighbor of martini and her boyfriend at the time of her murder. Bradford died of a heroin overdose in Seattle in 2001, two years before DNA would link him to the murder. Of the murders Henry Lee Lucas would be convicted of, none were in Washington State.
Celebrities Who Were Murdered
Gallery Credit: Natasha Reda