This memorial website is created to honor the memory of Debra Lorraine Estes, who was murdered at the age of 15 by Gary Ridgway, the "Green River Killer", in the vicinity of Federal Way, near Seattle, Washington State. The webmaster is of no relation to Debra or her family, and has no financial interest in putting up this website. She set up this website because of an interest in victims' rights, and because she wanted Debra to be remembered by those who knew her, as a fun-loving, free-spirited teenager who was adventurous and wanted to experience life.
According to Ann Rule's book, GREEN RIVER RUNNING RED, Debra Lorraine Estes was one of three children born to a loving family. They operated a trucking company from their home on the SeaTac Strip. When Debra was only about ten or eleven years old, she began thinking she was older than she really was, and was getting birth control pills from Planned Parenthood without her parents' permission or knowledge. Debra ran away from home many times, and her parents worried about her constantly and looked for her. One year, Debra came home with Rebecca Marrero, a friend of hers, and asked if Rebecca (Becky) could not stay with them for a while, but the parents said this was impossible. Debra, angered by their refusal, apparently took money from her mother's purse and left. Where she went after this is not known; it appears that she may have been staying with the Marrero family in White Center, where Becky lived. Becky Marrero had a three-year-old child; she was slightly older than Debra, but the two girls were good friends.
Debra began associating with men who were much older than she, and they may or may not have known that she was only fifteen. She was soon "working the Strip", and living with her "boyfriend" (pimp) in a motel. The night she disappeared, she was wearing dark slacks and a sweater with glittering gold or silver threads and her hair was newly dyed black. She told her boyfriend, "Sammy White" that she'd be back, then walked away into the night and never came back. Like the other victims, she had vanished without a trace. Debra's parents continued to look for her after she had vanished, and her father searched the streets near the airport, to no avail. Meanwhile, police detectives caught up with the boyfriend, who maintained that he had gotten Debra to stop taking "speed" (amphetamines) and that he had warned her that "being out on the streets was dangerous". Debra had been caught up in a world that was shadowy and dangerous, and one for which she was totally unnprepared. She was trying to act older and experience things that even much older individuals would be scared to experience.
The night she vanished, Debra was picked up on the Strip by Gary Ridgway, a Seattle-based truck painter who was a long-time employee of Kenworth Trucking Company. Ridgway strangled Debra to death, then evidently left her body on the grounds of a construction site of a new apartment complex near Federal Way. Earth-moving equipment evidently buried the body accidentally, and her remains were found quite by accident, when an apartment complex worker, digging holes for a fence post, struck what was a bone. Work was immediately called off and the police were notified. Detectives and the medical examiner familiar with Debra's case noted right away that the skull had an unusual stainless-steel filling in the same place that Debra had had one, and they feared they had finally found Debra Estes. Forensic tests soon proved that sadly, the remains were those of Debra Lorraine Estes, aged just fifteen when she met such a tragic end.
At Ridgway's trial, Debra's family addressed the court, and Debra's older sister, Virginia, told the court that Debra had a bright smile, loved horses, and liked to sit in the woods and dream. Debra's dreams were cut short when she met up with Gary Ridgway, who, as her mother stated, "is an evil creature." Debra Estes probably would have gotten out of prostitution on her own, but any decisions like that were taken away from her by the cruelty of Gary Ridgway, who was indifferent to human suffering and cared about nobody but himself.
Debra should be remembered for being a fun-loving and adventurous teen who wanted to see what life was all about. She left us far too soon. Rest in peace, Debra.