Most Oregonians are kind, caring, wonderful people, and our communities are full of law-abiding citizens who do their best to make the world a better place every day. Unfortunately, every once in awhile a different kind of person moves through our towns and cities, causing terror and wreaking havoc.

During the 1980s, the I-5 killer traveled up and down the Interstate from California to Washington, assaulting and murdering many people in all three states.

Randall Woodfield was born in Salem, Oregon in December, 1950. He was raised in an upper-middle class home in a nice neighborhood in Otter Rock, but by his teen years, it became increasingly clear that something was amiss.
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By the time Randall was in junior high school, he was exposing himself in public. Though his two sibling grew up to be respectable adults with graduate degrees, Randall was on a different path.
Woodfield was a football star in high school, so when he was arrested for indecent exposure after exposing himself to a group of teenaged girls on the Yaquina Bay Bridge, he was still allowed to play on the team.
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After high school, he played ball at Portland State, but there was trouble during college, too. Randall was arrested twice for public indecency and once for vandalizing his ex-girlfriend's apartment.
Mike Morbeck/flickr
He was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1974, and headed off to Wisconsin, but he was cut from the team that fall. Just a few months later, Randall started committing more serious crimes, including robbery and sexual assault. He was soon caught, pled guilty, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He served four years and was paroled in July, 1979.

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In October, 1980, Cherie Ayers was raped and stabbed to death in her apartment. She was a grade-school classmate of Randall's and corresponded with him during his time in prison. Though he was a suspect in her murder, ultimately no charges were filed against him.
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Just a month later, Woodfield assaulted and killed Darcey Renee Fix and Douglas Keith Altig. Police questioned him, but didn't have any concrete evidence, so he was released.
From December, 1980 through January, 1981, Woodfield moved up and down I-5, robbing and assaulting gas station employees, waitresses, a grocery clerk, and office workers. He was dubbed the "I-5 Bandit," and stories of his crime terrified people in three different states.
Doug Kerr/flickr
In February, Woodfield killed Donna Eckard and her 14-year-old daughter in Mountain Gate, California, then sexually assaulted two women in a fabric store in Corvallis. He traveled up to Washington and committed three more sexual assaults and several robberies in Vancouver, Bellevue, and Olympia.

In the early morning hours of February 15, 1981, he raped and killed Julie Reitz in her home. He continued to attack several more victims as police gathered enough evidence to arrest him.
On March 7, 1981, Randall Woodfield was arrested, and later indicted for a long list of crimes including murder, rape, sodomy, attempted kidnapping, and armed robbery. With several witnesses testifying, and plenty of physical evidence, a jury found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison plus 90 years for good measure.
Prison Insight/flickr
In October, 1981, he was tried on more charges, found guilty, and another 35 years were added to his sentence. Woodfield currently resides in the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. Though he was convicted of just one murder, it's thought that he may have committed as many as 44 homicides during his killing spree.

Do you remember when Randall Woodfield terrorized the communities in our beautiful state? Share your memories and thoughts with us in the comments.

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