Randall Woodfield

Randall Brent Woodfield (born December 26, 1950) is an American serial killer, serial rapist, kidnapper, robber, burglar and former football player who was dubbed the I-5 Killer or the I-5 Bandit by the media due to the crimes he committed along the Interstate 5 corridor running through Washington, Oregon and California.

Before his capture, Woodfield was suspected of multiple sexual assaults and murders.

Though convicted in only one murder, he has been linked to a total of eighteen murders and is suspected of having killed up to as many as 44 people.

A native of Oregon, Woodfield was the third child of a prominent Newport family.

He began to exhibit abnormal behaviors during his teenage years and was arrested for indecent exposure while still in high school.

Randall Woodfield was born on December 26, 1950, in Salem, Oregon, the third child of an upper-middle-class family.

His mother was a homemaker, and his father was an executive at Pacific Northwest Bell.

He has two older sisters, one of whom went on to become a doctor and the other an attorney.

The Woodfield family was "well-known and respected" in their community.

Woodfield was raised in Otter Rock, Oregon, a small seaside town approximately 8 mi north of Newport.

Popular among his peers, he was a football star at Newport High School.

Though his childhood was by all accounts stable, Woodfield began to exhibit sexually dysfunctional behaviors during junior high school, particularly exposing himself in public.

While in high school, Woodfield exposed himself to a group of teenage girls on Yaquina Bay Bridge and was arrested.

His football coaches helped conceal the incident to prevent him from being ousted from the team, though his parents forced him to attend therapy after the incident.

After graduating from high school, Woodfield's criminal record was expunged and he attended Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Oregon, later transferring to Portland State University in Portland in 1970, where he played for the Portland State Vikings as a wide receiver.

At Portland State, he was active in Campus Crusade for Christ, an evangelical Christian student group, and lived in an apartment located on the South Park Blocks.

Gary Hamblet, Woodfield's football coach, recalled: "When he was with me, he was the nicest, most gentlemanly kid I ever knew. He was quiet and polite, hard-working and real coachable."

Other teammates and peers of Woodfield recalled him as "soft-spoken" and "kind of a loner" who "didn't have a lot of friends," but noted his athleticism.

Despite his thriving in college, Woodfield was arrested on several occasions for petty crimes: first in 1970 for vandalizing the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, and later in 1972 for public indecency in Vancouver, Washington.

In 1973 he was arrested again for public indecency in Multnomah County, Oregon.

An athlete for much of his life, Woodfield played as a wide receiver for the Portland State Vikings and was drafted by the National Football League in 1974 to play for the Green Bay Packers, but was cut from the team during training after a series of indecent exposure arrests.

Woodfield chose to drop out of college three semesters shy of graduating with his B.S. in physical education, and was selected as a wide receiver in the 1974 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers in the 17th round (428th pick).

Woodfield tried to establish himself with the Packers during Coach and General Manager Dan Devine's last season, but could not shake his problems with a trip across the country.

He signed a contract in February 1974 but was cut during training camp, failing to make the team's final roster.

After being cut by the Packers, Woodfield played the 1974 season with the semi-pro Manitowoc Chiefs and worked for Oshkosh Truck.

Woodfield left Wisconsin in late 1974 and returned to Portland, feeling disgraced by his failure to maintain his football career.

In 1975, Woodfield began a string of robberies and sexual assaults on women in Portland, which he committed at knifepoint.

In early 1975, several Portland women were accosted by a knife-wielding man, forced to perform oral sex and then robbed of their handbags.

Law enforcement responded to the string of crimes by having female police officers act as decoys.

On March 3, 1975, Woodfield was arrested after being caught with marked money from one of the undercover officers.

Upon interrogation he confessed to the crimes, blaming poor sexual impulse control, which he claimed was a result of his use of steroids.

Between 1980 and 1981, he committed multiple murders in cities along the I-5 corridor; his earliest-documented murder was that of Cherie Ayers, a former classmate whom he had known since childhood, in October 1980.

After committing numerous violent crimes, Woodfield was arrested in March 1981, and convicted in June of the murder of Shari Hull and attempted murder of her co-worker, Beth Wilmot.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 90 years.

In a subsequent trial, he was convicted of sodomy and improper use of a weapon in a sexual assault case, receiving 35 additional years to his sentence.

Woodfield has never confessed to any of the crimes of which he has been accused or convicted.

Though he has only been convicted of one murder and one attempted murder, he has been linked via DNA and other methods to numerous unsolved homicides in the ensuing decades.

Authorities have estimated his total number of killings to be as many as 44.

CBS News named him one of the deadliest serial killers in American history.

He is currently incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary.