Joseph Kondro

On November 21, 1996, 12-year-old Kara Rudd vanished after entering a car on the grounds of her middle school in to Monticello. As with the Traxler case, Rudd had been a popular girl with no behavioral issues and was not suspected as a runaway. Again there was a connection to Joseph Kondro, but this time the suspicions were more concrete. Kondro had been a childhood friend of Kara's mother, was known to the victim herself, and had frequently stayed in the family's garage before being evicted due to his chronic drinking issues.

On May 15, 1985, Rima Traxler, a third-grader at St. Helens Elementary School in Longview, went missing. She had been a well-behaved and academically successful child with little in the way of conflicts or behavioral issues, so the community suspected that she had become a kidnap victim rather than a runaway. However, there was little trace of exactly when or how she had disappeared. Kondro had been friends with Rima's parents and was apparently drinking beer with Traxler's stepfather on the day she vanished. He was questioned by police, but not named as a person of interest in the case.

To avoid the death penalty, Kondro and his attorneys struck a deal with prosecutors, in which he confessed to the murder of Traxler more than a decade before. Kondro explained that he was already known and liked by the Traxler family, and he was able to trick the girl into entering his vehicle by mentioning the word "unicorn", a safety password taught to her by her parents, and which he had learned from her stepfather. He raped, bludgeoned and strangled Traxler at Germany Creek, burying her beside a tree. By the terms of the plea deal, he was sentenced to 55 years in prison at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Because of his violent tendencies and criminal record, authorities strongly suspected he had been involved in the unexplained disappearances of other preteen girls throughout the region besides Traxler and Rudd. They were especially convinced of Kondro's role in Silvernails' disappearance in 1982, given the striking similarities in modus operandi between her case and those of the other girls, the location of the crime, and the fact that Kondro had dated Silvernails’ mother. Detectives planned to question him further about the other unsolved disappearances, but he balked at discussing them due to concerns about a capital punishment imposition. Kondro died in prison of liver disease likely related to Hepatitis C infection.

In the early 1980s, authorities were baffled by the unexplained disappearances of several young girls in southwestern Washington. Among these was Chila Silvernails of Kalama, who vanished in 1982 on her way to catching a school bus. Her nude body was found the day after her disappearance; she had been raped and strangled. Kondro had dated Silvernails’ mother, but he was not initially suspected in the crime.

Joseph Robert Kondro (May 19, 1959 – May 3, 2012), known as The Longview Serial Killer, was an American serial killer implicated in the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of three children in or near Longview, Washington – 8-year-old Rima Traxler, 12-year-old Kara Rudd and 8-year-old Chila Silvernails – in the 1980s and 1990s. Kondro confessed to the first two murders and was strongly suspected in the third, and possibly linked to the disappearances of many other young girls in the region, before his death in prison of natural causes in 2012.

Joseph Kondro was born on May 19, 1959 in Marquette, Michigan, to a Chippewa mother with six other children. He was adopted at birth by John and Elenor Kondro, who raised him in Iron River, Michigan before the family moved to Castle Rock, Washington. He attended a Catholic parochial school.