Green River Killer: A True Detective Story (2011)

Writer Jeff Jensen (AKA Entertainment Weekly's Lost fanatic "Doc" Jensen) and artist Jonathan Case's Green River Killer:  A True Detective Story (2011) is the graphic novel equivalent of David Fincher's Zodiac (2007).  It is a tale of obsession, on behalf of both Jensen's father, Green River Killer Task Force Member Tom Jensen, and the Green River Killer (GRK) himself, Gary Leon Ridgway, the most deadly serial killer in American history (nearly fifty women were confirmed to have been killed by Ridgway).  It's chilling, gripping, and rises to the best levels of what sequential art can achieve.  

The book follows two intersecting stories:  Tom Jensen's initial investigation of the killer's grizzly crime scenes as he deals with his own horror and attempts to bring closure to the families of the GRK's victims.  Since many of the victims were prostitutes, tracking the killer was difficult (most potential witnesses, due to their profession, were unwilling to speak to the police) and led to a public outrage about an oversight of violence directed at women.  In the flashback sequences of the novel, Jensen struggles with limited funding, dated technology, and floods of tips as he attempts to unravel the identity of the killer.  

The second story is set during the early 2000s.  The dated technology of the 1980s has finally allowed Jensen and the Task Force to complete DNA testing both on samples found at the crime scenes and Ridgway's saliva.  A match is found and Ridgway is arrested.  In order to bring more closure to the families of the GRK's victims, the Task Force strikes a deal with Ridgway:  If he is able to give additional confessions that can be corroborated by physical evidence, the prosecutor will not seek the death penalty in the cases pending against him.  In order to expedite the process and keep the plea bargain from rising the ire of the public, the Task Force moves Ridgway into a customized cell in the police station.  He stayed there for 188 days as Jensen and the Task Force interviewed him, took him on field trips to attempt to track down further victims, and attempted to discover why he did what he did.  

For Tom Jensen, Ridgway's motive means everything.  He is a logical man, attracted to the detective philosophies of Sherlock Holmes.  However, what Tom fails to realize until the end of his career is that Ridgway's actions cannot be described as being logical.  They are driven out of sexual violence and anger.  Tom is unable to comprehend how Ridgway can forget "small" details like one of his victims being pregnant or if he put a body in a river or buried it in a ditch.  These are not, he says, memories that should be washed away in the river of time.  Killing a person is a serious ethical offense and it infuriates Tom that Ridgway never really understood that.  

Jeff Jensen's story, which is equally a true crime detective story and a love letter to his father, is superbly written and structured.  Flashbacks are flawlessly executed graphically (perhaps a technique he learned from watching all of that Lost!) and he is able to use Tom Jensen's character as motivation for the limited scope of what was a logistically complex and large investigation.  He is able to balance the bloodcurdling essentials of the case (the crime scene depictions are horrifying) with moments of pure humanity (like Jensen's banter with his partner "Columbo" and his bedside manner with the families of the GRK's victims).  It's not an easy feat to tell such a complicated story spanning three decades in 240 graphic novel pages but the younger Jensen rises to the occasion.  

Finally, Jonathan Case's artwork should not go unnoticed.  Taking an approach that is similar to Eddie Campbell's work on From Hell (1991-1996) and Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard's work on The Walking Dead (2003-Present).  The stark, black and white compositions do not ignore the atrocities of Gary Leon Ridgway but they do make them accessible.  Moreover, Jensen and Case's layouts perfectly support both Tom's emotional response to the investigation (a page flip between 65 and 66 is used to great effect) and Ridgway's deformed reality (there is a chilling sequence in which Ridgway's victims begin to blend into one another over a 9 panel grid).  I cannot recommend Green River Killer highly enough for fans of both true crime and comic book art.