Marta Reeves was 36 when she was last heard from on March 5, 1990, after a phone call to her estranged husband. A mother of four, she’d been separated from her family and struggling with a crack cocaine addiction that led to prostitution in Seattle; she had two arrests for prostitution in the month before she disappeared. Six months after that last contact, on September 20, 1990, skeletal remains identified as Marta’s were found in a marshy area along Highway 410 about eight miles east of Enumclaw, near locations where other victims’ remains had been found.

An autopsy could not determine an exact cause of death because of the condition of the remains, but the death was attributed to homicidal violence with possible asphyxia. Years later, Gary Leon Ridgway confessed to numerous killings and pleaded guilty to multiple murders; Marta Reeves was among the 48 women he pleaded guilty to murdering on November 5, 2003. Her family said the plea brought long-awaited closure and remembered Marta as a kind and loving wife and mother.

If anyone knew Marta’s movements in early 1990 or has information about her last months, please share what is known.