Remains found in Auburn are likely Green River victim

Remains found in an Auburn ravine earlier this week are those of a likely Green River serial killer victim.

The King County Sheriff's Office says dental records positively identified the victim as Rebecca "Becky" Marrero. The 20-year-old was last seen on Dec. 3, 1982, leaving a motel room on Pacific Highway South.

Green River killer Gary Ridgway was arrested in 2001 after DNA tests linked him to some of dozens of unsolved killings dating to the early 1980s. He pleaded guilty two years later to murdering 48 women, most of them runaways, prostitutes and drug addicts in a deal that spared him from the death penalty.

Ridgway has not been charged in Marrero's case, but Marrero was long considered a Green River victim. Her remains were found Tuesday in the same area where victim Marie Malvar's remains were found in 2003.

The sheriff's office says Ridgway was questioned extensively in 2003 about Becky Marrero's disappearance.