Decades before DNA evidence linked Mitchell Gaff to two Washington cold-case murders, he admitted to six rapes during state psychological evaluations, court records show.
Years later, a judge ended his civil commitment, allowing him to live in the community without the restrictions imposed under Washington’s sexually violent predator program.
Gaff pleaded guilty in April 2026 to the murders of Judith “Judy” Weaver and Susan Vesey. A Snohomish County Superior Court judge sentenced him to 50 years to life in prison in May.
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His convictions have raised questions about other victims, given Gaff’s history of sexual violence before a court unconditionally released him from civil commitment in September 2018.
Gaff later lived in Olympia under the alias “Sam Wise Price.”
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Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a forensic psychologist and author not affiliated with the case, told Fox News Digital that ignoring a predator’s admissions carries dangerous risks.
“Psychologically, if he’d confessed but discovered there’d be no consequence, he’d likely feel emboldened to potentially repeat it,” Ramsland said.
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Victims found strangled, sexually assaulted
In June 1984, authorities found Weaver bound, sexually assaulted and strangled inside her apartment off Rucker Avenue in Everett. Investigators determined that Gaff had also sliced her clothing with a knife and set a fire in an attempt to destroy evidence.
The investigation initially focused on Bill Richards, Weaver’s fiancé. Weaver’s daughters told investigators that the couple had a volatile relationship, according to KING 5 News.
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Richards remained a suspect until his death in 1994.
In November 2023, Everett Police Department Detective Susan Logothetti submitted evidence from Weaver’s case for modern DNA testing, after obtaining a DNA sample through a ruse involving chewing gum.
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Authorities arrested Gaff in May 2024 after obtaining a DNA sample through the gum.
DNA evidence then linked Gaff to Vesey’s murder. Authorities found her beaten and bound inside her Everett home on June 2, 1984, the morning of her 21st birthday.
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Everett police said Gaff’s statements about the murders matched evidence investigators had gathered.
Court records document a history of sexual violence
In 1979, a jury convicted Gaff of first-degree burglary and second-degree assault after he bound a woman’s hands, repeatedly struck her with a pistol and smashed her head against concrete before she escaped, according to a Washington Court of Appeals opinion.
Gaff received probation and work release. While still on probation in 1984, he broke into an Everett home and raped two teen sisters, ages 14 and 16, at knifepoint. A judge imposed an exceptional prison sentence of 138 months and revoked his probation, requiring him to serve his sentences consecutively.
Before Gaff’s scheduled release from prison, Washington authorities petitioned to commit him to a secure facility as a sexually violent predator.
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During psychological evaluations, Gaff admitted to making obscene calls and committing sexual assaults, including six rapes. A jury found that he met the legal criteria for civil commitment, and the Washington Court of Appeals upheld the decision in April 1998.
A psychologist who testified for the state diagnosed Gaff with sexual sadism and concluded that he posed a risk of reoffending.
A defense expert, meanwhile, believed Gaff could live safely in the community under controlled conditions.
Gaff moved to a halfway house before his 2018 release
By 2005, state evaluators decided Gaff no longer required maximum confinement and approved his transfer to a less restrictive setting. In 2006, he left Washington’s Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island for a secure halfway house in Seattle’s SoDo district.
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The agreement required GPS monitoring and supervision whenever Gaff left the facility. It also required him to give up his right to challenge his sexually violent predator status for eight years.
Gaff remained under the state’s civil commitment system until September 2018, when a court dismissed his sexually violent predator petition and unconditionally released him from civil commitment, according to a 2019 report in The Olympian.
“It’s tricky to hold them beyond their sentence, and sometimes it means having to prove they’re an imminent danger, not just a possible one,” Ramsland said.
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Police investigate whether Gaff had more victims
Everett police are now reviewing other unsolved homicides, sexual assaults and cold cases for possible links to Gaff, Logothetti told Fox News Digital.
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“This is ongoing. I absolutely believe there are more victims,” Logothetti said when asked whether detectives had reviewed other cases in light of Gaff’s admissions to rapes during psychological evaluations.
Logothetti said that Gaff told evaluators he would often alter his stories “without giving away too much.”
“He said it was amusing to him to change details in his admissions, which his treatment team did not pick up on over the years,” she added.
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Detectives have compared details from Gaff’s disclosures with unsolved cases across Washington and other states, but have not identified additional victims or crimes since his 2024 arrest or 2026 guilty pleas, Logothetti said.
Gaff’s defense attorney, Heather Wolfenbarger, declined to comment on the case.
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Anyone with information about other potential victims linked to Gaff is urged to call the Everett Police Department tip line at 425-257-8450.
