Decades before DNA evidence connected Mitchell Gaff to two Washington cold-case killings, he acknowledged six rapes during court-ordered psychological evaluations, according to court records.
Years later, a judge ended his civil commitment, permitting him to live in the community without the restrictions required under Washington’s sexually violent predator program.
Gaff pleaded guilty in April 2026 to killing Judith “Judy” Weaver and Susan Vesey. A Snohomish County Superior Court judge sentenced him in May to 50 years to life in prison.
Mitchell Gaff is shown in a mugshot. (Washington State Department of Corrections)
The convictions have prompted questions about whether Gaff may have had additional victims, given his record of sexual violence and his unconditional release from civil commitment in September 2018.
Gaff later lived in Olympia under the name “Sam Wise Price.”
Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a forensic psychologist and author who is not involved in the case, told News Outlet that failing to act on a predator’s admissions can carry serious risks.
“Psychologically, if he’d confessed but discovered there would be no consequences, he’d likely feel emboldened to potentially repeat it,” Ramsland said.
Victims found strangled and sexually assaulted
In June 1984, authorities discovered Weaver bound, sexually assaulted and strangled inside her apartment near Rucker Avenue in Everett. Investigators said Gaff also cut her clothing with a knife and started a fire in an apparent effort to destroy evidence.
Authorities found Judy Weaver’s body inside her Rucker Avenue home in Everett, Washington, after first responders were called to a fire on June 2, 1984. (Everett Police Department)
Investigators initially focused on Bill Richards, Weaver’s fiancé. According to KING 5 News, Weaver’s daughters described the couple’s relationship as volatile.
Richards continued to be considered a suspect until his death in 1994.
In November 2023, Everett Police Department Detective Susan Logothetti submitted evidence from Weaver’s case for advanced DNA testing. Investigators obtained a sample from Gaff through a ruse involving chewing gum.
Authorities arrested Gaff in May 2024 after securing the DNA sample.
The DNA evidence also connected him to Vesey’s killing. Authorities found Vesey beaten and bound inside her Everett home on June 2, 1984, the morning of her 21st birthday.
Authorities said Susan Vesey was killed inside her Everett, Washington, home on July 12, 1980. (Everett Police Department)
Everett police said Gaff’s statements about the killings were consistent with evidence collected by investigators.
Court records detail a history of sexual violence
In 1979, a jury convicted Gaff of first-degree burglary and second-degree assault after he tied a woman’s hands, repeatedly hit her with a pistol and slammed her head against concrete before she managed to escape, according to a Washington Court of Appeals opinion.
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Gaff was sentenced to probation and work release. While still on probation in 1984, he broke into an Everett home and raped two teenage sisters, ages 14 and 16, at knifepoint. A judge revoked his probation and imposed an exceptional 138-month prison sentence, ordering him to serve the sentences consecutively.
As Gaff’s release from prison approached, Washington authorities petitioned to place him in a secure facility as a sexually violent predator.
Mitchell Gaff pleaded guilty to raping two women and killing Judith Weaver and Susan Vesey in Everett, Washington, according to the Everett Police Department. (KCPQ)
During psychological evaluations, Gaff admitted to making obscene phone calls and committing sexual assaults, including six rapes. A jury determined that he met the legal standard for civil commitment, and the Washington Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in April 1998.
A psychologist testifying for the state diagnosed Gaff with sexual sadism and concluded that he presented a risk of reoffending.
A defense expert, however, said Gaff could live safely in the community under controlled conditions.
Gaff moved to a halfway house before his 2018 release
By 2005, state evaluators concluded that Gaff no longer needed maximum confinement and approved his transfer to a less restrictive setting. The following year, he left Washington’s Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island and moved to a secure halfway house in Seattle’s SoDo district.
The arrangement required GPS monitoring and supervision any time Gaff left the facility. It also required him to waive his right to challenge his sexually violent predator status for eight years.
Gaff remained in Washington’s civil commitment system until September 2018, when a court dismissed the sexually violent predator petition and unconditionally released him, according to a 2019 report by The Olympian.
Mitchell Gaff appears in court in Washington. (FOX 13 Seattle)
“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.
Police examine whether Gaff had additional victims
Everett police are reviewing other unsolved homicides, sexual assaults and cold cases for possible connections to Gaff, Detective Logothetti told News Outlet.
“This is ongoing. I absolutely believe there are more victims,” Logothetti said when asked whether detectives had reexamined other cases after learning of Gaff’s admissions during psychological evaluations.
Logothetti said Gaff told evaluators that he would often change 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.
Detectives have compared details from Gaff’s disclosures with unsolved cases in Washington and other states. However, Logothetti said investigators had not identified additional victims or crimes since his 2024 arrest or his 2026 guilty pleas.
Gaff’s defense attorney, Heather Wolfenbarger, declined to comment.
Anyone with information about potential victims connected to Gaff is asked to contact the Everett Police Department tip line at 425-257-8450.
