[citation needed] In 1975, Woodfield began a string of robberies and sexual assaults on women in Portland, which he committed at knifepoint.

In a subsequent trial, he was convicted of sodomy and improper use of a weapon in a sexual assault case, receiving 35 additional years to his sentence.

[5] Woodfield was raised in Otter Rock, Oregon, a small seaside town approximately 8 miles (13 km) north of Newport.

[5] Though his childhood was by all accounts stable, Woodfield began to exhibit sexually dysfunctional behaviors during junior high school, particularly exposing himself in public.

[5][10] At Portland State, he was active in Campus Crusade for Christ, an evangelical Christian student group, and lived in an apartment located on the South Park Blocks.

[5] Despite his thriving in college, Woodfield was arrested on several occasions for petty crimes: first in 1970 for vandalizing the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, and later in 1972 for public indecency[11] in Vancouver, Washington.

in physical education, and was selected as a wide receiver in the 1974 NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers in the 17th round (428th pick).

[11][9] Woodfield tried to establish himself with the Packers during Coach and General Manager Dan Devine's last season, but could not shake his problems with a trip across the country.

[14] In early 1975,[11] several Portland women were accosted by a knife-wielding man, forced to perform oral sex and then robbed of their handbags.

[14] On October 9, 1980, Cherie Lynn Ayers, an X-ray technician and former classmate of Woodfield, was raped and murdered in her apartment at SW Ninth Place in downtown Portland.

[15] One month later, on the morning of November 27 (Thanksgiving Day), Woodfield arrived at the north Portland home of Darcey Renee Fix, 22, planning to assault her.

Due to his acquaintance with Fix, Woodfield was questioned about the murders, but law enforcement found no concrete evidence pointing to his involvement.

[9] During one of the robberies, Woodfield wore what appeared to be a Band-Aid or athletic tape across the bridge of his nose, similar to nasal strips worn by football players.

On December 21, Woodfield (again wearing a false beard) accosted a waitress in Seattle, trapping her in a restaurant bathroom and forcing her at gunpoint to masturbate him.

On January 8, he held up the same Vancouver gas station he had robbed in December, this time forcing a female attendant to expose her breasts after he emptied the cash register.

[citation needed] On January 14, a man matching the description of the I-5 Bandit and wearing a false beard invaded a home occupied by two sisters, aged eight and ten.

[citation needed] On February 3, 1981, the bodies of Donna Eckard, 37, and her 14-year-old daughter, Janell Charlotte Jarvis, were found together in a bed in their home in Mountain Gate, California, north of Redding.

Five days later in Corvallis, a man matching the I-5 Bandit's description held up a fabric store, molested the clerk and her customer before he left.

[citation needed] Upon an impending visit to Portland, Woodfield planned a Valentine's Day party at the city's downtown Marriott Hotel, inviting friends and acquaintances from college.

[6] After no guests came, Woodfield drove to the Beaverton home of 18-year-old Julie Reitz, who he had met while working as a bouncer at The Faucet, a bar in Portland.

[9] On March 5, 1981, Woodfield was brought into the Salem Police Department for an interrogation after Lisa Garcia positively identified him in a photo lineup.

[9] On March 16, indictments for murder, rape, sodomy, attempted kidnapping, armed robbery, and illegal possession of firearms were initiated from various jurisdictions in Washington and Oregon.

[9] In October 1981, a second trial was held in Benton County, Oregon, in which Woodfield received sodomy and weapons charges tied to one of the attacks in a restaurant bathroom.

[18] In April 1987, he filed a $12 million libel suit against Ann Rule,[19] the author who had written The I-5 Killer, an account of Woodfield's life and crime spree, in 1984.

[9] A great many of his victims—particularly in instances of robbery and sexual assault—were young employees of restaurants and convenience stores located along Interstate 5, which Woodfield traversed in his 1974 Champagne Edition gold Volkswagen Beetle.

[6] During his robberies, assaults, and killings, Woodfield typically concealed his identity by wearing a hoodie, a fake beard,[23] and most curiously, a strip of athletic tape across his nose.

"[6] Ann Rule, who documented Woodfield's crimes in The I-5 Killer, suggested that rejection and feelings of inadequacy were factors that drove him to violence, particularly against women.

[25] Unlike many serial killers, whose killing patterns are characterized by intervals or "cooling off periods," Woodfield's murders and other crimes escalated rapidly, increasing in successive frequency.

[30] During the spring of 1980, Marsha Weatter (19) and Kathy Allen (18) vanished while hitch-hiking from the Spokane, Washington, area to their hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska.