George Russell Jr.: The Class Clown Who Became a Serial Killer

A Not-So-Classic Family Beginning

Florida, 1958. George Waterfield Russell Sr. and his wife, Joyce, had their first child, George Russell Jr., and, on paper, it probably looked like a classic, happy family was in the making. But reality had other plans. Not long after George Jr. was born, Joyce decided she needed a fresh start—a different kind of life—so she packed up, left her husband, and, maybe surprisingly, left her infant son with her mother while she went off to college. She’d be back, she assured herself, with a degree and a better future. And she did come back—only it wasn’t just a diploma she’d picked up along the way. She returned with a new husband, a successful dentist, and a move to an upscale Washington neighborhood. For little George, though, it meant a life where he’d always be a bit on the outside, part of his mother’s life but never really at its center.

Growing Up on Mercer Island: George’s Early Years

The dentist husband had money, so they upgraded to the affluent Mercer Island, Washington. George, now reunited with his mother, found himself one of the few Black faces in this wealthy, mostly white neighborhood. But Joyce’s fresh start didn’t exactly mean a fresh start for George. With her attention on the daughter she’d had with her new husband, George often felt like an afterthought.

Seeking Attention and Acting Out

Craving attention, George quickly became the loud, boisterous kid who could crack everyone up. In high school, he played the role of the class clown, charming his way through the day. But this was more than just teenage angst; it was George’s way of coping with feeling out of place among his classmates—kids from rich, white families who couldn’t understand his reality. Beneath the jokes, he was struggling, and his coping methods took a dark turn.

From Class Clown to Troubled Teen

At first, George’s rebellion was typical teen stuff: skipping class, smoking pot, lifting stuff from school lockers. But his antics escalated. Soon, he was sneaking into people’s homes while they slept, taking “souvenirs” like cash, jewelry, and, in some disturbing cases, just standing over sleeping women to watch. The local cops were stumped, guessing their mystery burglar might be getting some thrill out of violating homes. Meanwhile, George was becoming a regular at the police station, thanks to a truancy program that let him shadow cops instead of facing actual discipline. It wasn’t long before the station became his second home.

The Double Life: Friend by Day, Criminal by Night

Back at home, George’s family life was disintegrating. Joyce remarried and then promptly un-married yet again, moving on from both her husband and George. George’s new stepmother, however, fascinated him, and not in a good way. He began sneaking into her room to watch her sleep until his behavior escalated, ultimately leading to him getting kicked out of the house. At sixteen, George bounced between family members’ homes and friends’ couches, wherever he could crash.

This couch-surfing lifestyle stuck. By his twenties, George was the kind of guy who could charm a free meal or a place to stay without a second thought. His days were spent hanging around the police station, while his nights found him frequenting Bellevue’s popular nightclubs, a duffle bag containing his worldly possessions and a stash of adult magazines in tow. George’s charm earned him friends and favors—people lent him their cars, offered their couches, let him borrow anything he needed. Yet he wasn’t just there to network.

The Crimes Escalate, and George’s Past Catches Up

George had a unique way of using his police connections to gain women’s trust, and often, this tactic worked. But when his advances fell flat, he’d take the rejection personally, even violently, before calming down and continuing his night. For the friends he kept, George’s temper was a worrying quirk. For the women who crossed him, it was much worse.

By the time he hit his thirties, George was still the likable, vagabond-type character everyone knew. Sure, he’d “borrow” your car and some valuables, but then he’d charm his way back in with a nice dinner and maybe even a round of drinks. “It’s cool, hon,” he’d say. But the surface charm couldn’t contain what was festering underneath, and soon, things took a dark turn.

One night, after getting banned from a club for impersonating a cop, George snapped. Shortly afterward, twenty-seven-year-old Mary Anne Pohlreich went missing from a nightclub and was later found dead, beaten, and posed near a dumpster, nude, with a fir cone placed in her hands. It was a grim scene, carefully arranged. Not long after, thirty-five-year-old Carol Betthe also disappeared. She was later discovered in her bed, beaten, with her skull shattered, her body posed provocatively in red heels, and her shotgun—a former security measure—inserted inside her. The horror of her death was amplified by the fact that her daughter had reportedly seen someone lurking with a flashlight that night.

A few weeks later, another woman, Andrea “Randi” Levine, was found in a similar state. Blood spattered her room, her body mutilated by over 200 knife wounds. She’d been staged in a grotesque display, a copy of More Joy of Sex clutched in her left hand, and an intimate toy stuffed down her throat. Just like before, items were taken from each scene—rings and keepsakes that George would later give as gifts, tokens that eventually led police right to him.

The Trial and the Consequences

George’s downfall came when he gifted Randi’s ring to a woman, telling her it was a Canadian street vendor’s trinket. Semen, fibers, and hair tied him to the scenes of all three murders, with some evidence even found in a friend’s truck he’d borrowed. Washington’s first serial murder trial was a gruesome affair. Testimonies from George’s friends painted a clear picture of his twisted mind: he’d saved newspaper clippings about his victims, called them “skanky sluts,” and bragged about how the cops would never catch him.

It took the jury twenty-two hours to deliberate before they returned a guilty verdict on three counts of first-degree murder. George Russell Jr. received two life sentences plus twenty-eight years, the final chapter for a kid who’d once just wanted to make everyone laugh.

The End of George Russell Jr.’s Tale

And so, George Russell Jr.’s story closes, though it’s hard to say there’s any satisfaction in it. From the start, his life seemed like one long domino chain of missed chances and twisted choices. Here was a boy left behind not once but repeatedly, looking for love in all the wrong places, then in all the wrong ways, and finally in ways that warped from simply sad to terrifyingly sinister. All his charm and bravado—traits that had kept him afloat in school hallways and nightclub booths—couldn’t cover the fact that, at his core, George had become a man living a lie.

What’s disturbing is how many people welcomed George into their lives, seeing him as the funny, charismatic wanderer who just needed a hand—a couch here, a car there, maybe a coffee and a chat. People liked George, or at least thought they did. But in those quiet moments, in those tense rejections from women who weren’t impressed by his borrowed cop status or relentless charisma, George’s veneer would crack. The anger beneath would boil over, often needing a friend to calm him down before he could shrug it off and move on to the next conquest.

But “moving on” meant something different for George. His strange fascination with people’s bedrooms, his bizarre enjoyment of lurking over the beds of sleeping women, and his disturbing collection of “trophies” hinted at something far darker. People may have joked about George’s quirks or his wayward lifestyle, but no one seemed to grasp the depth of his fixation, not until it was far, far too late.

Now, George spends his days in prison—a permanent pause in a life that craved attention, sought approval, and eventually twisted into something unrecognizable. His story, in a way, is a warning of how unresolved pain, unchecked anger, and endless manipulation can spiral into something monstrous. You almost wonder if, in a different world, things might’ve gone differently for him. If a teacher, a friend, or his mother had truly seen him, maybe they could’ve helped him break that cycle of abandonment and rejection that fueled his desperation.

But that’s not the world George lived in. And he didn’t choose redemption when he had the chance. Instead, he chose a path that left a string of lives shattered, families broken, and an entire community traumatized. For all his clever lines, smooth-talking ways, and bravado, he ended up exactly where his choices led him—alone, confined, no one left to charm, and all the lies laid bare.

There’s no happy ending here, no neatly tied-up resolution. George Russell Jr. is a man who fell so far off course that there was no way back. The boy who just wanted his mother’s love became a man who left an irreversible mark of horror. Now, for the rest of his days, he faces his real reflection—a lifetime away from the clubs, the classrooms, and the people who thought they knew him. And that’s all that’s left: the quiet, unflinching weight of all he’s done and the cold, hard reality that he can’t charm his way out of this one.