After graduating high school, Woodfield’s criminal record was expunged, and he attended Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Oregon, later transferring to Portland State University in Portland in 1970, where he played for the Portland State Vikings as a wide receiver. At Portland State, he was active in Campus Crusade for Christ, a Christian student group, and lived in an apartment located on the South Park Blocks.

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 in Vancouver, Washington. In 1973, he was arrested again for public indecency in Multnomah County.

After being cut by the Packers, Woodfield played the 1974 season with the semi-pro Manitowoc Chiefs and worked for Oshkosh Truck. A similar arrest, in Portland, earned him more suspended time in June 1973. In 1974, after a dozen “flashing” incidents called unwelcome attention to Woodfield, the Packers formally cut him from the NFL.

Woodfield chose to drop out of college three semesters shy of graduating with his B.S. 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). 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. He signed a contract in February 1974 but was cut during training camp, failing to make the team’s final roster.

Woodfield left Wisconsin in late 1974 and returned to Portland, disgraced by his failure to maintain his football career. In early 1975, several Portland women were accosted by a knife-wielding man, forced to perform oral sex and then robbed of their handbags. Law enforcement responded to the string of crimes by having female police officers act as decoys.

The majority of Woodfield’s victims were petite white women in their twenties, many of middle-class backgrounds. 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. In some instances, Woodfield’s attacks were undertaken entirely at random, while in others, the murders were incited by rejected sexual advances. His level of acquaintance with his victims varied; some he knew personally, while others were complete strangers.

Retracing Woodfield’s movements along Interstate 5, law enforcement have identified at least 25 other potential murders, while other estimations suggest up to 44. Notable is Martha Morrison (17), who disappeared in Eugene, Oregon in September 1974, and was found murdered the following month near Vancouver, Washington; her remains were unidentified until 2015. Both Woodfield and Ted Bundy have been considered suspects in her murder.

On March 3, 1975, Woodfield was arrested after being caught with marked money from one of the undercover officers. Upon interrogation, he confessed to the crimes, blaming poor sexual impulse control, which he claimed was a result of his use of steroids. In April 1975, he pled guilty to reduced charges of second-degree robbery. Woodfield was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was freed on parole in July 1979, after having served four years.

On October 9, 1980, Cherie Ayers, an X-ray technician and former classmate of Woodfield, was raped and murdered in her apartment in the 9000 block of SW Ninth Place in downtown Portland. Her body was discovered on October 11 by her fiancé. She had been bludgeoned and stabbed repeatedly in the neck. Ayers, a University of Oregon graduate, had known Woodfield since second grade, having attended the same schools in Newport.

After committing the murders of Fix and Altig, Woodfield began a series of robberies throughout the northwest: On December 9, 1980, Woodfield, wearing a fake beard, held up a Vancouver, Washington gas station at gunpoint. In Eugene, Oregon four nights later, on December 13, he raided an ice cream parlor. On December 14, he robbed a drive-in restaurant in Albany. 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 give him a handjob.

By January 1981, law enforcement had dubbed the robber the “I-5 Bandit”, given his apparent preference for committing crimes along the Interstate 5 corridor. 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. Three days later, on January 11, he robbed a market in Eugene. The next day, January 12, he shot and wounded a female grocery clerk at a store in Sutherlin, Oregon.

On February 3, 1981, the bodies of Donna Eckard, 37, and her 14-year-old daughter were found together in a bed in their home at Mountain Gate, California, north of Redding. Each had been shot several times in the head. Forensic tests showed that the girl had also been sodomized. The same day in Redding, a female store clerk was kidnapped, raped and sodomized in a holdup. An identical crime was reported in Yreka on February 4, with the same man robbing an Ashland, Oregon motel that night.

Five days later in Corvallis, a man matching the I-5 Bandit’s description held up a fabric store, molesting the clerk and her customer before he left. On February 12, 1981, robberies committed by a man matching the I-5 Bandit’s description occurred in Vancouver, Olympia, and Bellevue, Washington. The Olympia and Bellevue incidents included three sexual assaults.

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. His apartment in Springfield, Oregon was subsequently searched two days later by warrant; inside, law enforcement discovered a spent .32 shell casing inside a racquetball bag, as well as a roll of tape that matched the tape found on the victims. On March 7, Woodfield was taken into custody after being positively identified by several Oregon robbery victims. 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.

In the summer of 1981, Woodfield was tried in Salem for the murder of Hull, as well as charges of sodomy and attempted murder (of Wilmot). Wilmot testified against him in the trial, and was key in the prosecution’s conviction. Chris Van Dyke, son of actor Dick Van Dyke, was the Marion County, Oregon District Attorney at the time and prosecuted the case. Van Dyke would later characterize Woodfield as “the coldest, most detached defendant I’ve ever seen.” On June 26, 1981, after three-and-a-half hours of deliberation, Woodfield was convicted on all counts and sentenced to life in prison plus 90 years.

In October 1981, a second trial was held in Benton County, in which Woodfield received sodomy and weapons charges tied to one of the attacks in a restaurant bathroom. Prior to this trial, his counsel attempted to move the trial from Willamette Valley; he felt that, owing to the publicity the case received, Woodfield would not get a fair trial there. The judge in the case denied counsel’s request, along with a request to hypnotize a prosecution witness in an effort to determine if that witness had been influenced by the media coverage. Woodfield was convicted by the jury, and had an additional 35 years added to his already-instated sentence.

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. Their bodies were found in May 1981. Suspected serial killer Martin Lee Sanders was later connected to their murders, but as of 2018 the case remains unsolved.

Woodfield is serving his sentences at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. In October 1983, he was injured by a fellow inmate during a prison disturbance. In April 1987, Woodfield filed a $12 million libel suit against author Ann Rule, the true crime author who had written The I-5 Killer. The account of Woodfield’s life and crime spree became a best-selling book in 1984. The Federal Court in Oregon dismissed the lawsuit in January 1988, citing that the statute of limitations on such a lawsuit had expired.

By 1990, after the discovery of more victims, Woodfield was suspected in as many as 44 homicides. In 2001 and 2006, DNA testing linked Woodfield to two additional murders in Oregon that occurred from 1980 and 1981.

In 2011, Woodfield was the subject of a Lifetime television film Hunt for the I-5 Killer. The film was based on the book The I-5 Killer by Ann Rule. In the film, Woodfield is portrayed by Canadian actor Tygh Runyan.