Gary Ridgway: Difference between revisions
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| “ | I killed so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight. | „ |
| ~ Gary Ridgway |
Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949) is an American serial killer known as the Green River Killer, convicted of 48 separate murders and confessed to nearly double that number. As part of his plea bargain, another conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, which made him the most prolific serial killer in United States history according to confirmed murders until 2017, when Samuel Little was confirmed to have committed 50 murders.
He murdered numerous women and girls, most of whom were also alleged prostitutes, in Washington during the 1980s and 1990s, earning his nickname when the first five victims were found in the Green River. He strangled them, usually with his arm but sometimes using ligatures. After strangling the women, he would dump their bodies throughout forested and overgrown areas in King County, often returning to the dead bodies to have sexual intercourse with them.
On November 30, 2001, as he was leaving the Renton, Washington Kenworth Truck factory where he worked, he was arrested for the murders of four women whose cases were linked to him through DNA evidence. As part of a plea bargain wherein he agreed to disclose the whereabouts of still-missing women, he was spared the death penalty and received 49 life sentences - one for each of his victims - plus an additional 480 years for evidence tampering in each murder case, all with no possibility of parole. He is currently serving his sentences at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.
He was caught after Ted Bundy provided advice to catch the killer where he was dumping the bodies.
Biography
Ridgway grew up in what became SeaTac, Washington. After graduating from high school in 1969—at the age of 20—he served a two-year stint in the U.S. Navy and later settled in the Seattle area, where he worked as a truck painter. Over the next 30 years, he married three times and had a son.
In 1980 Ridgway was arrested for allegedly choking a prostitute, but no charges were filed after he claimed that the woman had bit him. Two years later he was arrested for solicitation. Ridgway was believed to have begun his killing spree shortly thereafter. His first victim was thought to have been a 16-year-old girl who went missing after leaving her foster home in July 1982. Her body was found a week later, in the Green River. Over the next two years, Ridgway raped and killed more than 40 women, many of whom were prostitutes or runaways. A number of Ridgway’s early victims were later found in or near the river, giving rise to the nickname Green River Killer; other bodies were discovered in remote wooded areas. After 1984 he committed several more murders, the last occurring in 1998.
By August 1982 police believed that a serial killer was at work, and they eventually formed a special task force. Ridgway soon became a suspect. In 1983 he was questioned in the disappearance of a prostitute who a witness claimed had gotten into his truck. Ridgway denied the allegations and passed a polygraph in 1984. Detectives later discovered a 1982 report about police finding Ridgway with a prostitute in a parked car; two years later a body was found nearby. In 1987 law-enforcement officials obtained a search warrant for Ridgway’s home and work. However, none of the items—including carpet fibres and ropes—could be linked to the victims. They also obtained a DNA sample from Ridgway, but the technology then available was unable to match it with semen recovered from the bodies. However, following the advent of more sophisticated tests, a match was made in 2001, and Ridgway was arrested later that year.
Although he initially proclaimed his innocence, Ridgway soon confessed to the crimes, stating that he wanted to kill as many prostitutes as possible. He targeted sex workers because he thought they might not be reported missing and because he “hated” most of them. In 2003 he accepted a plea deal in which he was sentenced to 48 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. In addition, he agreed to reveal the location of undiscovered bodies. Many speculated that he was responsible for more deaths, and in 2013 Ridgway said that he had murdered upwards of 80 women.
