Gary Ridgway

Gary Ridgway
File:Gary Ridgway.jpg Mugshot of Gary Ridgway from his arrest in 2001.
Born	Gary Leon Ridgway
Other names	Green River Killer
Criminal penalty	Life
Details
Victims	48
Span of crimes	1982–1998
Country	United States
State(s)	Washington
Date apprehended	November 30, 2001

Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949), known as the Green River Killer, is one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. On November 30, 2001, as he was leaving a Renton, Washington factory where he worked, he was arrested for the murders of seven women whose deaths were attributed to the "Green River Killer". Four murders were linked to him through DNA and three through paint he used at his job. Two years later he pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder, although he says he killed 71. Ridgway has been married three times and has one son. He carried his son's photo in his wallet to lure most of his victims into his pickup truck.

Biography

Early life

Ridgway was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to Mary Rita Steinman and Thomas Newton Ridgway. He was raised in McMicken Heights, Washington. His mother reportedly dominated the household and was especially controlling towards her son. Relatives remember that she was never content with him and was constantly yelling at her husband. Friends and family, questioned about Ridgway following his arrest, described him as friendly but strange; the same man who went door to door for his Pentecostal church was also obsessed with prostitutes and had dysfunctional relationships with women; His first two marriages were both riddled with infidelities by both partners. Both a prostitute and his second wife testified that, in 1982, he had placed them in choke-holds.

The murders

During a two-and-a-half-year period in the early 1980s, the Green River Killer is believed to have murdered as many as 50 women near the cities of Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. Most of the victims were either prostitutes or teenage runaways picked up along Pacific Highway South (State Route 99) and strangled. Most of their bodies were dumped in and around the Green River in Washington, except for two victims in the Portland, Oregon area.

In the early 1980s, the King County Sheriff Department formed the Green River Task Force to investigate the murders. The most notable members of the task force were Robert Keppel and Dave Reichert, who periodically interviewed incarcerated serial killer Ted Bundy from 1984 to Bundy's execution and got Bundy to confess to some unsolved murders he was suspected of having committed.

Ridgway was arrested in 1982 and 2001 for charges related to prostitution. He became a suspect in 1983 for the Green River killings, in 1984 took and passed a polygraph test, and on April 7, 1987, police took hair and saliva samples that were later subjected to a DNA analysis, which provided the evidence for his arrest warrant.

On November 30, 2001, nearly 20 years after first being identified as a potential suspect, Ridgway was arrested on suspicion of murder for four deaths after DNA evidence linked him to multiple victims. The four victims named in the original Ridgway indictment included Marcia Chapman, Opal Mills, Cynthia Hinds and Carol Ann Christensen.

Early in August 2003, Seattle television news reported that Ridgway had been moved from a maximum security cell at King County Jail to an undisclosed location. Other news reports stated that his lawyers, led by Brian Hochstetter, were closing a plea bargain that would spare him the death penalty in return for his confession to a number of the Green River murders.

On November 5, 2003, Ridgway entered a guilty plea to 48 charges of aggravated first degree murder as part of a plea bargain, agreed to in June, that would spare him execution in exchange for his cooperation in locating the remains of his victims and providing other details. In his statement accompanying his guilty plea, Ridgway explained all of his victims had been killed inside King County, Washington, and that he had transported and dumped the remains of the two women near Portland to confuse the police.

Public opinion remains divided on whether a confessed murderer of 48 people should be spared execution in a state that has the death penalty and imposes it on people who have killed far fewer victims. Deputy prosecutor Jeffrey Baird noted in court that the deal contained "the names of 41 victims who would not be the subject of State v. Ridgway if it were not for the plea agreement." King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng explained his decision to make the deal:

"We could have gone forward with seven counts, but that is all we could have ever hoped to solve. At the end of that trial, whatever the outcome, there would have been lingering doubts about the rest of these crimes. This agreement was the avenue to the truth. And in the end, the search for the truth is still why we have a criminal justice system ... Gary Ridgway does not deserve our mercy. He does not deserve to live. The mercy provided by today's resolution is directed not at Ridgway, but toward the families who have suffered so much ..."

On December 18, 2003, King County Superior Court Judge Richard Jones sentenced Ridgway to 48 life sentences with no possibility of parole and one life sentence, to be served consecutively.

It is known that Ridgway led prosecutors to three bodies in 2003. On August 16 of that year, remains of a 16-year-old female found near Enumclaw, Washington, 40 feet from State Route 410, were pronounced as belonging to Pammy Annette Avent, who had been believed to be a victim of the Green River Killer. The remains of Marie Malvar and April Buttram were found in September. On November 23, 2005, The Associated Press reported that a weekend hiker found the skull of one of the 48 women Ridgway admitted murdering in his 2003 plea bargain with King County prosecutors. The skull of Tracy Winston, who was 19 when she disappeared from Northgate Mall on September 12, 1983, was found by a man hiking in a wooded area near Highway 18 near Issaquah, southeast of Seattle.

Ridgway confessed to more confirmed murders than any other American serial killer. Over a period of five months of police and prosecutor interviews, he confessed to 48 murders: Forty-two of the 48 murders on the police's list of probable Green River Killer victims and six more murders, including one as late as 2000. On February 9, 2004, county prosecutors began to release the videotape records of Ridgway's confessions. In one taped interview, he told investigators initially that he was responsible for the deaths of 65 women, but in another taped interview with Reichert on December 31, 2003, Ridgway claimed to have murdered 71 victims, and confessed to have had sex with them prior to killing them, a detail which he did not reveal until after his sentencing. He also confessed that he had sex with his victims' bodies after he murdered them, but claimed he began burying the later victims so that he would resist the urge to revisit them.

Ridgway is incarcerated at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.

Victims

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See also

• International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

References

• Keppel, Robert. The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer. 2004, paperback. 624 pages, ISBN 0743463951. Updated after the arrest and confession of Gary Ridgway.
• Rule, Ann. Green River, Running Red. Pocket, 2005, paperback. 704 pages, ISBN 0743460502.
• http://www.antidavereichert.com/greenrivertimeline.htm - Remains found timeline.

External links

• A Profile of Gary Leon Ridgway
• Prosecutor's Summary of the Evidence (PDF)
• Statement on the Ridgway Plea by King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng
• A copy of Ridgway's infamous letter to the press (PDF)
• Crime Library article on Green River Killer
• Ridgway Reveals Gruesome Details in Chilling Confession (video)
• Capture of The Green River Killer Mini-Series

#	Name	Age	Murdered	Found
1	Wendy Lee Coffield	16	July 8, 1982	July 15, 1982
2	Gisele Ann Lovvorn	19	July 17, 1982	Sept. 25, 1982
3	Debra Lynn Bonner	23	July 25, 1982	Aug. 12, 1982
4	Marcia Faye Chapman	31	Aug. 1, 1982	Aug. 15, 1982
5	Cynthia Jean Hinds	17	Aug. 11, 1982	Aug. 15, 1982
6	Opal Charmaine Mills	16	Aug. 12, 1982	Aug. 15, 1982
7	Terry Rene Milligan	16	Aug. 29, 1982	April 1, 1984
8	Mary Bridget Meehan	18	Sept. 15, 1982	Nov. 13, 1983
9	Debra Lorraine Estes	15	Sept. 20, 1982	May 30, 1988
10	Linda Jane Rule	16	Sept. 26, 1982	-
11	Denise Darcel Bush	22	Oct. 8, 1982	-
12	Shawnda Leea Summers	17	Oct. 9, 1982	Aug. 11, 1983
13	Shirley Marie Sherrill	18	between Oct. 20 and Nov. 7, 1982	-
14	Colleen Renee Brockman	15	about Dec. 24, 1982	May 26, 1984
15	Alma Ann Smith	18	March 3, 1983	April 2, 1984
16	Delores LaVerne Williams	17	March 8, 1983	March 31, 1984
17	Gail Lynn Mathews	24	April 10, 1983	Sept. 18, 1983
18	Andrea M. Childers	19	April 16, 1983	Oct. 11, 1989
19	Sandra Kay Gabbert	17	April 17, 1983	April 1, 1984
20	Kimi-Kai Pitsor	16	April 17, 1983	-
21	Marie M. Malvar	18	April 30, 1983	Sept. 29, 2003
22	Carol Christensen	21	May 3, 1983	May 8, 1983
23	Martina Theresa Authorlee	18	May 22, 1983	Nov. 14, 1984
24	Cheryl Lee Wims	18	May 23, 1983	March 22, 1984
25	Yvonne Shelly Antosh	19	May 31, 1983	Oct. 15, 1983
26	Carrie A. Rois	15	May 31 to June 13, 1983	March 10, 1985
27	Constance Elizabeth Naon	21	June 8, 1983	Oct. 27, 1983
28	Kelly Marie Ware	22	July 19, 1983	-
29	Tina Marie Thompson	22	July 25, 1983	April 20, 1984
30	April Dawn Buttram	17	Aug. 18, 1983	Aug. 30 and Sept. 2, 2003
31	Debbie May Abernathy	26	Sept. 5, 1983	March 31, 1984
32	Tracy Ann Winston	19	Sept. 12, 1983	March 27, 1986
33	Maureen Sue Feeney	19	Sept. 28, 1983	May 2, 1986
34	Mary Sue Bello	25	Oct. 11, 1983	Oct. 12, 1984
35	Pammy Avent	16	Oct. 26, 1983	Aug. 16, 2003
36	Delise Louise Plager	22	Oct. 30, 1983	Feb. 14, 1984
37	Kimberly L. Nelson	26	Nov. 1, 1983	June 14, 1986
38	Lisa Yates	26	Dec. 23, 1983	March 13, 1984
39	Mary Exzetta West	16	Feb. 6, 1984	Sept. 8, 1985
40	Cindy Anne Smith	17	March 21, 1984	June 27, 1987
41	Patricia Michelle Barczak	19	October 1986	-
42	Roberta Joseph Hayes	21	Last seen leaving a Portland, Ore., jail in 1987	-
43	Marta Reeves	37	Disappeared 1990	-
44	Patricia Yellow Robe	38	Disappeared 1998	Aug. 6, 1998