November 30, 2001: Green River Killer Caught!

A Brief History

On November 30, 2001, a depraved serial killer, known as The Green River Killer, was finally arrested.

Digging Deeper

Digging deeper, we find Gary Ridgway, aged 51 of Renton, Washington finally arrested after leaving work, but only after he killed at least 48 women and girls!

Conducting a one man serial rampage, Ridgway was convicted of 48 counts of murder, but actually confessed to killing at least double that amount!  He usually strangled his victims, sometimes with a rope or other object, but sometimes with his bare hands and arms.  If the senseless waste of female life was not bad enough, this maniac then often had sex with the dead corpse!

This lowlife was a troubled child with an IQ of 82 and had tried to kill a 6 year old by stabbing the boy when Ridgway was 16.  In the Viet Nam war years the military was not too picky, and Ridgway pulled the double coup of getting married and joining the Navy.

Both adventuress went awry with Ridgway seeing prostitutes and getting STDs while his wife had extramarital sex. Getting divorced, he managed to convince another woman to marry him, who also divorced him later.  Both ex-wives claimed he choked them, an ominous clue.  He even married a third time despite being considered strange by many people.

Ridgway preyed on prostitutes and runaways, killing them in his home, in his vehicle, in hidden spots, just all over! Sometimes he left false clues with the body and some he transported out of the state.

Ridgway became a suspect early in his spree, but “passed” a polygraph (lie detector) test that later analysis indicated he actually failed.  This mistake allowed him to continue killing until his 2001 arrest when DNA and other evidence finally got him to confess and plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence in lieu of facing a possible death penalty,

This monster’s oldest victim was 38, and his youngest was perhaps 13.  Most were in their teens or early 20’s.  None of them had the chance to plea bargain.

Question for students (and subscribers): What sentence did Ridgway deserve as punishment?  Please let us know in the comments section below this article.

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Historical Evidence

Numerous sound books cover this grotesque human being.

Case, Jonathan and Jeff Jensen.  Green River Killer: A True Detective Story.  Dark Horse, 2011.

Reichert, Sheriff David.  Chasing the Devil: My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer.  Little, Brown and Company, 2004.

Rule, Ann.  Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer–America’s Deadliest Serial Murderer.  Pocket Books, 2005.