Gary Ridgway - The Green River Killer

Life is full of disappointment. I don’t mean that in some nihilistic, edgy teenager way, but there will be countless times in your life that you find yourself disappointed. Maybe you got passed up for a promotion that you thought you were a lock for, had to miss out on seeing your favourite band due to a violent stomach bug, or watched the final episode of Lost. It could even be something as simple as really looking forward to some chili cheese tots from Sonic, only to pull up and be told that their credit card machine was down so they were only taking cash. Physical cash, in the year of our Lord 2023.

A time you would not expect someone to show disappointment is at a sentencing hearing when facing the man that pled guilty to killing their daughter or sister. While I’m loathe to use the word “normal” when describing people’s emotional reactions to things, there are certainly a number of expected responses.

The person might feel anger, contempt, or disgust towards the killer. They may feel sadness for the loved one that was taken from them, or they could feel a sense of closure knowing that after almost 20 years the man responsible was finally going to be held accountable for his crimes. Disappointment is unlikely to ever make that list, but it’s exactly how some of the people that spoke on behalf of Gary Ridgway’s victims felt.

There’s a certain perception people have when it comes to serial killers. Though they come in different forms, there’s usually that one trait you can point to as how they were able to be successful in their crimes. Some are considered charming and handsome, like Ted Bundy, which made it easy for them to lure victims. Others have the ability to cover their tracks, like the Golden State Killer, a law enforcement officer who was even tasked with investigating some of his own crimes.

Some killers are just straight up geniuses, like Leopold and Loeb. And other serial killers simply look terrifying or evil, exactly what you would expect from a psychopathic killer.

But Gary Ridgway was none of those things. Families of the victims saw him in court and some described him afterwards as being a pathetic worm. They felt he was more mouse than man, and were disappointed that this was the person that had eluded police for so long. He wasn’t charming or intelligent, and he wasn’t muscular with tattoos that said “I love to kill”. Even Ed Kemper, who came across as gentle and unassuming, was 6’9” and over 300 pounds; there was no question in how he was able to overpower his victims.

Nobody would have ever looked at Gary and thought that he was the United States second most prolific serial killer, and they certainly wouldn’t think he could outsmart the police for decades. So how the Hell did this happen?

Growing Up in the Red Flag Factory

Gary Leon Ridgway was born on February 18, 1949 in Salt Lake City, Utah to parents Mary and Thomas. He was the middle child of three boys, and when he was 11 his family moved from Utah to Washington in the city now known as SeaTac, a portmanteau of the nearby cities Seattle and Tacoma.

Pretty much everything about Gary’s early life was a giant red flag. He came from an abusive household, with both parents engaging in corporal punishment. However, it was Mary that truly ran the show. She was regarded as being controlling and domineering, and was verbally abusive towards everyone in the family.

Thomas never stood up to her even in the face of physical violence. If she got angry and broke plates over his head, his only reaction would be to stand up and leave the room. But there was much more going on that was going to warp Gary’s perception of reality than verbal and physical abuse.

As many of you have probably experienced, one of the most frustrating parts of having a sibling slightly older than you comes from the expectations they set at school. It was generally expected that you would excel at the same things they did, and to fall short of the bar they set was considered a failure even if that meant you got an A- instead of an A. My brother was one grade ahead of me, so for 13 years I had the exact same teachers he had and it was absolutely Hell.

Granted I am a bit smarter than him so that part wasn’t a huge issue, but there were still other factors. In elementary school, he had exceptional handwriting whereas my penmanship is still so atrocious that it is genuinely 50/50 whether or not I will be able to read my own writing. When we got older, teachers loved how polite and engaged in class he was only to discover the following year that I had a generally shitty attitude and would frequently talk back to them in class.

I even had a teacher tell me on the first day of class that I should drop honours English and take an easier class because I wasn’t like my brother, though she apologized a week later after our first writing assignment. But despite my bad handwriting and worse attitude, my brother and I were both A students. So while it was extremely annoying and frustrating to constantly be compared to someone else, I think the permanent psychological damage caused by it was probably minimal.

The same can definitely not be said for Gary. Gary’s brother Gregory, who was one year older than him, was an exceptional student. He was bright, popular enough to run for student office, and went to a good college to study physics. Greg was the most accomplished of the three children, was of course the favourite child, and set a bar so high that Gary could walk cleanly under it while carrying his report card of straight D’s.

Gary was as far from extraordinary as could be. According to the eventual prosecutor in the case, “The [only time] he genuinely cried was when he talked about how afraid he was of being put on the short bus.” For anyone not in America, the short bus, aside from being a literal description, is the special school bus that only picked up the developmentally challenged kids.

Except we didn’t call the kids that rode the short bus “developmentally challenged” back in the 80’s and 90’s, so you can sure as Hell bet that Gary’s classmates wouldn’t have called him that in the 50s and 60s either. As damaging to his psyche as being compared to the vastly more intelligent Greg was, it likely would have paled in comparison to being told daily by his classmates that he was a “retard”. He did manage to avoid this fate, but only barely as his IQ was measured in the low 80s.

It didn’t take long for Gary to begin manifesting symptoms of his abuse and psychological damage. There were the typical red flags you would expect, such as starting fires, torturing and killing animals, and becoming obsessed with true crime. Some of this involved him and his brothers shooting birds with a BB gun, which was probably considered pretty normal at the time. But killing a cat by trapping it inside a freezer was most definitely not normal and should certainly have raised some eyebrows.

Gary was also a chronic bed wetter all the way until he was a teenager. This naturally resulted in more verbal abuse from Mary, usually berating him in front of his brothers. But as he got older, things took a much more disturbing turn. Whenever a 13 year old Gary wet the bed, Mary would take him to the shower while practically naked herself to personally clean him, paying special attention to his “dirtiest parts”.

This was hardly the only way in which she was inappropriate with her son, either. Mary worked in the men’s section of a J.C. Penney and liked to wear revealing clothing to work. She would tell a young Gary about her work measuring men for suits, talking about how they would get aroused when she measured them and even describing the smell of their crotches to him.

All of this left Gary understandably fucked up. He had extremely conflicted feelings, with part of him lusting after his mother and the other part wanting to kill her to eliminate the family’s “big problem”. And of course, in the Venn diagram where those two parts overlapped, Gary also talked about fantasies of having violent sex with his mother during which he would slit her throat.

While Mary was the more abusive of Gary’s parents, that didn’t stop Thomas from also helping to destroy his brain in ways that would severely shape his future. Thomas was a bus driver and also worked part time at a mortuary. He would drive around with Gary in the car, complaining the entire time about all of the sex workers that lined the streets. Obviously, he would then leave Gary in the car while he went to patronize those same women that he was complaining about.

It’s as if everything in Gary’s life was conditioning him to despise women, but the long diatribes about the horrible and disgusting sex workers (that he was more than happy to hire) was far from the worst influence Thomas would have. You see, one of his coworkers at the mortuary had a penchant for necrophilia. Not only did he not feel this was something that his employers needed to be made aware of so they could stop it, he also felt that it was a perfectly acceptable topic to talk to his son about.

It didn’t take long for this to become a fantasy of Gary’s. He loved the idea of it because the victim couldn’t talk, so there was no way to get caught. They’d never feel a thing and never even know it happened.

Gary’s hatred of women and tendency towards violence were only going to increase. He began stalking girls in the neighbourhood that had rejected him, though it’s unclear exactly how many such girls there were. Despite his low IQ and dyslexia resulting in him being held back two grades, he was at least somewhat socially adept.

A classmate at his community college would state that Gary “never had any trouble getting a girlfriend or a date”. He wasn’t a hated social outcast, and people generally thought he was nice even if he was a bit weird. More than anything, Gary was just a completely forgettable individual.

He was average height, below average intelligence but not quite developmentally challenged, below average looks but not remarkably ugly, he was just kind of there. His high school football coach would even describe him as “nondescript”. Maybe that’s why the beautiful killers were so much easier for the police to catch.

Nothing really seems to have come from those stalking incidents, but I did mention an escalation of violence. When Gary was 16, he came across a 6 year old boy playing around while dressed up as a cowboy. He invited the boy into the woods so they could build a fort together, but this never happened. Instead, once they were in the woods Gary pulled out a knife and stabbed the boy in the side, puncturing his liver.

The little boy asked him, “Why did you kill me?” and as Gary walked away laughing, he simply replied, “I always wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone.” Luckily, he didn’t stick around to make sure he had actually succeeded, and our livers are uniquely able to regenerate from damage or even partial removal. The boy survived, but his attacker wasn’t identified.

He had never met Gary before, and the teenager that stabbed him was too nondescript. Plus, the only witness was a traumatized child so any lack of details is completely understandable.

It’s also possible that Gary drowned a boy in a lake when he was a teenager. He claimed that even though he had a vivid memory of doing so, he wasn’t sure whether or not it actually happened. Although records indicated that two boys drowned in the lake the year that Gary specified, it is unclear whether or not he was responsible for either of them.

He only had a memory of drowning one boy, which presumably means at least one of the two recorded deaths was an accident. It’s certainly possible that both were accidents and he had created a false memory after hearing about an accidental drowning as a way to indulge what at the time were still only fantasies. The only reason I’m leaning towards it being a false memory is because this is the only alleged crime that Gary wasn’t unapologetically certain about having committed.

Anchors Aweigh

In 1969 at the age of 20, Gary finally graduated high school. He also married his 19 year old high school girlfriend, Claudia Kraig. Their honeymoon would be short-lived, however, as he enlisted in the Navy and got shipped off to active duty. However, were it not for the Vietnam War, this may not have been possible.

Following some issues that arose during the first and second world wars, the US military instated a minimum IQ requirement for those that wished to serve. It was determined that those that didn’t meet this requirement had caused a lot of problems because of their difficulty to train. Gary was right at or possibly just below the line, but with the United States fighting an unpopular war resulting in the utilization and subsequent dodging of the draft, the navy may have been willing to fudge a point or two to secure an actual willing recruit.

He was stationed aboard a naval supply ship, and while he did see combat in his short military career it doesn’t seem to have had a profound impact on him. Then again, naval combat on a supply ship is a lot different than having your boots on the ground in the jungles of Vietnam. However, this short period abroad was still very formative for Gary.

He had developed an insatiable appetite for sex, and it was here that he said his obsession with sex workers began. It probably actually began years earlier in the car with his father, but Gary wasn’t really known for his insightful introspection and analysis. While serving in Vietnam he began hiring sex workers constantly, eventually catching the clap. If you’re unclear, Simon, that’s gonorrhea.

This painful turn of events filled both Gary’s heart and urethra with a burning hot rage, something that he felt was entirely the fault of the sex workers. But just like his father, this hatred of sex workers wasn’t going to stop him from employing their services. After some antibiotics to clear up his condition, it was right back to the red light district where he continued to have sex without protection.

Gary was honorably discharged from the navy in 1970, only to go back home and discover that his wife had been having an affair while he was gone. I’d say it would be pretty hypocritical for him to be angry about this given his behaviour in Vietnam, but it’s clear that he didn’t think sex workers were people and thus it didn’t count as cheating. The couple got divorced, and Gary’s hatred of women continued to grow.

While the infidelity on both of their parts was the final straw, it wasn’t the only strain on their marriage. His mother, Mary, remained a constant, domineering presence throughout their marriage. She wanted the couple to move into her house, and Claudia even cited Mary’s dominance over Gary as the reason for their marriage ending.

Gary managed to get a job at a truck painting company in Renton, Washington, where he would remain employed for the next 30 years. Somehow, he also managed to find himself a new wife, Marcia Winslow. But Marcia wasn’t Gary’s only new love. He had also found the love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

He became fervently religious, possibly in an attempt to combat the hatred and sick desires that were consuming him. And like any born again Christian, Gary knew that there was nothing more important than spreading the word of God. He would go proselytizing door to door, and would read the Bible aloud both at home and at work. Because apparently reading the Bible doesn’t count unless everyone around you can hear that you’re doing it.

It all touched him very deeply, to the point that he would frequently burst into tears while reading the Bible or listening to the pastor’s sermons.

Of course, while being outwardly way too religious, inside Gary was still the same old piece of shit he had always been. He demanded sex from his wife multiple times each day, and his urges were expected to be dealt with on demand. It didn’t matter if they were out in public, if he wanted sex then it was going to happen. He wanted sex in public, in the woods, and in any illegal places he could think of.

While in the woods, he also enjoyed scaring his wife by sneaking up behind her, and he took a lot of pride in his ability to move through the forest without making a sound.

This insatiable libido, including the desire for sex in public places, has been confirmed by all of Gary’s wives and girlfriends, so it wasn’t some passing fancy. But even with Marcia complying with these demands, it wasn’t enough. Gary frequently complained about the sex workers that he would see in the neighbourhood, but he was still a frequent customer.

In 1975, Gary and Marcia had a son together. This marriage lasted much longer than the first, but after eight years it finally fell apart. Maybe it was because of the continued dominating influence of Gary’s mother, maybe it was all the sex workers he visited and continued to contract STI’s from, or maybe it was because of that time he put Marcia in a chokehold. Who can say, really?

Marcia deservedly received primary custody of their son, with Gary ordered to pay child support. This made him absolutely furious. Not over the loss of his son, of course. I wasn’t able to find anything indicating that Gary had a single fuck to give over losing his son at the time, it was the loss of income that outraged him.

He later admitted that he was so angry about having to pay child support and so afraid of being labeled as a loser after a second failed marriage that he contemplated killing both Marcia and his son, though he fortunately never did.

The year was now 1981, and Gary’s hatred of women was reaching an all time high. But he still had an insatiable need for sex and no wife to help satisfy his urges, so he began seeking out sex workers more and more frequently.

He had already hated the sex workers because of their mere existence, despite the fact they were clearly providing a service he desperately craved, but his increased time with them only made him hate them more. He didn’t want to pay them, but he also believed they were disgusted by him. Everything was reaching a tipping point, and it would only be a year before Gary was no longer able to contain his darkest urges.

The Green River Killer

August 12, 1982 began as just a typical day for Frank Linard. He arrived at his job at the slaughterhouse in Kent as usual, but his day was about to take a turn. The slaughterhouse was mere yards from the Green River, and as Frank wandered over towards the riverbank during his smoke break he saw the body of 23 year old Debra Bonner floating.

Debra had disappeared a little over two weeks earlier, and she was known to police due to a prior conviction for prostitution. Investigators immediately connected her death with those of Wendy Coffield and Leann Wilcox, both of whom were 16 year old sex workers. Leann’s body had been discovered that January in a storage yard, with Wendy being found that July in the Green River.

When it was just two bodies found six months apart in different locations, it was easy to see them as unconnected. Although they were both 16 year old sex workers, that’s a particularly dangerous demographic to be a part of and they could have been victims of separate killers. In fact they were, as Gary was not responsible for Leann’s death which remains unsolved to this day.

But because police now thought they had three victims of the same person, they began searching for a dangerous serial killer. They just had no idea that there were already three more bodies to find, with a sixth victim disappearing the same day that Debra’s body was discovered.

Three days later, on August 15, Robert Ainsworth began traveling down the Green River in a rubber raft as he had many times before. He enjoyed fishing while floating down the river, though the only thing he had caught that day was a piece of old wood from a horse-drawn plow.

That day he came across who he described as a balding, middle-aged man standing on the river bank next to a pickup truck. There was a boy sitting inside the truck, so Robert assumed it was a father and son who were out fishing. They exchanged pleasantries, lamenting that neither of them had caught anything, and the man got in his truck and drove away.

As Robert continued down the river, his eyes met those of a young black woman beneath the surface of the water. Believing it was a mannequin, he tried to snag it with his pole to pull it out of the water. But it’s never a mannequin. Robert struggled to dislodge the body from under a rock, flipping his raft over in the process. When he stood up from the water, he suddenly realized that what he saw was not a mannequin but rather the dead body of 17 year old Cynthia Hinds.

Seconds later, he saw the body of another black woman, 31 year old Marcia Chapman, partially submerged in the water. Robert ran to the shore in shock, and waited for around 30 minutes in the spot that the pickup truck had previously been parked, hoping for somebody to pass by so he could send them to call the police. When a family rode by on their bicycles, he flagged them down and sent them for help.

The first officer on the scene listened to Robert explain his discovery, but didn’t seem to believe it until investigating the water himself. He immediately called for backup, and as police swarmed the scene and sealed off the area, they discovered another body on the river bank, that of 16 year old Opal Mills.

While the locations already made it clear that these were all victims of the same killer, and indeed the same as the previous victims found in the Green River, the modus operandi was completely identical. The victims were all sex workers who died of asphyxiation, and most had been placed into the river and weighed down with rocks. Not only were rocks used to attempt to conceal the bodies, but the killer was also taking pyramid shaped rocks and inserting them into the vaginas of the deceased bodies.

The next day, the Green River Killer Task Force was formed, and it quickly became the largest police task force ever assembled at the time, eclipsing that of the task force that searched for Ted Bundy. We’ll come back to them in a bit, but first we’re going to look more at Gary’s crimes and how he managed to get away with it for so long.

Over the course of 1982, Gary would claim at least 10 more victims. Terry Milligan, Mary Meehan, Debra Estes, Linda Rule, Denise Bush, Shawnda Summers, Shirley Sherrill, Becky Marrero, Colleen Brockman, and Sandra Major are known victims who disappeared after the Green River Killer Task Force had been created. There was also Gisele Lovvorn who had been his second victim, though her body was not discovered until over two months after she disappeared.

It’s remarkable that Gary was able to avoid detection for so long, considering how strictly he adhered to his M.O. His victims were all either sex workers or runaways, people that he both hated and felt he could make disappear without people noticing for a while. He also made the common mistake of returning to the scene of the crime, but you’re not going to like why.

Remember when Gary had that little father son talk about necrophilia? He would strangle his victims to death before engaging in intercourse with their bodies while they were still warm. But he would also come back days later to repeat the process, even if it meant having to brush maggots out of his way before engaging in his acts of perversion. At this point he had custody of his son every other weekend, and he would often perform these acts on the way home after picking his son up from school while the child slept in the truck.

Aside from being disgusting and reprehensible, that was also much more reckless than the rest of Gary’s behaviour would lead us to believe that he was. Despite his low IQ, he was extremely meticulous in the planning of his murders and seemed to have thought of everything.

He would carefully spend time observing a new target before he was ready to commit murder. While some of the victims were girls he had never met before, often he would become a repeat customer beforehand to establish a base level of trust, and after killing them he would sometimes contact their pimp to set up another “date” so as to give the impression that things had gone smoothly. To help lure women into his car for the first time, he would frequently show them a picture of his son to make him seem like a normal guy. On a couple occasions he even brought his son with him, but he decided that he didn’t want the boy to see what he was doing and stuck with just using the picture.

When Gary had decided he was ready to kill his next victim, everything had to be perfect. Unlike more impulsive killers, he would abort his plan if something went wrong. If he went to pick up a girl and she happened to be standing beside either her pimp or another sex worker then the murder was off, but he would of course still pick them up and proceed with the date as planned to avoid any suspicion. However, he was so consumed by his hatred of women and desire to kill that aborting his plans in such a way would leave his entire body trembling, which he had to explain to the sex workers as simply him being anxious.

In the event his intended target was alone like he hoped, Gary would flash a wad of cash at them before pulling into an alley, out of sight. He knew just how important it was not to be the last person seen with these girls. Once they came to his car, he would offer them large amounts of money before usually taking them back to his house. It didn’t matter how much he offered them, because he was never going to pay them. Instead, he would steal their cash and jewelry after killing them.

That sounds like it could be a possible lead, but he didn’t keep the jewelry or any other trophies from his victims. He also didn’t pawn the jewelry, instead just leaving it around for people to find. It’s known that he sometimes left the jewelry in the women’s restroom at the truck plant where he worked, and it’s likely he left it in other public or semi-public restrooms as well. Gary said that his favourite thing was the idea that somebody could be walking around wearing one of those pieces of jewelry that they found in the bathroom.

Not only did he not keep trophies that could later be used as evidence, but he took great care to ensure that no evidence was left behind to trace him back to the murders. If the girls managed to tear his clothes, he would cut their fingernails so that no fibers could be removed from beneath them. He always wore gloves to ensure that he didn’t leave behind any fingerprints, and the only evidence that was left behind at the scenes were empty chewing gum wrappers and cigarette butts.

Of course Gary neither smoked nor chewed gum, he just left these behind to throw the police off. He was so careful that, in one instance, he realized after leaving the scene that he may have left tire tracks in the mud. Realizing it was probably too late to go back and destroy the tracks, he instead replaced all four tires on his truck, dumping his old tires in different locations.

Finding tire tracks for the first time at one of these crime scenes would have been a big deal, so I’m guessing Gary realized not to buy new tires, either. If investigators saw an old truck with brand new tires immediately after finding tracks for the first time, that would both be cause for suspicion and likely a purchase that was easy to track down. I can’t find evidence one way or the other, but I’d wager that the replacement tires were a set of used ones he picked up cheap at a junkyard.

Gary enjoyed strangling these women, and he felt that he was quite good at it. He chose strangulation as his method of killing because it wouldn’t leave behind any blood and because it felt much more personal. In one instance when a victim managed to scratch his arm in self defense, he hid the wound by pouring battery acid over the cuts. Explaining how he got scratched could be difficult, but the burn was obviously just a mishap from replacing a truck battery that wouldn’t draw any attention.

After a quiet winter, throughout March and April Gary would claim the lives of Wendy Stephens, Alma Smith, Delores Williams, Gail Matthres, Andrea Childers, Sandra Gabbert, Kimi-Kai Pitsor, and Marie Malvar. On May 3rd he picked up Carol Christensen on Pacific Highway South. Her body would be found five days later, but this time the scene was quite a bit different.

When Carol was found in a wooded roadside area, there was a paper bag over her head. Removing it revealed that she had been strangled to death with a fishing line, and there was a trout placed across her neck. Another trout was placed on her left breast, and her arms were crossed over her stomach with ground beef placed on top of her left hand. There was also a wine bottle placed either on her belly or between her legs, with reports of the location differing.

Despite how different this scene was compared to the Green River Killer’s previous victims, investigators still knew it was the same person. She had been strangled with a cord, and the body showed signs of having been in the water even though the river was miles from where she was found.

There were a couple of conclusions that could be drawn from the macabre tableau with which they were presented. The first was that the killer may have been some sort of religious fanatic. They believed that this scene was meant to be some sort of twisted reference to the Last Supper, and the fact that sex workers were his targets opened up the possibility for them to believe he was on some sort of sick, religious crusade against the unrepentant sinners or something. But they also felt that he was mocking them.

Gary did not slow down, and throughout the months of May and June he took the lives of Martina Authorlee, Cheryl Wims, Shelly Antosh, Carrie Rois, and Constance Nao. The bodies of many of the victims I have mentioned thus far were not found until months or even years after they disappeared. Gary had chosen to target these women because he felt nobody would miss them or anyone who knew them would be afraid to go to the police on account of being either a sex worker or a pimp, and he was mostly correct. Of the 30 victims he had taken thus far, Shelly Antosh was one of the few for whom anyone actually filed a missing person report before the body was found.

Throughout the remainder of 1983, Gary was responsible for the murders of Kelly Ware, Tina Thompson, April Buttram, Debbie Abernathy, Tracy Winston, Maureen Feeney, Mary Bello, Pammy Avent, Delise Plager, Kimberly Nelson, and Lisa Yates. He had committed 41 murders in just a year and a half, and he hadn’t showed any signs of slowing down.

But suddenly, he did slow down. In February he took the life of 16 year old Mary West and 17 year old Cindy Smith in March, and then there was nothing. For over two years, the Green River Killer had gone completely silent. So what was Gary up to?

Part of it was some heat from the police. He had managed to find himself on the list of suspects, and was likely laying low for a bit to keep suspicion off himself. Then, in 1985, he met and began dating Judith Mawson. Judith moved in with him, and the two seemed perfectly happy together. Anybody who saw them would agree, and at first it seemed like the relationship was exactly what Gary needed.

Unfortunately, while the murders slowed down, they didn’t stop entirely. In 1986 he took the life of 19 year old Patricia Barczak, and in 1987 he killed Roberta Hayes. Then, in 1988, Judith became his third wife. And unlike his other relationships this one seemed like it was going to go the distance, or so they thought at least.

After a three year break Gary would again strike, this time choosing 36 year old Marta Reeves. He remained quiet for eight more years until claiming his final confirmed victim in 1998, 38 year old Patricia Yellowrobe.

Three years later Gary would finally be arrested as the Green River Killer, resulting in his third divorce. Had he never been arrested, he and Judith would almost certainly still be happily married to this day.

And that’s it. That’s pretty much the entire life of Gary Ridgway. He had a fucked up childhood, he killed at least 49 innocent girls and women, and that’s pretty much it. While his crimes make him one of the most detestable human beings I have written about, he is also by far the most boring person I have written about. But that’s one of the things that made him so difficult to catch.

Serial killers often have these giant, narcissistic fantasies, usually involving taunting and playing games with the police. Many often struggle to hold down a job or a relationship, including platonic relationships, and their crimes are usually sloppy and full of evidence that results in them making a giant spectacle of themselves before quickly being arrested.

But Gary wasn’t like that. He probably was a narcissist, but not in the way that made him impulsive or unpredictable. However he was friendly and generally well liked, and he had the same boring job for over 30 years where he received awards for perfect attendance, the most boring award a person can possibly receive.

He was so plain and uninteresting that he was the type of person you could have a conversation with then forget you ever met him five minutes later. This boring, ordinary existence made him difficult to pin down as a suspect since it went against a lot of the conventional wisdom regarding serial killer profiles.

And of course, he was also extremely cautious. While his methods were almost always the same and he always targeted sex workers and runaways, beyond that his victims didn’t fit any clear demographic. Most were aged 14 through 26 or so, but some were in their thirties. He also showed no racial preference in his victims, and he was careful not to leave any evidence behind.

Almost any evidence, anyway. If he wasn’t willing to put on a condom despite contracting multiple STI’s, he certainly wasn’t going to wear one during his crimes since nobody knew that DNA evidence existed yet.

I will say that if there’s any lesson to be learned thus far from Gary, it’s that we should probably stop giving advice to criminals on this show. Gary’s IQ was only a few points away from being able to apply for disability benefits, and yet he was able to cover his tracks and elude police better than any of the supposed genius criminals. This is attributed entirely to his obsession with true crime stories and the lessons contained within, so perhaps our running gag actually runs the risk of becoming a blueprint for criminals.

Then again, all of the criminals that were easily caught had just as much opportunity to study true crime as Gary did, but their egos led them to believe that they were invincible and they didn’t need any advice. Yeah, we’re probably fine. I think I’ve rationalized that well enough that I’ll be able to sleep at night.

With that out of the way, why don’t we take a look at what the fuck the police were doing for the almost 20 years that it took them to finally track down the Green River Killer. Spoiler alert: it’s gonna make you angry.

The Green River Killer Task Force

Years before the task force was even assembled, Gary had his first run in with the law in 1980. He was picked up after a sex worker accused him of choking her. Although he admitted both to hiring and choking the girl, he claimed that he only choked her because she had bit him. That seemed like a reasonable enough justification to the police, so they released him without filing any charges.

In 1982 he was again picked up, this time for solicitation after he approached an undercover police officer for sex. It would have been nice if they recognized Gary as a frequent customer of sex workers and one that was able to turn violent, but they didn’t seem to quite make the connection. Or if they had, they were unable to act on it because of a lack of evidence. He would wind up on their radar again, and he was actually one of the first prime suspects.

When the task force was first created in 1982, they were overloaded with information. It was formed the day after finding three new bodies, and only a few days after another one. With the Green River Killer having already claimed half a dozen victims and the bodies continuing to pile up, the amount of various tips they were receiving was too much to handle. This almost certainly slowed the investigation down a bit, at least in the beginning, but in spring of 1983 there was going to be a big break.

Marie Malvar went missing on April 30th, but her boyfriend saw the car she got into. It was a blue or green pickup truck with patches of primer on it, and the man driving was a generic looking, balding man in his 30s or 40s. It was the last time she was ever seen alive, and it would be five months until her body was found.

But her family wasn’t going to wait around. The boyfriend had seen the man she was with and had a description of the rather unique looking car, so they were just going to drive around the city until they found it themselves. Which they did. The car was parked in the driveway of Gary’s home, and the boyfriend recognized him. They immediately informed the police, who went to pay Gary a visit.

It’s not entirely clear, but by the time police arrived the truck was likely gone. Gary told police that he had a maroon pickup truck that was broken down so he usually took the bus, though sometimes he would borrow his father’s brown and gold pickup. While this was true, he left out that he sometimes borrowed his brother’s cyan pickup truck, a fact that his then girlfriend later informed police of.

The entire time the investigators were talking to Gary, he was up against his fence with his arm behind his back. Marie was the girl that had left scratches on his arm, and at that time they were still clearly visible. Gary denied having ever met or hired Marie, and the police eventually left, giving him the chance to burn his arm with battery acid.

This was actually the second time that year that Gary had been the last person allegedly seen with one of his victims, and it was the second time that he was let go. Earlier that year in February, he had been stopped while on a date with a sex worker that later disappeared. Considering this was the largest task force ever at the time and in total it cost over $15 million, it’s hard to imagine there wasn’t someone working there who could have made a stronger connection between the victims and Gary. He was considered a top suspect, they just didn’t have any evidence to go on.

In 1984 the murders had slowed down, so there was a lot more time for talking and sending letters. One letter was sent to The Seattle Times containing a lot of graphic and disturbing details about the murders, details that had not been released to the public. When the letter was examined by John Douglas, one of the famed FBI profilers who was the basis for the show Mindhunter, he summarily dismissed it as being fake.

Douglas said that the letter was “a feeble and amateurish attempt” by someone of average intelligence who “[had] no connection to the Green River Homicides.” Once he was finally arrested 17 years later, Gary admitted that the letter was his.

Later that year, he would contact the police on his own. He knew he was already on their radar, so he called to offer any assistance in the investigation as well as offering to take a polygraph test so that he could clear his name. And since this was 1984, polygraphs were still considered to be reliable by many. During the test, Gary admitted to frequently hiring sex workers, but he denied any involvement in the killings.

He passed the polygraph with ease, and as a result he was largely ruled out as a suspect for the time being. And that’s why things like bullshit pseudoscience are extremely dangerous. The interrogators also felt that Gary’s openness with regards to how much time he spent with sex workers made him more credible.

They felt that he was being honest and forthcoming, and if he was hiring sex workers as often as he claimed that it’s only natural his name would show up once or twice simply because of how often he was on the strip where the women hung out. It was decided that either Gary was innocent, or that he must have been a sociopathic compulsive liar to have been able to pass the polygraph and fool them. Obviously we know it’s the second one now, but as a guy that was generally friendly and well liked the police at the time didn’t find it to be likely.

Another important letter was also sent a few months later in October 1984. This one was sent to the Green River Killer Task Force, and the return address read Florida State Prison, Raiford Florida. Inside, was a letter from death row inmate Ted Bundy.

Apparently sitting around waiting to be executed is boring, so he decided that he wanted to offer his help to the task force. Although they were skeptical, they were also running out of ideas. Robert Keppel, one of the detectives that had hunted Ted, and Dave Reichert, who would later go on to become a congressman for 14 years, took the trip to Florida to see what Old Teddy had to offer. Much to their surprise, Ted actually had a great deal to offer. Sort of, anyway.

From inside his cell, only using the publically available information he could gather, Ted had put together all of the same details the police had and come to the same conclusions. The detectives were genuinely impressed by all of the detailed work he had done, but it was also all stuff they already knew. Ted Bundy is often credited as helping to solve the case, but he had very little to offer that they didn’t already know.

However, he was able to provide some extra insight into the killer’s mindset that did give them at least one actionable piece of advice, even if it never yielded any results. Ted told them that if they found a fresh body, they needed to leave it there and stake it out. He believed that the killer would continue to return to have sex with his victims for a few days. While this was correct, they didn’t find any of the other victims fast enough.

The other somewhat useful but also somewhat incorrect piece of information he gave was in regards to the break in activity they were currently experiencing. There had been 43 victims in under two years, but the Green River Killer hadn’t taken another victim in over seven months. Detective Reichert asked Ted if the killer had stopped completely or was just taking a break to lay low for a bit.

After hearing the question, Ted just laughed. He replied, “[He didn’t stop] unless he was born again and filled with the Holy Spirit in a very real way. He’s either moved, he’s dead, or he’s doing something very different.”

The task force continued with little success, and by 1986 the media was regarding it as a joke. They had brought several suspects in, but every one of them was cleared. The staff on the task force was cut by almost half, and as the years went on it would continue to dwindle. But there was another break in the case that year.

In 1986, a sex worker contacted police after one of her Johns had tried to attack and strangle her. She managed to escape, and the description she gave of her attacker matched Gary. Reichert remembered that the name had come up before, and he tasked another detective with searching through everything they had on him.

Lt. Matt Haney combed through all of the previous encounters with Gary, talking to every person that was involved in the other reports. By the time he had finished, he was convinced that Gary was the Green River Killer, but they still needed proof. They were able to tail him and witness him going to the strip to hire a girl, but that wasn’t enough to constitute probable cause to arrest him for murder.

It was already on record that he spent a lot of time with sex workers, and picking him up for solicitation now was just going to tip their hand.

Instead, they were able to obtain a search warrant for his home, his locker at work, and his trucks. They quickly executed the warrant, and they were able to find absolutely nothing to tie him to the crimes. Gary hadn’t kept trophies, he didn’t write down his crimes, and because he strangled his victims there weren’t any hidden bloodstains to find. But even with none of that, there was one other very specific thing they were looking for.

Gary took many of his victims back to his house before dumping the bodies, which resulted in microscopic carpet fragments showing up on several of the victims. Not only did it definitively link the victims to one another, but if they could match the fibers to a carpet in Gary’s house then they’d finally have their man.

It was early in 1987 when the search warrant was executed, around a year or so since his girlfriend and future third wife Judith had moved in. When she first moved in she was surprised to discover that the living room carpet seemed to have been stripped away, but she also didn’t think anything of it. After all, sometimes people throw out old carpets and buy new ones. She certainly wouldn’t have suspected it had been removed because Gary thought it would tie him to a series of murders.

While the police thought that the warrant was a bust thanks to the total and complete lack of evidence to tie Gary to the crimes, the warrant did entitle them to one other thing. They were able to press him to provide a DNA sample in the form of a swab soaked in saliva. The technology was still brand new, but maybe it would prove useful at some point down the line.

The Arrest and the Plea

Gary’s DNA had been taken in 1987, and then for a long time nothing happened. The task force continued to shrink as it continued to fail to produce results. They may have even believed that Ted Bundy was right and the killer had either died or moved somewhere else, as there would only be two more victims over the next 14 years which could have been unrelated copycats.

But then, in 2001, a break finally came. New advancements in DNA technology emerged, the specifics of which we don’t really need to get into. Gary’s sample was tested for the third or fourth time at this point, but instead of coming back inconclusive, this time it finally came back as a match.

When police went to arrest him, they found him in the same place they would always find him. He was arrested on the strip for loitering for prostitution, before finally being named as the Green River Killer. He was indicted on four counts of murder in connection with Marcia Chapman, Carol Christensen, Cynthia Hinds, and Opal Mills based on the conclusive DNA evidence. Three more victims, Wendy Coffield, Debra Bonner, and Debra Estes were added to the indictment, though these ones were less of a slam dunk.

The additional names were added because microscopic particles of paint found were matched to the specific brand used at Gary’s work during the time frame the murder took place. Given how similar the circumstances of all the victims were it was a strong case, but it wasn’t as guaranteed as the original four.

All of Gary’s family and friends were absolutely shocked by this news. Sure he was a bit dim and maybe a little weird, but a murderer? That seemed impossible. He was just a nice, normal, and completely uninteresting guy. But nobody was more shocked than his wife, Judith. She stated that even though they had been together for almost 17 years at that point, he still treated her like a newlywed.

By all accounts, the two really seemed to be in love. Gary stated while in custody that he truly loved Judith, and the fact that he had nearly stopped killing seems to support this. Then again, he hadn’t stopped hiring sex workers and is a bit of a lunatic, so what he actually felt is really anyone’s guess. The arrest led to a rather predictable divorce, and as years went by Judith began to publically question whether their relationship was real or if he was just using her.

Personally I’m inclined to believe that it was real, and I think that deep down Judith felt so as well. Gary was broken to the point of barely being human, yet their relationship almost entirely stopped his most depraved urges. Maybe he’s outsmarted me with his knowledge of true crime and he forced himself to stop killing out of self preservation, but I think Judith said what happened best in a 2007 interview with a local TV reporter: “I feel I have saved lives…by being his wife and making him happy.”

While her statement is almost certainly true, we’re also getting dangerously close to humanizing this murderous piece of shit so it’s time to put an end to that real quick. Gary killed a whole lot of people, and it was time for him to pay the price.

But what price was he going to pay? Washington was a death penalty state, and the people absolutely believed that he deserved to die. Unfortunately, Gary had carefully followed the Casual Criminalist’s rules for criminals. He didn’t write down his crimes.

He didn’t include other people in his crimes. He didn’t tell people about his crimes. Police may have been confident that he was responsible for dozens of murders beyond the seven for which he was indicted, but there wasn’t any way to prove it without a confession.

It was the defense’s one and only bargaining chip, and they were absolutely going to use it. In exchange for taking the death penalty off the table, Gary would confess to all of his murders and lead the police to their bodies. This did not go as smoothly as planned, though not necessarily because he wasn’t being cooperative. The problem was that he didn’t remember the girls.

He didn’t know their names and he couldn’t recognize them from pictures. In his mind sex workers were things, not people, so there was no reason to remember them.

What Gary did care about was what he had done and where he hid the bodies. That was the only part that was important to him, and he was able to remember the locations and how he killed them with a level of detail that was only made more surprising by the fact that he couldn’t remember any of their faces. When all was said and done, he confessed to the murders of 48 girls and women.

At the trial, the names of every one of Gary’s confirmed victims was read aloud, with him having to say “guilty” after each and every one. The process took over an hour, and he was sentenced to 48 consecutive life sentences plus 480 additional years for tampering with evidence. For many people, this finally provided closure on one of the darkest chapters in living memory. But for others, this was a gross miscarriage of justice.

Washington was supposed to be a death penalty state. This monster confessed to murdering 48 girls, as young as 14, and repeatedly desecrating their corpses. If that wasn’t deserving of the death penalty, then what the Hell was? A lot of people were outraged over the deal that was made, and it brought into question if this was the end of the death penalty in Washington.

As of 35 days ago at the time of writing this, the answer to that is yes, the death penalty is officially off the books in Washington. However, the death penalty has been abolished, reinstated, abolished, reinstated, found unconstitutional as written, rewritten and reinstated, and now abolished again, so God only knows what the future holds for the state of Washington and their stance on capital punishment.

But at the end of the day, the agreement was made for the benefit of the families of the 41 victims who weren’t on the original indictment. The prosecuting attorney, Norm Maleng, said in a statement that they could have gone ahead with the seven indictments and received the death penalty, but there would be too many lingering questions for the dozens of families that didn’t receive closure.

And it’s not as if every death that had been attributed to the Green River Killer was actually perpetrated by Gary, either. Most of them were, but there were a few that he was able to confirm were not his victims. It would be easy to say that maybe he was just lying, but his rationale for denying responsibility for some of the victims was sufficiently fucked up to be 100% believable. He stated that he had a lot of pride in what he had done, and he didn’t want to steal that from somebody else deserving by taking credit for their murders.

Hearing that makes me really, really wish he had been executed by the state, but I understand the prosecution’s decision. As Norm stated after the trial, “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.”

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that all of the families of his victims have received closure. The 48 counts of murder to which he pled guilty included 46 of the 47 I gave earlier, as well as two Jane Does. However, in 2010, the body of Becky Marrero, one of his earlier victims, was found after almost three decades. Although Gary was indicted for this murder and again pled guilty, it shows that he was not entirely forthcoming with the information he provided.

It is believed that he killed at least 70 women in total, and he has made claims of having killed at least 80.

Wrap Up

Gary Ridgway was the United States second most prolific serial killer, and the one who was active for the longest period of time. And yet, he is also one of if not the least remarkable serial killers we have covered on this channel. I think the most important thing to take away from this case is how important it is to understand the difference between science and pseudoscience.

Were it not for how much faith the police put into the polygraph results back in 1984, there’s a very strong chance that Gary would have been caught much sooner. Likewise, the reliance on criminal profiling and the dismissal of the letter written to The Seattle Times were major roadblocks as well.

Criminal profiling has been popular for decades and Mindhunter was a fantastic show, but when researchers start pointing out the complete lack of empirical research or evidence and start to refer to it as pseudoscience, it’s probably a good idea to at least be a little skeptical of the results. After all, polygraphs were popular for a long time too, but they’re total and complete nonsense.

More importantly, Gary didn’t really fit any profile. He was too ordinary and too plain, which went a lot farther than it should have in helping to avoid police detection even when he was on their radar. And I get it; I wouldn’t expect the serial murdering necrophile to be able to hold a steady job for three decades and to be in a stable relationship either, nor would I expect the person that was so meticulous about eliminating evidence to be such a dumb-dumb. It’s easy to give in to those assumptions, but you never know who is capable of what so it’s best to rely on things like forensic science rather than gut feelings.

Of course, while Gary was able to adhere to most of the Casual Criminalist’s rules, there is one rule that was broken repeatedly throughout this episode: don’t fuck up your kids. And as an addendum to that rule that I really didn’t think needed to be written down, if you think that your spouse is screwing up your kid, don’t compound the problem by telling them how cool necrophilia is.

Key Takeaways

• Gary Ridgway’s unremarkable, ordinary appearance and stable lifestyle defied serial killer profiling, helping him evade capture for nearly two decades.
• Police reliance on pseudoscience like polygraph tests and flawed criminal profiling allowed Ridgway to be cleared as a suspect despite being on their radar.
• Ridgway’s meticulous evidence disposal—avoiding trophies, planting false clues, and replacing tires—demonstrated careful planning that compensated for his low IQ.
• Childhood abuse, including his mother’s sexualized behavior and his father’s normalization of necrophilia, profoundly shaped Ridgway’s violent misogyny and deviant fantasies.
• Ridgway confessed to 48 murders to avoid the death penalty, though he could not remember victims’ faces, viewing sex workers as disposable objects rather than people.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was Gary Ridgway’s IQ?

Gary Ridgway’s IQ was measured in the low 80s, which was only a few points away from being able to apply for disability benefits.

How many victims did Gary Ridgway confess to killing?

Gary Ridgway confessed to the murders of 48 girls and women, and was sentenced to 48 consecutive life sentences plus 480 additional years for tampering with evidence.

What was Gary Ridgway’s method of killing?

Gary Ridgway chose strangulation as his method of killing because it wouldn’t leave behind any blood and because it felt much more personal.

How did Gary Ridgway avoid leaving evidence at crime scenes?

Gary Ridgway wore gloves to avoid fingerprints, cut victims’ fingernails if they tore his clothes, left empty chewing gum wrappers and cigarette butts (though he neither smoked nor chewed gum) to throw police off, and even replaced all four tires on his truck when he realized he may have left tire tracks in the mud.

Why did Gary Ridgway target sex workers and runaways?

Gary Ridgway targeted sex workers and runaways because he both hated them and felt he could make them disappear without people noticing for a while. He believed nobody would miss them or anyone who knew them would be afraid to go to the police.

What role did Ted Bundy play in the Green River Killer investigation?

Ted Bundy, from death row in Florida, sent a letter to the task force offering help. While he mostly confirmed details police already knew, he provided two pieces of advice: to stake out fresh bodies because the killer would return to have sex with them, and that the killer hadn’t stopped unless he was ‘born again and filled with the Holy Spirit in a very real way.‘

How did Gary Ridgway pass a polygraph test in 1984?

Gary Ridgway passed a polygraph test in 1984 by admitting to frequently hiring sex workers but denying any involvement in the killings. His openness about hiring sex workers made him seem more credible and honest to interrogators, and the polygraph results led to him being largely ruled out as a suspect at that time.

What was unusual about how victims’ families reacted at Gary Ridgway’s sentencing?

Some family members of Gary Ridgway’s victims felt disappointment rather than anger or closure when they saw him in court. They described him as a ‘pathetic worm’ and ‘more mouse than man,’ disappointed that this unremarkable person had eluded police for so long.

How was Gary Ridgway finally caught?

Gary Ridgway was finally caught in 2001 when new advancements in DNA technology allowed his 1987 saliva sample to match evidence from the crimes. He was arrested on the strip for loitering for prostitution and indicted on four counts of murder based on conclusive DNA evidence, with three more added based on microscopic paint particles.

What was Gary Ridgway’s childhood like?

Gary Ridgway came from an abusive household with controlling, verbally abusive mother Mary and father Thomas who complained about sex workers while patronizing them. Gary wet the bed until his teens (leading to inappropriate cleaning by his mother), tortured animals, started fires, became obsessed with true crime, and was told about necrophilia by his father’s coworker. He was also constantly compared unfavorably to his more accomplished older brother Gregory.

Sources

• Original Casual Criminalist video: Gary Ridgway - The Green River Killer
• Hero image source by Adbh266 / openverse, by-sa.

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