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Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949) is a former truck painter and the most prolific serial killer in American history. He was arrested on November 30, 2001, for the murders of four women whose deaths were attributed to the Green River Killer and two years later pleaded guilty to 48 counts of murder.
Ridgway was arrested in 1982 and 2001 for charges related to prostitution. He became a suspect in 1983 for the Green River killings, 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.
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 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 first-degree aggravated 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 of King County, Washington, and that he had transported and dumped the remains of the two women near Portland, Oregon, to confuse the police.
Public opinion remains divided as to 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," and 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 47 life sentences with no possibility of parole and one life sentence, to be served consecutively. |
Chasing the Devil:
My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer
By David Reichert
It began with the discovery of three women's bodies found near suburban Seattle's Green River in August, 1982. Soon more corpses and human remains would be found, some as far as Oregon. They were teenage runaways or other women whose anonymous lifestyles had made them easy, vulnerable targets-and they were all the victims of a faceless murderer whose rampage would span two decades and take as many as forty-nine lives. No other serial killer in the nation's history had killed so many people.For twenty long years, Sheriff David Reichert played a cat and mouse game with the Green River killer who managed to stay one step ahead of Reichert, the local authorities, and even the FBI. But Reichert had no doubt in his mind that he was going to find the Green River killer- no matter how long it took...That day came in 2001 when DNA evidence linked fifty-two-year-old truck painter Gary Ridgway to three of the murder victims. The long nightmare was finally over for Reichert and the families of the murder victims. With startling insider disclosures and the fascinating forensic details of the relentless manhunt itselfChasing the Devil exposes the heart of true evil and reveals the dauntless efforts behind one man's quest to chase it...
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Green River, Running Red:
The Real Story of the Green River Killer
America's Deadliest Serial Murderer
By Ann Rule
Following the winter 2003 sentencing of the Green River serial killer, Gary Ridgeway, perennial true-crime bestseller Rule (Heart Full of Lies, etc.) has finally completed her long-awaited definitive narrative of the brutal and senseless crimes that haunted the Seattle area for decades. Rule once again validates her standing as one of the pre-eminent chroniclers of modern serial murder, calling upon her experience as a former police officer and a civilian adviser to the VICAP Task Force to present a nuanced and easily comprehensible account of the hunt for the man responsible for at least 48 killings. She succeeds on a number of levels; perhaps her greatest achievement is bringing Ridgeway's victims to life as distinct individuals, most of whom led lives of quiet desperation that brought them to prostitution and, eventually, to death at his hands. Rule also captures the profound sadness pervading this grim chapter in U.S. crime history by humanizing the grieving relatives, as well as the dedicated investigators who, tragically, had interviewed Ridgeway several times and then moved on to other suspects. Her eventual realization that the murderer had attended some of her lectures and book signings will give readers the creeps.
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Gary Ridgway: The Green River Killer
By Staff of the King County Journal
The story of America's most prolific serial murderer, told by the reporters who covered the case from the beginning. Gary Ridgway got away with murder for more than two decades. When he was finally brought to justice, the Seattle-area truck painter pleaded guilty to strangling 48 girls and young women, while leading the double life of a married man with a steady job. The true number of victims was probably 60 or even 70. "I killed so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight," Ridgway told the court. Here, for the first time, is the story of the longest and largest case of serial murder in American history, told by the newspaper reporters who covered the story from the day it began -- July 15, 1982 -- to the day Ridgway was convicted -- Nov. 5, 2003.
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Chasing the Devil:
My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer
By Sheriff David Reichert
Several years after Ted Bundy’s killing spree began in Washington, the deadliest serial killer in U.S. history embarked on a murderous rampage that would remain unsolved for two decades. Both preyed on young women but, while Bundy’s victims were often college students, the Green River Killer pursued prostitutes: runaway teenagers and women whose precarious lifestyle, Reichert says, made them easy targets for a murderer. The author, then a homicide detective in the King County Sheriff’s Office, was the lead investigator on the Green River case from the beginning, when the bodies of three women were found in and near the Green River in suburban Seattle in August 1982. Twenty years later, DNA testing linked Gary Ridgway to his first victims, and he eventually confessed to killing 53 women. Reichert, by then the county sheriff, finally got to close a case that many thought would never be solved. His absorbing account offers an in-depth look at the obstacles and the frustrations, the leads that went nowhere and the prime suspects who were eventually cleared. In this straightforward, just-the-facts approach, Reichert downplays some of the more sensational aspects that TV has seized on, such as detectives calling on the imprisoned Bundy for help and using an FBI profiler. He illustrates how policing evolved during the course of the case, thanks to new technology, and only occasionally slips into defensiveness. Reichert vehemently stands up for his office, which was constantly second-guessed by the feds, criticized by the press and mistrusted by the victims’ families, who thought the police would have made a greater effort to find the killer if the women had been more respectable. A great book for true crime fans, Reichart’s account gives readers a chance to see the hard work that went on behind the scenes.
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