Gary Ridgway

1. Gary Ridgway (The Green River Killer)

2. Info • Full Name: Gary Leon Ridgway (The Green River Killer) • Proven Victims: 49 • Possible Victims: (71-90+) • Years Active: 1982-2000 • Occupation: Truck Painter • Birthday: 2/18/49 (age 65) • P.O.B: Seoul, South Korea or Salt Lake City, Utah (according to www.biography.com) • Religion: Baptist • Military service: Navy (1970-1971)

3. Early Life • Relatives described his mother as domineering and have said that young Ridgway witnessed violent arguments between his parents • He had a problem of wetting the bed and his mom would bathe him immediately and embarrass and belittle him in front of his family. • Had conflicting sexual attraction and anger towards his mother. • Ridgway was tested with an IQ of 182

4. The Beginning • When he was 16 (or 14 according to www.criminalminds.wikia.com), he stabbed a 6 year old boy, who survived the attack. He led the boy into the woods and then stabbed him through the ribs into his liver.

5. Adult Life • At age 21 he married his high school girlfriend • Joined the Military and was sent to Vietnam • During the time he was in service he began spending a lot of time with prostitutes and contracted gonorrhea. • Contracting gonorrhea angered him, but he continued to have unprotected sex with prostitutes. • After he was divorced the first time he became devoted to religion but his love/hate for prostitutes got in the way.

6. Ways of Murder • Ridgway began each murder by picking up a woman, usually a prostitute. • The victims were to be believed prostitutes or runaways picked up • The bodies were often left in clusters, sometimes posed, usually nude. • He sometimes showed the woman a picture of his son, to help her trust him. After having sex Ridgway would strangle them from behind. • He would sometimes return to the victims' bodies and have sexual intercourse with them. 

7. Additional Info • Ridgway claimed to have murdered 71 victims and confessed to having had sex with them before killing them, a detail which he did not reveal until after his sentencing. • He acknowledged that he targeted prostitutes because they were "easy to pick up" and that he "hated most of them." • 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 could resist the urge to commit necrophilia

8. Matthew Ridgway • Matthew remembered his father as a relaxed man who never yelled. • Taught him to play baseball and always showed up for school concerts and soccer practices. • Matthew Ridgway said his father never talked about prostitutes, or hurting anyone. • He never used racial slurs, he never yelled, and he rarely argued with his mother

9. Confirmed • At the time to his arrest he was convicted of 49 murders (December 18, 2003) but as of late he is to be connected to 71 murders. • 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. • He was also sentenced to an additional 10 years for tampering with evidence for each of the 48 victims, adding 480 years to his 48 life sentences.

10. Confession • Ridgway confessed to more confirmed murders than any other American serial killer. • In his confession, he acknowledged that he targeted prostitutes because they were "easy to pick up" and that he "hated most of them”. • 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 could resist the urge to commit necrophilia. • Ridgway said that murdering young women was his "career”

11. Number of Kills Per Year • 1982: 18 • 1983: 25 • 1984: 4 • 1986-1998: 4

12. Age Range • They range in age from 15 to 38 • most of Ridgway’s victims were teens • their deaths span at least 16 years.

13. Suspected • Ridgway has been considered a suspect in the disappearances/murders of five other women. • Cora McGuirk was the mother to Professional basketball player named Martell Webster of the Washington Wizards.

14. Rebecca Garde • She had just gotten off work from her telemarketing job and decided to walk home when a maroon dodge pickup happened by. • He offered her a ride. She offered a proposition: $20 in exchange for a sex act. • She directed Ridgway to a nearby trailer park, he insisted that they leave the truck and go into the woods. Not long after they entered the woods, Ridgway attacked her. • Garde is the only known survivor of Ridgway's attacks.

15. Plea Bargain • On November 30, 2001, as he was leaving the Renton, Washington, Kenworth truck factory 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 life sentence imprisonment without parole.

16. Pop Culture (based off him) • Artwork: 1 • Documentaries or films: 5 • Non-Fiction books: 10 • Music: 7 • Television (fiction): 4

17. Sources • http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Gary-Ridgway-I-want-to-prove-theres-80-bodies-out-there-223959161.html • http://criminalminds.wikia.com/wiki/Gary_Ridgway • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/gary-ridgway • http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/greenriver/index_1.html • http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/green-river-killer-gary-ridgway-claims-find-bodies-authorities-skeptical-article-1.1460839 • http://murderpedia.org/male.R/r/ridgway-gary.htm • http://www.alternet.org/story/17171/the_truth_about_the_green_river_killer • http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/green-river-killer.htm • http://lurnq.com/lesson/Gary-Ridgway-The-Green-River-Killer/section/Biography~20/ • http://www.today.com/id/41719987/ns/us_news-gary_ridgway?q=Gary%20Ridgway