Chapter 1
This is a story about an American serial killer, whose hunger for sex led him convicted of murdering 49 victims. It makes him one of the cruellest and gruesome murderers in the whole of America. The victims were mostly teenage girls and sex workers from the surrounding area of Seattle and Tacoma in Washington.
The killings stared around the beginning of the 1980s and continued throughout the 1990s. The police were not able to arrest the culprit due to lack of evidence. The cost of the investigation was a whopping 15 million dollars.
The mystery of Green River Killer took about 20 years to resolve and reach its conclusion. The culprit initially used to kill his victims and dump their body in the Green River in the suburb of Washington. The name Green River Killer was provided by the press when the first bodies began surfacing in that river.
Gary Leon Ridgway, born on 18th February 1949, was a resident of Salt Lake City Utah. He was the second son of Mary Ridgway and Thomas Ridgway. His father was a religious person and worked as a bus driver. His mother was more of a dominating person and frequently quarrelled with his father. He had bed-wetting problems until 13 years of age. She also used to scold and abuse Gary with no fault of his.
Gary had a feeling of anger for her mother and wanted to kill her to get rid of the persecution and abuse. On the other hand, she loved seeing his mother sand bathing and fantasized of having sex with her but was very fearful of his mother. At the age of 16, he took a boy to the woods and stabbed him with a knife. The boy suffered serious wounds but was saved.
Chapter 2
Gary married her girlfriend Claudia Kraig and joined US Navy after graduating in 1969. He served in a ship and participated in the Vietnam War. During that period, he had regular sexual intercourse with sex workers. He contracted Gonorrhea but continued with his sexual activities. When Gary was away Kraig her wife, had an extra-marital affair, and the marriage ended in divorce within a year.
Gary married for the second time after a year to Marcia Winslow. Her second wife once complained that Gary tried to choke her using his arms. He continued to visit sex workers and wanted her wife to participate in sex in public, which resulted in the second divorce.
He continued his lust for sex, with sex workers and runaways. He used to wait with his pickup truck in the south pacific highway and wait for his next victim. Gary refused to pay the sex workers and strangulated them with his forearms and dumped their bodies in the Green River. Some of his victims were dumped, in garbage dumps in a nude condition.
He was suffering from necrophilia; he used to return to the sites for having sex with the dead bodies. He later confirmed that sex with dead did not provide him pleasure, but due to lack of victim on that day, he used to visit to satisfy his sexual desires.
Chapter 3
Gary Ridgway married Judith Mawson as his third wife. Judith was a nice woman, but her life also had a fair share of troubles. At the age of 20, Judith was impressed by a man speaking British accent, and at the beginning of 1965, she married this man. After her third anniversary, her husband revealed to her that he was bisexual. The couple had two children, even after knowing about her husband she continued her marriage for about 20 years.
After 20 years of marriage, Judith was not able to bear anymore and decided to quit her marriage. In 1985, Judith was sitting at the bar when she was approached by a stranger, who offered her to buy drinks and dance with her. The stranger was none other than Gary, later they started meeting each other more frequently. Gary was always kind and gentle to her.
A year later, they were close to each other’s heart, one day Gary invited to start staying with him. Judith went to stay with Gary but found that the house didn’t have any carpets. She also observed that Gary had a burnt portion in his right arm, on enquiring Gary told her that during the painting of a truck somehow fire was ignited and that burnt his arm partially.
Judith and Gary married and settled down at Gary’s house. Gary was working as a truck painter and used to leave his house early for work to earn extra pay. But actually, he used to wait in the pacific highway and wait with his pick-up truck waiting for his next victim.
Chapter 4
Complaints from the family of the deceased kept pouring at the local police station, and they did not have any clues. The investigation carried on for many years interrogating hundreds of witnesses.
Bodies were gradually getting retrieved in and around the Green River. After spending millions of dollars, the police were clueless about the culprit. The case was transferred to the FBI. One day, in 1987 after Gary left for his work, FBI agents arrived at Gary’s house and questioned Judith and told her that Gary is the one they suspect to be the Green River killer.
She was taken aback on hearing that, as she had always found Gary to be caring and loving. Gary was arrested and taken into custody and interrogated. But he claimed innocence. He was put through a polygraph test but succeeded in passing the test. However, police collected samples of his hair and tissues.
Police did not have any substantial evidence against Gary, hence they let him go. Gary convinced Judith that the police, wanted to enquire about the killings that were happening and he does not have any hand in them. With the passage of time and an increase in scientific research through DNA analysis was a breakthrough in this case.
Gary worked as a spray painter at a truck factory. On 30th November 2001, based on the DNA analysis from the victim and the samples collected from Gary, he was finally arrested and charged with murders after 20 years of his committing his first crime.
Chapter 5
When confronted with evidence, Gary confessed to having murdered several women. He said that he had lost count of the number of murders committed by him. He was charged with the murder of 48 women and later one more was added to the count making it 49 women. The police informed Judith, the carpets at Gary’s house were used by him to wrap the victims, and hence Gary’s house didn’t have any carpets.
On 18th December 2003, the court sentenced Gary Ridgway to 48 life sentences without a chance of parole. He was also sentenced to 10 years additional imprisonment for destroying evidence for each of the 48 murders making it 480 years of imprisonment apart from 48 life sentences.
During the investigation, Gary Ridgway claimed to murder about 71 women after having sex with everyone them. He also revealed that after marrying Judith, his rate of killing decreased and murdered only 3 women after his third marriage.
He further confessed that he focused on sex workers as they were easy to pick and killed them when they demanded money. Later he started burying the body of victims so that he could resist the temptation of necrophilia.
Gary is kept, in solitary confinement in Walla-Walla prison in Washington State Penitentiary serving his sentence of 48 life sentences along with added 480 years of a prison sentence for the crime committed by him.
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