Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, is America's most prolific serial killer, so named because his first five victims were found along the Green River in Washington state. Between killing his first victim in 1982 and his capture in 2001, he murdered at least 49 women, most of them prostitutes or teenage runaways. During interrogation after his arrest, Ridgway admitted to more than 70 murders, though many of these remain unconfirmed. Read on for more creepy and terrifying details about Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer.
Creepy and Terrifying Details About the Green River Killer,
Gary Ridgway, Family Man
Gary Ridgway was married three times, and at the time of his arrest, he and his wife lived a respectable life in a quiet area, where his neighbors thought of him as a stand-up guy. Ridgway also had a son, and would sometimes show pictures of his son to prostitutes to put them at ease before he murdered them.
Ridgway Stayed Out of Prison for Decades
The Green River Killer claimed the vast majority of his victims in 1982-83. He was arrested on a prostitution charge in '82 and became a suspect in the case, but was released after passing a polygraph test. It wasn't until 2001 that police compiled enough DNA evidence to arrest Ridgway. At that time he was living peacefully with his third wife, who began divorce proceedings pretty quickly.
He Found Choking His Victims "Rewarding"
As is expected from a serial killer, pathological liar, and necrophiliac, Gary Ridgway has said some super, super creepy things. A sampling of his sinister one-liners: “I don’t know if it was an illness, or just, uh, I wanted to kill;" “My method’s working pretty good. Choking is what I did, and I was pretty good at it;" and “They look in the bedrooms, nobody’s in there, nothin’s, you know, there’s my son’s room. Hey, this guy has a son, he’s not gonna hurt anybody.” He preferred choking to other forms of murder because “that was more personal and more rewarding than to shoot her.”
He Openly Admits You Can't Trust Him
Ridgway is the first one to tell you he can't be trusted. When interrogated by the police, he openly admitted to being a pathological liar. Said journalist Charles Harger of Ridgway, "Gary Ridgway is absolutely playing me; he's playing everybody when he talks. I don't think Gary Ridgway can even comprehend the truth.”
He Stayed Eerily Calm
In his typically blood-chilling, nonchalant manner, the Green River Killer explained to detectives why one of his victims was found without a head, saying, “The head probably rolled the rest of the way down the hill as the body decomposed.”
He killed so many women he was fuzzy on the details of this particular murder, offering, "I picked her up someplace and went to the house and killed her, most likely.”
He Targeted Forgotten Women
Ridgway intentionally targeted women he knew the police wouldn't spend too much time getting worked up about. In a way, his crimes tell us as much about our value system as a society as they do about his warped mind. He said, “I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.” He also focused on underage runaways and other forgotten women.
Ridgway Went Camping with His Son—and the Remains of Some Prostitutes
In 1984, Ridgway took a camping trip to Oregon, south of his home in Washington, with his son. He also happened to have the remains of two or three dead prostitutes in his car. He paid for everything in cash to leave no record of the trip, and dumped the remains in the Oregon area, so as to make detectives think the Green River Killer was moving south. He then presumably had a nice time camping with his son.
Ted Bundy Tried to Help Find Ridgway
After seeing a newspaper picture of Detective Dave Reichert, the lead officer in the Green River Killer case, Ted Bundy wrote him a letter offering assistance in finding the killer. Ted Bundy the rapist, serial killer, and necrophiliac? Yes, that Ted Bundy. In his letter to Reichert, Bundy wrote, “Don't ask me why I believe I'm an expert in this area, just accept that I am and we'll start from there.” Reichert took Bundy up on his offer in 1986, but it got him nowhere.
He Was Really Weird
It's easy to see these things in retrospect, but Ridgway was always the kind of weird where you know something isn't quite right about him. For example, after six months of questioning, Dave Reichert, the head detective in the Green River Killer case, asked Ridgway if he had any questions. Ridgway responded, "Yeah, how come your hair is gray and your eyebrows are dark?" Um, what?
He Was a Cheapskate
As you'd expect from his crimes, the Green River Killer hated prostitutes. But maybe not for the reasons you'd think. "I picked prostitutes as my victims because I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex.” Mark Prothero, Ridgway's lawyer, had the following to say: "I came up with the term psychofrugalpath. He was cheap to a psychopathic degree. When you would ask him why he would kill the girls, he would say because he would get his money back."