The year is 1982, and life isn’t quite what you had hoped it would be. You take to the streets, selling your body for a little extra money, just to get by. The work is degrading, and sometimes torturous, but you do it because it’s all you can do. Your pimp beats you regularly if you don’t bring in enough money, so you take any customer you can get. So when a man pulls up in a truck, you don’t think twice about getting in. Little did you know, you just became the next victim of Gary Ridgway.
He takes you back to his house and shows you a picture of his son. He proceeds to have sex with you. He isn’t gentle about it, he chokes you and later strangles you to death. Without much care, he tosses you back into his truck and dumps your body near the Green River. You aren’t his first victim, and you aren’t his last. He will go on, evading capture until November, 2001.
So who is this man, and why does he rape and murder young women?
Gary Ridgway was born on February 18, 1949 in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Rita Steinman and Thomas Newton Ridgway. He was one of three boys, his brothers Gregory Leon and Thomas Edward, all raised in the McMicken Heights neighborhood of SeaTac, Washington.
His mother was often described by relatives as domineering, and Gary was witness to more than one violent argument between his parents. He became a bed wetter, and when his mother discovered the accidents, she would bathe him immediately and then belittle and embarrass him in front of his family. This contributed to the development of his conflicting feelings of sexual attraction and anger toward her.
In school, Gary was tested with an IQ of 82, and his academic performance was a perfect reflection of that. When he was in High School, he had to repeat a single school year twice in order to attain grades good enough to pass. His classmates found him congenial, but mostly forgettable.
Gary was indeed troubled though. When he was 16, he led a 6 year old boy into the woods, and then stabbed him through the ribs and into his liver. The boy survived, and reported that Gary walked away laughing and saying, “I always wondered what it would be like to kill someone.” Gary was never held accountable for his actions.
At age 18, while still in school, Gary joined the navy. After graduation, he married his High School girlfriend, Claudia Barrows, and was then sent to Vietnam. It’s there that he first began to use prostitutes, and contracted Gonorrhea for the second time. He was angry, but he continued to have unprotected sex with prostitutes. His wife, Claudia, home, alone, and only 19, decided to begin dating again, and their marriage ended within a year.
In 1973, he married again, this time to Marcia Winslow, and in 1975, she gave birth to his son, Matthew Ridgway. During his time with Marcia, Gary became fanatically religious. He would go door to door, preaching the word of God, with the hope of converting as many as he could. He read the Bible aloud at both work and home, and insisted his wife follow the strict teachings of their church pastor. However, Gary continued to solicit the services of prostitutes during this marriage. He became obsessed with them, conflicted because the religious side of him hates them, but his relentless sexual needs drive him to use them. He even insisted Marcia participate in sex in public and other inappropriate places, including areas where his victims’ bodies had been discovered.
It is believed that he began murdering young runaways and prostitutes in 1982, just months after his divorce from his second wife, Marcia. Girls began disappearing from the area along Pacific Highway South (International Blvd. 99). Most of their bodies were found dumped in the wooded areas around the Green River, giving him his name.
Gary would leave his victims bodies, often in clusters, sometimes posed, and usually nude. He would sometimes return to the victims’ bodies to have sex with them. “I placed most of the bodies in groups which I call clusters,” he said. “I liked to drive by the clusters and think about the women I placed there.” He usually “used a landmark to remember a cluster and the women I placed there,” but on occasion abandoned a potential cluster because of a perceived risk associated with the site he chose.
Gary was arrested in 1982 and again in 2001, both times on charges related to prostitution. He became a suspect in the Green River killings in 1983, but in 1984 he took and passed a polygraph test. On April 7, 1987, police took hair and saliva samples.
In 1985, Gary began dating Judith Mawson, whom he married in 1988. The murders declined in number during his time with Judith. He has been reported stating that his urge to kill was reduced because he truly loved her. Judith told a television reporter that, “I feel I have saved lives… by being his wife and making him happy.”
The hair and saliva samples taken in 1987 were subjected to DNA analysis in 2001. This provided the police the evidence they needed for his arrest. On November 30, 2001, Gary Ridgway was arrested on suspicion of murder of four women, nearly 20 years after initially being identified as a possible suspected. The DNA evidence conclusively linked semen left in the victims to the saliva swab taken by the police.
On November 5, 2003, Gary Ridgway entered a plea of guilty to 48 charges of aggravated first degree murder as part of a plea bargain. It was agreed that he would be spared the death penalty in exchange for his cooperation in locating the remains of his victims and providing investigators with other details.
According to the Deputy Prosecutor, Jeffrey Baird, “The names of 41 victims who would not be the subject of State v. Ridgway if it were not for the plea agreement,” he went on to explain, “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 in the 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, Gary Ridgway was sentenced to 48 life sentences without 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 an additional 480 years to his 48 life sentences (For a total of 3,360 years in prison).
Gary Ridgway confessed to more murders than any other American Serial Killer. Over a period of 5 months, in police and prosecutor interviews, he confessed to 48 murders. In one taped interview, he told investigators that he was responsible for the deaths of 65 women, and in another taped interview, he claimed to have murdered 71. In his confession, he stated that he targeted prostitutes because “… I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex,” Ridgway said in his confessional statement. “I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.”
In his mind, he believed that he was helping the police out, as he admitted in one interview with investigators. “I thought I was doing you guys a favor, killing prostitutes,” he said. “Here you guys can’t control them, but I can.” Later in a statement, he said that murdering young women was his “career.”
The Green River killer is currently incarcerated at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.
Below is a list of known victims:
| # | Name | Age | Disappeared | Found |
| 1 | Wendy Lee Coffield | 16 | July 8, 1982 | July 15, 1982 |
| 2 | Gisele Ann Lovvorn | 19 | July 17, 1982 | September 25, 1982 |
| 3 | Debra Lynn Bonner | 23 | July 25, 1982 | August 12, 1982 |
| 4 | Marcia Fay Chapman | 31 | August 1, 1982 | August 15, 1982 |
| 6 | Opal Charmaine Mills | 16 | August 12, 1982 | August 15, 1982 |
| 7 | Terry Rene Milligan | 16 | August 29, 1982 | April 1, 1984 |
| 8 | Mary Bridget Meehan | 18 | September 15, 1982 | November 13, 1983 |
| 9 | Debra Lorraine Estes | 15 | September 20, 1982 | May 30, 1988 |
| 10 | Linda Jane Rule | 16 | September 26, 1982 | January 31, 1983 |
| 11 | Denise Darcel Bush | 23 | October 8, 1982 | June 1985 |
| 12 | Shawnda Leea Summers | 16 | October 9, 1982 | August 11, 1983 |
| 13 | Shirley Marie Sherrill | 18 | between October 22, 1982 | June 1985 |
| 14 | Colleen Renee Brockman | 15 | December 24, 1982 | May 26, 1984 |
| 15 | Alma Ann Smith | 18 | March 3, 1983 | April 2, 1984 |
| 16 | Delores LaVerne Williams | 17 | March 14, 1983 | March 31, 1984 |
| 17 | Gail Lynn Mathews | 23 | April 22, 1983 | September 19, 1983 |
| 18 | Andrea M. Childers | 19 | April 14, 1983 | October 11, 1989 |
| 19 | Sandra Kay Gabbert | 17 | April 17, 1983 | April 1, 1984 |
| 20 | Kimi-Kai Pitsor | 16 | April 16, 1983 | December 14, 1983 |
| 21 | Marie M. Malvar | 18 | April 30, 1983 | September 29, 2003 |
| 22 | Carol Ann Christensen | 21 | May 4, 1983 | May 8, 1983 |
| 23 | Martina Theresa Authorlee | 18 | May 22, 1983 | November 14, 1984 |
| 24 | Cheryl Lee Wims | 18 | May 23, 1983 | March 22, 1984 |
| 25 | Yvonne Shelly Antosh | 19 | May 31, 1983 | October 15, 1983 |
| 26 | Carrie A. Rois | 15 | June 2, 1983 | March 10, 1985 |
| 27 | Constance Elizabeth Naon | 19 | June 8, 1983 | October 27, 1983 |
| 28 | Kelly Marie Ware | 22 | July 18, 1983 | October 29, 1983 |
| 29 | Tina Marie Thompson | 21 | July 25, 1983 | April 20, 1984 |
| 30 | April Dawn Buttram | 16 | August 23, 1983 | August 31, 2003 |
| 31 | Debbie May Abernathy | 26 | September 5, 1983 | March 31, 1984 |
| 32 | Tracy Ann Winston | 19 | September 12, 1983 | March 27, 1986 |
| 33 | Maureen Sue Feeney | 19 | September 28, 1983 | May 2, 1986 |
| 34 | Mary Sue Bello | 25 | October 11, 1983 | October 12, 1984 |
| 35 | Pammy Avent | 15 | October 26, 1983 | August 16, 2003 |
| 36 | Delise Louise Plager | 22 | October 30, 1983 | February 14, 1984 |
| 37 | Kimberly L. Nelson | 21 | November 1, 1983 | June 14, 1986 |
| 38 | Lisa Yates | 19 | December 23, 1983 | March 13, 1984 |
| 39 | Mary Exzetta West | 16 | February 6, 1984 | September 8, 1985 |
| 40 | Cindy Anne Smith | 17 | March 21, 1984 | June 27, 1987 |
| 41 | Patricia Michelle Barczak | 19 | October 17, 1986 | February 1993 |
| 42 | Roberta Joseph Hayes | 21 | Last seen leaving a Portland, Oregon jail on February 7, 1987 | September 11, 1991 |
| 43 | Marta Reeves | 36 | between March 5th and April 13, 1990 | September 20, 1990 |
| 44 | Patricia Yellowrobe | 38 | January 1998 | August 6, 1998 |
| 45 | Unidentified White Female | 12-17 | Died prior to May 1983 | March 21, 1984 |
| 46 | Unidentified White Female | 17-19 | Unknown | April 22, 1985 |
| 47 | Unidentified Black Female | 18-27 | Between 1982 and 1984 | December 30, 1985 |
| 48 | Unidentified White Female | 14-18 | From December 1980 to January 1984 | January 2, 1986 |
Interesting fact: Did you know that Ted Bundy helped investigators understand the mind of the backpacker killer?
Here’s another serial killer story you might find interesting. Mamma’s Boy: Ed Gein.
