Ridgway
Ridgway grows up in a family in which his parents have loud fights, often, and his father complains about all the prostitutes hanging out on the streets where he works that Gary has bed wetting issues until he is 13-years-old, and each time he soils the linens, his mother chastises him by washing his genitals, causing the boy mixed feelings of anger and sexual desires for his mother, those in turn lead to fantasizes about killing the woman. Dyslexic (he will be held back a year in high school) and with an IQ in the low 80s, there are soon incidents of arson and animal torture to add to his serial killer resume. In 1960 the family moves to the city of SeaTac in Washington, a section called McMiken Heights, but it is more of the same for Ridgway, who witnesses his mom break a plate over his dad's head, endures being yelled at endlessly, and finally attacks a fellow human being at the age of 16, when he lures a boy into the woods and stabs him in the side with a pocket knife (the boy survives). In 1969, he graduates from Tyee High School and marries his 19-year-old girlfriend, Claudia Kraig (the first of his three marriages ... the first two end over infidelities by both partners, the last with Ridgway's arrest for murder), then he joins the Navy and is sent to Vietnam, serves on a supply ship, sees some combat, and in servicing his insatiable need for intercourse, contracts gonorrhea from a prostitute.
Bye-Bye Kitty!
Seemingly Normal
Honorably discharged, and seemingly normal, returned to Washington, Ridgway finds work at the Kenworth Truck Company factory in the town of Renton, where he paints vehicles for years (right up to the time he is arrested), marries again and father's a son, and becomes involved in with neighborhood churches (Baptist and Pentecostal), proselytizing door-to-door on his free time, reading the Bible aloud at both work and at home, and attending Sunday services, where the sermons often bring him to tears. He is well liked at work, does a good job, and fits into his neighborhood quite well (between marriags, he also joins Parents Without Partners and goes through a number of "girlfriends" for casual sex). But behind the facade he continues servicing his sexual appetites, seeking out the prostitutes that inhabit the area around the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and sometime during the summer of 1982, he begins killing them.
Ridgway And Third Wife - 1988
Pattern established, Ridgway picks up prostitutes ("because they are easy to pick up" and he "hated them the most" the killer will later relate) and teenage runaways, sometimes showing them pictures of his son to prove what an "okay" guy he is, takes them to a secluded area, and then after sex, whether they consent or not, strangles his victim's to death with his bare hands (later, because of the bruises and scratches his arms receive when some of the women fight back, he begins using a ligature around their necks). Murder completed, he disposes of the bodies in the wooded and secluded areas around Washington's Green River ... often contaminating the dump scenes with gum, cigarettes, and written materials of others he has collected from the trash (displaying his feral intelligence, he also transports some of his victims into Oregon to confuse police). And so he won't have to be bothered by having to find a new victim, he also returns to his "dump" sites and has sex with many of the corpses. Over and over through the 1980s, into the 1990s, young women go missing (his oldest known victim is 38 victim is 38-year-old Patricia Yellowrobe, his youngest, four fifteen-year-olds, Debra Lorraine Estes, Colleen Renee Brockman, Pammy Annette Avent, and Carrie Ann Rois), so many that Ridgway loses track of the number of his "conquests" (he later believes his total is 71 women!), and bodies begin being found along the Green River, so many that the authorities and news give the homicidal maniac a name, the Green River Killer.
A Body Is Removed
Some Of The Victims
And Another
And Another
And Another
Hunt for the monster on, the King's County Sheriff's Office establishes a Green River Task Force to investigate the murders ... an investigation that includes making sweeps of the areas known to be frequented by runaways and prostitutes, has famed F.B.I. agent, John Edward Douglas, create a profile of the suspect, and even interviews Ted Bundy before his Florida execution (Bundy suggests the killer might be having necrophilia sex with his victims and suggests that the authorities stake out the next find to get an arrest). And with so any looking for him, needs never fulfilled, Ridgway eventually becomes known to the authorities ... he is sent on his way after being found by police at 1:15 in the morning at dead end near South 204th Street and the Alaska Airlines warehouse, he is involved in an incident with a prostitute named Rebecca Guay, in which he admits choking her (because she bite him he claims), driving different vehicles (including his brother's aqua-colored truck), he is spotted cruising for prostitutes, he becomes a suspect to the Task Force in 1983, but then is crossed off their list when he passes a lie detector test in 1984, and he is a suspect again in 1987 when police follow him for two weeks, search his home (but find nothing), and take saliva and hair samples from him (surprisingly, only three of his known 49 murders take place after his 1988 marriage to his third wife, Judith Mawson). Eventually, as DNA analysis improves, the dots in the case are connected, and matches of the samples taken from Ridgway are matched to four victims, Marcia Chapman (31), Opal Mills 16), Cynthia Hinds 17), and Carol Ann Christensen (21), and paint from the truck company is found on three more victims, Wendy Coffield (16), Debra Bonner (23), and Debra Estes 15). Ridgway is finally arrested by police at the Kenworth Truck factory, for the murders of the seven women, on November 30, 2001.
1982 Mugshot
Big News
Jig up, arrested (his journey behind bars will move from a maximum security cell at the King County Jail, to accommodations at the Airway Heights Minimum-Medium Security Level Tank, solitary confinement at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, a stint at the Super Max prison, USP Florence, just east of Canon City, Colorado, and a transfer back to Walla Walla in 2015, so he can be "close" to potential future murder investigations), Ridgway confesses to the murders and has his lawyers begin crafting a plea bargain that will spare his life in exchange for his cooperation in locating the unfound bodies of his crime spree and providing more information to authorities (King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng will state, "... Gary Ridgway does not deserve mercy. He does not deserve to live. The mercy provided by today's resolution is directed not at Ridgway, but towards the families who have suffered so much ..."). On November 5, 2003, Ridgway enters a guilty plea in 48 homicides, and on December 18, 2003, King County Superior Court Judge Richard Jones sentences the monster to 48 life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Walla Walla
Super Max Prison
Return To Walla Walla
Currently rotting in jail as of 2019, the humanoid awaiting a final judgment of his deeds by the highest court possible, the 70-year-old Ridgway is now the unfortunate subject of artwork, documentaries and films, non-fiction and fictional books about his life, magazine articles, television shows, and even music ... living out the last chapter of a tale that would have been better, never having had to be told.
Scum
why don't they torture him every week let him heal and torture him again to make the scumbag suffer
ReplyDeleteI wish they would too!!
ReplyDelete