Gary Ridgway

Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949) is a former truck painter for the Kenworth Truck Company and the most prolific serial killer in American history. He was arrested on November 30, 2001, for the murders of four women whose deaths were attributed to the Green River Killer and two years later pleaded guilty to 48 counts of murder. He has been married several times and has one son.

The murders

During a two-and-a-half-year period in the early 1980s, the Green River Killer is believed to have murdered as many as fifty people near the cities of Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. The remains of two of his victims were later found near Portland. The victims were largely female prostitutes and teenage runaways picked up along Pacific Highway South (Washington State Route 99) and strangled. Most of their bodies were dumped in and around the Green River, except for the two victims in the Portland area.

Related Topics:
1980s - Seattle - Tacoma, Washington - Prostitutes - Washington State Route 99 - Green River

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the early 1980s, the King County Sheriff Department formed the Green River Task Force to investigate the murders. The most notable members of the task force were Robert Keppel and Dave Reichert, who periodically interviewed incarcerated serial killer Ted Bundy from 1984 to Bundy's execution in 1989 in the hopes of both developing a profile of the killer and manipulating Bundy into confessing to some unsolved murders he was suspected of.

Related Topics:
1980s - Green River Task Force - Dave Reichert - Ted Bundy - 1984 - 1989

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In November 2001, nearly twenty years after he had first been suspected in the killings, Ridgway was arrested on suspicion of murder for a number of the deaths after DNA evidence linked him to three of the victims.

Related Topics:
2001 - DNA

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It is known that Gary Ridgway led prosecutors to three bodies in 2003. On August 16, 2003, remains of a 16-year-old female found near Enumclaw, Washington, 40 feet from Washington State Route 410, were pronounced as belonging to Pammy Annette Avent, who had been believed to be a victim of the Green River Killer. The remains of Marie Malvar and April Buttram were found in September.

Related Topics:
August 16 - 2003 - Enumclaw, Washington - Washington State Route 410

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ridgway confessed to more confirmed murders than any other American serial killer. Over a period of five months of police and prosecutor interviews, he confessed to 48 murders: 42 of the 49 murders on the police's list of probable Green River Killer victims and 6 more murders, including one as late as 1998. On February 9, 2004, county prosecutors began to release the videotape records of Ridgway's confessions.

Related Topics:
1998 - February 9 - 2004 - Videotape

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~