Cold Case Files - REOPENED: The Green River Killer

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

In the 1980s the police discovered no fewer than 44 bodies along the Green River near Seattle, making the Green River Killer the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. The investigation would become the largest ever performed in King County and span nearly 20 years before finally bringing the killer to justice. SimpliSafe - Right now, get 20% off any new SimpliSafe system with Fast Protect Monitoring at SimpliSafe.com/COLDCASE There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. 

You never forget the sight of a 16-year-old body lying on her back on the riverbank with a ligature around her neck. This is being described as one of the nastiest homicides in King County record. 25 detectives have been assigned to the case full-time, making this one of the largest investigations in the county's history. Seven women have been found dead, and another seven are missing. King County police say it's reasonable to assume other bodies may be out here. In the summer of 1982, a body washed up on the shores of Green River near Seattle. It was by no means a common occurrence, but the site was close enough to a big city so it wasn't unheard of either. Investigators identified the body as Deborah Lynn Bonner and got to work on closing her case. Then, two days later, a river rafter reported two bodies

just upstream from where Deborah was found. They were later identified as Marsha Faye Chapman and, a few feet away, 17-year-old Cynthia Jean Hines. Then, the lead detective on the case, David Reichert, found something they didn't expect. As I processed that scene, I found another body. We come across Opal Mills. She was a 16-year-old girl laying on her stomach, a large bruise on her buttocks, ligature around her neck, laying face down. And, you know, we just started doing our job. One thing became very clear that day. Investigators were searching for a serial killer,

and they would spend the next 20 years searching, with the body count climbing to nearly 50 before the murderer was caught, making the Green River Killer the single most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. One-third of all murder cases in America remain open. Each one is called a cold case, and only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare cases. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. In King County, Washington, during the summer of 1982, five bodies surfaced in one month, all with the same M.O. The victims were found in or near the Green River.

They were all women, mostly sex workers, and they all had ligature marks, you know, bruises left by strangulation, around their necks. Faced with such a brutal and active serial killer, King County PD put together a task force that included 25 detectives and would become one of the largest investigations in the county's history. We had no idea how big it was going to get. We knew it was big. I mean, bigger than anything that we had ever dealt with, but we had no idea the magnitude that this investigation would take. That's Detective Fabian Brooks, one of the detectives on the original task force. They combed the riverbed on the original task force. They combed the riverbed and the surrounding area, but the longer and harder they looked,

the more bodies turned up and the more loose ends there were to investigate. By the end of their initial search, investigators would uncover no fewer than 44 bodies. Despite no shortage of victims, investigators had no leads. One of the few things they did know was that the victims were primarily sex workers, and that fact of the case came with its own challenges. Prostitutes are the perfect victim. Their job is to stand on a street corner and wait for somebody to drive up,

make a deal for 20 bucks, jump in the car, drive away, and they disappear into the night, never to be seen again. While that might be hard to hear, Detective Reichert makes a difficult point. The killer targeted victims who were the most vulnerable to violence and least likely to come forward to the police. Sex workers are also statistically less likely to be reported missing.

The Green River Killer managed to stay off the investigator's radar in large part because he worked at the margins. With the victim count stacking and seemingly no suspects, the media and the community began to turn on the task force. One of the biggest struggles in this case was the doubt that the media actually created in the minds of the public about our abilities and about our heart, about our compassion, about whether or not we even cared because these young girls were street kids.

A little sidebar about Detective Reichert. He would describe his involvement in the case as almost accidental. The whole thing, even the beginning of it, the assignment of the first body was one that kind of describes my entire, my life and my entire career for that matter. It's in the wrong place at the wrong time or the right place at the right time, however you choose to look at it. But on that Friday, August 12th, I just happened to walk in the office right as the sergeant had received a phone call that there was a body found floating in the river. And as he hung up the phone, there I am, and he says, Dave, we got a body in the river, you know, it's yours.

His assignment may have been chance, but for Detective Reichert, the case became an obsession. He worked the case seven days a week, foregoing family parties, his children's birthdays, and many, many nights of sleep. I woke up, I can't tell you how many times, but just wrote down notes. I go back to sleep and pop right back up again and write down some more notes. Robert Keppel, another member of the Green River Task Force, remembers how devoted Detective Reichert was to the case. I mean, he definitely was different than most people that I knew on the force. Most of them were just there and they had a job. It wasn't a job to him. It was all the time working, thinking, being 24 hours a day. Despite the unforgiving news media and the sheer enormity

of the case, he stuck with it. For two decades. And when the case inevitably went cold, Detective Reichert was one of the few investigators who remained determined to find the killer. I never had a thought that we weren't going to catch him. I just wondered how, when, and where. And I knew I wanted to be a part of it. And he would be. In fact, David Reichert was the

reason that the case of the Green River Killer was reopened and finally solved. But we'll get to that later. For months, Detective Reichert and his fellow investigators had next to nothing. They had no new evidence, no leads, and no suspects. And the bodies were still stacking. By the fall of 1983, officers had collected a total of 11 bodies, but they were no closer to finding the murderer. Then the tip line received a strange call. And one day a call comes in and it was Melvin Foster. And Melvin said that he could help us. Of course, you know, that captured our attention, and we said, well, how can you help us?

And he said, well, I have some experience in these things, and so I might be able to help you get into the mind of this guy. Melvin Foster was a local cab driver who knew the streets, particularly the women who worked the streets late at night. Detectives were suspicious. At best, Foster was just an overenthusiastic tipster trying to insert himself into the case. At worst, he was the killer. But at least it was a lead. Initially, Foster denied that he knew any of the victims, which caused investigators to question how much information he really had. But then he changed his mind. He told investigators that he did in fact know Marsha Chapman and Cynthia Hines and Opal Mills

and Deborah Bonner and Wendy Coffey. Foster was beginning to look more like a suspect than a concerned citizen, so investigators began tailing him. They kept a 24-hour watch on him. They conducted a massive 60-person search of his property. They even took several items of women's clothing from Foster's home, which he claimed belonged to his late mother.

Foster certainly wasn't doing himself any favors, and for a while, it looked like the investigators had their man. Did you kill all those women or what? No, but I wish I did. I wish I did know who did, because I'd put a stop to him. Foster was at the top of the suspect list, but no evidence materialized tying him to the bodies. And every time he turned around, you know, a body was being found. One skeleton was found here on Saturday, two more on Sunday.

And at about 10.30 this morning, it happened again. We weren't making progress. We were just continually collecting humans, dead humans. For years, the task force pushed forward, following up on every lead, checking on every tip. But bodies were still stacking. By the summer of 1984, two years into the investigation, investigators had discovered a total of 27 bodies. And with the investigation dragging out, the tips started drying up, and the task force was left with less to go on, if possible, than they

started with. No one took the pressure and frustration harder than Detective Reichert. He needed to provide a resolution, to give peace to the families of the victims, and most of all, to bring the killer to justice. I don't think any of us will ever forget the years we spent picking these bodies up. They're stuck here. And the smell you don't forget. And when you come home, you know, you don't smell like grease, you know, like a mechanic might. You don't have dirt on your clothes. You have rotting, stinking flesh smell on your clothes. And no matter how much you showered, you really couldn't get rid of the smell because it was always here. It's hard not to get bitter because, you know,

what kind of personality would continue to kill like this? Investigators were desperate. They needed to find a lead and fast. So they accepted help from an unlikely person. You may have heard of him. Ted Bundy. At the time of the Green River murders, Ted Bundy was incarcerated for his own string of murders,

and for whatever reason, he took interest in the Green River case. He was so interested, in fact, that he wrote to detectives, offering his insight into the mind of the killer. So Keppel and Reichert went to talk to Ted Bundy. When we sat down, he said, Now, I know you're here, and we're going to talk about what I think about the river man, but don't ask any questions about why I think I can help you. Just know that I have some experience in this area. He's returning to his dump sites and I think he's coming back to bring more than bodies back.

He's coming back to check out and see if, you know, to go back and see the condition of a body. He may be going back to whatever a kick he gets out of, you know. But my guess is he's coming back just, nothing more than just to check the site out and drive by or see if it's been discovered or see if it's been disturbed. How about after we found it? I don't know. It wouldn't touch a 10-mile pole. So investigators knew who they were looking for, or at least they believed they were looking for someone like Ted Bundy,

someone capable of committing a string of brutal murders and someone interested in staying close to the crime. And one name kept popping up. In April of 1983, Marie Malvert disappeared, and her boyfriend followed a pickup truck he suspected was involved. Upon reporting the disappearance to the police, it was discovered that the truck belonged to one Gary Ridgway, but Ridgway denied any contact with Malver, and the lead went cold. Then, more than a year later, Ridgway contacted the investigators, saying he had information to offer.

Suspicious of his continued involvement, the task force issued a polygraph test, and Ridgeway passed. Then, investigators received another credible tip. Rebecca Gard placed a call to police, offering a familiar name. We have a report from one of the young ladies on the street that she'd been assaulted. She describes the person, and we identified him as Gary Ridgway. Ridgway picked up Gard. She got into the car, then he took her to a remote wooded area and started to strangle her. She managed to escape, but she didn't report the assault since she was involved in illegal activity at the time.

With the stacking body count, though, Gard felt like she had to report Ridgway, confident that he was the Green River killer. Ridgeway's name came up in a couple of different spots, and so a tip sheet was generated and it was assigned to Matt Haney. Matt Haney is a person that I would call a very tenacious bulldog kind of personality. Investigators knew that one victim had already escaped Ridgeway, and two of the known victims were last seen with him. Detective Haney put him under a microscope. We started putting him under surveillance and sure enough he's still out cruising. He's still out there obviously

watching girls working the street because we were watching him watch them. It just goes on and on. If you had to write a script this is what is how a serial killer would behave and act. It would fit him. He did all the right stuff. And the little pieces of the puzzle keep kind of collecting, and he doesn't go away. What you end up building is probable cause. And we searched his house, we searched his locker at work. We searched his vehicles. There was nothing there during the 1987 search that would cause us to make an arrest. By 1987, the victim count had risen to 42 women in total.

And if the community and the media were frustrated in 1983, by the late 80s, they were demanding answers. And with Ridgway seemingly out of grasp, Detective Riker and the task force continued to follow up on every lead. It wasn't like, you know, we dropped everything and he was the guy. I would never do that. I would never feel comfortable putting all my eggs in one basket. But the problem with following up on every lead is that investigations are expensive. Task forces, evidence searches, flying across the country to interview Ted Bundy, it all costs money. And the county was taking notice. The people responsible for the King County police budget began to wonder whether it was time for cutbacks. By 1990, the investigation

was eight years old and was burning through money faster than it was burning through suspects. So the county decided it was time to cut their losses and slash the Green River investigation budget. It almost seemed like you're working in the Super Bowl of murder cases and someone tells you it's over and you've lost. You know, after all that time and all that hard work, there I was driving away. And the next night I was working graveyard shift chasing taillights. Nothing is more important to keep safe than the people we love. And to keep my family safe, I trust SimpliSafe. And because I want you to enjoy the same peace of mind I have, I've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer an exclusive 50% discount.

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1991, the task force was essentially a team of one, Detective Tom Jensen. With just one man on the case, it went cold for all of the 1990s. But coincidentally, or not, it seemed that the killer had cutbacks as well. In the 90s, only four more bodies surfaced, and none of them were initially identified as Green River Killer victims. For more than a decade, it seemed like the case might never be solved. Then, Detective David Riker became Sheriff David Riker. I, David Riker, do solemnly swear that I will support and maintain... Thank you very much. On November 4, 1997, David Riker was elected the Sheriff of King County, and his first order of business was the Green River case.

He spent almost 10 years agonizing over the case that got away, and now he had the chance to reopen the investigation. He knew exactly where to start. During the years that we worked this case, we collected nearly 10,000 items of evidence. In 1982, there were no computers. In 1982, no one ever heard of DNA. When I became sheriff, we really began to focus on, again, the fingerprints. We focused on any evidence that could have any DNA possibilities. In the years since the original murders,

DNA testing had been invented and refined. Most importantly, tiny samples of DNA like fingerprints could now be extracted and replicated from case evidence. So investigators dug into the mountain of evidence that they had collected in the 80s. They were looking for samples from the victims and suspects that might contain DNA evidence. Then they submitted everything they found for DNA testing, and they waited for the phone to ring. Tom Jensen had called and said he needed to meet with me right away. Remember Tom Jensen, the one-man task force that carried on the investigation essentially alone through the 90s?

Well, probably by the time I got in there, I think I had it in my hand. I just had it all in an envelope. Tom said, yeah, I just want to show you some of the information that's come back. And I said, okay. We're sitting at a table, and Tom pulls out a piece of paper, and he says, okay, I just want you to know, this is the DNA of the suspect that was found in such-and-such victim. That's Detective Fabian Brooks again, along with Reichert and Jensen. I could feel my heart start to beat a little bit faster.

And then I gave him this final thing, and I said, this is the DNA profile of the Green River Killer. So I looked at Tom, and I said, Tom, are you trying to tell me that we have identified a suspect so i looked at tom and i said tom are you trying to tell me that we have identified a suspect and he says his name is right here and he goes to hand me the envelope i didn't even grab the envelope i told him i said i don't even need to to that. I know who it is. It's Gary Ridgeway. And he kind of looked at me and he said, you're right. The Washington State Crime Lab used DNA testing on three of the murder victims, proving what investigators had suspected for years. Ridgeway was the Green River killer. Now, investigators had to locate Ridgeway and bring him in.

Given the facts that the case was nearly two decades old at this point, and to investigators' knowledge, Ridgeway had been largely inactive for the last 10 years, Detective Riker and the remaining members of the task force geared up for a difficult manhunt. Investigators started by revisiting Ridgeway's old haunts. This is the strip which runs through the city of Sea-Tac. High prostitution area. A lot of the girls worked this area back then, and it was basically a hunting ground. We were all saying to ourselves, you know, is this guy, I mean, is he still active? Is he still killing?

That's Detective Michael Brown, another member of the Green River Task Force. It seemed unlikely that Ridgway would return to the scene of the crime, that he would stick around and revisit the same strip where he'd been identified on multiple occasions in connection with the murders. But it was worth a shot. Investigators monitored the strip and kept closed tabs on all reports of solicitation where Ridgway was known to prowl. Then, lo and behold, there he was. Ridgway was identified by the John Patrol, officers who monitored areas well known for solicitation. And on November 30, 2001, investigators arrested the Green River Killer.

Detective Randy Mullinax remembers bringing him in. It was a rainy day. I remember sitting in an SUV in the parking lot of the Kenworth parking lot. As he approached the door of his truck, Jim Doyen and I got out, and I told him he's under arrest for the murder of several women in King County. That's when David Riker received a call that he'd been waiting for for nearly 20 years. And really the moment that struck me the most was when I heard over the radio, one in custody, 10-4.

I couldn't resist. I went out to the holding room with the detectives, knocked on the door, and as Ridgeway came out, of course he knew who I was. And I looked at him and I said, gotcha, asshole. Gary Ridgway, now 52 years old, was arrested for the murders of Opal Mills, Marsha Chapman, and Cynthia Hines, all three of whom were found within feet of each other in the Green River back in 1982. Investigators also had non-DNA evidence tying him to a fourth murder.

And while there was more than enough evidence to put Ridgeway away for life for these four murders alone, Sheriff Reichert was determined to identify each and every one of Ridgeway's victims and tie them back to him. So he rebuilt the task force, putting together a team of investigators to work full-time on building evidence of Ridgeway's victims and tie them back to him. So he rebuilt the task force, putting together a team of investigators to work full-time on building evidence against Ridgeway. But as they worked, one thing became very clear. They might never know how many people he killed, and without his help, they stood virtually no chance of finding and identifying all of the bodies. Sheriff Reichert was faced with a choice. Convict Ridgeway for three murders, which were all eligible for the death penalty,

and lose his only hope of finding closure for good, or cut a deal. The defense attorneys came to the prosecutor's office and said, we want to talk about a deal. Ridgeway will plead guilty. He'll tell you about 65, I think that was the initial number, 65 murders in exchange for his life. The plea deal was a controversial decision. Some thought that Ridgway deserved the death penalty and the deal would be a miscarriage of justice. Others argued that making this deal would bring closure to so many open cases that it was worth keeping Ridgway alive.

The detectives and I had already talked about this to a person. We were all in favor of making a deal. We want to know what happened. And some I know who have worked on cases, similar cases, say, well, we'd never make a deal with a person like that. Look, when you have a chance to solve 50, and you know this guy is never getting out of prison ever again. He will never kill again. And you can give answers to families that have been waiting for answers for 20 years. I would do it again in a heartbeat. So they took the deal, and after 20 years on the case, Sheriff Reichert was going to sit down with Gary Ridgway. Michael Brown of the Green River Task Force remembers their first meeting. This was a moment that the sheriff had been waiting an awful long time for,

and the moment had finally arrived. And you could almost feel it in the air. And here was somebody that he had hunted for so long, and now he stood in front of him in custody. Oh, hi. Hi. Morning. Morning.

You know, why don't we take his chains off for a minute? Gary and I are just going to have a visit for a couple minutes. The interview took place on August 18, 2003, and was videotaped for court records. In the footage, Ridgeway is dressed in an orange jumpsuit. He's handcuffed and chained around the waist and ankles. He seems small, quiet, unimposing. And Reichert has all the markings of county sheriff. He's tall and commanding, dressed in a formal uniform with a full head of white hair.

I've been working on this case a long time. Do you have a little bit of gray hairs? You think so? Reichert knew what he was after. He wanted a roadmap. He wanted to know the names of all of Ridgeway's victims and where he could find the bodies. He had to be careful. I thought it might be good to start out with some of the similarities. I was the lead investigator, and he was the killer. He had to be careful. Yeah. What do you think about that? That's pretty coincidental, I guess you could call it.

You were on one side and I was on the other side. And where I killed him, you were the one who recovered. How are we going to work together? How are we going to work together? I don't understand. But this finding any new bodies I just don't can't draw any pictures of where they're at. And for 1992 to 95 I didn't do very many killing visits in Amway and going to church and being really busy. I didn't have time to kill. And that probably would help change my mind about how I killed later on. Do you want me to just believe all this crap? And Riker wasn't the only person to interview Ridg. As part of his plea deal, Ridgeway was interrogated for months by a series of investigators.

During these interrogations, he was questioned about each and every victim. He was pressed on the where and when and how he killed, but they also began to paint a bigger picture of his life and how he became the most prolific murderer in U.S. history. Here's what they found out. Gary Leon Ridgeway was born in 1949 in Salt.S. history. Here's what they found out. Gary Leon Ridgway was born in 1949 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Early in life, he was administered an IQ test and scored an 82. For reference, an average IQ is considered to be between 90 and 110. Ridgway's family life also

wasn't perfect, or even typical. His parents isolated the family. They don't mingle with neighbors or invite anyone into the home. He described his mother as a domineering woman who wore form-fitting clothes and excessive makeup. She also had a violent and abusive temper. Still, Ridgway was very close with his mother. So close, in fact, that he admitted to feeling not only a sexual attraction to her, but also humiliation over these feelings. Gary exhibited traits of abuse early on. As a child, he started fires and suffocated a cat. He also wet the bed until age 13. When Gary was 11, the family moved to Washington State, and shortly thereafter, he exhibited what would be his first documented

act of violence. A 16-year-old Ridgway stabbed a six-year-old boy, critically injuring him. The little boy blamed Ridgway, but police chalked it up as an accident. Gary didn't do well in school. He earned mostly D's and didn't graduate high school until he was 20 years old. After graduating, he took a job as a painter for Kenworth Trucking, and with the exceptions of a stint in the Navy and a rejected application to the police force, this would be his profession until his 2001 arrest. In his adulthood, Ridgway had a string of girlfriends, and he was married to three different women, the last of which would stand by him during his arrest.

He even had a son, Matthew. During the investigation, his ex-girlfriends and wives described him as having low self-esteem, and they also described what they thought was an unhealthy relationship with his mother. They said he desperately wanted to please her, but never seemed to be able to. He kept her on his checking account after he was married and consulted her before any big decisions. His exes also described him as sexually insatiable, demanding sex multiple times a day, often tying them up or wanting to have sex in public. Later, it would be revealed that Ridgway occasionally took his girlfriends to areas where the bodies were later discovered

to have sex. In the early 80s, the warning signs increased. In 1980, his relationship with his second wife, Marsha, turned volatile. She filed for divorce, and he threatened and harassed her about it. He was even accused of getting into a physical fight with Marsha. Then, one day after the fight with Marsha, he allegedly choked a sex worker. In 1981, the violence was escalating. He told a new girlfriend that he nearly killed another woman. One year later, the first body washed up in the Green River.

Investigators were beginning to understand the roots of Ridgway's behavior and were working out the patterns. They knew why he killed, but they still needed to understand how. Fair warning, I'm about to describe Gary Ridgway's M.O., and it's horrifying, even for a serial killer. Some, you know, call me, you know, the evil and the devil, you know, and Satan. A new school year is starting, and personally, I can't believe I now have two children in school. It's great having some quiet time in the house, but even better hearing all about what they've learned each day. If you're a parent, you want to make this new school year an opportunity for your kids to learn important life skills and continue building independence. For that,

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greenlight.com slash coldcase. That's greenlight.com slash coldcase to try Greenlight for free. Greenlight.com slash coldcase. Ridgway was methodical and practical. He chose to target sex workers and runaways because the former weren't publicly tied to him in any way, and the latter were often isolated from their families or anyone who would report them missing. It's also been theorized that sex workers wearing revealing clothing and excessive makeup reminded Ridgway of his mother. He worked close to home for convenience, picking up women on Washington's notorious Sea-Tac Strip. Once he had the women in his car, he would drive to a remote area where they would have sex. Sometimes the sex was consensual, and other times he raped them.

Then he would strangle the women to death. The major thing was when I trapped them is when they died slow. I could count to 60 and they're dead. Here's where it gets even more disturbing, if that's possible. Investigators knew that Ridgway revisited his crime scenes. Remember Ted Bundy's insight? He's returned to his dump sites, and I think he's coming back to bring more bodies back. It turned out Bundy was right. Ridgway was returning to the bodies.

And he, over the course of the interrogations, revealed that on several occasions, he violated the remains. When pressed further about it, about why he committed necrophilia, Ridgway was chillingly practical. It came down to money. He wouldn't have to pay for sex if he could use the bodies. Ultimately, Ridgeway admitted to 48 murders, describing each one in gruesome detail, and he agreed to show detectives where he dumped the bodies, the ones he could remember at least.

In a series of road trips, members of the task force and Gary Ridgeway traveled up and down the Green River and surrounding areas. They were looking for his victims' remains. It was like they were right back in 1982, hunting for bodies again. But this time, they were working with the killer. For investigators, especially Sheriff Reichert, the trips were satisfying but deeply frustrating. Well, each scene that he went to, he relived. Every road trip we went on, every site that he went to, and pointed at a site where he left a body, he pointed at it with pride. And you could see the joy on his face,

and it made the rest of us just sick. Pull over and go up a little bit more. Okay, right about here is where I stopped. I drug her down the hill, feet first. In the end, Ridgeway led investigators to four more bodies. That's four more families who finally found out

what happened to their loved ones. But Sheriff Reichert needed closure of his own. He needed to speak to Ridgway one more time because he had one last thing to say. You took the lives of 48 women. You snuffed them out. More than 48 women. 71, yes. Right. You killed them all, Ridgway. You killed them all. You're a coward. You choked them from behind. You choked young, innocent women from behind. 16-year-old girls. You got behind them. You choked them. And you're an evil, murdering, monstrous, cowardly man.

That's basically it. Over the course of this conversation, it would become clear that investigators may never know how many women Gary Ridgeway killed. Some say he's exaggerating, but others think that he may have killed as many as 90 to 100 women between 1982 and 2001. On November 3, 2003, Gary L. Ridgeway pled guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder. Your statement begins as follows. I killed the 48 women listed in the state's second amended information. I killed so many women, I have a hard time keeping them straight. I picked prostitutes as my victims because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught. Is that true?

Yes. And Mr. Ridgeway, is it your desire to plead guilty to the 48 charges of aggravated murder in the first degree because you believe that you are guilty of each of those offenses? Yes. One month after pleading guilty, Ridgway was sentenced to 48 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. During the sentencing hearing, several family members of the victim spoke directly to Ridgway. He's an animal. I don't wish for him to die. I wish for him to have a long, suffering, cruel death. I know he feels no remorse.

His beady little evil eyes would like to probably choke everyone that's been up here, but he won't have that opportunity this time. You've made it difficult to live up to what I believe, and that is what God says to do, and that's to forgive. And he doesn't say to forgive just certain people. He says to forgive all.

So you are forgiven, sir. You're a loser. You're a coward. You're a nobody. You're an animal. I'm angry. I You're a nobody. You're an animal. I'm angry. I will always be angry. I will never have that closure. I will never have my sister back in my life. You broke my family apart for 20 years.

I hope you ride in hell, son of a bitch. So after 20 years, the Green River case was finally closed. But for many families, there was no closure, because investigators and litigators weren't able to tie the murders to Ridgway. And for an unknown few, the victims' bodies were never discovered. They are among the untold number of Green River victims who will never come to light. But for those families, at least there's a certain kind of hope, because bodies are still surfacing.

And in the years since his conviction, Gary Ridgway's name continues to pop up. On December 21, 2010, a human skull and other bones were found in a ravine in Auburn, Washington. The remains were tested, and investigators determined that they belonged to Rebecca Becky Marrero, who was last seen on December 3, 1982. She would become the 49th victim attributed to Ridgway. Marrero's remains were found not far from another Green River victim. Remember Marie Malver, the woman whose boyfriend chased Ridgway's pickup truck?

Marrero and Malver had been childhood friends, although it isn't clear whether that was related to their disappearances or not. And in February 2011, at 62 years old, Ridgway was convicted of another murder and sentenced to his 49th life term in prison. And passions about the Green River case still run deep in Washington state. While he avoided the death penalty, the public and investigators are determined that Ridgeway continued to pay for his crimes. In May of 2015, Ridgeway was transferred from the Washington state prison in which he'd been incarcerated since 2001. The reasons were murky, but when initially questioned, the Washington Department of Corrections stated that he wasn't a threat to

other inmates or staff, so he was being released from solitary and transferred to Colorado so he could be in the prison's general population. Investigators and family members were outraged, seeing the move as a lesser sentence for Ridgway. The backlash was so intense that the transfer didn't last long. By the fall of 2016, Ridgway was back in Washington state and back in solitary confinement, where he'll most likely spend the rest of his life. So for those who call retribution justice, there is closure in the case of the Green River Killer.

But for many, including Dave Reichert, this case will never be over. The hard part of this whole thing is the memories of the victims. When you collect body after body after body after body after body over years and years, I mean, I can close my eyes and I can tell you how Connie Neon looked when I collected her remains. So, is it over? Technically, it's over.

He's in prison. Can't kill anybody anymore. I guess you can tell it's not over. The hard part is to erase the memory. You can't do that. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings. Produced by McKamey Lynn and Scott Brody. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. We're edited by Steve Dolomater and distributed by Podcast One.

Cold Case Files Classic was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by the one and only Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com and by downloading the A&E Classic Podcast, I Survived, American Justice, and City Confidential are all available ad-free on the new A&E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. And now onto the show.