Criminology - The Green River Killer pt2

Episode Date: May 4, 2019

This our second and final part of the story of the Green River Killer. Gary Ridgway rocked the United States and the world when it was announced that he was the Green River Killer. He was initially arrested for a small number of murders, but after confessing to over 40 murders the news went global. But there was a lot of work that went into the identification and arrest of Ridgway. There were also a number of other suspects that leapfrogged him to the top of the list of the years. Join Mike and Morf as they finish up the story of Gary Ridgway/The Green River Killer. He is one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. Even good old Ted Bundy got into the act in trying to help police nab this killer. And who better to help find a sadistic killer than another sadistic killer who thinks the same way. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. I'd like to welcome everyone to episode 59 of criminology. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, how are you this week? I'm doing good. How you doing?

I'm doing great. And the weather is starting to break. I wore shorts the other day, which was pretty exciting. You know, people in the South or in other parts of the country or of the world are saying shorts, I'm wearing shorts all the time. But, you know, for you and I, the time in the year where you get to start wearing shorts, at least for me, that's a pretty big deal. Yeah, it's been nice. Today was a little bit chilly, but, you know, hopefully in the next couple weeks, it's, it steadies out and we're getting the nice warm weather.

Well, for me, it means that I'm able to ride my motorcycle more, which I like that, you know, get to do some stuff outside. On the flip side, it means I got to start cutting the grass, you know. So there's always some give and take, but there's more good for sure. Yeah, I know my wife and kids are happy because they spend a lot of time outside in the pool and under the gazebo. So that's great for them. Oh, God, you sound like Ritchie Rich. Richie Rich. You got a pool and a gazebo?

Well, it's not like a fan. see pool and gazelle it. All right, Mor, if we got some new Patreon supporters, let's give some shoutouts to Juan Gonzalez, Courtney,

Stephanie Swofford, Brittany Batten, Drama Lama Dava, which is an interesting name, made up, I assume, Sheena Russell Hunt, Bailey,

and Kate Madison. So a lot of new support and great support. We appreciate it very much. which makes a lot of difference for you and I to be able to put out this podcast. Yeah, I'm blowing away every week when you read those names off, how much support we get, and it means a lot to us. So thank you. And if you'd like to help support us on Patreon, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology.

And stay tuned at the end of this episode for a short preview of an upcoming Patreon episode, which includes an interview with a woman named Susan Fentston, who talks about a very interesting and scary stalking situation she went through. That'll be coming out on Patreon and we just wanted to play your short clip of that. CrimeCon is almost here and we'd love to see it. June 7th through June 9th in New Orleans. If you go to the CrimeCon website, if you're going to buy your standard badge, make sure you use our promo code, Criminology 19.

You'll save 10% off the price of a standard badge. badge. And if you come down and hang out with us at CrimeCon, Mike will be buying the Hurricanes, right? Oh, yeah. You just put it on the Mike Ferguson tab. Put it on Mike Ferguson's tab. I have to be careful more just to kind of let you know, we're going to have some fun, right? Me, you, uh, Ghibie. It's going to be a fun time. I love New Orleans. I love it a lot, but I have to be careful. I don't know. I've told this a lot on True come all time. I don't know if you know, but I can go Frank to tank, like very quickly. So I have to be careful with my alcohol intake.

Yeah, I haven't seen that yet, but I do have a funny story, which I won't tell over the air about my experience in New Orleans. So anybody that's hanging out with us might get to hear this story. It's pretty embarrassing, but it's definitely funny. I was going to say, say, yeah, that's a good one to save. I would say there's a lot of people listening right now that have a story if they've been to New Orleans that they would not want to share with the rest of the public. They might tell their friends, but it's not one of those that they're going to put out to everyone.

All right, Morif, are you ready to get into this episode? I'm ready. Let's do it. Let's recap the last episode, episode 58 a little bit. That was the first part of our Green River Killer coverage. You know, police were, they were under fire. They were besieged through most of the early 1980s. with dozens of missing and murdered women along the Green River in Washington.

They focused in on a couple of suspects only to have them not pan out. But police had shifted their attention to Gary Ridgeway. There's two sex workers, Don White and Paige Miley, who told detectives about Gary Ridgeway's strange behavior in 1983. And as part of that interaction with, the authorities, Paige Miley said that Gary Ridgeway asked her about a woman named Kimberly L. Nelson. On June 13, 1986, the partial remains of 26-year-old Kimberly L. Nelson were found in woods known as North Bend, about 35 miles east of Seattle, and she was identified by dental records.

Kimberly was last seen near the Ben Carroll Motel on Pacific Highway South in late October, early November 1983. Police interviewed Gary Ridgeway again and subjected him to a polygraph test. One of the questions they asked him was if he ever had caused the death of a prostitute. Gary said no. He passed a polygraph and was cleared as a suspect in the Green River murders. Even though a few sex workers told police, he frequented the strip regularly. In October 1986, detectives followed Gary Ridgeway for a couple of weeks and even searched his home on April 8th, 1987. Police seized hundreds of Ridgeway's personal effects from his home, from his work, and his van. They obtained a saliva sample from Gary for DNA testing, even though at this time, right, in 1987, DNA testing.

DNA testing was in the very early stages. It was not very advanced at all. And police were not able to link his DNA to any of the victim. In addition to that, they didn't find any evidence from the search that tied him to the murders. But police, they're going to save those saliva samples for many years. It's going to be many years before they come back around and into play.

By summer of 1987, the search for the Green River killer was cut back. 37 women had been identified as victims, and nine were listed as missing. At this time, the investigation had already cost $10 million. The task force now had only 20 detectives, four FBI agents, and a staff that continued to load data into the $200,000 computer. More than a million items were put into the computer. There were about 20,000 people considered as possible. suspects, and about 6,000 as persons of interest. While the killings did seem to stop in March 1984, two more women disappeared, but the remains were not found until years later. Patricia

Miguel Barzac was last seen on October 11, 1986. Her remains were found in 1993. Roberta Joseph Bobby Joe Hayes was last seen on February 7, 1987. Her remains were found on September 11, 1991. In 1987, Gary Ridgeway met Judith Mawson and the two married in June 1988. They bought a house in Des Moines, Washington on South 2503rd Street. And about twice a month, the couple held a garage sale where they sold odds and ends to earn extra money. Neighbors later said about Gary Ridgeway that he was a bit over-friendly. This was the type of a guy that wanted to stop and talk all the time. But other than that, he appeared pretty normal. Pretty much as any other person did in the neighborhood. Gary truly loved Judith and he didn't

kill nearly as often after they married. In fact, after he met Judith, only three more women were found dead. Bobby Joe Hayes, Marta Reeves, who disappeared on March 5th, 19th. and Patricia Ann Yellow Rove, who was last seen on August 6th, 1998. Both Marta and Patricia were found within days of their disappearances. But despite Gary Ridgeway moving up the suspect list, in January of 1989, police believed they had a viable suspect in the Green River killings, and it wasn't Gary Ridgeway. They were looking at a man named William J. Stevens Jr. And let's not forget, by this time, there had been over 40 confirmed murders in the Seattle area.

So William J. Stevens Jr. was born in October 1950. He was the adopted son of a prominent Spokane drugstore owner. He attended Gonzaga Prep and graduated from the University of Washington. This is the same college that Ted Bundy went to before he went to law school in Tacoma. In fact, William was a freshman at the University of Washington when Ted Bundy was a senior. Then after college, Stevens worked as a military policeman in Hawaii. In 1981, Stevens escaped from a King County work release program after he was convicted of possessing stolen property. He remained a fugitive until January of 1989 when the Green River Task Force received a tip about him from a person who had seen the case on the news.

Authorities found Stevens living with his parents and finishing law school at Gonzaga University in Spokane. Stevens was a brazen con man who was obsessed with two things, sex workers and serial killers. He had 30 identities and seven social security numbers and would disappear for days on secret. missions. He built a secret room with a fake wall in the basement of his house. Stevens talked often about Ted Bundy and seemed to know quite a bit about him. However, there was never any evidence the two ever made contact or knew one another. Stephen's attorney was Craig Bayliss, and he accused police of grasping at straws in an attempt to blame someone for the murders. Stevens denied involvement in the slings and released a statement through

Billis saying, the Green River Task Force has not treated me or my family fairly. They have made me out to be a very bad person and I'm not. People should know the fact that I have never hurt anyone in my life. I will discuss this matter in an orderly and honorable fashion in a court of law. Authorities obtain a search warrant to search Stevens home based on mostly circumstantial evidence, which were gas and credit card receipts that place Stevens near or within a tank of gas of 22 merge between 1982 and 1985. I don't know more if I think that's pretty circumstantial. I was just thinking in my head, if you sat down and you really analyzed it, you and I probably

both are within a tank of gas of tens, 20, 30 murders over the course of three years. Would you agree with that? Definitely. I think it depends what your living circumstances. If you're in a bigger city, like you're, I don't know how far you are from Cleveland or some of those bigger cities in Ohio. But I'm not that far from Philadelphia. So that would be like someone looking at me because there's murders in Philadelphia and I'm half hours drive from there. Yeah, I mean, even me, I'm three hours from Cleveland.

I'm an hour, a little bit less than an hour from Cincinnati. but I can get to either one of those places. You know, you can get pretty far on a tank of gas. I guess that's what I was getting at. You being, what, 30 minutes from Philadelphia? There was probably 22 murders in Philadelphia in the last month. I mean, I see what they're doing, but I guess I'm emphasizing the fact that it's pretty circumstantial, right?

When you're talking about gas and credit card receipts that really are just saying someone was not even in the vicinity within a tank of gas of a bunch of murders. Yeah, I applaud him for being aggressive and trying to get to the bottom of it and clear this guy, but it seems like pretty flimsy territory to be able to get a warrant to go into his house. But it worked, right? They got the search warrant and they took out a truckload of evidence from Stephen Spokane home it included X-rated videotapes, Polaroid photos of nude women. He had police badges from Tacoma, Seattle, Kent County, King County.

He also had several police uniforms and two police grade vehicle license plates. And I think this is very important and very interesting to police because, you know, along the way, they began to suspect that the Green River killer may have posed as a cop when picking up his victims. And from all the accounts that police were getting, William Stevens was a strange and bizarre guy. Several people came forward after his arrest. They spoke with detectives. One man, Ernesto Ulliano, knew Stevens in Portland. He said that Stevens would talk about working.

for the Seattle Police Vice Squad and had claimed he was often involved in the torture of sex workers. But as he said, it was only in the line of duty. One informant said that Stevens was angry at what he called the I-5 sex workers, those working between Portland and Seattle, because they were starting to show a high rate of AIDS. Another informant said Stevens claimed the Green River victims were murdered for snuff films. These are underground videos of women getting killed.

And yet another source told detectives that Stevens had mentioned he liked to cut up sex workers and make videos of himself doing that. So, Morve, I think we have to just stop for a minute and talk about William Stevens. You know, I said, okay, circumstantial evidence for them to get this search warrant. I'm not sure it was the best, but it worked. But then they get into this guy's house and it's like, oh my gosh, this is a Hannibal lector that they're pulling evidence, you know, out of. You can see, right?

Why they kind of veered very quickly from Gary Ridgeway to this William, Steve. Evens Jr. And even if he wasn't the Green River killer, the collection and the things that he had and was involved in, who knows, maybe that means he was up to something else or planning something else or had been involved in other crimes. I don't know if there's any way to know, but it's certainly disturbing what they found. Well, I will say this. You know, what you do in the privacy of your own home, as long as it's legal, right?

That's do whatever you want to do, I guess is what I'm saying. But you have to see what some of this is going to look like, right? If police come in to search your home and this is what you have, this is the kind of things that you're into, the X-rated videos of the photos, okay, that's one thing. But now, you know, you get into having a bunch of police badges and uniforms and, you know, cop license plates. you're going to be at the top of some list somewhere, no doubt about it. I think what's interesting, too, is that so many people came forward with information about

him. So maybe he wasn't exactly keeping what he was doing a secret. Well, it doesn't sound like he'd like to talk about doing some bad things, right? Whether he did them or not, he was definitely a talker. According to, you know, all the informants and the sources that came forward, he like to brag about doing heinous acts. One of Stevens' friends, Dale Wells, a Spokane

County public defender, said Stevens would often say sex workers should be killed. A few days before a grand jury was to question Wells about Stevens, he told then homicide detective Jim Hanson, he believed Stevens was the Green River killer.

But Wells never testified. On September 23, 1989, he shot himself with a rifle at his North Spokane apartment. Hansen wondered for years why Wells took his own life. It appeared that police had their man, and they pushed Stevens to the top of the suspect list, ahead of Gary Ridgeway. They even suspected him of strangling a woman who lived within a block of his apartment. Authorities had a 115-page, eight-year timeline of Stevens' activities. They had photographs of him dressed as a cop for Halloween, his full equipped police car, his checker cab, and his ambulance parked next to his brown catac

in a hill yard lot. So obviously, Morph, this Stevens character, he had some money. I mean, we're talking about police cars and cabs and ambulances and brown catallacks. He obviously was not a pauper. And I actually remember seeing a TV show a long time ago about him, and I seem to recall that his family may have had some money and he may have been able to obtain some of the stuff using that family money. But I think

one of the key things here is that all of this evidence that the police had against Stevens, it was circumstantial. And his days as a suspect in the Green River Killings was short-lived.

Because in August 1989, someone provided Stevens with an alibi. And it would be his own brother, Bob Stevens, Bob supplied detectives with family photographs and credit card receipts that documented a vacation the Stevens family went on when the very first Green River victim, Wendy Caulfield, was murdered in July 1982. So this was big, right? This was pretty concrete evidence. Credit card receipts, photographs.

that detailed out the fact that William Stevens could not have murdered Wendy Caulfield because he wasn't in the area when the murder occurred. But even though they cleared Stevens as an official suspect, he remained a person of interest for several years. Detective Hansen later said in an interview with the spokesman review. To me, Bill Stevens is just as much of a viable suspect today. as he was then. I can't say he's the killer. He was involved in something, whether it was killing prostitutes or I just don't know. And I think that goes to kind of what you and I were talking about,

right? We know he's not the Green River killer. We know Gary Ridgeway is. So who was this guy? This guy fascinates me, you know, almost as much as Gary Ridgeway does. He had to have been into something or he had an unbelievable fantasy life in his house, in his basement, but he never actually physically harmed anyone? I guess it's possible. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020.

Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hansen also said that Stevens never really cooperated in the investigation. In 1991, Bob Stevens wrote a book called Search for the Green River Killer. He spent three years researching it. Stevens' mother had passed away by this point. But Hansen did speak with family friends who saw their parents on the trips. but they did not recall seeing William Stevens.

But police said it was unlikely that William was flying back and forth to commit the murders. During Bob's research for the book, he spoke with Ernest Ulliano, who told Bob that William built the secret room in his basement to detain and kill women. Bob also spoke with two women who accused William Stevens of either stalking or assaulting them, and a former law student at Gonzaga claimed he choked her to demonstrate what he'd do to one of his professors. And I don't know if it's Gonzaga or Gonzaga. I've heard people pronounce it a bunch of different ways more.

The reason why I say Gonzaga is because of my youngest daughter. Every year in the NCAA basketball tournament, you know, Gonzaga is a big player nowadays. She cannot stand it for some reason when the announcers say Gonzaga. So I've adopted the Gonzaga. Right or wrong. Now, at some point during Bob's research, he found a decorative hair braid in his brother's belongings. He says he took it to police, but they didn't do anything with it. So after he completed all of this research on his brother William for this book, Bob Stevens believed that his brother may have been the Green River killer after all. But if he was, by this point, any chance of of conviction was gone. Because in October

1991, William Stevens Jr. passed away from pancreatic cancer. He was only 40 years old. So Morfin, kind of wrapping up William Stevens. Again, I don't know what all this guy,

you know, has done or did. I do know that he was convicted in like 79, 80, but it was for burglary. It was petty type stuff. He walked away from a work release program in 1981. Then he was kind of on the lamb for a while.

They caught up with him again in the late 80s. He served out the rest of his sentence and then he died. You know, there are some indications that from his brother, at least, that the family knew about the tapes. They knew about his fascination with police equipment and things like that. but none of it was to help him murder sex workers. You know, that's what they have said. But he is a very interesting person, to say the least.

And I just don't, there's no way around it. And you could certainly understand why police had so much interest in them because of all these different factors that seem to be factors in a lot of cases about serial killers. In 1995, Robert Keppel was a chief. criminal investigator for the state attorney general's office. Prior to that, he was a King County homicide detective. Keppel wrote a book called The Riverman. Ted Bundy and I hunt for the Green River killer.

In November of 1984, Keppel started speaking with Ted Bundy in Florida after he received the letter from the infamous serial killer. Bundy committed several murders in King County, Washington. Kepple wrote in his book, One day in October, 1980, I was buried in a pile of paperwork on my desk. I looked up to see Detective Ed Stridinger of the Seattle Police Department. He had retrieved the letter from a judge in Pierce County who wanted it delivered to the task force. It was a letter from a wannabe consultant and the most unlikely person I ever expected to be of assistance in the Green River murders.

The letter came from a cell on death row in Florida. The sender was Theodore Robert Bundy. I was stunned. about Bundy helping in the Green River case back in season three in our Ted Bundy coverage. Yeah, I remember that. I remember us talking about specifically about Ted Bundy trying to help in the capture of the Green River killer, which I find fascinating, right? Go back to Silence of the Lambs, enlisting the help of Hannibal Lecter to capture Buffalo Bill. Now, they, I don't think they enlisted Ted Bundy's help. I think he volunteered his help. But when you get to the heart of it,

who better to catch a sadistic serial predator than another sadistic serial predator? So several meetings took place between Bundy, Keppel, and King County Detective David Reichert. And Bundy helped educate the detectives on serial killers. He also. offered his own ideas on how to catch them, and he based all of this off of his own experiences. One thing that Bundy did, he often went back to crime scenes and picked up evidence in parking lots while police watched. He decapitated his victims, and then he moved their body parts around. He also would drive back along Highway 18 near Issaquah to reocet to reocet. retrieve things he had thrown from his Volkswagen Beetle.

Ted Bundy referred to the Green River killer as the Riverman. Some of the tips he offered to police that police acted on, such as setting up surveillance along the Green River, ended with failed results. A lot of this had to do with a huge amount of press on the case at the time. For example, when they set up surveillance at different locations along the Green River, the police vehicles were not concealed from television helicopters. It was likely the Green River killed.

killer knew what police were up to and stayed away from the area. Bundy also suggested to detectives that the river man was going back to the victim's corpses and having sex with them, which did turn out to be the case. But authorities would not know this until several years later. While Bundy's tips were helpful, none led to the capture of the Green River killer. So I'll say this. How interesting would it be to sit side by side with Ted Buny? and talk about the things that he did, the reasons why he did it, and the reasons why this

serial killer may be doing what he's doing. That would be fascinating. To get to pick his brain like that, it's very much like, it makes me think of Mind Hunter, where, you know, the FBI profiler goes in and he's talking to Ed Kemper. I just, I can't think of anything more fascinating than two. to be able to sit down and really talk to, you know, some of these people and try to get into their, their brains. A lot of people would think that would be the worst thing that they could ever imagine. But for true crime people like us, I can't think of anything more fascinating.

And I applaud the detectives for working with Ted Bundy and thinking outside of the box because, like you said, who better than a serial killer that thinks like the Green River killer. to try and gain insight from him. Yeah, I think they could have easily said, we don't want to do that, right? We don't want to bring that type of publicity, that press. I don't know if it was publicized, but they could have easily said no. So I agree with you. I think they were thinking outside the box, but getting back to this, you know, who else can think like these people, the average person, the average police officer, detective,

I don't think they can do it. Right. In their mind, they can't be as depraved. They can't think that way. I mean, I won't say they can't. It would be very hard to get to the level of depravity that these people do, unless you're already there, unless you're one of those people. I think with some of these profilers, they come up with some good insights, but if their mind isn't

disturbed the way some of these serial killers are. can they ever really get inside their thought process? Yeah, I would say the FBI profilers are probably about the best, the closest that anyone can come to mimicking the mind of a serial killer without being one themselves, hopefully. Hopefully we don't have any profile, FBI profilers that are serial killers. That sounds like a new show. It does.

We should write that, man. We're giving it away. In 1997, Gary Ridgeway and his wife, Judith moved to Auburn, Washington. This is a middle class suburb south of Seattle. They bought a four-bedroom home for $181,000. So obviously, they were doing fairly well for themselves, you know, $181,000 in 1997. That's a nice, nice house. That's a nice house today. It sat on a private dead-in road. And again, the couple appeared to be fairly normal. two neighbors. You know, obviously after this is all going to come out, there's going to be neighbors

from every place that Gary Ridgeway ever lived, right, that come out. They talk to the media. They said that the couple walked their white poodle around the neighborhood. They worked in their garden together. They had an RV and would take trips as often as they could, sometimes extended trips, as long as two weeks at a time. This is very regular stuff. This is what people do. But Gary did create some tension with his neighbors, the Griguriks. One time when he cleared too many trees in his yard,

Clem Grigurik later recalled, we moved here in 62. And that was always a nice forest back there. And in two days, it was gone. I went over there and he said that they were planning to put in some rhododendrums. And don't worry about it. So this is a situation, if you think about it, could have gone very, very wrong, right? This guy, Clem has no idea who he's dealing with, that he is going over to the house of a prolific serial killer to hassle him about some treats.

Luckily, it didn't escalate. And the bad tension between the two neighbors didn't last very long. They ended up having a fairly nice over-the-fence type relationship, a friendship. Clem said he had many conversations with Gary, you know, over-the-fence like this where they would talk about their yards, they talked about fishing and hunting. Clem considered Gary Ridgeway a very nice guy. This was for about four years. They lived next door to Gary Ridgeway and had no idea that they had no idea that they,

They were living next to a killer. But then you get to 2001. And this is when the entire country watched as police finally nabbed the Green River killer. On Friday, November 16, 2001, it was paid day at Kenworth. Gary Ridgeway finished his shift at 3 p.m. and got into his 1992 Ford Ranger. With $30 in a pair of latex gloves, he headed to the strip. Near Motel 6 on Pacific Highway South, he spotted a sex worker.

He waved his money at the woman and pulled into the motel parking lot. The woman walked over and Gary got out and walked to the bed of his truck. Are you dating? he asked. The woman wasn't a sex worker. She was working undercover for the King County Sheriff's Office. Police arrested Gary Ridgeway, who was then 52 years old, and charged him with loitering for prostitution. He pleaded not guilty to the charge and was released. Because Gary had a history with police and prostitution and had always been a possible suspect in the Green River case,

detectives took a look at his saliva sample from 1987. They had it retested against semen found on some of the victim's bodies. It was a match, and on November 30th, police arrested Ridgeway at Kenworth, around 3 p.m., and charged him with the murders of Marsha Chapman, Cynthia Hines, Opel Mills, and Caroline Christensen, His body was found in the woods in nearby Maple Valley on May 8, 1983. Forensic scientists at the company, Microtrace, identified microscopic spray paint spheres on Gary Ridgeway's work uniform and tied that to some of the victim's clothing. And this was a specific brand and composition of paint not available to the general public.

This paint called Emron. It's a high-end specialty paint produced by DuPont. It was used at the Kenworth factory where Gary worked during this specific time frame when Wendy Caulfield, Deborah Bonner, and Deborah Estes were murdered. On March 27, 2003, three more murder charges were added to the indictment. Initially, investigators thought there could still be a killer on the loose because there was really little to no evidence tying Gary to the other 40-some murders. No other counts were charged due to lack of evidence. Gary pleaded not guilty to the seven counts of murder and a trial was set for July 2004. Ridgeway's team of lawyers was led by Anthony Savage who had been a member of the Washington State Bar Association since

95. According to one source, Savage served as a King County deputy prosecutor from 1956 to 1962. The deputy prosecutor handling the case was Jeffrey Baird. King County prosecutor Norm mailing issued a press release and 18 pages of court documents. Mailing said that the death penalty was almost a sure thing if Ridgway was convicted. Anthony Savage contacted the prosecutor with an offer. If Baird would take the death penalty off the table, Gary would plead guilty to the seven counts and an additional 40 to 47 counts of murder. The deal also stipulated that Ridgeway had to cooperate with investigators and answer all questions truthfully. And he had to show them where the remaining missing bodies were located. And in June 2003, Baird and Ridgeway agreed.

read on the deal. So this case is a little different than some of the ones that we cover morph and some of the really big cases because there's not going to be this big, long, drawn out trial, right? Where all the evidence and all these witnesses are paraded up on the witness stand. Gary Ridgeway pleaded guilty. But over the next five months, investigators interviewed him numerous times. What detectives needed was Ridgeway's confession. However, that was no easy task. So they brought in some help.

Joining the team was FBI's special agent and senior profiler, Dr. Mary Ellen O'Toole. Her job was to get inside Gary's mind in order to get him to confess. I don't know that it started in early age, but sex and hurting the woman. Explain that process to me. I'd say she's always in the car. driving down the road.

So I whipped out my ID, and with my ID, I put my finger over my driver's license to hide my name. But on the opposite side was pictures. I'm a picture of my son. They would

know I was probably a normal person. But you were really using your son as part of your ruse. Gary Ridgeway eventually confessed to killing up the 71 women, but was ultimately charged with 48 murders. All of the murders were planned, and he never killed any men, only women. He took great pride in what he did, and would only take credit for the murders he actually committed. He called his killings his career. He showed no remorse or emotion

when he spoke with investigators, but did admit he had anger problems. It would go into a rage when a woman upset him. Later, he would say this was false, and he would have killed even if he wasn't angry. So I'll just lay it out there, morph. These kind of individuals really scare me. You know, someone that takes pride in killing. I mean, this man called killing his career. No remorse, no emotion. And then you add into that the fact that he's the neighbor next door, right? People are having these over the fence type conversations with him. This is. This is a very scary individual. And the thing that I always go back to is how many people are out there right now, today,

across the United States, across the world, just like this. What if I've got someone in my neighborhood that I talk to once a week about the grass? This guy's a secret serial killer. It is very scary. And I think it's interesting when you think about it that every serial killer that's out there probably has a neighbor or a co-worker or a friend or someone that associates with them and has no idea that they're doing what they're doing. And that's what's so scary about these types of predators. But on the flip side of that, there's people interacting

with individuals that once they're caught, they're going to come out and say, you know what, there was a lot of red flags. You know, this guy did this and he did that. You know what I'm saying? because that's kind of the flip side of it too. That comes out in a lot of the stories that we cover, but those people never think, oh, he's a serial killer. They just think he's weird.

He's doing some strange things. Gary Ridgeway blamed the murders on his second wife, Marcia, saying that if he had a happy home to come home to, he wouldn't have had to kill. Gary told investigators that he spent hours, before and after work looking for sex workers. And once he found his target, he would watch her from a distance before trying to pick

her up. And he had a routine. He would show these women, his ID. Sometimes he would show them a picture of his son to make them feel safe. Then he would drive them to a secluded location to have sex with them. Gary estimated that more than 50 times women asked him if he was the Green River killer. He always denied it and asked them, how could he possibly be the killer? Because his stature was so small.

So Gary was about 510, but he only weighed 155 pounds. So I guess that's what he was referencing in saying, how could I, a relatively small guy, murder all these women? But yet we know he did. He also told police that he would have some, what he called good dates with sex workers, just so they would give him a good reference with other sex workers. So it was almost like he was building, he was networking in a way for the future. Again, very scary.

And it was that small stature that allowed him to get close to these women because they let their guard down. I think that's a great point, right? This is not Ed Kemper. This is not somebody that's 6-6, 6-7, 6-8, 6-10, 300 pounds. He's a small guy. He's not as intimidating as maybe some other individuals would have been. Sometimes Gary would take the women back to his house for the date. While having sex with them, he would wrap his arm around the woman's neck and choke her.

Often using a ligature, normally something that was available nearby. This included tails, belts, extension cords, ropes, neckties, or socks. He usually used his right arm, but would switch to his left arm if the right arm got tired. Ridgeway told police, choking is what I did, and I was pretty good at it. Ridgeway never used a weapon because using a weapon was too messy. And if the victim didn't die right away, she might scream. Ridgeway would tell his victims that if they stopped struggling, he would let them go. But it was a ruse.

He only did this to get them to stop struggling so they were easier to kill. He always took the victim's clothing and jewelry. And if a victim scratched him, he would cut her fingernails. so that there would be no DNA evidence. And he did something special with the victim's jewelry. He would take it and put it in the women's bathroom at work. And apparently he did this because he said he got a thrill out of seeing his female co-workers walking around wearing the jewelry.

This guy's a sick puppy. No doubt about it. Gary thought of the bodies as his own possession. his property. He always dumped the bodies within a half hour of killing them. After he dumped them, he covered the bodies with brush, branches, sometimes even garbage. He always disposed of bodies at night so he wouldn't be seen. And he deliberately misled police by leaving cigarette butts at the crime scenes. Gary didn't smoke. He was purposefully trying to throw off the police. He also left various brochures and pamphlets around the victims again in an effort to try to throw police off.

When he killed women at his home, Ridgeway would back his truck up to the house, wrap the victim in a rug or sheet of plastic, drag the body outside, and put it in the back of his truck. To make sure he wasn't seen by anyone, Gary would unscrew a light bulb that was near a window. Then he would drag the body into a remote area of the woods. Gary told police he would have killed many more women, but it cost too much money and gas and too much time dumping the bodies. So I keep talking about how scary this guy is, 510, 155 pounds. He doesn't sound too scary on paper. But the fact that he would even say, if it wasn't for the price of gas and the amount of time it took to dump all these bodies, I would have killed many more women. It just, it really goes to

this man's thinking. It was a job to Gary Ridgeway, right? And what do you do in a job? You factor certain things in. You don't take a job if it costs too much in gas and it's going to take you too much time to do versus what you're going to get in return. He's using that same logic, that same mentality with killing. And it's scary to think the only thing separating him from a higher body count was the cost of gas and the time and effort it took to drag the bodies out in the woods. When investigators noticed scars on his forearms, Gary stated that one victim, Marie Malvar, scratched his arms very badly.

So he decided to burn himself with battery acid to cover up the scratch marks. This is how committed this guy was to not getting caught, to be able to continue to do what he was doing. He also admitted to police that sometimes he would return to the dump sites and have sex with the corpses. He estimated that he did this maybe 10 different times. And sometimes the victims were very decomposed. I mean, we're talking to the point where there were. maggots infesting the body. All of the victims that Ridgeway had sex with were victims that he dumped very close to his home. That's sick, Morph. When you when you say, I mean, it's all sick,

right? What Gary Ridgeway did. But the thought of, you know, doing that act with a decomposed body infested with maggots. I hope people are not eating a tuna sandwich for lunch at this particular time. And Gary told detectives he didn't actually like having sex with the corpses, but they were close and it was free sex, so why not? Just a scary attitude from him and very depraved, obviously. It's reminiscent of Ted Bundy. Some of the victims were found on their backs with their legs in unnatural positions, and this was because he had had sex with them post-mortem. At around 7 a.m. on September 22nd, 2003, about a dozen detectives walked down a steep ravine in a thick wooded area off Highway 4-tent. They cleared a 50-yard area of land using machetes,

chainsaws, rakes, and a giant weed clearing machine. Detectives spent nine hours searching for the bones and teeth of murder victims. However, all they found were animal bones. Two months later, Gary appeared in court. In a hearing on November 4th, 2003, in front of some of the victim's families, Gary Ridgeway gave a full confession to the murders via a statement read by Jeff Baird. But I was thinking I was doing you guys a favor. Killing crossuits. Here, you guys can't control them, but I can. For the first time, we hear the twisted reasoning of the Green River killer. He believed he was solving the prostitute problem.

And I choked her to death. Then it took my socks off and I got him in a knot and tied him around her neck and tied as I could. In hundreds of hours of interviews with police over seven months, Gary Ridgeway laid out his grisly confession, hoping to save himself from the death penalty. I agree to think guilty to the counts that I committed, not the others.

He went on to say, I killed the 48 women. In most cases, when I murdered these women, I didn't know their names. Most of the time I killed them the first time I met them. And I did not have a good memory for their faces. I killed so many women, I have a hard time keeping them straight. You know, continuing on, he said, I place most of the bodies and groups, which I called clusters. I did this because I wanted to keep track of all the women I killed. I like to drive by the clusters around the county and think about the women I placed there.

In December 2003, Judge Richard A. Jones of King County Superior Court ordered Gary Ridgeway to serve 48 life sentences. He also received an additional 10 years for each life sentence for tampering with evidence, adding 480 years to a sentence. At sentencing, Ridgeway read a statement, often removing his glasses to wipe away tears. I know how horrible my acts were. I have tried for a long time to get these things out of my mind. I have tried for a long time to keep from killing any more ladies. I have tried hard to remember as much as I could to help the detectives fine and recover the ladies. I'm very sorry for the ladies that were not found.

May they rest in peace. They need a better place than what I gave them. So my question, Morph, and I'll pose it to you, is how much of this is really genuine? Because we've talked about it, right? This is a killer with no regret, no remorse. Now all of a sudden, he is showing remorse. Is it real? I just, I wonder if it's possible to be.

be, you know, totally remorseless in committing these murders, but then you're caught and there's remorse. Is it remorse for what you did or is it remorse because you're caught? And you can no longer do the things that you want to do. I don't know, but it's a question that always kind of pops into my head as we're covering these killers. And one thing I always think about sort of touching on what you just said, is once these guys are in custody, are they relieved? Is it some kind of pressure off of them that now they don't have to do what they've been doing because you wonder, is it something they just couldn't control and couldn't stop? And now that they're in prison, they have some relief.

I would say for the most part, no. I think given the choice, they would, 90 some percent would go back. out on the streets and do what they were doing before. I truly believe that. The judge granted victims families each 10 minutes to confront Gary Ridgeway. Many spoke with a toll. The murders took on their families. Some had depression.

Others struggled with substance abuse. Understandably, these family members were very upset and they had harsh words for the man that had murdered their loved one. He's an animal. I wish for him to have a long, suffering, cruel death. He's going to go to hell, and that's where he belongs. When it was Robert Ruhl's turn to speak, his words quieted the courtroom and brought Gary Ridgeway to tears.

Ridgeway had murdered his 16-year-old daughter, Linda. His statement was the only one that evoked emotion from Gary, who wiped away tears. Mr. Ridgeway, um, There are people here that hate you. I'm not one of them. 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. You are forgiven, sir.

I still remember it like it was yesterday when I saw that video of Robert Ruhl saying that he forgave Gary Ruh. Ridgeway for killing his daughter. It was powerful, and in a way, you have to think that it was a way for Mr. Rule to unburden himself of the negativity and sadness he was probably carrying around. And when he said those words, you are forgiven, sir, Gary Ridgeway broke down crying, and in my mind, at that moment, he was remorseful just for that second. Yeah, it's very powerful. I may have said this before, but I don't know if I could do that more. You know, I, I think that this father is a better man than I am. I just don't believe that I could forgive a man for killing my daughter.

I'd like to think I could. I would like to think I'm that type of person, but deep down, I don't, I don't know if I am. I'm right there with you, Mike. I'm, I'm the same. I don't think I could. I'd like to think that I could, but in reality, I don't think there's any way I'd be able to. So for this man to do that is pretty huge.

Yeah, I think a lot of us like to think that in a certain situation, we would act this way or that way. And it would be the best way possible. But I don't know if a lot of us would. I really don't. And again, until you're put in that position and hopefully, you know, obviously we're not wishing for anybody to be in that position. but until you are in that position, you just, you really don't know. But it was a very emotional statement by Robert Rule.

And then the judge spoke. And his words were a bit more harsh than Robert Rules were. He told Gary Ridgeway, there is nothing in your life that was significant other than your own demented, calculating, and lustful passion of being the. emissary of death. He called him the emissary of death, which I think is very fitting. In 2004, Gary Ridgeway was put in solitary confinement at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. In 2011, he pleaded guilty to a 49th murder and authorities filed an aggravated murder charge against him related to the murder of Rebecca Romero, whose remains were uncovered in December 2010.

Gary confessed to Rebecca's murder in 2003, but he couldn't provide enough details for a charge. In 2013, Gary claimed he actually killed 75 to 80 women. He told a reporter in a phone interview that he was going to confess to dozens of more murders to help bring closure to the families of his unidentified victims. There were three bodies that were never identified. He claimed he was a changed man who had found God and admitted that he could, could have helped police more following this 2001 arrest. Authorities were a little skeptical of his claims.

In 2015, Gary Ridgway was transferred to the USP Florence in Colorado, a high-security U.S. penitentiary, often referred to as the Alcatraz of the Rockies. In October 2015, he was transferred back to Washington State Penitentiary because investigators wanted him to be close by and easily accessible in case he needed to be question regarding other open murder cases. So my understanding, Morp is USP Florence is no joke. You mentioned it referred to as the Alcatraz of the Rockies. It seems to be where they are sending the worst of the worst.

Now, I'm sure Wala Walla Walla is no picnic either. And we talked about the fact that he was put in solitary confinement, a guy like Gary Ridgeway, he could never be in Jen Pop, right? I mean, how many people in prison would want to be known as the person who killed one of the most prolific serial killers in the United States history? In 2016, high-tech forensic testing suggested an unidentified victim of the infamous Green River killer might have spent time in Alberta, Canada. known only as Jane Doe B-17, her skeletal remains were found in 1986. So the B designation after the Jane Doe refers to the fact that all they have is bones. These are just skeletal remains.

Now, Gary confessed to her murder in 2003, but again, he wasn't able to provide any identifying details. The Calgary Herald reported that from the girls' remains, a facial reconstruction produced a composite sketch, along with a description that puts her age between 14 and 18 years. She's Caucasian, and they estimate that she was between 5'4 and 5'8. The other unidentified victims are Jane Doe B-10 and Jane Doe B-20. B-10's remains were found. on March 21st, 1984. According to the Doe Network, the victim was located west of a ball field on South 146th Street

and 16th Avenue South in what is now CTAC. She may be a runaway from somewhere else in the country. She was found with another Green River victim, Cheryl Wims. Gary told detectives that he killed a woman near the baseball fields off Des Moines way. He thought she was Caucasian in her early 20s, but in an examination, indicated she was in her teens. Gary also said she had brown hair and might have picked her up in the Riverton area. Jane Doe B20's partial remains were found August 21st, 2003 in the 24,000 block of Kent-Demoyne Road in Kent. Ridgeway had led detectives to these remains. The victim was between the

ages of 13 and 26. And we mentioned it earlier, even though there's no way to prove it, but Gary Ridgeway may also be responsible for the disappearances of Case Ann Lee and Kelly McGinnis. And there's so many victims in this case more. It's what makes it extremely hard to tell. You know, other possible victims include Louise Sanders who disappeared on February 15th, 1981. Christy Vorack disappeared October 31st, 1982. Patricia LeBlanc disappeared August 12, 1983.

Patricia Ann Osborne disappeared October 20th, 1983, and Deborah Yvonne Wims disappeared October 25th, 1990. Throughout their 13-year marriage, Judith had no idea she married a killer, least of all the infamous Green River killer. By her account, Gary was a good man and the couple had a good marriage. When he was first arrested in 2001, Judith refused to believe he was capable of such hard crimes. But that changed when he confessed in 2003. She later told People Magazine in 2011, I found out he had the carpets removed because he killed women on them.

And there were bloodstains. He got rid of the bed because he had sex with some of his victims there, then killed them. Okay. So you're a wife. If you're a wife in this one, in this scenario. you find out that your husband is not only a killer. He's a serial killer of unbelievable proportions. At first you stand by him,

but then there's just too much, right? He says he did it. What goes through someone's mind when they realize, it's like talking about the neighbor, right, that realizes later on that for years, they live next door to a serial killer. Now we're talking about a woman who finds out that she's been sharing the same bed for 13 years with a man who's killed close to 50 women. I cannot even imagine the things that go through your mind that you would have to process.

And not just killing women, but killing some of those women in the bed she slept in. that's just a whole other level of how do you handle that? No, it's a good. Yeah, it's a good point. And then finding out that, you know, this man that you loved killed women, then went back later and committed necrophilia. It's just the details are revolting. Now, my wife already thinks that I'm a possible serial killer because of, you know,

all of the work that I do with the podcast. Obviously, if anyone ever looked at my. my search history on the internet, that would probably be enough to sink me right there. But so I'm not sure how surprised my wife would be. I think I think she would be surprised. I'm kidding. But you think about these things after the fact, right? Yeah, Gary Ridgeway was horrible.

You feel for the large number of victims. But then there's all these tertiary victims as well that knew. him, were married to him, they suffer in some way, some more than others, but in some way, for sure. Yeah, we've talked about that before in some of our coverage of the Golden State Killer case, for instance, when DeAngelis family found out he was the alleged Golden State killer, they're victims too in a different way. And it's not often that we look at things from their perspective, but, you know, I wonder if there's any kind of counseling involved over the years to deal with what she had to deal with. My guess, and it's just a guess, is that she would have

had to have sought some help, some type of counseling help. You would have to. There's just too much for you to deal with on your own. You would need a professional to help you through that. That's my guess. Gary Ridgeway is now 70 years old and he's still incarcerated at Walla Walla. You know, there have been documentaries made about him. There have been a number of books written on the Green River Killer, but it seems the world is still fascinated with Gary Ridgeway. And I think for a good reason, you know, you mentioned the Golden State killer. He had a very high victim count, right?

We talked about it. it took us what, 17 episodes, 18 episodes to get through. I think that's where a lot of the fascination lies with Gary Ridgeway. Very high victim count. Couple that with the fact, like we talked about, that he was perceived by most as a good neighbor. He definitely blended in with his environment. And I think those are the scary people. Those type of individuals are much scarier to me than the person that looks like a serial killer. And I don't mean to stereotype, but there are some people that look like a serial killer. I think Otis Tool is the best example I can think of. I see Otis Tool walking towards me. I'm thinking serial killer. The alarm bells are

going off in my head. I'm changing direction. I'm getting a heck out of Dodge. If I saw Gary Ridgeway, walking down the street, I don't think a thing about it. And again, I know it's dangerous to stereotype. But when it comes to your own self-preservation, I think we all, to some degree, have to do some of that. One takeaway I had about Gary Ridgeway was that it was interesting that he wasn't a criminal mastermind. He did take steps to try and throw off police, but he has a low IQ. He wasn't a genius. And somehow he just kept getting lucky and slipping through the cracks along the way. I wonder if it's possible, and I'm sure it probably is possible, to have a low IQ,

but somehow have enough street smarts to not be a criminal mastermind, but to really be able to get away with some things. I just wonder if that's possible. My assumption is it is. Well, we talked about him calling his killings, his career. So anyone that takes their killings that seriously and calls it a career is probably thinking of ways to keep furthering his body count. And I do believe that Gary Ridgeway did some, and this is going to sound bad, but he did some smart things, right, to try to cover his tracks. But that's it, Morph. That is it for the two-parter on Gary Ridgeway.

And thanks for writing a research. assistance in this episode goes out to Debbie Buck at True CrimeDiva.com and Kate Morris. So we've been experiencing a uptick, right? Morph and our downloads, our listens. All of that is great. And I think a lot of it comes from, you know, the ratings that we get on iTunes. A lot of it comes from listeners telling their friends. Hey, if you need a good true crime podcast, check out criminology. So continue to do all of that for us. We appreciate it.

It doesn't cost a dime. And it really goes a long way towards helping the show. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with a handle at Criminology Pod. We're also on Facebook. You can find us by searching for a criminology podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, which is Criminology Podcast, Discussion and Fans.

And before we leave you, be sure to listen to this short preview. of an upcoming Patreon episode with a woman named Susan Fentston. She sat down to share with us her true story of internet stalking, and it's a very bizarre one. And if you're a Patreon supporter, watch out for this in your Patreon feed. I was at my office, and suddenly I've got an author.

I'm a book publicist, of course. I got an author standing in my cube. He just pops in unannounced, and there's all this pressure on me anyway. And I see my inbox, right, I'm always in front of my computer at scenes. And they start within seconds, like all of these emails start cascading in. You know, your greeting has been sent.

Your greeting has been sent. Your greeting has been sent. Oh, your greeting has been open. Your greeting has been sent. Like hundreds, like hundreds of these things. And I looked at one, and someone had gotten into somehow all of the email addresses with people I work with and sent them pornographic greetings through Yahoo e-greatings. late in October, I was at work.

This was right before I got in touch with the FBI successfully. And it was dark. I was at my desk. It was a little late. And my phone rings. And I was getting a lot of calls at work, strange hang-ups and so forth. I got a call from a woman saying she wanted to smash my face in once and then hung up. So this time I picked up the phone and the person hung up right away.

And within a second, like that second, I could watch on my screen. I had an email come right into my inbox. And the title of the email was, you have a very soft voice, Susan.