Mugshots: Gary Ridgway - The Green River Killer | Forensic Files

he's accused of four homicides linked to one of the country's most mysterious multiple murder cases it became the
worst unsolved serial killing in American history I did try to warn her with your hitchhiking this could happen
to you after 20 years and 49 dead women a puzzle that has long haunted Seattle May soon be solved everywhere I go
around this County I can count the victims as Gary neon Ridgeway awaits trial for murder police work feverishly
to prove that he is the Green River Killer he don't deserve police from now until everybody presently living dies
the name of Ridgeway is going to ring a certain Bell in a lot of Mines next on Mugshots Gary Ridgeway and the Green
River [Music] Murders [Music] on July 15th 198 2 two young boys bicycled across the narrow maker bridge
over the Green River in the Seattle suburb of Kent they paused to look down into the
water there caught on a branch they saw the floating body of 16-year-old Wendy kield on August 12th a worker at a
cattle slaughter house on the banks of the Green River discovered the body of Deborah
boner that same day 16-year-old opal mil called her parents from a phone booth in
a park on Pacific Highway south then she [Music] disappeared everything just went crazy
um you know your child is gone where do you look for him she My Baby Girl Detective Dave rer of the King
County Sheriff's Office was the lead investigator on the murders 3 days later on August 15th two more bodies were
found and uh during that uh scene processing I found another body on the river bank and on Monday morning on
August 16th we knew we had uh we probably had a serial killer the autopsies determined that all
three women had been strangled and sexually assaulted but police were only able to
identify one of them Mara Fay Chapman their 31 a prostitute and mother of three small children had been in the
water longer than a week she had last been seen 2 weeks earlier on Pacific Highway South they all had prostitution
arrests or at least frequented prostitution areas and we were beginning to prepare ourselves and put a team
together to uh investigate these series of murders that afternoon Riker's boss major Richard crasy gathered 25
detectives from surrounding jurisdictions to compare notes and exchange theories when uh it was
realized that a serial killer was working here essentially Seattle was uh pretty much shocked over it I mean five
young ladies in the river uh caused a panic detectives hit the streets with photos to try to identify the other two
women and within a week names were put to the faces the first 17-year-old Cynthia cookie Hines had been in the
water 3 days she had been last seen four nights earlier at a convenience store on
a section of Pacific Highway South known as the strip the other victim that detective rard
found on the riverbank was opal Mills her best friend called one day and said uh maybe you should read the paper and
see who this is It's says a girl with red hair and an opal head dyed her hair red
um a dark red and so when I saw that I guess that's the moment I knew that it was
her she was strangled I know she wore a scarf sometimes and I felt for years like it
was I I quit wearing scarves because I felt like um it was my scarf that did [Music]
it the search for the Green River Killer would now focus on the Strip a 10m stretch of highway south of Seattle
studded with motels fast food joints honky ton saloons and a topless bar it was at best a smaller version of
maybe Spanish Harlem and Time Square put together on a bad night in each neighborhood retired cab
driver Melvin Foster used to drive on the strip there was a zoo with the cages open and
the Animals running wild you could drive down Pacific Highway uh uh South and essentially uh
see women sashan blowing kisses at you um if you stopped at a stoplight uh they would sit on the hood of your car police
received many tips from the public and more missing persons reports were filed about other
prostitutes but investigators soon learned that the unstable lifestyles of these women made it very difficult ult
to know if they were really missing they would move on to Vancouver British Columbia or Portland Oregon or
Sacramento or San Francisco or Las Vegas they were const they were on this kind of circuit and uh so it was very
difficult for people to understand the the milu in which all these people were last seen most of the victims had uh 5 6
8 9 10 12 15 different names U some with last names some without some nicknames several different birth dates
descriptions varied uh they would dye their hair different colors change their addresses King County investigators sent
crime scene evidence from the Green River Murders to the FBI's Behavioral Sciences unit at quano Virginia the FBI
worked up a psychological profile of the killer what they find at these crime scenes seems to suggest that he's not
planning to do this ahead of time he's not going out into the night with the rape or murder kit like you often times
find he's done something on the spur of the moment that seems to suggest that there might be something in the
interaction between the Killer and the victim something verbal or maybe even nonverbal that seems to set him off in
some fashion then in September the body of a sixth prostitute was found she had been strangled like the
others Taxi Driver Melvin Foster would provide police with an intriguing tip I've seen some of these girls I've seen
them downtown I've carried them a time or two in the cab and I was asking myself why would anyone want to hurt
these girls they're out there trying to make a living and wait for better times to get there then I got to thinking I
know somebody that needs taken down because I knew him to be working a 14-year-old runaway out of the back of
his oldmobile station wagon working off Foster's lead police questioned the man with the Oldsmobile but after he passed
a polygraph T Test he was eliminated as a suspect before long police were more interested in Melvin Foster and his
familiarity with so many of the prostitutes he became the first serious suspect they were looking for people who
had a lot of contact with him and uh and they were looking for people who might come forward with a tip because the
profile from the FBI said this person might inject themselves in a case I went to the cops and
u I guess I knew the streets a little bit better than some of the vice comps did because all of a sudden the major
crimes unit that very interested in me on September 20th Foster was called into the sheriff's office for
questioning after vehemently denying any involvement in the murders he agreed to
take a polygraph test immediately American polygraph Association will tell you you have to
have a 90-minute interview the two parties involved have to agree to the language of all the questions
there were no control questions and it was just right out of the blue it just come in bang bang bang
and it it's hooked up and we're going Foster failed the test I had a nervous disorder come
up I'd have had to take a volume or something to get past it that would have flattened all the
gauges you know all their needles and stuff would have just went Flatline there was no way in this world
I could get past that exam Foster's Home was searched but nothing was found to tie him to the crimes he was placed
under 24-hour surveillance for the next two months when we identified Melvin Foster as a person of interest at that
time we worked hard on him we we had him under surveillance we did some search warrants and we found some things about
him that bothered us in late November police searched Melvin Foster's Home a second time but still found nothing
useful that there was after they took the house apart on the second search 7 hours for a while no new bodies
turned up two months later major KY felt so sure that Foster was their man and was
under such pressure to reduce costs he agreed to disband the original task force
all the investigators on the Green River case except Dave rer were reassigned I felt a little bit abandoned uh in late
1982 and through 1983 being left alone with his cases by myself during the next 6 months missing persons reports
continued to pour in then in May of 1983 the body of a seventh victim 21-year-old Carol Anne
Christensen was found in a wooded area in Maple Valley 15 15 m east of the strip she had been last seen only 5 days
earlier leaving a Tavern where she worked on Pacific Highway South a week earlier 18-year-old
prostitute Marie malvar had disappeared after getting into a pickup truck at a bus stop on the Strip her friend
initially followed the vehicle but then lost sight of it 4 days later the friend went out
searching with malar's father they search around and they find a truck that is very similar to the one the boyfriend
saw at what turns out to be gar ridgeway's house so they go down to Deo police the De Moine Washington police
sent a detective to question Ridgeway the way we understand it it was very nonchalant well is there somebody in
here and no there's nobody in here okay they had a very very good lead back then
and so then you have to start counting the women who died after Marie malvar and say wow that's a
travesty gar Ridgeway was a recently divorced 34-year-old truck painter and Outdoorsman this was the first time that
Ridgeway was directly questioned about one of the Green River victims with the task force disbanded
and with Melvin Foster considered the prime suspect ridgeway's home and vehicle were not even searched by the De
Moine police and detective Dave rer wouldn't be informed of this incident for 6 months meanwhile the FBI psychological
profile had the task force is focusing hard on other suspects before coming back to Gary
Ridgeway next on mug shots details of ridgeway's past reveal intriguing Clues to the mysterious
murders by the spring of 1983 the investigation into the Green River Murders had yielded suspects but no
arrest seven women had been found strangled in the area around Seattle's Green River
and the task force which had numbered 25 detectives was disbanded leaving the case in the hands of a single
investigator in May when another prostitute disappeared 34-year-old Gary Leon Ridgeway was the last person seen
with her he was questioned by local police and let go but a closer look at his past
revealed a number of red flags he was born on February 18th 1949 in Salt Lake City he moved with his
parents and two brothers to this house in Seattle when he was 11 his father drove a bus on the strip
and friends say he used to complain about the prostitutes on his route his mother meanwhile was
domineering one friend recalls her smashing a plate over the father's head ridgeway's father meekly walked away
Ridgeway went to Tai High School where Terry Rochelle was two grades ahead of him one day my sister was walking home
from school and we had about a mile to walk from the high school so she dropped her books and and Gary was not far away
and he came and picked him up for her and he says oh I'll just carry him home for you and so he carried him all the
way to our house and she said she kind of had a little crush on him after that because she thought he was so nice but
Roselle does recall Ridgeway getting into some trouble a bunch of us went over to a dance hall and my brother went
along with me and so I guess he went in the bathroom and he Gary said something to him and my brother said just knock it
off and Gary turned around and peed on my brother's leg and then my brother knocked him down you know fight we all
got kicked out after graduating high school at age 20 Ridgeway joined the Navy what people
will tell you about that kind kind of a person is that he seemed so utterly normal while stationed in San Diego he
married his first wife but investigators would learn that after a six-month tour he returned home
to find his wife had moved in with two men and had become a prostitute Ridgeway left the Navy moved
back to Seattle and divorced her this kind of anger towards women that's just deep within the psyche and is can't even
be articulated after a failed attempt to join a local police department Ridgeway
started working as a truck painter for the Kenworth Trucking Company a job he would hold for almost 30 years Ridgeway
married his second wife in 1973 she would later tell investigators that while they were married she and
Ridgeway used to ride their bikes past the slaughterhouse and the Meer Bridge they had sex there in the tall grass on
the banks of the Green River he preferred sex in the wood she said or out in the open or while he was driving
he even tied her up for sex a few times he was so normal he was cute young you know like everybody else you know just
young and carefree and just a nice young man according to his second wife Ridgeway would often be gone during the
evenings for long periods of time returning to the house dirty or wet he regularly carried plastic harp in the
back of his truck the same kind later found covering the bodies of some of the Green River Killer
victims later girlfriends told investigators that ridgeway's second wife had started singing in bars that
she had gone to a strip bar where ridgeway's boss or her dance topless they were divorced in 1981 and
Ridgeway began to date other women and frequent the strip for prostitutes you had so many women here
that you you couldn't avoid them uh to get warm uh they would go to Denny's and have a cup of coffee or they'd go into
uh bus shelters or to hotel lobbies just to hang out and obviously see if they could find some
men on Christmas Eve 1981 Ridgeway arrived late to meet his girlfriend at a dance on the
Strip she says he told her that he couldn't believe it he had just almost killed a woman she understood that to
mean a prostitute he quickly dropped the subject somehow it never came back up and yet when you think about it they
are that normal because they practice they work at it very very hard to conceal this demon that's burning inside
of them then on May 11th 1982 Ridgeway was arrested for soliciting prostitution from an undercover female Vice Cop but
he easily slid out of this trouble and by July the series of murders that would shock the nation had
begun next on mug shots we rejoin the hunt for the killer as desperate investigators in a real life Silence of
the Lambs turned to Infamous serial killer Ted Bundy to seek his help in catching the Green River
Killer ever since the bodies of the first five women had been found in the Green River hundreds of tips poured in
to Dave rard who was heading up the investigation highly complicated case hundreds thousands of of tips as the
case progressed people would call in and uh I think we have we're over 40,000 uh suspect tip sheets and
thousands of items of evidence so all the information that's coming in how do you manage it the task force began
entering all the information and evidence on a first generation desktop computer but as they raced to catch up
even more women were being reported missing this killer had been lucky too he had inundated them with victims
suspects paperwork and they were drowning and every weekend they would find a body and they had to go out there
to the woods and instead of investigating they were excavated when all of a sudden in just a few short
weeks we have five or six bodies and and in that group you have a first the first
challenge is identify the victim you can't investigate the case at all until you know who she is it's just a matter
of uh finding the right person who uh I'm sure is out there that has the key to this whole case and uh eventually I
hope we can find him in the midst of all this activity Gary Ridgeway was approached by Port of Seattle Police as
he sat in his parked truck at 1: in the morning of August 29th 1982 he was on on a deserted dead end
Block near the airport a block where three Green River Killer bodies were later found unknown yet to police
another Green River victim had disappeared earlier that day Ridgeway was told to move on he appears to be um
the average kid that you grow up with again Society saying that and he was no threat to anybody that's how what he
appears to be as police were tailing Melvin Foster on November 9th Ridgeway tried to strangle a prostitute named
Rebecca gay gay said Ridgeway had picked her up on the strip and taken her to a wooded
area for sex he suddenly accused her of biting him and started choking her somehow she broke free and ran to a
nearby mobile home at the time she was too terrified to tell police it's not like the suspect has to get out and grab
a hold of these girls have a struggle with them handcuff them tape them bind them gag them and throw them in the car
and they're screaming and yelling for help they drive up reach over open the door make a deal hop in the car and
drive off meanwhile in February 1983 Port of Seattle police again rolled up on a
parked pickup truck inside they found Gary Ridgeway with prostitute Kelly mcginness they let him go with a warning
but 4 months later mcginness was added to the list of Green River killings and then the task Force's
single computer crashed in a power surge wiping out all the months of information
that had been entered by November six more bodies were found the pressure was building and the
new sheriff Vern Thomas was willing to risk more ambitious plans he uh agreed that we should have a a bigger effort
was able to convince the politicians to put more money uh so in the next few years $2 million a year was spent each
year on this case by January 1984 Sheriff Thomas announced the formation of a 45 member Green River task
force they installed a room-sized computer to correlate all their data and it took them almost a year and a half to
enter all the hard copy information into this computer the following month another prostitute told the task force
she thought Gary Ridgeway was the killer based on his suspicious Behavior then in
March 17-year-old topless dancer Cindy Smith disappeared from the strip police would later determine that Smith was the
last of the Green River Killer's victims that the killings had ended investigators now believed that
dozens of missing women had been murdered in only 18 months their bodies often hidden in remote locations would
continue to turn up over the next 6 years we looked up uh potential victims we read missing persons reports to
determine if he was still killing uh to determine whether police were was just being C and not saying that he was still
killing over the first 3 days of April 1984 four more bodies were found in the woods near Star Lake and there was an
enormous media mob scene out there they had a a TV station from uh from Germany for Pete's sake uh huge crowd of media
people and so of course the the the Green River Murders became disseminated rather widely across the world as as a
as a terrible crime Gary Ridgeway was called in and questioned by a task force detective in
mid April Ridgeway admitted dating one of the victims and recognized a photo of another he also admitted being familiar
with some of the sites where bodies were found Weeks Later ridway took and passed
a polygraph test so he was considered cleared as a suspect later they realized that the polygraph prob probably wasn't
a valid polygraph because they hadn't asked him about any of these contacts he had had with some of the other victims
ridgeway's new girlfriend said that he had sex with her twice a day and that he could easily have had sex six or seven
times a day she said his only hobby was going to swap meets and flea markets she
left him in June 1984 after meeting another man 5 months later Rebecca gay The Prostitute who claimed Ridgeway had
choked her finally contacted the task force and told them her story they added it to his file for followup they were
using some of the same guidelines a person who's been out there in the street know some of the girls maybe uh
has been outdoors in the woods and uh is Savvy and Mr Ridgeway fit that bill the
investigation was well into its third year and though the beefed up task force had been Gathering enormous amounts of
evidence they were no closer to capturing the Green River Killer it was at this time that detective rer received
a letter from serial killer Ted Bundy who was on death row in Florida Bundy had confessed to killing 28 women in
Seattle and other parts of the country he was watching the case and sent me a letter and he said uh hey I think I can
uh uh help you get into the mind of he called our person the Riverman and uh I said
okay reard headed to Stark prison in Florida to meet the beast in his cage basically he talked into the third
person about what the Riverman would do and I think of course later and others who interviewed Bundy right before he
was put to death learned that some of the things that he was telling us years before in in the interview I'm talking
about uh uh he actually did himself and we knew that when we were talking to him
like Hannibal Lector Bundy was trying to manipulate the investigators playing for
time to stay his execution it's very difficult for me or any any average person to put themselves in the mind of
a serial killer we just can't think that way and uh so to hear Bundy describe these actions in a third person I think
was beneficial and it was one of those interviews that any investigator would you know cut their right arm off for I
mean it was it was very interesting the new insights went into the files officially at least the murders
had stopped but police continued to find more bodies next on Mugshots investigators close in
on Gary Ridgeway searching his house and collecting vital [Music] evidence by December 1984 the suspected
death toll of the Green River killings had risen to 42 with 28 identified bodies and 14 other women
missing seemed like we were always behind the Killer by quite a long ways in some
cases the the uh victim was not found until 6 years after she was uh determined to be missing in February
1985 Gary Ridgeway was again called in for questioning by the task force about the choking incident reported by
prostitute Rebecca gay remarkably Ridgeway confirmed her story he admitted choking her for 10 to 15 seconds
after he claimed she bit him she ran away he said and he drove home after this interview Ridgeway was put back on
the suspect list and two investigators were assigned to look for any other Ridgeway connections to the murders but
he remained only one of many suspects when task force members went out in the streets to try to find out
who might have been the killer uh there are too many men with sexual problems you could find pastur with women's
underwear on uh you would find uh sexual counselors with Kitty porn essentially almost every other person every other
men that they stopped on the Strip was a potential suspect that made it very very
difficult for them to find the needle in the hay stack by this time the evidence from the
Green River case that investigators had amassed filled a good portion of the sheriff's evidence Warehouse everything
on this side of the warehouse on the top section of the racking system is all Green River related evidence that had
been collected from um dating back to 1982 there is approximately 10,000 pieces of evidence despite the expansion
of the task force the underfunded State Crime Lab was backed up at the rate they
were going one investigator estimated it would take the State Crime Lab 50 years
to analyze just the evidence they had already accumulated we got down to collecting birds nests and examining the
bird's nest for fibers and hair because you know that birds fly around they collect and pick animal fees is another
thing that we collected around the area the chance that as and this is a gruesome thought but as they nibbled
away at the the victim uh maybe they swallowed a a ring and it's in the feces we go through that and we look for that
in March 1986 Gary Ridgeway was again interviewed by the task force he said that he was fixated on prostitutes that
they affect him as strongly as alcohol affects an alcoholic he agreed to take a second
polygraph but 3 days later on the advice of an attorney he refused there was a guy who kept popping up and as they
looked at this guy they found a variety of circumstances that seemed to suggest that he might in fact be connected to
five of the of the victims 6 months later ridgeway's second wife took task force members to various
locations she used to visit with Ridgeway during their marriage many of them were outdoor Loc
locations where she and Ridgeway had had sex unknown to her many of them were also spots where bodies had turned up
they found these possible connections between this man Mr Ridgeway and these five dry land or missing victims finally
on April 8th 1987 police searched ridgeway's home and vehicles they didn't uh obtain the physical evidence that uh
would satisfy prosecutors or police so they didn't charge him I believe at that time they had had a lot of
circumstantial evidence police felt that he was one of their best suspects or maybe the individual responsible for the
serial case but they had no evidence we had the foresight to have him chew on a piece of Gau I mean that's
almost seems like it's you know it's archaic kind of discussion now with the technology we have
today in March 1988 the task force sent body fluid samples from opal Mills and and Carol Christensen to a laboratory in
New York for DNA testing they wanted to compare them with samples collected from
some of their main suspects including Ridgeway but the lab responded that the sample was too small to
test investigators were styed they turned their attention to other suspects it was during this period that
Ridgeway met and married his third and current wife next on mug shots the the task force is once again reduced to one
detective who must keep it alive until scientific breakthroughs can further lengthen the long arm of the
[Music] law after the 1987 search of Gary ridgeway's home failed to turn up enough
evidence to arrest him for the Green River killings the investigation languished about that point in time the
political funding and political support for the investigation begins to fall off
and Wayne and they start cutting back on the number of people who were assigned to this task force with dwindling
results the Green River task force was disbanded in 1990 but the one detective left on the case Tom Jensen carefully
preserved their evidence in 1994 the OJ Simpson trial televised the complexities of making a
DNA case stick so Jensen remained cautious waiting for the science to develop there were only two labs in the
United States that conducted this test they were both on the East Coast very very expensive and it was destructive it
that meant that when we presented our evidence to them to be examined that you had to expect that part of the evidence
would be destroyed and so you could only afford to do that a very few amount of times this is a freezer where we we
store and maintain all of our evidence that has DNA related to it uh we do have Green River related evidence in this
freezer um several boxes of it uh the evidence was actually collected back in the mid 80s in 1999 the Washington State
Police opened a new and more sophisticated crime lab in Seattle by the following year the lab began
conducting DNA tests with a revolutionary new method they could now use much smaller evidence samples to
culture DNA amounts large enough to measure by 2001 Detective Tom Jensen was ready to risk his small precious samples
from the crime scenes the tests worked and in October they produced three matches to a single
suspect we do have DNA evidence on uh four cases we have DNA that is consistent and some
situations actually match totally the news among investigators was electrifying so Tom then takes the third
piece of paper and he flips it over and title over the top is you know for us inter internally was the Green River
Killer and he says this is you know the profile here and it you can see it's similar to the other
three and uh so I got a little grin on my face you know Tom's got a smile on his face and he says and here's the guy
he hands me the envelope and I said uh don't tell me I know who it is it's Gary Ridgeway he opens the envelope pulls out
the mug shot of I think 1982 arrest and it was Ridgeway armed with the DNA match
police immediately placed Ridgeway under surveillance on November 16th he was arrested trying to solicit an undercover
female Vice Cop for prostitution in his pickup truck police found $30 and a p pair of latex gloves he paid a fine and
was released finally on November 30th 2001 police moved into the Kenworth trucking
company and arrested Gary Leon Ridgeway for murder got word my older son he called over here and said turn your TV
on real quick it's going to breaking all over the place they're going to announce
an arrest in the Green River case I put it on and they said Gary Dave rord said Gary
Ridgeway and this has been a long time coming I'm thinking that's a stupid truck
painter Gary Ridgeway had been arrested of um the murders for the girls but I was thinking uh I have to go through all
this again and then my next thought was well at least he's been caught now no more can happen we couldn't believe it
you total shock man saw it on saw his picture on TV and I told her I said hey I know that guy that's when they first
flashed it and she said oh you know everybody and then they flashed it again I said holy smoke that's that's Gary
back behind the fence boy it's I tell you it was a great day Ridgeway was denied bail is your true name Gary Leon
Ridgeway yes it is he was charged with the murders of opal Mills Cynthia Hines Marsha Chapman and Carol
what I'm pleased about is that it's we've got four four cases uh charged and uh that the the science is there and the
possibility is there now to solve the rest of them ridgeway's veteran defense lawyer
Anthony Savage questions the evidence revealed so far and maintains his client's innocence Jerry Ridgeway is a
53y old 30-year truck painter from Kenmore honorably discharged from the Armed Forces blue collar worker no
pretentions just a regular knockabout guy that's who he is he was just one of an awful lot of fellas out there um
doing whatever you did on the Strip I'm not foolish enough to sit here and tell you that the state doesn't have some
evidence I accept that that they have some stuff but that doesn't mean that the stuff is guilty Beyond A Reasonable
Doubt Savage dismisses the DNA evidence let's assume for the sake of assumption that Mr ridgeway's DNA was
found in a prostitute all it shows is that there was rather close contact between Mr Ridgeway and the lady
involved well that's the object of prostitution isn't it so I don't make make anything out of
that that certainly doesn't make the customer a murderer the problem that Mr Ridgeway
faces is how does he explain how this his DNA came to be associated with three of these four victims and as I
understand it he said well yes he admits that he had sex with him but the problem
with that is is that how is it possible that every time Mr Ridgeway has sex with
somebody someone else comes along and kills him when what is the likelihood of that it's just not very good
investigators have no evidence that Carol Christensen the married mother of a three-year-old daughter was ever
involved in prostitution and yet with her ridgeway's DNA matched completely hours before his arrest for murder
Ridgeway told detectives that he never had sex with her we're describing him as a person who has been uh arrested for
and charged with four of the victims who have been on the original list entitled
Green River killings and that he is also being investigated for the remainder of
those coming up on Mugshots the Green River Killer 20 years [Music] later today Gary Ridgeway sits in a
small solitary confinement cell in the King County Jail awaiting trial for four of the Green River killings it could
take at least 2 years to prepare for trial if you were to sit down with Mr Ridgeway which you were not going to
do um but in an ordinary setting without knowing who he was after half an hour's
conversation if I was to say to you that's the Green River Monster you would say no way just no way that that could
that that man could have done these things every now and then a question will be asked this question will be
asked and it is well if you've got him for four you've charged four cases why do you have to spend you know a couple
million dollar a year now to investigate the rest of them and my answer is what would you say to me if that was your
daughter over here I know what I would say I want you to follow that case up I want you to find the guy that killed my
daughter period and that's what we're going to do the Green River task force has been
revived and many detectives Contin to gather evidence on the four murder charges and work to see if they can tie
Ridgeway to any of the other Green River killings I was the lead investigator in
Green River and when that was mentioned there was always a little whisper a little smirk you know well yeah big deal
it was UN you know he never solved it so now I can say with uh a lot of Pride I was a lead
uh investigator for eight years and uh We've charged somebody with four murders the night of ridgeway's arrest
one detective's call about the DNA results left Melvin Foster feeling Vindicated he called down here and said
you weren't even close and well that kind of answer some questions for doubting Thomas's doesn't
it Melvin Foster he still is a person of interest in other cases the prolonged frustration of a case unsolved for 20
years has taken its toll on many of those associated with it I live down south and uh every time I go home or
come to Seattle I pass by um a lot of these body sites so U my life essentially has been defined by where
women were found in the Green River and um sometimes I'm told that I can't remember a phone number to my
brother-in-laws but I remember the day date of birth and all the statistics relating to the young ladies and and
that's correct uh I covered the case for so long for so many years that um I still remember every detail about him
when I began working on it it became it was an interesting newspaper story for me and then it became an intellectual
puzzle later it became more of an obsession and it be it began to affect me certainly by the time that I was at
the end of my time with the Seattle Times I had become pretty most of my friends will tell you pretty crazy on
the entire [Music] subject I can drive east into the mountains here and it's beautiful it's a
winter wonderland most people can drive through there and just comment about the
beauty but I know where bodies were found and then I've made friends with the victim's families and relatives and
and uh so a lot of emotion is attached to this and you know when when Tom Jensen came in and shared that I shared
that little story with you when he came in and shared that he had tears in his eyes so did
[Music] I so we do care how could he do such such a thing so many times how could he do
it didn't he have any conscience at all when they arrested Ridgeway and they mentioned that they had
DNA my feeling was that good they got [Music] him [Music] I [Music] [Music] I oh

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After the first five dead women were found in the Green River in Washington State, the press named the then-unknown serial killer “The Green River Killer.” When police finally hunted Ridgway down, they were able to obtain 49 separate murder convictions, but Ridgway would confess to nearly twice that many murders in exchange for a plea bargain.

Brief Summary

The episode details the investigation of Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, and the emotional impact on victims' families.

Key points

The Green River Killer's Legacy. Gary Ridgeway is accused of four homicides linked to one of America's worst serial killing cases.
The Discovery of Victims. The bodies of several young women are found in the Green River, marking the start of a chilling investigation.
The Investigation Intensifies. Detectives gather to compare notes as panic spreads over the discovery of multiple bodies.
Ridgeway's Troubling Past. Investigators uncover troubling details about Gary Ridgeway's life that hint at his dark tendencies.
The Task Force's Struggles. The task force faces overwhelming pressure as more bodies are discovered and leads go cold.
Bundy's Letter. Ted Bundy reached out to investigators, offering insights into the mind of a killer.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This could happen to you after 20 years and 49 dead women.

A warning about the dangers of hitchhiking.

0:12WatchJul 29, 2014

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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