The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (78 page)

missing on September 12 and 28, respectively; their Gary Ridgway was born in Salt Lake City in Febru-remains were found in March and May 1986.

ary 1949, an “average” child whose family moved to
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RIDGWAY, Gary Leon

Washington in 1960. They settled in McMicken

When one struggling victim scratched him, Ridgway Heights, near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

clipped her fingernails to remove forensic evidence, then Though courteous and friendly, Ridgway was a slow-doused the scratches on his arm with acid to obscure witted student, 20 years old when he graduated from them. He left gum and cigarettes beside some corpses, high school. By then, unknown to his parents or police, and once left an Afro hair-pick to incriminate the vic-Ridgway had already attempted his first murder. In tim’s pimp. In once case, Ridgway planted leaflets from 1963 he stabbed a 6-year-old boy, lacerating his liver.

an airport motel near a victim’s body, then dropped her When the child asked Ridgway, “Why did you kill me?”

driver’s license at Sea-Tac Airport, creating false trails.

Ridgway paused, wiped the bloody knife on his victim’s On occasions when he met a victim through her pimp, shirt, and replied, “I always wanted to know what it Ridgway phoned back after the murder to request felt like to kill somebody.” Forty years later, the victim another date, thus feigning ignorance about the crime.

recalled Ridgway walking away, “kinda putting his In January 1984, Ridgway drove with his son to a subhead in the air, you know, and laughing real loud.”

urb of Portland, Oregon, dumping the remains of Ridgway was not arrested for that crime, and it Denise Bush and Shirley Sherrill, then mailing a letter appeared to have no outward impact on his life. He filled with false leads to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

married a high school classmate in August 1970, but The ploy was successful, diverting task force detectives discovery of his bride’s adultery led Ridgway to brand into Oregon for several months.

her a “whore,” and the couple divorced in January In early 1986, FBI agents focused their manhunt on 1972. (Ironically, Ridgway himself was patronizing Bill McLean, a trapper from Riverton Heights, Wash-prostitutes at the same time.) Ridgway married his sec-ington. He fit the white-outdoorsman profile, though he ond wife in December 1973 and fathered a son who neither smoked nor drank, and did not frequent prosti-was born in September 1975. In the wake of that event, tutes. G-men arrested him on February 6, encouraged he reportedly became “fanatical” about religion, when he greeted them with a question: “What took you attending two different churches and leading his family so long?” Still, a search of his home revealed nothing, on door-to-door prayer walks. Sometimes his wife and McLean passed multiple polygraph tests, emerging found Ridgway sitting in front of the television, weep-from jail to sue King County and a local newspaper for ing with a Bible open on his lap. The couple separated slander. A month later, agents requested another poly-in 1980 and divorced a year later, filing mutual restrain-graph sitting from Gary Ridgway. He agreed on March ing orders, though Ridgway retained visitation rights 20, then changed his mind and refused on advice from a with his son.

lawyer. Discouraged, the FBI “inactivated” its file on Life was more stable for Ridgway on the work front, Ridgway.

where he served for 32 years in the Kenworth Truck The local task force took a different view, reopening Company’s paint shop and won awards for perfect its investigation of Ridgway on August 19, 1986. Inter-attendance. In private, he was sexually insatiable, views with his ex-wives and girlfriends collected tales of demanding intercourse from girlfriends two or three violence, aberrant sex, and venereal disease, together times per night, while keeping up his trysts with hook-with Ridgway’s fondness for pickup trucks and prosti-ers on the side. Some partners, including Ridgway’s tutes. Police began to trail Ridgway, in hopes that he third wife, later recalled his tastes as kinky, involving might lead them to a body dump, but the surveillance bondage, anal sex, and other “deviations” from the was haphazard. No officers were watching when he norm. On December 24, 1981, Ridgway told recent killed 19-year-old Patricia Barczak on October 17, girlfriend Sharon Hebert that he had met a woman on 1986. No detectives were present when he kidnapped the street and nearly killed her. He provided no details, and strangled 21-year-old Roberta Hayes in February and Hebert asked no questions, but she soon stopped 1987.

dating Ridgway.

Two months later, task force officers obtained a war-In July 1982, while riding with his seven-year-old rant to search Ridgway’s body, home, vehicles, and his son, Ridgway picked up a woman on the Sea-Tac Strip locker at work. Detective Matthew Haney’s affidavit and drove to a wooded area, where he parked. Leaving supporting the warrant declared: “It is highly probable his son behind, Ridgway went into the forest with his that Gary Leon Ridgway is the Green River killer.”

victim. He returned alone, explaining to his son that the Technicians swabbed Ridgway’s mouth for DNA sam-woman had decided to “walk home.” With three Green ples, plucking hairs from his head, chest and groin, River victims slain that month, police remain uncertain while searchers confiscated various tools and articles of of the vanishing woman’s identity.

clothing. A backhoe was summoned to excavate Ridg-In contrast to such outrageous risks, Ridgway also way’s backyard, all in vain. Aside from a pamphlet on took pains to cover his tracks and confuse investigators.

marijuana, no evidence of any criminal activity was
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RIDGWAY, Gary Leon

found. In 1988, while Ridgway wooed and wed his Police linked Ridgway to 100 different vehicles and third wife, a forensic laboratory in New York compared began the arduous task of locating each one for a new his DNA samples with rape-kit evidence collected from forensic search.

victims Chapman, Christensen, and Mills. The current Three more murder charges were filed against Ridg-technology failed, forcing a judgment that the victim way on March 27, 2003, for victims Bonner, Coffield, samples were too small for testing or comparison.

and Estes. On April 10, Ridgway abandoned his claims Task force investigators lost heart in the 1990s, con-of innocence and confessed responsibility for 25 of the vinced that their quarry had “retired” or moved on to Green River slayings, followed one day later by admis-some other hunting ground. Media reports quoted vari-sion of many more crimes. A bargain was struck with ous detectives as believing the Green River Killer was the state, and Ridgway led police to the remains of vic-responsible for unsolved prostitute murders in Califor-tims Avent, Buttram, and Malvar, found between nia and Missouri. Others thought their man was dead August 16 and September 29, 2003. On November 5, or locked up on some unrelated charge. Task force com-2003, after Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 murders, mander Robert Evans even questioned whether one media reports spoke of 60 confessions and speculated man was responsible for all the listed murders. “It that the final tally “might be closer to 70.” In fact, could be two, maybe even three separate serial murder police told journalists, Ridgway had “killed so many cases,” Evans told reporters. In fact, the stalker was nei-women he had a hard time keeping them straight.”

ther absent nor inactive. He killed 31-year-old Marta Ridgway’s final statement to the court, before he van-Reeves in March 1990, her remains discovered six ished into prison, was brief and brought no solace to months later. Patricia Yellowrobe was murdered on survivors of the dead. He said:

August 4, 1998, her body found on August 6.

DNA technology caught up with Gary Ridgway in

September 2001, as new procedures allowed definitive testing of samples deemed too small in 1988. On September 4, the Washington State Patrol’s crime lab matched Ridgway’s DNA to semen found on victims Chapman, Christensen, Hinds, and Mills. King County Sheriff Dave Reichert created a new “evidence review team” on September 11, designed to operate “under the radar” while perfecting the case against Ridgway.

Two months later, on November 16, Ridgway was

arrested in SeaTac, on a charge of loitering for purposes of prostitution. Still Reichert bided his time, delaying Ridgway’s arrest on murder charges until November 30, 2001.

Gary Ridgway was formally charged with four

counts of aggravated first-degree murder on December 5, 2001, but the case was far from closed. Sheriff Reichert told reporters that his office had reopened investigation of 80 cases involving women murdered or missing since 1984. The search also expanded into British Columbia, where 30-odd streetwalkers were reported missing from Vancouver and survivors

recalled seeing Ridgway in the neighborhood. (That phase of the investigation led nowhere near Ridgway; Canadian suspect Robert Pickton was later charged in the Vancouver slayings.) Evidence collected after Ridgway’s arrest included bone fragments found in his home and paint flecks from several bodies, matched at long last to the Kenworth plant where Ridgway

worked. In March 2002, a friend of Ridgway’s from the 1970s recalled the prisoner’s remark that “prostitution is a terrible thing, and there ought to be a solution, Gary Ridgway is escorted by guards to his sentencing.

and that solution was to terminate the prostitutes.”

(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

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ROBINSON, John Edward, Sr.

I’m sorry for killing all those young ladies. I have tried to The authorities in Utrecht were concerned about the remember as much as I could to help the detectives to strange “coincidence,” but Rijke seemed to have no find and recover the ladies. I’m sorry for the scare I put motive for eliminating his fiancées. Flying in the face of into the communities. I want to thank the police, the grief, Sjef married only three weeks after Mientje’s prosecuting attorneys, my lawyers and all others that had death. It was another star-crossed union, marred by the patience to work with me and to help me remember Rijke’s pathological jealousy; he quarreled bitterly with all the tragic things that I did and to be able to talk about 18-year-old Maria, prompting her to leave him. Curi-them. I know the horrible things my acts were. I have ous detectives asked about her health, and they discov-tried for a long time to get these things out of my mind.

ered that Maria had been subject to repeated

I’ve tried for a long time to keep from killing any ladies.

stomachaches throughout her short-lived marriage;
I’m sorry I put my wife, my son, my brothers and my
change of domicile had cured the problem overnight.

family through this hell. I hope they can find a way to
A short time later, Sjef acquired a live-in lover who,
forgive me. I’m very sorry for the ladies that were not
in turn, began to suffer stomach problems. These were
found. May they rest in peace. They need a better place
dutifully reported to her mother, who inquired about
than where I gave them. I’m sorry for killing these ladies.

her diet. Sjef, the older woman learned, ate everything
They had their whole lives ahead of them. I’m sorry for
her daughter did, yet seemed to feel no ill effects. It was
causing so much pain to so many families.

discovered that his latest paramour was fond of eating peanut butter as a snack between their normal meals, In addition to life imprisonment without parole, and samples from the jar were found to have a strange, Ridgway was slapped with a $480,000 fine, which the metallic taste. Delivered to a chemist for analysis, the state had no means to collect. On June 1, 2004, Judge peanut butter was found to be laced with rat poison.

Richard Jones compounded the absurdity by ordering Still lacking any motive, homicide investigators Ridgway to pay $74,459 in restitution to survivors of searched for other suspects, grilling Rijke’s cleaning his victims (specific stipends ranged from $300 to lady. The investigation soon focused on Sjef, though, $6,500 per family). Like the state of Washington before after a local merchant recalled selling him several boxes them, mourners are unlikely to receive a penny of the of poison in recent months. Under close questioning, court-ordered amount.

Rijke broke down and confessed his crimes, describing Gary Ridgway’s confession left a nagging mystery the sadistic pleasure he obtained from watching women behind in Seattle. He admitted slaying 42 of the “offi-suffer. It was never his intention to kill his fiancées, he cial” 49 Green River victims, plus six women not on the claimed; Sjef simply loved to see them squirm.

task force’s list. None of the dead were personally Found legally sane by court psychiatrists, Rijke was known to their killer, and four remain unidentified tried for the murder of Willy Maas in January 1972.