Gary Ridgeway aka The Green River Killer is an American serial killer and sex offender. He has the second most confirmed kills in U.S. history behind Samueluel Little and the third most prolific serial killer in the history of the United States behind only Samuel Little.
00:10:54.180You'd be surprised how many times children are actually the ones that find our young individuals, for that matter, teenagers, whatever, maybe are the ones to find a dead body.
00:11:04.680So wild stuff going underneath the water.
00:13:23.220It's just another day in the life for seven-year-old Matthew Ridgway on summer break from nearby East Hill Elementary School.
00:13:33.660Matthew would spend his summers riding his bikes, playing outside with his friends, running around the neighborhood, coming home too late for dinner.
00:13:41.160And Matthew Ridgway, wonder who that is.
00:20:05.960And those are memories, of course, that stay with you forever.
00:20:10.700And a lot of the times, guys, when you come up on a murder victim and you look at the evidence around them, the victim can't speak, but the body does.
00:20:20.380And the evidence is there to give you the untold story of what really went down.
00:20:26.800And if the investigator is savvy enough and if there's enough evidence, the story becomes very clear as to who was involved and who was responsible.
00:20:33.200The evidence speaks for the victim that can no longer do so.
00:20:39.240Investigators begin processing the scene only to make another shocking discovery.
00:21:44.620Marsha, on the other hand, was in her early 30s.
00:21:47.100She's a young mom, and she was a known sex worker.
00:21:51.320All of these women had been strangled with ligatures of some kind, sometimes pieces of their own clothing, or just the bare hands of an assailant.
00:22:02.380The striking similarities lead detectives to a grim conclusion.
00:22:06.640We did believe we had a serial killer on our hands.
00:22:09.800And that is always when the police department goes on high alert, because whenever you have a serial killer on the run, what ends up happening, guys, is that starts to affect the town's ability to create business, create revenue, because people are going to be scared to go there.
00:22:25.960And it starts to get a bad reputation.
00:22:29.020And, of course, from a political standpoint, when it comes to the mayor, the police chief, the individuals that are charged with keeping the town safe and keeping it, you know, hustling and bustling from an economic standpoint, that starts to put them in a bad light.
00:22:43.740So then, task force starts being made, and things start to get prioritized, which you guys are going to see here very soon.
00:22:54.100Word of the killings quickly spreads across the greater Seattle region.
00:22:58.980In Seattle this morning, police are hunting a mass murderer, a sexual psychopath who preys on young prostitutes.
00:24:05.980But try, as his parents may to shield him from the horrors, Matthew Ridgeway will become forever linked to one of the most prolific serial killers in the history of American crime.
00:24:19.620The victims of the Green River Killer, the Green River Killer, been called the Green River Killer ever since the first bodies were pulled from this river.
00:24:28.760A lot of newspapers called them the Green River Killings, and he became the Green River Killer from that point on.
00:24:34.220Police in King County, Washington, are hunting a man dubbed the Green River Killer after discovering the bodies of five suspected prostitutes dumped in or near the river running through the Seattle suburbs.
00:24:56.780The media, of course, wants answers right away.
00:26:22.880And was it your understanding that your dad knew a lot of camping sites and wooded areas within 45 to 60 minutes of the house?
00:26:36.640We would take drives, and we'd pull off the side of the road and find a little off-street and pull in.
00:26:43.880He liked going down there, as long as there wasn't a lot of other people around.
00:26:47.420It's interesting to see the stark contrast between the family experiencing Gary Redway versus his victims.
00:26:54.240They're seeing the human side, the loving father-slash-husband, you know, average, typical guy, going to work every day, earning a living, right?
00:27:04.420Versus the victims are seeing the worst humanity has to offer.
00:28:22.540With five murdered women on their hands and no leads, the task force gets an unexpected break one month into their investigation when 43-year-old Melvin Foster walks into the sheriff's office to file a report.
00:28:41.620Melvin Foster is a cab driver who works primarily on the strip, and he tells investigators he feels that he has information that could help them find the killer.
00:28:53.900This particular part of Seattle was known as the Sea-Tac Strip.
00:28:59.680It was sort of right by the airport and became a seedy area that included places like topless bars running 24-7.
00:29:10.100And obviously, with that, it brought a good deal of sex work to the streets.
00:29:16.140Melvin was very well versed on the strip area.
00:29:19.960He would often give these girls rides.
00:34:27.140Investigators soon realized they've stumbled upon another dumping site.
00:34:31.600The killer's change in dumping venues initially throws authorities.
00:34:37.820I'm not sure how common it is to switch up your sites.
00:34:42.440Another terrible discovery in the woods in South King County.
00:34:45.320They fear another victim of the Green River killer.
00:34:47.600Some suspect he's simply trying to stay one step ahead.
00:34:51.320At the time, it was all over the media.
00:34:54.200So he was probably watching and following these stories and realized, okay, this is an area that they're watching very closely.
00:35:03.420This is very common with the serial killers, guys.
00:35:05.440Also, a lot of them, let's be honest here, are clout chasers.
00:35:07.920Your boy, the Zodiac Killer, used to send notes into the police and letters, you know, with literally cryptograms of them having to decode it.
00:35:13.560BTK, same thing, sending taunting letters, dolls that are tied up.
00:35:19.320Ted Bundy, you know, famously defended himself on camera in the first murder trial televised in the United States.
00:35:25.920So even though he wasn't a full-on law student, like he was a law student, but he wasn't a full-on lawyer and ended up taking a big-ass L for that one.
00:35:37.640The Night Stalker, when he was in trial, he was wearing his sunglasses indoors thinking he was a rock star.
00:35:42.120So this was clout chasing to another level.
00:35:45.920Again, this is before the age of social media.
00:35:49.040So, you know, when you really got clouted up back then, it was clout for real because there was no social media or anything.
00:35:54.400So you had to rely upon the big mainstream media outlets to give you a platform.
00:35:59.520And when you do crazy stuff like this, you're probably going to get talked about on, you know, these platforms.
00:36:04.280Newspapers, television shows, talk shows, radio, all these old legacy media platforms.
00:36:12.120So I think that was an act of self-preservation, honestly, to just kind of move a little bit where we're going to go to dump these bodies so that I can evade capture.
00:36:21.320By the fall of 1982, police attribute six murdered and scores of missing sex workers to the Green River Killer.
00:36:34.300The media, the community, the command staff, politicians who were providing the money to fund the task force started to grow a little bit irritable.
00:36:44.200They were mothers, they were daughters, and they were sisters, they were friends, they were loved by people and missed by people.
00:37:58.280I know that he went over there and used it when we were married, which, therefore, I assume he used it after we were married because he always did before.
00:38:08.280Marsha specifically fixated on the fact that Gary liked to take walks and go jogging in the area where these women were being abducted.
00:38:18.960As time went on, people began to get nervous, wondering if this man, if he's capable of killing these people over and over and over again,
00:38:27.500where you're finding bodies in clusters around the city.
00:41:32.800And again, when it's hookers, guys, this is what I mean when I say the police don't take it as seriously
00:41:37.080because they're a class of individual that is prone to going missing, quite frankly,
00:41:43.560because of their profession, traveling interstate, going to different places, the nefarious types of people that they're around typically where they might disappear for long periods of time.
00:41:52.500And police don't take looking for hookers, quite frankly, seriously, as unfortunate as that sounds, because of the type of individuals that they are.
00:42:03.600And they don't want to waste police resources looking for someone that might not necessarily be missing.
00:42:07.620To a lot of people may seem crazy with so many women going missing and being murdered.
00:42:13.220Marie was considered a missing person and was added to a list of names that were actively being investigated.
00:42:21.900And her story just kind of faded into the background.
00:42:25.040For his part, Gary Ridgeway quietly returns to his job at the Kenworth Truck Factory and spending weekends with his son, Matthew, who turns 11 that same month.
00:44:07.920Marsha said the sex became more aggressive, a little more violent, that they were going into some things that she wasn't very comfortable with, experimenting with a little bit of bondage and BDSM.
00:49:58.440Because the tip linking Gary Ridgway with Marie Malvar is never registered with the task force, investigators are left with one viable suspect.
00:50:26.160And David's best suspect at the time was Melvin Foster.
00:50:31.720When Foster suddenly puts his car up for sale, an undercover officer buys it for $1,200,
00:50:37.600hoping a thorough search will provide them with the evidence they need.
00:50:43.000We discovered new photographs in the trunk of his car of young prostitutes.
00:50:47.180We found women's clothing and underwear hidden under the mat and under the backseat.
00:50:54.500They comb it top to bottom, but in terms of evidence, they come up with nothing.
00:50:59.520Then, in 1985, just like that, the killings appear to stop.
00:51:09.580A lot of times this will happen if a suspect was maybe arrested on other charges.
00:51:16.660Maybe the suspect died without investigators ever knowing who this person was.
00:51:22.000Maybe they had a big life change that just, maybe they moved away.
00:51:25.860I mean, there are things that can happen that kind of trigger these cooling-off periods in a serial killer investigation.
00:51:33.420To go from that sort of volume to really not seeing much movement at all kind of made things a lot more difficult.
00:51:41.220You know, people just don't stop killing out of the blue.
00:51:43.820Serial killers continue to kill until they're caught.
00:51:46.500So this was very hard to work with for the Green River Task Force.
00:51:50.380But the killer doesn't disappear before first passing a macabre milestone.
00:51:57.080He becomes the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history with a body count in the 40s.
00:52:05.820Important to remember that most prolific at that point, because they had not caught Samuel Little yet,
00:52:10.920who actually ended up becoming number one most prolific serial killer with, I want to say, about 93 confirmed kills.
00:52:15.840And that was confirmed by the FBI and detectives that investigated him.
00:52:20.380But they didn't catch Little, I want to say, until about 2014 or so.
00:52:24.720But yes, Gary Ridgway, a.k.a. the Green River Killer, did carry the title of the most prolific serial killer in the United States for a good amount of time.
00:52:34.840It's amazing how he didn't become more famous.
00:52:37.180I think it's because he didn't have the same shock factors like John Wayne Gacy, who was the killer clown,
00:52:42.080or Jeffrey Dahmer eating his victims and also being homosexual,
00:52:45.640or Ted Bundy being a well-spoken Chad that studied a law school,
00:52:49.780defended himself in the first televised murder trial in U.S. history.
00:52:53.060Like all these other more famous serial killers, the Zodiac killer, who to this day still hasn't been caught.
00:52:59.060The case breakers think that they discovered who it is,
00:53:01.120which if you guys watch my broadcast, I go over the individuals who were believed to be the suspects.
00:53:06.260But all these, the Night Stalker who attacked anyone and was extremely violent and had California going crazy in the 1980s,
00:53:14.320all these serial killers had some kind of like niche.
00:53:18.380The Green River Killer, though prolific, wasn't really unique in that degree
00:53:24.680because he had done everything that Bundy had already done.
00:53:27.480And Bundy was more of a character, right?
00:53:29.760He was over here wearing a cast and having the girls meet him.
00:53:32.980Like, hey, could you help me like move my books?
00:53:35.280Because he was a college student, of course.
00:56:58.320So they get baseline of your vitals, your sweat, heartbeat, you know, stomach tremors, all these different things that they use to measure your physiological response.
00:57:09.440Then, once they get a baseline of what your temperance is when you answer questions, then they go ahead and ask you more, you know, incriminating questions about your criminal activity or whatever they're asking you, they intend to ask you about in the first place.
00:57:25.300And that's how they measure if you're being deceptive based on your physiological responses.
00:57:28.620But it's important to note that polygraphs are not admissible in court because there's plenty of instances where psychopaths and weirdos can definitely pass polygraph tests because they actually believe their lies.
00:57:41.840And then there's other instances where people are genuinely telling the truth, but the polygraph can read it as being deceptive because they're just nervous.
00:57:48.780They don't necessarily know how to take a polygraph correctly or whatever it may be.
00:57:56.100They're a tool in an investigator's kit to identify characteristics of deception, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a smoking gun to identify deception.
00:58:06.540What happened with Ridgway's polygraph?
00:58:10.000But it's been widely reported that he passed.
00:58:14.740It definitely wasn't the smoking gun they were looking for.
00:58:18.220And in light of that, they let him go.
00:59:02.740The way this guy is committing his criminal activity is almost identical to how I committed my criminal activity as far as putting the women in isolated areas, in the woods, etc., strangling them.
00:59:20.460But Bundy actually, though some of the women he dealt with were involved in sex work, a lot of the women that Bundy went after, guys, surprisingly, were actually college students, which makes it even crazier as to how he was able to evade law enforcement for so long as well.
00:59:33.540But what Bundy did was, Bundy was smart.
00:59:38.860He killed in, obviously started Washington, then he moved down to Oregon.
00:59:44.240He killed some women in Utah, Colorado, Florida, California.
00:59:52.600I think he might have killed one or two in Idaho.
00:59:55.720But the point I'm trying to make here is that he killed women on an interstate-type level.
01:00:01.620And the reason why this is so important is because back in the 70s, there wasn't a combined police database that was used to compile criminal statistics and or compile criminal activity like we have nowadays with the National Crime Information Center, a.k.a. NCIC, which is what I think it stands for, if I'm not mistaken, and endless.
01:00:25.620It's the National Law Enforcement Telecommunication System, which is the state version of NCIC, which is the national database, which is run by the FBI.
01:00:38.360Besides all the acronyms, the point is that there wasn't a centralized database to help law enforcement agencies communicate with each other when they had crimes that could potentially leave their own jurisdiction.
01:00:47.720So what you ended up having was a bunch of local police departments that had dead women that didn't know that there were other dead women in other states and other towns and other counties that matched the same demographics as the women that they had, right?
01:01:01.780The female victims that they had. And in this case, Bundy preferred women that were college age, typically, you know, somewhere between his youngest victim, I think, was 13, which is what ended up getting him the death penalty, actually.
01:01:12.640But for the most of his victims were dark haired, college age women, somewhere between 18 to 25.
01:01:18.280Okay. And and that's what he went after. But when states aren't able to communicate with each other and share information, well, now they don't have the full picture.
01:01:28.260They only have some of the picture. But when they're able to get all the victims and, you know, look at trends, et cetera, that's how they're able to identify these individuals.
01:01:34.200And they didn't start really doing this until later on in the investigation when bodies start to pile up.
01:01:38.520I think Bundy had a confirmed kill count of somewhere in the 30s, 30 to 33 murders.
01:01:43.060So and he was doing it across state lines, which is why he was able to evade law enforcement for so long.
01:01:48.440And if I'm not mistaken, it was the state of Colorado and Utah that actually the first two to put it together.
01:01:53.560And he ended up escaping out of Utah somewhere in the 70s, right before the new year.
01:02:00.280I want to say like 76 or 77, right before the new year, 77 or 78.
01:02:04.780And then he fled to Florida and then Florida had known about his antics and they did a positive identification.
01:02:10.980Then they knew that he was on the run from his charges out in Utah and Colorado.
01:02:16.540And that's why they pushed so hard for the death penalty.
01:02:19.000But Bundy was able to come forward because this guy had the same exact M.O.
01:02:22.260So he knew what type of mindset he had.
01:02:24.260And as we discussed earlier, the beginning of the podcast, if you look at, you know, a lot of these serial killers,
01:02:30.440they tend to have very similar practices in committing their crimes.
01:03:35.020Pleasure to meet you and have you here in my prison.
01:03:37.520And I remember thinking, how many lives has this hand squeezed out, has snuffed out?
01:03:45.060The men talked for hours with Bundy offering some surprising insights.
01:03:49.460One thing that Ted Bundy did say was he believed that the Green River Killer, whoever he might be, could be returning to the scenes and having sex with the dead bodies of his victims.
01:04:01.720Ted Bundy, infamously, is also a necrophile.
01:04:05.120So it's almost like he could see the monster in himself playing out in the Green River Killer.
01:04:09.860Nobody at that point had even considered...
01:04:13.120I've never heard anyone say necrophile.
01:04:14.640I think the term is necrophiliac, but either or, yes.
01:04:18.120Bundy was definitely known for going back and doing that with his victims as well.
01:04:21.620I wondered that the Green River Killer was also a necrophile.
01:04:26.620It's a whole different layer of disgusting.
01:04:28.760In June 1986, the skeletal remains of 19-year-old Kimberly Nelson, a known sex worker last seen on the Sea-Tac Strip three years earlier, are discovered in a wooded area 35 miles east of Seattle.
01:04:47.220Paige Miley, Nelson's associate, tells detectives that after her friend disappeared, she was approached by a strange man in his mid-30s driving a maroon pickup truck.
01:05:01.260She was actually able to sit down with investigators and give a description of this man that led to what was really the first comprehensive, usable sketch to be presented in this case.
01:05:57.780I felt like I was his little revenge toy or something.
01:06:02.620You know, he was taking all his anger out on me.
01:06:06.880And as I had the chance, when he stopped, I grabbed my purse and ran and got away.
01:06:15.560Guard recalls the man was also driving a dark-colored pickup truck with a canopy top over the bed.
01:06:24.600And he's a dead ringer for the composite sketch.
01:06:28.020She says, yes, that looks like my attacker.
01:06:30.740And then she starts going through mug shots and she picks out the mug shot of Gary Ridgway.
01:06:35.720Based on two eyewitness accounts, investigators believe they are zeroing in on the Green River Killer, 37-year-old divorced dad, Gary Leon Ridgway.
01:06:55.160And when they showed it to Paige Miley and Rebecca Gargway, they said, that's him.
01:07:00.160Rebecca coming forward with her story and ultimately identifying Ridgway as her attacker was really what put him in the forefront as the prime suspect.
01:07:16.120Police immediately placed Ridgway under surveillance.
01:07:19.440They followed him, they watched him, they saw him going to the strip, they saw him talking to women, but he never killed anybody.
01:07:34.500On April 7th, 1987, police searched Ridgway's vehicles, home, and work locker.
01:07:43.720One of my friends called me at home and said, you're not going to believe this.
01:07:50.880They came and got a bunch of stuff from Gary.
01:08:25.960Did she tell you that your father was under investigation?
01:08:28.480I don't remember if she told me that if he was arrested or if he was under investigation, but there was questions that they were asking my dad.
01:08:36.520The media came to me that I wasn't to say no comment.
01:11:38.220That's the only thing you did do right besides all the other stupid crap he was doing.
01:11:41.880But hey, I guess he understood that, hey, man, girls only operate correctly when they know they can be replaced.
01:11:46.120Gary and his new bride quietly enjoy their life together.
01:11:50.820The Green River Task Force continues to say, see, even serial killers like this weirdo understand basic, you know, RP truths that women act the best when they know you have other women in line.
01:12:01.520Of course, not in this case, because this dude's out here, you know, choking hookers, which is not what you want to be doing.
01:12:07.460But, you know, assuming that you're not doing anything violent to other women, this actually works in practice.
01:12:13.740But don't do what this idiot Gary Ridgway is doing as far as dealing with other women.
01:12:18.520Otherwise, you'll end up having a documentary after you and serving life in prison.
01:12:22.520In 1989, it disbands entirely, bringing its six-year manhunt to a painful end.
01:12:33.740After all those years of beating your head against the wall with all that information, I packed all my stuff up in a little cardboard box and said, well, you know, after all that effort, this is it.
01:12:46.500I think people really felt like this was a cold case and that they may never know what happened to these women or who was responsible for their deaths.
01:13:20.680In 1997, he's appointed King County Sheriff and reopens the case.
01:13:28.680Pictures of their faces and the pictures of the sites where they were found are still fresh in my mind.
01:13:36.480To be able to all of a sudden be in a position now to make that decision, we're going to solve this case.
01:13:41.740There was a lot more discussion about DNA science and the progression of DNA science and where it was, the possibilities of some lab being able to examine our DNA evidence.
01:14:04.840They were able to collect semen from three of the victims.
01:14:10.060They also had some DNA from the suspects.
01:19:12.220But I can picture in my head right now the Ted Bundy thing, to where he's, you know, one guy at one minute, and another guy at the other minute.
01:19:25.740When you listen to those tapes, Matthew's behavior and emotional range was very underwhelming, very flat and two-dimensional.
01:19:34.200I get the sense that Matthew was torn between what he thought of his dad protecting his dad and his love for his dad versus the reality of what was going on and trying to accept it.
01:19:46.100He couldn't fathom this man, the man he knew, the man he loves, being the Green River Killer.
01:27:13.580If we were to locate any one of these sites, we'd make the rest of them easier for you to find.
01:27:25.020There'll be a body across a guardrail and one by a mile post.
01:27:32.520And then there'll be one by that heel I told you back there and then one by the water and then the one I brought through here.
01:27:42.000On Father's Day 2003, Ridgeway leads investigators to the remains of three additional victims, including that of Marie Malvar, last seen with Ridgeway when she disappeared in April 1983.
01:27:56.080It really came full circle because Marie was really the first victim to point investigators in Ridgeway's direction all those years ago when her boyfriend and her father found Ridgeway's truck.
01:28:14.300Looking back now, investigators believe that Marie may have been present in that home at the time that police came to question him.
01:28:23.680They were just so close so many times.
01:33:37.380It was what triggered that instinct in him.
01:33:39.060And he decided to go ahead and make a homicidal.
01:33:43.380And him crying about it might actually show that this was one of the few victims that he had some semblance of care for.
01:33:50.160Because a lot of times why serial killers are so difficult to catch is because they kill people randomly without necessarily some real ties to them.
01:33:58.180Right. The only thing that ties a lot of the times is that might meet like a look feature that that person is looking for.
01:34:20.400This is what I'm turned on by sexually aroused by or I get gratification from it and I'm going to go ahead and commit this murder.
01:34:26.720So in this case with this woman, he actually liked her, but her wanting to leave, you know, challenge his, you know, authority.
01:34:34.220Right. That he likes to have with a lot of these serial killers.
01:34:37.040And he ended up killing her, which Jeffrey Dahmer did the same thing as well with another one of his victims that he ended up actually liking.
01:38:28.340Well, I mean, I guess when you're out here committing murders, you're not really too concerned with your sexual health, I guess.
01:38:37.760My man out here doing all kinds of crazy shit.
01:38:40.920Ridgway also reveals that it was the breakup of his second marriage to Marsha and his loss of custody to Matthew that really pushed him over the edge.
01:38:52.840Man, if he read my book, Why Women Deserve Less, okay, he probably wouldn't have been doing all this stupid shit because in the book, which it's in stores, by the way, right now, guys.
01:39:04.260In the book, I talk about not being a simp, not letting women control your destiny.
01:39:08.720And if he had read the book or had some kind of RP awareness, he would not have done this because we teach you guys on this side of the Internet that it's unacceptable, right, to do anything to a woman that she doesn't want to do.
01:39:19.900If she doesn't want to be with you, it's fine.
01:39:21.980Go get another girl, replace her, and that actually makes you more attractive because she might want to come back.
01:39:25.480When you're over here raging because you lost a girl or whatever, that's when issues arise, okay?
01:39:30.720This is what happens when you can't control your emotions.
01:39:33.240Gary Ridgway, a.k.a. the Green River Killer, man, obviously at the worst level, but so many guys find themselves in this position where they get divorced, they don't know how to deal with it.
01:39:42.860Maybe they go into dealing with prostitutes.
01:39:45.880Maybe a combination of the two, but this is why you need to be aware of female nature so you don't do stupid shit like this guy's doing or did right now.
01:50:53.540Judge goes back, thinks about it a bit with all the facts and everything else that is brought into the case, the reports, the victim testimony, etc.
01:51:01.100And that's when they come back with their judgment.
01:51:04.540But yeah, this is a lot of the times victim impact statements do have quite a bit of weight when it comes to what the judge imposes on the defendant.
01:51:13.680Impact statements were obviously emotional.
01:51:17.140There were moments where it almost appeared that Gary Ridgway himself was getting emotional about some of these victims.