The Debrief With MyronGainesX - Fed Explains The Green River Killer w⧸ 49 Murders!

00:00:00.960 and we are live what's up guys welcome to fed it today we're going to be covering the green river

00:00:05.740 killer man this one is a crazy one this guy has the second most confirmed kills in u.s history

00:00:10.820 behind samuel little got a lot to cover let's get right into it man i was a special agent with

00:00:17.800 homelands investigations okay guys hsi the cases that i did mostly were human smuggling and drug

00:00:23.960 no one else has these documents by the way here's what fed it covers dr lafredo confirmed

00:00:30.700 lacerations due to stepping on glass murder investigations you see i'm reaching in his

00:00:37.100 jacket you don't know and he's positioning been on february 13 2019 you're facing two counts of

00:00:42.560 two meditative murder racketeering and rico conspiracies young slime life here and after

00:00:47.340 referred to as ysl the defendant's uh six nine and then this is billy seiko right here now when they

00:00:52.600 first started guys six nine ran with i'm upset i'm watching this music video you know i'm bobbing

00:00:57.840 my highlight hey this shit lit but at the same time i'm pausing oh wait who this right who's that in 0.75

00:01:02.860 the back firearms and violent crime aka bush ic violated you're wanting to stay away from the

00:01:08.860 victim this is the one that that's gonna fuck him up because this gun is not tracing well it 0.71

00:01:17.140 happened at the gun range here's your boy 42 dug right here on the left okay sex trafficking and sex

00:01:21.640 they can effectively link him to paying an underage girl and the first bomb went off right here

00:01:29.500 suspect to set down a back down on the site of the second explosion inspired by al-qaeda two terrorists

00:01:35.320 brothers the zokar sarnev and tamarland sarnev when the cartel shipped drugs into the country as this

00:01:41.640 guy got arrested for um espionage okay trading secrets with the russians for monetary compensation

00:01:47.780 the largest corrupt police bust in new orleans history the days of the police are gone so he was

00:01:54.600 in this bad boy we're gonna go over his past the gang time so that this all makes sense

00:01:59.680 all right what's up guys welcome to fed it man today we're going to be covering the green river

00:02:08.820 killer aka gary ridgeway i actually filmed this earlier this week but then youtube hit me with

00:02:13.640 some bs copyright stuff so here we go second time is always a charm right she's supposed to be the 1.00

00:02:18.700 third but we're just going to do this called the second on this one but uh anyway let's just uh get

00:02:22.620 right into it guys all right so here he is uh gary ridgeway here guys american serial killer as i said

00:02:27.500 before this guy has the second most confirmed kills behind your boy samuel little uh and here we go

00:02:32.880 gary leon ridgeway born february 18 1949 also known as the green river killer is an american serial killer

00:02:37.780 and sex offender he was initially convicted of 48 separate murders as part of his plea bargain another

00:02:42.000 conviction was added bringing the total number of convictions to 49 making him the second most

00:02:46.920 prolific serial killer united states history according to confirmed murders and that is second

00:02:50.980 to uh your boy samuel little who i also broke down on another episode of fed it if you guys want to check

00:02:55.980 that one out uh he killed many teenage girls and women in the u.s state of washington during the 1980s

00:03:01.580 and 1990s as i told y'all before a lot of these serial killers the most prolific ones were operated

00:03:06.640 between the 1960s you know from the zodiac killer all the way up into the 90s why because dna testing

00:03:12.580 wasn't really a thing that was used until about i think was first introduced in the mid to late 80s

00:03:18.380 and then they didn't really start using it like all the way in trials um conclusively until about the

00:03:23.800 90s um so that's why a lot of these serial killers to include this guy were able to evade detection for

00:03:29.760 so long um most virginia's victims were alleged to be sex workers and other women in vulnerable 1.00

00:03:34.820 circumstances including underage runaways the press gave him his nickname after the first five

00:03:38.880 victims were found in the green river before his identity was known he strangled his victims usually

00:03:42.980 by hand but sometimes using ligatures after strangling them he would dump their bodies and

00:03:47.160 forested in overgrown areas in king county often returning to the bodies to have sexual intercourse

00:03:51.420 with them so yeah this guy was a sick bastard as y'all know but if you guys notice there's a couple 0.81

00:03:56.100 of trends here that a lot of uh serial killers participate in uh one is to target sex workers right

00:04:00.980 because they're kind of a vulnerable demographic of person that typically you're not going to go

00:04:05.400 looking for them or if they do turn up missing the police aren't going to put all that effort

00:04:09.260 into looking for them because you know let's be honest here sex workers a lot of times back then

00:04:12.740 in the 80s not nowadays with these only fans girls but back then they're on the streets they typically

00:04:17.040 be moving interstate a lot of the times uh it was common for them to be runaways or um not

00:04:22.140 communicating with their family they don't have people that care about them like that so these are

00:04:26.120 people that can go missing for a long period of time without too much people caring and on top of that

00:04:30.020 the police aren't going to put as much effort into looking for them because it could be a waste of

00:04:34.480 resource let's be honest a lot of times you know they might not have just gone missing they just

00:04:37.900 wanted to disappear off the map or move to another state whatever in a local police department their

00:04:42.020 responsibility isn't to go interstate and find someone if they're not able to find proof of a

00:04:47.580 legit kidnapping so this is why sex workers are able to be exploited so often by these serial killers

00:04:52.360 especially back then uh pre-dating modern technology um and also uh you notice he strangled

00:04:59.860 these victims this is very common amongst serial killers um you look at ted bunnies the john wayne

00:05:04.420 gacy's the jeffrey domers etc a lot of these guys uh really enjoy the process of you know murdering

00:05:11.020 their victims and strangling is a very personal way to do it and a lot of these guys get like a sick

00:05:15.940 satisfaction from it whether it's you know btk buying torture kill your boy uh you know ted bundy

00:05:22.160 jeffrey dommer john wayne gacy uh the um samuel little right all these guys who i've covered by

00:05:28.280 the way extensively on the channel if you guys look here which is the documentary we're going to be

00:05:32.180 reacting to but if i go ahead let me go ahead and duplicate this tab for you out real fast and i'll

00:05:37.920 show you guys the playlist real fast okay i have a whole okay flock videos up by the way too guys go

00:05:45.100 check that out but i have a whole playlist on serial killers here as you guys can see

00:05:48.680 um oh uh the night stalker right the night stalker is actually one of the few serial killers guys

00:05:54.580 that killed his victims through pretty much any means necessary he was strangling them stabbing

00:05:58.800 them uh shooting them and he didn't really care about which demographic it went after so this was

00:06:03.720 kind of an anomaly and actually was why it was so hard to catch him but all these other guys bro

00:06:07.560 uh the railroad killer the unabomber was using bombs he was unique too uh the toy box killer even 0.99

00:06:13.300 though they were never able to find a body on him it's pretty much known that he killed his victims

00:06:18.780 because there's there was a river right near him but or a big lake you guys go go check out that

00:06:23.080 episode if you guys want this guy was pretty sadistic regardless all these other guys pretty

00:06:27.260 much strangling their victims he included night stalker even though it wasn't his main way uh and the

00:06:31.160 zodiac killer was also a little bit different he stabbed and uh shot some of his victims as well

00:06:35.700 but um you know the most famous guys your bundies your gacy's your domers samuel little etc

00:06:41.860 all strangle most of the time and this guy obviously gary ridgeway was no different so uh yeah

00:06:49.260 we're gonna go ahead oh he was also involved in necrophilia too going back and having sexual

00:06:53.080 intercourse with them which was something that your boy uh ted bundy over here used to do okay

00:06:58.500 um very similar mo2 killing them in very rural weird areas in the forest pretty much every girl's 0.99

00:07:03.740 nightmare bundy and green river killer were very similar in that regard to matter of fact fun little

00:07:08.020 fact uh ted bundy offered to help with catching the green river killer when he was in prison to help

00:07:15.240 keep himself from getting the death penalty obviously they ended up executing him anyway

00:07:18.800 but the green river killer had a very similar uh mo as uh as ted bundy and vice versa well ted bundy did

00:07:27.100 it first but they both had very similar mo so bundy you know did assist to some degree with helping

00:07:33.460 find the green river killer even though i don't think it was all the way but uh anyway uh we got

00:07:37.840 a documentary here guys um gary ridgeway sins of the father we're going to go ahead and get right

00:07:42.340 into this thing and uh and yeah we're going to react to it and uh hope you guys enjoy it let's get

00:07:48.180 into it police found the badly decomposed nude body of a woman saturday night another terrible discovery

00:07:54.920 in the woods a sexual psychopath who preys on young prostitutes every time they arrive at a scene

00:08:02.380 there's multiple women they were dealing with something huge the number of bodies that are turning 1.00

00:08:10.680 up is almost hard for us to even wrap our head around we're talking 40 people here this is unprecedented

00:08:18.300 mothers daughters sisters friends they were loved by people and missed by people the bodies were

00:08:27.600 probably not we had a serial killer on our hands the victims of the green river killer the green river

00:08:33.120 killer then called the green river killer ever since the first bodies were pulled from this river the

00:08:38.520 public was running out of patience it was like come on catch this guy now on the 20th anniversary of

00:08:47.240 the arrest that shook the nation we're revisiting one of the most twisted stories in the annals of american

00:08:53.800 crime to ask how did this monster remain hidden in the shadows for so long he was incredibly successful

00:09:02.680 convincing convincing the world that he was ned flanders just a nice guy and a good family man why couldn't the

00:09:11.240 cops catch him a plagiarism said he didn't do these crimes he's innocent and what did those closest to him

00:09:19.320 including his own son no matthew was torn between his love for his dad versus the reality of what was going on

00:09:28.040 husband father colleague killer this is sins of the father the green river killer till he was kill kill kill 0.89

00:09:48.760 his spine who became legally random and killed againstitativelers before that 1960s and now i thought

00:09:53.000 1 july 15th 1982

00:09:57.960 a pair of boys are riding their bikes across the peck bridge just south of seattle when suddenly

00:10:05.400 they stopped for a moment on the bridge to catch their breath and then as they look down

00:10:10.760 into the rushing water you saw something that caught their eye

00:10:15.040 Initially, they think, OK, is this a mannequin that's been discarded down in the river?

00:10:20.680 And they go down to investigate.

00:10:24.060 The boys slowly wade into the Green River, then stopped short of the object.

00:10:30.560 They actually see it's not a mannequin.

00:10:34.920 They can see the hair of a young woman sort of float.

00:10:39.940 Could you imagine being a kid going to the river and seeing a real dead body there?

00:10:45.760 You know, and at that point, it's probably decaying.

00:10:47.440 It smells really bad, like just really, really sick stuff.

00:10:51.300 And and this happens a lot, guys.

00:10:54.180 You'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.

00:11:04.680 So wild stuff going underneath the water.

00:11:08.240 She was naked.

00:11:10.460 She had jeans wrapped around her neck.

00:11:19.300 Detectives hurried to the scene.

00:11:22.780 The Kent Police Department determined her name was Wendy Caulfield.

00:11:27.300 Cause of death was asphyxiation.

00:11:30.160 We had the ligature, and that was placed into evidence.

00:11:33.540 They could tell there was a quite a struggle.

00:11:36.600 Her arm was broken.

00:11:38.200 There was some visible bruising as well.

00:11:41.560 Wendy Caulfield is just 16 years old.

00:11:46.020 Her mother, Virginia, tells investigators the teen was no stranger to trouble.

00:11:50.740 She said, well, I kind of knew this was going to happen.

00:11:55.120 She was going down the wrong path.

00:11:58.080 Wendy was known to be a hitchhiker. 1.00

00:12:00.240 It was also rumored.

00:12:00.960 That's why it's important to have fathers, man.

00:12:03.060 Crazy stuff like this.

00:12:04.020 Very sad.

00:12:05.120 Rumored that she had been on the strip acting as a sex worker. 1.00

00:12:08.480 So, they knew that she was in dangerous situations.

00:12:11.520 She was living on the street for survival.

00:12:15.860 She was involved in drugs. 0.96

00:12:17.600 She'd actually been in juvenile detention for a recent theft.

00:12:21.580 And had snuck out on kind of a day pass to visit with her family.

00:12:25.480 And she hadn't returned to the juvenile detention center.

00:12:28.460 The horrific murder sends shockwaves throughout the town of Kent.

00:12:34.480 It's a small suburb.

00:12:36.120 No significant violent crime.

00:12:38.120 Relatively safe environment.

00:12:40.360 What most people would call a quiet community.

00:12:43.520 So, any type of violent crime, everybody would be aware of it.

00:12:48.640 Everybody was scared.

00:12:50.160 It was just frightening.

00:12:52.120 Because we had no idea who the killer is.

00:12:55.440 All right.

00:12:58.080 So, anytime there's, you know, murders like this, guys.

00:13:01.380 It's always going to hit the news.

00:13:02.740 Especially back then.

00:13:03.980 This is prior to social media.

00:13:06.020 So, newspapers, television.

00:13:08.540 This was the way people got their news.

00:13:10.280 All right.

00:13:10.480 There was no Instagram or Facebook or MySpace for that matter.

00:13:14.240 None of that existed back then.

00:13:16.280 Police begin investigating the teen's killing.

00:13:21.460 Ten miles away in Renton.

00:13:23.220 It's just another day in the life for seven-year-old Matthew Ridgway on summer break from nearby East Hill Elementary School.

00:13:33.660 Matthew would spend his summers riding his bikes, playing outside with his friends, running around the neighborhood, coming home too late for dinner.

00:13:41.160 And Matthew Ridgway, wonder who that is.

00:13:44.660 Okay.

00:13:45.760 We just talked about Garrett Ridgway earlier.

00:13:48.260 He had a very good life.

00:13:49.540 A life he shares with his single mother, Marsha.

00:13:54.980 Marsha just had a job at a dental office. 1.00

00:13:57.640 So, she wasn't making a whole lot of money, but she was trying to make ends meet.

00:14:00.860 Life for any single mom is really hard.

00:14:03.380 The pair are still trying to find their footing one year after Marsha's contentious divorce from Matthew's father, Gary.

00:14:12.600 They had Matthew two years into their marriage, and everything seemed good until Matthew was about five years old.

00:14:20.200 And Marsha tells a story where they were engaging in BDSM, and Gary choked her, and he went too far.

00:14:31.340 All right.

00:14:31.720 So, guys, this is very important because you're going to see that this plays a role in him and his criminal activity later on.

00:14:38.680 And that was the first time that she was really afraid of him.

00:14:42.660 And she put a stop to any of the activities, which, of course, made Gary very upset.

00:14:48.920 The relationship that Gary and Marsha had wasn't great for Marsha.

00:14:52.740 Gary really wanted her to just cook, clean, basically do everything.

00:14:56.460 He wanted sex constantly, two, three times a day.

00:14:58.900 And that just started to become a bit much for Marsha. 0.98

00:15:02.980 Gary, for his part, tells friends at his job at the nearby Kenworth truck factory a different story.

00:15:11.800 We worked in the paint department, mostly worked mornings.

00:15:15.420 I think we got along because our lockers were so close.

00:15:18.980 I would go in early, and he'd be the only one in there.

00:15:23.460 So we had a lot of time to talk.

00:15:26.920 He had a crush on me.

00:15:29.860 He would tell me about his family and his wife.

00:15:34.320 He gets irate when he thinks about her because she's screwed him over for child support.

00:15:40.580 I didn't ask Cap, if he had a crush on her, she would have been dead, too.

00:15:44.460 If he really liked her like that, he would have been choking her out, too.

00:15:47.560 He's Cap'n, man. 0.89

00:15:48.920 And then spousal support.

00:15:51.140 He can hold a grudge forever.

00:15:54.200 Stop the cap. 0.94

00:15:55.820 There was two Garys.

00:15:57.420 Nice co-worker Gary.

00:16:00.880 And then there was crazy-eyed Gary.

00:16:03.160 When he'd get really mad, his eyes would get all watery and crazy-looking.

00:16:09.380 Don't F with Gary today.

00:16:11.180 But when it comes to his son, Matthew, Ridgway is quick to table his anger.

00:16:20.100 He'd turn into good dad, Gary.

00:16:22.640 And he'd have the happy face.

00:16:24.840 His eyes would start sparkling again.

00:16:27.480 He really did love his son.

00:16:29.760 Gary spoiled him.

00:16:31.920 So he gives him everything he wants.

00:16:34.400 Decades later, in a police interview, Matthew recalls those formative years with his single dad.

00:16:43.720 I saw my dad every, not every weekend, but pretty much every other weekend.

00:16:51.560 And on most of the holidays, I would see him.

00:16:54.600 He would play lawn darts with us, camping and fishing.

00:16:57.980 When I was younger, I can remember a Christmas where my dad got a racetrack and set it up.

00:17:02.380 He'd always, you know, be there for me.

00:17:04.180 Gary had a great relationship with his son, Matthew.

00:17:11.020 Matthew has said that his dad really kind of went the extra mile to try to make all the time they spent together memorable and special.

00:17:21.420 While Gary and his son enjoy their carefree summer together,

00:17:26.160 in nearby Kent, the mood grows increasingly terrifying.

00:17:29.920 There, on August 12th, 1982, an employee at a meatpacking plant along the banks of the Green River is taking a smoke break.

00:17:42.600 When he looks up.

00:17:44.940 He spotted something sort of caught up on a log in the middle of the Russian River,

00:17:49.560 and he thought maybe it's a dead animal.

00:17:51.960 He decided to go down, get a closer look.

00:17:54.620 And at that point, he realized it was another naked, dead woman.

00:18:04.740 Police identify the body as 23-year-old Deborah Lynn Bonner.

00:18:11.840 Her corpse is found less than half a mile from where Wendy Caulfields was discovered only a month earlier.

00:18:18.500 And the M.O. is strikingly similar.

00:18:21.120 She was, oh man, now the trends are starting to match up.

00:18:26.700 She was also naked and had also been strangled.

00:18:29.680 And when the detectives began to look into her desk, they determined that she was also a prostitute. 0.98

00:18:37.980 Detective Dave Reichert of the King County Sheriff's Office catches the case and digs in.

00:18:44.140 Questions in my mind are, you know, is this related? Are these two related?

00:18:47.860 I knew they were in the river. I knew they were up against the river bank.

00:18:51.840 I knew that they were submerged in water.

00:18:54.440 All those things are kind of going through your mind.

00:18:58.160 But before Reichert can connect those murders, authorities discover two more young women in the Green River.

00:19:05.760 The bodies almost seemed to be staged or placed.

00:19:14.640 They were in the water.

00:19:16.460 One woman was facing up.

00:19:17.840 One woman was facing down.

00:19:19.480 With large rocks on them to keep them in that position.

00:19:23.840 The killer had inserted rocks into their genitals. 0.99

00:19:28.900 It was a horror.

00:19:31.040 Wow. Incredible.

00:19:32.340 We're seeing 40 years later, Reichert can still vividly recall the nightmarish tableau.

00:19:41.340 One of the victims was on her back and you could see her face.

00:19:47.720 And one hand was loose in the river.

00:19:51.560 And as the river swept over them slowly around that bend, her hand just kind of waved back and forth.

00:20:00.000 And I remember thinking she's sort of saying, hey, I'm here.

00:20:03.360 I'm right here.

00:20:04.500 You know, help me.

00:20:05.960 And those are memories, of course, that stay with you forever.

00:20:10.700 And 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.

00:20:20.380 And the evidence is there to give you the untold story of what really went down.

00:20:26.800 And 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.

00:20:33.200 The evidence speaks for the victim that can no longer do so.

00:20:39.240 Investigators begin processing the scene only to make another shocking discovery.

00:20:45.520 The grass is tall.

00:20:47.020 It's filled with blackberry bushes.

00:20:49.120 I was moving down the bank of the river and taking notes and photographs.

00:20:55.100 And we found another young female body laying in the tall grass.

00:21:01.500 She was unclothed for the most part.

00:21:05.180 Her bra was pulled up over the top of her breasts.

00:21:08.760 She had a ligature around her neck and had not been there very long.

00:21:15.340 It's like every time they arrive at a scene, there's multiple women. 0.99

00:21:20.780 They find so much more than they ever bargained for.

00:21:24.500 And it felt like they were dealing with something huge.

00:21:28.460 Police identify the three women as Cynthia Hines, Marsha Chapman, and Opal Mills.

00:21:37.980 Cynthia and Opal were only about 17 and 16 years old, respectively.

00:21:43.020 They were actually friends.

00:21:44.620 Marsha, on the other hand, was in her early 30s.

00:21:47.100 She's a young mom, and she was a known sex worker. 1.00

00:21:51.320 All 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.

00:22:02.380 The striking similarities lead detectives to a grim conclusion.

00:22:06.640 We did believe we had a serial killer on our hands.

00:22:09.800 And 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.

00:22:25.960 And it starts to get a bad reputation.

00:22:29.020 And, 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.

00:22:43.740 So then, task force starts being made, and things start to get prioritized, which you guys are going to see here very soon.

00:22:54.100 Word of the killings quickly spreads across the greater Seattle region.

00:22:58.980 In Seattle this morning, police are hunting a mass murderer, a sexual psychopath who preys on young prostitutes.

00:23:04.980 This story absolutely explodes.

00:23:08.000 People immediately.

00:23:10.040 And this is before social media, guys, okay?

00:23:13.300 So, going viral back then was viral for real.

00:23:17.980 Want to know what's being done?

00:23:22.100 I'm scared.

00:23:23.380 I really am.

00:23:24.680 I'm almost afraid to open up my doors.

00:23:28.120 So now we've gone from a couple of bodies found to three more, which brings us up to five over the course of a month.

00:23:36.520 And the community is terrified, especially for their daughters, their sisters, their wives.

00:23:44.600 It really felt like they were dealing with a madman on the loose.

00:23:49.100 No one knew if they were safe.

00:23:50.460 In nearby Renton, Marsha and Gary Ridgeway keep the increasingly alarming news from their young son, Matthew.

00:23:59.260 Do you ever talk about the Green River killings?

00:24:03.560 You said he never did to you.

00:24:05.260 No, that's me.

00:24:05.980 But 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.

00:24:19.620 The 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.

00:24:28.760 A lot of newspapers called them the Green River Killings, and he became the Green River Killer from that point on.

00:24:34.220 Police 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.

00:24:56.780 The media, of course, wants answers right away.

00:24:59.920 The families want answers right away.

00:25:02.560 One, two, three, four, we won't take it anymore!

00:25:06.880 The community is starting to get upset.

00:25:09.780 I mean, there's literal protesting in the streets demanding, why haven't you found the predator that is terrorizing our community?

00:25:20.500 We're just at the beginning stages of the investigation.

00:25:24.760 We don't have all the answers.

00:25:26.720 So the pressure is intense, and it's on immediately.

00:25:29.920 Although Marsha Ridgway and her seven-year-old son Matthew are living just 10 miles away from the crime scenes,

00:25:38.480 they'll later tell investigators they are quite familiar with the killer's dumping ground.

00:25:44.360 Did you and your father ever go biking or walking along any rivers?

00:25:48.480 And you said yesterday, you specifically remember the brain records.

00:25:53.700 And how old were you at that time?

00:25:56.800 Roughly?

00:25:57.860 I don't have an age, but I was not old enough to have a bike.

00:26:01.740 I was in a child seat.

00:26:04.420 So he would actually ride you?

00:26:06.300 Yes.

00:26:06.680 You'd be on the back?

00:26:07.800 Yes.

00:26:08.060 When you were bicycling, did you ever stop and go swimming?

00:26:16.180 Yeah.

00:26:16.960 Yeah, we did.

00:26:17.960 On Green River.

00:26:19.620 It was kind of dirty and mucky in there, isn't it?

00:26:22.020 Yes, it is.

00:26:22.880 And was it your understanding that your dad knew a lot of camping sites and wooded areas within 45 to 60 minutes of the house?

00:26:36.640 We would take drives, and we'd pull off the side of the road and find a little off-street and pull in.

00:26:43.880 He liked going down there, as long as there wasn't a lot of other people around.

00:26:47.420 It's interesting to see the stark contrast between the family experiencing Gary Redway versus his victims.

00:26:54.240 They're seeing the human side, the loving father-slash-husband, you know, average, typical guy, going to work every day, earning a living, right?

00:27:04.420 Versus the victims are seeing the worst humanity has to offer.

00:27:08.860 And it never fails, right?

00:27:10.620 The people that are closest to the serial killer are always shocked.

00:27:13.240 And it seemed to me that he didn't like being around lots of other people.

00:27:18.140 They made him uncomfortable.

00:27:20.660 We would pretty much end up trying to stay away from campgrounds.

00:27:25.740 And most of these are within an hour's drive of the Sea-Tac area, right?

00:27:32.660 Yeah, maybe a little more than an hour, but pretty much so.

00:27:38.880 Did you ever stop and have sex along the Green River?

00:27:41.540 Yes.

00:27:42.000 I thought you were not.

00:27:44.480 Geez.

00:27:45.580 Whereabouts?

00:27:47.140 Ah, lots of places.

00:27:50.460 From the banks of the tall grass.

00:27:52.740 During nighttime or during daytime?

00:27:54.920 Nighttime and daytime, both.

00:27:59.180 Marsha.

00:27:59.940 He was practicing, man.

00:28:01.240 Yeah!

00:28:02.620 Did ask Gary about what was happening with the bodies turning up at the rivers.

00:28:09.020 And he would just be very dismissive of it.

00:28:12.540 He acted very chill about the whole thing.

00:28:15.080 Like, yeah, this is happening.

00:28:16.140 Yeah, I ain't strangling no bitches. 1.00

00:28:17.720 Trust me.

00:28:18.380 It ain't me, man.

00:28:19.040 There's some other whack job out there.

00:28:20.700 But, you know, they're prostitutes. 1.00

00:28:22.540 With 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.

00:28:41.620 Melvin 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.

00:28:53.900 This particular part of Seattle was known as the Sea-Tac Strip.

00:28:59.680 It was sort of right by the airport and became a seedy area that included places like topless bars running 24-7.

00:29:10.100 And obviously, with that, it brought a good deal of sex work to the streets. 1.00

00:29:16.140 Melvin was very well versed on the strip area.

00:29:19.960 He would often give these girls rides.

00:29:22.980 He said, it's Seattle.

00:29:24.120 It's raining.

00:29:24.860 They don't want to be standing out in the rain, so I'll give them a ride or I'll give them in their john a ride. 0.98

00:29:29.740 Foster suggests the killer could be a cab driver and volunteers to help detectives identify him.

00:29:37.340 Melvin gave off bad vibes from the beginning.

00:29:39.480 He was really into younger women.

00:29:41.200 He'd been married five different times.

00:29:43.280 He was a former thief who had gone to jail for stealing a car.

00:29:48.360 All those red flags.

00:29:50.500 Investigators are immediately suspicious.

00:29:52.980 They ask Foster to take a polygraph test.

00:29:57.920 And he fails it.

00:29:59.240 I sat down.

00:30:02.860 I interviewed him.

00:30:04.160 He had first denied knowing any of the victims.

00:30:07.340 And then when pressed, he knew all of the victims, had them in his taxicab.

00:30:12.960 It seemed like he wanted to be close to the investigation, and investigators are thinking, okay, is this the person we're looking for?

00:30:20.980 Well, that was, I think, what really made the police feel that they were on the right path with Melvin.

00:30:33.080 Detectives begin round-the-clock surveillance on Foster, believing it's only a matter of time before he strikes again.

00:30:40.220 Not only that, they want to see, while we have him under surveillance, if the murders stop, this is another sign that he's our guy.

00:30:47.660 He was the primary suspect.

00:30:50.480 He was an odd sort of person.

00:30:52.480 He was intelligent, but he was just different.

00:30:56.320 You can see the footage in some of the interviews.

00:31:01.400 He came off strange.

00:31:03.060 He definitely made a few strange comments to reporters that really stood out to investigators.

00:31:09.960 Are you scared at all?

00:31:13.020 Scared? No.

00:31:15.080 Fright is for the guilty.

00:31:16.660 When you think of the profile of somebody who is targeting young women, he just...

00:31:23.220 He came off weird.

00:31:24.400 They're like, bro, this has got to be the fucking guy, man. 0.75

00:31:26.700 This has got to be him.

00:31:28.960 But you guys will see very soon that it wasn't, obviously.

00:31:33.880 Just seemed to be the right fit.

00:31:37.820 Being weird is not a crime.

00:31:40.720 Police search Foster's house, but find nothing.

00:31:43.780 Still, it doesn't quell their suspicions.

00:31:48.700 He's saying, like, I knew a lot of the girls.

00:31:50.660 I take the girls different places.

00:31:53.120 You know, I've been in a lot of these areas.

00:31:54.940 I know these areas.

00:31:56.200 So things, like, for them are matching up.

00:31:58.820 Did you kill all those women or what?

00:32:03.320 No, but I wish I did.

00:32:04.780 I wish I did know who did.

00:32:13.780 When local cab driver Melvin Foster suddenly inserts himself into the Green River investigation

00:32:21.480 in the autumn of 1982, it raises alarm bells for detectives.

00:32:27.480 Unbeknownst to investigators, 32-year-old divorced dad Gary Ridgway is also raising the eyebrows

00:32:34.440 of his colleagues at the Kenworth truck factory with his own strange behavior.

00:32:40.700 When I first met Gary, I just thought the weird little stuff he was saying was just, like, quirks.

00:32:46.460 Some of the girls that worked there, he couldn't stand. 1.00

00:32:49.140 He called them sluts.

00:32:50.660 And that's all they wanted to do is hook up and get effed. 1.00

00:32:56.080 And I would say, calm down, Gary.

00:32:58.520 Every time he turns red, I know he's going to start saying crazy stuff.

00:33:04.100 Misogony.

00:33:05.040 He would hide around the shop and stare at people.

00:33:09.500 My sister-in-law would say stupid stuff to him. 0.99

00:33:13.000 I used to tell her, what are you doing?

00:33:14.620 You're poking a lion.

00:33:16.020 Just keep in your mind that he could be the Green River killer.

00:33:20.660 While the killer continues to elude authorities, he does leave another calling card.

00:33:27.680 Only this time, it's nearly six miles away from the Green River.

00:33:34.020 Motorcyclists found the badly decomposed nude body of a woman Saturday night. 0.64

00:33:38.720 Police do believe that this latest victim is related to the Green River case.

00:33:44.100 She's found in a new spot.

00:33:46.100 This was a wooded area that was very close to the airport, but still pretty secluded.

00:33:50.660 Pretty well covered.

00:33:54.200 Police ID the body as Giselle LaVorne, a 17-year-old sex worker missing for over two months.

00:34:02.380 Giselle was smart.

00:34:03.720 She had 145 IQ. 0.97

00:34:05.560 She had a lot going for her.

00:34:07.120 But then, of course, she met the wrong guy.

00:34:08.760 And Giselle worked the streets in order to provide for her boyfriend, slash him. 1.00

00:34:15.980 Aw, man.

00:34:20.140 145 IQ out there in the streets, man.

00:34:23.320 Stupid.

00:34:24.600 Stupid.

00:34:27.140 Investigators soon realized they've stumbled upon another dumping site.

00:34:31.600 The killer's change in dumping venues initially throws authorities.

00:34:37.820 I'm not sure how common it is to switch up your sites.

00:34:42.440 Another terrible discovery in the woods in South King County.

00:34:45.320 They fear another victim of the Green River killer.

00:34:47.600 Some suspect he's simply trying to stay one step ahead.

00:34:51.320 At the time, it was all over the media.

00:34:54.200 So he was probably watching and following these stories and realized, okay, this is an area that they're watching very closely.

00:35:03.420 This is very common with the serial killers, guys.

00:35:05.440 Also, a lot of them, let's be honest here, are clout chasers.

00:35:07.920 Your boy, the Zodiac Killer, used to send notes into the police and letters, you know, with literally cryptograms of them having to decode it.

00:35:13.560 BTK, same thing, sending taunting letters, dolls that are tied up. 0.98

00:35:19.320 Ted Bundy, you know, famously defended himself on camera in the first murder trial televised in the United States.

00:35:25.920 So 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.

00:35:32.960 But these guys love the attention.

00:35:36.160 You know what I mean?

00:35:36.640 They really do.

00:35:37.640 The Night Stalker, when he was in trial, he was wearing his sunglasses indoors thinking he was a rock star.

00:35:42.120 So this was clout chasing to another level.

00:35:45.920 Again, this is before the age of social media.

00:35:49.040 So, you know, when you really got clouted up back then, it was clout for real because there was no social media or anything.

00:35:54.400 So you had to rely upon the big mainstream media outlets to give you a platform.

00:35:59.520 And when you do crazy stuff like this, you're probably going to get talked about on, you know, these platforms.

00:36:04.280 Newspapers, television shows, talk shows, radio, all these old legacy media platforms.

00:36:12.120 So 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.

00:36:21.320 By the fall of 1982, police attribute six murdered and scores of missing sex workers to the Green River Killer.

00:36:32.080 People became frustrated.

00:36:34.300 The media, the community, the command staff, politicians who were providing the money to fund the task force started to grow a little bit irritable.

00:36:44.200 They were mothers, they were daughters, and they were sisters, they were friends, they were loved by people and missed by people.

00:36:53.080 They were important to somebody.

00:36:54.940 And that's what really needed to register.

00:36:57.280 And I think this became something people could relate to.

00:37:00.340 I was scared to death because they couldn't find them.

00:37:04.940 They were finding bodies every week.

00:37:07.880 I mean, they were just dropping like flies.

00:37:11.640 And I thought, man, this is horrifying.

00:37:14.640 It's like a movie.

00:37:18.100 Marcia Ridgeway is also growing increasingly concerned.

00:37:21.160 The victims all worked in the Sea-Tac strip near her ex-husband Gary's place, a place their seven-year-old son, Matthew, often visits.

00:37:35.120 That's the strip where a lot of the prostitutes will walk because it's close to the airport. 1.00

00:37:40.580 And there's a bunch of cheap motels up and down there.

00:37:44.160 And every time I've driven down that road, there's at least 20 of them just hanging out down there.

00:37:52.080 Is he familiar with Sea-Tac Airport at all?

00:37:55.160 Yeah, he's familiar with Sea-Tac Airport.

00:37:57.160 There was a bank machine.

00:37:58.280 I 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.

00:38:08.280 Marsha specifically fixated on the fact that Gary liked to take walks and go jogging in the area where these women were being abducted.

00:38:18.960 As 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,

00:38:27.500 where you're finding bodies in clusters around the city.

00:38:31.800 He's capable of anything.

00:38:33.180 With no other leads, detectives bring their main suspect back in for questioning, Melvin Foster.

00:38:42.600 But the grilling goes nowhere.

00:38:45.560 He always denied it, that he had any direct part in the Green River killings.

00:38:52.120 In fact, he told the task force he was going to sue them.

00:38:56.220 He went to the local press.

00:38:57.680 He said that they were harassing him.

00:38:59.500 More women were actually going missing while he was being tailed and surveilled.

00:39:05.660 So it was starting to look more and more like he wasn't their guy.

00:39:14.060 By the spring of 1983, 21 sex workers are reported missing, including 18-year-old Marie Malvar.

00:39:23.520 Only this time, there's a witness.

00:39:29.680 What happened was Marie ended up... 1.00

00:39:31.940 Here we go, baby.

00:39:34.320 ...up getting into a vehicle.

00:39:36.020 This was a maroon truck, and what was distinctive about it was it had a spot of primer on it.

00:39:41.020 And her boyfriend, slash pimp, saw this from afar.

00:39:45.160 He was watching, and he said it seemed like Marie was arguing with the guy a little bit,

00:39:49.340 but then she got in and she drove away.

00:39:52.020 Marie's boyfriend had a bad feeling about it.

00:39:54.640 He actually decided, I'm going to follow them.

00:39:57.020 So he's following them, but then the maroon truck loses him, and he can't find them.

00:40:05.580 Marie doesn't come back that night.

00:40:11.660 So the next day, Marie's boyfriend goes to her father's house, tells him what he saw,

00:40:16.700 and the father says, okay, you and I need to go find that truck.

00:40:20.840 The men search the surrounding area and eventually find what they believe is the same maroon pickup truck.

00:40:27.400 It's parked in front of the home of a 34-year-old divorced dad and paint shop worker named Gary Ridgway.

00:40:37.600 Oh, boy.

00:40:38.860 Gotcha, bitch! 1.00

00:40:39.820 In early September 1983, Marie Malvar's family reports the missing 18-year-old sex worker's last known location to the local police,

00:40:49.320 the home of 34-year-old divorced dad, Gary Ridgway.

00:40:53.540 Police arrived to question Ridgway when his son Matthew is staying at his mother's.

00:41:00.200 The police officer who knocked on the door had actually gone to school with Gary Ridgway, so they knew each other.

00:41:06.880 And the police basically asked, hey, do you know this girl, Marie?

00:41:11.340 Gary said no.

00:41:12.800 Do you know where she is?

00:41:14.300 No.

00:41:14.820 Is there anybody here with you?

00:41:16.460 No.

00:41:17.380 And the police left.

00:41:18.520 They didn't ask to go inside.

00:41:20.180 They didn't look inside.

00:41:20.980 They didn't press him any further.

00:41:23.540 You stupid.

00:41:24.740 Matter of fact, double L. 0.90

00:41:26.400 You stupid.

00:41:27.380 Cops lazy, man.

00:41:30.260 That's as far as it goes.

00:41:32.800 And again, when it's hookers, guys, this is what I mean when I say the police don't take it as seriously

00:41:37.080 because they're a class of individual that is prone to going missing, quite frankly,

00:41:43.560 because 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.

00:41:52.500 And police don't take looking for hookers, quite frankly, seriously, as unfortunate as that sounds, because of the type of individuals that they are. 0.96

00:42:03.600 And they don't want to waste police resources looking for someone that might not necessarily be missing.

00:42:07.620 To a lot of people may seem crazy with so many women going missing and being murdered.

00:42:13.220 Marie was considered a missing person and was added to a list of names that were actively being investigated.

00:42:21.900 And her story just kind of faded into the background.

00:42:25.040 For 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.

00:42:39.480 He loved his son.

00:42:41.240 He'd say he was a good kid and he was proud of him and stuff.

00:42:46.240 He'd talk about how smart he was.

00:42:49.560 But while Gary and his son retreat to their happy home,

00:42:52.700 Outside, the darkness grows.

00:42:59.460 By the end of November 1983, police have recovered the bodies of 13 young women and list an additional 25 missing.

00:43:11.680 Investigators look for a pattern to the locations but can't find one.

00:43:16.560 However, they do find other similarities.

00:43:19.580 The one thing that's connecting all of these cases to each other was the cause of death.

00:43:25.880 All of these women were strangled. 0.99

00:43:28.640 It's a fetish Marsha Ridgeway knows well at the hands of her ex-husband, Gary.

00:43:35.640 Did he ever try to choke you?

00:43:37.740 Yes.

00:43:38.660 From behind?

00:43:39.760 From behind.

00:43:40.340 And was choking me.

00:43:43.640 And it was getting tighter and tighter and I thought it was somebody else.

00:43:48.360 That there was somebody else there and I started screaming.

00:43:51.380 And then I realized that it was him and I started fighting him.

00:43:55.340 And he finally let go and he kind of pushed me.

00:44:02.680 But you know it was Gary.

00:44:03.800 I know it was Gary, yes.

00:44:07.920 Marsha 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.

00:44:20.220 And this was scary for Marsha.

00:44:21.600 She really did not like it.

00:44:22.700 The marriage between Marsha and Gary was a very unequal and toxic one.

00:44:29.500 He was very controlling with her.

00:44:30.980 And I think that this stemmed from his first wife leaving him for somebody else.

00:44:35.340 That level of rejection for him, he never wanted to feel it again.

00:44:40.720 Gary Ridgeway's first wife, Claudia, he basically married her right out of high school.

00:44:46.700 The two of them had a little bit of a whirlwind romance.

00:44:50.020 One could say it was highly physical.

00:44:53.060 And then they got married at the end of the summer.

00:44:56.540 After graduation, Gary enlists in the Navy and is deployed to the Philippines.

00:45:02.920 While he was away, Claudia started seeing somebody else.

00:45:07.740 And by the time he got back, she was in another relationship.

00:45:11.060 So this marriage ended very poorly.

00:45:13.400 I think Gary Ridgeway, who was so susceptible to profound feelings of rejection and abandonment, lashes out.

00:45:22.020 And he accuses her, well, you must be a prostitute if you're off sleeping with other people. 1.00

00:45:26.060 On May 8th, 1983, authorities discover what they believe is the Green River killer's 14th victim.

00:45:35.840 When they find the body of 21-year-old Carol Ann Christensen in a wooded area southeast of Seattle.

00:45:42.180 But some members on the task force aren't so sure.

00:45:48.020 When Carol's body was found, it was completely different from all of the other victims.

00:45:53.980 She was found with an empty bottle of wine in her hand.

00:45:59.180 And there were fish laid across her body. 0.99

00:46:02.440 Another weird thing was she was dressed, but her clothes had been put on backwards.

00:46:09.600 It was just a bizarre scene that seemed very meticulously staged, almost in a ritualistic way.

00:46:16.680 And it was very head-scratching for investigators.

00:46:21.120 And there's another anomaly.

00:46:25.580 Unlike most of the other victims, Carol Christensen isn't a sex worker. 0.89

00:46:30.340 She was a single mother.

00:46:33.240 Ah, here's a turning point now.

00:46:34.880 I think boom!

00:46:36.280 Raising a child, and she had just gotten a job working at a restaurant.

00:46:40.340 On her second day at this job, she was scheduled to come back that evening for the dinner shift.

00:46:46.660 She never came back to work that night.

00:46:48.820 She never went back home to be with her young daughter.

00:46:52.980 And everybody who knew Carol knew that was completely out of character.

00:46:56.300 The detective that was working that had pretty much eliminated her ex-husband and had pretty much come to a dead end.

00:47:05.800 There were detectives that believed that it wasn't connected.

00:47:09.260 But there were those of us who said, look, she's been strangled.

00:47:13.360 And she's been placed in the woods.

00:47:14.880 And we're in the middle of a serial murder case where females strangled, placed in the woods,

00:47:19.540 should be on our list as a possible potential Green River victim.

00:47:24.900 Reichert and his colleagues went out.

00:47:28.280 Carol Ann Christensen is not only declared the Green River killer's 14th victim.

00:47:33.820 She may hold the key to crack the case wide open. 0.90

00:47:38.380 They found a very small amount of semen on the outside of her clothing.

00:47:43.720 And that was collected basically for a blood type analysis.

00:47:49.120 We're looking for actually a blood type because DNA was not a science.

00:47:53.980 It was too soon.

00:47:55.180 Science was not quite there yet.

00:47:58.580 In the early 1980s, DNA analysis hasn't become standard in criminal investigations.

00:48:05.700 So authorities preserved...

00:48:07.660 As I described before, this is why so many of these guys got away back then.

00:48:11.580 ...reserve the sample, hoping one day it will prove the linchpin in their case

00:48:16.980 and finally bring the Green River killer to justice.

00:48:27.760 Medical examiners pick up the remains in a relatively small bundle, readying them for autopsy.

00:48:33.120 Detectives say they expected to find one skeleton after a skull was found Saturday.

00:48:36.880 But the unexpected discovery of three has left them shaken.

00:48:41.580 Over the following weeks, they would go on to find four more bodies in this same area, this cluster.

00:48:48.000 And one of these women was 18-year-old Mary Bridget Meehan. 0.88

00:48:52.740 She was eight months pregnant.

00:48:55.020 Unlike the other victims, Meehan does not come from a broken home.

00:48:59.780 She was born to an Irish Catholic family.

00:49:02.180 She was very religious.

00:49:04.020 This was a very good family.

00:49:05.640 With Bridget's parents, they cared very deeply, and they tried to protect her.

00:49:10.560 But in the end, she did end up getting in with the wrong crowd, even though she was very smart.

00:49:16.300 Every couple of weeks, another girl's body was turning up. 1.00

00:49:19.900 Every time he turned on the news or opened the paper, you saw a new Green River killer victim found.

00:49:25.800 In January of 1984, a new sheriff was appointed and right away said, we need to do something about this case.

00:49:36.240 And we're going to put together an enhanced task force because the bodies were piling up, because we had so many leads.

00:49:43.560 We just needed help.

00:49:44.480 By the end of 1984, authorities have recovered a total of 27 bodies, and 14 women are still missing.

00:49:57.200 Wow.

00:49:58.440 Because the tip linking Gary Ridgway with Marie Malvar is never registered with the task force, investigators are left with one viable suspect.

00:50:09.300 Do you kill all those women or what?

00:50:11.040 No, but I wish I did.

00:50:15.100 I wish I did know who did.

00:50:17.240 I talked to the detectives, and I asked, who are your suspects?

00:50:23.940 Who is your best suspect?

00:50:26.160 And David's best suspect at the time was Melvin Foster.

00:50:31.720 When Foster suddenly puts his car up for sale, an undercover officer buys it for $1,200,

00:50:37.600 hoping a thorough search will provide them with the evidence they need.

00:50:43.000 We discovered new photographs in the trunk of his car of young prostitutes. 0.99

00:50:47.180 We found women's clothing and underwear hidden under the mat and under the backseat.

00:50:54.500 They comb it top to bottom, but in terms of evidence, they come up with nothing.

00:50:59.520 Then, in 1985, just like that, the killings appear to stop.

00:51:09.580 A lot of times this will happen if a suspect was maybe arrested on other charges.

00:51:16.660 Maybe the suspect died without investigators ever knowing who this person was.

00:51:22.000 Maybe they had a big life change that just, maybe they moved away.

00:51:25.860 I mean, there are things that can happen that kind of trigger these cooling-off periods in a serial killer investigation.

00:51:33.420 To go from that sort of volume to really not seeing much movement at all kind of made things a lot more difficult.

00:51:41.220 You know, people just don't stop killing out of the blue.

00:51:43.820 Serial killers continue to kill until they're caught.

00:51:46.500 So this was very hard to work with for the Green River Task Force.

00:51:50.380 But the killer doesn't disappear before first passing a macabre milestone.

00:51:57.080 He becomes the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history with a body count in the 40s.

00:52:05.820 Important to remember that most prolific at that point, because they had not caught Samuel Little yet,

00:52:10.920 who actually ended up becoming number one most prolific serial killer with, I want to say, about 93 confirmed kills.

00:52:15.840 And that was confirmed by the FBI and detectives that investigated him.

00:52:20.380 But they didn't catch Little, I want to say, until about 2014 or so.

00:52:24.720 But 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.

00:52:34.840 It's amazing how he didn't become more famous.

00:52:37.180 I think it's because he didn't have the same shock factors like John Wayne Gacy, who was the killer clown,

00:52:42.080 or Jeffrey Dahmer eating his victims and also being homosexual, 0.90

00:52:45.640 or Ted Bundy being a well-spoken Chad that studied a law school,

00:52:49.780 defended himself in the first televised murder trial in U.S. history.

00:52:53.060 Like all these other more famous serial killers, the Zodiac killer, who to this day still hasn't been caught.

00:52:59.060 The case breakers think that they discovered who it is,

00:53:01.120 which if you guys watch my broadcast, I go over the individuals who were believed to be the suspects.

00:53:06.260 But all these, the Night Stalker who attacked anyone and was extremely violent and had California going crazy in the 1980s,

00:53:14.320 all these serial killers had some kind of like niche.

00:53:18.380 The Green River Killer, though prolific, wasn't really unique in that degree

00:53:24.680 because he had done everything that Bundy had already done.

00:53:27.480 And Bundy was more of a character, right?

00:53:29.760 He was over here wearing a cast and having the girls meet him.

00:53:32.980 Like, hey, could you help me like move my books?

00:53:35.280 Because he was a college student, of course.

00:53:36.840 Oh, yeah, of course.

00:53:37.720 And he was well-spoken and charismatic and charming and, you know, good-looking paws.

00:53:41.360 So he'd bring him back to his buggy and then he'd hit him with a crowbar upside the head

00:53:44.760 and then drag him in and put him in and then, you know, obviously take him out to the woods

00:53:47.520 and do whatever he did up there, dismembering them and all the other weird stuff he did.

00:53:51.560 But the Green River Killer didn't have that X-factor like these guys.

00:53:54.680 Samuel Little, too, didn't really have an X-factor like that.

00:53:57.280 That's why they're not talked about as much.

00:53:59.500 But even though they're at the top of the list when it comes to body counts.

00:54:05.360 The number of bodies is almost hard for us to even wrap our head around.

00:54:10.880 At a certain point, they stop being individuals and it starts being a statistic.

00:54:15.900 It was terribly depressing working these cases and not solving them

00:54:23.280 in thinking there's other victims out there and in some way, you know, we're responsible for that.

00:54:31.900 I was burned out.

00:54:33.140 I'd gone to many scenes, too many bones, too many dead bodies.

00:54:39.040 As the task force stalls, life for Gary Ridgway heats up

00:54:43.100 when he begins dating 41-year-old Judith Mawson.

00:54:48.660 Judith had been coming out of an abusive relationship herself. 1.00

00:54:52.540 And so when she meets Gary, he's sort of like the all-American man.

00:54:57.660 And they connected immediately.

00:55:00.160 It was almost like love at first sight between the two of them.

00:55:02.880 She thought he was handsome and strong and safe and he was good to her.

00:55:10.580 I think that's what attracted her more than anything.

00:55:12.640 The way he treated her.

00:55:13.700 The way that he made her feel about herself.

00:55:18.980 Eventually, Judith found out that Gary was the father of Matthew.

00:55:23.780 And Judith got to know Matthew.

00:55:25.840 She really, really liked the boy.

00:55:27.940 They went on bicycle rides.

00:55:29.560 They went camping.

00:55:31.020 They went hiking.

00:55:32.200 Hiking in the same woods, the Green River Killer's secretly depositing his victims.

00:55:43.860 Then, years after Marie Malvar is last seen climbing into a dark red pickup of an unknown John,

00:55:51.200 the task force learns the identity of the man she was last seen with.

00:55:57.060 Gary Ridgway.

00:55:58.300 They also discover Ridgway had been picked up for soliciting prostitution three years earlier in 1982.

00:56:09.360 Investigators ask Ridgway to come in for an interview and he readily agrees.

00:56:13.580 He had this very open tone.

00:56:17.260 He'd be like, hey guys, what's going on?

00:56:18.620 And Gary basically said, yes, I've had sex with prostitutes before, but I didn't kill any of them. 0.67

00:56:25.720 And then they asked him to take a polygraph.

00:56:27.520 And he said, okay.

00:56:29.440 It's somewhat unclear.

00:56:31.000 It's important to note, guys, that polygraphs, you know, commonly known as lie detector tests, don't necessarily tell you if you're lying.

00:56:37.060 What it does is it measures your bodily functions in response to questions.

00:56:41.020 So what they do is they take a baseline.

00:56:43.000 Hey, what is your name?

00:56:44.760 Oh, my name is, you know, Tom.

00:56:46.900 Okay.

00:56:47.460 What day were you born?

00:56:48.760 Okay.

00:56:49.080 My birthday is such and such day.

00:56:50.900 Right.

00:56:51.140 They ask you questions that are true and you can't really lie about.

00:56:54.580 Where do you live?

00:56:55.060 I live with this address.

00:56:56.160 Are the lights on right now?

00:56:57.260 Yes, they are, et cetera.

00:56:58.320 So 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.

00:57:09.440 Then, 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.

00:57:25.300 And that's how they measure if you're being deceptive based on your physiological responses.

00:57:28.620 But 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.

00:57:41.840 And 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.

00:57:48.780 They don't necessarily know how to take a polygraph correctly or whatever it may be.

00:57:52.400 So polygraphs aren't necessarily fail safes.

00:57:56.100 They'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.

00:58:06.540 What happened with Ridgway's polygraph?

00:58:10.000 But it's been widely reported that he passed.

00:58:14.740 It definitely wasn't the smoking gun they were looking for.

00:58:18.220 And in light of that, they let him go.

00:58:22.560 Once again, the case stalls.

00:58:26.100 That's when investigators get a surprising offer from an unlikely ally.

00:58:32.040 We received a letter from Ted Bundy, who was in prison in Stark, Florida.

00:58:38.700 And the letter said...

00:58:39.620 Oh, I'm glad that they actually mentioned this.

00:58:41.740 I didn't think this documentary was going to cover this.

00:58:43.280 But yes, this is a little fact that a lot of people don't report on.

00:58:47.540 He said, I've been following this case, and I believe that I can be of some help.

00:58:52.460 Don't ask why I think I could be of help, but just know that I know I might be able to help you and your investigators.

00:59:01.020 Translation.

00:59:02.740 The 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.

00:59:14.460 Them being a vulnerable class, right?

00:59:19.020 Females, in this case. 0.95

00:59:20.460 But 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.

00:59:33.540 But what Bundy did was, Bundy was smart.

00:59:36.000 He killed in multiple states, okay?

00:59:38.860 He killed in, obviously started Washington, then he moved down to Oregon.

00:59:44.240 He killed some women in Utah, Colorado, Florida, California.

00:59:52.600 I think he might have killed one or two in Idaho.

00:59:55.720 But the point I'm trying to make here is that he killed women on an interstate-type level.

01:00:01.620 And 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.

01:00:25.620 It'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.

01:00:38.360 Besides 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.

01:00:47.720 So 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?

01:01:01.780 The 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.

01:01:12.640 But for the most of his victims were dark haired, college age women, somewhere between 18 to 25. 0.99

01:01:18.280 Okay. 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.

01:01:28.260 They 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.

01:01:34.200 And they didn't start really doing this until later on in the investigation when bodies start to pile up.

01:01:38.520 I think Bundy had a confirmed kill count of somewhere in the 30s, 30 to 33 murders.

01:01:43.060 So and he was doing it across state lines, which is why he was able to evade law enforcement for so long.

01:01:48.440 And if I'm not mistaken, it was the state of Colorado and Utah that actually the first two to put it together.

01:01:53.560 And he ended up escaping out of Utah somewhere in the 70s, right before the new year.

01:02:00.280 I want to say like 76 or 77, right before the new year, 77 or 78.

01:02:04.780 And then he fled to Florida and then Florida had known about his antics and they did a positive identification.

01:02:10.980 Then they knew that he was on the run from his charges out in Utah and Colorado.

01:02:16.540 And that's why they pushed so hard for the death penalty.

01:02:19.000 But Bundy was able to come forward because this guy had the same exact M.O.

01:02:22.260 So he knew what type of mindset he had.

01:02:24.260 And as we discussed earlier, the beginning of the podcast, if you look at, you know, a lot of these serial killers,

01:02:30.440 they tend to have very similar practices in committing their crimes.

01:02:35.480 Get into the mind of a serial killer.

01:02:38.760 At the time, Bundy is the most notorious captured serial killer in American history.

01:02:44.240 Suspected of killing over 30 women across seven states between 1974 and 1978.

01:02:55.860 Detectives fly to Florida to meet with Bundy on...

01:02:58.460 If you guys look at those women that were on the, on his kill list there, they all look extremely similar, right?

01:03:03.700 So, you know, a lot of times guys have a, have a, have a type, these serial killers.

01:03:09.680 Death Row.

01:03:10.080 I remember when I first met him and he was so excited, wanted to shake hands, you know.

01:03:17.160 FYI, just so y'all know, I haven't seen this podcast before.

01:03:19.540 So everything you heard me just say about Bundy was off the top of my head and I was still pretty accurate.

01:03:24.340 So I got to give myself a down to Marco.

01:03:27.360 Don DeMarco.

01:03:28.080 I'm not watching this podcast, this documentary for the first time, just like y'all are.

01:03:32.880 So this is all off the top.

01:03:34.320 Pause.

01:03:35.020 Pleasure to meet you and have you here in my prison.

01:03:37.520 And I remember thinking, how many lives has this hand squeezed out, has snuffed out?

01:03:45.060 The men talked for hours with Bundy offering some surprising insights.

01:03:49.460 One 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.

01:04:01.720 Ted Bundy, infamously, is also a necrophile.

01:04:05.120 So it's almost like he could see the monster in himself playing out in the Green River Killer.

01:04:09.860 Nobody at that point had even considered...

01:04:13.120 I've never heard anyone say necrophile.

01:04:14.640 I think the term is necrophiliac, but either or, yes.

01:04:18.120 Bundy was definitely known for going back and doing that with his victims as well.

01:04:21.620 I wondered that the Green River Killer was also a necrophile.

01:04:26.620 It's a whole different layer of disgusting.

01:04:28.760 In 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.

01:04:47.220 Paige 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.

01:05:01.260 She 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.

01:05:19.540 You could tell it was scary.

01:05:21.400 It's a mirror image.

01:05:22.920 The hair, the piercing eyes, the nose, everything.

01:05:27.600 It looked just like him.

01:05:28.780 Shortly after police released the sketch, 20-year-old Rebecca Gard comes forward with this claim about a man who picked her up. 0.79

01:05:39.900 He got angry and he knocked me down and he started choking me and pushing my face into the ground.

01:05:51.860 I couldn't even talk.

01:05:53.640 I couldn't breathe.

01:05:54.820 I couldn't do nothing.

01:05:56.240 He probably wanted to do something.

01:05:57.780 I felt like I was his little revenge toy or something.

01:06:02.620 You know, he was taking all his anger out on me.

01:06:06.880 And as I had the chance, when he stopped, I grabbed my purse and ran and got away.

01:06:15.560 Guard recalls the man was also driving a dark-colored pickup truck with a canopy top over the bed.

01:06:24.600 And he's a dead ringer for the composite sketch.

01:06:28.020 She says, yes, that looks like my attacker.

01:06:30.740 And then she starts going through mug shots and she picks out the mug shot of Gary Ridgway.

01:06:35.720 Based on two eyewitness accounts, investigators believe they are zeroing in on the Green River Killer, 37-year-old divorced dad, Gary Leon Ridgway.

01:06:52.380 They had Gary's photo in the system.

01:06:55.160 And when they showed it to Paige Miley and Rebecca Gargway, they said, that's him.

01:07:00.160 Rebecca coming forward with her story and ultimately identifying Ridgway as her attacker was really what put him in the forefront as the prime suspect.

01:07:16.120 Police immediately placed Ridgway under surveillance.

01:07:19.440 They followed him, they watched him, they saw him going to the strip, they saw him talking to women, but he never killed anybody.

01:07:34.500 On April 7th, 1987, police searched Ridgway's vehicles, home, and work locker.

01:07:43.720 One of my friends called me at home and said, you're not going to believe this.

01:07:50.880 They came and got a bunch of stuff from Gary.

01:07:53.920 They took his clothes and everything.

01:07:56.080 It felt like a punch in my stomach.

01:07:59.800 Investigators combed through every item in Gary Ridgway's possession, looking for anything that might connect him to the murders.

01:08:06.720 The news leaves Gary's son, Matthew, who was 12 years old at the time, confused.

01:08:17.320 Did your mom tell you about the Green River investigation?

01:08:21.120 She told me about the Green River investigation.

01:08:23.400 She asked me if I knew what it was.

01:08:25.960 Did she tell you that your father was under investigation?

01:08:28.480 I 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.

01:08:36.520 The media came to me that I wasn't to say no comment.

01:08:39.380 Okay.

01:08:40.140 Did your father ever talk to you about it?

01:08:41.960 No.

01:08:42.820 Marsha told Matthew to say no comment, most likely because she didn't want him involved.

01:08:47.940 She didn't want his face on the news.

01:08:50.200 She didn't want him to be known as the son of a potential killer or even a suspected killer.

01:08:56.420 Perhaps no one's more shocked than Ridgway's new girlfriend, Judith Mawson.

01:09:04.700 He was reassuring me that everything would be okay.

01:09:07.960 And it was painful.

01:09:10.280 Judith was crying.

01:09:12.320 She was sobbing into his chest and asking, what is happening?

01:09:16.640 Why are they talking to you?

01:09:18.360 And she said that Gary was calm.

01:09:21.340 Matter of fact, he just simply said, the police are doing their job.

01:09:24.720 And they're looking at a lot of different individuals.

01:09:27.880 They made a mistake.

01:09:29.180 They got the wrong guy.

01:09:30.400 Everything's going to be fine.

01:09:32.340 I can't even imagine how frustrating this entire investigation must have been for the task force.

01:09:37.920 Because now they've had multiple strong leads.

01:09:41.500 And they have another really strong lead pointing them to Gary Ridgway.

01:09:46.580 However, the police found nothing.

01:09:49.280 Literally nothing.

01:09:50.660 Nothing in his house.

01:09:51.640 Nothing in his car.

01:09:52.600 Nothing in his locker.

01:09:53.860 Completely clean.

01:09:55.960 Gary Ridgway came off as a normal loving dad.

01:09:59.420 A doting husband.

01:10:00.260 One year later, Ridgway's luck continues to improve when he and his girlfriend, Judith Mawson, marry.

01:10:12.160 They have a lovely little intimate wedding.

01:10:17.300 A neighbor hosted in their yard.

01:10:19.700 One of his co-workers is his best man.

01:10:22.260 It's just a very happy, joyful time.

01:10:26.040 Judith really loves.

01:10:27.060 Meanwhile, my man was out here killing all kinds of girls, bro.

01:10:30.300 And no one even knows.

01:10:31.520 And he's getting married and he's like, oh yeah, life is awesome.

01:10:33.960 Let's cut the cake.

01:10:35.220 Meanwhile, he was cutting girls' circulation off, man.

01:10:38.000 Crazy.

01:10:38.400 I loved Gary's son, Matthew.

01:10:44.220 And Matthew spent a lot of time at the house with Gary and Judith.

01:10:47.680 They really blended their families in a pretty seamless and beautiful way.

01:10:51.580 And they had a lovely life together.

01:10:54.660 He made me feel like a newlywed every day.

01:10:59.540 It seems Gary is finally ready to turn the page on his contentious divorce with his ex.

01:11:04.940 Gary shows up at Marsha's house with a box of women's lingerie and clothing items.

01:11:11.480 And he insists that these must be things that she left at the house.

01:11:16.480 And Marsha tells him, well, these are all items from a much smaller woman.

01:11:21.360 Take them back.

01:11:22.000 And he goes, oh, well, I thought they were yours.

01:11:23.680 And he just leaves the box at her house in an almost perverse way of letting her know that he's having sex with other women.

01:11:33.780 Hey, real nigga time, baby. 1.00

01:11:38.220 That's the only thing you did do right besides all the other stupid crap he was doing.

01:11:41.880 But hey, I guess he understood that, hey, man, girls only operate correctly when they know they can be replaced. 1.00

01:11:46.120 Gary and his new bride quietly enjoy their life together.

01:11:50.820 The 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.

01:12:01.520 Of course, not in this case, because this dude's out here, you know, choking hookers, which is not what you want to be doing.

01:12:07.460 But, you know, assuming that you're not doing anything violent to other women, this actually works in practice.

01:12:13.740 But don't do what this idiot Gary Ridgway is doing as far as dealing with other women.

01:12:18.520 Otherwise, you'll end up having a documentary after you and serving life in prison.

01:12:22.520 In 1989, it disbands entirely, bringing its six-year manhunt to a painful end.

01:12:32.280 I was angry about that.

01:12:33.740 After 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.

01:12:46.500 I 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.

01:12:55.980 Nearly 40 murders remain unsolved.

01:13:05.700 Close to a decade passes without the discovery of any new bodies.

01:13:11.900 It seems like the Green River Killer's long shadow over the Seattle area is finally receding.

01:13:18.340 But Dave Reichert can't let it go.

01:13:20.680 In 1997, he's appointed King County Sheriff and reopens the case.

01:13:28.680 Pictures of their faces and the pictures of the sites where they were found are still fresh in my mind.

01:13:36.480 To be able to all of a sudden be in a position now to make that decision, we're going to solve this case.

01:13:41.740 There 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.

01:14:04.840 They were able to collect semen from three of the victims.

01:14:10.060 They also had some DNA from the suspects.

01:14:12.980 They had some saliva.

01:14:14.140 They also had a little bit of hair.

01:14:17.260 If investigators can connect the victim's DNA samples to those collected from their potential suspects,

01:14:23.840 it could be the smoking gun they need to bring the mysterious killer's nearly 20-year reign of terror to an end.

01:14:31.300 Two decades after the discovery of the Green River Killer's first victim,

01:14:42.700 Sheriff Dave Reichert is on the verge of cracking the deadliest cold case in American history.

01:14:48.520 The crime lab called Dave Reichert and they said they think that they had enough to potentially make a connection.

01:14:55.520 In 2001, the Washington crime lab matches the DNA profile of the semen found on one of the victims to a suspect.

01:15:07.940 Reichert recalls the moment he received the landmark news.

01:15:11.380 I looked at Tom and I said, Tom, are you trying to tell me that we caught the guy?

01:15:21.360 And he just kind of smiled a little bit and then he reached into his pocket and he pulled out this envelope and he handed it to me.

01:15:28.860 He says, yeah, Dave, and his name is in here.

01:15:32.260 I opened it up and it's a mugshot of Ridgway when he was arrested in early 1982 for patronizing a prostitute.

01:15:42.520 It's quite an emotional, quite an emotional moment.

01:15:47.220 You chase the guy around for those many years and you finally find out who he is, man.

01:15:54.180 That's a big deal. That really is a big deal.

01:15:56.040 I can't explain to you guys the gratification that you get as an investigator when you finally get your guy and you, you know,

01:16:02.560 or you're about to put cuffs on him or you know who he is finally and you're able to put cuffs on him.

01:16:06.540 I can't even imagine the satisfaction he experienced at that moment.

01:16:10.780 It could easily bring you to tears because when you're invested in a case of this degree,

01:16:15.340 especially a case of this magnitude where people are dying and you feel like they're dying on your watch,

01:16:19.580 you do feel an enormous sense of guilt.

01:16:22.100 And when you're finally able to rectify that to some degree, obviously those lives are lost,

01:16:27.760 but you can you're responsible for getting that family justice to some level.

01:16:31.620 It's a very emotional moment.

01:16:34.300 And I can definitely understand where he's coming from.

01:16:36.320 I know some people might be like, what do you mean emotional?

01:16:38.120 When you're putting in years, hours, sweat equity, you're personally invested in these types of cases.

01:16:44.120 Because I ain't gonna lie to you guys.

01:16:45.200 Anytime you do an investigation like this, you're going to be personally invested.

01:16:48.480 We're human beings, too.

01:16:49.800 Whether you're a detective, a special agent, you know, a postal inspector, whatever it is,

01:16:54.940 whenever you're investigating crimes, especially crimes of this magnitude, yes, you start to get personally invested.

01:16:59.300 For me, some of the cases that made me invest the most personally where I felt a sense of duty was going after the child pedophiles.

01:17:06.040 Always arresting those guys is always a great sense of satisfaction.

01:17:08.280 So I can only imagine going after a serial killer that has this type of notoriety, been on the run for years at this point,

01:17:15.020 eluding you all these years, finally identifying that guy, right?

01:17:19.580 Because he was stupid enough to bust nuts and not clean up after himself.

01:17:23.080 Hey, man, that's definitely a Don DeMarco.

01:17:25.020 Don DeMarco.

01:17:30.760 Gary Ridgeway.

01:17:32.540 Gotcha, bitch! 1.00

01:17:33.260 The unsuspecting father, husband, and factory worker.

01:17:37.400 On November 30th, 2001, after nearly two decades terrorizing the Seattle region and captivating the nation,

01:17:50.760 investigators quietly arrest Gary Ridgeway at his job at the Kenworth Truck Factory.

01:17:55.940 They actually just let him finish his shift, and they confronted him as he was walking out of the building.

01:18:02.960 And allegedly, when they read him his rights and arrested him, he just sort of said, okay.

01:18:10.340 As he walked past me, I looked him straight in the eye, and he looked at me, and I said, gotcha, asshole. 0.84

01:18:20.600 Gotcha, bitch! 1.00

01:18:21.360 My brother called me, and he said, guess what?

01:18:23.660 They caught the Green River Killer.

01:18:25.660 And I said, his name wasn't Gary Ridgeway, was it?

01:18:28.760 And he goes, how did you know?

01:18:30.640 I've been telling you I worked with him at Kenworth.

01:18:33.720 I was one of the fooled, because he could be charming.

01:18:37.500 He could be fun.

01:18:38.760 He could be helpful.

01:18:40.280 He's a very intelligent person.

01:18:42.180 Police bring in Ridgeway's 26-year-old son, Matthew, now serving with the Marines in California, for questioning.

01:18:52.760 Suffice to say, this information, this disclosure that your father was arrested for these crimes came as a complete surprise to you.

01:19:03.460 Is that right?

01:19:04.040 Oh, yes.

01:19:04.580 You had no idea, never given any indication over the years that he would have been involved in this,

01:19:09.080 other than the one conversation you had with your mother?

01:19:11.320 Yes.

01:19:12.220 But 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.

01:19:20.240 And, uh, nobody...

01:19:21.560 Is that how you see your father?

01:19:23.620 Right now, yes.

01:19:24.680 Okay.

01:19:25.740 When you listen to those tapes, Matthew's behavior and emotional range was very underwhelming, very flat and two-dimensional.

01:19:34.200 I 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.

01:19:46.100 He couldn't fathom this man, the man he knew, the man he loves, being the Green River Killer.

01:19:53.000 It wasn't possible to him.

01:19:54.060 Gary's wife of 13 years, Judith, is also in shock.

01:20:01.900 I was in shock that day when I heard someone driving up in the driveway.

01:20:08.660 And it's, I couldn't believe it.

01:20:18.140 I still can't believe it, but it has happened.

01:20:22.800 It was like a brick wall dropped in front of me and didn't know what to do.

01:20:29.500 Everything stopped.

01:20:30.260 When you hear this for the first time, your reaction is, no way.

01:20:37.520 There's no way.

01:20:39.160 I know my dad or I know my husband.

01:20:42.880 There's absolutely no way.

01:20:44.760 They've got this completely wrong.

01:20:46.660 So you basically have a cube.

01:20:48.800 And on this side of the cube is the killer, the hunter, the predator.

01:20:53.720 And on this side of the cube is the father, husband, caretaker.

01:20:58.260 And it depends on what side of the cube you want to show to the person you're dealing with.

01:21:05.540 On December 18, 2001, Ridgway enters court and makes this stunning declaration.

01:21:14.240 Mr. Ridgway, his plea is not guilty to all charges.

01:21:18.960 All right.

01:21:19.860 That's common, guys, because, you know, the reason why you've always plead guilty, right,

01:21:25.840 nine out of ten times in the beginning stages of any investigation is because it's a tactic

01:21:30.900 by the defense to try to go ahead and get a better deal, right?

01:21:34.640 So if you plead guilty up front, well, the government has no incentive to give you a lesser

01:21:38.560 sentence or, in this case, not give you the death penalty.

01:21:41.620 So you go ahead and you say, all right, not guilty.

01:21:44.300 So you create the, you know, insinuation that you might go to trial because the government

01:21:48.780 never wants to go to trial because going to trial is always a risky business because

01:21:51.680 it's a jury trial at the end of the day and they got to convince beyond a reasonable doubt

01:21:55.000 and the burden is always on the prosecution.

01:21:57.660 So they look at it like, let's get a plea deal.

01:21:59.580 That's why 90% plus of cases always end up getting a plea deal.

01:22:03.000 So in order to get a good plea deal, the defense has to strategically always place a not guilty

01:22:09.680 plea in the beginning of the arrest process, which is typically your initial, well, at your

01:22:14.540 initial appearance, you're just ready to your rights and told, yo, this is what you're

01:22:17.540 arrested for, et cetera.

01:22:18.460 Then you go to something called an arraignment.

01:22:21.020 That's the more formal proceeding where they not only tell you what you're being charged

01:22:25.320 with, that's where you actually enter in a plea.

01:22:28.320 Okay.

01:22:28.520 So the initial appearance, you get just brought in front of a judge within 24 to 78, 72 hours,

01:22:32.680 which is your legal right.

01:22:34.240 Right.

01:22:34.860 Then after that, a few days or a few weeks might pass.

01:22:38.480 Then you have your counsel at this point, whether you hire private or you have one appointed

01:22:43.460 to you because you don't have the money to do so, you, uh, you go ahead and put in your,

01:22:48.740 uh, your plea, which nine out of 10 times is almost always going to be not guilty at the

01:22:53.500 arraignment unless they had, you know, previously worked out some kind of deal, or maybe an information

01:22:58.740 was filed versus a full on indictment.

01:23:00.800 Typically, if an information is filed by the prosecutor, that means that you've been cooperating

01:23:05.520 to some degree, which we've broken down some cases.

01:23:07.200 And I explained in more detail what information is, but it's not surprising that the person

01:23:11.960 would not plead guilty.

01:23:12.860 Obviously this documentary maker isn't aware of how the criminal justice system really works,

01:23:16.880 but yeah, this is very common to not plead guilty in the beginning stages of your arrest.

01:23:22.140 Ridgway said, you don't have anything on me.

01:23:24.900 You have my DNA on, on prostitutes. 1.00

01:23:28.040 And you already know that I was with a lot of prostitutes.

01:23:31.320 I admitted that outright.

01:23:32.640 So why wouldn't my DNA be found on them?

01:23:34.720 Prosecutors know DNA evidence alone will not be enough for a conviction, but they have

01:23:42.580 another ace up their sleeve.

01:23:45.700 When investigators examine the work coveralls Ridgway wore while spray painting trucks at

01:23:51.120 his job, they notice small specks of paint.

01:23:54.580 They then re-examine the clothing and ligatures recovered from several victims and discover similar

01:24:00.460 paint specks.

01:24:01.260 Now they've effectively linked him to the murders, right?

01:24:10.040 He wasn't just dumb enough to bust nuts.

01:24:11.760 He was also dumb enough to leave paint drips as well.

01:24:15.420 Very specific kind of paint that was high end and only found on trucks and essentially what

01:24:23.180 Gary did for a living.

01:24:24.260 And that confirmed that he had killed Wendy Caulfield, Debra Bonner, and Dembra Estes.

01:24:35.620 Boom, Bucker! 1.00

01:24:36.260 The paint evidence, it blew the defense attorney away.

01:24:45.600 Then they came to us and said, we want to make a deal.

01:24:49.720 But police are only able to connect Ridgway to seven of his nearly suspected 50 victims.

01:24:55.140 Detectives and prosecutors realized the only way we are going to be able to get the confirmation

01:25:02.540 for the victims, families, the only way we're going to be able to truly close these cases

01:25:08.500 is if he confesses.

01:25:10.520 So we ended up making a deal with the devil.

01:25:20.300 Prosecutors tell Ridgway if he will make a full confession and help them recover the bodies

01:25:25.380 of any other victims, they won't push for the death penalty.

01:25:28.960 Very common, by the way, guys, with these serial killers where they'll show where the bodies

01:25:36.540 are to avoid the death penalty.

01:25:39.440 Obviously, some of them didn't, you know, don't get this privilege.

01:25:43.480 Ted Bundy being one of them, John Wayne Gacy, neither of them got it.

01:25:46.840 They got the death penalty.

01:25:48.540 But this is a common tactic where they'll say, hey, I'll show you where the bodies is, get

01:25:53.040 some closure, where the bodies are, excuse me.

01:25:55.040 And that will a lot of times save them from getting that lethal injection electric chair

01:25:59.880 or a shooting squad.

01:26:02.480 If you're in the state of Utah, I think they still practice shooting squads.

01:26:05.800 But the most common nowadays is the lethal injection.

01:26:09.000 Ted Bundy actually got the electric chair, though.

01:26:11.900 Despite the fact that he had killed so many other people, Gary Ridgway was absolutely afraid

01:26:16.160 of dying.

01:26:17.160 And so if the only way to live was to tell the truth, then he would do that.

01:26:25.040 Gary, we're going out to 410 today, road trip.

01:26:28.260 Road trip.

01:26:29.980 Father's Day at all, my fellow, my father's.

01:26:32.820 Yeah, same to you.

01:26:34.900 Yeah.

01:26:35.320 We're not going to go over to the Museum of Flight today.

01:26:38.180 It's free for Father's Day.

01:26:39.320 Is it?

01:26:39.860 Yes.

01:26:40.340 And we can go there for lunch.

01:26:41.780 Yeah.

01:26:44.960 Are we going out to the first one or going out with the first one that comes to us?

01:26:49.260 Or do you know yet?

01:26:50.780 What order?

01:26:51.580 Do you want him to go from first to last?

01:26:53.560 Whatever's best.

01:26:55.160 Whatever's easiest for you.

01:26:56.920 First.

01:26:57.840 The first coming in.

01:27:00.200 Not number one.

01:27:01.660 One by the mill will be better.

01:27:04.540 We're looking for a road off the right.

01:27:07.180 Dirt road.

01:27:07.940 And that's always right across from here.

01:27:12.180 It's all grown up so much.

01:27:13.580 If we were to locate any one of these sites, we'd make the rest of them easier for you to find.

01:27:25.020 There'll be a body across a guardrail and one by a mile post.

01:27:32.520 And 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.

01:27:42.000 On 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.

01:27:56.080 It 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.

01:28:14.300 Looking back now, investigators believe that Marie may have been present in that home at the time that police came to question him.

01:28:23.680 They were just so close so many times.

01:28:27.120 It's heartbreaking.

01:28:31.540 Five months later, Gary Ridgeway finally brings the case to a close.

01:28:38.180 Guilty.

01:28:39.360 Guilty.

01:28:40.640 Guilty.

01:28:40.940 When he pleads guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

01:28:47.000 Holy.

01:28:47.980 Boom, buck out. 0.99

01:28:49.560 Judith was sitting on the sofa in her home, holding hands with her best friend.

01:28:56.440 And together they watched Gary say those words, guilty, guilty, guilty.

01:29:01.080 She told me that when she saw the tears running down Gary's face, she saw his lips quivering.

01:29:07.000 And she thought, my God, this is it.

01:29:10.220 He really is a killer.

01:29:16.460 You son of a bitch, why did you do this to me?

01:29:20.760 Why did you put me through all this?

01:29:22.800 She had no crew, man. 0.78

01:29:23.900 What we're going to do today, Gary, is we're going to try it.

01:29:50.080 What we're going to do today, Gary, is we're going to try it.

01:29:53.820 It unlocks memories by starting at the beginning.

01:29:55.860 Starting at the beginning.

01:29:57.100 First thing we want to talk about is the first one.

01:29:59.580 That was Cofield.

01:30:06.320 Picked her up on Pacific Highway.

01:30:09.760 Asked her if she was dating and what I wanted.

01:30:12.540 What was her reply?

01:30:13.540 Yeah, I'll date you.

01:30:15.960 So you arrive at your spot.

01:30:18.520 Right at the spot.

01:30:20.620 I get behind her.

01:30:23.740 And as soon as I came and she kind of relaxed, you know, that's when I jumped on her and started choking her. 0.99

01:30:36.580 This crazy bastard.

01:30:38.000 He came and he still didn't come to his senses, man.

01:30:41.180 Holy.

01:30:41.840 Boom, my God.

01:30:42.840 Idiot.

01:30:43.600 But, you know, you would think like, oh, maybe I busted a nut.

01:30:47.320 Maybe I got this moment of clarity.

01:30:48.560 Maybe I shouldn't do this.

01:30:49.460 But what does he do?

01:30:50.160 Oh, let me try to fucking choke this chick out, man. 1.00

01:30:52.740 So it speaks to the depraved, you know, state that this guy's in going wild like this.

01:31:00.500 It's not even so much what he said.

01:31:03.400 It was the way he said it.

01:31:04.520 He was so matter-of-fact, so level.

01:31:07.920 Like he was talking about what he had for lunch.

01:31:09.720 He's so disconnected and so nonchalant about his crimes that just seeing him on a screen makes

01:31:22.760 me feel sick to my stomach.

01:31:25.720 I'm saying, stop moving and I'll let you go.

01:31:28.180 And that was over and over and over again.

01:31:30.940 But I wasn't going to let her go.

01:31:32.940 It was just my way of lying to her.

01:31:36.100 Keep her from fighting.

01:31:37.220 She stopped fighting.

01:31:38.060 And then I just kept on shopping.

01:31:42.860 Ridgway then makes an even more shocking claim.

01:31:46.640 His body count isn't 49 women.

01:31:49.600 It's nearly 70.

01:31:52.780 And his most disturbing revelation is yet to come.

01:31:56.600 After admitting to killing 70 women during his two-decade rampage, Gary Ridgway finally comes

01:32:14.480 clean about a victim detectives originally debated was even one of his kills.

01:32:19.740 Single mother, Carol Ann Christensen, who Ridgway now admits to killing, then dressing backwards 0.73

01:32:27.520 and posing with food items.

01:32:31.900 And in another revelation, Ridgway confesses that unlike all his other victims, he and Carol

01:32:39.960 Ann had actually been dating.

01:32:41.740 I think they were on maybe their third date.

01:32:46.480 They'd had consensual sex.

01:32:48.360 She was, you know, going to be running late for a shift and they were engaged in sexual

01:32:52.280 activity.

01:32:52.960 She said, you know, hey, I have to get going.

01:32:54.520 Can you hurry up?

01:32:55.460 And he completely lost his mind.

01:32:59.240 She heard me when she didn't have the time.

01:33:02.820 Didn't have time for me.

01:33:05.760 Another serial killer.

01:33:06.920 And guys, you might be thinking this is kind of weird, etc.

01:33:10.040 Which it definitely is.

01:33:11.020 This guy is on some whack shit.

01:33:12.100 But this is a very common trait with serial killers where they need to assert dominance

01:33:15.460 and be able, they feel, they want to feel like they can control their victims.

01:33:18.760 Jeffrey Dahmer did this too.

01:33:20.040 He used to kill his victims for wanting to leave.

01:33:22.160 Okay.

01:33:23.220 John Wayne Gacy as well.

01:33:24.780 That's a common trend with a lot of these serial killers is that need for some type of

01:33:28.600 dominance and controlling the victim.

01:33:30.880 So in this case, someone that might have not ended up becoming a victim, but just had to

01:33:36.300 leave at a certain time.

01:33:37.380 It was what triggered that instinct in him.

01:33:39.060 And he decided to go ahead and make a homicidal.

01:33:43.380 And him crying about it might actually show that this was one of the few victims that he had some semblance of care for.

01:33:50.160 Because 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.

01:33:58.180 Right. The only thing that ties a lot of the times is that might meet like a look feature that that person is looking for.

01:34:04.960 But a lot of times it's random.

01:34:06.640 Like there wasn't like real intent to or excuse me, there isn't like a real motive to kill them.

01:34:11.340 Like, you know, some husband killing his wife or some wife killing her husband for the life insurance policy.

01:34:15.440 Like in this case with serial killers, it's they looked a certain way.

01:34:19.040 There was an opportunity.

01:34:20.400 This 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.

01:34:26.720 So in this case with this woman, he actually liked her, but her wanting to leave, you know, challenge his, you know, authority.

01:34:34.220 Right. That he likes to have with a lot of these serial killers.

01:34:37.040 And 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.

01:34:43.720 And, you know.

01:34:47.000 But a lot of times these serial killers kill a victim, they don't know them and that actually makes it easier for them to do so.

01:34:50.960 So in this case, this is probably one of his harder kills that he had to do or he did.

01:34:58.540 Did I die for her?

01:35:03.420 So you had to kill her?

01:35:05.900 Did you kill her?

01:35:07.540 Did you care for her, Gary?

01:35:08.600 I cared for her, yes.

01:35:11.220 I cared for her.

01:35:12.540 Why the fish and the sausage, Gary?

01:35:15.480 It has to us throwing away.

01:35:20.960 So what's this, were these things you didn't need?

01:35:25.200 That they did her, they bore her.

01:35:27.500 So she was like the garbage in your refrigerator, Gary?

01:35:33.180 Yes, she was.

01:35:36.900 Boom, Baka! 0.99

01:35:39.140 While Ridgway has almost a photographic memory for the locations where he dumped the 49 bodies,

01:35:45.780 he remembers little about the women themselves.

01:35:48.460 And this is a common tactic with the serial killers.

01:35:51.380 Like I said before, they kill their victims and pick them randomly so it's easier for them to make, to do the killing.

01:35:56.680 So when they're strangling the person, they don't know them.

01:35:58.960 It's easier to do that.

01:36:00.520 Okay?

01:36:01.060 But when you know them, it's obviously more difficult to do.

01:36:05.200 Which is why a lot of these serial killers are able to rock up, you know, body count after body count after body count.

01:36:09.660 Because they don't know the individuals.

01:36:11.060 That personal connection is not there.

01:36:13.560 So it makes it easier to execute the murder.

01:36:17.700 He didn't look at these women or these young girls as human beings.

01:36:21.620 He said that they knew they were going to die.

01:36:23.260 If you guys want to see another example of this, it's actually very interesting.

01:36:26.160 Watch the John Wayne Gacy interview before he was executed.

01:36:30.220 They show him a photograph of all of his victims.

01:36:32.460 And he looks at it blankly and he literally says, I don't recognize any of these guys.

01:36:37.900 And I believe that because you have to put yourself in a crazy mindset, right?

01:36:42.780 Where you almost look at them as objects, not human beings, to be able to kill them in the manner that he's killing them.

01:36:49.160 Which in his case, he used to strangle them with ropes or drown them.

01:36:53.360 And he ended up putting them in the crawl space of his house.

01:36:56.220 And if you guys want to watch that podcast and get more details, check it out.

01:36:59.100 I did like a really in-depth breakdown on John Wayne Gacy, a.k.a. The Killer Clown.

01:37:03.160 And his victims were men.

01:37:05.160 He was a sick bastard that had very homosexual tendencies. 0.98

01:37:09.540 Begged for their lives.

01:37:10.880 He didn't care.

01:37:12.300 They meant nothing to you.

01:37:13.320 You never felt one thing for these women.

01:37:15.240 No, I didn't.

01:37:17.140 No.

01:37:18.900 Didn't feel one thing for them.

01:37:21.020 Ridgway put sex workers into a category.

01:37:24.240 They were worthless.

01:37:25.020 There was no reason to have any empathy for them because they were society's throwaways.

01:37:30.840 When I killed him, that's what got him in my gratification.

01:37:33.500 I killed him.

01:37:34.260 He was kill, kill, kill.

01:37:36.080 I think that's normal hearing.

01:37:38.160 It's not normal, no.

01:37:39.980 All he cared about was the pleasure and the power that he got from killing them.

01:37:45.220 And then they were just like objects to be used and trash to be discarded when he was done with them.

01:37:51.240 Investigators continue probing Ridgway's mind, hoping to discover what turned him into one of the most prolific serial killers in history.

01:38:00.580 He cites his experience with sex workers while stationed in the Philippines during the Vietnam War as part of his motivation.

01:38:10.060 So this was your first experience?

01:38:12.980 This was my first experience.

01:38:14.620 Did you catch any diseases?

01:38:16.660 Yeah, I caught three to four times different kind of venereal disease.

01:38:25.380 Holy!

01:38:26.360 Boom, buka! 0.97

01:38:27.300 This guy was banging them raw?

01:38:28.340 Well, I mean, I guess when you're out here committing murders, you're not really too concerned with your sexual health, I guess.

01:38:37.760 My man out here doing all kinds of crazy shit.

01:38:40.920 Ridgway 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.

01:38:51.240 Did you love her?

01:38:52.160 I loved her, yeah.

01:38:52.840 Man, 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.

01:39:04.260 In the book, I talk about not being a simp, not letting women control your destiny. 0.99

01:39:08.720 And 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.

01:39:19.900 If she doesn't want to be with you, it's fine.

01:39:21.980 Go get another girl, replace her, and that actually makes you more attractive because she might want to come back. 1.00

01:39:25.480 When you're over here raging because you lost a girl or whatever, that's when issues arise, okay?

01:39:30.720 This is what happens when you can't control your emotions.

01:39:33.240 Gary 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.

01:39:42.860 Maybe they go into dealing with prostitutes. 1.00

01:39:44.600 Maybe they go into RP rage.

01:39:45.880 Maybe 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. 1.00

01:39:55.280 I hated her when we got divorced. 1.00

01:39:58.100 Because you wanted to stay together.

01:39:59.280 Yeah.

01:39:59.860 Wanted to stay together, have a family.

01:40:01.820 Were you mad?

01:40:02.860 Yeah, I was mad.

01:40:06.640 You don't get mad.

01:40:07.820 You just accept reality.

01:40:09.180 She don't like you no more.

01:40:10.220 Obviously, you're going to be sad, but you move on.

01:40:13.420 And this guy couldn't move on, and he ended up.

01:40:15.880 Committing a whole bunch of heinous crimes because of it.

01:40:19.600 There's a misunderstanding that psychopaths have no emotion.

01:40:22.900 They have a lot of emotions.

01:40:24.480 Anger.

01:40:28.360 Arrogance.

01:40:29.120 They certainly can develop relationships.

01:40:31.860 How deep do their emotions go?

01:40:33.520 How deep their feelings go to their kids?

01:40:35.220 We don't know.

01:40:35.740 Tell me when you first started having fantasies about hurting prostitutes.

01:40:44.460 I'm saying right after the separation and divorce of Marsha.

01:40:50.840 These women have nothing to do with your ex-wife. 1.00

01:40:53.340 Why?

01:40:53.520 Well, they were my scapegoat.

01:40:55.980 I couldn't kill my ex-wife.

01:40:58.160 I couldn't kill...

01:40:58.840 You'd get caught.

01:40:59.980 I was going to get caught.

01:41:01.360 I could kill a prostitute and have a lot less chance of getting caught. 1.00

01:41:06.820 Ridgway also claims that meeting Judith Mawson, his current wife, in 1985, curbed his urge

01:41:15.500 to kill.

01:41:16.060 There was definitely something about Judith that tapped into some tiny bit of humanity

01:41:39.040 in Gary.

01:41:40.120 Gary told me in an interview that he loved Judith, and he thought she was the best woman

01:41:49.120 for him.

01:41:50.440 And he even told me that if he had met her earlier, maybe he wouldn't have killed as

01:41:56.320 many women. 0.99

01:41:57.180 I asked Judith over and over and over, did you ever witness Gary losing his temper?

01:42:04.160 Did he mistreat you?

01:42:05.420 And she said, Penny, being married to Gary was the absolute best time of my life.

01:42:11.540 He never mistreated me.

01:42:13.240 It was completely unbelievable to her that the other Gary...

01:42:16.520 Because he was mistreating all these other crazy-ass chicks, man. 0.80

01:42:19.260 That's why.

01:42:20.260 Boom, Bokka! 1.00

01:42:24.180 Guys, this is why the RP is important, so you don't end up like this guy.

01:42:27.840 He existed.

01:42:30.520 Judith wouldn't see any signs, because what signs would we be looking for?

01:42:35.060 He's not psychotic.

01:42:36.520 Most of the signs are things that we get out of serial killer fiction and film.

01:42:43.100 Those are not signs in ordinary relationships.

01:42:47.400 Gary was incredibly successful at convincing the world that he was Ned Flanders, that he was

01:42:53.880 completely harmless, that he was just a nice guy and a good family man.

01:42:58.780 And how did he keep his shit together?

01:43:02.040 How did he keep himself so hidden during those times, going back to his wife and coming to work

01:43:11.300 and talking with us?

01:43:15.060 I'm thinking he was in a battle.

01:43:17.120 He's in a battle for good and evil.

01:43:20.200 And evil usually won.

01:43:21.960 Gary also confirms fellow serial killer Ted Bundy's shocking prediction to police.

01:43:34.540 He had, in fact, returned to some of his victims' corpses.

01:43:38.180 All right, so then you said, you know, you like to go back and have sex.

01:43:47.040 You know, you wanted to have them so you could have kind of like a collection of bodies that

01:43:51.060 you could go have sex with. 0.82

01:43:52.620 And then you said, but I didn't really go back and have sex with all that.

01:43:55.980 No, no, I think I counted 11 out of them.

01:43:59.620 I had sex with them afterwards.

01:44:01.260 Necrophilia is all about power and control, which is all Gary was seeking his entire life.

01:44:08.920 And if you have sex with a live human, they can say no.

01:44:12.580 They can reject you.

01:44:13.940 A dead body can't do that.

01:44:15.520 He had ownership and control over those women.

01:44:18.460 Ridgeway admits that his desire to kill quickly became an urge he simply could not control.

01:44:24.220 I just loved killing women. 1.00

01:44:25.300 When I started killing, I just kept on killing.

01:44:28.980 And wanted sex and it was easy and didn't have no morals and events of that didn't, conscience

01:44:37.680 didn't stop me.

01:44:38.640 Killing women. 1.00

01:44:40.200 Bombocard! 1.00

01:44:41.680 Strangling women. 1.00

01:44:42.520 He was good at it and it was his career and he was proud of it.

01:44:46.160 He really thought he was the best serial killer out there.

01:44:50.680 Just when investigators think it can't get any worse, Ridgeway drops his biggest bombshell yet.

01:44:57.060 To help accomplish his unspeakable objectives, the evil father used the person closest to him, his son, Matthew.

01:45:07.540 Gary, from the outside, looked so normal that it was almost impossible to imagine that anything else could have been going on.

01:45:24.660 Yeah, why do you think you didn't have any conscience or laurels?

01:45:27.480 Do you think you were born without it?

01:45:34.140 I had consciousness back when I was younger, but after a while it started up and it didn't happen anymore.

01:45:40.320 What caused that?

01:45:42.960 I mean, I was in control of my life when I was out killing and there was nobody, nobody could tell me what to do.

01:45:51.820 You could just go out and kill one person and act pretty normal the next day.

01:45:59.300 Not only could Ridgeway control his two worlds, he could also merge them to achieve his unspeakable ends.

01:46:09.140 To appear less threatening, the father would occasionally take his young son Matthew with him to help lure his victims.

01:46:15.680 You killed one of the girls when Matthew was with you, right? 0.91

01:46:21.000 Yes, I did.

01:46:21.900 Now, some people would think...

01:46:23.400 Oh, wow.

01:46:24.020 A tactic that Ted Bundy also employed with the cast.

01:46:27.460 They do that to be more disarming.

01:46:29.600 That was kind of an unusual activity, right?

01:46:32.580 Mm-hmm.

01:46:33.300 What did you enjoy about doing it?

01:46:35.200 How did you feel any differently about killing one while Matthew was in the car with you?

01:46:39.500 I feel a little bit of remorse.

01:46:42.880 Matthew asked a few questions, but...

01:46:44.760 What did Matthew ask?

01:46:46.040 He asked me where the lady was and I said she's walking home.

01:46:49.120 Killing...

01:46:49.560 Wow.

01:46:50.220 Boom, bucka! 1.00

01:46:51.280 ...with Matthew by you.

01:46:53.580 That wasn't the right thing to do.

01:46:59.460 Detectives ask Gary what he would have done if Matthew had gotten out of the truck and seen him.

01:47:05.520 His response is chilling.

01:47:07.540 If he had observed you kill one of the women, would you have killed him?

01:47:15.800 No, probably not.

01:47:17.040 I don't know.

01:47:17.800 Possibly, though.

01:47:20.120 It's possible.

01:47:22.080 Would he have?

01:47:23.640 Boom, bucka! 1.00

01:47:24.840 Who knows?

01:47:25.500 But that he gave thought to that, that his ability to keep doing what he was doing was far more important than his son's life.

01:47:34.540 That tells me he doesn't have a deep sense of attachment to his son.

01:47:41.560 His son is expendable.

01:47:42.860 Mr. Ridgeway, the time has come for the final chapter of your reign of terror in our community.

01:47:55.820 Today has been a long time coming for the brutal murders that you committed.

01:47:59.760 One month after Ridgeway pleads guilty, he's sentenced to 48 consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.

01:48:08.400 They made sure that he would never, ever get out of prison.

01:48:14.720 They knew that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars.

01:48:19.680 During that hearing, several of the victim's family stand and condemn Ridgeway for his unconscionable actions.

01:48:27.180 Today is not about Gary Ridgeway, but about my sister, Cynthia Jean Hines, and the other 47 women whose lives he chose to take.

01:48:39.680 For the past 20-some-odd years, my family and I, our lives have been like a rollercoaster.

01:48:48.060 But today, that rollercoaster has ended.

01:48:51.640 She was just an immature teenager trying to find her way in life before it was snuffed out by Gary Ridgeway.

01:49:00.400 I will never forgive him for that. He's going to go to hell, and that's where he belongs.

01:49:08.240 I was only five when my mother died, and when my dad told me that she was never coming home.

01:49:15.740 I found out on Mother's Day.

01:49:19.640 Giselle was a wonderful, caring, loving young girl.

01:49:23.420 A few months after she disappeared, I received a phone call saying they found her body.

01:49:30.400 We miss her every day, and it will never stop.

01:49:39.940 Not a day goes by over these years that I haven't wondered what she would have become.

01:49:46.400 There are many things I would like to say about my sister Mary Meehan and the short life she had,

01:49:51.660 but I feel it would fall upon deaf ears from the one individual, Gary Ridgeway, who needs to hear it the most.

01:49:57.780 He doesn't care. He could care less.

01:50:02.700 You've robbed me of my oldest sister.

01:50:06.140 You robbed my son of his auntie.

01:50:08.980 You offered her a ride and persuaded her to get into your car.

01:50:13.140 May God have no mercy on your soul.

01:50:16.300 You are, in one word, evil.

01:50:17.560 I heard that she struggled for her life.

01:50:22.300 And I told my mom, I said, how am I supposed to live knowing that?

01:50:25.640 How am I supposed to go through this life knowing that in my mind?

01:50:29.020 It was devastating to listen to.

01:50:31.440 Yeah, guys, and these are the victim impact statements.

01:50:35.060 Victim impact statements are typically read on the day that the individual is sentenced or right before their sentence.

01:50:42.180 And basically, it plays a huge role in the judge taking all of the facts and factors of the case and imposing a sentence on an individual.

01:50:49.520 So they get the impact statements.

01:50:53.540 Judge 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.

01:51:01.100 And that's when they come back with their judgment.

01:51:04.540 But 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.

01:51:13.680 Impact statements were obviously emotional.

01:51:17.140 There were moments where it almost appeared that Gary Ridgway himself was getting emotional about some of these victims.

01:51:24.440 I'm sorry for killing these ladies. 1.00

01:51:28.120 They had their whole lives ahead of themselves, ahead of them.

01:51:33.320 I'm sorry for causing...

01:51:35.220 He's not sorry, he's just sorry he got caught.

01:51:37.240 ...pressing so much pain to so many families.

01:51:40.640 One of the moments that really struck me was the father who told Ridgway, I forgive you.

01:51:51.560 Mr. Ridgway, there are people here that hate you.

01:51:59.920 I'm not one of them.

01:52:06.340 I forgive you for what you've done.

01:52:16.340 You've made it difficult to live up to what I believe.

01:52:23.700 And that is what God says to do, and that's to forgive.

01:52:31.020 And he doesn't say to forgive just certain people.

01:52:35.860 He says to forgive all.

01:52:38.300 I know you guys are probably wondering, why does he have those rainbow suspenders?

01:52:40.640 I don't...

01:52:41.180 If he's referring to God, this is back in the early 2000s.

01:52:44.500 I don't think he plays for the other team, if you know what I'm saying.

01:52:46.920 He ain't!

01:52:47.400 I think maybe this is just some kind of strange fashion sense.

01:52:50.600 He doesn't come off as playing for the other team for me.

01:52:53.000 But I want you guys to see Ridgway's response to this.

01:52:57.120 So you are forgiven, sir.

01:52:59.860 And seeing Ridgway actually have an emotional reaction to that.

01:53:04.080 I think that was profound.

01:53:06.860 Yeah, because let's be honest here.

01:53:08.640 He probably...

01:53:10.260 He knew everyone was going to hate him.

01:53:12.100 So that's expected, right?

01:53:13.540 Like, yeah, everyone's going to hate me.

01:53:14.700 It is what it is.

01:53:15.300 I'm prepared for this.

01:53:16.040 I did something terrible.

01:53:17.820 But for someone to actually say,

01:53:19.620 what you did was terrible, but I forgive you.

01:53:22.860 Well, now you can't hide behind that, you know,

01:53:26.120 that barrier that you created and prepared yourself for

01:53:28.300 because you didn't expect someone to forgive you.

01:53:29.920 And I think that probably hurt him the most.

01:53:33.660 Gary was sort of forced in that moment to feel the weight of what he had done.

01:53:39.980 In looking at your life, it comes as no surprise

01:53:42.760 that you had such little disregard for the lives of your victims.

01:53:48.540 You violated the sanctity of every relationship in your life,

01:53:53.500 including your own son.

01:53:54.740 When he was of a tender age,

01:53:56.940 you even used his existence and presence

01:53:59.860 as a means to gain the confidence of your victims.

01:54:07.460 In the years since Ridgway's conviction,

01:54:10.340 other skeletal remains have been found in wooded areas surrounding Seattle.

01:54:15.700 Some believe they are Ridgway's additional victims.

01:54:18.920 I don't know if we'll ever know the exact magnitude of Gary Ridgway's kills.

01:54:26.640 He was put away for 48.

01:54:29.240 He confessed to upwards of 75.

01:54:32.320 My instinct is to believe that that's true.

01:54:34.480 But that's something that we just may never get the answer to.

01:54:37.260 I'm sure there are certain places where more victims of his are,

01:54:41.980 but he kept those to himself as his little secret,

01:54:45.000 something to hold on to as he sits in his cell for the rest of his life,

01:54:48.280 knowing his precious property is out there,

01:54:50.780 not being disturbed by law enforcement or human hands of any kind.

01:54:55.640 Whatever secrets Gary Ridgway still has,

01:54:58.840 he will likely take to his grave.

01:55:00.820 The 73-year-old serial killer continues serving

01:55:05.240 his life sentence in solitary confinement

01:55:10.940 at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

01:55:15.500 Not much is known about his son Matthew or his wife Marcia.

01:55:20.740 Both avoid the public spotlight.

01:55:24.800 And Gary's third wife, Judith,

01:55:26.600 has changed her name and lives in an undisclosed location.

01:55:31.820 All because of the sins of the father.

01:55:35.100 This was your life, right?

01:55:36.400 You were the Green River Killer.

01:55:37.960 I don't know how I'd get it out of my head to get it to you.

01:55:42.460 It didn't mean anything to me.

01:55:44.420 Just killing him and get rid of him. 1.00

01:55:51.700 But I know as you walk out of this courtroom,

01:55:53.700 at the end of the day,

01:55:55.600 after Mr. Ridgway has been sentenced and gone,

01:55:58.240 I know that your heart will still be heavy for sorrow.

01:56:03.020 I ask you to remember those 48 young women

01:56:06.580 as people who had unexplored dreams,

01:56:10.340 hopes, aspirations,

01:56:12.740 and families that loved them deeply.

01:56:15.740 Hold on to those memories.

01:56:17.980 Cherish those memories

01:56:18.980 and try to abandon the others.

01:56:24.200 Mr. Ridgway, I trust that your lawyers

01:56:25.980 have shared with you the letters

01:56:27.320 written by the victim families.

01:56:30.780 I hope you read those letters

01:56:32.680 and I hope you heard the message

01:56:34.800 of their families

01:56:35.900 as they poured out their emotions

01:56:37.840 then and today,

01:56:39.700 describing the young victims

01:56:41.280 as real persons.

01:56:43.260 Real persons who are loved

01:56:44.920 and had lives in front of them.

01:56:49.040 While you could not face them

01:56:50.500 as you took their lives,

01:56:52.060 if you have a drop of emotion

01:56:54.000 anywhere in your existence,

01:56:56.840 you will face those young women 0.99

01:56:58.660 in your dreams

01:56:59.800 and private thoughts

01:57:02.540 of your grisly deeds.

01:57:05.840 And sir,

01:57:06.400 if you have that drop of emotion,

01:57:08.860 you will be haunted

01:57:10.340 for the balance of your life.

01:57:12.200 Thank you.

01:57:14.920 Recipes to all those women, right? 0.95

01:57:23.560 No one is perfect,

01:57:24.660 but no one deserves to die

01:57:25.720 in that gruesome of a fashion.

01:57:27.820 And, you know,

01:57:28.520 obviously your boy Gary Ridgway

01:57:29.620 is a...

01:57:31.340 BUMBOKA! 1.00

01:57:32.100 All right, guys.

01:57:41.960 That is the Green River Killer,

01:57:44.940 a.k.a. Gary Ridgway.

01:57:46.560 Hope you guys enjoyed that podcast.

01:57:48.280 I know there were some graphic moments in it,

01:57:50.440 but hey, you know,

01:57:51.500 this is what happens

01:57:52.500 with these serial killers, man.

01:57:53.740 And you guys tend to love this content.

01:57:55.280 So, you know,

01:57:56.600 this has been another episode

01:57:57.740 of Fed1811,

01:57:58.980 breaking down your favorite criminal cases, guys.

01:58:01.160 Don't forget to like the video,

01:58:02.680 subscribe to the channel,

01:58:04.160 and I'll catch you guys

01:58:05.100 on the next episode.

01:58:07.120 Peace.

01:58:07.560 I was a special agent

01:58:11.220 with Homeland Security Investigations,

01:58:12.240 okay, guys?

01:58:13.020 HSI.

01:58:13.620 The cases that I did mostly were

01:58:15.020 human smuggling

01:58:16.060 and drug trafficking.

01:58:18.700 No one else has these documents,

01:58:20.660 by the way.

01:58:21.020 Here's what Fed it covers.

01:58:22.740 Dr. Lafredo confirmed

01:58:24.280 lacerations

01:58:25.520 due to stepping on glass.

01:58:28.920 Murder investigations.

01:58:29.980 You see him reaching in his jacket.

01:58:31.040 You don't know...

01:58:32.080 And he's positioning...

01:58:32.880 It's been on February 13th, 2019.

01:58:34.600 You're facing two counts

01:58:35.740 of two meditative murders.

01:58:37.800 Racketeering

01:58:38.200 and Rico conspiracies.

01:58:39.560 Young slime life

01:58:40.300 here and after

01:58:40.920 referred to as YSL.

01:58:42.120 This is 6'9".

The Debrief With MyronGainesX - March 05, 2023

Fed Explains The Green River Killer w⧸ 49 Murders!

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