Utah native and serial killer Gary Ridgway worked for thirty years painting trucks and was married three times. He started killing women in 1982, and in 2001, a DNA test resulted in a match, leading to his capture. According to Ridgway, he killed between seventy-five and eighty women along Route 99 in south King County, Washington. In the end, he entered a guilty plea to 49 counts of aggravated first-degree murder. He was given numerous life sentences, all of which are still serving out their terms in jail.
Early Life
On February 18, 1949, Gary Leon Ridgway was born in Salt Lake City. Raised in a low-income area close to SeaTac airport and the Pacific Highway in Seattle, Ridgway struggled academically and was sent to Vietnam after high school. Upon his return, he secured employment painting trucks, a position he held for three decades. Despite his strict religious beliefs and three marriages, Ridgway frequently patronized prostitutes.
Green River Killings
When teenage fugitives and prostitutes started to vanish off state Route 99 in south King County, Washington, in 1982, Ridgway’s killing spree started. Many of them he took to his house, where he strangled them before abandoning them in secluded, forested areas. The first several corpses were discovered along the now-famous Green River.
Dubbed the Green River Killer, Ridgway escaped prosecution until 2001, when the initial officer assigned to the case in 1982, King County sheriff Dave Reichert, requested a meeting to reexamine the evidence with the use of recently obtained DNA testing technology. When the evidence from the victims and Ridgway matched, the analysis resulted in charges of four counts of aggravated murder against Ridgway in December 2001. In the end, Ridgway entered a guilty plea to 49 charges of first-degree aggravated murder.
Multiple Life Sentences
In order to avoid being put to death, Ridgway struck a deal with the authorities in which he would admit to hiding the bodies of some of the young ladies whose whereabouts were still unknown in exchange for a guilty plea in any subsequent instances in which the evidence supporting his confession could be shown. In December 2003, he was given a life term in jail, having killed more people than any other serial killer in American history. At the moment, Ridgway is a prisoner at Washington State Penitentiary.
In 2011, a second body was discovered, and Ridgway was given a second life sentence. When Ridgway stated in a 2013 media interview that he had killed between 75 and 80 women, there were rumors that he was lying or just trying to get attention.
Recently Identified Victims
In 2020, police identified 14-year-old Wendy Stephens as Ridgway’s youngest known victim. Stephens had run away from home in August 1983, and her remains were recovered from a swamp behind a baseball field the following year.
Three years later, in December 2023, the King County Sheriff’s Office in Washington announced it had identified another victim through DNA technology: Lori Anne Razpotnik, who ran away from home at age 15 in 1982 and was never seen again. Her remains were discovered in 1985 and became known as “Bones 17” during the investigation. Ridgway admitted in 2002 that he placed two of his victims in the area where Razpotnik was found.