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Gary Leon Ridgway is America’s second most prolific serial killer in United States history. He has confessed to killing 71 innocent girls and women across the state of Washington between the 1980’s and 1990’s. 

Ridgway prayed on local runaways and sex workers in the Seattle and Tacoma, Washington area. He was known to allure girls into his car by showing them a picture of his son to gain trust. Once his victim was inside the car, he would strangle the girls and dump their bodies along the densely wooded area of Green River. This is where he gained the nickname the “Green River Killer”

Ridgway would return to the dump sites, often days or weeks after the murders, and have sexual intercourse and pose the bodies. He targeted sex workers and runaways believing that his victims wouldn’t have families searching for them and the police were hesitant to investigate these types of cases.

By the early 1980’s, the police established the Green River Killer task force in response to the increase in murders along the Green River. Two of the task members were Robert Keppel and Dave Reinchert, two investigators who previously interviewed the notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy. Detective Keppel and Detective Reinchert sat back down with Bundy to gain his opinion on who he thought the Green River Killer might be.

Bundy provided police his personal opinions on the psychology, motivations, and behavior of who the Green River Killer would be. He told police that if they wanted to find and arrest their suspect, they should stake out the dump sites because the killer was likely returning to the sites himself. Sure enough, Ted Bundy was spot on with his criminal profile of Ridgway. 

It wasn’t until 2001, that forensic scientists had the technology to compare DNA found at crime scenes to Ridgway’s DNA. This new DNA testing method used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and the short tandem repeat (STR) test to compare repeated patterns of DNA. 

Finally, after nearly 14 years, police were able to match Ridgway to several murders. 

The Green River Killer accepted a plea deal from the prosecutor to plead guilty in exchange for not seeking the death penalty. He pled guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 48 life sentences with no possibility of parole, and another life sentenced to be served consecutively. He was also sentenced to an additional 10 years for tampering with evidence for each of the 48 victims, adding 480 years to his sentence. The short version, he is never going to be a free man ever again.

Since Gary Ridgway has been locked up in federal prison, law enforcement has found 48 sets of remains believed to be his victims.