Gary Ridgway

Get new episodes + exclusive court documents delivered. Free to follow, $5/mo for case files. On November 5, 2003, Gary Leon Ridgway stood in King County Superior Court and pleaded guilty to murdering 48 women. One by one, he said the word “guilty” forty-eight times. At that moment, the 54-year-old truck painter from Kent, Washington became the most prolific serial killer in American history. He had evaded capture for over two decades while working at the same job, living in the same area, and killing women along a stretch of highway locals called the Sea-Tac Strip. On July 15, 1982, two teenage boys discovered the body of 16-year-old Wendy Lee Coffield floating in the Green River between Kent and Tukwila, Washington. Within a month, four more bodies appeared on the riverbank: Debra Lynn Bonner, Marcia Faye Chapman, Opal Charmaine Mills, and Cynthia Jean Hinds. King County Police launched the Green River Task Force in August 1982. At its peak, the task force included over 50 full-time personnel conducting one of the longest serial murder investigations in U.S. history. The bodies kept appearing. By 1984, more than 40 murders had been attributed to the Green River Killer. The victims were predominantly women involved in prostitution along Pacific Highway South, ranging in age from 15 to 38. Four victims remained unidentified at the time of the plea and were referred to only as Jane Doe B-10, B-16, B-17, and B-20. Gary Ridgway first appeared on the suspect list in 1983 because he frequently picked up prostitutes along Pacific Highway South. Investigators questioned him, but could not definitively connect him to any victims. In 1987, police collected a saliva sample from Ridgway for DNA analysis. The technology of the time, however, was not advanced enough to make a conclusive match. For the next fourteen years, Ridgway continued his life. He went to work at Kenworth Truck Company, where he painted trucks. He married his third wife. He attended church. And according to his own confession, he continued killing until 1998. The breakthrough came in November 2001. Advances in DNA technology finally allowed investigators to match Ridgway’s 1987 saliva sample to DNA evidence found on four early victims: Marcia Chapman, Opal Mills, Cynthia Hinds, and Carol Ann Christensen. On November 30, 2001, nearly twenty years after the first body surfaced, police arrested Gary Leon Ridgway. In his Statement of Defendant on Plea of Guilty, filed in King County Superior Court Case No. 01-1-10270-9 SEA, Ridgway provided a detailed account of his crimes. The document reveals the methodical nature of his killing: “I killed the forty-eight (48) women listed in the State’s second amended information. In most cases, when I murdered these women, I did not know their names. Most of the time, I killed them the first time I met them and I do not have a good memory for their faces. I killed so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight.” He described his method of disposing the bodies: “Another part of my plan was where I put the bodies of these women. Most of the time I took the women’s jewelry and their clothes to get rid of any evidence and make them harder to identify. I placed most of the bodies in groups, which I call ‘clusters.’ I liked to drive by the ‘clusters’ around the county and think about the women I placed there.” The case against Ridgway promised to be the most complex trial in U.S. history. Prosecutors faced a difficult choice. They had DNA evidence linking Ridgway to some murders, but dozens of victims remained unidentified or unlocated. Many families had spent two decades not knowing what happened to their daughters, sisters, and mothers. King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng offered a deal: In exchange for not seeking the death penalty, Ridgway would plead guilty to every murder he committed in King County, provide complete truthful information about his crimes, help locate victims’ remains, and answer all questions during