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Gary Leon Ridgeway
This case has frustrated law enforcement for going on twenty years.
As some of you may know, it was one of the big, seemingly impossible
cases I was working when I became overloaded and ended up in a coma
almost as many years ago.
Gary Leon Ridgeway and I just missed each other. I started back
to work at Quantico right about when he volunteered himself to
police as a potential witness. I never encountered Ridgeway, and
even though the DNA tests on his saliva indicate a match with
the semen found in four of the victims, I should stress that we
should all keep in mind that he's been arrested but not convicted.
I know a lot of you are wondering how the authorities let him slip
between their fingers for so long, since there are so many factors
pointing to him as a suspect. But it is an insanely large, complicated,
unwieldy case undertaken before everyone had a computer and long before
the internet. There were a lot of leads that went nowhere, a lot of
interviews. He passed a polygraph test, a test which was later deemed
inconclusive, and some three years later when they revisited him as
a serious suspect and searched his house, there didn't seem to be
any physical evidence to link him with the murders.
The "Lie Detector"
In my experience, if itís a prime suspect in a serial murder investigation,
his polygraph is almost always inconclusive. Guys who feel no guilt,
the sort who think they're doing the world a favor by killing prostitutes
even though they hire them for themselves, have little trouble lying
and passing.
To have any hope of success, the polygrapher has to have extraordinary
interview skills. He has to ask really good questions, sometimes right
out of the gate, before the suspect gets comfortableómaybe even before
a baseline reading is done, just to see what he might find out. And
when guys come in off the street, like Ridgeway did, it becomes more
complicated because you don't want to reveal too much about the investigation.
You have to be careful with your questions, and try to get a balance
between asking tough questions and revealing too much information.
The Original Profile
Regardless of his polygraph results, Ridgeway is now in custody. Investigators
have taken a backhoe and dug up the backyard of the home where Ridgeway
lived. I'm sure there will be updates daily, and I'll try to comment
when it's appropriate, when my experience with the case warrants it.
For now, I thought revisiting our original profile with Ridgeway in
mind would be worthwhile.
One thing we had to face was that our profile couldn't be that specific,
which supports the theory that there was more than one killer. We
put the age at late twenties to early thirties. The subject, we believed,
would be obsessive-compulsiveóyouíd expect to find that a search would
turn up jewelry or other items belonging to the victims. He wouldíve
kept something along the lines of a newspaper scrapbook, which he
may have well hidden. If Ridgeway's guilty, I would look for some
of these types of items to turn up eventually.
We also said the subject wouldíve been consumed with the investigation
and obsessed with prostitution, discussing the killings, criticizing
law enforcement, generally being overly concerned with the details
of the case and the scourge he would've said prostitution had become
in the area. He would've had a sense of moral outrage and self- righteousness
about it all, arising from a professed deep religious fervor.
From what I've heard, these all fit Ridgeway, who was apparently going
around his neighborhood trying to stir up neighbors about getting
rid of the prostitutes who were often with clients in cars near Ridgeway's
home. Not only did he talk about prostitutes, he frequented them,
and told authorities as much. He regarded prostitutes as objects,
not people. As inconsistent as it may seem, during this time he also
went through an intense, lengthy evangelical phase.
We believed the killer would be physically capable—a fairly strong
man who was good with his hands. Ridgeway fits this description. According
to The Seattle Times, which is probably the best source for information
on the Green River Killer, a prostitute and an ex-wife each describe
having been placed in a "police-type choke hold" by him.
We thought the killer would be familiar and comfortable with the sites
where the bodies were dumped. Remember, at first we had bodies found
in or near the water, which is where the name the "Green River Killer"
came from. They were either in the water or on the bank. Those who
were found in the water had been weighted down by rocks. One of the
signatures of those killings was that there was a pyramid-shaped rock
inserted into several of the victims' vaginas. To me, this wasn't
about making sure their bodies stayed underwater; it was symbolic,
a type of degradation and judgement on the women.
But then bodies were found covered with leaves and other local debris,
away from the water, in areas that partially functioned as illegal
dump sites. Either the subject had changed his M.O., decidedly or
for reasons of access and opportunity, or there was more than one
killer.
We've heard Ridgeway liked to scavenge in areas that were dump sites
for bodies, looking for discarded treasures, bits of garbage that
might be of value or interest to him. Some of the areas were places
people fished and picnicked, and apparently Ridgeway would take his
wife on walks and picnics in some of those very places. The Seattle
Times reports that a King county affidavit indicates former wives
and girlfriends of Ridgeway's, as well as prostitutes he hired, told
detectives he like to have sex outside, "including at or near many
sites where victims' remains were found."
Early on, one of our suggestions to the Task Force was to publicize
when and where victims had been found and where theyíd been buried,
believing that even if he had no remorse the killer would go to gravesites
to look over his ìaccomplishments.î We also suggested they stake out
the areas where bodies had been disposed of.
I think it would've worked, but the problem with a big, frightening
unsolved case like this is the media really watches the investigation,
for better or worse, and in this case they would be right on top of
the guys on stake-outs. There would be helicopters and film crews;
news and footage of the surveillance would be on the nightly news.
No serial killer smart enough to still be on the loose is going to
walk into a situation like that, no matter how much he wants to relive
his fantasy.
The "Dead or in Prison" Theory
You've probably heard that profilers told the Task Force sometime
in the late eighties that since the killings seemed to have ended,
the killer must have either died or become incarcerated.
The theory is that serial killers can't stop. I understand what's
at the heart of that theory, and that central idea is trueóserial
killers don't turn into model citizens, they don't stop being killers.
It's always inside them, and they ultimately aren't able to resist.
However, that is not the same thing as saying a serial killer will
never choose to stop killing for a while. These guys all make
choices. They're very methodical about what they do. Their fantasies
are elaborate. They're not spree killers. These are cold, thinking,
often extremely intelligent men who make plans.
After the crime they have memories. To them theyíre good memories.
The fantasy is better than the reality, and you canít take the fantasy
or the memories away. They always have that to relive, to think about.
If the authorities get too close and a killer decides to suspend killing
for a while, "lay low" so to speak, all he has to do is turn on the
VCR in his brain. When you get one of these guys to talk about their
crimes, they’re very specific. They remember the finest, most minute
details of the crime because theyíve relived it over and over, and
they remember everything: the dialogue and the setting, noises, smells,
a telephone ringing.
If they donít have the urge to get caught, they can also become mobile,
find victims in another area of the country. We don't have a compulsory
national computer system for violent crime. It's one of the biggest
challenges to law enforcement today, and I take every chance to mention
it. A killer on the move could pass though hundreds of jurisdictions,
finding victims in a small town then crossing a couple of state lines
before he selects another, and the departments in those places might
never connect the crimes. Canada has a great system, and I think we
should imitate it.
Whoever the Green River Killer may be, whether it's one person or
several, I don't think the killings stopped (or seemed to) because
someone was dead or in prison. I suspect, and always did, that investigators
got a little too close, but not quite close enough. I was one of those
investigators, and I will always feel the guilt and frustration of
not being able to help bring anyone to justice.
Innocent Until...
Gary Leon Ridgeway may be our man. But he might not turn out to be
a Green River Killer, let alone the Green River Killer. I can't
say or even speculate on whether he's guilty; only a jury can. I can
only offer some insights from my days on the case, and hope it's of
value to you as observers of the investigation. |
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