00:00:02
he's accused of four homicides linked to
00:00:05
one of the country's most mysterious
00:00:07
multiple murder cases it became the
00:00:10
worst unsolved serial killing in
00:00:12
American history I did try to warn her
00:00:15
with your hitchhiking this could happen
00:00:17
to you after 20 years and 49 dead women
00:00:21
a puzzle that has long haunted Seattle
00:00:23
May soon be solved everywhere I go
00:00:26
around this County I can count the
00:00:28
victims as Gary neon Ridgeway awaits
00:00:31
trial for murder police work feverishly
00:00:33
to prove that he is the Green River
00:00:36
Killer he don't deserve police from now
00:00:39
until everybody presently living dies
00:00:41
the name of Ridgeway is going to ring a
00:00:44
certain Bell in a lot of Mines next on
00:00:47
Mugshots Gary Ridgeway and the Green
00:00:50
River
00:00:53
[Music]
00:00:58
Murders
00:01:02
[Music]
00:01:27
on July 15th 198 2 two young boys
00:01:31
bicycled across the narrow maker bridge
00:01:34
over the Green River in the Seattle
00:01:36
suburb of Kent they paused to look down
00:01:39
into the
00:01:40
water there caught on a branch they saw
00:01:43
the floating body of 16-year-old Wendy
00:01:47
kield on August 12th a worker at a
00:01:50
cattle slaughter house on the banks of
00:01:52
the Green River discovered the body of
00:01:54
Deborah
00:01:56
boner that same day 16-year-old opal mil
00:02:00
called her parents from a phone booth in
00:02:01
a park on Pacific Highway south then she
00:02:06
[Music]
00:02:08
disappeared everything
00:02:10
just went crazy
00:02:13
um you know your child is gone where do
00:02:16
you look for
00:02:17
him she My Baby
00:02:20
Girl Detective Dave rer of the King
00:02:23
County Sheriff's Office was the lead
00:02:25
investigator on the murders 3 days later
00:02:28
on August 15th two more bodies were
00:02:31
found and uh during that uh scene
00:02:35
processing I found another body on the
00:02:37
river bank and on Monday morning on
00:02:40
August 16th we knew we had uh we
00:02:42
probably had a serial
00:02:46
killer the autopsies determined that all
00:02:49
three women had been strangled and
00:02:51
sexually
00:02:53
assaulted but police were only able to
00:02:55
identify one of them Mara Fay Chapman
00:02:59
their 31 a prostitute and mother of
00:03:01
three small children had been in the
00:03:03
water longer than a week she had last
00:03:06
been seen 2 weeks earlier on Pacific
00:03:08
Highway South they all had prostitution
00:03:11
arrests or at least frequented
00:03:12
prostitution areas and we were beginning
00:03:15
to prepare ourselves and put a team
00:03:16
together to uh investigate these series
00:03:19
of murders that afternoon Riker's boss
00:03:22
major Richard crasy gathered 25
00:03:24
detectives from surrounding
00:03:26
jurisdictions to compare notes and
00:03:27
exchange theories when uh it was
00:03:30
realized that a serial killer was
00:03:31
working here essentially Seattle was uh
00:03:34
pretty much shocked over it I mean five
00:03:36
young ladies in the river uh caused a
00:03:38
panic detectives hit the streets with
00:03:40
photos to try to identify the other two
00:03:42
women and within a week names were put
00:03:45
to the faces the first 17-year-old
00:03:48
Cynthia cookie Hines had been in the
00:03:50
water 3 days she had been last seen four
00:03:53
nights earlier at a convenience store on
00:03:55
a section of Pacific Highway South known
00:03:58
as the strip
00:04:00
the other victim that detective rard
00:04:02
found on the riverbank was opal Mills
00:04:05
her best friend called one day and said
00:04:07
uh maybe you should read the paper and
00:04:10
see who this is It's says a girl with
00:04:14
red
00:04:15
hair and an opal head dyed her hair red
00:04:19
um a dark red and so when I saw
00:04:24
that I guess that's the moment I knew
00:04:27
that it was
00:04:28
her
00:04:31
she was strangled I know she wore a
00:04:33
scarf
00:04:35
sometimes and I felt for years like it
00:04:38
was I I quit wearing scarves because I
00:04:41
felt like um it was my scarf that did
00:04:54
[Music]
00:04:56
it the search for the Green River Killer
00:04:59
would now focus on the Strip a 10m
00:05:01
stretch of highway south of Seattle
00:05:04
studded with motels fast food joints
00:05:07
honky ton saloons and a topless
00:05:10
bar it was at best a smaller version of
00:05:15
maybe Spanish Harlem
00:05:18
and Time Square put together on a bad
00:05:22
night in each neighborhood retired cab
00:05:25
driver Melvin Foster used to drive on
00:05:27
the
00:05:28
strip
00:05:30
there was a zoo with the cages open and
00:05:31
the Animals running
00:05:33
wild you could drive down Pacific
00:05:36
Highway uh uh South and essentially uh
00:05:39
see women sashan blowing kisses at you
00:05:43
um if you stopped at a stoplight uh they
00:05:45
would sit on the hood of your car police
00:05:48
received many tips from the public and
00:05:50
more missing persons reports were filed
00:05:52
about other
00:05:53
prostitutes but investigators soon
00:05:55
learned that the unstable lifestyles of
00:05:58
these women made it very difficult ult
00:05:59
to know if they were really missing they
00:06:01
would move on to Vancouver British
00:06:03
Columbia or Portland Oregon or
00:06:05
Sacramento or San Francisco or Las Vegas
00:06:08
they were const they were on this kind
00:06:09
of circuit and uh so it was very
00:06:13
difficult for people to understand the
00:06:15
the milu in which all these people were
00:06:17
last seen most of the victims had uh 5 6
00:06:21
8 9 10 12 15 different names U some with
00:06:25
last names some without some nicknames
00:06:28
several different birth dates
00:06:31
descriptions varied uh they would dye
00:06:33
their hair different colors change their
00:06:36
addresses King County investigators sent
00:06:39
crime scene evidence from the Green
00:06:40
River Murders to the FBI's Behavioral
00:06:43
Sciences unit at quano Virginia the FBI
00:06:46
worked up a psychological profile of the
00:06:48
killer what they find at these crime
00:06:50
scenes seems to suggest that he's not
00:06:52
planning to do this ahead of time he's
00:06:54
not going out into the night with the
00:06:56
rape or murder kit like you often times
00:06:59
find he's done something on the spur of
00:07:01
the moment that seems to suggest that
00:07:03
there might be something in the
00:07:04
interaction between the Killer and the
00:07:07
victim something verbal or maybe even
00:07:09
nonverbal that seems to set him off in
00:07:12
some fashion then in September the body
00:07:16
of a sixth prostitute was found she had
00:07:18
been strangled like the
00:07:21
others Taxi Driver Melvin Foster would
00:07:24
provide police with an intriguing
00:07:28
tip
00:07:30
I've seen some of these girls I've seen
00:07:32
them downtown I've carried them a time
00:07:33
or two in the cab and I was asking
00:07:36
myself why would anyone want to hurt
00:07:38
these girls they're out there trying to
00:07:40
make a living and wait for better times
00:07:41
to get there then I got to thinking I
00:07:44
know somebody that needs taken down
00:07:48
because I knew him to be working a
00:07:49
14-year-old runaway out of the back of
00:07:51
his oldmobile station wagon working off
00:07:54
Foster's lead police questioned the man
00:07:56
with the Oldsmobile but after he passed
00:07:58
a polygraph T Test he was eliminated as
00:08:00
a
00:08:02
suspect before long police were more
00:08:04
interested in Melvin Foster and his
00:08:06
familiarity with so many of the
00:08:08
prostitutes he became the first serious
00:08:11
suspect they were looking for people who
00:08:13
had a lot of contact with him and uh and
00:08:15
they were looking for people who might
00:08:17
come forward with a tip because the
00:08:19
profile from the FBI said this person
00:08:21
might inject themselves in a case I went
00:08:24
to the cops and
00:08:28
u I guess I knew the streets a little
00:08:30
bit better than some of the vice comps
00:08:32
did because all of a sudden the major
00:08:34
crimes
00:08:35
unit that very
00:08:38
interested in
00:08:41
me on September 20th Foster was called
00:08:45
into the sheriff's office for
00:08:47
questioning after vehemently denying any
00:08:50
involvement in the murders he agreed to
00:08:52
take a polygraph test
00:08:54
immediately American polygraph
00:08:56
Association will tell you you have to
00:08:57
have a 90-minute interview
00:09:00
the two parties involved have to agree
00:09:02
to the language of all the questions
00:09:05
there were no control
00:09:08
questions and it was just right out of
00:09:09
the blue it just come in bang bang bang
00:09:12
and it it's hooked up and we're going
00:09:15
Foster failed the test I had a nervous
00:09:19
disorder come
00:09:22
up I'd have had to take a volume or
00:09:26
something to get past
00:09:28
it that would have flattened all the
00:09:31
gauges you know all their needles and
00:09:34
stuff would have just went
00:09:37
Flatline there was no way in this world
00:09:40
I could get past that exam Foster's Home
00:09:42
was searched but nothing was found to
00:09:45
tie him to the crimes he was placed
00:09:47
under 24-hour surveillance for the next
00:09:49
two months when we identified Melvin
00:09:52
Foster as a person of interest at that
00:09:54
time we worked hard on him we we had him
00:09:57
under surveillance we did some search
00:09:59
warrants and we found some things about
00:10:01
him that bothered us in late November
00:10:03
police searched Melvin Foster's Home a
00:10:05
second time but still found nothing
00:10:07
useful that there was after they took
00:10:10
the house apart on the second
00:10:12
search 7 hours for a while no new bodies
00:10:17
turned
00:10:18
up two months later major KY felt so
00:10:21
sure that Foster was their man and was
00:10:24
under such pressure to reduce costs he
00:10:26
agreed to disband the original task
00:10:28
force
00:10:29
all the investigators on the Green River
00:10:31
case except Dave rer were reassigned I
00:10:34
felt a little bit abandoned uh in late
00:10:38
1982 and through 1983 being left alone
00:10:41
with his cases by myself during the next
00:10:44
6 months missing persons reports
00:10:46
continued to pour
00:10:48
in then in May of 1983 the body of a
00:10:52
seventh victim 21-year-old Carol Anne
00:10:55
Christensen was found in a wooded area
00:10:57
in Maple Valley 15 15 m east of the
00:11:02
strip she had been last seen only 5 days
00:11:05
earlier leaving a Tavern where she
00:11:07
worked on Pacific Highway
00:11:09
South a week earlier 18-year-old
00:11:12
prostitute Marie malvar had disappeared
00:11:15
after getting into a pickup truck at a
00:11:17
bus stop on the Strip her friend
00:11:19
initially followed the vehicle but then
00:11:22
lost sight of
00:11:23
it 4 days later the friend went out
00:11:26
searching with malar's father they
00:11:29
search around and they find a truck that
00:11:31
is very similar to the one the boyfriend
00:11:32
saw at what turns out to be gar
00:11:35
ridgeway's house so they go down to Deo
00:11:37
police the De Moine Washington police
00:11:39
sent a detective to question Ridgeway
00:11:42
the way we understand it it was very
00:11:43
nonchalant well is there somebody in
00:11:45
here and no there's nobody in here okay
00:11:48
they had a very very good lead back then
00:11:50
and so then you have to start counting
00:11:52
the women who died after Marie malvar
00:11:54
and say wow that's a
00:11:57
travesty gar Ridgeway was a recently
00:12:00
divorced 34-year-old truck painter and
00:12:03
Outdoorsman this was the first time that
00:12:05
Ridgeway was directly questioned about
00:12:07
one of the Green River
00:12:09
victims with the task force disbanded
00:12:11
and with Melvin Foster considered the
00:12:13
prime suspect ridgeway's home and
00:12:15
vehicle were not even searched by the De
00:12:17
Moine police and detective Dave rer
00:12:20
wouldn't be informed of this incident
00:12:22
for 6
00:12:24
months meanwhile the FBI psychological
00:12:27
profile had the task force is focusing
00:12:29
hard on other suspects before coming
00:12:32
back to Gary
00:12:34
Ridgeway next on mug shots details of
00:12:38
ridgeway's past reveal intriguing Clues
00:12:41
to the mysterious
00:12:51
murders by the spring of 1983 the
00:12:54
investigation into the Green River
00:12:55
Murders had yielded suspects but no
00:12:58
arrest
00:13:00
seven women had been found strangled in
00:13:03
the area around Seattle's Green River
00:13:05
and the task force which had numbered 25
00:13:07
detectives was disbanded leaving the
00:13:10
case in the hands of a single
00:13:13
investigator in May when another
00:13:15
prostitute disappeared 34-year-old Gary
00:13:18
Leon Ridgeway was the last person seen
00:13:20
with her he was questioned by local
00:13:22
police and let
00:13:25
go but a closer look at his past
00:13:28
revealed a number of red
00:13:30
flags he was born on February 18th 1949
00:13:34
in Salt Lake City he moved with his
00:13:37
parents and two brothers to this house
00:13:39
in Seattle when he was
00:13:41
11 his father drove a bus on the strip
00:13:44
and friends say he used to complain
00:13:45
about the prostitutes on his
00:13:48
route his mother meanwhile was
00:13:51
domineering one friend recalls her
00:13:53
smashing a plate over the father's head
00:13:55
ridgeway's father meekly walked away
00:13:59
Ridgeway went to Tai High School where
00:14:02
Terry Rochelle was two grades ahead of
00:14:04
him one day my sister was walking home
00:14:06
from school and we had about a mile to
00:14:09
walk from the high school so she dropped
00:14:11
her books and and Gary was not far away
00:14:14
and he came and picked him up for her
00:14:16
and he says oh I'll just carry him home
00:14:17
for you and so he carried him all the
00:14:19
way to our house and she said she kind
00:14:21
of had a little crush on him after that
00:14:23
because she thought he was so nice but
00:14:25
Roselle does recall Ridgeway getting
00:14:28
into some trouble a bunch of us went
00:14:30
over to a dance hall and my brother went
00:14:33
along with me and so I guess he went in
00:14:36
the bathroom and he Gary said something
00:14:40
to him and my brother said just knock it
00:14:42
off and Gary turned around and peed on
00:14:44
my brother's leg and then my brother
00:14:46
knocked him down you know fight we all
00:14:49
got kicked
00:14:51
out after graduating high school at age
00:14:54
20 Ridgeway joined the Navy what people
00:14:57
will tell you about that kind kind of a
00:14:59
person is that he seemed so utterly
00:15:02
normal while stationed in San Diego he
00:15:05
married his first
00:15:06
wife but investigators would learn that
00:15:09
after a six-month tour he returned home
00:15:11
to find his wife had moved in with two
00:15:13
men and had become a
00:15:15
prostitute Ridgeway left the Navy moved
00:15:18
back to Seattle and divorced her this
00:15:21
kind of anger towards women that's just
00:15:25
deep within the psyche and is can't even
00:15:29
be
00:15:30
articulated after a failed attempt to
00:15:32
join a local police department Ridgeway
00:15:34
started working as a truck painter for
00:15:36
the Kenworth Trucking Company a job he
00:15:38
would hold for almost 30 years Ridgeway
00:15:42
married his second wife in
00:15:44
1973 she would later tell investigators
00:15:47
that while they were married she and
00:15:48
Ridgeway used to ride their bikes past
00:15:50
the slaughterhouse and the Meer Bridge
00:15:53
they had sex there in the tall grass on
00:15:55
the banks of the Green River he
00:15:58
preferred sex in the wood she said or
00:16:00
out in the open or while he was driving
00:16:02
he even tied her up for sex a few times
00:16:05
he was so normal he was cute young you
00:16:08
know like everybody else you know just
00:16:12
young and carefree
00:16:14
and just a nice young
00:16:16
man according to his second wife
00:16:19
Ridgeway would often be gone during the
00:16:21
evenings for long periods of time
00:16:23
returning to the house dirty or wet he
00:16:26
regularly carried plastic harp in the
00:16:29
back of his truck the same kind later
00:16:31
found covering the bodies of some of the
00:16:33
Green River Killer
00:16:35
victims later girlfriends told
00:16:38
investigators that ridgeway's second
00:16:40
wife had started singing in bars that
00:16:42
she had gone to a strip bar where
00:16:44
ridgeway's boss or her dance
00:16:47
topless they were divorced in 1981 and
00:16:50
Ridgeway began to date other women and
00:16:52
frequent the strip for
00:16:55
prostitutes you had so many women here
00:16:57
that you you couldn't avoid them uh to
00:16:59
get warm uh they would go to Denny's and
00:17:02
have a cup of coffee or they'd go into
00:17:04
uh bus shelters or to hotel lobbies just
00:17:07
to hang out and obviously see if they
00:17:09
could find some
00:17:12
men on Christmas Eve 1981 Ridgeway
00:17:16
arrived late to meet his girlfriend at a
00:17:18
dance on the
00:17:20
Strip she says he told her that he
00:17:23
couldn't believe it he had just almost
00:17:25
killed a woman she understood that to
00:17:27
mean a prostitute
00:17:29
he quickly dropped the subject somehow
00:17:32
it never came back
00:17:34
up and yet when you think about it they
00:17:37
are that normal because they practice
00:17:39
they work at it very very hard to
00:17:41
conceal this demon that's burning inside
00:17:45
of them then on May 11th 1982 Ridgeway
00:17:49
was arrested for soliciting prostitution
00:17:51
from an undercover female Vice Cop but
00:17:54
he easily slid out of this trouble and
00:17:57
by July the series of murders that would
00:17:59
shock the nation had
00:18:03
begun next on mug shots we rejoin the
00:18:07
hunt for the killer as desperate
00:18:09
investigators in a real life Silence of
00:18:11
the Lambs turned to Infamous serial
00:18:14
killer Ted Bundy to seek his help in
00:18:16
catching the Green River
00:18:25
Killer ever since the bodies of the
00:18:28
first five women had been found in the
00:18:30
Green River hundreds of tips poured in
00:18:32
to Dave rard who was heading up the
00:18:34
investigation highly complicated case
00:18:37
hundreds thousands of of tips as the
00:18:41
case progressed people would call in and
00:18:44
uh I think we have we're over
00:18:46
40,000 uh suspect tip sheets and
00:18:49
thousands of items of evidence so all
00:18:52
the information that's coming in how do
00:18:54
you manage it the task force began
00:18:56
entering all the information and
00:18:57
evidence on a first generation desktop
00:19:00
computer but as they raced to catch up
00:19:03
even more women were being reported
00:19:05
missing this killer had been lucky too
00:19:08
he had inundated them with victims
00:19:10
suspects paperwork and they were
00:19:12
drowning and every weekend they would
00:19:14
find a body and they had to go out there
00:19:16
to the woods and instead of
00:19:17
investigating they were excavated when
00:19:20
all of a sudden in just a few short
00:19:22
weeks we have five or six bodies and and
00:19:25
in that group you have a first the first
00:19:29
challenge is identify the victim you
00:19:33
can't investigate the case at all until
00:19:35
you know who she is it's just a matter
00:19:37
of uh finding the right person who uh
00:19:41
I'm sure is out there that has the key
00:19:42
to this whole case and uh eventually I
00:19:44
hope we can find him in the midst of all
00:19:47
this activity Gary Ridgeway was
00:19:49
approached by Port of Seattle Police as
00:19:51
he sat in his parked truck at 1: in the
00:19:53
morning of August 29th
00:19:56
1982 he was on on a deserted dead end
00:19:59
Block near the airport a block where
00:20:01
three Green River Killer bodies were
00:20:03
later found unknown yet to police
00:20:06
another Green River victim had
00:20:08
disappeared earlier that day Ridgeway
00:20:11
was told to move on he appears to be um
00:20:14
the average kid that you grow up with
00:20:18
again Society saying that and he was no
00:20:21
threat to anybody that's how what he
00:20:23
appears to be as police were tailing
00:20:25
Melvin Foster on November 9th Ridgeway
00:20:28
tried to strangle a prostitute named
00:20:30
Rebecca
00:20:31
gay gay said Ridgeway had picked her up
00:20:34
on the strip and taken her to a wooded
00:20:36
area for sex he suddenly accused her of
00:20:38
biting him and started choking
00:20:41
her somehow she broke free and ran to a
00:20:44
nearby mobile home at the time she was
00:20:47
too terrified to tell police it's not
00:20:50
like the suspect has to get out and grab
00:20:52
a hold of these girls have a struggle
00:20:54
with them handcuff them tape them bind
00:20:56
them gag them and throw them in the car
00:20:58
and they're screaming and yelling for
00:21:00
help they drive up reach over open the
00:21:03
door make a deal hop in the car and
00:21:06
drive
00:21:07
off meanwhile in February 1983 Port of
00:21:11
Seattle police again rolled up on a
00:21:13
parked pickup truck inside they found
00:21:16
Gary Ridgeway with prostitute Kelly
00:21:18
mcginness they let him go with a warning
00:21:21
but 4 months later mcginness was added
00:21:23
to the list of Green River
00:21:26
killings and then the task Force's
00:21:29
single computer crashed in a power surge
00:21:31
wiping out all the months of information
00:21:33
that had been
00:21:36
entered by November six more bodies were
00:21:39
found the pressure was building and the
00:21:41
new sheriff Vern Thomas was willing to
00:21:43
risk more ambitious plans he uh agreed
00:21:47
that we should have a a bigger effort
00:21:49
was able to convince the politicians to
00:21:51
put more money uh so in the next few
00:21:53
years $2 million a year was spent each
00:21:56
year on this case by January 1984
00:21:59
Sheriff Thomas announced the formation
00:22:01
of a 45 member Green River task
00:22:05
force they installed a room-sized
00:22:08
computer to correlate all their data and
00:22:10
it took them almost a year and a half to
00:22:13
enter all the hard copy information into
00:22:15
this computer the following month
00:22:18
another prostitute told the task force
00:22:20
she thought Gary Ridgeway was the killer
00:22:22
based on his suspicious Behavior then in
00:22:25
March 17-year-old topless dancer Cindy
00:22:28
Smith disappeared from the strip police
00:22:31
would later determine that Smith was the
00:22:33
last of the Green River Killer's victims
00:22:35
that the killings had
00:22:37
ended investigators now believed that
00:22:40
dozens of missing women had been
00:22:41
murdered in only 18 months their bodies
00:22:45
often hidden in remote locations would
00:22:47
continue to turn up over the next 6
00:22:49
years we looked up uh potential victims
00:22:52
we read missing persons reports to
00:22:54
determine if he was still killing uh to
00:22:56
determine whether police were was just
00:22:58
being C and not saying that he was still
00:23:02
killing over the first 3 days of April
00:23:05
1984 four more bodies were found in the
00:23:08
woods near Star Lake and there was an
00:23:11
enormous media mob scene out there they
00:23:13
had a a TV station from uh from Germany
00:23:16
for Pete's sake uh huge crowd of media
00:23:21
people and so of course the the the
00:23:23
Green River Murders became disseminated
00:23:26
rather widely across the world as as a
00:23:29
as a terrible
00:23:31
crime Gary Ridgeway was called in and
00:23:33
questioned by a task force detective in
00:23:36
mid
00:23:37
April Ridgeway admitted dating one of
00:23:40
the victims and recognized a photo of
00:23:43
another he also admitted being familiar
00:23:46
with some of the sites where bodies were
00:23:48
found Weeks Later ridway took and passed
00:23:51
a polygraph test so he was considered
00:23:53
cleared as a suspect later they realized
00:23:56
that the polygraph prob probably wasn't
00:23:58
a valid polygraph because they hadn't
00:24:01
asked him about any of these contacts he
00:24:03
had had with some of the other victims
00:24:05
ridgeway's new girlfriend said that he
00:24:07
had sex with her twice a day and that he
00:24:09
could easily have had sex six or seven
00:24:12
times a day she said his only hobby was
00:24:15
going to swap meets and flea markets she
00:24:17
left him in June 1984 after meeting
00:24:20
another man 5 months later Rebecca gay
00:24:24
The Prostitute who claimed Ridgeway had
00:24:26
choked her finally contacted the task
00:24:28
force and told them her story they added
00:24:31
it to his file for followup they were
00:24:33
using some of the same guidelines a
00:24:35
person who's been out there in the
00:24:37
street know some of the girls maybe uh
00:24:39
has been outdoors in the woods and uh is
00:24:42
Savvy and Mr Ridgeway fit that bill the
00:24:47
investigation was well into its third
00:24:49
year and though the beefed up task force
00:24:51
had been Gathering enormous amounts of
00:24:53
evidence they were no closer to
00:24:55
capturing the Green River Killer it was
00:24:58
at this time that detective rer received
00:25:00
a letter from serial killer Ted Bundy
00:25:02
who was on death row in Florida Bundy
00:25:05
had confessed to killing 28 women in
00:25:07
Seattle and other parts of the country
00:25:09
he was watching the case and sent me a
00:25:11
letter and he said uh hey I think I can
00:25:14
uh uh help you get into the mind of he
00:25:19
called our person the
00:25:21
Riverman and uh I said
00:25:23
okay reard headed to Stark prison in
00:25:26
Florida to meet the beast in his
00:25:29
cage basically he talked into the third
00:25:32
person about what the Riverman would do
00:25:34
and I think of course later and others
00:25:36
who interviewed Bundy right before he
00:25:38
was put to death learned that some of
00:25:40
the things that he was telling us years
00:25:42
before in in the interview I'm talking
00:25:44
about uh uh he actually did himself and
00:25:49
we knew that when we were talking to him
00:25:51
like Hannibal Lector Bundy was trying to
00:25:53
manipulate the investigators playing for
00:25:55
time to stay his execution it's very
00:25:58
difficult for me or any any average
00:26:01
person to put themselves in the mind of
00:26:03
a serial killer we just can't think that
00:26:05
way and uh so to hear Bundy describe
00:26:09
these actions in a third person I think
00:26:11
was beneficial and it was one of those
00:26:12
interviews that any investigator would
00:26:15
you know cut their right arm off for I
00:26:16
mean it was it was very interesting the
00:26:19
new insights went into the
00:26:21
files officially at least the murders
00:26:24
had stopped but police continued to find
00:26:26
more bodies
00:26:29
next on Mugshots investigators close in
00:26:32
on Gary Ridgeway searching his house and
00:26:35
collecting vital
00:26:37
[Music]
00:26:42
evidence by December 1984 the suspected
00:26:46
death toll of the Green River killings
00:26:48
had risen to 42 with 28 identified
00:26:51
bodies and 14 other women
00:26:56
missing
00:26:58
seemed like we were always behind the
00:27:00
Killer by quite a long ways in some
00:27:03
cases the the uh victim was not found
00:27:06
until 6 years after she was uh
00:27:09
determined to be missing in February
00:27:12
1985 Gary Ridgeway was again called in
00:27:15
for questioning by the task force about
00:27:17
the choking incident reported by
00:27:19
prostitute Rebecca gay remarkably
00:27:22
Ridgeway confirmed her story he admitted
00:27:25
choking her for 10 to 15 seconds
00:27:28
after he claimed she bit him she ran
00:27:30
away he said and he drove home after
00:27:33
this interview Ridgeway was put back on
00:27:35
the suspect list and two investigators
00:27:37
were assigned to look for any other
00:27:39
Ridgeway connections to the murders but
00:27:42
he remained only one of many
00:27:44
suspects when task force members went
00:27:47
out in the streets to try to find out
00:27:49
who might have been the killer uh there
00:27:51
are too many men with sexual problems
00:27:53
you could find pastur with women's
00:27:55
underwear on uh you would find uh sexual
00:27:58
counselors with Kitty porn essentially
00:28:01
almost every other person every other
00:28:02
men that they stopped on the Strip was a
00:28:05
potential suspect that made it very very
00:28:08
difficult for them to find the needle in
00:28:10
the hay
00:28:11
stack by this time the evidence from the
00:28:14
Green River case that investigators had
00:28:16
amassed filled a good portion of the
00:28:18
sheriff's evidence Warehouse everything
00:28:20
on this side of the warehouse on the top
00:28:22
section of the racking system is all
00:28:24
Green River related evidence that had
00:28:26
been collected from um dating back to
00:28:28
1982 there is approximately 10,000
00:28:31
pieces of evidence despite the expansion
00:28:33
of the task force the underfunded State
00:28:36
Crime Lab was backed up at the rate they
00:28:38
were going one investigator estimated it
00:28:41
would take the State Crime Lab 50 years
00:28:43
to analyze just the evidence they had
00:28:45
already accumulated we got down to
00:28:48
collecting birds nests and examining the
00:28:51
bird's nest for fibers and hair because
00:28:54
you know that birds fly around they
00:28:55
collect and pick animal fees is another
00:28:58
thing that we collected around the area
00:29:00
the chance that as and this is a
00:29:01
gruesome thought but as they nibbled
00:29:03
away at the the victim uh maybe they
00:29:06
swallowed a a ring and it's in the feces
00:29:09
we go through that and we look for that
00:29:11
in March 1986 Gary Ridgeway was again
00:29:15
interviewed by the task force he said
00:29:17
that he was fixated on prostitutes that
00:29:20
they affect him as strongly as alcohol
00:29:22
affects an
00:29:25
alcoholic he agreed to take a second
00:29:28
polygraph but 3 days later on the advice
00:29:30
of an attorney he refused there was a
00:29:33
guy who kept popping up and as they
00:29:35
looked at this guy they found a variety
00:29:38
of circumstances that seemed to suggest
00:29:41
that he might in fact be connected to
00:29:43
five of the of the
00:29:46
victims 6 months later ridgeway's second
00:29:49
wife took task force members to various
00:29:51
locations she used to visit with
00:29:53
Ridgeway during their
00:29:55
marriage many of them were outdoor Loc
00:29:57
locations where she and Ridgeway had had
00:29:59
sex unknown to her many of them were
00:30:01
also spots where bodies had turned up
00:30:04
they found these possible connections
00:30:07
between this man Mr Ridgeway and these
00:30:09
five dry land or missing victims finally
00:30:13
on April 8th 1987 police searched
00:30:16
ridgeway's home and vehicles they didn't
00:30:18
uh obtain the physical evidence that uh
00:30:21
would satisfy prosecutors or police so
00:30:24
they didn't charge him I believe at that
00:30:26
time they had had a lot of
00:30:28
circumstantial evidence police felt that
00:30:30
he was one of their best suspects or
00:30:33
maybe the individual responsible for the
00:30:36
serial case but they had no
00:30:39
evidence we had the foresight to have
00:30:42
him chew on a piece of Gau I mean that's
00:30:44
almost seems like it's you know it's
00:30:46
archaic kind of discussion now with the
00:30:48
technology we have
00:30:51
today in March 1988 the task force sent
00:30:55
body fluid samples from opal Mills and
00:30:57
and Carol Christensen to a laboratory in
00:30:59
New York for DNA testing they wanted to
00:31:02
compare them with samples collected from
00:31:04
some of their main suspects including
00:31:07
Ridgeway but the lab responded that the
00:31:10
sample was too small to
00:31:14
test investigators were styed they
00:31:16
turned their attention to other
00:31:19
suspects it was during this period that
00:31:21
Ridgeway met and married his third and
00:31:23
current wife next on mug shots the the
00:31:27
task force is once again reduced to one
00:31:29
detective who must keep it alive until
00:31:32
scientific breakthroughs can further
00:31:34
lengthen the long arm of the
00:31:44
[Music]
00:31:46
law after the 1987 search of Gary
00:31:49
ridgeway's home failed to turn up enough
00:31:51
evidence to arrest him for the Green
00:31:53
River killings the investigation
00:31:55
languished about that point in time the
00:31:58
political funding and political support
00:32:00
for the investigation begins to fall off
00:32:03
and Wayne and they start cutting back on
00:32:06
the number of people who were assigned
00:32:07
to this task force with dwindling
00:32:09
results the Green River task force was
00:32:11
disbanded in 1990 but the one detective
00:32:14
left on the case Tom Jensen carefully
00:32:17
preserved their
00:32:19
evidence in 1994 the OJ Simpson trial
00:32:22
televised the complexities of making a
00:32:25
DNA case stick so Jensen remained
00:32:27
cautious waiting for the science to
00:32:29
develop there were only two labs in the
00:32:32
United States that conducted this test
00:32:34
they were both on the East Coast very
00:32:37
very expensive and it was destructive it
00:32:40
that meant that when we presented our
00:32:42
evidence to them to be examined that you
00:32:45
had to expect that part of the evidence
00:32:46
would be destroyed and so you could only
00:32:49
afford to do that a very few amount of
00:32:54
times this is a freezer where we we
00:32:57
store and maintain all of our evidence
00:33:00
that has DNA related to it uh we do have
00:33:04
Green River related evidence in this
00:33:06
freezer um several boxes of it uh the
00:33:10
evidence was actually collected back in
00:33:12
the mid 80s in 1999 the Washington State
00:33:16
Police opened a new and more
00:33:17
sophisticated crime lab in Seattle by
00:33:20
the following year the lab began
00:33:22
conducting DNA tests with a
00:33:24
revolutionary new method they could now
00:33:26
use much smaller evidence samples to
00:33:28
culture DNA amounts large enough to
00:33:31
measure by 2001 Detective Tom Jensen was
00:33:35
ready to risk his small precious samples
00:33:37
from the crime
00:33:39
scenes the tests worked and in October
00:33:42
they produced three matches to a single
00:33:45
suspect we do have DNA evidence on uh
00:33:49
four cases we
00:33:51
have DNA that is consistent and some
00:33:55
situations actually match
00:33:57
totally the news among investigators was
00:34:00
electrifying so Tom then takes the third
00:34:03
piece of paper and he flips it over and
00:34:05
title over the top is you know for us
00:34:06
inter internally was the Green River
00:34:08
Killer and he says this is you know the
00:34:11
profile here and it you can see it's
00:34:13
similar to the other
00:34:14
three and uh so I got a little grin on
00:34:17
my face you know Tom's got a smile on
00:34:20
his face and he says and here's the guy
00:34:23
he hands me the
00:34:24
envelope and I said uh
00:34:27
don't tell me I know who it is it's Gary
00:34:32
Ridgeway he opens the envelope pulls out
00:34:34
the mug shot of I think 1982 arrest and
00:34:37
it was Ridgeway armed with the DNA match
00:34:41
police immediately placed Ridgeway under
00:34:45
surveillance on November 16th he was
00:34:48
arrested trying to solicit an undercover
00:34:50
female Vice Cop for prostitution in his
00:34:53
pickup truck police found $30 and a p
00:34:56
pair of latex gloves he paid a fine and
00:35:00
was
00:35:02
released finally on November 30th 2001
00:35:06
police moved into the Kenworth trucking
00:35:08
company and arrested Gary Leon Ridgeway
00:35:10
for murder got word my older son he
00:35:13
called over here and said turn your TV
00:35:16
on real quick it's going to breaking all
00:35:18
over the place they're going to announce
00:35:20
an arrest in the Green River
00:35:23
case I put it
00:35:25
on
00:35:27
and they said Gary Dave rord said Gary
00:35:29
Ridgeway and this has been a long time
00:35:32
coming I'm thinking that's a stupid
00:35:35
truck
00:35:38
painter Gary Ridgeway had been arrested
00:35:41
of um the murders for the girls but I
00:35:44
was thinking uh I have to go through all
00:35:47
this again and then my next thought was
00:35:51
well at least he's been caught now no
00:35:55
more can happen we couldn't believe it
00:35:57
you total shock man saw it on saw his
00:36:01
picture on TV and I told her I said hey
00:36:03
I know that guy that's when they first
00:36:05
flashed it and she said oh you know
00:36:07
everybody and then they flashed it again
00:36:09
I said holy smoke that's that's Gary
00:36:11
back behind the fence boy it's I tell
00:36:13
you it was a great day Ridgeway was
00:36:16
denied bail is your true name Gary Leon
00:36:19
Ridgeway yes it is he was charged with
00:36:22
the murders of opal Mills Cynthia Hines
00:36:24
Marsha Chapman and Carol
00:36:27
what I'm pleased about is that it's
00:36:29
we've got four four cases uh charged and
00:36:34
uh that the the science is there and the
00:36:36
possibility is there now to solve the
00:36:39
rest of
00:36:41
them ridgeway's veteran defense lawyer
00:36:44
Anthony Savage questions the evidence
00:36:46
revealed so far and maintains his
00:36:48
client's innocence Jerry Ridgeway is a
00:36:51
53y old 30-year truck painter from
00:36:55
Kenmore honorably discharged from the
00:36:59
Armed
00:37:00
Forces blue collar worker no
00:37:04
pretentions just a regular knockabout
00:37:07
guy that's who he is he was just one of
00:37:10
an awful lot of fellas out there um
00:37:15
doing whatever you did on the Strip I'm
00:37:17
not foolish enough to sit here and tell
00:37:19
you that the state doesn't have some
00:37:22
evidence I accept that that they have
00:37:24
some stuff but that doesn't mean that
00:37:29
the stuff is guilty Beyond A Reasonable
00:37:32
Doubt Savage dismisses the DNA evidence
00:37:35
let's assume for the sake of
00:37:37
assumption that Mr ridgeway's DNA was
00:37:40
found in a prostitute all it shows is
00:37:44
that there was rather close contact
00:37:46
between Mr Ridgeway and the lady
00:37:50
involved well that's the object of
00:37:52
prostitution isn't
00:37:54
it so I don't make make anything out of
00:37:57
that that certainly doesn't make the
00:38:01
customer a
00:38:04
murderer the problem that Mr Ridgeway
00:38:06
faces is how does he explain how this
00:38:10
his DNA came to be associated with three
00:38:13
of these four victims and as I
00:38:16
understand it he said well yes he admits
00:38:17
that he had sex with him but the problem
00:38:19
with that is is that how is it possible
00:38:21
that every time Mr Ridgeway has sex with
00:38:23
somebody someone else comes along and
00:38:25
kills him when what is the likelihood of
00:38:27
that it's just not very good
00:38:29
investigators have no evidence that
00:38:31
Carol Christensen the married mother of
00:38:33
a three-year-old daughter was ever
00:38:35
involved in prostitution and yet with
00:38:38
her ridgeway's DNA matched completely
00:38:41
hours before his arrest for murder
00:38:44
Ridgeway told detectives that he never
00:38:46
had sex with her we're describing him as
00:38:48
a person who has been uh arrested for
00:38:52
and charged with four of the victims who
00:38:54
have been on the original list entitled
00:38:58
Green River killings and that he is also
00:39:01
being investigated for the remainder of
00:39:05
those coming up on Mugshots the Green
00:39:08
River Killer 20 years
00:39:12
[Music]
00:39:19
later today Gary Ridgeway sits in a
00:39:22
small solitary confinement cell in the
00:39:24
King County Jail awaiting trial for four
00:39:27
of the Green River killings it could
00:39:29
take at least 2 years to prepare for
00:39:31
trial if you were to sit down with Mr
00:39:34
Ridgeway which you were not going to
00:39:37
do um but in an ordinary setting without
00:39:40
knowing who he was after half an hour's
00:39:43
conversation if I was to say to you
00:39:44
that's the Green River Monster you would
00:39:47
say no way just no way that that could
00:39:50
that that man could have done these
00:39:52
things every now and then a question
00:39:54
will be asked this question will be
00:39:56
asked and it is well if you've got him
00:39:59
for four you've charged four cases why
00:40:02
do you have to spend you know a couple
00:40:04
million dollar a year now to investigate
00:40:06
the rest of them and my answer is what
00:40:09
would you say to me if that was your
00:40:11
daughter over here I know what I would
00:40:13
say I want you to follow that case up I
00:40:16
want you to find the guy that killed my
00:40:18
daughter
00:40:20
period and that's what we're going to do
00:40:24
the Green River task force has been
00:40:25
revived and many detectives Contin to
00:40:28
gather evidence on the four murder
00:40:29
charges and work to see if they can tie
00:40:32
Ridgeway to any of the other Green River
00:40:34
killings I was the lead investigator in
00:40:36
Green River and when that was mentioned
00:40:38
there was always a little whisper a
00:40:40
little smirk you know well yeah big deal
00:40:44
it was UN you know he never solved
00:40:47
it so now I can
00:40:50
say with uh a lot of Pride I was a lead
00:40:54
uh investigator for eight
00:40:57
years and uh We've charged somebody with
00:41:01
four
00:41:02
murders the night of ridgeway's arrest
00:41:05
one detective's call about the DNA
00:41:07
results left Melvin Foster feeling
00:41:09
Vindicated he called down here and said
00:41:11
you weren't even
00:41:13
close and well that kind of answer some
00:41:15
questions for doubting Thomas's doesn't
00:41:17
it Melvin Foster he still is a person of
00:41:20
interest in other cases the prolonged
00:41:22
frustration of a case unsolved for 20
00:41:25
years has taken its toll on many of
00:41:27
those associated with it I live down
00:41:29
south and uh every time I go home or
00:41:31
come to Seattle I pass by um a lot of
00:41:33
these body sites so U my life
00:41:36
essentially has been defined by where
00:41:39
women were found in the Green River and
00:41:41
um sometimes I'm told that I can't
00:41:43
remember a phone number to my
00:41:44
brother-in-laws but I remember the day
00:41:46
date of birth and all the statistics
00:41:47
relating to the young ladies and and
00:41:49
that's correct uh I covered the case for
00:41:52
so long for so many years that um I
00:41:55
still remember every detail about him
00:41:57
when I began working on it it became it
00:41:59
was an interesting newspaper story for
00:42:02
me and then it became an intellectual
00:42:04
puzzle later it became more of an
00:42:06
obsession and it be it began to affect
00:42:08
me certainly by the time that I was at
00:42:10
the end of my time with the Seattle
00:42:11
Times I had become pretty most of my
00:42:14
friends will tell you pretty crazy on
00:42:16
the entire
00:42:17
[Music]
00:42:19
subject I can drive east into the
00:42:22
mountains here and it's beautiful it's a
00:42:24
winter wonderland most people can drive
00:42:27
through there and just comment about the
00:42:28
beauty but I know where bodies were
00:42:30
found and then I've made friends with
00:42:32
the victim's families and relatives and
00:42:35
and uh so a lot of emotion is attached
00:42:38
to this and you know when when Tom
00:42:39
Jensen came in and shared that I shared
00:42:41
that little story with you when he came
00:42:43
in and shared that he had tears in his
00:42:46
eyes so did
00:42:49
[Music]
00:42:50
I so we do
00:42:54
care how could he do such such a thing
00:42:57
so many times how could he do
00:43:01
it didn't he have any conscience at all
00:43:04
when they arrested Ridgeway and they
00:43:07
mentioned that they had
00:43:09
DNA my feeling was
00:43:12
that good they got
00:43:14
[Music]
00:43:25
him
00:43:43
[Music]
00:43:55
I
00:44:04
[Music]
00:44:15
[Music]
00:44:25
I
00:44:35
oh
