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Sheriff David Reichert
My Twenty-Year Quest To Capture The Green River Killer

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Sheriff David received a call about a double homicide with 2 female victims. He said that "I knew that the site where two bodies had been found- a spot on the Green River in the Seattle suburb of kent" This means it had a connection to the green river killer.

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King County medical had 3 bodies with no names. All 3 victims had been asphyxiated, 2 of them had semen in them.

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They had there first suspect, " Melvyn Foster" They found this name in Debbie Bonner's Johns books and the name Melyvn stuck to him. The next morning he looked for his report file. Melvyn had called in before saying that they should investigate Dan Smith. Melvyn was a little to interested in the green river case and blaming it on Smith. Melvyn Foster acted like he had nothing to hide.

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After awhile of Melvyn cooperating he started to get annoyed especially since he was always on surveillance and being watched. For example one morning he cam out of his house and saw Sheriff David on a street near his house. Afterwards he grabbed a baseball bat. He kept trying to swing but missed has the car would simply go forward.
Then another night David heard pat say this on the radio, "I'm being chased by Melvyn"PG77

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After awhile they got a lab result that showed that Melvyn's hair was similar to the hair found at the green river site. Then he gathered all the information/evidence he had, "Foster had failed his polygraph
He flip flopped on knowing the victims. First he said he recognized only Debbie Bonner. Later he admitted to knowing all the Green River victims.
Hair similar to Foster's was found at the Green River dump site.
The FBI serial killer profile matched Foster in some ways.
Tracy's and Punkie's statement linked him to the victims
A women who lived with Foster in the late 1970s told me he kept a large collection of newspaper articles about murder.
Women's underwear and photos of nude women had been found in his car." PG 83

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Melvyn would call to get attention on himself. For example, "Melvyn appeared on a local television show called Town Meeting to complain about how difficult his life had become once the public knew he was a suspect" PG 90 He even called a news reporter so he could take a lie detector test, he did pass the test.

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suspect reports feeling a sense of vindication

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suspect reports feeling a sense of vindication

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Former suspect reports feeling a sense of vindication

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When Melvyn Foster became a focus of the investigation into the Green River killings in 1982, he was so adamant about his innocence that he called reporters and publicly challenged police to "lay an egg or get off the nest."

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They were able to get a 3rd sample from the green river victims. 2 of the samples had come from Marcia Chapman. On the same day Opal Mills was found in the grass near the river. Along with the discovery of a new body there were also new missing person reports, Connie Naon, Keli McGinnes and Carrie Rios.

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#8-Between Valentine's Day 1984 to April 20

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#8-Between Valentine's Day 1984 to April 20

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11 new bodies were discovered. The ones that were identified was Lisa Yates age, Delise Plager age 22. Later in March 4 more bodies were found.

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They claimed that this would be the worst serial killer case in american history. In the fall there was another report or the murder of 2 prostitutes.

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In September the first time the victim survived. This happened, "Once there, he raped her, choked her, and then stabbed her." Pg 154 The victims name was never made public. He wrapped a bandanna around her neck in an attempt to kill her. She fainted and her body went limp, after he thought he killed her.

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There was now a new suspect, 52 years old "Bill" Mclean. He was a high suspect but after they interviewed his wife they were sure he was not the killer. This frustrated Sheriff David as he spent so much time one him.

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As they were following some leads and one name popped up, "Gary Ridgeway". Ridgeway had confessed that he was in contact with a missing person so he was moved on the low priority suspects. Detective Matt Haney was looking at data he found this, "Ridgeway had been on a strike for a three-week period in 1983."Pg 183 During that time is was also found that it was when the Green river killer was most active.

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As they were looking through Kim Nelson and her disappearance they found Paige Miley who works with her. In the late summer they went looking for Paige. They interviewed her, they asked her to recall they guy who had spoken to Kim. When he pulled up some photos for Paige with no hesitation she pointed as Ridgeway saying, "That's him".

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Ridgway often enjoyed driving along the Rainier Avenue. The thing that interested them was how he got there because he would go slow and would park so he could observe women. The way Ridgway acted made most think they might have their guy but they wanted to contain their enthusiasm after Melvyn Foster. After talking to people who knew Ridgway it just gave them more reasons to suspect him. For example, "One of his ex-wives told us he had taken her to secluded spots around King County to have sex in the woods, beside rivers, and down in the ravines."Pg 187 This went into suspicion because several bodies were discovered near those sites.

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Another body was discovered, Andrea Childers age 19. She had originally went missing in 1983 during the peak of when so many young women went missing. It was another one of the green river killers because, " Her body was found close to The Strip, in the same general area as the remains of Gisele Lovvorn, Constance Naon, Kelly Ware, and MaryMeehan."Pg 216

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As early as 1989 there was a big assumption that the green river killer was done. They had been on the case for over 8 years and Sheriff David took a sergeant's test and passed. So the morning of April 1, 1990 would be his last day being the lead detective of the case.

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September 10, 2001 was the day Tom Jensen called and asked if they could meet. There had been DNA taken from one of the suspects. Tom had given David a paper, on the paper was the words "Green River Kiler" He had also given an envelope that has the name and profile. Then this happened, "I took the envelope in my left hand and hesitated. "I don't have to open it"
"What do you mean?" he asked
"I know it's Gary Ridgway"Pg 237

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Once they did confirm is was Ridgway tears were pouring. In the moment they felt victory as they finally solved the case that none of them were prepared for. There was finally justice for all who were done wrong by Gary Ridgway. The excitement was too much but they still ha to keep it a secret for a few months so they can prepare to arrest him. They would take action on December 7, 2001

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As they kept Ridgway under their surveillance they realized that he was still out there trolling. This meant that they had to take him ahead of schedule, November 30

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On the night of the arrest he could barely sleep and was tossing and turning. Then when the arrest was only an hour away they drove to the office in kent. There was a radio with officers communicating then someone announced "He's coming out" and it went silent. Once Ridgway stepped outside Randy and Jim stepped out as well. "Gary we're detectives from the King County Sheriff's Office," said Randy, "and you are under arrest for the murder of several women in King County."
"Okay" was all Ridgway said" Pg 247
At approximately 3pm the dectectives from King County Office had arrested a 52 year old man for homicide.

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A swab of saliva recently tested after 14 years in storage gave police their first big break in one of the nation's worst unsolved serial murder cases, as they arrested a truck painter Friday in four of the killings.

Gary Ridgway, 52, was arrested in connection with four of the notorious Green River murders, a string of 49 killings of young women in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1980s. DNA analysis tied Ridgway to three of the slayings and police said other evidence, which they did not specify, linked him to the fourth.

Officials said they do not now have forensic evidence connecting him to the other corpses. But they firmly believe all 49 cases are linked. And they made plain their jubilation at having a suspect behind bars for at least some of the murders after two decades of dogged pursuit.

"Boy, have we made one giant step forward," King County Sheriff Dave Reichart said Friday.

Ridgway had been a suspect in the Green River case as early as 1984. Detectives scrutinized his background, interviewed him and even obtained a saliva sample for DNA tests. But they were not confident enough in the capability of DNA technology to try to match Ridgway's sample with semen and other suspect DNA collected from the victims.

They worried that the tests would eat up the DNA collected from the victims without yielding positive results. So they held on to the sample until they thought the technology was good enough.

They made that call about a year ago. The state lab began processing the sample and the first results came back two months ago. On Friday, they picked up Ridgway in Renton, a suburb of Seattle.

"I am not calling this guy the Green River Killer," Reichart said at a packed news conference Friday evening. "We do not know if he is responsible for the deaths of any other women. We are still examining that."

The sheriff emphasized, however, that all the Green River murders are linked by several factors, including where the victims were abducted and then dumped, the time frame for the murders, the victims' lifestyles and in some cases the cause of death. "What I am saying is that the list [attributed to a single serial murderer] is still accurate, that the cases on the list are still considered to be linked," Reichart said.

"This is one of the most exciting days of my career," Reichart added.

He said he expects charges to be filed next week.

Ridgway, who has spelled his name Ridgeway on occasion, has been employed as a painter at the same Seattle-area trucking company for 30 years. He has been arrested twice before, once in May 1982 on a charge of soliciting prostitution and again just two weeks ago on a charge of loitering for the purpose of soliciting prostitution.

He was arrested in the Green River murders after his shift ended at 3 p.m.

Ridgway's DNA was linked to the killings of Opal Mills, Marcia Chapman and Cynthia Hinds, whose bodies were found in the Green River on Aug. 15, 1982. Police have also linked him to the slaying of Carol Christensen, whose body was found in the woods in nearby Maple Valley on May 8, 1983.

Mills, Chapman and Hinds were among the earliest victims found in the Green River case. The body count continued to mount through early 1984, as more corpses were discovered along the river, which runs from the Cascade Mountains, and in trash-strewn wooded areas between Seattle and Portland, Ore.

Many of the victims--women aged 15 to 25--were prostitutes or runaways. A few were never identified.

With some, the cause of death was clear: The first victim to be discovered, for instance, had been strangled with her pants. Other corpses had been abandoned so long that the bodies were reduced to skeletal remains. Two were pregnant. Others were mothers.

Most of the young women were picked up on the street and dumped in isolated areas. Most of the corpses discarded in the river were weighted with stones. Those in the woods were often found in clusters, several bodies in close proximity. Though police have never given details, they indicated some of the corpses had a "signature," an unusual marker that indicated a common killer.

Convinced they had one of the worst mass murderers in U.S. history on their hands, local law enforcement joined with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a Green River Task Force that scoured the country for clues.

Detectives combed the woods on hands and knees, consulted botanists, biologists, archeologists and psychics. They picked apart bird nests to look for hairs. They checked out taxicab licenses and data on military personnel stationed in the area. They talked to Ted Bundy, who had confessed to killing 31 women, for insight into serial murderers.

Journalists covering the case pitched in their theories too. Former Seattle Times reporter Carlton Smith said he and his colleague Tomas Guillen first discovered the killer's pattern of disposing of bodies. "He would put down a body . . . and then wait to see if anyone discovered it," Smith said. "When no one found it, he would go back and dump four or five more [in the same location]."

The task force bought a $200,000 computer to process tips.People from all over the country sent in tips--40,000 of them--and even odd bits of what they were convinced was vital evidence.

But in the end, it turned out that the key to at least three of the cases was a bit of saliva on a piece of gauze from 1987.

"The fortunate and wise fact is that during that time [when he was under intense scrutiny] we asked Mr. Ridgway to chew on some gauze. That gauze has been preserved for these 20 years," Reichart said. "Through great scientific work at the state lab, it was compared with some of the very old samples [of semen] from some of the few intact victims that we were able to recover . . . and those DNA [samples] and Gary Ridgway's are the same."

Officials are still hoping to find and test DNA evidence found on or near other corpses to see if it matches Ridgway's. "We have 10,000 items of evidence," including clothing, beer cans and cigarette butts as well as material retrieved from the corpses, said Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff's Office. "We believe some of them have DNA evidence on them."

Added Reichart: "This is going to take a great deal of effort in the coming months, and maybe the next two or three years, to figure out."

But patience is nothing new to detectives working on the Green River murders. "One of the characteristics of a good investigation is that you can never give up hope," Reichart said, "because the victims' families never give up hope." Indeed, some of the detectives have stayed in touch with the victims' relatives all these years, exchanging regular calls and letters, keeping the case alive.

The persistence paid off when the first DNA test results came in. Reichart said he was sitting in his office when Tom Jensen, "one of the old-time detectives," came in and laid down some charts showing the DNA collected from two of the victims. "And then he flipped over a sheet of paper and . . . said, 'Sheriff, here is the DNA of the Green River Killer.' "

Ridgway was put under surveillance immediately.

With a suspect in custody, Reichart took time Friday to savor the moment.

"[There was] a lot of negative press around the efforts of the task force detectives" in the 1980s, he said. "Cartoons that portrayed the task force as a task farce." But even as critics were lampooning the task force, Reichart said, its members were identifying Ridgway "as one of the top five suspects out of thousands of tips."

They kept him in their sights--and the victims in their minds--until they could collect enough evidence to arrest him.

"We did our job," the sheriff said.

*

Marshall reported from Seattle and Cart from Denver. Times staff writer Stephanie Simon contributed to this report.

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A swab of saliva recently tested after 14 years in storage gave police their first big break in one of the nation's worst unsolved serial murder cases, as they arrested a truck painter Friday in four of the killings.

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Throughout the 1980s and '90s, Gary Ridgway prowled Washington state as the Green River Killer, hunting for sex workers and other vulnerable women to rape and murder.

From 1982 to 1998, Gary Ridgway terrorized Washington State as the Green River Killer. He murdered at least 49 women, but the real number could be as high as 71. If true, this would make him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history - and one of the most brutal.

From bragging about his choking ability to explaining the cold-blooded efficiency of performing necrophilia on a victim's corpse instead of finding a new victim to rape and kill, Ridgway's story was nothing short of chilling.

While Ridgway is not as infamous as other serial killers like Ted Bundy, he took far more victims than Bundy ever did. In fact, by the time Bundy had already been captured in the mid-1980s, authorities were actively seeking his help in catching Ridgway, who at that point was still at large.

In a move straight out of The Silence of the Lambs, investigators used Bundy's inside knowledge of serial killing - and his familiarity with Washington State - to help them form a profile of Ridgway.

This is the gruesome true story of Seattle serial killer Gary Ridgway - and how Ted Bundy helped find him.

How Gary Ridgway Became The Green River Killer

Born on February 18, 1949, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Gary Ridgway had a seemingly happy and normal childhood. But then, at age 15, he stabbed a young boy - just to see how stabbing "worked."

Ridgway later told a psychologist that he was interested in stabbing because he was struggling with being sexually attracted to his own mother and wanted to kill her because of it. He also confessed that he had a bed-wetting problem into his early teens - and that he had clear recollections of his mom washing his genitals after he wet the bed.

Some experts think that this may have been part of a larger pattern of inappropriate behavior on the part of Ridgway's mother. And while she was ultimately spared from Ridgway's killing spree, some believe that his crimes may have amounted to a case of "displaced matricide" and that he was unconsciously "killing his mother over and over again."

But for a long time, Ridgway put up a normal front. After graduating high school at the age of 20 and serving in the U.S. Navy for two years, Ridgway decided to settle down in the Seattle area. Shortly thereafter, he got a job painting trucks, which he held for about three decades.

Not long after Ridgway's move, he started having a couple of encounters with the law, during which he got arrested for allegedly choking a sex worker and for solicitation. As the years went on, his crimes escalated from there. It's widely believed that he first began his killing spree in 1982, starting with a 16-year-old girl who had run away from her foster home.

Gary Ridgway often preyed on vulnerable runaways. He also targeted sex workers, whom he picked up at truck stops and dive bars along Highway 99 outside Seattle. After luring his victims into his car, he'd often gain their trust by showing them photos of his son, then engage in sexual activity with them before strangling them to death, sometimes in the middle of intercourse.

The Seattle serial killer would then dump their bodies in wooded areas around the Green River, which led to his chilling nickname. Ridgway would also purposely contaminate the crime scenes with gum and cigarette butts - since he didn't smoke or chew gum - to throw authorities off.

Occasionally, he would dump the body in one place, leave it for a time, then transport it to another location to create a false trail. At least two of his victims were transported as far away as Portland.

By the end of his murder spree, he'd killed a confirmed 49 women, though he ended up confessing to 71 total murders. Ridgway once said, "I killed so many women, I have a hard time keeping them straight."

When the bodies first started appearing, the King County Sheriff's Office formed the "Green River Task Force," hoping to discover the person responsible. And they got help from an unlikely source.

How Ted Bundy Helped Crack The Case

Two members of the Green River Task Force were Robert Keppel and Dave Reichert. They periodically interviewed psychologists and criminologists, hoping to gain insight into the motives behind the killer's movements.

Eventually, in 1984, their interviews led them to the infamous Ted Bundy.

According to Keppel, Bundy actually volunteered himself to take part in the investigation. Keppel described receiving the shocking request from a detective of the Seattle Police Department: "It was a letter from a 'wanna-be' consultant and the most unlikely person I ever expected to be of assistance in the Green River murders. The letter came from a cell on death row in Florida; the sender was Theodore Robert Bundy. I was stunned."

By that point, Bundy had already been imprisoned for several years for murder, rape, burglary, and necrophilia. And at the time, he was awaiting his execution, which would ultimately come in 1989.

Having deplorable, but valuable, first-hand experience with the same kinds of killings that had been happening in the Green River area, Bundy proved to be an asset to the case. He became a regular interviewee of Keppel and Reichert and offered his unfiltered opinion on the psychology of the still-active Seattle serial killer, as well as his motivations and behavior.

According to Reichert, Ted Bundy also shared several things in common with Gary Ridgway, especially in regard to mindset: "First off, there's no remorse. He doesn't have any feelings toward anybody, his family included. And that's what I saw in Bundy and what I saw in Ridgway."

As Reichert explained in an interview with the New York Times: "Like Mr. Bundy... Mr. Ridgway craved attention and control and was prideful when discussing his killings. When detectives presented him with an unsolved murder to see if he would confess it, he told them: 'Why, if it isn't mine? Because I have pride in... what I do. I don't wanna take it from anybody else.'"

During one interview session, Bundy reportedly suggested that the uncaught Seattle serial killer was most likely revisiting his dumpsites to perform necrophilia on the corpses. He advised the investigators that if they found a fresh grave, they should stake it out and wait for the killer to return.

Bundy's theories turned out to be absolutely correct, and the police were able to use them to collect samples and provide evidence for an arrest warrant. However, it took police until 2001 to finally arrest Gary Ridgway.

When Gary Ridgway Finally Faced Justice

In 2001, Gary Ridgway was arrested on suspicions of murdering four women, and his DNA was later linked to them. Forensic testing later revealed that the same spray paint Ridgway used at work during his crime spree was present at other crime scenes, and added those murders to the list of charges.

By that point, Ridgway had not only held a steady job for 30 years but had also been married three times. His third wife Judith Mawson - who didn't know about his crimes until after he was arrested - was absolutely stunned when she heard about his long history of rape, murder, and necrophilia.

As Mawson put it, Ridgway was the "perfect husband" and had always treated her "like a newlywed," even after they'd been together for 17 years. In reality, Ridgway later confessed, he had been tempted to kill Mawson and only passed because it might've increased his chances of getting caught.

Still, he claimed that he truly loved Mawson. And according to the timeline of his known murders, his kill rate went down after they had gotten married. Mawson, who filed for divorce after his confessions, later said that she felt like she had saved lives "by being his wife and making him happy."

By the time of his trial, Gary Ridgway was facing 48 murder charges. In exchange for life imprisonment instead of the death penalty, the Seattle serial killer agreed to provide the locations of his victims' remains.

After his cooperation, he was given 48 life sentences that would be served consecutively. Then, 10 years was added to each sentence for the crime of tampering with evidence. This would increase his overall prison term by 480 additional years. And in 2011, a 49th body was found that was linked to Ridgway, which added yet another life sentence to his prison term.

When his trial was over, Gary Ridgway had confessed to more confirmed murders than any other serial killer in America at that point. And he claimed that murdering young women was his real "career."

While the title of the most prolific serial killer in the United States has since been taken by Samuel Little - who killed up to 93 women between 1970 and 2005 - there's no question that Ridgway remains one of the worst murderers in modern American history.

But unlike some other infamous serial killers, Gary Ridgway is still alive today. He is currently 72 years old and serving out his life sentences at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington. Ridgway is expected to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
After learning about Gary Ridgway, check out 11 more prolific serial killers you probably haven't heard of. Then, learn how 20 serial killers met their ends.

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The Gruesome Story Of The Green River Killer - And How Ted Bundy Helped Catch Him

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From 1982 to 1998, Gary Ridgway terrorized Washington State as the Green River Killer. He murdered at least 49 women, but the real number could be as high as 71. If true, this would make him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history - and one of the most brutal.

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It's not clear how many women were fated to become victims of the Seattle-based serial killer dubbed the Green River Killer. While he hunted and killed mostly in the 1980s, victims are still being identified: In April of 2021, ABC News reported that a DNA match had led to the identification of a girl who was - so far - his youngest victim.

The match came with help from the DNA Doe Project, which searches public DNA databases in hopes of matching the genetic information of Jane and John Does with living relatives, in hopes of bringing closure to families. The Green River Killer case match was Wendy Stephens, a 14-year-old runaway who had fled her home in Denver for Seattle. She was killed in 1983, and disposed of in a forested area that's now SeaTac.

It took her family nearly 40 years to learn what happened to their daughter, and by that time, the Green River Killer had been behind bars for half that time. Longtime suspect Gary Ridgway wasn't convicted of dozens of murders until 2001 - decades after he first started killing. It took law enforcement ages to prove he was the one leaving a trail of bodies across the northwestern US, so what took so long? And how did they finally catch him?

The opening of the Green River Killer case

It's worth going all the way back to the beginning. According to History Link, Seattle law enforcement first realized that they had a serial killer on their hands when the remains of a 23-year-old woman named Debra Lynn Bonner were pulled from the Green River by a local slaughterhouse worker. She was found on August 12, 1982, and her death was almost immediately linked to the deaths of two other area sex workers, Wendy Coffield and Leann Wilcox. Coffield, The Seattle Times says, had been discovered on July 15 of the same year, and by August 16, the body count had risen to five.

It was going to get much, much higher.

Just over the next two years, 49 women would be discovered in the same area of Seattle: Most were sex workers, and most were well-known around the area of Highway 99 and the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The first is generally accepted to be Amina Agisheff, who was last seen in July 1982, but not found until April 1984. Among the last were 16-year-old Mary Exzetta West and 17-year-old Cindy Anne Smith, whose remains were found in 1985 and 1987, respectively. Other remains have yet to be identified.

Before the case was closed and before the killer was finally arrested, the area saw an investigation that cost upwards of $15 million, and man hours that were in the tens of thousands.

Taking a DNA sample

After the Malvar family brought Gary Ridgway to the attention of law enforcement, he always sort of hovered there. According to The Seattle Times, he even reached out to police in May of 1984, to see if he could provide any useful information, or assistance. At the time, he also took a polygraph test - which he passed.

(It's also worth noting that polygraph tests are dubious at best. Brandeis University's Leonard Saxe explained [via Vox]: "There's no unique physiological sign of deception. And there's no evidence whatsoever that the things the polygraph measures - heart rate, blood pressure, sweating, and breathing - are linked to whether you're telling the truth or not.")

Now, fast forward a few years, as the Green River Killer's body count continued to rise. It's April of 1987, and Ridgway isn't just a person of interest: he's also been identified as the last person seen in the company of at least two of the women who have since ended up dead. That's a little harder to write off as coincidence, even if someone confesses to frequently hiring the services of area sex workers - who make up the majority of the victims. According to HeraldNet, that's also when police pressed Ridgway for a DNA sample, in the form of saliva. He gave it - but this was also 1987, and DNA technology was nowhere near what it would become over the next decade.

The serial killer who helped law enforcement with a psychological profile

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and at the time bodies started showing up in Seattle's Green River, there was another headline-grabbing serial killer sitting on death row. That was Ted Bundy, and in a bizarre twist, Bundy reached out to detectives and offered some help (via Biography). "Don't ask me why I believe I'm an expert in this area," he wrote to detective Dave Reichert, "just accept that I am and we'll start from there." They decided to take him up on the offer, and headed to Florida to visit the man who had been the country's most notorious serial killer... up until the Green River case.

Reichert would eventually credit his conversations with Bundy as giving them a unique insight into the mind of a serial killer, including the lack of remorse they felt at the killings, and the pride they took in claiming their work. Bundy also gave authorities a chilling tip on the killer he called the Riverman, saying he was likely to return to burial sites, where - should detectives stake out the scene - they would find him "performing sexual acts" on his victims.

Bundy was right. Ridgway would later confess to having post-mortem sex with 10 victims, and when arresting officers asked why he wouldn't just get another woman and kill her, he responded (via The New York Times), "Well, for one thing you'd have to pay for it and she was already dead."

A conveniently-timed arrest

When The Washington Post reported on the capture of the so-called Green River Killer in 2001, they started with his hunting grounds - a strip of highway they described as still being "a rough place where desperate women ply their trade." That strip, says History Link, was a section of Highway 99 (also called Pacific Avenue South) where down-on-their-luck women struggled to make ends meet as sex workers or dancers - and it's also where most of the Green River Killer's victims were picked up. And even though most of them were killed between 1982 and 1984, that's the same section of highway where 52-year-old Gary Leon Ridgway was arrested by a vice unit in November of 2001. The crime? "Loitering for prostitution."

At the same time he was arrested, Seattle crime labs were applying their new DNA testing methods to his old saliva samples - and to the DNA found on the murdered girls.

Reichert - the detective who had interviewed Ted Bundy about the Green River Killer - was King County Sheriff at the time he made the announcement, saying, "This has got to be one of the most exciting days of my entire career. This is not only an exciting day for the people who worked the case, but I know the community has got to be as excited about this as we are."

How close had they gotten to the Green River Killer?

Gary Ridgway had been a suspect in the killings for 18 years when he was finally arrested. They'd talked to him a lot, and according to The New York Times, Ridgway had taken (and passed) two polygraph tests, and he'd been questioned by police countless times - so many times, in fact, that his coworkers at the trucking company he'd worked at for around three decades had taken to calling him Green River Gary. Sometimes, they just called him "GR."

While Ridgway had never been charged with the Green River killings, he still had some run-ins with the law. In 1980, The Washington Post says that a sex worker accused him of choking her. The case disappeared, but his later confession (via CBS) puts that in a terrifying perspective. He wrote in his formal statement, "Choking is what I did and I was pretty good at it," adding that he targeted mostly sex workers and runaways, and that he would revisit the bodies "for two or three days... till the flies came."

In 1982, Ridgway was charged and convicted - of solicitation, when he approached an undercover police officer (mug shot, pictured). But those who knew him had another problem with him: he and his wife had cut down a forest of trees on their property when they moved in, but ultimately, they got used to seeing him walking his poodle around the neighborhood. Even after his arrest, they described him as basically a "nice guy."

The 1984 letter

The Green River Killer was allowed to keep killing for so long in large part due to a lack of evidence. But strangely, law enforcement had one massive piece of evidence that they completely overlooked - on the guidance of one of the industry's most well-known criminal profilers, John E. Douglas (pictured). And yes, that's the guy that wrote Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit (which was the basis for the Netflix show of the same name), and who Vulture says pretty much wrote the book on serial murder investigations, with some help from interviews with some of the most notorious murderers ever put behind bars.

The Seattle Times says that a letter was postmarked February 20, 1984 and sent to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It included a ton of disturbing details that hadn't been made public, but Douglas shrugged it off by calling the writer "a subject who is average in intelligence and one who is making a feeble and amateurish attempt to gain some personal importance by manipulating the investigation."

Later, as part of his confession, Ridgway confirmed that the letter was his - even though he didn't really remember writing it. While Douglas said that he didn't think his misidentification of the letter made a difference in the time frame of the killer's capture, he also added, "I truly believe that he could have been caught sooner."

The Green River Killer's confession

When it came time for Gary Ridgway to go to court, the names of all 48 victims of the Green River Killer were read aloud and, in a process that took almost 10 minutes, CBS reports that there was a pause after each name - long enough for Ridgway to enter his "guilty" plea. Admitting his guilt kept him off death row, but there was more to it: Ridgway promised to bring closure to dozens of other unsolved murder cases, including an original seven more that law enforcement said they had evidence he was involved with.

And it seemed that about this, at least, he would tell the truth. When law enforcement presented him with one case, he denied it was his for a chilling reason (via The New York Times): "Why, if it isn't mine? Because I have pride in - in - what I do. I don't wanna take it from anybody else."

He went on to call (via The Washington Post) killing his "career," and not only took pride in his murderous work, but in something else chilling. He kept no trophies, but if his victims were wearing jewelry, he did take that - and then would leave it in the Kenworth Motor Truck plant women's bathroom. "My favorite thing was maybe if someone's walking around with a piece of that jewelry that they found in the bathroom."

The sentencing of the Green River Killer

Gary Ridgway was handed a life sentence in 2003, and according to The New York Times, his admission of guilt in 48 murders made him "the most prolific convicted serial killer in the nation's history."

At his sentencing, he shed some tears and hinted at the fact that he was sorry about "the ladies who were not found," saying, "May they rest in peace. They need a better place than where I gave them." At the time, prosecutors say they were already aware of another dozen cases that Ridgway was involved in: hence, the plea deal that kept him off death row. But there might just be a catch.

King County Sheriff Dave Reichert clarified for CBS, saying that the plea deal didn't protect him infinitely, and if he was tried and convicted of murders in - for example - another state, he still might end up being handed the death penalty. Still, that was small comfort for the relatives of his victims, like Kathy Mills. Her 16-year-old daughter was among Ridgway's victims, and she was in the courtroom as he confirmed his guilt. She said, "It was hard to sit there and see him not show any feeling and not show any remorse."

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How The Green River Killer Was Eventually Caught - Grunge

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It's not clear how many women were fated to become victims of the Seattle-based serial killer dubbed the Green River Killer. While he hunted and killed mostly in the 1980s, victims are still being identified: In April of 2021, ABC News reported that a DNA match had led to the identification of a girl who was - so far - his youngest victim.

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In recognition of former Congressman Dave Reichert's decades of public service, the King County Council declared today, March 20, 2019, as Dave Reichert Day.

Reichert served for over 30 years in the King County Sheriff's Office, becoming Sheriff himself in 1997 when he was appointed by then-King County Executive Ron Sims. He was then elected Sheriff for a second term, becoming the first elected King County Sheriff in over 20 years. Reichert was instrumental in the capture the infamous Green River Killer, who murdered dozens of women across the Seattle area, investigating the case for almost twenty years before finally bringing the serial killer to justice.

Following his two terms as Sheriff, Reichert was then elected Congressman for the 8th Congressional District, where he served for fourteen years. During his time in Congress, Reichert was appointed to the Ways and Means Committee, and was subsequently named Chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade.

"Congressman Reichert represented the very same district as my mother, the late Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn, and I appreciated that he continued my mother's leadership style of bipartisanship and working across the aisle," said Dunn. "During his time in Congress I was honored to work closely with him to expand the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and to designate the Mountains to Sound Greenway as a National Heritage Area."

As a Congressman, Reichert utilized his experience as a law enforcement officer to advocate for some of society's most vulnerable. He was a leading voice in bringing awareness to domestic violence and advocating for the rights of victims. Reichert consistently worked on behalf of underprivileged youth, advocating and directing policy to improve the lives of children who are in foster care, experiencing homelessness, or are otherwise at-risk.

"Dave Reichert has served the people of the 8th Congressional District, and the country, incredibly well," said Councilmember Kathy Lambert. "We will miss his great leadership in Congress and wish his family the best as they begin this new chapter."

Beginning in 2014, Reichert led efforts to conserve the Mountains to Sound Greenway through a National Heritage Area designation. During what was his final term in Congress, he championed legislation to give the Greenway this designation in the House of Representatives. This legislation was approved in March of 2019, finally granting the Mountains to Sound Greenway its National Heritage Area designation.

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"Dave Reichert Day" Proclaimed in King County

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In recognition of former Congressman Dave Reichert's decades of public service, the King County Council declared today, March 20, 2019, as Dave Reichert Day. Reichert served for over 30 years in the King County Sheriff's Office, becoming Sheriff himself in 1997 when he was appointed by then-King County Executive Ron Sims. He was then elected Sheriff for a second term, becoming the first elected King County Sheriff in over 20 years.