Why So Serial?
A Former Police Detective and His Son Discuss Cases of Serial Killers with a Fresh and Entertaining Perspective.
Why So Serial?
Green River Runs Red (Gary Ridgway)
Some monsters don't hide in the shadows—they blend perfectly into everyday life. Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, lived a seemingly normal existence while claiming the lives of at least 49 women over two decades, becoming America's most prolific convicted serial killer.
The twisted path that led to Ridgway's murderous compulsion began in his childhood with a disturbing relationship with his controlling mother who bathed him well into his teenage years. This created conflicted feelings of attraction, humiliation, and resentment that festered into a dangerous hatred toward women, particularly sex workers. Despite having a below-average IQ of 82, Ridgway demonstrated a remarkable ability to evade capture while maintaining a facade of normalcy—working steadily as a truck painter, marrying multiple times, and raising a child.
What makes the Green River Killer case particularly infuriating were the missed opportunities to stop his rampage. In one heartbreaking instance, a victim's boyfriend actually followed Ridgway's truck and located it at his home, but responding police simply accepted Ridgway's denial without searching the property. It wasn't until DNA technology advanced in the late 1990s that investigators finally connected Ridgway to the crimes he'd been committing since 1982. Perhaps most chillingly, fellow serial killer Ted Bundy offered advice from death row that proved eerily accurate about Ridgway's behavior patterns.
Dive into this disturbing case that challenges our perceptions of what a killer "looks like" and reminds us that true evil often wears the most ordinary disguise. Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @WhySoSerialPod for more content, and if you're enjoying our shorter, focused approach to true crime, please leave us a rating and review!
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Oh my god, oh my god. I am just so freaking excited Podcast on the planet. Watch so Serial. Hey, listen. This is episode five. Three river One Red, let's Go.
Speaker 2:Welcome back y'all. This is why so Serious. It's your boy, cora, here, and I got Soren with me. Say what up, soren? Today we've decided to put a little twist on our podcast. We're going to do the entire episode while sucking helium out of balloons Yep.
Speaker 3:What do y'all think? All right, that wasn't even really that funny. So.
Speaker 4:Yes, it was.
Speaker 3:You think so?
Speaker 4:Yes, especially your part.
Speaker 3:You think we should have stuck with it? Yeah. Dude, I could never listen to a podcast if somebody sounded like that.
Speaker 4:I meant we just stuck with it for that little bit and then turned it off, because I wouldn't have stopped laughing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all right, man. So let me open this. I'm going to open it up today with a suave little intro. It goes like this Some monsters don't hide in the shadows. They smile at you in a grocery store, wave when they pass on the road, they blend into the background Until the day you realize they've been there all along.
Speaker 3:1982, teenage girl's body surfaced on the Green River in Seattle. By the time police pulled her from the water, the killer was already hunting his next victim, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one. This would go on and on until he reached about 49. Confirmed 71 is what he confessed to. For decades, women vanished along the highways south of Seattle. Days later, weeks later, their bodies would eventually be found in the shallow water of the Green River or tangled in the dark woods somewhere.
Speaker 3:Gary Ridgway is who we're talking about, the infamous Green River Killer. He didn't just murder them, though. He revisited them and treated their bodies like trophies, and he kept killing long after the rest of the world thought the danger had passed, just when they thought it was over. He just kept killing. He kept killing. Kept killing's isn't just a murder story. It's a story of a predator who turned a peaceful river into his graveyard of victims. So today, soren, that I know this one uh, you've actually done some research on before. You've actually looked into gary ridgeway before the green river killer. That's who we're going over today. What are your thoughts on him from what you've? Actually, this is one of the few cases that we've talked about that you actually have some knowledge about.
Speaker 4:He's actually still alive he is. I do know that.
Speaker 3:He is, yep, and we had actually bounced around the idea of writing him a letter. Yeah, I think you should do that.
Speaker 4:Dude, yeah, you should let me write it. You think you'd respond to me.
Speaker 3:Maybe I don't know. I mean, it could go one of two ways right, Either a lot of people are writing him or nobody's writing him.
Speaker 4:That's what I'm thinking is because, to be honest, I didn't really know who he was. I literally looked up serial killers because we needed a new one. I was like, boom, this dude killed. That's the most I've seen anyone convicted for. I think he has the most confirmed body count as far as a body count goes, I think he has the most confirmed. Even Bundy's was only confirmed like 15 or something. It was probably less, I think his was. He only got convicted for a few.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he only got convicted for four yeah, I think it was all the ones in florida the three girls in florida and then and then he got charged with the attempted interesting enough.
Speaker 3:The part I'm most excited about in this episode is bundy actually comes up in it.
Speaker 4:What.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you more about that here in a little bit. So let's talk a little bit about Gary Ridgeway's background. Gary was born February 18th 1949 in Salt Lake City, Utah. What is wrong with that place?
Speaker 4:Dude, I don't know. Look, that was um, what um?
Speaker 3:Bundy was involved in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 4:Bundy, and um what's his name? Best serial killer ever. I forget his name Israel Keys. He lived there. He was in Salt Utah yeah, salt Lake City, utah.
Speaker 3:And then Gary was raised in Sea-Tac, Washington. What is in the water in the Pacific Northwest, bro? I don't like it.
Speaker 4:This is insane, if we want to figure out why there's serial killers.
Speaker 3:We need to figure out what's going on in the water up in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:As far as his family dynamic goes, a very controlling and domineering mother. Her name was Maryary ridgeway and his and his father was kind of, uh, the exact opposite. He was very passive, like very just, like whatever you know, um, his it was him and his mother had this really weird relationship. She like babied him to a point, um, but also she wore like a lot of revealing clothing and stuff like that and, um, gary kind of like was attracted to his own mother. What, in a weird way, yeah, um, she actually bathed him until he was a teenager. So he was. It was humiliating for him and embarrassing for him, but he also had like conflicted feelings of attract, attraction toward her, but also resentment for being shamed over his own bodily functions. Essentially, yeah, like stuff he couldn't control.
Speaker 3:And you know he he often witnessed his mother's aggressive treatment of his father and she flirted with other men. So his dad was kind of poorly treated by his mother. However, there is reports that his father would actually take him and he would pick up sex workers and stuff like that. So his parents were a mess. His mother was flirting with other guys in front of him. His dad was just real passive and kind of a pushover, um, so not great parents. In his school years he had a. A look. Gary had a low iq. It was around 82, so just comparatively, the average iq score is about 100, so he was a little bit below a little bit.
Speaker 4:That's a lot compared with iq. You're like five below that, that's a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's like 60 you're considered I don't know what the correct term is for it but he was a socially awkward kid, but at the same time that he was socially awkward, he was also very good at manipulating. But at the same time that he was socially awkward, he was also very good at manipulating people. At the same time yeah, that's weird. Even though he was socially awkward, he was bullied a lot and one of his earliest acts of violence is he actually when he was 16, he stabbed a six-year-old boy.
Speaker 4:What.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 4:Why.
Speaker 3:His reasoning was and it came out later he actually said it. He was like I just wanted to feel what it was like to kill someone.
Speaker 4:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:Luckily the boy did not die.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So, what did he stab him with? Like a metal knife.
Speaker 3:With like a metal knife, like a real knife like a real knife, like legitimately stabbed this kid and like the kid almost died. It's a miracle that he didn't. The kid just got lucky and didn't die so did he get charged for this?
Speaker 4:because he's 16? He like. Most of the time you'll get tried as an adult for that no, I don't think he got.
Speaker 3:If he did get charged, it wasn't anything significant as an adult for that. No, I don't think he got. If he did get charged, it wasn't anything significant slap on the wrist yeah.
Speaker 3:So I don't know what ended up happening with it. There wasn't anything significant so I didn't dive too deep into it. He eventually joins the navy and served in in vietnam. So that's where he starts to get exposed to sex workers when he was overseas and he paid for a lot of their services and in doing that he actually caught a sexually transmitted disease. Oh yeah, so he contracted gonorrhea during his service and that's where he's already kind of starting. With his childhood he's already got some resentment towards his mother yeah, some poor feelings towards her and some conflicted feelings. He goes and he starts paying for for sexual favors overseas in the military, gets this disease.
Speaker 3:So his resentment for women is kind of starting to build, yeah, and kind of his, uh, unjustified hatred of women, as you'll, as you'll see, the exact opposite of last episode yes, it is. It's basically flip-flopped um. In our last episode with with eileen morno, she was the sex worker who was killing her customers.
Speaker 3:Um, but yeah, go listen to that episode, you can hear all about it that's pretty good so there was constant tension, uh gary, between sexual desire and kind of his deep anger, especially towards the sex workers I'm talking about. He thought they were dirty, kind of deserved anything that they got that was, that was bad. Yet he couldn't stay away from him. It was kind of like, uh, an addict with drugs like, yeah, hate it, don't like it, don't want anything to do with it, despise it. But an addiction doesn't have to just be to alcohol or drugs or cigarettes or whatever the case might be. It can be, you know, sexual things and prostitutes yeah and that was his.
Speaker 3:He just couldn't stay away from him, um, and, like I said, his, his mother's domineering control and sexual shame uh, that humiliation and that embarrassment that he got from that kind of turned into a rage and anger, right yeah. So he was also married three times, and each one of those marriages failed. Yeah, Um, and I think a lot of that had to do with he was very insecure and he was often accusing his wives of cheating on him and seeing other men, but that's what he was used to. Yep.
Speaker 3:That's what he saw as a kid, um, or at least that's how he perceived it. Yeah and um. He had three divorces, but he, I think, based off what he saw, he always maintained an extreme control over his partners and um wanted them to have sex with them and do these things like multiple times a day to like an excessive amount. That was just unhealthy to a point.
Speaker 3:Um and he often expressed that killing prostitutes save them from themselves and save society from them what yeah, it's just everything in his life, everything to do with women, of no fault I shouldn't say no fault but everything that just kind of took place in his life, some of it his doing, some of it others doing.
Speaker 3:He just developed this really deep hatred for women and especially sex workers. So this is a show about murder. Eventually, that cup is gonna spilleth over. The killing spree begins early in the 1980s, all right. So a lot of what we're going to talk about and where these girls go missing from is a place called the Strip. It's not like Las Vegas' Strip, it's just this stretch of highway that is known to have a lot of sex workers. That's where they go to work and to earn their money, and a lot of them are just trying to survive, but that's where they make their money. It's pretty well known in this, uh, seattle, tacoma area, um, but that's what. That's what this strip was. There was a lot of it going on dude.
Speaker 4:What is wrong with the Northwest in the 80s, bro Bundy? And then this dude.
Speaker 3:It's absolute chaos up there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think Ronny Alcala and them were around that time or the decade before.
Speaker 3:People talk about the East Coast being rough, but all I hear is Utah, colorado, washington State, alaska. Here is utah, colorado, washington state, alaska, alaska. Uh it's, it is weird. Yeah, it's very weird, and we didn't plan any of that. We just were going through different serial killers and stories we thought would be entertaining to talk about. Yeah, they're all in the Pacific Northwest. So, yeah, really interesting. But in July 1982, his first confirmed victims Wendy Cofield, deborah, who was 16, deborah Bonner, who was 23,. They were found in the Green River. So what had happened was what had happened was a body got reported. There was a fisherman fishing in the green river and did he catch the body?
Speaker 3:no, but he like went over top of it and the body was like laying there on the bottom. He I think he described it as like the body was like had its hand up, like asking for help. I was like, bro, you're doing way too much right now, doing too much, man doing too much. But yeah, can you imagine? No, I couldn't but you're just out fishing.
Speaker 3:You're like woohoo, having a good old time fishing and then bam body body and an orange home depot bucket yeah, oh, you got to kill kitten body. But he actually had said at first he thought it was a mannequin, but then looked again. Everybody always thinks it's a mannequin.
Speaker 4:Why do you think it's a mannequin?
Speaker 3:How many mannequins have you seen in the woods or in the river and things like that? Like people always think it's a freaking mannequin every time they come across a body yeah, dude, how white was this girl I don't know no offense, but like a mannequin I don't know man you're either really light or really dark but dude, people say that all the time like oh, I didn't report anything, I thought it was a mannequin. It's like what the hell?
Speaker 3:what I have never. It's always somebody that thought it was a mannequin or a jogger or a hunter that finds a body, always, always, man. I see you over there thinking like I ain't never going hunting again. I think we're good, yeah, um. So yeah, they found the first body in the green river, um, and then they just kept finding more bodies. I think they found four or five that same day.
Speaker 4:What.
Speaker 3:Yeah, kind of crazy.
Speaker 4:That's insane.
Speaker 3:So he kind of developed his MO quickly. He would lure women to his truck, offer them money for sexual favors and then during those acts he would strangle them, oftentimes using some sort of ligature. Do you know what a ligature is? No, he's using something to choke them with, like a cord a rope. Yeah, yeah, I know what that is Something like that, but ligatures kind of encompasses all of those things, a rope.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was choking them with something All right. Yeah, he was choking them with something All right. And then he would kind of like dispose the bodies in little clusters, like not just like one body by itself here, one body by itself over here. Like I said, in the Green River there was multiple, but he had multiple dump sites where he would dump clusters of bodies all at one time in a specific area, in the woods or a secluded area or in the river. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But he would frequently revisit these dump sites and do things to their corpses and he kind of viewed them as like his trophies. Like you know, people hang a deer on the wall or you have your you know baseball trophies. Mma trophies or whatever, and like you go back and look at him, you're like huh, I remember that day, like that's what he was doing, but like with human bodies, Insane.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so definitely insane. It's just like a next level of sick and messed up. So I mentioned those first bodies that were discovered on the Green River. That was in 1982, and those were referred to as the Green River murders. Victims were Wendy Cofield, Deborah Bonner, Marsha Chapman, Cynthia Hines and Opal Mills.
Speaker 4:How far was the age range between all those people? Were they all different or like? Were they all around like the same age group?
Speaker 3:They were usually pretty young, young teens, not young teens, but early adulthood. So Wendy Cofield, she was 16 years old and she was found in the Green River on July 15, 1982. And she was last seen near Pacific Highway South. She was strangled and her body was dumped in the water to destroy evidence. And she is actually the youngest confirmed victim and she kind of set the tone for the investigation. Yeah. The second was Mary Meehan, 18 years old, and she was actually pregnant at the time of her death, which is really sad.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's horrible.
Speaker 3:She was last seen in August hitchhiking to a friend's house and she was also strangled and Ridgway later admitted to doing things to her body after he killed her and she was found in a wooded area months later. So Mary Meham was actually. I included her in this list, but she wasn't one of those first five that was found in the Green River. She was actually found in a wooded area and she was in 1983.
Speaker 3:Now back to these Green River bodies that were found Opal Mills, who was 16, and Marsha Chapman, who was 31. They were both found together in 1982, along with cynthia hines, who was 17. So, like I said, he um disposed of these bodies in in clusters, yeah, and he picked them up all separately but dumped them all in the same area. That was his thing. Yeah, he would dump them, and I think it was. He would kill a lot of them, and didn't? He's killed so many women that if he spread them all about.
Speaker 4:He would never be able to find them all He'd never be able to Like when he gets to visit.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Yeah, he'd never be able to them all. He'd never be able to visit exactly that's a yeah that you'd never be able to.
Speaker 4:so he he stacked them in clusters um clusters you mean like, literally, like right next to each other, or like literally right next to each other what that's insane so when they find all these bodies together in a river or in a wooded area, it's that shock factor.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So not only the police, but the media and the public and everybody else. But these two young girls, they actually weren't prostitutes or sex workers. He actually later mentions that one of the girls specifically, I want to say and pull up these names again gosh, darn it, here we go, uh, opal, opal mills. He said that, you know, even though she wasn't a prostitute, he just happened to see her walking by herself down the street and he said it was just a crime of opportunity. Yeah, um, so she was literally just minding her own business walking down the street.
Speaker 4:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:Another victim we have case number four is Kimmy Kai Pister Pitzer, who was 16 years old. He admitted that he strangled her and also left her in a wood of ravine Uh and he would often come back to her body over several days, and he claimed that he just enjoyed having power over a victim who could no longer talk back to him.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, that's horrible.
Speaker 3:That raises a really big red flag to me and I think exposes a lot about his problem and why he wasn't ticking correctly. He says he enjoys having power over a victim who could no longer talk back to him. So he was always having problems with women, whether it was in a sexual way, or his mother or his failed marriages is thinking that his wives were being unfaithful to him. All this stuff not doing what he said, not giving him what he wanted, him feeling inadequate, unjustly, but that's how he felt. Um, he enjoys having power over these people that can't do anything about it.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that's why he would revisit these bodies.
Speaker 4:It was a control thing. How old was he at this point?
Speaker 3:So this was 1983 and he was born in 49. So mid thirties All right. Yeah, so my age, to put it in this perspective for you perspective, that's the word I was looking for. So now, where's the investigation going to take us? And I can already tell you, you are going to be very, very.
Speaker 4:Surprise.
Speaker 3:Surprise is not the word.
Speaker 4:Shock. Disappointed in the investigation.
Speaker 3:So they start a task force in 1982, and they have a huge list of potential suspects because they're just looking at. They don't really know where to start right, these are all prostitutes. They're looking at sex offenders. They're looking at people who have violent histories towards towards sex workers. Um, and gary ridgeway was actually interviewed multiple times in the 1980s what he even passes a polygraph in 1984 how oh he tricked it somehow.
Speaker 4:They didn't realize.
Speaker 3:Polygraphs aren't the end-all be-all, but sometimes I think people rely not on common sense and evidence that's in front of them and they're like, oh, let's just put them on a polygraph. The polygraph says they're lying and some people will just let it be. I mean they didn't have any hard evidence on them, granted, but the roads kept leading back to Gary Ridgeway. That's not an accident, mm-mm. But I think sometimes investigators will get caught in that where they let that polygraph be the end-all be-all.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so what they do? Just mark them off as a suspect.
Speaker 3:They went along to somebody else.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3:Yep, so they actually end up I forget the guy's name and I don't have it written down here but they actually end up really honing in on this one guy and let me see if I can actually find his name at least they even started a task force, though I mean, they kind of had to, you know, because they have a you know multiple, multiple bodies and the public's going to demand answers.
Speaker 3:So, um, I don't know if I'm going to be able to find this guy's name right now. Melvin Foster, that's his name. So they actually had this Melvin Foster guy and he fails a polygraph. So now they are totally convinced that melvin foster is the guy, um, and he ends up not being the guy. He was a weird dude and and said some weird stuff on tv and, um, it looked good on the surface but it it wasn't him did he um like go to like county or what?
Speaker 4:did they put him in jail at all? Did they end up arresting him?
Speaker 3:I can't remember if they did or not, but it wasn't him. And it ended up being this whole show and they were totally wrong. They even had at one point paint transfer evidence in 1983 that linked Gary Ridgway circumstantially, but they didn't have enough evidence to charge him in anything. He was a truck painter by trade. He would paint vehicles, yeah. But yeah, the roads kept leading back to him, but everything was always circumstantial. So he's actually pretty smart so far.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it was smart and it was, or it was just like he's picking up sex workers, strangling them and dumping them. He just did it at night. There wasn't witnesses around. You know, today it's different. Different because there's traffic cameras everywhere. Yeah, if you look up anywhere you are at, like any time, you're going to see a camera somewhere. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:In the 80s, it just wasn't like that. There is one case, though, that really for lack of a better term just pisses me off about this case Young lady's name. She ends up being killed. Her name is Marie Malvar. She is with her boyfriend in a diner sitting down having food and at some point her boyfriend gets up to go to the bathroom or something, and when he comes back he sees her leaving with Gary Ridgway. He doesn't know who Gary Ridgway is, but it ends up being Gary Ridgway.
Speaker 4:Was the dude? Was he able to like identify or like put in a sketch or anything?
Speaker 3:So this is it gets worse, you ready. Yeah, I guess. Okay. So her boyfriend actually sees Gary Ridgway get into his truck. He jumps in his car and follows him. Oh yeah, because he ain't about to let some dude just take off with his woman.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right. So he ends up following this truck as long as he can, and he ends up losing it at an intersection.
Speaker 4:Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:So he rushes back and tells her family what's going on and they go out and immediately start looking for this truck. And they find the truck.
Speaker 4:Oh, my what.
Speaker 3:At Gary Ridgway's house. They find it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, what.
Speaker 3:They call the police Cop goes and knocks on the door. Now let's, let's, let's step back for a second and think about what we have so far. You, in your city, you have a an active serial killer. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Who has claimed Many women's lives. At this point you get a report of someone saying their girlfriend gets picked up, taken by somebody in a truck. They find the truck at Gary Ridgway's house Gary Ridgway house Gary Ridgway, who happens to be somebody that keeps popping up in this investigation and when the cop goes and knocks on the door, gary Ridgway says Nah, she ain't here, sorry.
Speaker 4:What.
Speaker 3:The cop's like oh, okay, what, and that's it, that's it. Doesn't even so much ask if he can go inside and take a look around, doesn't do any follow-up, nothing, nothing for the life of me.
Speaker 4:I cannot understand that so he would have been caught he.
Speaker 3:They were hot on his trail and they had him yep they had him right then, and there I cannot wrap my brain around it there's no way that wasn't like a rookie police officer they sent out there dude, I don't care if it's like.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm sure there's like 90% of people listening to this podcast right now could be like you better ask some more questions. Even if you knew nothing about Gary Ridgway, if there was multiple murders of women going on, I'm at least gonna be a little bit pushy about it. Yeah, ask a couple of questions, not just be like, well, sorry, he said that she wasn't in there.
Speaker 4:Nothing. You followed him forever.
Speaker 3:Followed him, yep In your city, where you've had multiple murders of young women Just like her. And she ends up being the next victim.
Speaker 4:Horrible. Could have stopped it there.
Speaker 3:Could have. She could have already been dead, we don't know.
Speaker 4:But regardless. Wait, was there murders after this?
Speaker 3:I'm pretty sure there was, they could have stopped that. Yeah, so after that Gary Ridgway actually ends up getting married again and he actually ends up having a successful marriage.
Speaker 4:That's pretty good so these.
Speaker 3:It is good in one sense because the murder just stopped oh my god, that's awesome for a while.
Speaker 3:For a while, but he was still killing, while he was married to this woman too. Um, she actually had mentioned that there was times where he would call and say you know, he's working late, he's doing this and after, after she found out, she thought she had married, she had found the love of her life. Uh, she was living the american dream, you know house, white picket, fence and stuff like that. And now she's left with the haunting feeling of every time he called, said you know, I gotta swing by the grocery store, I've gotta, I've gotta work late. Tonight something came up. I'm gonna be home late, we'll see out killing another girl, you know, but eventually, um, you know, but eventually um, in the late 1990s DNA testing begins to get a lot better and they can build full profiles.
Speaker 3:So one of the victims that was found in the green river Marsha.
Speaker 4:They collected a DNA sample from sample from her of someone else and guess what.
Speaker 3:It was Gary Ridgway. It was Gary Ridgway. Gary Ridgway was a match to the DNA. Unfortunately, so many of these cases could have been stopped if DNA was where it was. But nothing we can do about science. But you know we got to go back to the fact that there was just piss poor police work in this case. No, police work Knuckleheads. You want to talk about buffoons. That was buffoonery, is that a word?
Speaker 4:They were some doodoo heads.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that cop was a doodoo head, absolute doodoo head. But they end up matching the DNA to Ridgeway and he's arrested November 30th 2001. And initially he's charged with four murders but he eventually confesses to 71. And he's convicted of 49.
Speaker 4:49? Mm-hmm Like 4-9?
Speaker 3:4 9. Jesus. Yep, he was given 49 consecutive life sentences, so no death penalty, so we don't get a final meal. None of that. Like you said, he's still alive today, serving his time that's so crazy.
Speaker 4:49 life is it like natural life?
Speaker 3:I don't know if it's natural life or not there, but he's not. No matter which way you flip it, even if he got 49 years, he's probably not making it out, but he made a plea bargain that spared him from the death penalty. No matter which way you flip it, even if he got 49 years, he's probably not making it up, but he made a plea bargain that spared him from the death penalty in exchange for his cooperation. He gave a lot of detailed maps and he spent a lot of time actually taking police to where he dumped bodies.
Speaker 4:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:And walked them through everything Dump bodies that's crazy and walk them through everything. He gave victim descriptions and gave these really just chilling accounts of his killings and I'd like to play a couple of clips from him speaking. When you listen to Gary Ridgway, you just hear how cold and how he just really didn't give a damn about these women and he actually said that killing was his career and he did it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's crazy, yeah, and he did it. He did all this killing just to get it out of his system and he did it. He did all this killing just to get it out of his system and it just came from years and years of built up anger, misplaced anger, yeah, at women and just hatred of women, and it just boiled over and he killed many women, which it's really unfortunate.
Speaker 4:I still can't believe he got convicted of 49.
Speaker 3:That's insane yeah, so let me play you a clip from one of Gary Ridgway's interviews, just so you can kind of get a better grasp about who he was. Listen to this.
Speaker 5:I went to an area and my son was there and I killed her. I'm real.
Speaker 2:Sure, my son didn't see it, but that only happened one time, but that was a pretty good ruse, so why didn't?
Speaker 4:you do it again. Well, for one thing.
Speaker 5:I didn't want my son to see it see that happen again, because I was.
Speaker 3:So what you're listening to there that's a clip from red tree stories on on YouTube is where we got that from. What you're listening to there, and part of that interview that he's talking with that detective about, is he came up with these ruses to trick these women into thinking he was normal and he wasn't dangerous, and one of those is he's talking about he's got his son with him.
Speaker 4:What.
Speaker 3:He has his son with him while he commits this murder.
Speaker 4:That's insane.
Speaker 3:That's disturbing. He that's disturbing. Yeah, very. He's like. I don't think my son saw it, but he went to great lengths to make these women feel comfortable with him, to make him feel like he was normal he talks about. He would have his kids' toys in the car and he would open up his wallet to show them his id and he would have pictures of his son in there and stuff like that. So he seemed very normal that's crazy. And these women yeah, these women didn't realize the entire time.
Speaker 3:They're sitting next to a monster and yeah you know, as you can, you can kind of tell by just his voice. He's just telling a story. It's like you know he talks a lot in this interview too about the hatred he had for his mother and just that he couldn't take it out on her. Yeah, you know, and what he ended up doing is taking out all this hatred against his mother and other women and took it out against what would ultimately be 71 women's lives which is horrible yeah, no doubt about it, man.
Speaker 3:I told you that ted bundy would come up in this story, right? So ted bundy, freaking ted ted bundy actually reached out to the task force to give them some advice on what they were looking for what yeah, they said they needed to look for somebody and they needed to play. Pay close attention to where they found the bodies or where they thought his dump sites were, because he was going to return to the bodies.
Speaker 4:That's crazy, and he did.
Speaker 3:Ted was right, yeah, but Ted Bundy actually gave them that tip.
Speaker 4:And they know it was Ted.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they know, it was Ted. Yeah, unbelievable right.
Speaker 4:Like they say hi, my name is Ted.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I don't know how he did it, but they got that information from Ted Bundy and Ted Bundy actually ended up being right.
Speaker 4:That's insane. Is that how they caught him? No, no, oh yeah they did the DNA DNA.
Speaker 3:Because he had actually Ridgeway, had actually provided saliva samples early in the investigation. Tell me he had everybody, he had the police full they. He was just cooperative, super cooperative and friendly to the police. Nice of them, answered all their questions. I mean this guy was completely normal and that's what we keep seeing. When you picture serial killer in your mind, you're picturing the kid that's been bullied his whole life, doesn't talk to anybody, doesn't have any friends. I mean that's part of it. But what we're seeing in a lot of these people is they carried out normal lives. Yeah, israel keys ran a business, had a girlfriend, had a child he was normal yeah, gary ridgeway had a job for years at kenworth painting trucks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, was married, had a child, all this stuff. Ted Bundy even had a normal life with Liz helping her raise her daughter.
Speaker 4:Annie had a kid.
Speaker 3:HH Holmes, not so much, but everyone else we've talked. Eileen Wuornos never had a normal life, but you know it's very odd and what I've learned and I'm learning a lot by talking about these people with you is maybe we don't know what a serial killer looks like.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I thought AJ's home. He didn't have like a normal life with his parents and stuff.
Speaker 3:He was just always scheming. Yeah, you know what I mean, but I mean just in general. These people are not just talking about their family lives but yeah, swindling People are not just talking about their family lives. But yeah, it's Wendland. They had normal lives, had jobs, had families. It's like what is a serial killer?
Speaker 4:I don't know.
Speaker 3:What is one? How do we know? And I think the most unfortunate thing about the Green River case is these families were left without closure for decades, for a really long time. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because it took forever to solve this case and the task force did get a lot of criticism for letting Gary Ridgway slide through their fingers for years and years. But, like we already talked about, they investigated a lot of things and ran down a lot of paths. But sometimes you have to ignore the polygraph and go where the information is taking you, where the evidence is taking you, where the freaking witness is taking you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she's not here, All right all right, I'm on my way.
Speaker 3:If it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck.
Speaker 4:It's a duck.
Speaker 3:It's a duck. It's a duck, that's right. So he remains, and probably will forever remain, one of the most prolific serial killers in history. He's got the most bodies confirmed, that's for sure. And, like I said, he's serving life without parole at Washington State Penitentiary. And you are going to write him a letter, right?
Speaker 4:Probably, maybe, maybe not.
Speaker 3:What is your letter? What would you write?
Speaker 4:Be like hey, I do a podcast about serial killers. I've been looking into your case. You're a horrible person, but it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 3:I wonder if he'll write you back. Stay tuned, everybody. Soren's going to write a letter to Gary Ridgway in prison and see if we can get a response back. So stay tuned and we'll let you know. So that's the story of the Green River Killer Ratings, Ratings.
Speaker 4:We've got time of the Green River Killer Ratings.
Speaker 3:Ratings. We've got time. Let's start with brutality.
Speaker 4:Solid eight.
Speaker 3:Eight. Yeah, I would agree with that. He's choking these women, dumping their bodies like trash, and that's how he referred to them as trash. They were trash Garbage to him. You know Creativeness. Like trash and that's how he referred to them as trash. They were trashed garbage to him.
Speaker 4:You know creativeness three yeah, not super creative there's a lot of people just strangling people he was good at it.
Speaker 3:He was good at getting away with it, but as far as creative, he was picking women up off the side of the road and the only reason it wasn't a zero was because the dump sites were pretty creative. Yeah, yeah. It was Execution.
Speaker 4:I give it a solid eight again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's the most prolific. He went a really long time killing women and not getting caught. I mean you kind of got to give it to him. Yeah. What's the other category Intelligence?
Speaker 3:Yeah, probably like a dude I might have to give him a nine a nine yeah, dude, I was thinking about going 10 I mean, I guess he was, and it wasn't like he was brilliant, he was just good at not getting called and he was smart about his crimes one thing is it is either he was really smart or the police were really dumb.
Speaker 4:Probably a mixture of like he's half smart, police are super dumb Makes him kind of smart.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean the one case in particular with Marie Malvar. Just, I cannot wrap my head around that, dude. I can't make it make sense. I was a cop. I've knocked on many, many doors trying to get information, with less information than that, and I gained more information about cases that didn't mean nearly as much as that. I just don't understand it. I cannot wrap my head around that. What would you do if you were that family? I'd have lost it, bro.
Speaker 4:I would have gone in there. I don't know why the family wasn't going in.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, I don't give a damn dude if somebody took you.
Speaker 4:Hey, he might be a serial killer, but he ain't bulletproof.
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly. If somebody took you man and a witness was like yeah, it's that guy right there, and he was like he ain't in here, I'm coming in there. Either you invite me or we fighting. Yeah. And one of us is going to die in a minute. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thanks, I don't think anyone's bulletproof so there you go.
Speaker 3:I said that's big facts, big facts from Soren, but that's all we got time for today. Folks, we try to, like I said before and I will continue to say, we try to keep these episodes pretty short and sweet. That way you can get information about the case. You're not going to get super detailed breakdowns here. You're not going to get all of that.
Speaker 4:And you're not going to get bored.
Speaker 3:You're not going to get bored. You're not going to get a six-part episode breaking down every last detail of the case. We're going to give it to you in a short and sweet manner that you can listen to on a drive to and from work, a drive to and from the gym, whatever. Whenever you listen to podcasts before bed one night, something like that, where you can listen to it in less than an hour, you know it's really to bring attention to these cases and the victims in these cases so they're not forgotten about. If any of these cases really interest you, this one in particular there's a lot of really good documentaries on prime, on netflix, that really break down this case and the work of the task force and more of the the psychological aspect and just the murders in more detail. Really interesting stuff.
Speaker 3:We don't we try to keep this under an hour, so we do encourage you to, uh, go read the books about these people. Go watch the documentaries if books aren't your thing, but in the meantime, check us out on tiktok and instagram. We have both, it's why. So serial pod on both of those we try to post pretty frequently. We haven't been as good about it lately, but we try to stay on top of that. But it is hunting season so we haven't been as good about about posting on there. But we're trying to bring you as much content as possible, trying to bring attention to these cases and make it entertaining for you.
Speaker 3:So if you are entertained by us, please give us a download. Wherever you listen to your podcast, give us a rating on there. It does help us. I don't know exactly how that algorithm works, but I know it helps. So please do that for us. Leave us some kind words, or if you hate it, let us know that too. So we can. We want to learn, we want to get better at this. This is new to us still, so if you have any constructive criticism, please give us that as well. But if if you like the show, let us know.
Speaker 4:But don't hate for no reason.
Speaker 3:Don't hate for no reason.
Speaker 4:I'd be like you can do this better this time, this better that time. Say dude, it sucks.
Speaker 3:Exactly Constructive criticism. That's what we're looking for, all right.
Speaker 4:I'm actually kind of excited to write to Ridgeway, even though he's a horrible person.
Speaker 3:I'm excited for you to write to him to see what happens.
Speaker 4:Dude. If he responds, we'll have to do another emergency episode.
Speaker 3:We definitely will do an emergency episode if Ridgeway writes you back. That'd be pretty crazy, but in the meantime you got any parting words for the people, Soren?
Speaker 4:No bye.
Speaker 1:What? 71 body, 49 convictions and one stupid car. Follow the boys on TikTok, follow the boys on IG. Follow the boys on IG WhySoSerialPod. And until next time, this has been why so Serial. We hope y'all enjoyed that. We'll see y'all next time. Bye-bye.