Gary Ridgway And The Green River Killer

On April 8th 1987, investigators executed a search warrant on the Ridgeway residence, his work locker, and several vehicles (Maleng 6). Hundreds of items of evidence were seized and submitted to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory, including a saliva sample from Ridgway (6). The evidence was compared to the evidence that had been collected at the dump sites (6). The results indicated nothing to link Ridgway to the victims. (6).

Interest in the Green River Killer waned in 1987, as officially there were no new disappearances were reported in the Seattle area (Douglas). The Green River Task Force faced funding cuts as some believed that the Green River Killer had died or moved away (Douglas). By 1990, the Green River Task Force had been

The results were conclusive; Gary Ridgway’s saliva was a match to the semen in the “sexual assault kits” (536). On December 5th, 2001, the King County Prosecuting Attorney charged Ridgway with four counts of Aggravated Murder in the First Degree for the murders of Carol Christensen, Marcia Chapman, Opal Mills, and Cynthia Hinds (Maleng 8). Cynthia Hinds was included with the other victims, even though no DNA evidence existed, because the proximity of her body to the others left no doubt that the same killer was responsible

Washington State Police had the technology for two years before the call was made to test the samples of DNA from the Green River Killer (373).

It’s easy to look back and cast blame upon the investigators who worked on the Green River Killer case. I’m positive that looking back, they too wish they would’ve handled a few things differently. The heinous crimes mixed the lack of evidence were too much for detectives of the day as it was a lot to process with very little technological assistance. Now, thanks to what we learned in cases such as the Green River Killer, we are better equipped to handle what offenders leave for us. Law enforcement all over the country utilizes the outdoor evidence collection and logging methods first utilized in this case.

I suppose it’s probably bittersweet for the countless personnel involved in the Green River Killings that the case that they toiled over for decades, could now be solved in a matter of weeks. Nowadays, by comparing the DNA located in the “sexual assault kits” of the first victims to the Armed Forces Repository of Specimen Samples for the Identification of Remains, which was made accessible to law enforcement in December of 2002, investigators would find a match with the DNA of Gary Ridgway, veteran of the US