Gary Ridgway Case Study

This essay will examine the case study of the convicted serial killer Gary Ridgway, who was eventually caught and convicted for the murders 48 women. Ridgway, went on a killing spree of women without getting caught for over two decades, he went on to become the Green River Killer (Reichert, 2004). The essay will explore and evaluate the characteristics including the attribution of Garry Ridgway’s horrific crimes. In the 1980s and 1990s Ridgway targeted prostitutes, runaway girls, hitchhikers and vulnerable women in the locality of where he lived in Washington State, USA (Reichert, 2004). It baffled the authorities as to how he was able to commit these crimes whilst working and living in the locality of his crimes however, he was not suspected

At Ridgway’s sentencing he stated that he had picked prostitutes as his victims as he hated all of the prostitutes and did not want to have to pay them for sex (State of Washington v. Gary Leon Ridgway 2003). Ridgway also picked prostitutes as there was no aggravation in doing so and would not be noticed. Ridgway’s attitude was that a prostitute would not be missed or be reported missing, there for he could kill as many as he wanted and would never get caught (Missen, 2000). A third of Ridgway’s victims were from a minority backgrounds and most of them were younger that the 22 years old (Levi-Menzi & Shields, 2007). It is prostitutes that are more prevalent to becoming victims as they are already in harm’s way through the nature of their work and profession. Ridgway’s manifestation of these killings was seen as a career achievement and he was very proud of himself and that he was the best at what he did (Reichert, 2004). Ridgway’s thoughts were that he was helping the police of ridding society of these women and was doing the world a favour, as he thought the police can’t control them but he could and he did (Dalla et al., 2003). Ridgway also thought prostitutes were an infestation and a disease and he had the cure, he cured these young women of their underserving and pathetic lives (Levi-Menzi & Shields, 2007). Even though not all the women he killed were prostitutes, never the less according to Ridgway, he thought they all got what they deserved (Dalla et al., 2003) There was never any official diagnosis of Ridgway, however life history, attitude and crimes were a result of an antisocial behaviour disorder of some sort (Burgess et al., 1986). Ridgway’s crimes all had an element of sadistic violence, a trait that is prevalent in psychopathic criminals, (Boer et al., 2003). It is the belief of the authorities that Ridgway