Research Paper On The Green River Killer Ridgway

THE GREEN RIVER KILLER The most horrid crime of all; serial killing. The murder of three or more individuals classify the category of serial murder(FBI). There has to be a period of time between the murders to fully distinguish it as a serial murder. A well-known serial killer from Washington, Seattle is Gary Ridgway, who was given the name “The Green River Killer” (Harthorne). His case become the largest Criminal Homicide case in Washington State. These killings will stretch across a nineteen year time period which had many people in fear for their lives and their loved ones (Harthorne). Gary Ridgway was born on November 30, 1949 in Salt Lake City, Utah and raised in the McMicken Heights neighborhood of SeaTac, Washington. The area had

The first believed victim of the green river killer was found floating in the water of the green river. The victim was named Wendy Lee Coalfield followed by four more young victims. All the victims are foreseen to be prostitutes that work along the SeaTac Strip (Talvi). Ridgway had a type towards his victims. He sought out young victims ranging anywhere from twelve years of age to thirty-eight(Harthorne). He preferred them to be prostitutes or runaways girls(Harthorne). He admitted he was addicted to prostitutes, however he had a love hate relationship with them(Talvi). In other words, as a child he thought of them as dirty and nasty, yet in adulthood he fancied to have intimate relations with them. He even blames a prostitute to have given him

Sometimes he would show a picture of his son to get the women to trust him. Often it would work, many people believe a family man is a safe person, a local paint trucker would do no harm, however, not in this case. He would continue to take them to his house and have intercourse with them. Other times he would take them into the woods or had intercourse with them in the back of his pickup. After intimate relations, Ridgway committed the act of strangulation towards the victims. He would pull hard at the neck and choke them with his forearm(Meyer) He would often strangle the victims from behind(Meyer). The victims would started to fight and he got bruises and scratches from these altercations(Whitney). Soon after he started using ligatures, to avoid