In 2001, Ridgway’s DNA, along with others, was sent into a lab to compare to semen found at some of the victim sites. A few weeks later, the results came back and identified that Ridgway’s semen was a match with those on the victim’s bodies and would now gain the name the Green River Killer. Ridgway was arrested shortly after and would end his killing spree and begin his new life on trial and in prison. From the years of 1982 to 1998 Ridgway would murder women prostitutes. In 1984, the authorities saw a decrease in murders and this is believed to be because of Ridgway’s relationship with his third wife. Ridgway’s last victim was killed in 1998, finally ending his killing streak (Paulson). In 2003, Ridgway’s murder trial began. Almost immediately after the trial started, the possibility of death row was brought up. …show more content…
To convince the judge to take the possibility of death row out, Ridgway would provide as much evidence and details as possible to help locate all of his victims (Paulson). Ridgway was able to convince the judge to rule death row out. He helped authorities find victims' bodies that had not yet been located (“Gary Ridgway”). Along with helping the authorities, Ridgway also agreed to allow all found victims in the Seattle area- that did not have a suspect- to be associated with his murder and become one of his victims without any evidence (Paulson). Throughout his trial, Ridgway pleaded guilty to the murders of forty-eight young women in the Seattle-Tacoma area. However, he confessed to killing between seventy and eighty women, but only forty-eight were able to be confirmed (Paulson). Suspicions of up to ninety women are talked about to this day (“Gary Ridgway’s”). Ridgway claims that he killed most women the first time they met and that he did not know most of his victims' names