Why Is Gary Leon Ridgway Called The Green River Killer

Gary Leon Ridgway better known as the “Green River Killer” was born on February 18, 1949, in Salt Lake City, Utah, he was the middle child of three boys Gregory being the oldest and Thomas being the youngest (Lakey et al. 2005). Growing up in Salt Lake City the Ridgways’ were not very social with their neighbors since his parents would often fight for hours, and it would sometimes turn violent (Lakey et al. 2005). An ex-wife of one of Gary recalls that while she was over at the Ridgway’s home she witnessed the parents fighting and when they were fighting his mother Mary broke a plate over her husband Thomas’s head (Robinson, 2001). After eleven years living in Utah the Ridgways’ moved to Washington State, and five years after the move Gary commits his first crime of stabbing a six-year old boy to where he was in critical condition, but when the boy claimed that Ridgway had done it the police ignored the incident (Lakey et al. 2005). As well, while living in

I also picked prostitutes for victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer Staff and News Services, 2003). Therefore, Ridgway indirectly but directly planned the murders he committed since majority of the victims were young runaways and/or prostitutes, but he did state that “I picked her up planning to kill her”; he would approach the women for “dates” (Robinson, 2001). The middle of July was when the first victim was found her name was Wendy Lee Coffield she was a sixteen-year-old runaway, the medical examiner determined that she had been strangled with her own underwear; for there was not much evidence to be examined the murder went unsolved, and the murderer from then on out was called the Green River Killer (Montaldo,