In August 1982, a young man from Tacoma who had gone fishing on the Green River in Washington state spotted two women’s bodies pinned down by heavy stones in thick brush. When police examined the scene, they found a third victim. Investigators concluded that shortly before the killings, the murderer had sexual contact with the women, then strangled them and placed stones inside their bodies. That detail would later become one of the case’s important signatures.
After reviewing other unsolved cases, state police concluded that two more deaths were connected: a 16-year-old girl found on July 15, 1982, and a 23-year-old prostitute whose body was discovered on August 7. All of the victims were found in the Green River, all showed signs of violence and strangulation, and each had her own clothing tied around her neck.
Investigators had little doubt that a serial killer was operating in King County and disposing of bodies in the river. As police gathered evidence, more bodies continued to appear with alarming frequency. Detectives found that nearly all of the women had worked on SeaTac Strip in Seattle, where prostitutes commonly stood. A client would pick them up by car, and later their bodies would be found in the river.
Rumors of a serial killer spread quickly across Seattle. Women were warned about the danger, but many still had to earn money and took the risk. It later emerged that the killer was Gary Ridgway, a painter at a local paint factory who knew how to gain people’s trust. He showed victims a photo of his young son, spoke affectionately about the boy, asked women about their families and homes, and behaved with deliberate politeness. That made them trust him and get into his vehicle without suspicion.
On one occasion, Ridgway met a woman named Amalia and invited her to his home. She left with him, and her pimp Bobby unexpectedly decided to follow the car.
“It was like something pushed me. I had never followed her before, but that time I did,” he later told police.
Bobby eventually lost sight of Ridgway’s pickup, but he remembered the vehicle. When Amalia failed to return home or to work the next day, he began searching, found the house, and called police. Officers arrived quickly, spoke to a calm man who identified himself as Gary Ridgway, and were told that he had recently bought the house and had never seen any woman named Amalia. The officers believed him, and they ignored Bobby’s insistent demands to search the home because they had no warrant.