Gary Ridgway

Gary Ridgway got married thrice. In 1969 he married his 19-year-old high school girlfriend Claudia Kraig. He is the father of a son.

In 1981, sometime before Ridgway began his killings, his second wife, Marcia Winslow divorced him.

He met a woman named Judith Mawson in 1985, who became his third wife.

Gary Ridgway was born on 18th February, 1949, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He spent his early childhood at a neighbourhood near SeaTac airport close to Seattle's Pacific Highway.

Ridgway was not good at studies and was a poor student. He joined the navy and went to Vietnam after completing high school. He served on board a supply ship.

Upon his return from Vietnam, he started working as a truck painter and continued to do the same for 30 years.

Ridgway became a serial killer around early 1980s on account of his hatred for women. He started targeting prostitutes and other young vulnerable runaways. Most of the murders took place near Seattle and Tacoma, Washington.

He picked them up from state Route 99 in south King County, where they were reported to have disappeared and often brought them home. He would strangle them with hand or using ligature and then leave their bodies at remote places. He dumped many bodies along the banks of the Green River, located south of Seattle.

The murders continued until he was caught in 2001. He would offer a lift in his car after engaging them in small talk and often showed the photographs of his son to win over their trust.

Planning the murders and disposing the corpses was done very carefully to escape from the eyes of the police. He would use ligature so that there would be no marks on his bodyduring struggle with the victims.

Ridgway had been arrested in 1982 on a prostitution charge. He was subjected to a polygraph test after he became a suspect in a case. But he passed the test and was thereby released.

During early 1980s, Ridgway would often attend meetings of an organization named ‘Parents Without Partners’, where single parents could meet people of the same kind. In 1984, he got engaged to a woman from the group, but was let down later.

During interrogations, Ridgway made mention of his attempts to murder while he was a teen, though he was not arrested.