
The boys conclude the story of the Green River Killer, as Ted Bundy gives investigators a disturbingly accurate profile of the man he calls “The Riverman,” Gary Ridgway tries settling into a normal life with his third wife, and the task force somehow keeps missing the killer right under their noses. But after nearly two decades of blown chances, DNA and trace evidence finally catch up with Green River Gary, leading to his arrest, his confessions to dozens of murders, and the present day, where he continues to rot away in prison.
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Henry Zebrowski
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Marcus Parks
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Henry Zebrowski
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Marcus Parks
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Henry Zebrowski
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Ed Larson
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Marcus Parks
from B to you, there's no place to escape to.
Henry Zebrowski
This is the last on the left.
Marcus Parks
That's when the cannibalism started.
Henry Zebrowski
What was that? Oh, man, I hope Gary can really make his way out of this one.
Guest/Ad Voice
I really.
Marcus Parks
How's Gary going to get himself out of this?
Henry Zebrowski
I really think after last week, Gary's in a lot of hot water. I sure hope he can figure his way out to get out of this one. Skunk. Come on, Gary. Give it a happy ending.
Ed Larson
Find Christ, Gary.
Marcus Parks
Oh, Gary Ridgeway sure did get himself into a pickle this time. Come back after the commercial break. Sure Gary can get away from the shelf.
Henry Zebrowski
We do need more bluegrass rabbits in this story.
Marcus Parks
Welcome to the last podcast on the left. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with bluegrass Henry Zabrowski.
Ed Larson
Yeah,
Henry Zebrowski
I was watching this video of a group of people finding a Japanese bluegrass.
Ed Larson
Served that in Tokyo.
Henry Zebrowski
That was cool.
Ed Larson
It looked awesome.
Henry Zebrowski
They're more white than us.
Ed Larson
I was very impressed. They know how to sing white so well.
Henry Zebrowski
They do, yeah.
Marcus Parks
Truly so. And we've got the man who's been known as Brown Grass at every campsite he's ever been to. It's Ed Larson.
Ed Larson
That's right, man. I spray it large.
Henry Zebrowski
Dude, is your. Yeah, urine like a bear where it's so ammonia ridden that it does kill grass.
Ed Larson
I'll tell you what it smells.
Henry Zebrowski
It's great.
Ed Larson
My urine smells so bad. It smells itself.
Marcus Parks
On that note, we're here. Ladies and gentlemen, Jerry Ridgeway. Part three, the conclusion to this series, Stinky Urine. So when we last left Gary Ridgeway, the year was 1984. And the murder spree that would make Gary one of the most prolific serial killers in American history was finally coming to a close. But while Gary had supposedly been trying to help the Green River Task Force by writing a letter to the authorities, giving tips on how to bring his reign of terror to an end, his near illegible communication had not impacted the investigation in any meaningful way. So In February of 1984, Gary Ridgeway wrote another letter to two Seattle newspapers with the words very important written on the outside of the envelope.
Henry Zebrowski
We're gonna want to open these. They're very important.
Marcus Parks
It helped that it looked like it was written by a serial killer. It's like big V, little I, important spelled wrong. It looked like it was from a crazy person. But that's the incredible thing about Gary Ridgeway is not known at all as a letter writer. You know, you talk about Zodiac, you talk about btk, no one ever mentions Gary Ridgeway as a letter writer.
Ed Larson
He could barely paint.
Henry Zebrowski
I legitimately believe what we're seeing here truly is the fact that they weren't cool. That there is a.
Marcus Parks
That Gary Ridgeway wasn't cool.
Henry Zebrowski
That the Gary Ridgeway letters weren't cool.
Marcus Parks
No.
Henry Zebrowski
And that the Zodiac letters, that make sense because it's fascinating and it's the puzzle and it's all that kind of shit. And they, like all the Black Dahlia stuff is very interesting and compelling and all that. The Repper. It's compelling. It's interesting.
Marcus Parks
And BTK stuff is like his dud sushi as it is. It's still fucking chilling.
Ed Larson
Yes.
Henry Zebrowski
Gary Ridgeway was such a bad writer, he bored the investigators out of them taking his letter writing seriously.
Ed Larson
Do they get lots of, like, fake letters?
Marcus Parks
Sure. Yeah. No. They always have to decide whether or not the letter is actually from the killer or not. It's pretty. It's very difficult in the midst of the investigation to tell which is which.
Henry Zebrowski
I know it's not fake. The fact that they found Nancy Guthrie's cat collection right outside of the North Pole. And I'm starting to think that maybe Santa got something to do with Nancy Guthrie's naughty exit.
Ed Larson
Oh, she's the new Mrs. Claus.
Henry Zebrowski
Yep. Because once he touched her, the oils, the sand oils mean she can't be touched by another man.
Marcus Parks
Sure, Yeah, I heard about that. What contained in the very important envelope was a two page letter. But while the one sent before was ostensibly meant to be helpful, this one was more about throwing police off Gary's trail.
Ed Larson
Good thing he didn't send it to them.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. This letter was speaking to that point, written by a moron. So the letter written as numbered lines with all the words running together with no spaces whatsoever. It didn't have any more of an impact on the overall investigation than the one that came before, but it is still a fascinating artifact. After starting off with instructions in which Gary wrote, what you need to know about the Green River Man. Don't throw away with no written as no. Gary listed off 40 things to know about the Green River Killer.
Henry Zebrowski
He's smart, handsome.
Marcus Parks
He's tall.
Henry Zebrowski
He's Asian.
Ed Larson
Also notice that he called him the Green river man and not killer.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is true. Well, many of these things to know were nonsensical. Like number 11, you work me, or nobody. But actually, now that I read it out loud, I think. I think he's trying to say, you work with me or you don't work with anybody.
Henry Zebrowski
I don't think that Gary knows. I think that's like one of those, like, you know how, like, we don't know what the eggman means?
Marcus Parks
Yeah, yeah.
Ed Larson
It's so weird to, like, see a man write a stutter.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, yeah.
Marcus Parks
No, nobody. But perhaps the most baffling is number 26. Realist man is one man.
Henry Zebrowski
Yep.
Marcus Parks
I can't make sense of that. No matter how many times I read it. I just sit. I just sat in my office just going, realist man is one man. Realist man is one man. Realist man is one more. Realist is one man. I know.
Henry Zebrowski
Man is one man.
Ed Larson
Do you know what the answer to this. Too real?
Henry Zebrowski
I do, actually. Okay, I do believe realist man is one man. Right. He's meaning it's one guy. It's not multiple killers.
Marcus Parks
Okay, so the realest man is one man, and he's me. The most possible. The most likely possible suspect is one man. Person. A person who is working alone.
Henry Zebrowski
One man.
Marcus Parks
Realist man is one man.
Henry Zebrowski
Realist man is one man.
Ed Larson
I always think of, like, this one guy, Tallahassee, who did heroin. He was always like, you want to get real, man?
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, I remember that.
Ed Larson
So that. That's what he's talking.
Henry Zebrowski
If you're real, I'll stay over here in my fake amazing life, then.
Marcus Parks
But hidden within all of Gary's nonsense were actual clues that this letter was really from the Green River Killer. Gary wrote about at least four things that were never released in the press, like, number two on the list, which said, one black in river had a stone in the vagina. Why?
Henry Zebrowski
Actually, it's a whole. That is A lot of, I don't
Marcus Parks
know, see, the stone detail have been kept a secret from the press for just such an occasion as this, as were some of Gary's other predilections. Like what was mentioned number eight. That one said he had sex after they dead. He smokes. Now, Gary didn't smoke, but he was indeed a committed necrophiliac, if committed is the right word here.
Henry Zebrowski
I actually do think that that makes a lot of sense because he's always wanted. He does want credit, which we now know in the end. Right. He wants people to know the exact nature of his crimes he was super interested in. And we know for his behavior after the fact, he gets off on it. So that's him directly admitting that he's a necrophiliac. And that was a part of the game. But then all of the stupid chaff he threw out of the fake cigarette butts that he was stealing from the street and stuff, that's him being, like, seeing it now. I'm thinking that's the. That the ND chess. You mean, like, that's like, oh, I'm Dana.
Ed Larson
And when did he send this?
Marcus Parks
This was in 1984. Sorry. 1985, I believe.
Ed Larson
So it did kind of work. Yeah.
Marcus Parks
No, actually, it was February of 1984.
Ed Larson
Yeah. So he was captured for another, what, 18 years.
Marcus Parks
Many years. Many, many, many years. Not in that millennium.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Gary maintained in conversations with investigators later that he would not go back and have sex with the dead bodies in the days after a murder.
Henry Zebrowski
I gone back and had sex with a corpse days after a murder.
Marcus Parks
Instead, Gary said that he had sex with the bodies right after he killed them, which he supposed did technically make him a necrophiliac.
Henry Zebrowski
Yes. A hundred percent. If she's dead, you're her. It doesn't matter what her temperature is.
Marcus Parks
Okay.
Henry Zebrowski
Because you could put her in a hot bowl of water.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
If you want to, you could run a bath and make her. You could warm her up. That doesn't make her then alive enough for it to not be necrophilia.
Ed Larson
Also, I would say that necrophiliac might be the best thing. He is.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah. It's definitely got the least amount of victims that know what's happening.
Ad Read Voice
Yes.
Marcus Parks
But Gary Ridgeway loved to talk once you got him going. And after investigators pushed him on the necrophilia angle just a bit, he admitted that he would return to the corpses over the following days, having sex with them again and again, quote, until the flies came.
Henry Zebrowski
Oh, then he had a deadline.
Marcus Parks
Yeah.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
Oh, that's fine.
Marcus Parks
The man has standards.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, he knows when to stop.
Ed Larson
Yeah, the flies come pretty fast.
Marcus Parks
Very fast.
Ed Larson
I get bitten by flies and I'm alive.
Henry Zebrowski
Are you implied?
Marcus Parks
Still, as far as why Gary had sex with some corpses and not others, Gary actually saw necrophilia as a kind of twisted compliment, but not for anything physical. Instead, Gary's necrophilia was a commentary on the victim's overall demeanor just before their murder.
Henry Zebrowski
It's nice to know he's not shallow. Except for the corpse where the graves were.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, he's in love with the corpse's mind.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Gary said that the women who had made him particularly angry, those were the ones whose corpses were left alone after the murder. Because to Gary, leaving a corpse in some deserted spot by itself, that was a punishment. A visit from the necrophilia fairy, however, was considered a reward for the corpse.
Henry Zebrowski
Oh, that's what it is. It's a reward. I didn't know that I should be. We should be thanking him.
Ed Larson
Did he leave quarters at least
Henry Zebrowski
that quarter on her forehead means he I'm next. You leave that alone.
Marcus Parks
Even though the letter sent to the press.
Henry Zebrowski
Is it from a necrophilia fairy? He's just like ok, like I guess no one wants to my corpse tonight.
Marcus Parks
Really? For me, the necrophilia fairy looks exactly like the. The. The nerve ending fairy from Ren and Stimpy. It's the same guy. The same exact guy.
Ed Larson
I was definitely thinking Ren and Stimpy as well.
Henry Zebrowski
Stinky weasel teeth.
Marcus Parks
Even though the letter sent to the press had made mention of details that had not been released to the public, the second to last line in the letter made investigators unsure as to how seriously they should take it. At the very end, Gary wrote there was a book lift at Denny's. I got this ought it of it belongs to cop. Call me Fred if you couldn't decipher that.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
The writer was trying to say that he had gotten all his information from a notebook that a detective had left behind at a Denny.
Guest/Ad Voice
Denny's.
Marcus Parks
You know there was a book lift at Denny's left at Denny's. I got this out of it.
Henry Zebrowski
Okay.
Marcus Parks
Belongs to a cop.
Henry Zebrowski
So their idea is that that's how I know all these super secrets is that I took some detectives journal from a Denny's.
Marcus Parks
Yes. Is that real? No. No, Eddie, they actually. Well, that's the thing. No detective would admit that he had left a notebook back at Denny's, but they also couldn't rule that out. That someone had left a notebook At Denny's, but just wouldn't admit to it.
Ed Larson
How would he get it?
Marcus Parks
He was at the Denny's.
Ed Larson
Oh, he just happened to be there.
Marcus Parks
He just happened to be at the Denny's. And detective left the notebook and he grabbed it and he's like, ah. Or maybe I know all this stuff because I found a notebook at Denny's
Henry Zebrowski
after I strangled three underage prostitutes to death. The first thing, honestly, I want is a Moons over my hammock.
Ed Larson
Yeah. Maybe the cop wasn't ashamed of losing the notebook. Just eating at Denny's.
Ad Read Voice
Yes.
Henry Zebrowski
He's like, oh fuck. No one can know I had Belgium waffles for dinner.
Marcus Parks
Well, the thing was that this line, it effectively removed the letter from contention concerning things only the killer would know. Furthermore, too many people had handled the letter before it got from the press to the cops. So fingerprinting was impossible. A so called expert at the FBI also examined the letter and determined it to be inauthentic. So the letter was filed away as close but no cigar. Even though it was absolutely written by the Green River Killer.
Henry Zebrowski
It does often seem that the guides investigating this specific set of crimes really looked for opportunities to not do it.
Marcus Parks
From what it seems, I did think about that. But these guys really did work their asses off.
Henry Zebrowski
They did much wrongly.
Marcus Parks
What it was is, yeah, they just had the worst instincts at every possible moment. And to me, it does kind of speak to Tacoma and how badly people's brains were fucked up. Everyone's brain was fucked up in Tacoma during this period of time. No one's thinking straight.
Ed Larson
Yeah, Kurt Cobain's life should have been great.
Henry Zebrowski
Honestly. Oh, you know.
Marcus Parks
You want to know the conversations me and Caroline have had at the house of like, how the Tacoma smelter may have led to the grunge movement.
Henry Zebrowski
None of them knew how to wear a sweater.
Marcus Parks
It's a possibility. It very much is a possibility. I don't know, it's. I mean, you can't prove it.
Henry Zebrowski
Oh yeah. But I. It's kind of funny because I mean, you very rarely. Like we see a lot. We talk about, you know, the less dead. We talk about corruption. And it's like, what do you do if they're giving their 110? It just happens to be a bunch of guys that got D's in cup school.
Guest/Ad Voice
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
You know, like they're just bad at the job.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. And even the. And even the FBI coming in can't help them out. Like they're just all sitting there. Like the guy who gets really mad when he can't figure something out, like, feels like it's all of them.
Ed Larson
I mean, a bad cop can't solve a murder.
Marcus Parks
No.
Ed Larson
I was in jail once in a really shitty town called Blountstown. And I remember I got locked up for a night because I was. Got in trouble for smoking weed down Florida.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, down in Florida.
Ed Larson
Yeah. It's Bluntstown. We had a blunt. We went to jail for the night. Very funny.
Henry Zebrowski
Yes.
Ed Larson
But I remember when I was in there, I was the guy. One of the guys I was. Who else was in the jail? He's like, what'd you guys do? Is like, oh, we're in here for smoking weed. He's like, man, that's the only crime you can't do in this town.
Henry Zebrowski
Assault, rape, forgery. Man, I do everything.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
It's hard, though. But don't even try to jaywalk
Marcus Parks
now. Relatively speaking, the murders tapered off in the spring of 1984, even though there was still a staggering amount of bodies. 10. Between February and May. The deaths.
Henry Zebrowski
Remember, that's an entire. That's some serial killer's entire output.
Marcus Parks
Many serial killers, entire output. Yeah. Especially at this point in time.
Ed Larson
Zodiac's five, right?
Marcus Parks
Yeah. But the deaths were still coming at a slower pace. But even so, the cops were actually starting to wonder if there might have been two killers on the loose because Gary would treat a body differently based on where he left it. The bodies left on dry land, for example, would be buried or hidden under piles of logs, sticks, or debris. If they weren't buried, the bodies left on dry land sometimes appeared to be intentionally posed in sexually lewd positions, which is something that serial killers are known to do because of the secondary trauma it causes to the person who finds the body. BTK was really big on this. But again, investigators were thinking too hard when it came to Gary Ridgeway's motivations. Instead of setting up a scene to be purposefully shocking to whoever found it, like Jack the Ripper is the best example, Gary's bodies only appeared to have been left in lurid positions because these bodies were the ones that Gary had returned to for the act of necrophilia. And Gary had not, so to speak, cleaned up after himself following the necrophilia. He just left the bodies in a sexual position.
Henry Zebrowski
God damn, that looks sexy. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I got it. Wait a second. I'm a K. Pop up. I'm investigating this. I can't be. Maybe just a couple of minutes. Sorry, boys. Boner Jack. Yeah, that's a Lewd sexual position. I can tell by my penis.
Marcus Parks
Now, while the body count had slowed down in 1984, investigators were still looking for any help they could get in their quest to catch the Green River Killer. In October of that year, special investigator Robert Keppel received a letter from the most unlikely of sources. Keppel got a letter from perhaps the most notorious serial killer of the century, Theodore Robert Bundy. See, in 1984, Ted Bundy was already on death row down in Florida. But in July of that year, guards had not only found two hacksaw blades in Bundy's cell, but they'd also discovered that Bundy had already cut through one of the bars and glued it back in place. So no one would be the wiser. He was two bars away from escaping for, what, a third time?
Henry Zebrowski
It's just a bit of an art project I'm working on. Yeah, we're just having fun here. Okay. Ever see the Great Escape? That's just what I'm trying to do, but in a fictional way.
Ed Larson
You know what I mean?
Marcus Parks
As we all know, Bundy was a master escape artist. So it is generally believed that Bundy offered his expertise to the Green River Task Force as a way to delay his execution so he could buy himself enough time to escape from prison.
Henry Zebrowski
He, of all serial killers, too, was one of those that got so juiced up talking about his own crimes and talking about the crimes of others. It's also just another sexual escape.
Marcus Parks
Yes, it is. Now, as it turned out, the FBI Behavioral Science Unit really was onto something when they started interviewing inactive serial killers so they could catch active serial killers. But the problem was that the serial killers were sometimes better at building a profile than the FBI. Case in point, it was Ted Bundy's work on the Green River Killer. While Robert Ressler's profile on the Green River Killer had been so general that it was useless, Ted Bundy came far closer to nailing Gary Ridgeway than any other person who worked on this case. And that's regardless of Bundy's real motivations in helping the task force. Whether it was to buy extra time, give himself a boner, didn't matter. He still did a great job.
Henry Zebrowski
He would have been a great cop.
Marcus Parks
Well, you know, he was a lawyer.
Ed Larson
Yeah, there are plenty of cops who love to murder.
Henry Zebrowski
They really do.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, they really do. Well, Bundy said that he was only mildly interested in the case until he signed up for a subscription to the Tacoma News Tribune after learning about the crime scenes in further detail. Beyond the scant national coverage, Bundy became fascinated. Keppel believe that Bundy saw a mirror image of himself in the Green River Killer. Which is even more chilling when you remember that Bundy was also from Tacoma and had grown up in the shadow of the same smelting plant as Gary Ridgeway. So Keppel replied to Bundy in a short one page letter that agreed to hear Bundy's thoughts on the case. Two weeks later, Keppel received a 22 page reply from Ted Bundy regarding the killer that Bundy liked to call the River Man. And Bundy's take on this is especially impressive when you consider that he made all of these guesses based solely on local reporting from the Tacoma News Tribune.
Ed Larson
Two things I'm very impressed by right here. First off, 1984, Bundy's in prison. Somehow he's getting a local newspaper on the other corner of the country. I'm very impressed by that.
Marcus Parks
Hey, it used to be much more common.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Ed Larson
And second of all, fuck it, Riverman's a great name.
Marcus Parks
River Man's incredible.
Henry Zebrowski
It's so much better, so much better
Marcus Parks
than the Green River Killer.
Henry Zebrowski
Again, the River Man. Yeah, the River Man. Sounds like the dark musical based upon this story.
Marcus Parks
Oh, the river.
Ad Read Voice
What?
Henry Zebrowski
The river. Oh, the river. I choke them but they don't stay down I rope them but they don't get down oh, I love a girl when she's lying flat I come and get her and that is that. That's why you gotta have friends.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
Just Bundy and Gary. Yeah, man, this is great.
Marcus Parks
Now, after reading the letter, Keppel flew down to Florida where he let Bundy expand upon his thoughts. Bundy said that even though the Riverman focused on sex workers, he was only doing so because sex workers were the most vulnerable subset of women available to the killer. Check any woman would do, Bundy said, just so long as that woman wouldn't be missed.
Henry Zebrowski
He specifically said that out loud? Yeah.
Marcus Parks
This had nothing to do with the killer having a particular grudge against sex workers. Instead, Bundy chalked the killer's choice of victim up to laziness.
Henry Zebrowski
I actually completely agree. They were accessible and he knew that
Marcus Parks
they were vulnerable 100%. And he, because he did kill women who were not sex workers. In this, Bundy obviously saw himself as superior because Bundy had admittedly evaded capture after killing pretty young coeds around the country. I mean, the murders that Bundy committed, if they were committed today, they would have been national tragedies.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Bundy was also absolutely fucking correct in how he guessed Gary Ridgeway's motivations in choosing victims.
Henry Zebrowski
I'm gonna say this in a kind of almost. This might. Might be an inappropriate analogy.
Marcus Parks
Okay.
Henry Zebrowski
But I kind of view Ted Bundy as a sort of Morrissey style serial killer where he views himself as sad, but he views himself as like a genius artist almost in a way that elevated serial up to a point in which I don't think he would choose to talk about a serial killer that he would feel was at his level. I think he looked at Gary Ridgeway as almost like a factory of killing.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. Number. It's like a numbers thing. Yeah, he got a lot of numbers, but. But it's one of those things. Like, it's like, I'll give you a sports analogy and. Okay, sure, yeah. It's like when someone says, like, yeah, they're a good team, but they're in a shitty conference. Like, anybody could fucking get that. Like, if I was in that fucking conference, anybody. I could get those. Number.
Henry Zebrowski
Yes.
Marcus Parks
You know, that's Ted Bundy. That's Ted Bundy. When it comes to. When it comes to Garageway, because they
Henry Zebrowski
are very hierarchical in their brain. Serial killers. They are very like, especially Ted Bundy. Gary Ridgeway was. They know true crime.
Marcus Parks
They.
Henry Zebrowski
They. A lot of times they reinvest in true crime. And because they have considered serial killing to be their job or their career.
Marcus Parks
Yeah.
Ed Larson
Now, I wouldn't say Morrissey father John Misty. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
Bundy is the father, John Misty, of serial killing. That makes a lot of sen. Yeah,
Marcus Parks
I totally get that. Yeah. Well, Bundy also nailed that the Riverman was nice, easygoing, and he looked like many of the men that a sex worker might hang out with safely every day. That meant that there was nothing memorable, threatening or unusual about the Green River Killer, which described Gary to a T. Smartly. Bundy advised the Green river task force to keep the body locations a secret so they could stake them out. Because the Riverman was almost guaranteed to return to a location with another body if he thought it was safe to do so. And had the task force actually done this, they absolutely would have caught Gary Ridgeway. Because Bundy also surmised that no matter how many bodies they discovered, there would always be more, even if the killing slowed down. The only way the Riverman would stop Bundy Guest is if he died, found Jesus, or was put in jail for something else.
Henry Zebrowski
It nailed it. Because also, Gary Ridgeway told him the same thing. He said, you should go to where I killed people before and you should wait until I show back up.
Marcus Parks
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah. He Literally said it.
Marcus Parks
Gary's a moron. Yeah, he had said it a year before. And Bundy's telling them again, like, stake out the body sites. He's gonna come back, like, fucking the bodies. Yeah, just put. Put in the work. That's it. Like, just hide. Get a deer blind, something.
Ed Larson
Talk to the flies.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, talk to the flies. And they're like, we don't snitch, all right? I don't. I don't fucking bite the hand that feeds, all right? I know that I like better than the titty of a dead little girl. It's my favorite thing in the world of guts. Oh, sh. Anyone else smoke copper? Yeah. I love this place.
Marcus Parks
Well, Bundy also correctly guessed that the Riverman would have dump sites close to wherever he picked up his victims. So there would be as little time as possible between the abduction, the murder, and the disposal.
Henry Zebrowski
Do you know that he actually said that? You know, he just recently he came out and talked about this year, Gary Ridgeway, saying that he had hit kits buried.
Marcus Parks
Really?
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Wow.
Guest/Ad Voice
Yep.
Marcus Parks
Well, the only whiff Bundy had was his strong assertion that the Green River Killer loved watching pornography and horror movies because Bundy became a crusader against porn and horror near the end of his life. In fact, it was Bundy's assertion that pornography and horror movies were the main cause of the serial killer epidemic.
Ed Larson
What an asshole.
Marcus Parks
I mean, we now know this is incredibly off base because the numbers of serial killers currently operating within the United States is estimated by the FBI. Then this is the most incredible number of all. Between 25 and. And 50. 50 at most, is ridiculously low when compared to even the most conservative 20th century estimates concerning active serial killers. Per capita, it puts us below 1940 levels. And there has never been a time in human history when pornography and horror have been as available, mainstream and popular as they are today. So Ted Bundy's claims, which were eventually picked up and amplified by the Christian media, a complete and utter horseshit. It was the pollution. Full stop. Question fucking answered when it comes to
Henry Zebrowski
serial killers, porn, horrors, which makes me a good person.
Ed Larson
Yeah, that's how you get your jimmies out.
Marcus Parks
Exactly. Yeah.
Ed Larson
Also, though, I will say now you don't have to stop watching porn. You don't even have to rewind the tape, you know, you just find a new one.
Henry Zebrowski
That's the best part.
Ed Larson
Yeah, yeah. With streaming, you know, they just start another horror movie for you. You don't have to leave to kill.
Marcus Parks
Ye.
Ad Read Voice
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
You know, so great about watching that porn on the Internet. I love Sharing it to social media.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, just click on that. Share to Facebook.
Henry Zebrowski
That's my favorite. I love to put a little comment like where she'd be uglier.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
Then I retweeted, obviously, because I want everybody to know.
Ed Larson
Yeah, I blame the rewinding.
Marcus Parks
The rewinding. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, people don't like being kind. Being kind in the 80s and 90s was usually pretty aggravating. And you must be kind to rewind.
Ed Larson
Yeah, exactly.
Marcus Parks
Another mystery solved.
Henry Zebrowski
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Marcus Parks
Now, even though Ted Buddy painted a pretty good picture of Gary Ridgeway, his contributions to the case ended up being just as meaningless as every other attempt to catch the Green River Killer. Mostly because the task force didn't act on any of his suggestions. In fact, as the news stories about the murder slowed to a crawl in the first half of 1985, many people had come to believe that the killer had either moved on or died. And as it turned out, out Gary Ridgeway had somewhat moved on.
Henry Zebrowski
God, they were so happy when they didn't have to investigate these murders anymore.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. Well, as. As they. They slowly started getting reassigned starting in 1985, you know, that number was at 25 on the task force at its highest. And starting in 1985, once the murder slowed down and it's not in the news anymore and nobody's fucking talking about it anymore, those cops just bing, bing, bing, bing, start getting reassigned to other cases. But nobody could have guessed, however, were the inspirations behind Gary Ridgeway slowdown. See, when Gary was asked by investigators after his capture as to why he slowed down his killings so much after 1985, his eyes filled with tears. And he said that he slowed down when he met his third wife. Judith.
Henry Zebrowski
Has come along.
Marcus Parks
But when you look at the timeline.
Ed Larson
Gentle kisses from Gary.
Marcus Parks
When you look at the timeline, Gary's pace had already slowed down prior to Gary's first meeting with Judith in 1985.
Henry Zebrowski
Because he started making Gary a priority.
Marcus Parks
Well, yeah. He started putting Gary first. Yeah, well, kind of sorta. As far as what slowed Gary down first, I got two words for you. Yard work.
Ad Read Voice
Huh?
Marcus Parks
Gary said that whenever he got angry in the early 80s, he'd go out and murder a sex worker to alleviate the pressure.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
But by the mid-80s, Gary was instead funneling more and more of his anger into raking the leaves or mowing the lawn. This is seriously what he said. This is a hundred percent what he said. This is what he told investigators. And that's in it rings true. Because he. Everyone always says Gary stopped because of Judith. Gary. It was when he met. No, he slowed down. He'd already started slowing down. Six months before he. Eight months before he even fucking met Judith. Judith. And the only other thing that Gary ever said as to what helped him with his anger. Yard work.
Henry Zebrowski
You know, I actually wonder if there was this one time he came his pants while raking the leaves. And then he said, great, thank God I can do this. Now I fucking believe it.
Ed Larson
You know, I moved into a house not too long ago, and Julie's been working in the backyard for like nine months and she hasn't killed anyone in a while.
Marcus Parks
It's hard.
Henry Zebrowski
She's so tired.
Marcus Parks
Well, what this shows you is that Gary once again proved himself to be both far simpler and far more complicated than anyone could have guessed.
Henry Zebrowski
Cuz he just dropped it as simply as he picked it up.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. Now, as far as how Gary met Judith, the woman who supposedly stopped him from killing so much, Gary had continued dating Women throughout his most active period as the Green River Killer. By using the Parents Without Partner support group as his dating pool from 82 to 84. He's still dating that whole time.
Henry Zebrowski
Harmon. He's a fun guy. He's a nice, funny guy.
Ed Larson
This is a horrible advertisement for parents without partners.
Marcus Parks
It is, it is. Seem to mean well, but none of this is saying anything good about him.
Henry Zebrowski
We all know who you meet there.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
But since the Green River Killer was such a big story, Gary's alter ego became a topic of small talk conversation during one of his dates. The date who brought it up, of course, had no idea that she was indeed talking to the very subject. Subject of their conversation, the Green River Killer. This woman later recalled that when she brought up the Green River Killer on her one date with Gary, he got very serious, to the point of being physically tense. He then asked her what she thought about the killer and what he was doing.
Ed Larson
Do you like it?
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, actually, it's kind of interesting. So, yeah, this. I have been personally invested and kind of wondering, should I start killing sex workers? Great answer.
Marcus Parks
She didn't really know what to say, so she kind of made a joke. She's like, well, you know, if I was a prostitute, I'd be getting a new job roundabout now, you know? But Gary, he actually asked her if she thought that society was better off with all these harlots fouling up the
Henry Zebrowski
streets of ct. Well, I was doing a bit, and you kind of made it serious, so I'm gonna go. Thanks, though.
Marcus Parks
Sensing a massive red flag, the woman decided it would be probably best to just agree with anything Gary said from that point on. Like, yep, definitely better off. Let's talk about something else.
Henry Zebrowski
Green River Killer is definitely correct. Absolutely.
Marcus Parks
Gary as a woman. Yeah, I'm on the Green River Killer side.
Henry Zebrowski
They keep distracting the good men, but
Marcus Parks
Gary didn't want to let it go. Later on in the date, Gary decided to be upfront with this woman by telling her funny story. I've actually been interrogated by the FBI as the Green River Killer for, like, eight hours because, you know, one of the missing girls phone numbers was in my address book. And when the woman said, like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Gary, slay the whole thing, but a big misunderstanding. I'm friends with this missing girl's sister, and that's why I had the address and in my notebook. I'm not that Green River Killer.
Henry Zebrowski
That's crazy guy. Just the. Oh, the buzzer went off. We could go to our table now, but I have. I don't feel very good. I'm gonna go.
Marcus Parks
Gary tried laughing the whole thing off, but this date did not return for a second helping of Gary Ridgeway after that incredibly awkward night.
Henry Zebrowski
And to think she could been the one sucking his dick enough for him to stop killing prostitutes. All right. Good ones always get away way.
Ed Larson
It's a horrible excuse. How would the cops get your notebook to know that the phone number was in it?
Marcus Parks
Yeah, stupid.
Henry Zebrowski
It's a bad excuse.
Marcus Parks
It's a really bad excuse.
Henry Zebrowski
This the Green River Killer.
Ed Larson
She's haunted by this.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, it was. She didn't ask any follow up questions and she, you know, she just kind of shook it off and then got a hold of police later when they asked, you know, you know, does anybody have any information on this Gary Ridgeway guy? G came forward like, yeah, he. Yeah, it was weird. Yeah, yeah. About six or seven months after Gary's most active period ended, he met another woman at Parents Without Partners. This was just after gary's birthday on February 18. He told this woman after they were introduced, actually, I'm still celebrating my birthday.
Henry Zebrowski
It's kind of my birthday month.
Marcus Parks
This woman kindly wished Gary a happy birthday and the two of them ended up immediately bonding that very night over their many failed relationships. Gary, of course, had his two marriages behind him, but this woman had just ended a 19 year long marriage the year before, right after her husband had come out of the closet. Her name was Judith and her streak of bad luck with men was set to continue because she was destined to become Gary Ridgeway's third and final wife.
Henry Zebrowski
You left out best,
Marcus Parks
final and best.
Henry Zebrowski
They were there.
Ed Larson
That was the one that stuck.
Henry Zebrowski
That was the one where the love came in.
Marcus Parks
Man really was.
Ed Larson
It's kind of crazy.
Henry Zebrowski
Little guys just fucking. I wish him luck.
Marcus Parks
Now Pickens must have been slim in tacoma during the mid-80s, because Judith was fucking blown away by the life that Gary Ridgeway had built for himself.
Henry Zebrowski
You have four walls and the home is heated and this toilet works.
Ed Larson
This truck is so filthy.
Henry Zebrowski
Thank you. This is wonderful filth over here. Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Judith was impressed that he had held the same job at Kenworth Trucking for years on end, even though everyone at work had started straight up calling Gary Ridgeway Green River Gary because of how many times he'd been questioned by police in relation to the Green River Killer.
Henry Zebrowski
I'm just sick of being single. I just want to settle down.
Marcus Parks
Can you imagine, like meeting her after? Like, you know, they all meet up for a drink, like, yeah, you know, come out, meet my buddies. From work.
Ed Larson
And they.
Marcus Parks
They're like, oh, yeah, you're a Green River Gary now, huh?
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Oh, we just call him that because he loves prostitutes, you know, and he's been questioned by the FBI a lot.
Henry Zebrowski
Each time I have been acquitted of any sort of crime.
Marcus Parks
Good enough for me.
Ed Larson
She's the personification of, if you can't beat him, join them.
Henry Zebrowski
Literally, just like, yeah, what if I just.
Marcus Parks
Judith also found Gary to be kind, attractive, and masculine. Both of them loved country music, both of them loved camping, and both of them loved hunting for treasures. As Gary put it at yard sales, they're pack rats. They're hoarders, dude.
Henry Zebrowski
No, you know what they are? They're Antique Roadshow people.
Marcus Parks
No, dude, Antique Roadshow is so far above their radar. Like, these are the type of people who will go to a yard sale and haggle at, like, a 10 cent get candy dish. Like, now, now I give you a nickel for that. Ain't worth no more than a nickel.
Henry Zebrowski
That's a real shopper.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. Judith also likes that Gary didn't have any friends. Most people, that's a red flag when someone doesn't have any friends. But for Judith, it was a plus because it meant she could have Gary all to herself. And this whole relationship nearly died right at the beginning. But this truly was a case of a lid for every pot, because Judith showed from the start that she was both willing and able to compartmentalize and eventually ignore Gary's predilections. See, just a few days after Gary and Judith hit it up, the Green river task force picked Gary up yet again after a formal complaint was filed by Penny Bristow. This was years after her near fatal encounter with Gary.
Henry Zebrowski
You're telling me this is just a follow up to a follow up? That's all this is.
Marcus Parks
If you remember, Penny was the sex worker who'd gotten away from Gary after he'd tripped trying to chase after her because his pants were around his ankles. Penny's complaint had resulted in the aforementioned polygraph, which. Which, as we said, Gary had easily passed. But Gary decided that it was best to be honest with Judith about his encounter with the task force. He told her what he told them, that he was innocent, it was all a misunderstanding. Didn't even know this girl. And if Gary was able to fool the cops and a polygraph machine, he was certainly capable of fooling Judith. For her part, Judith figured that since the authorities had let Gary go, he wasn't the Green River Killer. Yeah, you know, if he was, they would have fucking Arrested him. So within a matter of months, like three months after Gary had to take a polygraph as to whether or not he was the Green River Killer, Judith moved into Gary's home near the Strip. A home that had up to this point, been the site of many, many murders.
Ed Larson
You know what this tells me? If you're a single guy and you can't find a woman, move to Tacoma.
Marcus Parks
I'll actually.
Henry Zebrowski
It's a romantic place.
Marcus Parks
I'll amend that. Move to move near a smelting plant. There's probably one close. You don't have to move all the way to the Pacific Northwest. There's probably one in your state.
Henry Zebrowski
You know, we turned up the dumb. Yeah, I think a lot of what Gary Ridgeway does is the he refer. He kind of turns into that bean bunny version of himself where he's just like, oh, I don't know. I don't know where he becomes real simple. And I honestly think many women in a horrific way are super interested in a form of baby like husband that they can dress and feed and take care of. And then they know he won't fuck around because he's just kind of kept
Marcus Parks
in the house and he's helpless. Like they make him helpless, like he's a ferret. We'll talk about that later on. You're hit the nail on the head on that one.
Ed Larson
I could only imagine how haunting in retrospect their conversation was when he told her about getting picked up by the cops and getting let go. And they all probably just sat there and laughed.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, what a crazy afternoon. I can't even believe. What a. Mix them up. Oh man, this is like a Pink Panther film now.
Marcus Parks
After Judith moved in, the two of them began building a happy, entirely normal life together. They'd take Gary's son Matthew to the zoo on weekends. They go on ferry boat rides. They'd have picnics, they'd attend monster truck rallies. They'd pick over the garage sales of the Pacific Northwest for so many called treasures to add to their rapidly growing pile of junk house.
Henry Zebrowski
Do you see them? Like, you know the 16 millimeter cameras, they're all fast, you know, like so excited.
Ed Larson
This is the Cone Heads montage. Get this.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Paul Simon playing in the background.
Henry Zebrowski
Oh yeah.
Marcus Parks
Gary said that he didn't have the desire to kill anymore after he and Judith got together, but they. That's utter horseshit. Really, what Gary meant was that he didn't want to get caught anymore, so the killing slowed down considerably. See where he killed at least 50 women between 1982 and 1985.
Henry Zebrowski
Remember that? least, at least.
Marcus Parks
At least like. And that's like he had killed, provably killed 48 women. And it's probably more and it's pro. And it's all between 82 and. Or mostly between 82 and 85. His body count after meeting Judith, though, was considerably low, lower. Between 1985 and 1998, Gary Ridgeway killed only four more times that we know of. With an increasing number of years between each kill, there's barely anybody, right?
Henry Zebrowski
It's like he's barely a serial killer.
Ed Larson
Come on. Why? He just.
Henry Zebrowski
It's like when I was smoking one cigarette a week.
Marcus Parks
But while Gary was trying to put the Green river killer behind him, the Green River Task force continued their investigation. And bodies from Gary's earlier kills were continuing to be found across the area surrounding Seattle and Tacoma. In March of 1986, two members of the Parks Department found a human skeleton missing its skull sitting at the base of a tree. This was the body of Tracy Winston, who disappeared three years earlier. The head would not be found until 2005 near Issaquah, Washington. Because Gary had moved the skull, he went back to the body after it decomposed, grabbed the head and pushed it near Issaqua because he thought it was clever. He thought it would confuse investigators.
Henry Zebrowski
And that is a t. That is a type of necrophilia, I think in a way where he would be. He was really invested in his bodies. He loved his bodies and he viewed them all as belonging to him.
Marcus Parks
Yes, he did. Well, more bones were discovered from other victims throughout 1986. And even though Gary Ridgeway attacked another woman who survived that same year, investigators were still looking elsewhere. Their new Suspect was a 52 year old construction worker named Ernest McLean. Bill to his friends, he'd gained the attention of the task force after he told a co worker, hey, you know, I kind of want to pick up a sex worker and kill her.
Henry Zebrowski
Oh, but they're just having fun. There's just guys. How does help guys talk?
Marcus Parks
Yeah, this is boys being boys, boys being boys. I don't know how many times I've heard someone around these offices be like, you know what I want to do later?
Henry Zebrowski
Sometimes I want to get five or six sex workers. I want to tire them up with a rope. I want to cover them, gasoline and set them on fire. But that's only just because I'm tired.
Ed Larson
You know what? Fuck it. Let's just go get a sandwich.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, you know what? You're right.
Marcus Parks
Low Blood sugar?
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, I'm hangry.
Marcus Parks
Well, McLean and his wife were both surveilled at great expense, but nothing was found to link him to any murder at all, much less anything connected to the notorious grk.
Henry Zebrowski
You know, there is some talk. Gary was saying there is now some talk that he probably also left the county and murdered outside of the county as well. So it is quite possible during this time period, if he did indeed kill more, who knows? He would have killed him outside of the area or naturally, his penis wasn't as active. They also say that, too. It's like they. Sometimes it's like with BTK is when the sexual desire starts to go down as you get older.
Marcus Parks
Low T. Yeah.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
When the testosterone goes down. Yeah. Serial killers, they age out. Yeah.
Ed Larson
Oh, that's why I don't want to kill anyone anymore.
Marcus Parks
Now, besides the woman I mentioned earlier who'd survived an encounter with Gary in 1986, a second woman came forward that same year after Gary had choked her again. Gary claimed that she bit his penis and drew blood. That marked the third time that Gary had used this excuse.
Henry Zebrowski
Gary refused to believe it. Unless your penis is garlic Parmesan flavored, not everybody's trying to take a chunk out of it.
Ed Larson
Stop wiggling around so much.
Henry Zebrowski
I'm trying to think it's you, Gary. All right, stay in one place.
Ed Larson
Don't wrap beef jerky around.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, just leave it alone.
Ed Larson
Let her get.
Henry Zebrowski
Let her get her good.
Ed Larson
Let her.
Henry Zebrowski
Let her get a good. Why did I get it in there?
Marcus Parks
Well, the victim, Rebecca Guard, said that Gary couldn't get hard after he'd picked her up for sex, so he took his anger out on her. This, of course, is the same thing that had happened to Penny Bristowe. So the pattern was staring cops right in the face. But again, Gary was questioned and released because now the cops had that polygraph test to point towards as further proof that, doggone it, Gary just had the worst luck on the block when it came to these prostitutes. He just can't catch a breath break. But this is when the cops.
Henry Zebrowski
Prostitutes keep dying on me. I just want to support the women. They keep biting my pee and I just. Maybe it's just. Cause again, it looks like a dry Cheeto, like it looks like the hard ones.
Ed Larson
But again, he's not getting arrested for soliciting prostitution.
Marcus Parks
No, he's not. No, no.
Henry Zebrowski
They have to catch you red handed with that shit.
Marcus Parks
Yeah.
Ed Larson
How about red dick?
Marcus Parks
Even better. Well, this is when the cops finally started putting the pieces together, albeit at A painfully slow pace. The task force finally got around to talking to the woman we mentioned last episode who had reported Gary as the last person seen with her friend before that friend disappeared. And the task force finally realized that this woman's report had been lost. And so, at long last, the task force, regardless of the polygraph report results, put Gary Ridgeway back at the top of their suspect list. They interviewed Gary's second wife, Marsha Winslow, who gave them even more evidence. Circumstantial evidence, yes, but definitely good evidence. She told them that Gary had loved having sex with her outdoors. And they asked her, hey, do you want to show us where he had sex with you outdoors? And incredibly, Marsha remembered. So she took him on a ride along, and before long, the cops realized. Realized they're pretty much going on a tour of body cluster sites for Green River Killer victims.
Henry Zebrowski
And she's like.
Ed Larson
So we got them, right?
Henry Zebrowski
She's still, like, here, too?
Marcus Parks
Yeah, yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
But over here, when we went on my birthday. Yeah, I forget one as well. You see the shovel? Yeah.
Ed Larson
Oh, like a skeleton.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. This, however, was in 1986. And even though there was a lot of circumstantial evidence, they didn't have anything as far as they knew that would hold up in court because the paint evidence was still well over a decade from even being examined, much less used, Actually, I take that back. It's 15 years from being even examined. As a consequence, Gary continued killing, killing, taking the life of one woman in October of 1986 and another the following February. But the biggest block the cops had was that they couldn't seem to wrap their heads around Gary Ridgeway being the killer, because to them, he didn't seem the type. He had a steady job. He'd had several relationships with women that had lasted years each time, and he'd passed the polygraph. I mean, at this point in time, like, even though you already had guys like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy who were obviously like, men who had been in communities, men who had held jobs, men who had been married, people still thought, you know, serial killers, it's Richard Ramirez. You know, the night. Like, it's the night, sucker. It's this crazy, insane person with sharp teeth who, you know, lives in shitty hotels and free bases, cocaine. That's a serial killer.
Henry Zebrowski
Well, because then. Because what happens is that if it's Gary Ridgeway, then serial killers can be anybody. And you're right.
Marcus Parks
It's terrifying.
Henry Zebrowski
Yes. And the cops don't like that. The cops want it to be. Which Know on one hand I do understand it's difficult job, blah blah, blah. It's harder. It's hard to investigate murders. It's harder. Especially if you don't know the guy that did it. Like, cuz most murders are done by somebody that the person knows. Like, you know, it's like it's either like for money, it's practical reasons. So it's extremely difficult to put together. So I could see why every single time it gets a shade more difficult, they're like, well, what the do we do now? Like, what do we do now?
Ed Larson
Like.
Henry Zebrowski
And they're bet they're just also just not great cops.
Ed Larson
Yeah, real cops would have picked him up and beat the out of him a little bit, the real guys.
Henry Zebrowski
But then the problem is Eddie, is that then it ruins all the, it ruins everything. It all the, the. And the investigation up.
Ed Larson
Unfortunately, that's why God invented gloves and masks. Good work, Eddie.
Henry Zebrowski
Hit him with the sock. You gotta get the sock with the soap.
Marcus Parks
Sock with the soap. That's why God invented sock and soap. Well, that should be it. That should be a bar. The sock and soap.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Just on the, There's a big, on the outside it's just a big picture of Vincent d' Onofre. Vincent d' Onofro going. I'm thinking retirement.
Henry Zebrowski
Come on, where's that money? So give us some seed money.
Marcus Parks
Well, it wasn't until April of 1987 that cops finally obtained a search warrant for Gary's homes and vehicles. Vehicles. But they were overwhelmed when they discovered that Gary and Judith were a couple of hoarders that were already two years into building their shared horde. You can pick up a lot of if you're only spending a nickel on each item. Investigators still look through everything. But because Gary never kept trophies in his most active serial killing, years were far in his past. They found no physical evidence linking Gary to the Green river killer.
Henry Zebrowski
It is now more likely than not that he buried. Buried it.
Marcus Parks
Buried the evidence.
Henry Zebrowski
He did collect treasures and he did have prices. But that he buried them according to what he just said. Yeah, like literally like last month. According to this. I'll get into it a little bit. At the end. He had one last relationship. Currently from jail.
Ed Larson
Wow.
Henry Zebrowski
This woman has seduced him. And he explained a lot of other stuff to her. Apparently.
Marcus Parks
Now investigators didn't stop at the search warrant. They surveilled Gary and found that he spent hours slowly driving up and down the streets of the Strip. He would eventually turn to a parking lot and stop just so he could watch the women standing on the curb who were trying to attract johns.
Henry Zebrowski
They're always trying to attract a john, but none of them trying to get a Gary.
Marcus Parks
I mean, what. But what they're seeing is that this is a predator they're watching a predator at work. Judith, meanwhile, believed Gary when he said, sometimes cops just make mistakes.
Henry Zebrowski
Mistakes.
Ed Larson
They do.
Marcus Parks
Clearly they have the wrong guy here. Judith. Likewise, even though cops questioned several people at Kenworth Trucking, Gary still kept his job throughout these investigations. In fact, the guys at Kenworth, they thought the whole Green River Gary thing was hilarious.
Henry Zebrowski
Of course I was. It's not though. Not when everybody thinks the guy's a rapist serial killer. It's different if you all think, oh, he's the guy that shat on Stewie's car. You know what I mean? Like, that's a funny story.
Ed Larson
Oh, that's a guy.
Henry Zebrowski
Guy keeps stealing the lunch out of the, the break room. That's like a funny story.
Ed Larson
Well, I think it's a testament to how harmless he seemed.
Henry Zebrowski
It's true.
Marcus Parks
How harmless he seemed.
Henry Zebrowski
And all the horrible men at Kenworth.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, yeah, the horrible men at Kenworth and just how horrible things were in Tacoma at the time. He's so far down the list. They, they, I'm sure all of these men know plenty of just, or they knew plenty of just horrific, awful people.
Henry Zebrowski
Especially this idea that they thought that him quoting the Bible and ranting about harlots and loose women would him less likely to be the Green River Killer. Which is hilarious to me. That's funny to me.
Marcus Parks
That's why it was funny. Because Gary would sit in the break room at work, he'd read passages from the Bible out loud, go on. Rants about harlots and loose women. He was so passionate, spittle would fly from his mouth. Gary was known even to his neighbors as an anti prostitution zealot who was obsessed with the so called wickedness of prostitutes.
Henry Zebrowski
But they knew for a fact he used fucking prostitutes. They knew for a fact that he was addicted to them.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, well, I mean, they knew and they didn't know all at the same time time. Gary was so passionate that he'd even attempted to organize his block to fight prostitution in the Seatac area. But when Gary wasn't giving impromptu sermons at work or to his neighbors, he was making obscene sexual remarks to the women at Kenworth. But since this was the 80s, nobody thought that Gary was actually dangerous. His coworkers said that while Gary engaged with everyone, he always failed in every attempt to belong long. Because they said that kind of felt like he was making the sexual remarks as a way to fit in, to ingratiate with the boys, to be one of the guys. But everyone's like, jesus, Gary, no, don't say that.
Ed Larson
Yeah, we're just talking about. Or not crucifying.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about this. When the first episode is that the Gary presents as a man. The way he kind of talked about it, he said he never belonged in that. It was like he almost couldn't understand what everybody was saying. It was like people talk too fast. They didn't talk too. So he would just always fade into the background. That's a part of why he think in his own mind. He's like, nobody looks at me.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. But despite all these huge waving red flags, the cops still couldn't come up with any hard evidence. So Gary was put back near the bottom of the suspect list for years to come. On 1988, the same year that an America's Most Wanted Style TV special aired, focusing on the Green River Killer, Gary and Judith finally tied the knot after three years together, they then moved out of Gary's former murder house and got a new place in Des Moines, Washington, just south of SeaTac. But while this was Gary's third marriage, this was the one that actually worked. And it all came down to Gary's mother, Mary Rita. She had never left. She had been in Tacoma controlling Gary's life from the outside this entire time.
Henry Zebrowski
I thought she died.
Marcus Parks
No, she didn't die until 2001.
Henry Zebrowski
And she still just left. Like I saw 911 on the television screen. Let me see if you pissed your pants, Gary. Let me see if you pissed your pants, Gary.
Ed Larson
Check out my big stinky pants. I'll remember Mary for the rest of my life.
Marcus Parks
Well, Mary Rita had remained a constant in Gary's life and in Gary's first two marriages. Mary Rita had still controlled Gary's finances, and she had a big say in how his wives had handled the housekeeping and the the kids. Both wives therefore greatly resented Mary Rita. Mary Rita was a big reason why Gary's first two marriages failed. But Judith, the third wife, she cracked the Gary code. Oh, wow. As it turned out, Gary really was looking for another mommy. Because Judith simply followed Mary Rita's example instead of fighting against her. Judith controlled Gary in the same ways his mother did. And Mary Rita apparently approved. She dressed him, she controlled. She treated him like a child who didn't know what money was. Every time you get money, Gary, you bring it to Me, and then I'll give it back to you, whatever you need. And that also did quite a bit towards removing his ability to get sex workers, you know, and to pick up. And that addiction kind of went away a little bit more. He had to sneak it.
Henry Zebrowski
He wanted someone to take it all and change so he could be baby Gary again.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. But due to the skills at compartmentalization, this also made her the right woman for Gary.
Henry Zebrowski
That's all you need, girls.
Marcus Parks
After years of dealing with Gary's sex worker addiction in one way or another, another. Judith finally asked Gary what a prostitute looked like while they were driving around one day. Like, Gary, I remember you used to go to prostitute. What does one look like?
Ed Larson
God, he must have lit up like a light bulb. That was the happiest moment of his life.
Henry Zebrowski
It's like, finally, it'd be like if Natalie said to me, I really like Dune. She was just like, I picked up Dune the other day. And you're right. It is about the foibles of a. Of a charismatic dictatorship. Yeah.
Ed Larson
What makes this Dan so steely,
Marcus Parks
baby?
Henry Zebrowski
Let me tell you,
Marcus Parks
Marcus, what's an oscillator? There were so many sex workers in this area. When Judith asked the question, all Gary had to do was point out the window at that very moment to highlight a woman wearing fishnets and high heels. Like, that's what one looks like, Judith. There's one right there. Judith remembered that she was shocked that a sex worker was out on the streets in broad daylight.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, I thought it was the character Jem.
Marcus Parks
But what this tells me, Judith was very much a woman who only saw what she wanted to see, which was perfect for Gary Ridgeway. She'd been living in the strip for years. This is 1988. She'd been living in the Strip since 1985. The Strip was the center. Center of sex work in the entire Pacific Northwest.
Henry Zebrowski
I simply thought it was a bunch of people that love the film who's that girl?
Marcus Parks
But they were all merely fans of
Henry Zebrowski
this prostitute named Madonna. The exact opposite. The Jezebel. The Jezebel Madonna.
Marcus Parks
No, she just. She. She saw what she wanted to see. And that's how it was with. You're never just one thing.
Henry Zebrowski
You're the boss.
Marcus Parks
Hey, Google, when's my next meeting?
Henry Zebrowski
The athlete a class rec.
Marcus Parks
Me and their mom.
Henry Zebrowski
Everyone in the all new Mazda CX.
Marcus Parks
Five more to move every side of you.
Henry Zebrowski
Learn more@mazdausa.com Google is a trademark of Google LLC.
Marcus Parks
Sequences shortened and simulated.
Ad Read Voice
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Henry Zebrowski
You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it?
Ad Read Voice
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
So do we here at Designer Shoe Warehouse. We'll give you something to brag about about, like the latest styles from brands you love or the trends everyone's obsessing
Marcus Parks
over or shoes that make you feel like, well, you.
Henry Zebrowski
So go ahead, show off a little. Find shoes that get you and prices
Marcus Parks
that get your budget.
Henry Zebrowski
Head to your DSW store or dsw.com today.
Guest/Ad Voice
DSW.
Henry Zebrowski
Let us surprise you, Gary, from your grave.
Marcus Parks
As I said, Gary's murder rate slowed down considerably after Judith. After that murder that he committed In February of 1987, he didn't kill again for three years. And he waited another eight years after that before claiming his very last victim in the late 90s.
Henry Zebrowski
Do you think, like, he listened to the song Glory Days and that's what got him back in
Ed Larson
days?
Henry Zebrowski
Like you said, they're just being like, yeah, I'm just not Gary anymore. Yeah, once I got married, I just stopped being me. You.
Marcus Parks
It's like how I sometimes, like, we'll put on a corn record or feel young again.
Henry Zebrowski
Just to remind everybody Marcus is still in here.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, I just want to do, like, oh, let's listen to some mud vein.
Henry Zebrowski
Everybody's mad. Oh, no. When Natalie knows the STP comes on. That's my masculine. That's me working on my masculine.
Marcus Parks
Well, Gary's last victim was a woman named Patricia Yellow Robe. But her death wasn't even considered a murder until Gary admitted to it years later. He'd left her corpse in town fully clothed, and the autopsy had stopped. Once the coroner discovered that she'd also overdosed on opiates the night of her death, they figured, ah, just one more street person who gives a shit. By the time of the Patricia Yellow robe murder in 1998, there was only one guy still working for the Green River Task Force, a detective named Tom Jensen. Detective Jensen Hunter, however, had rightfully decided that Gary Ridgeway was absolutely their man. But he could only arrest Gary if he could finally get some physical evidence. Luckily for Detective Jensen, the late 90s saw the advancement of forensic DNA testing. And the technology to resurrect old DNA samples became available as well. But even so, it would still take another three years before Tom Jensen got access to those tests.
Ed Larson
Tests.
Marcus Parks
But finally, In October of 2001, Jensen took a DNA sample that had been collected from Gary Ridgeway all the way back in 1987. It was a piece of gauze that had just been sitting in a freezer waiting for the technology to catch up. That sample was sent away with samples collected from three known Green river victims, including the two victims that had been found pinned to the riverbed by rocks way back in 1982. That first cluster of five. At long last, when the results came back, Gary Ridgeway was found to be a perfect match.
Henry Zebrowski
And those results, those Results were delivered 7:45am Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Perfectly perfect timing was this place wasn't like the monopoly. There was like one other trial that was supposed to start that day was that monopoly fraud trial. Yeah, yeah. That was like a whole thing.
Ad Read Voice
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
The McDonald's League game was supposed to start on September 11th. They postponed it. There are a few stories that went under the radar, including this one.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, My rise to the top of high school theater. Oh, yeah, truncated by 911.
Marcus Parks
Investigators, however, wanted Gary Ridgeway dead to rights.
Henry Zebrowski
They're not wrong, you know.
Marcus Parks
So Detective Dave Rert, the one who tripped over the body at the riverbed scene back in 82.
Ed Larson
Oh, stubby foots.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
He decided to swoop back in to try and take credit for all of Detective Jensen's hard work. Detective Jensen? Been the only one working this case for years.
Henry Zebrowski
No, but it sounds happy we come here. I'm going to get in here. I'm going to really wrap this up. This Green Lake measure, man, we're going to get. We're going to get the hell out of. You know, I've been nothing, nothing but up nights thinking about this.
Ed Larson
I fell over the bones.
Henry Zebrowski
It was me that tripped over that dead prostitute.
Marcus Parks
Z Rocca claimed that he had continued to obsess over the Green river killer for almost 20 years.
Henry Zebrowski
See these bags? You see the bags under these eyes? I barely moisturize. I barely go to Six Flags anymore. We only go once a month. We used to go every week.
Marcus Parks
But he hadn't been a part of the task force for a long time by 2001. But he had been one of the originals. So he arranged for Surveillance on Gary Ridgeway. The task force also returned to the second ex wife, Marsha Winslow. In September of 2001, she again showed officers all the places where Gary had taken her for sex outdoors. And again the officers are like, oh, these are all body cluster sites. And she's like, yeah, I know I.
Henry Zebrowski
The last guy said it. All right, but before we do it, can you get down in your fours over there in that pile of leaves? Just kind of see what it looks like. Okay, now lay like a starfish. Okay, now flip it over like a brown starfish. Yep. What's this remind me of?
Marcus Parks
I mean, think about this. This is the second time that they had taken her out to see these bodies. The second time was, you know, right around 9 11. The first time was during the fucking Reagan administration.
Henry Zebrowski
Jesus Christ. Wow. She really got all of America. Yeah, that's the whole story.
Marcus Parks
Now Gary and Judith had continued living the good life. And by the summer of 2001, things were looking better than ever.
Henry Zebrowski
Of course, we.
Marcus Parks
For all of us, Gary's horrible mother, Mary Rita had finally died of colon cancer that summer.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
And Gary and Judith now lived in a house that was far nicer than anything Gary parents had ever had.
Henry Zebrowski
This is the shit that they took from you zoomers.
Marcus Parks
Summer 2001 was incredible.
Ed Larson
It really was.
Marcus Parks
That was the summer I started my career in radio. I moved to Lubbock, moved out of Rochester. It was one of the best summers of my Life.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, summer 2001 is probably one of the funnest times I've ever had. I kind of remember like living free with my friends and just having so much fun and then just. Just stop.
Ed Larson
Yeah. Yeah, that's right when I started dealing weed. Great year for me too, right?
Marcus Parks
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Gary, he was actually old enough by this point where he and Judith could begin to look forward to retirement together.
Guest/Ad Voice
Wow.
Marcus Parks
But at long last.
Henry Zebrowski
That's another thing. Doesn't exist anymore.
Guest/Ad Voice
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
But at long last, in 2001, the paint evidence was finally examined. Thankfully, a trace evident scientist with the incredible name of Chesterine Svyklik.
Ed Larson
Whoa.
Henry Zebrowski
What the fuck?
Marcus Parks
Yeah, it's incredible. She's still alive too. Chesterine Svyklik.
Ed Larson
Whoa.
Henry Zebrowski
That was gonna that exact. What a coincidence. I was gonna. I'm doing another run on BG3. That was gonna be my high elf.
Marcus Parks
She had been meticulous about the fibers and hairs recovered from bodies and dump sites. And those samples certainly helped in the conviction from the DNA side. But speak leak also admitted. Sounds like a Dr. Who alien race
Henry Zebrowski
Speak leak also sounds like a, like one of those, like weird, like C tier porn sites. Yeah, yeah.
Marcus Parks
Well, Speak leak also admitted that the lab had ignored the paint particles for years because they figured their best line towards catching the killer were the fibers and the hairs in the cub. In the cum. And don't forget about the cum.
Henry Zebrowski
There's a lot of cum.
Marcus Parks
This, as we've said many times, enabled gary to take 50 plus victims instead of just five. In 2001, trace evidence expert Skip Palahniuk. A lot of great names in these fucking forensics people. He finally received the call to examine the paint dots with an infrared microscope. And it was discovered that the paint dots found on the victims match the paint dots on Gary's work clothes. By the way, it's not like the fucking technology didn't exist in 1982. It did. It's just a fucking infrared microscope. We're not talking about, you know, intense crazy DNA testing and matching all the fucking markers and building the fucking human genome here. It's looking really closely at paint.
Henry Zebrowski
They specifically didn't care about the, that type of evidence. They were not looking close.
Marcus Parks
No, they weren't looking close and they just didn't. For some reason they just didn't think like, ah, that's not going to lead to anything. Why bother?
Ed Larson
Yeah, they're just all covered in it.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. And so By November of 2001, nearly 20 years after the first Green river murder, the cops finally had more than enough evidence to arrest Gary Ridgeway. At this point, they had enough evidence to arrest him on seven murders. Two weeks before his arrest, Gary decided to indulge himself in some old habits. And he also proved why Judith needed to be in charge of the money. Judith had given him $30 to fill up his truck with gas. But instead of spending his money where he was supposed to, Gary decided to spend that $30 on a young woman who was strolling provocatively along the Pacific Highway. It turned out. Undercover cop.
Henry Zebrowski
God damn it, I knew she was too attractive.
Marcus Parks
The sting that caught Gary was completely separate from the Green river task force force. This, however, was almost serendipitous as far as the task force was concerned, because it was absolutely a sign that they were moving in the right direction. Ridgeway, however, kept the arrest secret from Judith. When he was released, he called her and had her pick him up at the local Kmart. He claimed that he had been stopped and arrested for leaving his truck's tailgate down. And Judith, long accustomed to not asking follow up questions like why is That a serious enough offense to arrest you?
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, like, what in the living fuck are you talking about?
Marcus Parks
She just said, all right, okay, you get that $30, you fill up your truck.
Henry Zebrowski
She's not wrong. You know, I think on some level, it's just like, I. Fine, sure, it's so odd that she's
Ed Larson
incredibly overbearing, but also overlooks extreme, like, just things that don't make sense.
Henry Zebrowski
It's because it's the baby she fucks.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, it's a baby she fogged. I mean, it's the way, you know, some people choose, like, treat their children. They can be super overbearing, but then they can completely ignore, like, say, like, someone can be very overbearing with a kid, but completely ignore that their kid's a bully. Yeah, you know, it's that same type of thing.
Ed Larson
It's like how I was able to convince my mom that my bong was a face.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marcus Parks
Literally overbearing.
Henry Zebrowski
But she believe, you know, it's because her brain just decided that you don't smoke weed. Yeah, my son doesn't smoke weed.
Ed Larson
I remember she found, like, a whole giant bag of mushrooms in my backpack. And she's like, what are these? I'm like, oh, yeah, we should throw those out. They're probably bad.
Guest/Ad Voice
Yes.
Henry Zebrowski
Am she like, oh, yeah, that's right. Like, you're a Jedi. So.
Marcus Parks
So what time of night was it when you went and sifted through the garbage can, get those mushrooms back?
Ed Larson
I mean, early. I mean, I still. I was selling them. It was fun. Okay.
Marcus Parks
But, yeah, I. I think with Judith, the. The biggest thing is that, you know, she just. It's incredible what someone will ignore. Ignore when they just don't want to deal with something.
Henry Zebrowski
Something as big as being the Green River Killer.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
They already got enough on their plate. They already got it. They already got enough to worry about. You know, I don't want to deal with that, so I'm just going to choose to not think about it.
Henry Zebrowski
I've also seen so much body cam footage of very sad women going down for their men. And they should not be doing that.
Marcus Parks
No, they should not be.
Guest/Ad Voice
No.
Marcus Parks
Never go down for a man. Never go down for a woman. Never, never go down for anybody.
Henry Zebrowski
Never go down for anybody to go yourself.
Ed Larson
I go down for a dog.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, okay.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, sure. You have a dog. Commit a bunch of serial crimes. I would it.
Ed Larson
I'd.
Henry Zebrowski
I'd lie for it.
Guest/Ad Voice
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Depends on if it was my dog.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
I go down for Frankie or Georgie. Not. Not for Like, I mean, I love your dogs, but I wouldn't go down for, like, Henry's dogs.
Henry Zebrowski
No, there's no reason to. I wouldn't go down for Frankie, but I go down for Carmi.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, I get it. And so Gary. After the arrest, Gary returned. What about you, Eddie? You got any dogs you go down for?
Ed Larson
I'd say. I was gonna say I'd go down. I think I'd go down for Frankie. I like Frankie a lot.
Marcus Parks
Thank you. She appreciates it. Well, she is the sweetest dog in the world.
Ed Larson
Yeah. Georgie. Any other other hand, she's on her own.
Marcus Parks
She wouldn't fight.
Ed Larson
She would.
Marcus Parks
Georgie would flip on you in a second.
Henry Zebrowski
I don't trust any of.
Marcus Parks
Georgie would not hesitate to make a deal to put your ass in prison for 30 years.
Henry Zebrowski
Oh, I know that. We all know that.
Marcus Parks
And so, after the arrest, Gary returned to his life as normal, painting trucks and thrifting with Judith. Two task force detectives, however, had gone to Kimworth Trucking after Gary's arrest, and they'd asked his supervisors to surveil Gary for any hints that he might be on to their investigation.
Henry Zebrowski
Thankfully, Gary ain't that observant.
Marcus Parks
Gary ain't paying attention. They were no hints that Gary knew anything, that anything was out of the ordinary at all. So on November 30, 2001, just after Thanksgiving, the task force made their move. Gary Ridgeway showed up to work as he had every day for decades. They said Gary was never more than two or three minutes late, and even then, that happened a handful of times. But on this day, his boss asked him to come into his office because there were people there who wanted to talk to him again.
Henry Zebrowski
And they just thought this was the funniest thing on the face of the planet.
Marcus Parks
Cops are here to talk to Green
Ad Read Voice
River Gary
Henry Zebrowski
suspect is the Green river killer or whatever. Good luck in their Green river serial killer.
Marcus Parks
Shut up, guys. I'm so sad about 9 11.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, I bet we all are, man. We're gonna go win a war.
Marcus Parks
War.
Henry Zebrowski
Let's go to the war.
Marcus Parks
Well, the people who were waiting to talk to Gary were two members of the Green river task force who questioned Gary specifically about Carol Christensen. That was the woman that Gary had left in the woods and covered in various foods and gutted trout after he'd murdered her.
Henry Zebrowski
I remember her.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. Now, Gary leaned on his demeanor one more time, and he happily chatted for two hours with investigators while offering up his own fate theories as to why Christensen was killed. Finally, investigators asked Gary if he had Ever engaged in sexual relations with Christensen? Gary, of course, said no, but the task force knew that was a lie because Gary had been quite loose with his DNA in this particular case.
Henry Zebrowski
Loose with the DNA is kind of a rough term, you know, I mean, just hey and say, hey. Oh, hey. You get some. You get.
Marcus Parks
It's the best I could do.
Ed Larson
It's true.
Ad Read Voice
He wasn't.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. What do you want me to say? Like. Because there was a whole bunch of calm in her fucking pussy. Is that what you want me to say?
Henry Zebrowski
Yes.
Marcus Parks
Gary's fucking spooge was filling up her fucking glory hole.
Henry Zebrowski
Now I understand what's happening.
Ed Larson
Yes. He came back and did it again. And he ate a hot dog and left the other half on top. I remember, man.
Henry Zebrowski
Again, it's hard. It's big, big dogs at Costco.
Marcus Parks
Well, after Gary lied to the police, detectives thanked. Thanked him, and they left. They actually let him finish out his last day at work.
Henry Zebrowski
That is another, like, cop. Like, what the do you mean? You just let him work all day and then you came back and got him later?
Marcus Parks
At this point, I think it's something like they've been hunting him for so long, like, yeah, yeah, give him one more day.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, let's let him. Really? I saw what he was doing to that Chevy. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I wouldn't want. I would need someone. And someone's gonna need to get that rap of. Of Dale Earnhardt with his dick out.
Ed Larson
I imagine they probably just let him go back to work. Went back and, like, just confirmed everything one more time. Threw some high fives around and then went back.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, he's gonna be there.
Guest/Ad Voice
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
And, yeah, he definitely wouldn't have been tipped off of the fact that they were talking to him and have ran during that time period. Absolutely not. Right? They're just lucky he's a fucking moron.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, Well, I think at that point, they just sort of sat outside and just waited until the workday was over. Didn't want to make a scene.
Henry Zebrowski
Stop. These fucking cops make me so angry. It's so stupid.
Marcus Parks
I could see a copy. Like, I've been chasing him for 20 years. I can wait two hours.
Ad Read Voice
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
I want to see him eat lunch. Oh, he's going hell and hardy. Actually, I could go for a soup as well. Saul eating lunch together.
Marcus Parks
When gary's shift ended, 3pm, as it always did, the task force finally at lunch, long last, arrested Gary Ridgeway for murder.
Henry Zebrowski
Wow.
Marcus Parks
1982 to 2001.
Ed Larson
Good job, everybody.
Henry Zebrowski
Really good run, Gary.
Marcus Parks
Now, Gary Was formally charged with four murders in early December owing to DNA evidence. And the paint dots added three more charges. So Gary made a plea deal. He'd show the task force where the undiscovered bodies were located and admit to all the other Green river killings. In exchange, the state wouldn't kill him. It took a little while for all this to get worked out. So it wasn't until the summer of 2003, two years later, that Gary Ridgeway, after a lifetime of being a non entity at best, or a joke at worst, he finally found out what it was like to be the belle of the ball. Once Gary started talking, he found that he fucking loved the attention. And it was said by investigators that Gary Ridgeway would have gladly talked for 18 hours a day if they let him. But nobody wanted to listen to him for that long.
Henry Zebrowski
It was interesting originally when the first cops were talking to him, he was being kind of cagey and they didn't know what to do with him. So they, they actually had a really good idea in that moment. And they brought a lady in and lady cop, Mary Ellen O. Tool came in and she was like a psychiatrist and she started talking to him and she, she profiled, she's from the FBI, she profiled him so well, cuz she was like, no one's ever asked Gary how he feels. It's like all this kind of thing. And so she mothered him in a compassionate way. And he was so excited to talk to a compassionate woman. Somebody that's not like has nothing connected to it. And so he just spilled his guts.
Ed Larson
So what? She showed up with a bathrobe and her tits out.
Henry Zebrowski
I just want to remind you of somebody you love very much.
Marcus Parks
Now, after the conversational floodgates opened, investigators finally discovered that Gary Ridgeway was, as I said earlier, both far simpler and far more complicated than anyone could have guessed. Gary said that he'd picked up somewhere, by his estimate, somewhere between 6 and 700 sex workers over the course of his life. But when he searched his memory, he sincerely couldn't remember which ones he'd killed and which ones he hadn't. While he could remember a violent act, he couldn't ever remember the person involved in said act. Likewise, Gary could recognize locations like fences or trees to remember when and where he'd killed a woman. But he never knew names. Instead, he made up his own names based on details surrounding the murder. Like the water tower lady or the one he actually had. One that was actually called the Log lady.
Henry Zebrowski
No.
Marcus Parks
Which is crazy considering I was the Pacific Northwest. He also, I don't think he watched Twin Peaks.
Henry Zebrowski
I doubt he was a Twin Peaks guy. Think it was a bit intense for him. I think he's more of like a stage coach. I think he's like a bonanza guy.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, yeah.
Ed Larson
You know, I, you should see my phone list. In my phone it's always like, yeah, the lady from McDonald's and like the dude.
Henry Zebrowski
That's how you do it.
Ed Larson
Cross Eyed Frank. He's fat with names.
Henry Zebrowski
What are you going to do?
Ed Larson
Is that his biggest crime?
Henry Zebrowski
Yes.
Marcus Parks
As the conversations went on, Gary made the choice that so many other serial killers make during conflict. Confessions. By separating himself from the killer, Gary began talking about the other Gary. The other Gary was stronger and angrier. Eventually he came to refer to the other Gary as old Gary. See, old Gary wanted to talk about the more disgusting aspects of the crimes, like the necrophilia, while new Gary wanted to, in Gary's words, candy coat the murders. New Gary was reasonable and cooperative, while old Gary was standoffish and mean.
Henry Zebrowski
He definitely thought he was way smarter than he was. This moment of trying to throw everybody off, being like he's a collection of personalities when he barely has one.
Ed Larson
Yeah, yeah, I don't want to nitpick here, but technically in that moment he is old Gary and when he was doing the killings, he was newer Gary.
Marcus Parks
You are nitpicking, but you are correct. You're correct. But I mean, that's the thing. Even you know, John Wayne Gacy came up with at least an alias. Jack Hanley, that's who. He said that his alter ego Jack Hanley was the one who had committed all the murders.
Henry Zebrowski
And what did Ted Bundy call him? Like the Shadow or something like that? One of those other names.
Marcus Parks
The Shadow, the demon, something like that. Yeah, the Entity. That's. Yeah, Bundy called it the Entity. But all Gary Ridgeway is like old Gary and new Gary. New Gary's nice, old Gary's mean, you know. Yeah. Old Gary Ridgeway claimed was the one who'd killed 50 plus women, while new Gary was the wimp who'd only killed four women after meeting Judith. But eventually investigators got old Gary to confess to murder after murder. Murder until the number reached 71. Cuz that's the thing. Gary Ridgeway was charged with 48 because 48 was all they could prove. He confessed to 71. So his body count could very well be far higher than what we actually think it could be. Because that's the thing, once you think about it, he probably did Forget about, you know, the locations of 20 or so women.
Henry Zebrowski
Dude, he absolutely did. And if you listen to this one woman that built a sort of relationship with him while he was in jail.
Ed Larson
This.
Henry Zebrowski
Honestly, it sounds like. To be honest, I don't like how they do it, but this. Her name was Maria DeLorenzo, and she essentially started writing to him, flirting with him, because she was super interested in his stuff, and he started talking about all of this other stuff. This is 2026.
Marcus Parks
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
He's already saying stuff like, there are dozens. Dozens that I didn't even get to that are there.
Marcus Parks
But who knows if he's telling it at this point?
Henry Zebrowski
Who knows?
Ed Larson
At the end of his life, he's ready to confess because he almost died
Henry Zebrowski
and he's about to be dead.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, no, he's. He's near death, but we'll get to that in a second. And one example of how Gary would change when he became old Gary, he once told investigators, and this. Please, Henry, do this exactly as. As Gary, as the quote says, I
Henry Zebrowski
had sex with the dead body. The new Gary's all screwed up. If you want to know what I did, talk to me. I'm the one who did it. I'm the one with the devil in my head. You know what?
Ed Larson
I believe him.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah. You know what?
Ed Larson
You might.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
When the guy tells you I'm the one with the devil in my head, believe him. Yeah.
Ed Larson
You're like, sure.
Henry Zebrowski
Okay, great.
Marcus Parks
But as to whether there really was an old Gary and a new Gary, it really didn't matter, because by the end of it, Gary Ridgeway had pled guilty to 48 counts of murder with no remorse, nor any regret, because 48 was all they could prove. He was given 48 consecutive life sentences as a part of his plea deal. But even though Gary has been in solitary confession confinement at the state pen in Walla walla, Washington, since 2004, Gary Ridgeway is, incredibly enough, still alive today.
Henry Zebrowski
He gets great health care in prison.
Marcus Parks
Yeah, he does.
Ed Larson
How excited were you to say Walla Walla, Washington?
Marcus Parks
Very, very. So incredibly, I've been waiting for, like, literally weeks to go. Walla Walla was
Henry Zebrowski
the next hit by
Marcus Parks
the Sonics out of Wall. Wall was psycho.
Henry Zebrowski
Are the Sonics a Walla Walla?
Marcus Parks
No, they were a Seattle. But it just.
Henry Zebrowski
It's funny. I'm sorry. Do you mean it?
Marcus Parks
Yeah. Actually, no. I think the Sonics are Tacoma, now that I think about it, makes a lot of sense. I'm almost positive the Sonics of Tacoma does make a lot of sense.
Henry Zebrowski
You know, like, garage rock is sort of like a smelting plants version of music.
Marcus Parks
I mean, yeah. When you. When you think about it. Yeah, cuz like psycho the witch, strict nine, that's all, like 1965. 66.
Henry Zebrowski
Strict song.
Marcus Parks
It's this. It's the same time that guys are getting up by this. Oh, my God. Was created by the Tacoma smelter.
Henry Zebrowski
We did it.
Ed Larson
That's a positive.
Henry Zebrowski
It is a positive.
Marcus Parks
That first sonic record is one of my favorite records in existence.
Ed Larson
Wow.
Marcus Parks
Okay. Well, some good, some bad.
Henry Zebrowski
That's how it is. That's life.
Marcus Parks
Well, it was rumored about six months ago that Gary Ridgeway was receiving end of life care in prison, but Gary apparently ducked the group grim reaper. He's currently 77 years old, living a life completely separate from the rest of the prison populations. Why there's not really any postscript stories here because Gary's been in solitary for decades now. But while Gary is alive, many of the men who chased him as a part of the Green River Task Force are long dead. Actually, a lot of them died before Gary was even caught. Because you remember Gary was in his 20s when he was doing all this, and he's being chased by, you know, Tacoma cops who smoke in their 40s. Yeah. You know, those guys don't live long.
Henry Zebrowski
It's a lot of stress.
Marcus Parks
But even though Gary should have been arrested half a dozen times before he was finally taken down in 2001, there were still plenty of members of the Green River Task Force who believed until the end of their days that they had done everything they could to catch the Green River Killer. But I would say that 71 possible victims. Victims. They would probably disagree with that assessment.
Guest/Ad Voice
Yeah.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Marcus Parks
And that's Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer.
Henry Zebrowski
So I think one of the big lessons we've learned from this, to keep it simple. You don't want to put a lot of stank on it when you're killing many, many, many people. If your goal is to kill a lot of people, not everyone needs to be a showstopper.
Ad Read Voice
Yeah.
Ed Larson
71 is such a big number.
Henry Zebrowski
It is.
Ed Larson
That's a big number for a soldier.
Guest/Ad Voice
It is.
Henry Zebrowski
You know, like, my grandfather killed 10 people in. In World War II.
Marcus Parks
Not just a soldier. Those are big numbers for a sniper whose only job is to shoot people in the head. Yeah, that's huge numbers. Pretty cool for a serial killer. It's not cool.
Henry Zebrowski
You know, I mean, in terms of, like, if you think about it. No, it's not cool. You're Right. I'm sorry.
Ed Larson
There is a couple times during this episode that I had to hold back from saying the word cool. And so I understand where you're coming.
Marcus Parks
You can always replace cool with interesting.
Henry Zebrowski
You're right.
Ad Read Voice
Fascinating.
Ed Larson
Righteous.
Henry Zebrowski
Well, I do. And one day it will lead us to. Because I got into a little bit of a hole of like the people that killed the most humans by hand.
Marcus Parks
Sure.
Henry Zebrowski
And there's like a couple of guys, like, obviously one's a Nazi, one's from a Soviet, from Stalin time. But it is wild to just think it was just like One guy killed 2,000 people.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
That's crazy. Oh, yeah. I think it's crazy.
Marcus Parks
Yeah. It's real nuts.
Henry Zebrowski
And it turns into a statistic.
Marcus Parks
That it does.
Henry Zebrowski
But not over on patreon.com lastpod guest and left. We see each one of you and we cherish each one of you as an individual flame of consciousness. And you can give us money to listen to the show ad free. You also can see Last Stream on the Left live every Tuesday, 5pm PST. And also see movie stories. You can go watch the video of movies stories. And I'm gonna say go check it out because I'm really liking the work that we're doing on N. It's a lot of fun.
Ed Larson
I'm having a good time with you. We're in the middle of our John Carpenter series right now.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fucking sweet.
Ed Larson
Oh, and also I will say tonight, July 17, when this comes out to the general public, is our second to last JK Ultra show. That's right. In Tulsa, Oklahoma. And then tomorrow we're going to be in Oklahoma City. But if you can't make it out, don't worry, you haven't missed JK Ultra, just us yet. Go to lpotl.kiswee.com that's K-I-S-W-E and you can watch a live stream of our final show in Oklahoma City. And that'll be available for two weeks. So check it out. Go watch it. And then we're gonna put this baby to bed.
Marcus Parks
That's right. And we're gonna be coming back in March with a brand new Last Podcast on the Left show. But before that happens, y' all are going to be on the road with side stories over the next few months.
Henry Zebrowski
We haven't got those date yet, but they will be on last podcast on the left.com and go see us. Midsummer Scream Sunday, August 9th, last panel on the left. We are going to be there doing a Panel about horror and all this types of our place in it in the last 15 years of last podcast left and go visit. We're going to have a whole ass booth. Grab a shirt, grab a comic. Bring your album if you got it.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
Cuz we will sign it and we're
Ed Larson
going to be there all weekend. It's going to be a lot of fun. Also I went to Midsummer Scream for the first time last year and it's fun.
Ad Read Voice
It's good.
Ed Larson
It's fun even if we're not there. It's awesome. Make sure you go check out this Aron. It's one of the best in the nation. I can't get enough of it. Also, you want to see me on the road? Just go to eddytunes.com to find out where I'm going to be next. I got a lot more dates coming at you.
Henry Zebrowski
Yeah, yeah. You Botch on YouTube, it's your shot. Go LPN TV. Also we have a brand new no Dogs in Space video essay. Go check it out on YouTube. No dogs in Space.
Marcus Parks
It's based on our Max's Kansas City episode. And we put in a bunch of like cool visuals and like that. It's you know, it's stuff we've recorded before but it is very cool. But we are three episodes or no we're six episodes into the new season. So that's actually going to be coming out very soon.
Ed Larson
Yeah, the LPN YouTube universe keeps expanding. Page 7 has their own channel.
Henry Zebrowski
Does Brighter side does.
Ed Larson
Yeah, yeah. No dogs. And we got you know who's the be all that stuff. If it exists as a show, it's there. Even Nerd of mouth.
Henry Zebrowski
Even those bodies we've come. We have somehow contained all of that masculinity on camera. I love to see it. Those men just. God damn. Sometimes I just watch just stills of them talking. Man get so hard just thinking about on it man.
Marcus Parks
I think about it.
Ed Larson
Yeah.
Henry Zebrowski
Thinking about Mike.
Ad Read Voice
Yeah.
Ed Larson
God damn car.
Henry Zebrowski
We got to get out of here.
Ad Read Voice
Come.
Henry Zebrowski
All right. See you guys. Hell Satan.
Ed Larson
Hell, the guys who caught this guy. Yeah.
Marcus Parks
Actually Detective Jensen did a pretty. He. He did actually a pretty good job even though record tried taking the credit so. Hell Jensen.
Ed Larson
Hail Jensen Hill Johnson.
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Podcast: Last Podcast On The Left
Episode: 673: Gary Ridgway: Redux Part III – The Riverman
Date: July 17, 2026
Hosts: Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski, Ed Larson
The concluding episode in the Gary Ridgway series delves into the frustrating final years of The Green River Killer investigation and the long, meandering road to Ridgway's eventual capture. The hosts meticulously (and comedically) explore why he avoided arrest for decades, the missteps of law enforcement, Ted Bundy’s involvement as an “expert” profiler, and Ridgway’s twisted psychology—especially how his personal relationships, compulsion for yard work, and a motherly third wife helped him almost retire from murder. In classic Last Podcast fashion, the gruesome is mixed with the absurd, providing both rich detail and morbid levity.
For further details and darkly comedic takes, listeners are encouraged to hear the full episode, skipping ads and focusing on the rich storytelling and expert commentary by the Last Podcast team.