The Confession

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stolen Voices of Dole Valley

Episode: The Confession
Date: December 16, 2025
Host: Carolyn Osorio (Lemonada Media)
Podcast Series: Shadow Girls

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Episode Overview

"The Confession" delves into the chilling details of Gary Ridgway’s (the Green River Killer) confessions to police, examining the psychological warfare detectives waged to elicit the truth, the devastated families seeking closure, and the lasting trauma inflicted on survivors and families. The episode intercuts police interview tapes, commentary from law enforcement, voices of the families and survivors, and the host’s own personal reflections on vulnerability, trauma, and healing. The theme centers both on the crimes and their aftermath—how communities remember victims, and how cycles of violence, neglect, and exploitation continue.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Difficulties of Eliciting a Confession

• Detectives’ Approach: Investigators pursued the truth for the sake of families, enduring psychological toll and facing Ridgway’s remorselessness (00:52).
• Ridgway’s Manipulation: He treats memories as possessions or trophies, withholding details as a form of control (02:52).
• Detectives’ Strategy: Used comparisons (what if your son was the victim?) and persistent questioning to break Ridgway’s defenses (01:17–02:52).

2. Ridgway’s Methods and Psychology

• Described how Ridgway lured victims using his son and props like kids’ toys to appear non-threatening (04:03–05:45).
• Quote:
  “I told Matthew I’d be back in a couple minutes. I go for a walk.” – Gary Ridgway (04:29)
• Admission of Possible Filicide: When asked if he could have killed his own son if he witnessed a murder, Ridgway chillingly says,
  “No, probably not. I don’t know. Possibly. Though it’s possible.” (05:45)
• Used ruses, staged scenes, and items (e.g. wine bottle, paper bag) to taunt police and throw off their investigation (07:21).

3. Confession Motives and Gamesmanship

• Ridgway sought to control the narrative, hoping to influence public perception and even fantasizing about being featured in true crime books by Ann Rule (07:45).

• Quote:
  “I was gonna call in where the site was, call in a couple days later. That was in my mind.” – Gary Ridgway (09:28)

• Ridgway inserted himself into the investigation: planting evidence, sending letters, moving remains to different jurisdictions (10:43–13:32).

4. Why Confess Now? Confession Dynamics

• Detectives’ and Ridgway’s psychological sparring is detailed, with Ridgway often lying or minimizing; his credibility is challenged openly by investigators (16:12).

• Quote:
  “You’re not a stupid man, yet you’ve done some incredibly stupid things…Your credibility—I really can’t say you have any right now.” (16:12)

5. Investigative and Emotional Costs

• Detective Tom Jensen and Sheriff Dave Reichert reflect on the physical and emotional toll of not only the investigation but of sitting across from a killer (17:31–25:16).

• Reichert shares about personally going to the victim families, forming long-term bonds, and promises to never give up (24:09–25:16).

• Quote:
  “How could you not get emotionally involved? …I just wanted to catch the guy that hurt and took the lives of these people.” – Reichert (24:49)

6. Unique Showdown: Reichert vs. Ridgway

• The critical confrontation: Reichert (now Sheriff) meets Ridgway face-to-face, attempting to build rapport and ultimately get to the truth (25:16–29:18).
• Ridgway’s delusions of grandeur exposed: wants Tom Cruise to play him in a film (28:29).

7. Candid Confessions: Misogyny, Hatred, Family, and Victim Blaming

• Ridgway admits to hating women, practicing his strangulation technique on wives/girlfriends, and even fantasizing about killing his mother (33:26–36:22).

• Quote:
  “Maybe it was my mayday present for you guys…to throw you off.” – Ridgway, about posing a body fully clothed (09:45).

• Ridgway says he would have killed his stepdaughter if he’d picked her up while she worked as a prostitute during his killing spree (33:20).

8. Understanding Evil vs. Understanding Causes

• Retired Sheriff John Urquhart dismisses psychological explanations:
  “Some people are just evil. And Gary Ridgway is one of those people.” (37:57)

9. Impact on Victims’ Families and Communities

• Courtroom montage of family statements: raw anger, pain, and, for some, forgiveness (39:13–41:27).
• “You are a loser. You’re a coward. You’re a nobody. You’re an animal.” – Victim’s family member (40:19)
• Robert Rule forgives Ridgway for killing his daughter Linda Rule (40:58).

10. Remembering the Victims and Ongoing Trauma

• Families and advocates refuse to let victims be reduced to names. Jenny Graham shares the cost of telling the truth about abuse in her family and stands up for her murdered sister (42:46–45:04).
• Many victims remain unidentified; authorities believe true victim counts may be higher (45:07–47:25).

11. The Ongoing Crisis: Prostitution and Exploitation

• The podcast pivots to narrator Carolyn Osorio’s personal history—how her own risky adolescence placed her close to the GRK’s victim profile (48:49–57:35).

• Testimonials from survivors, advocates, and social workers stress the deep roots and enduring dangers of commercial sexual exploitation.

• Quote:
  “Our culture helps create people who do not value the lives of women and girls…It’s just prime to have another Gary Ridgway out there.” – Martha Linehan / Steve Davis (59:31–59:53, 47:48).

12. Building a Living Memorial and Healing

• Focus on the Organization for Prostitution Survivors (OPS) in Seattle: moving from a planned physical memorial to a living, artistic memorial supporting survivors (60:34–70:09).

• Survivors share how art workshops at OPS helped their healing and sense of worth.

• Quote:
  “Art gives us a way to heal. I just can’t believe how I’m able to draw myself, my granny, my daughter…” – Doris Beeman (69:33).

• The living memorial celebrates survivors’ stories, resilience, and growth.

13. Takeaway Messages & Calls to Action

• Detective Reichert emphasizes remembering the families and supporting current vulnerable girls and women:
  “Put yourself in their place. Imagine losing your child…Remember the families of the victims. And then remember there are still little girls out there, young women out there, that are still engaged in this underworld of human trafficking.” (73:38)

• Carolyn reiterates: supporting the living memorial, seeking closure for past and present victims, and the healing that comes through breaking silence and community action (74:55–76:59).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “You remember a lot of details. When we drove yesterday, you pointed out 10 spots where you remember taking ladies. So I’m starting to think you have a very good memory…Her family wants to know what happened to her. As bad as the details are, they still want to know.”
  – Detective, speaking to Ridgway (01:17)

• “With a flat affect, Ridgway would describe his cruel and sadistic ruses which he employed to get his victims to trust him. A lethal combination of ordinariness and cunning subterfuge.”
  – Carolyn Osorio (04:03)

• “He would collect other people’s chewed gum and used cigarette butts, which he then strategically placed at some of the cluster sites, hoping to throw investigators off.”
  – Carolyn Osorio (10:43)

• “You want to be unique, you know, you don’t want to be seen as a John Wayne Gacy… you’re different.”
  – Reichert, to Ridgway (28:06)

• On why the killings diminished:
  “No, I had a different personality towards people. I had somebody to care for, and I love my wife. I didn’t want to do any more killing.”
  – Ridgway (15:01)

• “Our memory is not in your words. You said that they didn’t mean anything to you…But she meant everything to us.”
  – Victim’s family member at sentencing (39:48–40:13)

• “Put yourself in their place…there are still little girls out there, young women out there…get involved and help some of the agencies in our communities.”
  – Dave Reichert (73:38–74:55)

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Timeline & Timestamps of Major Segments

• 00:00–10:00: Introduction; detective approach to confession; Ridgway’s manipulation and ruses
• 10:00–17:30: Ridgway’s tactics; investigative challenges; moving and staging remains
• 17:31–25:16: Emotional/psychological toll on detectives; Reichert’s bonds with families
• 25:16–36:22: Reichert-Ridgway showdown; Ridgway’s psychology, misogyny, and confessions
• 36:22–47:25: Reactions from law enforcement and victims’ families; scope of crimes, the confession, courtroom drama
• 47:25–59:53: Reflection on vulnerability; connections to the victims; prostitution and exploitation culture
• 59:53–70:09: Organization for Prostitution Survivors (OPS)—living memorial, survivor healing stories
• 70:09–75:00: Present-day realities of exploitation; honoring victims and survivors; closing thoughts, calls to action
• 75:00 - End: Host’s ongoing journey for personal closure and final reflections

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Tone and Language

The episode maintains a deeply empathetic, investigative, and reflective tone. Osorio’s narration is both factual and personal, blending investigative journalism with lived experience. Law enforcement and survivor voices are straightforward, raw, and sincere; Ridgway’s interspersed interview audio is disturbingly cold.

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Conclusion

"The Confession" offers a haunting, multi-perspective deep-dive into the Green River Killer’s crimes, the relentless pursuit of truth by investigators, the voices and memories of the forgotten, and the struggle to find meaning and healing amidst lasting trauma. It calls for honoring victims not only through remembrance, but through activism, cultural change, and community support for survivors.

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Support the living memorial and survivor services:
www.seattleops.org

Transcript

[Carolyn Osorio]

Lemonade. This series contains adult language and descriptions of graphic violence throughout. Listener discretion is advised. From Pie in the Sky Media, I'm Carolyn Osorio and this is the Shadow Girls. An in depth investigation into the victims of the Green River Killer. You're listening to episode 10, the Confession. After so much pain, so much anguish, the victims families would find out what happened to their daughters, what they had endured. They had gone far too many years with unanswered questions. And investigators set their feelings aside and focused on finding the truth. Prying these answers from a remorseless serial killer would exact a heavy psychological toll on the detectives. But what kept them going? The knowledge that the families wanted answers. They wanted to know what happened to their daughters, no matter how horrible the details were. And those facts were horrific.

[Gary Ridgway]

And your memory, I mean, you may have to write things down. You remember a lot of details. When we drove yesterday, you pointed out 10 spots where you remember taking ladies. So I'm starting to think you have a very good memory. And this case is very unique. It's different. It is. Sure. She's buried. Yeah. You didn't bury 50, 60 girls, did you? No. Okay. See what I'm saying? This case is very unique. And her family wants to know what happened to her. As bad as the details are, they still want to know. Yes. If something happened to Matthew 20 years ago and we were talking to the guy that hurt Matthew, would you want to know the details? Yes, I would. Okay. If someone took Matthew's watch, would you want it back? Yes. Okay. This is exactly what these girls families are going through. They want their property back. They want to know what happened, what happened to their family members. That's the whole point why you're here today with us. Right. You're going to be here a lot of days. So the more details you tell us, it really helps because we weren't there. Only this Gary was there. Yes. So when you got to that scene, what do you remember with her? Did she get undressed? I. I don't. I don't know. You know, Gary, you know what happened at that scene, what made you mad about her.

[Carolyn Osorio]

I'm not a psychologist, but watching those tapes, it's like he doesn't want to reveal the truth because the memories of his deeds were his possessions, his trophies. And sharing these depraved secrets of his crime seemed to in his mind, somehow take away their potency. Detectives. Resting these details became an epic psychological battle, like removing the ring from Gollum's finger.

[Gary Ridgway]

Why do you think you wanted to put rocks with the giant. Not to screw them again. Not to have anybody else screw them. That's know what's going on my mind. Okay, so you didn't want anybody else coming along and screwing your women? Yeah, I guess. And you didn't want anybody else, you didn't want to screw them again yourself? I didn't want to screw them again after. Screwed him once. By that time, I think Laverne was already dead by then. And the. Well, I mean, how many times did you go back to Laverne? Until I saw the maggots. Just one day or three times, right? Probably two or three times.

[Carolyn Osorio]

With a flat affect. Ridgway would describe his cruel and sadistic ruses which he employed to get his victims to trust him. A lethal combination of ordinariness and cunning subterfuge. Such as that time that he lured Gisele Laverne away by using his own 7 year old son as bait.

[Gary Ridgway]

Matthew, you know, was sitting back in the truck. I don't know what he was.

[Carolyn Osorio]

What he was doing.

[Gary Ridgway]

I told Matthew I'd be back in a couple minutes. I go for a walk.

[Carolyn Osorio]

When they were in the woods and he was behind her, Ridgeway had hissed that his son was coming, hoping she would raise her head, making a clear path to her neck.

[Gary Ridgway]

So she raised her head up and that's when I put my arm around her, my right arm, and started choking her.

[Carolyn Osorio]

During that five month confession, investigators asked Ridgway if he would have murdered his own son if he had left the truck that day and followed them into the woods. Ridgeway said it was possible.

[Gary Ridgway]

Did you feel any differently about killing one while Matthew was in the car with you? I felt a little bit remorse and I had to ask Matthew, asked a few questions. But what did Matthew ask? He asked me where the lady was and I said, she's walking home. And what do you mean that caused you some remorse? Killing her with Matthew guy was not the right thing to do. Why was there any more problem in killing her while killing her, Casey? Because Matthew might have saw something. Why would that be a problem? He'd have to have that in his memory for his life. Maybe he would be a witness against you. And maybe he'd be a witness against me too. If he had observed you kill one of the women, would you have killed him? No, probably not. I don't know. Possibly. Though it's possible.

[Carolyn Osorio]

During his murder spree, the GRK continued to perfect his manipulations. If one of his victims asked to see his ID to verify he wasn't a Cop. He anticipated this and made sure to strategically place a photo of his son next to his driver's license. He also left a bunch of his kids toys on the dashboard so he would appear to be just a harmless dad, not a cold blooded killer.

[Gary Ridgway]

Sometimes I had the. Had a tire in the front, so we in the cab. In the cab. So we'd have to date in the back. Is that some sort of ruse you used or something? No. If I had had a fat tire or something, my dad had something, I'd take it out of the back, so we had to date in the back so I could take advantage of. Because I couldn't kill him. But that was your mind. That was your. That was your M.O. so to speak. Yes.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But the GRK's ultimate goal was to gain their trust enough to get them to his home once they were in his bed. And he maneuvered them into that vulnerable position. Even then, he still got off on playing the cruelest of games as they fought for their lives.

[Gary Ridgway]

Later on, I got into you talk to him. If you choking them, talk to them. Convince them you're gonna let them go and they'll stop scratching and fighting.

[Carolyn Osorio]

They begged don't kill me. I'm too young to die. I've got a family I'm taking care of. I've got a daughter at home. I don't want to die. Investigators would finally learn why the GRK had posed Carol Christensen's body in that green space with the paper bag over her head, the dead fish, the wine bottle, and that she was fully dressed.

[Gary Ridgway]

There is mark bag over her head so nobody could see her and see the way she put it in. But it's see the way shoe her face. Got to put the bottle. The bottle. Yeah. The bottle was on her stomach. Why? Because she was special and she didn't want me anymore.

[Carolyn Osorio]

What he was actually doing was minimizing his behavior. Not out of any sort of guilt or remorse. Because he was hoping that the true crime author and rule would write a book about him. Since he knew that the camera was recording everything he confessed. In his twisted mind, he thought he would appear more sympathetic. He had cried saying that he was in love with Carol Christensen, that she was special, and that's why he posed her as he did. But the truth was, it was all an act.

[Gary Ridgway]

Okay, we heard the bull story. Why don't you tell us? Think carefully about this because we want it to be the truth. Why did I kill her? Because I hated a prostitute. To get my sexual drive out of it and to and to snuff her life out by my arms, my hands, or ligature. You were asked for one special thing. One thing. One thing. Snuffer life out, you said Carol Christianson. Yes. One thing. Tell us one thing about that. Why does she stand out in your mind? Because she's the one that. The only one that had clothes on. Why does she. Why is she the only one that has clothes on? Why did. Why was that something special? That was something special. May. I don't know what to. Maybe it was my mayday present for you guys or something. I don't know what it was. But why the clothes on, Carol? To throw you off. And that was the entire reason, as far as I remember. Just. Just halfway through the killings to throw you guys off. Knowing that she's gonna be found within a couple days is where I took her. How do you know that? Originally, I was going to call in, call in where the site was, but I didn't know anybody to call. That was in my mind and call in a couple days later and tell her that she was a body there. Why the clothes on, though? You could have left the body on naked somewhere where it'd be found? Well, it'd throw you off as a. As a Green River. Wouldn't be on a Green river list by way of conning you guys. Telling you guys, now you got one with clothes on, and all the rest of them are all naked. Now I'm gonna throw one with clothes and all this. The fish, the sausage, the bottle. All stuff that you spend your time looking for. DNA and stuff on that stuff. The clothes. Gary, I have a hard time believing that you were worried about DNA in 1983. I was worried. Fingerprints. I was worried more about that. There's nothing on the bottle. Why wasn't there anything on the bottle? Because I washed it off after I drank the wine.

[Carolyn Osorio]

He would also reveal that he almost got caught.

[Gary Ridgway]

Christensen, for instance. I drove out that driveway. Cop drove out a driveway right east of me, got to the light. I took a right. Go to Nagle Valley, and he took a left and went towards Ren. He didn't go down that road. Otherwise, he would have had her that day. He would have had it and had my description and everything.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And the FBI's profile about the GRK proved to be spot on when it came to inserting himself into the investigation. He would collect other people's chewed gum and used cigarette butts, which he then strategically placed at some of the cluster sites, hoping to throw investigators off. At one scene, he scattered airport motel Pamphlets and car rental papers, trying to imply that the killer was a traveling salesman. He also left Marie Malvar's driver's license at the SeaTac airport, hoping investigators would believe that she left town. And In February of 1984, Ridgway sent a poorly typed letter entitled what you need to know about the green river man. This action was also meant to taunt the task force and throw them off. Another diabolical scheme where Ridgway had inserted himself into the investigation came in the spring of 1984, when he actually returned to his so called clusters to retrieve the partial remains of two of his victims, Denise Bush and Shirley Sherrill.

[Gary Ridgway]

I figured I had 30 seconds to get what I wanted, the skull, a few bones, and put them in the bag and walk around, put them in the back of the truck, back of the trunk of the car and leave. I was. Like I said, it was there less than 30 seconds to maybe not even a minute. Now, did you actually carry something with you down there to put the bones in, or did you wait till you got to the truck? No. Plastic bag. Plastic bag in the. Had gloves on. What kind of plastic bag? If you remember, it was a cheap safeway garbage bag, 20 gallon or 50 gallon or whatever it was.

[Carolyn Osorio]

He transported the remains to a suburb outside of Portland under the COVID of a one day camping trip with his son. When the GRK's son was interviewed after Gary Ridgway's arrest in 2001, his son remembers that trip.

[Gary Ridgway]

I do remember once with just your father. Just my father. And what'd you guys do there? I know we had. We'd gone to get some rock. Did you stay in the camper or what? It was before the camper. Okay. Where did you stay that night? He had the. It was a brown car, I believe, and the one that didn't have the lock in the trunk. And he had. I believe he had a tent that we stayed in.

[Carolyn Osorio]

As his boy is riding around on his bike, oblivious to the fact that his father is throwing the skeletal remains of his murder victims.

[Gary Ridgway]

Matthew was riding his bike through here. When he got down to here someplace and turned around, that's when I threw the skull and the glove in the drainage ditch.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The JRK wanted to mess with the task force, there's no doubt about that. But it was also strategic. Ridgway was hoping that when he transported the skeletal remains of two of his victims to Oregon, that this action would throw off the task force.

[Gary Ridgway]

What was your big goal then by doing. I mean, what was to throw you guys off get you thinking, hey, he's killed here. There's similarities all over the United States that would just really throw nuts and bolts in your engine, you know, just to stalemate, you know, to. When you heard about all this on the news down in Oregon and all that stuff, what were you doing? I mean, what was going on up here? Well, it was relieving me from the pressure, because now you're gonna widen your gap to other people, and that would take a lot of the pressure off me. It would really just throw you guys off that you go pull your hair out, go everywhere to look. I put it in a place where you would. Where they'd find them. I thought for sure within 10, 15 years, they'd find the. Over at Allstate. They'd find the head, because it's right there, right within 100 people go in that building every day.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Bringing the skeletal remains down to Oregon did throw off the task force. Those remains were found in 1985 at around the same time that the GRK had appeared to have stopped killing, which further bolstered the theory that the killer had moved on. During those early days of his confession, the GRK was adamant that he had stopped killing in 1985 because of his relationship with Judith.

[Gary Ridgway]

Are you telling me that suddenly, in 1985, you no longer had problems with anger? I still had anger, but I had problems with ways of, you know, doing yard work and stuff like that to help out. Doing yard. Doing yard work and reading. Mr. Ridgeway, are you. Excuse me. Are you telling me that before 1985, you got angry and you wanted to hurt and kill people, and then in 1985, you wanted to. You got angry and you did yard work? I did other things to keep me. Keep myself busy, and I had a new wife that cared for me. And. Mr. Edrey, excuse me. Are you telling me that before 1985, when you got angry, you wanted to kill people, and if I understand correctly, you actually did kill quite a number? Yes, I did. And then all of a sudden, in 1985, when you got angry, you raked the lawn? No, I had a different personality towards people. I had somebody to care for, and I love my wife. I didn't want to do any more killing. I did slow down. I think the last time I killed was sometime in 85, but I didn't have that urge to go out and kill.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But that would be just another lie investigators would have to sift through to find the kernels of truth in a case that would never come easy.

[Gary Ridgway]

Where we're at right now, in our opinion of the last 13 days with you has not been good. It has not been what anyone ever could have expected. You know, I don't think that you are. And I've told you that, and I mean it. You're not a stupid man yet you've come in here and done some incredibly stupid things. Yes, I have. And wasted a lot of time. Yes, I have. And made this job so much more difficult. And your credibility. I really can't say you have any right now. I agree with you. So you need to think about tonight, about how you can start building up some of that credibility because our patience has worn very thin. We're here because we want to hear the true story. We want the truth about these things, not what we might suggest or not what anyone else has told you. We want to hear from Gary Ridgeway what he did to all of these women. Do you understand that? I understand that. Is there absolutely any doubt in your mind about that right now? No doubt in my mind. And can you give me some reason why we can believe that tomorrow we can expect to hear nothing but the truth from you? You're going to get. You're going to get the truth tomorrow.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Detective Tom Jensen describes what it was like interrogating Ridgeway.

[Gary Ridgway]

You just listen to some of the stupid things he says and miss his misuse of words. Strangulation. I strongly elated her.

[Carolyn Osorio]

I can only imagine the frustration of thinking this person is responsible.

[Gary Ridgway]

Yeah. How did we not catch this? Dumb. Dumb, right. But like I said, he'd found a way. And he used. He didn't. He didn't very much from. From it. He was very careful about how he was going out and disposing of the remains. And there was a couple of. Probably a couple of instances where he was contacted or somebody saw him, but it was never. Never anything anybody ever was able to prove or positively identify him at the time. Yeah, he just. He got, I guess, sometimes better to be lucky than smart. I don't know. But he was not. And it's still not very, very intelligent. And I guess that's one of the things that's frustrating about how long it took was how did we not find this guy?

[Carolyn Osorio]

But there was one last showdown, long overdue. Detective Dave Reichert. Now Sheriff Reichert would interrogate the grk. Could he get answers? Could he get the truth? The Shadow Girls will continue after a word from our sponsors. When it comes to holiday gifting, I want to give things people really love. Beautiful, timeless pieces. They'd most likely never splurge for themselves and will wear for years. That's why I'm going with Quince, because Quince has something for everyone. Soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters for just $50 that look and feel like designer pieces. Silk tops and skirts for dressing up, perfectly cut denim for everyday wear and outerwear that actually keeps you warm. And their Italian wool coats are standout pieces. Beautifully tailored, soft to the touch and crafted to last for years. And the reason why is that every piece is made with premium materials from ethical, trusted factories and priced far below what other luxury brands would charge. I can't stop talking about the feel of Quince's cashmere sweaters. I have two, a black one and a cranberry red one. And they feel so incredible. Soft, structured and they don't pill, which is a huge pet peeve. And because their cashmere sweaters are just $50, I'm not saving them in the back of my closet for special occasions, but I'm wearing them all the time. And Quint also has your gifting needs covered. Beyond clothing items for your home bath, kitchen, even travel gear. All to share or keep this holiday, I'm telling you, you're going to find gifts so good you'll want to keep them with quince. Go to quince.comstolen voices for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com stolen voices to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com stolenvoices and now back to the Shadow Girls. Since the beginning of that summer, the GRK had been interviewed day after day, hour after hour, playing games, withholding information. Why play these games? The painfully long pauses between words and sentences. Was it all an act? For all those years, the GRK had remained silent, telling no one of his murders. Not family, girlfriends, co workers, acquaintances. No one had any clue that he was a murderer. And during his confession, they found out that he actually never believed he would be caught. Even with his life on the line, the GRK was still playing games, trying to outsmart the police once again. Clearly, Detective Reichert had been someone that the GRK had been tracking over the years. The good looking all American college football player. And he'd seen him on the news so many times before, picking up the pieces of the young lives that he had stolen. On August 18, 2003, over two months into the GRK's confession, Dave Reichert was next up. That's a term homicide detectives use to describe the rotation of murder cases. And that call was constant and could come at any time, day or night. But this time, nextup, Reichert wasn't a young detective being called out to yet another crime Scene of the GRK this time, NextUp meant another layer of investigative work, some might say one of the most difficult so far because it required Reichert to keep a cool head.

[Gary Ridgway]

That emotion built throughout the 19 years because we continue to have to go to families homes and say, we found your daughter, but she's. She's not alive. And the emotions that they went through were transferred to us. They would. They would. They could be angry, they could pound on our chest, they would. They would totally collapse and grab a hold of us and send us to the floor with them and, you know, in an embrace that, you know, they wouldn't let go of us just hanging on to something.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And do you feel equipped to handle that?

[Gary Ridgway]

So I'm a Christian guy. I have a strong faith, so that's where I drew my strength from and always felt confident and equipped to handle that sort of emotion. The anger part was a tough one because, you know, they felt like we didn't do enough, we weren't doing enough. But once they got to know us and they recognized the dedication and commitment that all the detectives had, it wasn't just me, every one of us who stayed there for so many years. Tom Jensen, Kim Doyen, Randy Mullinax, just to name a few. They soon learned that we were not going to give up. It was just something that I sort of felt very comfortable with. But I can't even say it was difficult. It was so. It's so hard to describe. Imagine doing it just once.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But how many times did you have to go to a family and say they were a victim of the Green river killer?

[Gary Ridgway]

Scores I. 10, 20, 30, 40. You know, after 10 years, you sort of. Yeah.

[Carolyn Osorio]

What that must have been like for Sheriff Reichert to sit next to the man he had hunted since he was 32 years old. The horror of all those crime scenes had still never left his psyche. What the GRK had done to those little girls was an offense to everything he held dear. Over the years, Detective Reichert had forged strong and personal bonds with the families, and he had committed himself to these grieving families that he would never give up, that they would catch the killer. And even after the GRK was cornered and caught, Reichert was still fulfilling that promise. On that day, finding out what had happened to their daughters.

[Gary Ridgway]

I just wanted to catch the guy that hurt and took the lives of These people and hurt these families. And so my. That was my. It was the right thing to do. It was my job. But it was also something that, you know, for me was deeply personal. And I think, yes, the connection to the families certainly, you know, they tell you not to get emotionally involved in cases, but how could you not?

[Carolyn Osorio]

Which made the unthinkable possible. Ingratiating himself to the man he had spent half his life trying to capture. Now he had to build the bridge to gain his confidence. Just two guys talking. This historic meeting wasn't held in a pantheon where good and evil held sway, then fought an epic battle to the death. Sheriff Reichert and the GRK met eye to eye, face to face in one of those nondescript conference rooms at that secret location where they sat side by side for the interview. The GRK enters the room wearing sandals on white stocking feet. His wiry frame clothed in a V neck orange prison jumpsuit. You can see tufts of his mousy brown chest hair exposed. An order is given to remove the chains. The GRK abides. He stands still, interlaces his fingers behind his neck as the belly chain is loosened. He sits down in an office chair. The detective charged with removing the restraints crouches to the ground, face close to the GRK's feet. All the while, the killer sits back amiably, raises his foot up in the air as the detective gets close in. It feels so incredibly, horribly intimate, watching the GRK comply, folding his hands in his lap. He is always watching, observing with those dead eyes. You never really know what is actually going on in his head. Is he slow or has he been perfecting this game his entire life? Remember, he had tried and almost succeeded in killing that six year old boy in the cowboy suit when he lured him into that tall grass when he was a teenager. He had wanted to know what it would feel. Feel like to take a life, even back then. Sheriff Reichert confidently strides into the room wearing his full uniform that's crisp and clean, perfectly tailored. He's still a very trim and fit man, as if he was still a college quarterback. The contrast between the two men couldn't be more extreme. And yet they have similarities, which Sheriff Reichert points out in what appears to be an attempt to help this build rapport with the grk. They were of similar age. Both had learning disabilities. They could have gone to the same high school. Does the GRK see through Sheriff Reichert's attempts at buddying up? It's hard to know the GRK had been ahead of the investigation for Decades and believed he would never be caught. And were it not for the DNA, he probably wouldn't be sitting there. Sheriff Reichert continues to ingratiate himself with the grk, saying that they are bound together and that they will both go down in the history books because of this case. Beefing up the GRK's importance and their connection.

[Gary Ridgway]

You want to be unique, you know, you don't want to be seen as a John Wayne Gacy. You don't want to be seen as a Ted Bundy. And those guys had some pretty different weird stuff they were doing. You're different. Helping us identify who those people people are really would help us define who you are too. Would help you define who you are, don't you think?

[Carolyn Osorio]

Reichert slyly follows up with the question, hey, what movie actor do you think will play you? And the GRK doesn't skip a beat, as if he'd already been considering that possibility. And without a hint of self consciousness, the choice obvious to him. Tom Cruise, of course, one of the highest grossing film action heroes of all time would play him. And as you listen to these exchanges between Sheriff Reichert and the grk, it might be tempting to be repulsed at the cold hearted dialogue exchanged between the two men. But never forget that this is what a detective signs up for. It's a part of the job. Reichert was still doing anything he could to finally get to the truth. Why had the GRK buried Mary Meehan, the pregnant young mother he had murdered, along with her unborn child?

[Gary Ridgway]

Between you and me, she was just a dead body. No, fused to have sex with me. And that was when I was going. That was when I was having sex with dead women. When I killed her, picked her up that night, I was killed her. I walked slowly with her to that area and killed her. And I found her, you know, I dug up me had too. You saw those pictures. Some of those pictures, yeah. It took me a while to realize it who that was. No, not when I saw those pictures of her eyes. Wanted to pull this dirt away from her stomach. Wanted to pull dirt weapons to my. Didn't sit on me until she's pregnant. Yeah. So she didn't say, look, I'm only going to give you a blow job. I'm pregnant, I'm not going to. You can't screw me because I'm pregnant. Or I don't know if she said that or she expect me to look at her stomach or something like that. All I can give you. Because maybe she said that, but when once she said It. I agreed with her and over like 20 bucks or whatever it was. And when she first. She told me that, and I didn't know. I just went into that narrow vision. I take her up here. I'm going to kill her either way. Either way? Yeah. She was dead. She was dead. Yeah. And didn't matter if she was pregnant or not, because you didn't. I didn't. I didn't. Just a victim, 16 or 18 or whatever.

[Carolyn Osorio]

In that clip, you can hear an airplane going overhead. There would be irony in what the GRK would say next.

[Gary Ridgway]

Well, for me, I didn't even climax when I had her. Got to where there was a. Like I said, it was airplane noise or something like that, and jumped behind her and choked her. I didn't never climax with her at all. Just perfect timing for. And I wasn't. And it probably wasn't getting hard. I don't know. And then that's when I. So you said to hell with it. To hell with it? Pretty much, yeah. I killed her. And just stupidity dropped her there, and I buried her there.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The second day of Reichert's interrogation, he reminded the GRK to quit lying.

[Gary Ridgway]

You asked me a question just a second ago. Said, why wouldn't you want to show. That was the question again. Why wouldn't I share this information with you? Yeah, why wouldn't you? I would, but why then? So if you would, then why don't you? Because it's not coming out. And why is that? I don't know. It's stopping me from coming out. Who should know why it's not coming out? My brain. My brain dynamics. Should I know or should you know? I should know. You should know. I should know because I'm controlling my mind. But, yeah.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And eventually the GRK would finally admit that he hadn't stopped killing in 1985 because of Judith. In fact, he'd been fighting the urges to kill her from the very beginning.

[Gary Ridgway]

There's six acts with Judith. I was more into foreplay with her first. And then after she. If she had a climax, that was good. If she didn't have one, at least I tried. And that took me away from wanting to. Wanting to kill her. But I still had that little bit, you know, urgent. A bigger urge at first.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Another revelation during his confession.

[Gary Ridgway]

Did I read somewhere that her daughter worked as a prostitute? Her oldest daughter did, yeah. When she got kicked out of the house when she was like, 14 or 15, did she work the C Tax drip area? Mostly downtown, I think. Did you ever pick her up no. Did you ever see her out on the streets? Not once. She was a prostitute? No. I didn't know her back then. I didn't. When was she working the streets? She was working the streets when she was 16 and 17, I think. And she was. When I met her, she was 18 or 19 or something like that. But I didn't see her out there. So she would have been working the streets around the same time you were killing women? Yes, she would have been. What do you think about that? I don't really. I just think I could have killed her, maybe if she was out. But you think you would have? If I would have known her, I probably would have.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Ridgway would finally admit that he hated women. But he knew that he wouldn't get away with killing his wives or girlfriends. But he used them to practice his method of killing.

[Gary Ridgway]

You know, I've talked to Marsha several times, and she's described incidents that. Where you would come up around behind her and you'd get her by the neck. You liked it. You liked it in the 70s. Not just around with her in the driveway stuff. But it got to be where, according to Marcia, that it was like foreplay for you. I liked it. I don't remember going around her neck all the time. Remember sneaking up on her and scaring her. Feel good? Yeah. I thought it was mutual. A lot of times. A lot of times she get upset. But she chased me around the kitchen and stuff like that. Make you feel good? You like it? I mean. Yeah, I felt I was. It was my way of playing around. Playing around with her. Sneaking up behind her and putting your arm around her neck. She's giving you the idea I did it every day. It's not. I'm not saying every day. I'm just saying that she tells us that there were times that you did, and it was not just once or twice. I probably did it just once or twice. Not after I come up behind her and put my arm around her neck. But it wasn't a big chokehold or anything like that. And would it have been a lie when she was saying that you like to get your arm or hands around her neck as maybe a prelude to sex? Was that a lie? I'm quite sure it was. You were quite sure it was a lie because. Did you ask what happened to. If it happened to Roxanne, did you ask did it happen to. Yeah, as a matter of fact, it did happen to talk to Roxanne about you. And she did that around her neck. You remember doing the same Thing maybe to Roxanne and Laurie to ask her. I mean, it may have been something that was starting to come into effect with her. And I didn't catch it. I didn't think anything of it. Like right now, I think it's. That's not what I thought I was back then. That was what's drawn me. Any hatred I had, I would probably do it, but not in a. It was in a friendly way at first. I don't think too many women think that a man putting their hands around their neck or their arm around their neck is friendly. That doesn't elicit a whole lot of romantic feelings from a woman. Gotta think it's something else, Gary. Gotta think that it's something that you're thinking. Not that they're thinking. I mean, I'm thinking that day, you know, you're kinda learning. It's like you got your learning permit to kill here. That's probably where it started from is doing that. But not in a killing part 10. You thinking about it? You're thinking, oh, I could. I mean, what is going through your mind as you're doing these kinds of things with Marcia or Roxanne or Laurie maybe was building up to where I could kill a woman. No one kill my wife or my girlfriends.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And Ridgeway would blame his mother too, claiming that he fantasized about both having sex with her and murdering her.

[Gary Ridgway]

Ridgeway basically said, I had some relationships with women. You know, he had a wife, he went off to the Navy. He was cheated on by girlfriends and wives and divorced a couple of times. And his Last wife was 13 years. And his mother, he blamed it on his mother too. But he didn't tell us everything about that relationship between him and his mom. But we did get a little bit of a glimpse of. He was. So she would bathe him, shower him up until he was in his teens, paying attention to certain body parts, washing him. And she would bathe nude, sunbathe nude. And he started fantasizing about having sex with his mother. Then he fantasized about killing her. He was at. She was worked in a men's store, clothing store. And he would go to visit her and would see her flirting with guys. And so his opinion of his mother went down the drain. And he said, so his opinion of women in general really went down the drain. But there's something else happening there, obviously, that I don't think we can all put our finger on. But it could be a combination of the way he was raised. It could also be combination of how he Was born. His chemical makeup, his genes that his DNA. Right.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Retired King County Sheriff John Urquhart.

[Gary Ridgway]

Pastor Gary Ridgway and the pop psychology or trying to understand what makes him do this. I've heard this not necessarily about Gary, but about people like him my whole life. And the conclusion I've come to is I don't even think about it. I just say some people are just evil. And that's all I need to know. Some people are evil. And Gary Ridgway is one of those people.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And as the confession came to a close, it was time for Gary Ridgeway to face his victims families and admit what he'd done. Gary Ridgeway would be sentenced into 2003. His crimes detailed in a packed courtroom where he would plead guilty to 48 murders. King county prosecutor Jeff Baird.

[Gary Ridgway]

It says here I killed the 48 women listed in the state's second amended information. In most cases when I murdered these women, I did not know their names. Most of the time. I killed them the first time time I met them. And I do not have a good memory for their faces. I killed so many women, I have a hard time keeping them straight. Is that true? Yes, it is.

[Carolyn Osorio]

At his sentencing, his victims families finally got to speak.

[Gary Ridgway]

I can only hope someone gets the opportunity to choke you unconscious so you can live through the horror that you put our daughters, our sisters, our mothers through. He's gonna go to hell. And that's where he belongs. She was a mother. She was a wife. She was a sister. And we miss her. You had said your memory, when it comes to all of the women you took was gone. Our memory is not in your words. You said that they didn't mean anything to you.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But she meant everything to us.

[Gary Ridgway]

Held us in bondage for all these years because we have hated you. We wanted to see you die. But it's all going to be over now. And that is providing we can forgive you. He's an animal. I don't wish for him to die. I wish for him to have a long suffering, cruel death.

[Carolyn Osorio]

I know he feels no remorse.

[Gary Ridgway]

His beady little evil eyes would probably.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Choke everyone that's been up here.

[Gary Ridgway]

But you won't have that opportunity this time. You are a loser. You're a coward. You're a nobody. You're an animal. I'm angry. I will always be angry. I will never have that closure. God will never have my sister back in my life. You broke my family apart for 20 years. I hope you're right. In hell. Son of a bitch. Please, please refrain from applauding it's inappropriate in a court proceeding.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And the level of forgiveness in Robert Rule's heart for the murder of his daughter Linda Rule was absolutely incredible.

[Gary Ridgway]

Mr. Ridgeway, there are people here that hate you. I'm not of them. You've made it difficult to live up to what I believe, and that is what God says to do, and that's to forgive. You are forgiven, sir.

[Carolyn Osorio]

After the GRK had murdered Linda, he had tried to set her hair on fire because he didn't believe she deserved to have such beautiful hair. Jenny Graham describes what was going on in their family as she tried to breathe life into a very cold courtroom.

[Gary Ridgway]

There this was a sentencing. And so when we were in that courtroom session, that area, it was as cold as being in an operating room. Seriously, it was just name after name after name. No pictures, no identifying them as human beings. And I just thought, no, this is not right. This is because in a trial, you would see this crime victim, there would be a picture, you would start to know who they were as a person. And I just felt that it was wrong that these victims were reduced to just names on a piece of paper. Mr. Ridgway, how do you plead to the charge of aggravated murder in the first degree as charged in count one for the death of Wendy Lee Caulfield? Guilty. How do you plead to the charge of aggravated murder in the first degree as charged in count two? Guilty.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Jenny says she had to stand up for her sister.

[Gary Ridgway]

I just talked about her, you know, being a kid, riding her bike. You know, we would play occasionally, like, softball out, you know, in. In the area where we lived, kids, you know, so there. There was that part, you know, this. The sister part of it, as much as you try to bring out the childhood part of it, because you're still children going through this stuff, so it's still your childhood. And so I talked about that, and, you know, I did not think that it was fair that she was being seen as this bad, bad girl, that this was just something where she thought life was a joke and, you know, she deserved what happened to her. So I did say, you know, that she was abused, that she wasn't safe at home. And that was particularly traumatic for me that day, too, because I lost what was left of my family that day because I told the truth. So not only did I lose what was left of my family, I had to also deal with the very real fear that walking out of that courtroom, that he was going to shoot me, right? Because that's how I was living my life. Constantly Looking over my shoulder, wondering if he's going to hurt me or hurt one of my kids. And again, the law was always on his side.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Always.

[Gary Ridgway]

So, you know, there was probably about 10 years that I did not talk to my mom. I did not have any contact with her after that day. And I just psychologically could not do it.

[Carolyn Osorio]

I needed to take care of my.

[Gary Ridgway]

Family, my kids, and the domestic abuse that was happening, I couldn't choose who she loved. Right. I don't understand that. To this day, I don't understand that that's not the mom that I would be for whatever reason. This does happen, though, to some of the moms, where they are just attached to this person no matter what they do. And I could not. When I started to see patterns where my children were being affected, I was like, nuh, no, this is not what.

[Carolyn Osorio]

My children are learning.

[Gary Ridgway]

No way.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Tragically, Deborah Estes best friend, Becky Marrero, was murdered by the GRK on December 3, 1984. 1982. But her skeletal remains were not found until 2012. That's when another murder charge was added to his plea and went from 48 to 49. While officially admitting to 49 murders, Ridgway may have killed many, many more. Task force detective Tom Jensen.

[Gary Ridgway]

I. I think he probably is responsible for several more, at least in King County. Not. I can't come up with 80 like, they're coming up, but I can't. There's plenty of cases, unsolved cases out there. He was questioned about everything. Everyone. Every outdoor female homicide that we know of in King County. He was questioned about every one of them. Showing pictures and shown. And he said, no, I didn't do that. That's not mine. Those are his exact words. No, that's not mine. Three years later, he comes back and says, starts reciting the details of things he saw in those pictures and said, yeah, I killed this girl. This is where she is. And, you know, how come we didn't tell us that back then? Well, I forgot.

[Carolyn Osorio]

He's a pathological liar.

[Gary Ridgway]

He's a pathological liar. So. So I don't know. I don't know where he's. Where he's coming from. I. I believe that he is totally responsible for every. Every case that he was charged, because every case that he was charged with, we either had physical evidence, or he took us to the exact spot where he dumped the body. And there's only two people that know that spot, or three, if you count the media. But he was able to point out the exact places where he left pictures, and that was what we needed to establish the charges that we filed, which was 48 to start with, and eventually 49 if he couldn't tell us where somebody was or we didn't find anything there, because he did take us to places where he says, yeah, I left a body there. And we look and there was nothing there. We didn't find it. Now, it's conceivable that some of these, some of them, he actually was pretty specific as who the victim was. But the sites had been very. Had been altered by construction or various things over the years, and there was nothing, nothing found. So, yeah, like I say, there were probably another half a dozen that he identified specifically by name or picture and location. We never found found the remains, so those cases were not charged.

[Carolyn Osorio]

It's hard to believe, but officially, the GRK investigation still isn't closed. Two of Gary Ridgeway's 49 known victims, Bones 17 and Bones 20, still haven't been identified. And some believe there could be another Green River Killer out there right now. Trolling for victims on Aurora Avenue in.

[Gary Ridgway]

Seattle, I started seeing working girls, prostitutes on both sides of the. Both sides of Aurora, Highway 99. And as I went down south, I started counting them. And between Northeast 145th and Northeast 130th, just 15 blocks, right. I counted 31 girls out on the streets working. And a little background for the folks that might see this is. I worked for 30 years with Sheriff's office. I was a supervisor. I actually worked in the areas that the Green River Killer happened to be picking up his victims. And the number of girls that I saw last Saturday night would match the number of girls we used to see years ago. So I think we have a huge, huge problem here. I mean, you have that many girls, you have that much crime, and I would be willing to bet that you have someone working in there, because the girls aren't tracked. You know, they come, they go, they disappear from their families. And it's just prime to have an undergarry Ridgeway out there somewhere.

[Carolyn Osorio]

We'll be right back with the Shadow Girls after a word from our sponsors. And now we continue with the Shadow Girls. Over the summer, all the puzzle pieces started coming together in my own life, especially after I went on a ride along with retired Sergeant Steve Davis. And my journey into this case came full circle. It had begun when my co host and I launched our true crime podcast, Scene of the crime in 2020, which focused on crimes in the Pacific Northwest. Back then, I had met with Steve for coffee. And we discussed cases that had stuck with him over his 40 year career in law enforcement. And I was surprised when one of the, the first cases he mentioned was the Green river investigation. But from the perspective of the victims, after all these years, that was one of the first ones on your mind.

[Gary Ridgway]

And.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But you were like, the victims, it's gotta be from the victims. And there's probably still so many out there.

[Gary Ridgway]

Correct?

[Carolyn Osorio]

So talk a little bit about where that came from. As someone who's been, you know, in police and seen a lot of different things. Like why?

[Gary Ridgway]

Well, no, to me that's a no brainer and I think a lot of the officers and deputies are the same way is people forget about the victims, forget about the families. They concentrate on the trial, they concentrate on, okay, he's in prison and then the victims or the families or the people who are still out there just fall off the face of the earth. I mean, people just move on, right? But the people are still living with it every day of their lives until they pass on, you know, and you know, especially the ones where the people are still missing and probably will remain.

[Carolyn Osorio]

So Steve and I cruised Pacific highway on the strip.

[Gary Ridgway]

So he used to operate all in through here, you know, I'm sure he did because remember, part of his profile was, and you've talked to Reichert, you've talked to some of the other people and everything. He would drive out here for hours, you know, cruising, looking, saying, oh, Is.

[Carolyn Osorio]

This the 711 where he would do that ruse, where he would put up, you know, pretend like he was his truck was broken or something and he'd have like the.

[Gary Ridgway]

I don't know.

[Carolyn Osorio]

What I didn't share with Steve was that 711 was a reminder of one of my most shameful memories in my own past. I didn't tell him that. When I was 15, I began tapping into what felt like an unlikely power source, my own developing body. At that time, I was angry, bitterly disappointed by what I thought were high minded adults who didn't seem to have a clue about what I had been through. I was drinking with my friends, smoking cigarettes and shoplifting. And I had stopped believing in my mother's dreams. My childhood optimism that my mom would become the next Barbara Walters had soured into anger. I know now that I wasn't that far removed from the GRK's victim profile. During my investigation for this series, I read through dozens and dozens of histories of the victims and I found that there were a lot of similarities between all of them. Some of which were similar to my background. Single mom, poverty, homelessness, domestic violence. I know now that I wasn't that far removed from the GRK's victim profile. Something I spoke with my childhood best friend Jamie about. She had been vulnerable, too.

[Gary Ridgway]

He was horrible. That's my mom and I were just talking about. I was like, I can remember him slamming my hand in the back of my door, picking me up to throw me in my room, and me bracing myself against the door jam, going, you're not doing it. You're not putting me in my room and fighting with him. I remember him dragging me up the stairs by my hair. And I'm like, no parent should ever do that to their daughter. You know, I mean, he would give every. He'd give my mom, my sister, bad times about their weight constantly. If you sit there and think about it, you know, me dealing with my dad, if it wasn't for my friends and having happiness with my friends, could have easily been one of those girls on the street just to escape him.

[Carolyn Osorio]

This emotional domestic violence was something I've been deconstructing in my own life with my mom.

[Gary Ridgway]

I felt so betrayed by Joe. I felt so betrayed by Jeff.

[Carolyn Osorio]

You're talking about my dad, Joe, and you're talking about your long term boyfriend, Jeff, who I always refer to as the alcoholic failed writer.

[Gary Ridgway]

And I wish I could tell him that you were a writer and you were interested in literature.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Oh, my gosh, he wouldn't even care. You know, it was always all about him.

[Gary Ridgway]

It was.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And his. His thing. But, like, let's unpack that for a minute because I think that as I was doing the podcast, I had always said. And I actually said this to the. To my. To Amelia, I think once, like, yeah, I'm so lucky I was never beaten. And, you know, everything growing up, like, I would look back on that and think, you know, I wasn't abused like that. But then as I was doing the podcast, I realized I watched you be abused. Not only. I mean, I remember you got in some altercation with dad where he ripped the stereo out of the wall and threw it at you or something. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, you see these movies where the women is just. Women are just beat to a pulp, Right?

[Gary Ridgway]

Yeah.

[Carolyn Osorio]

So I was always just grateful that you didn't go through that, and I didn't go through that, and. But then as I was unpacking all these cases, I recognized for the first time that domestic violence isn't just about being beat to a pulp.

[Gary Ridgway]

Right. I was totally abused. Mentally, emotionally.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Exactly.

[Gary Ridgway]

Terribly.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Exactly.

[Gary Ridgway]

And I put up with it.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Well, I'm sure you didn't, but I.

[Gary Ridgway]

Saw it with Mom. I mean, the pattern definitely was repeating itself. And I didn't want to be like mom, but I was just like her.

[Carolyn Osorio]

My mom's relationship with the failed alcoholic writer Jeff was rooted in manipulation. He gaslit her to the point of almost personality extinction. And he didn't just do it to her. He tried to. Tried to break down my sister and I similarly with nicknames. He called us Porca and Chowza, trying to imply that we were fat. One of his many tortures included shoving a heaping tablespoon of cayenne pepper into my mouth after I had talked back to him. When I was nine years old, Jeff, he would call my sister and I Porca and Chowza when we were super thin and like, little kids, little girls. And I feel like that kind of. It seems like such a little thing, but it's not. It's, like, huge.

[Gary Ridgway]

Oh, it's huge. It's huge. And I mean, you say that kind of derogatory statement to two teenage girls or preteen, and, you know, it's very hurtful.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Jeff had lured my mom in after we'd been kicked out of the commune when she was at her most vulnerable point.

[Gary Ridgway]

You know, I was so naive. I didn't even know what. That he was an alcoholic. Seriously, didn't I just remember how naive I was in the first place? Time I realized was I saw him drink beer, you know, 7 o' clock in the morning or 8 o' clock in the morning. And I thought it really hit me like a ton of bricks, like, this guy's an alcoholic. I need to get away from him.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And recently, my mom revealed just how desperate she'd been back then.

[Gary Ridgway]

I needed money, and I didn't know, you know, I thought, it can't be that bad. I really didn't know anything about the sexual prostitution business, and I was just desperate for money, and I needed to figure out a way. And so you called and I called, and.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And it was like an escort service.

[Gary Ridgway]

Yeah, it was an escort service. And the guy told me that, you know, this business isn't for you, or something like that.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Hearing what she'd been willing to consider to keep us afloat was painful. She said for the first time in her life, she was sharing this with someone. She had never told anyone about that phone call to the escort service because she had felt so ashamed. I understood that shame because during my research on the GRK investigation. My own shame had bubbled to the surface. When I was a teen, my friends and I had put ourselves in risky situations.

[Gary Ridgway]

Bootlegging. Remember when we would bootleg?

[Carolyn Osorio]

Yeah.

[Gary Ridgway]

You know, we would put you in a tight shirt and send you out because you had the biggest chest. And we'd send you out, like, go get us some beer and just think of putting you in that situation. Looking back at now being a parent and an adult, I look back at the situation going, that was so dangerous. She's approaching strange men she doesn't even know and trying to analyze them with her chest. To go buy his booze on a.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Friday night, we always looked for the sketchiest convenience store to randomly ask guys to buy us alcohol. So, of course, we went to the seatac strip. I see myself in front of that 711 wearing a tight peach turtleneck. And the reality of that situation really hit home during the GRK's confession.

[Gary Ridgway]

I bought hard liquor for kids, but I didn't buy any for her. You know, people come up and ask me for never. Not from a prostitute.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Gary Ridgeway would admit that one of the tactics he used was to back up his truck into the parking lot of the 711 on Pacific Highway. He would raise his hood and pretend to work on his truck, but really he was scanning Pacific highway and that he would also buy alcohol for minors who would approach him. That was the same 711 that my friends and I had gone to on multiple occasions, bootlegging for alcohol. And I have to wonder, what if I had been separated from my friend group and was stranded there and needed a ride somewhere. Ridgway had used his dad dad vibe to conn scores of young women and girls who had street smarts. During his confession, he would say that his appearance was their downfall, that he looked different from what he really was. He was talking to all of us, but I felt like he was looking at me like, you know, you don't want to be a victim. You know, you don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be hearing about you guys, something bad happening to you. And it was like one of those moments where I was like, oh, man. You know, like, you have that moment of, like, when you were talking earlier about you wish that you could have shaken yourself and said, wake up. You know, you don't have to put yourself at risk like this. Who knows? Maybe it was because I was a cop's daughter. I listened. But it wasn't just that. It was the way I felt under the gaze of Those creepy men. It didn't make me feel powerful. It made me afraid in the way that I had always felt about the man in the shadows who had come for me when I was sleeping. And what could happen if you found yourself alone with a stranger who meant to do you harm. That feeling of fear was enough to make me never bootleg again. And unlike many of the Green river victims, I had choices. Martha Linehan from ops.

[Gary Ridgway]

You know, our culture helps create people who do not value the lives of women and girls, potential of marginalized populations who have to who end up like on the street or in the life because they don't have a lot of choices. And then you add racism on top of that, systemic racism.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Cultural anthropologist Dr. Deborah Boyer.

[Gary Ridgway]

What we really need to do a lot more work on is to get people to understand the only way you fix this, the only way that you really honor the Green river victims is to stop sex buying, is to stop men from buying sex. We need to understand that they are not just nice guys out there. There is a tremendous amount of violence in prostitution. A third of all women in prostitution. And different research reports report that they that somebody attempted to kill them. And those statistics are much higher for African American women and particularly indigenous women.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Boyer has been working for the last 40 years to help vulnerable people. And part of that work includes the creation of a memorial for the Green river victims.

[Gary Ridgway]

People weren't really sure what was the best memorial to do. For me, one of the best ways that we have honored their sacrifice, their murder and what they have done to bring it to what happened, to bring attention to this issue and to other people in their situation was that we were able to establish the organization for prostitution survivors and to collaborate with other organizations and that there are now services not just not for adolescent but for adults. It was very, very hard to get services for adults because everybody thought they'd made a choice. Everybody thought what was going on was their own fault. It took decades to get people to understand that if you started in prostitution at 14, nothing magical happened at 18 where it became a choice. You were just deeper and deeper in complex trauma. So the existence of the organization for prostitution survivors and all the financial contributions and in kind contributions to make that happen, I think does honor them. The other way that we can memorialize this is to do everything we can to stop sex spying. That's why it happened.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Since 2012, the Organization for prostitution survivors has been trying to build a memorial for the victims of the Green River Killer to honor their memory. Noel Gomez co founded the Nonprofit with Peter Qualiatin. Recently, I went to the school of social media work at uw, where the living memorial of the Green river victims is on display. I met with Martha Linehan, who's the recovery and clinical support supervisor for the organization for prostitution survivors, and she also co created the art program in 2012.

[Gary Ridgway]

So the memorial, like, when we first started talking about it, we scoped out, you know, geographical areas. We were kind of researching how difficult would it be to like, you know, acquire a space where we could create something, you know, talking about what we would like it to include. And I also. We definitely need to mention Maggie Smith, who is the woman, an artist, memorial artist, who's been volunteering her time with.

[Carolyn Osorio]

OPS since just about then, a little.

[Gary Ridgway]

Bit later, maybe 2013. And she's a clay artist.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And she.

[Gary Ridgway]

She came with all of the clay.

[Carolyn Osorio]

She takes the clay, all of the.

[Gary Ridgway]

Tiles back to her studio and fires.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Them for us because we wouldn't have.

[Gary Ridgway]

Been able to do all this. We had, you know, no money at the beginning. We were all just doing this as.

[Carolyn Osorio]

A second job, basically.

[Gary Ridgway]

But we realized pretty quickly that the family members and friends who, like, they needed to be taken, taken into consideration with this memorial, because a lot of them don't want a memorial. They don't want their loved ones associated.

[Carolyn Osorio]

With the memorial, especially if it has to do with survivors of commercial sexual exploitation.

[Gary Ridgway]

Maybe all of the victims weren't survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. It's very complex. So it became clear that we had to be very sensitive for sure and careful and take this memorial idea step by step, which is when we kind of came to a new phase, that it's a living memorial, that the art workshop at OPS is part of the memorial. It's a living memorial in terms of, like, we are actually making and creating art. Survivors are sort of involved in their own healing as a memorial and in honor of victims like these victims, but also all victims of the life and of commercial sexual exploitation and sexism and poverty and racism. I mean, we could just end sexual.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Abuse, child sexual abuse, incarceration, foster care system.

[Gary Ridgway]

I mean, we could just make a list and go on and on and on.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The dream of building a brick and mortar memorial has evolved into something even more powerful. A living memorial to honor the victims of the Green River Killer that also help support survivors of prostitution. Doris Beeman is a group facilitator at ops, and she first came to the program as a prostitution survivor.

[Gary Ridgway]

I heard about OPS from Sound Mental Health, my case manager. She was like, doris, we Got a Wednesday girl group. And she told me what it was about, and it changed my life. Completely changed my life.

[Carolyn Osorio]

What. What was it about that. That made you feel safe?

[Gary Ridgway]

I had somewhere to go and talk about the experiences of a prostitute. A lot of people label us and shun us. They think that we're all high and mighty and want to look good and fly by night. It's not the case. Case when it's all, you know, it's all, you know. And when I moved from Detroit, I was just through with it. And I came here. I wanted to get a job at Goodwill. And she told me to get my mental health together because it was obvious. And that's where I was. Opened up and plugged in to a lot of programs that they have here. And it. You know, and I want to be a social worker. I. I met going to South Seattle College for Social Work.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Doris spoke about the power of art in healing.

[Gary Ridgway]

And I was. I started with stick figures because I wasn't in art. I'm from Detroit. Not really. We don't think of stuff like that. And it became more and more empowering for me, you know, to just be around people that understand where I'm coming from, from. And then I started learning how to draw. Ms. Martha introduced us to a lot of methods for drawing, and it just took off. I just took off. But personally, as a participant, as a survivor, I have never experienced the intimacy and the vulnerability that I feel in our circles. And it just makes the whole. Just coming into the building is a safe haven for a lot of us.

[Carolyn Osorio]

That's incredible. The stick figure.

[Gary Ridgway]

He's from Detroit.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And you had talked about how art is such a huge part of the program, because in Detroit, you didn't have those opportunities.

[Gary Ridgway]

I wasn't exposed to that.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And how long did it take you to accept and be vulnerable? Because it's. It's really difficult.

[Gary Ridgway]

I've been. I've been part of OPS for five years. And when we first started, I would have to go to group, and I would run out of the door because I was scared for people to see who I was, what I've been through. And I learned real quick that I wasn't the only one. And our other sharing our stories, and a lot of them are the same stories. It just makes you feel as if we. We have a plan. I have a plan now for my life. Thank you.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Thank you. Thank you. Meeting Doris was both an emotional and inspiring moment.

[Gary Ridgway]

People feel like they can be themselves. That's when the learning starts. That's where the. The care starts that. Where the I don't know what to do starts or what do I want to do? It's true. That's a good one. How does that.

[Carolyn Osorio]

How did that. I forgot to ask. How did that feel for you when. When her mom came out and was like, thank you.

[Gary Ridgway]

I love Doris so much, and I love her whole family so much because they're part of doors and I don't know, through ops, me and my mother and my grandmother, we have a tighter relationship, especially me and my mother because she was 13 when she had me through a prostitution. And sometimes we don't agree. But I've learned avoidance is not healing and accepting. Radical acceptance is what you have to do sometimes when your family don't see you changing or they might not want you to change, you know, so.

[Carolyn Osorio]

So are you saying radical acceptance on your part towards them?

[Gary Ridgway]

Yes.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Because, you know that's very important distinction.

[Gary Ridgway]

Right?

[Carolyn Osorio]

Because they're not going to probably do the same. But you have that in your heart to do that because of your healing. Right.

[Gary Ridgway]

Avoidance is not healing and healed. The art gives us a way to heal. I mean, I just can't believe how I'm able to draw myself, my granny, my. My. My daughter, and it's just getting better and better. I hate to say that, but you should say that. I mean, stick figures, Detroit. I bet you're going to be the next because Doris is an exceptional human being, first of all. And it is amazing to watch and to witness people transform.

[Carolyn Osorio]

As I was putting together the series, I would get texts from Steve, and I still do even after our ride along, sending me pictures of more and more young women and girls being prostituted on Aurora Avenue. Even though he's been retired for several years, he is still haunted by how many young women and girls are out there.

[Gary Ridgway]

She going to get in? Is she ignoring them? Is he turning? Will she turn back? Nope. There's another one on the right. Two of them. Three. There's one up the street. Four.

[Carolyn Osorio]

So young Steve.

[Gary Ridgway]

Nope. She's going up in the parking lot. Got one. See, they see the car. You missed it. She stepped up the sidewalk and went up to the car.

[Carolyn Osorio]

What dirt bags.

[Gary Ridgway]

All men are scum. Are we? And you gave me a dirty look. And I got that on tape, too. But do you see how easy it is now for Ridgeway? You see how easy it is for some perv? They're going to the cars and they're hopping in. And once you're in my car, if you think about it, like you hopping in the car. I mean, if I was nuts, I've got that much wingspan and lunger on you. I mean, so, I mean, it gets. It's really weird. There comes some more. At least three. Maybe four. Three, four. I was right the first time. Five, six, seven. Now you're speechless, right?

[Carolyn Osorio]

Yeah.

[Gary Ridgway]

Because I don't know if you really believe me when I said, hey, I can't wanted that money to that one time. You can. I don't know.

[Carolyn Osorio]

No, I totally believed you.

[Gary Ridgway]

But seeing it's different than just hearing it is.

[Carolyn Osorio]

Is so different. And.

[Gary Ridgway]

You know, it's just.

[Carolyn Osorio]

It just makes me sad, you know.

[Gary Ridgway]

But now you see, I mean, how easy it is for these girls to disappear. You know, as it gets darker and darker, like it's still a little. Still light out, it starts to get darker.

[Carolyn Osorio]

In that moment, I said I was sad, but the feelings were just too layered to share. I was thinking of Wendy Cofield. How she left that foster home in Tacoma at 15, taking a bus to Pacific highway that night, she was so alone. I thought of Marsha Chapman telling her kids she was running to the store. Of course she wouldn't tell. Tell them that she had to get the money first before she could buy them food. I thought of Opal Mills and her mother, who had described identifying her daughter, saying that Opal's face was frozen into a terrified scream. And of course I thought about the johns and the pimps who are driving the demand. You have to say about pimps in your experience.

[Gary Ridgway]

Scum of the earth. Brutal. The Henry Winkler pimp, You know of that one movie is. That's just phony. I don't know which movie you're talking about. There was a movie with Henry, Makely Pay to Pimp that was, you know, falls in love with the girl and gets them all insurance. And it's a cute little movie. It has nothing to do with life and reality. They're predators. They're exploiters.

[Carolyn Osorio]

And I was reminded of what Dr. Boyer said. How placing the responsibility for the prevention of prostitution on the shoulders of vulnerable children and adults when we failed to. To address the cultural norms that shield the dynamics of demand and normalize the behavior of buying sex. My interview with Dave Reichert ended with why he still does interviews about this case.

[Gary Ridgway]

Well, the only thing I think part of the message when I do these, I take the time to do them because I really want people to think about the families and think about, you know, it's the best way to do this. You know, sort of put yourself in their place. Imagine losing your child at 15, 14 years old and then finding out that some monster had taken her and done these evil things to her and then killed her. So remember the families of the victims. And then number two associated with that is, remember there are still little girls out there, young women out there, that are still engaged in this, this underworld of human trafficking. And if you can, you know, get involved and help some of the agencies in our communities that are reaching out to these young women and girls to help them get off the street and get a life, because they do want to. They just need to know that somebody cares. They're looking for, for someone to love and care for them. It's hard sometimes because they'll tell you, I don't want to get off the street. But down deep, they really want a home. They want somebody to care for them.

[Carolyn Osorio]

If you would like to support the living memorial of the Green river victims and also the work to help survivors of prostitution, please go to seattleops.org.

[Gary Ridgway]

As.

[Carolyn Osorio]

I wrap up this podcast series, the Shadow Girls, I'm still waiting to hear back from the Santa Barbara Police Department, hoping to get some answers in my own case. Is there any physical evidence from my sexual assault in some evidence locker? Were there any persons of interest or suspects followed up on? Is there some dogged detective out there that worked the case and can help me find answers? We have technology now, but my case is still trapped somewhere in the 1980s. A microfiche black hole without a searchable database. But throughout this process, my mom has vowed to help me find some measure of resolution on my case. Because keeping secrets doesn't just hurt the survivor.

[Gary Ridgway]

I'm so proud of you. You know, it's really, actually, it's really great that it's an opportunity for you and I as mother and daughter to talk to and have, you know, have a real conversation.

[Carolyn Osorio]

I mean, it's been incredibly intense and I'm so grateful that I was able to talk to you because I don't think I could have talked to anybody else about it. And now that I'm doing the podcast and obviously sharing with anybody who listens to it, I'm just really grateful for the experience, even though it's been incredibly painful and it's so weird that it took a pandemic and doing a true crime podcast and doing a deep dive into a 20 year murder investigation where 49 women were brutally murdered in order for me to crack and finally deal with this. I think it says a lot about me, you know, like how much I've buried everything, you know?

[Gary Ridgway]

Well, now I think you're at a time in your life where you're ready to.

[Carolyn Osorio]

But it's only because of those things. That perfect storm had to happen.

[Gary Ridgway]

Yeah.

[Carolyn Osorio]

The Shadow Girls is a Pie in the sky production in association with KSL Podcasts and Lemonada Media. Our executive producer is Brandon Morgan. Post production skill supervisor is Casey Wheland. Supervising sound editor is Victoria Chang. And edited by Joey Jordan. For Pie in the Sky Media, I'm Carolyn Osorio.