Latest / U.S SECRET CRIMES / THE GREEN RIVER KILLER: THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK
Transcript
- 1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,160 The Green River Killer, the man who hid in plain sight, what if the man responsible for one of America's 2 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:11,280 longest and most terrifying murder investigations did not look like a monster? What if he looked like 3 00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:17,440 the quiet man next door? Went to work, came home to his family, smiled at his neighbors, 4 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:22,000 and lived an ordinary life while carrying an extraordinary secret. For nearly two decades, 5 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:26,560 that was the reality surrounding Gary Ridgeway, the man who would become known as the Green River 6 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:32,240 Killer. In the early 1980s, south of Seattle, Washington, there was a stretch of highway 99 7 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:37,600 near C-Tech airport that locals knew simply as the strip. It was an area filled with motels, bars 8 00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:42,880 and businesses, and it had a transient population. Many young women worked the streets there, 9 00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:48,560 and some had already experienced difficult childhoods, unstable homes, abuse or poverty. Detective 10 00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:54,560 Faberux, who worked sex crime cases in the area, understood that vulnerability. She had survived 11 00:00:54,560 --> 00:01:00,240 childhood sexual abuse herself, and that experience influenced the way she viewed the women she encountered. 12 00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:05,680 To her, they were never simply women standing on a dangerous street. They were someone's daughters, 13 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:11,120 someone's sisters and someone's mothers. That distinction would become painfully important. 14 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:16,720 One of the women connected to the strip was 31-year-old Marsha Chapman. She was a mother of three who 15 00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:22,880 was struggling financially and trying to survive under difficult circumstances. In 1982, she was 16 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:28,800 reported to have been raped. Then she disappeared, the discovery that followed changed the investigation 17 00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:35,200 forever. In 1982, a man on the Green River noticed what appeared to be a mannequin beneath the surface 18 00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:42,000 of the water. It was not a mannequin. It was a human body. Then another body was discovered nearby. 19 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:46,960 As investigators processed the scene, they found a third victim close to the river bank. 20 00:01:46,960 --> 00:01:55,200 Three women, 16-year-old Opal Mills, 17-year-old Cynthia Jean Hines, and 31-year-old Marsha Chapman. 21 00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:59,760 The women had been connected to the strip, and investigators began to understand that they were 22 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:05,040 dealing with something far more serious than isolated disappearances. The FBI classification used 23 00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:10,080 in the transcript described the offender as an organized serial killer. Someone who appeared to plan 24 00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:15,600 his crimes and exploit vulnerable victims, but there was something investigators did not yet know. 25 00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:21,040 They did not know his name, and they certainly did not know that he was already living among them. By 26 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:28,000 the autumn of 1982, more bodies had been discovered in and around the Green River. Then came September 15th. 27 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:34,000 18-year-old Mary Bridget Mean disappeared. Bridget came from a Catholic family in Bellevue and was 28 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:39,760 eight and a half months pregnant. She had been living in a cheap motel along Highway 99 with her boyfriend. 29 00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:45,440 Ray, she had been struggling with her circumstances and was still connected to the street. 30 00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:51,520 She left one day and never returned. Five days later, on September 20th, 15-year-old Deborah Lorraine 31 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:58,560 Estes disappeared. Then on September 26th, 16-year-old Linda Jane Rule vanished. The pattern was becoming 32 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:04,560 impossible to ignore. Young women were disappearing from the same general area, and bodies were being 33 00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:11,600 discovered in isolated locations. By the end of 1982, according to the transcript, 15 girls were either 34 00:03:11,600 --> 00:03:17,680 missing or had been found dead. Fear spread throughout the community. Rumors began circulating. 35 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:22,240 Some people even suspected that the killer might be a law enforcement officer because of the ease 36 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:27,120 with which the offender seemed able to find women, but investigators rejected that assumption 37 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:32,640 and continued working the case. Detectives were under enormous pressure, but they were not simply 38 00:03:32,640 --> 00:03:37,040 sitting around waiting for the killer to make a mistake. They were collecting information, 39 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:43,280 interviewing people and trying to understand the pattern. Then came April 30th, 1983. That date 40 00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:48,640 contains one of the most important moments in the entire story because, for a brief period, someone 41 00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:54,400 may have unknowingly been close to the truth. Maria Malvar was at a restaurant along Highway 99 42 00:03:54,400 --> 00:04:00,320 with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend stepped away to make a telephone call. When he returned, Maria was 43 00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:06,800 gone. He went looking for her. Then he saw her. She appeared to be inside a truck driven by a man. 44 00:04:06,800 --> 00:04:14,240 Her boyfriend followed the vehicle at the intersection of Highway 99 and 216th. The vehicle separated. 45 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:19,600 He could no longer see where Maria had gone, but he did not give up. He and Maria's family 46 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:24,480 searched for the truck and eventually found it parked in a quiet cul-de-sac only a few blocks from 47 00:04:24,480 --> 00:04:30,720 the strip. It was outside the modest home of a local truck painter. Police were called. A sergeant went 48 00:04:30,720 --> 00:04:36,160 to the house, knocked on the door and spoke to the man inside. The man said there was nobody there 49 00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:42,320 except him. The police did not press the matter further. The man's name was Gary Ridgeway. At that 50 00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:47,920 moment, the future green river killer had already entered the investigation, but investigators did not 51 00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:53,520 yet know it. That is one of the most haunting elements of the entire case. Sometimes the greatest 52 00:04:53,520 --> 00:04:58,640 mystery is not how a criminal escaped from police, but how close investigators actually came to 53 00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:04,960 the truth without realizing what they were looking at. The disappearances continued. By June 1983, 54 00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:11,600 at least 26 girls had disappeared. The killer seemed to understand his environment. He knew where vulnerable 55 00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:17,280 women could be found. He appeared ordinary enough to avoid immediate suspicion. His victims were 56 00:05:17,280 --> 00:05:22,480 often young and vulnerable, and the locations where their remains were discovered were secluded enough 57 00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:28,640 to make detection difficult. The investigation became a race against time. Summer came and more women 58 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:35,280 disappeared than autumn, then winter. By the spring of 1984, the number of victims had climbed 59 00:05:35,280 --> 00:05:41,280 dramatically. Investigators were looking everywhere, but the killer was still ahead of them, and then 60 00:05:41,280 --> 00:05:46,960 something strange happened. The killings appeared to stop. For a moment, people wondered whether the 61 00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:53,360 killer had left the area, died or simply disappeared, but the green river task force did not forget. 62 00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:57,920 That decision mattered. Because while the public's attention eventually moved elsewhere, 63 00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:03,600 investigators continued holding on to evidence from the old cases. Gary Ridgeway, meanwhile, 64 00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:09,600 appeared to be living an ordinary life. In 1985, he began dating Judith, a divorced mother. 65 00:06:09,600 --> 00:06:15,440 She saw a polite, gentle, and apparently dependable man. They eventually moved in together and married 66 00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:21,680 in 1988. For Judith, the marriage seemed like a new beginning. She saw a man who was kind to her daughters, 67 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:27,360 affectionate toward her grandchildren, and rarely appeared angry, but she did not know the other side 68 00:06:27,360 --> 00:06:32,720 of his life. And that is another uncomfortable lesson from this case. Evil does not always 69 00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:39,040 announce itself through appearance, clothing, wealth, status, or obvious aggression. A person can 70 00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:44,880 maintain a respectable public image while concealing deeply harmful behavior. The transcript describes 71 00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:51,360 Ridgeway as someone who appeared meek and harmless. Investigators had questioned him during the 1980s. 72 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:56,000 He had even passed a lie detector test while being questioned about the green river murders. 73 00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:02,320 For years, he maintained his innocence, but investigators had something he could not permanently defeat. 74 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:09,360 Evidence. By 2001, forensic science had changed dramatically. DNA profiling had become a powerful 75 00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:15,360 investigative tool. And detectives were able to revisit biological evidence preserved from the original 76 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:21,600 cases. One of those samples came from Marsha Chapman. Investigators compared the DNA from the evidence 77 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:26,000 connected to Chapman with samples from men who had been questioned during the investigation. 78 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:32,160 Then the result came. The DNA matched Gary Ridgeway. The man who had lived quietly in the community was 79 00:07:32,160 --> 00:07:37,360 now connected scientifically to the investigation that had haunted Washington for almost two decades. 80 00:07:37,360 --> 00:07:43,120 Ridgeway was 52 years old. The case had changed from a decade's old mystery into one of the largest 81 00:07:43,120 --> 00:07:48,480 criminal investigations in Washington State history. Investigators finally had the man they had been 82 00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:54,400 looking for. But there was still a problem. Ridgeway denied being the killer. He admitted that he had 83 00:07:54,400 --> 00:07:59,600 known and had sexual contact with prostitutes, but he insisted that he had not murdered them. 84 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:03,440 Then additional forensic evidence connected him to more victims. 85 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:09,520 His story began to collapse. During questioning, investigators eventually heard words that transformed 86 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:15,920 the entire case. Ridgeway admitted that he had been lying and manipulating people for years. He confessed. 87 00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:20,720 The man who had spent years appearing ordinary had finally acknowledged what investigators had 88 00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:28,080 suspected for decades. In 2003 at 54 years old, Gary Ridgeway admitted that he was the green river killer. 89 00:08:28,080 --> 00:08:33,760 Prosecutors could conclusively connect him to 48 murders and he pleaded guilty to those charges. 90 00:08:33,760 --> 00:08:39,200 In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, he agreed to cooperate with investigators and provide 91 00:08:39,200 --> 00:08:44,560 information about additional victims. That cooperation became important for families who had spent 92 00:08:44,560 --> 00:08:50,240 years living with uncertainty. For them, the investigation was never simply about catching a killer. 93 00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:54,320 It was about finding out what happened to their daughters, sisters, and mothers. 94 00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:59,920 Ridgeway eventually took investigators to locations where he said he had left victims. He could remember 95 00:08:59,920 --> 00:09:05,360 places. He could describe locations, but his attitude toward the women was one of the most 96 00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:11,200 disturbing parts of the investigation. According to the transcript, he described many of them as though 97 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:16,800 they had little personal significance to him. That attitude reveals something fundamental about serial 98 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:23,120 violence. The victims were real people with families, histories, dreams, and futures. The killer 99 00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:28,480 attempted to reduce them to objects, but their families never saw them that way. They remembered 100 00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:34,320 birthdays. They remembered voices. They remembered the empty chair at home. They remembered waiting for 101 00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:40,320 someone who never came back. And that is why the courtroom proceedings in 2003 became more than a legal 102 00:09:40,320 --> 00:09:46,560 conclusion. When Ridgeway entered his guilty pleas, the names of the victims were read. guilty. 103 00:09:46,560 --> 00:09:52,480 One name after another. One family after another. For Judith, his wife, the experience was 104 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:57,680 devastating. She had lived with Ridgeway for years and believed she knew the man she had married. 105 00:09:57,680 --> 00:10:02,160 Now she was forced to confront the possibility that the person she trusted had been hiding a 106 00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:07,120 completely different life. She wondered whether the years they spent together had been real. 107 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:11,120 She wondered whether her daughters or grandchildren could have become victims. 108 00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:16,160 She wondered who exactly had been living inside her home. That is one of the most overlooked 109 00:10:16,160 --> 00:10:21,520 consequences of violent crime. The damage does not stop when the offender is arrested. 110 00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:27,840 It spreads into families, friendships, communities and memories. The victims lose their lives, 111 00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:32,400 but the people left behind often lose the sense of safety they once had. In the end, 112 00:10:32,400 --> 00:10:37,760 Ridgeway was sentenced to 48 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, 113 00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:43,600 but the courtroom did not erase the years of pain. During the sentencing, relatives of the victims 114 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:48,560 confronted the man responsible for destroying their families. Some expressed anger, 115 00:10:48,560 --> 00:10:54,640 some expressed grief, and one father offered something very different. He told Ridgeway that although 116 00:10:54,640 --> 00:11:00,560 many people in the room hated him, he was not one of them. He chose forgiveness, that moment stands 117 00:11:00,560 --> 00:11:06,080 in sharp contrast to everything that had happened before it. One person had spent years treating human 118 00:11:06,080 --> 00:11:11,520 beings as objects. Another stood before him and chose to recognize his humanity without 119 00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:17,520 excusing his crimes. That does not erase what happened. It does not remove responsibility, 120 00:11:17,520 --> 00:11:23,280 and it does not mean the families were required to forgive. It simply shows that even after extraordinary 121 00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:28,240 violence, people can still choose what kind of person they want to become. The Green River case 122 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:33,760 also leaves us with a difficult question. Was Gary Ridgeway born to kill? Or did his environment help 123 00:11:33,760 --> 00:11:39,600 create the person he became? The transcript contains several competing views. Some commentators point 124 00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:44,800 to his childhood, his family relationships and troubling behavior that appeared when he was young. 125 00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:49,200 Others argue that there was no single childhood experience that can explain the crimes and that 126 00:11:49,200 --> 00:11:54,560 ultimately Ridgeway made choices for which he remained responsible. That distinction matters. A 127 00:11:54,560 --> 00:12:00,320 difficult childhood does not automatically produce a murderer. Abuse does not automatically produce 128 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:06,640 a serial killer. Poverty does not automatically produce violence. And mental or behavioral problems 129 00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:12,160 cannot be used as a simple explanation for extraordinary criminality. The danger in searching for 130 00:12:12,160 --> 00:12:17,440 one easy answer is that it can make a complicated human tragedy seem predictable when it was not. 131 00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:22,160 What can be learned, however, is that warning signs should not simply be ignored. 132 00:12:22,160 --> 00:12:27,600 Children who display serious violent behavior need intervention. Families struggling with abuse 133 00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:33,760 need support. Young people living in dangerous environments need protection. And vulnerable adults, 134 00:12:33,760 --> 00:12:38,640 including people exposed to exploitation and street violence, need to be treated as human beings 135 00:12:38,640 --> 00:12:43,520 worthy of protection rather than as people whose disappearance can be easily dismissed. That lesson 136 00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:48,800 remains relevant today. Whether we are talking about Nigeria, the United States or anywhere else in the 137 00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:53,680 world, vulnerable people can become invisible when society decides that their lifestyle makes them 138 00:12:53,680 --> 00:13:00,000 less deserving of attention. That is a dangerous assumption. A missing person is still a missing person. 139 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:05,600 A young woman struggling with poverty is still someone's daughter. A person involved in sex work is 140 00:13:05,600 --> 00:13:11,760 still a human being. A person living on the margins of society still deserves protection under the law. 141 00:13:11,760 --> 00:13:16,320 One of the reasons the Green River case lasted so long was that the victims were drawn from a 142 00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:21,680 population that was already vulnerable. But the investigators who refused to forget them eventually 143 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:27,040 demonstrated why persistence matters. The breakthrough did not come from a dramatic confession in the 144 00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:32,880 beginning. Came years later through science. DNA preserved from the past became the evidence that 145 00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:38,000 the future could finally use. And that may be the greatest lesson of the Green River case for 146 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:44,720 modern criminal investigations. Technology changes. Investigative methods change. Evidence that once 147 00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:50,480 seemed useless may become decisive years later. That is why cold cases should not automatically be 148 00:13:50,480 --> 00:13:57,040 regarded as forgotten cases. For nearly 20 years, Gary Ridgeway lived as a husband, a worker and an 149 00:13:57,040 --> 00:14:02,560 ordinary member of society, while investigators continued searching for the truth. But the truth had 150 00:14:02,560 --> 00:14:08,400 not disappeared. It had only been waiting. And when science finally connected the evidence to the man, 151 00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:13,600 the quiet truck painter from Washington could no longer hide behind the ordinary life he had constructed. 152 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:18,800 The Green River killer was not caught because he suddenly looked like a monster. He was caught because 153 00:14:18,800 --> 00:14:24,400 evidence finally spoke louder than his lies. And perhaps that is where the story should leave us. 154 00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:30,000 Not with fascination for the killer. Not with the myth of the monster. But with the names of the 155 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:35,840 people whose lives were taken, the families who waited, the investigators who refused to stop searching, 156 00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:40,480 and the scientific advances that finally helped bring the truth into the light. Because behind 157 00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:46,800 every statistic is a person. Behind every cold case is a family. And behind every disappearance is 158 00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:52,720 someone who once had a future. The Green River killer spent years trying to make his victims disappear. 159 00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:59,680 But history remembered them. And eventually justice found him. This is you.s Hidden Crimes podcast. 160 00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:04,480 Stick to US for more of information and stories of this nature see you on the next one.