Seattle Times

Man Arrested in Green River Killer Deaths

SEATTLE -- A 52-year-old man was arrested Friday for investigation of homicide in the deaths of four women slain by the so-called Green River Killer, the King County sheriff said.

The arrested man, Gary Leon Ridgeway, lives in suburban Auburn and has worked for the same trucking firm for 30 years, Sheriff Dave Reichert said.

The Green River killer was blamed for the deaths of 49 women in the early 1980s.

Reichert said Ridgeway was being investigated in the deaths of Opal Mills, Marcia Chapman and Cynthia Hinds, whose bodies were found in the south King County river on Aug. 15, 1982, and Carol Christensen, found May 8, 1983, in woods in nearby Maple Valley.

The break in the case came when forensic scientists were able to link Ridgeway's DNA to three of the women, the sheriff said.

"This has got to be one of the most exciting days in my entire career," said Reichert, who was one of the original detectives on the serial killer task force and has made it a priority for almost 20 years.

Ridgeway had been arrested twice, Reichert said -- in 1982 for approaching a police decoy during a prostitution sting and earlier this month, when he was arrested for loitering for the purpose of prostitution. He was found guilty or pleaded guilty in both cases, Reichert said.

The deaths of the victims, mainly young prostitutes and runaways taken from a red-light district south of the city -- were attributed to the Green River killer from 1982 through 1984.

An FBI profiler could say little more than that the killer was probably a white man in his 30s or 40s who had issues with women and had spent a lot of time in the woods.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001