Gary Ridgway

Name: Gary Ridgway (The Green River killer)

Born: February 18, 1949 (Salt Lake City, Utah)

Died: Alive

Cause and Effect:
According to witnesses, his mother was a domineering woman and as a child he witnessed several violent fights between his parents. As a child, Gary Ridgway was tested and scored an 82 on the IQ test. This would place him at the very low end of average. Also, Ridgway grew up in a neighborhood that was considered deprived.

Living a normal life, he married three times and had several girl friends while seeking the company of prostitutes, whom he eventually began killing. Ridgway disposed of the bodies in remote woodsy areas. A few of the bodies started turning up along the Green River.

Before the Killings:
On August 18th, 1969, just shortly after graduating high school, Ridgway enlisted in the Navy. According to Navy doctors, he was diagnosed with gonorrhea, and later he told a girlfriend he especially did not like Filipino prostitutes because of his contact with them during his stint in the Navy.

Gary Ridgway married three times. After a courtship of outdoor and in-car sex, he married Claudia Kraig on August 15, 1970. Soon after the marriage, Ridgway left his bride alone as he set out on a 6 month Navy cruise. While away, she had an affair and he returned home to find her living with a female and a male roommate. Their divorce was finalized in January of 1972 and Ridgway stayed bitter about it.

After a year of living together, Gary married Marcia Winslow in December of 1973. In 1975, his son Matthew was born. They tended church and according to Marcia, he had become a fanatical over religion, but as time went on, the church going tapered off. On July 4. 1980, they separated and Marcia moved out.  On July 21st, Marcia filed for a divorce that included a restraining order and Gary countered with one of his own. Both restraining orders said they were afraid the other would become violent.  In May of 1981, the divorce was finalized and Marcia gained custody of their son Matthew.

Gary Ridgway had a few girlfriends after his second divorce. With his first girlfriend, he followed suit as his first two wives and had sex outdoors and in cars. Becoming too domineering in pushing for sex too much, his first girlfriend broke up with him.  His second girlfriend learned he had another girlfriend and broke things off with him. He was arrested for soliciting an undercover deputy posing as a prostitute and according to his present girlfriend she knew about that and said he considered prostitutes as "things" to be used. After she broke up with him, he swiftly went on to another girlfriend.

The Killings:
In 1983, County officers spotted Ridgway on February 23, with a prostitute by the name of Keli McGinness. In June, she turned up missing. Her body has never been found.

On May 4, 1983, Des Moines police spoke to Gary Ridgway about another missing prostitute, Marie Malvar. She was last seen in a truck that resembled Ridgway's. Then in Novemeber, a detective of the Gren River Task force interviewed him again about Malvar and he denied any knowledge of her. She is also listed on the list of Green River victims, but her body has never been found.

In 1984 and 1986, two prostitutes, Dawn White and Paige Miley, spoke to dethe Task Force and told detectives about Ridgways behavior in 1983. Miley said Ridgway had asked her about another prostitute, Kim Nelson, whose remains were discovered near Interstate 90 in 1986.

Gary Ridgway was interviewed several times in the mid-1980's and finally his status as a suspect was cleared after passing a polygraph test in 1984.  Later however, when detectives had a renewed interest in him, he had told them he had a fixation on prostitutes. He said he believed that prostitutes may have the same effect on him as alcohol did on an alcoholic. In 1987, detectives searched his home and found no evidence that was connected to the Green River Victims. They did obtain a saliva sample that they saved for 14 years.

In 1988, Ridgway married Judith Lynch. They bought a house and lived in it until 1997. During those years, Gary Ridgway was outgoing and talked to the neighbors a lot and took excellent care of his home. He became almost obsessed with gardening.

In 2001, a King County Sheriff called a meeting to re-examine the evidence of the Green River killings. Using the new technology of DNA, they found a connection between the victims and Gary Ridgway. They charged him with four counts  of aggravated murder in December of 2001. Rigway eventually pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first degree murder.


The Sentence:
Facing a possible death sentence, Ridgway began trying to work with the investigators and told them he had killed as many as 60 women. As part of a plea bargain to be spared the death penalty, he revealed where he had hidden the bodies of four women who were never found. In December of 2003, Gary Ridgway was sentenced to 48 life sentences with no possibility of parole.

In tapes of his confessions, Ridgway first admitted to killing 48 woman, of which 42 were on the detectives list of possible Green River Murders. Later, in another tape, he claimed to have killed 71 women. He also claimed (after his sentencing) to have had sex with all of his victims and later started burrying them to take control of his necrophiliac urges.

At the time of writing this, he is serving his sentence at the Washington State  Penitentiary. Gary Ridgeway has confessed to more confirmed murders than any other serial killer in United States history.

Total Kills:
Confirmed - 42
Confessed - 71
Possibly as many as - 90+

Jeffrey Dahmer

Name: Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer

Born: May 21, 1960 (Wisconsin)

Died: November 28, 1994

Cause and Effect:
There seems to be no true explanation as to why Dahmer turned to killing and cannibalism. Other than his parents arguing a lot, his home life was by all apparent reasons, normal. At a young age he simply began to become fascinated by dead animals. As a teen he began to ride around on his bike, looking for road kill to dismember.

The Killing:
During the summer of 1978, Dahmer's parents went through a divorce and as he was about to graduate, they both moved out of the house and left Jeffrey there alone. His response was to go out and pick up a hitch hiker, Stephen Hicks, take him home and have sex with him. When the Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer picked up a bar bell and hit him in the head then strangled him to death. Jeffrey then dismembered the corpse and buried it nearby.

Jeffrey had become an alcoholic and trying to stop it, his Father forced him to enlist in the Army in 1979 at the age of 18. His army life did not last however as he was discharged for habitual drunkenness. Jeffrey then moved in to his grandmother's basement. In 1982, Dahmer was arrested for indecent exposure and then again in 1986. The second time, he was ordered to counseling. However, the counseling did not help as the next year he went out and killed three people.

The first of those victims was Steven Tuomi, who he met in a gay bar. He murdered Tuomi in a hotel, put the body in a suitcase, then took it home. At home he had sex with the body then dismembered it. The next victim was James Doxtator, a 14 year old Native American boy. The third was a Mexican youth by the name of Richard Guerrero. Dahmer's grandmother could no longer stand his drunkenness nor the strong smells coming from his living quarters and evicted him.

In 1988, Jeffrey Dahmer moved into his own flat in Milwaukee. The next day after moving in, he lured a 13 year old Loation boy to his place and paid the boy to let him photograph him nude. Dahmer drugged the boy and fondled him, but did not harm him physically. The boy's parents turned Dahmer in and he was sentenced to one year in prison for sexual assault. While Dahmer was waiting for his sentencing date however, he killed Anthony Sears.

Final Killing Spree:
After 10 months in prison, Dahmer was released and he went on to kill some more. Between June of 1990 and July of 1991, Dahmer killed 12 more men. In the end he was killing nearly a victim per week and his treatment of them became stranger as he went. Dahmer would drill holes into his victims heads and pour acid into them. Jeffrey would place some body parts in his refrigerator and their skulls on an altar in his bedroom.

One of the more bizarre stories is the killing of Konerak Sinthasomphone, who was the brother of the Loation boy Dahmer had molested. After being drugged, Konerak was able to escape from Dahmer's home and ran outside where two young African American women found him and called the police. However, Dahmer was able to convince the police officers that the drugged and bleeding Konerak was his boyfriend and the officers released Konerak back into Dahmer's possession. Dahmer took Konerak home and murdered him. Dahmer went on to kill his last four victims inside of the next few weeks.

An End to the Killings:
On July 22, 1991, Tracy Edwards, and adult black man escaped Dahmer's apartment and waved down a police car. Taking the officers back to the apartment, they found a human head in the refrigerator. By August 22, Dahmer was charged with 15 counts of murder and in 1992 he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences.

Death of the Killer:
In prison, Jeffrey Dahmer refused to be placed in solitary confinement. In 1994, an inmate smashed Dahmer's skull with an iron bar and killed him.