Come Closer with Rae Review· NEW EPISODE
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Gary Ridgway is also known as the Green River Killer. He bet that if he killed women society had already written off, nobody would come looking. For nearly 20 years, he won that bet.
He was convicted of murdering 49 women and girls in the Pacific Northwest. He told police he killed around 71.
This week's episode is a little different. I'm joined by crime journalist Maria DiLorenzo, who interviews killers in prison and lets them choose what to talk about. Ridgway was famous for ignoring reporters. Three weeks after her letter, her phone rang. For the next two years, he called her hundreds of times. Six years later, she wrote Confessions of the Green River Killer.
Here's what's inside.
The Textbook Serial Killer
Gary Ridgway was born in Utah in 1949, the middle of three boys. His mother was the most powerful force in his life. He wet the bed until he was about 13, and she handled it by humiliating him. He was dyslexic, got held back twice, and graduated high school at 20.
He also checked every box on what's known as the Macdonald triad: bedwetting, setting fires, and cruelty to animals.
Maria is careful here, and I love her for it. Plenty of people grow up with a cruel mother and never hurt anyone. But she believes those years shaped how he saw women. When his first wife left him while he was deployed with the Navy, he told Maria in his own words: "That's when all hell broke loose."
The Women He Chose
He told Maria exactly why he targeted sex workers, runaways, and a lot of teenagers: he believed no one would report them missing.
He also told her he believed all women were prostitutes.
One woman fought him off and went to the police. It came down to his word against hers. A detective swabbed his saliva in 1987. He wasn't arrested until 2001, when the DNA finally matched. He took a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.
The system had him the whole time. It just didn't believe the women he picked were worth the hurry.
What He Wanted From Her
Somewhere along the way, he started to see her as a potential victim. She stayed on the line anyway, for the women he never named. Then she replayed every call, start to finish, to write the book. That's when it took its toll.
In the episode, Maria also tells me about two women whose cases she's still fighting to get reopened. That part stayed with me.
Want the book? Get Confessions of the Green River Killer by Maria DiLorenzo here.
Come Closer. The closer you look, the darker it gets.
xx Rae