Gary Leon Ridgway was born on February 18, 1949, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was the second of three sons born to Mary and Thomas Ridgway. His upbringing was tumultuous, with his mother described as domineering and frequent violent arguments between his parents. His father, a bus driver, often complained about sex workers.

Ridgway struggled with bed-wetting until age 13, leading his mother to aggressively clean his genitals, fostering mixed feelings of anger and sexual attraction towards her. He later revealed fantasies of killing her.

Ridgway was dyslexic and repeated a year in high school. At 16, he stabbed a six-year-old boy, who survived. His IQ was recorded as being in the low eighties.

Ridgway graduated from Tyee High School in 1969 and married Claudia Kraig. He then joined the Navy and served in Vietnam, where he had frequent unprotected encounters with sex workers, contracting gonorrhea. This marriage ended within a year.

Described as friendly yet odd, Ridgway’s first two marriages failed due to infidelities. His second wife, Marcia Winslow, mentioned he once choked her. He became religious, evangelizing door-to-door and reading the Bible aloud, yet continued soliciting sex workers and engaging in public sex.

Ridgway’s insatiable sexual appetite led him to demand frequent sex from his partners, often in public or wooded areas. He had a conflicted relationship with sex workers, both using their services and expressing hatred towards them. His second marriage produced a son.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer, was believed to have murdered at least 71 teenage girls and women in the areas around Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. His own statements in court later revealed that he had lost count of the number of his victims. Most of these murders occurred between 1982 and 1984, with the victims primarily being sex workers or runaways whom he picked up along the Pacific Highway South.

Ridgway employed a disturbing tactic of showing the women a picture of his son to gain their trust. This semblance of trust enabled him to control his victims quickly; during or shortly after sexual activities, he would strangle them from behind using a method where he would wrap one forearm around the front of the victim’s neck and pull back with his other arm. The majority of these murders took place in his home, truck, or secluded areas, and the bodies were frequently dumped in wooded locations near the Green River and other areas in South King County.

In addition to the main sites in Washington, two confirmed and two suspected victims were found in Portland, Oregon. The bodies were often left nude and sometimes posed in clusters. Ridgway also admitted to returning to the bodies to engage in necrophilia, stating that this gruesome act reduced his urge to abduct more victims, thereby lowering his risk of capture.

Ridgway further attempted to mislead investigators by contaminating the dump sites with items such as gum, cigarettes, and materials belonging to others. He even transported some remains to Oregon to sow confusion among the police. The investigation into these murders intensified after the discovery of the first victim in July 1982, marked by a unique spray paint found on the victim's clothing. This evidence was not tested until two decades later, which, if done earlier, could have potentially accelerated Ridgway's apprehension.

The King County Sheriff's Office formed the Green River Task Force following the discovery of more victims. Key figures in this investigation included Robert Keppel and Dave Reichert, who consulted Ted Bundy, another notorious serial killer, to gain insights into the psychology of the murderer. FBI Special Agent John E. Douglas also contributed by developing a profile of the suspect.

Ridgway's initial arrests in 1982 and 2001 were for charges related to prostitution. He became a prime suspect in the Green River killings in 1983, particularly after the disappearance of 18-year-old Marie Malvar. Her boyfriend and pimp identified a truck parked outside Ridgway's house which they recognized as the vehicle she had last been seen entering. Despite these suspicions, Ridgway managed to evade conviction for years, even passing a polygraph test in 1984.

It wasn't until 2001, when advances in DNA profiling linked him conclusively to the murders, that Ridgway was arrested at the truck factory where he worked. His plea bargain in 2003, where he confessed to 48 murders to avoid the death penalty, allowed him to provide details that led to the recovery of more victims and gave closure to numerous grieving families. This plea deal sparked significant controversy, but it was defended by prosecutors as a means to solve cases that might have otherwise remained unsolved, providing some measure of closure to the families of the victims.