Green River, Running Red

by Ann Rule

Reichert believed Ridgway was withholding information, and he hoped to find more answers. He pointed out that Ridgway was still making all kinds of excuses, even though there was no way to justify what he had done. “They were ‘garbage’ all along; they had no meaning to you,” the sheriff said.

  “They have meaning now.” Ridgway speculated that he should go back to Woodside School, that he needed to go back in time to cure the “learning disability” that had caused him to lack “caring” for others. That made little sense, but it still would allow him to take the stain of his crimes off his hands.

  He told the sheriff that he could not recall killing anyone in the sixties or seventies, only the time when he stabbed the neighborhood kid, and, after all, he hadn’t died.

  “We were looking forward to six months more with you,” Reichert said. “But you shut down after you pleaded guilty. Why should you talk to us now? Don’t you have a nice place to stay back there?”

  “Yeah. My stay here has been good. They’ve treated me really good.” Ridgway agreed that the little room in the task force headquarters was probably a lot nicer than his prison cell would be. He knew that he would need to have his “back to the wall,” because other inmates would try to kill him. He’d listened to advice from inmates at the King County Jail and they had warned him about that.

  Reichert reminded him that once he went to prison, he wouldn’t have all the benefits he currently enjoyed, and urged him to give up the rest of the secrets he held on to so tightly. But everyone had noticed that he had changed. He wasn’t telling them all he knew. “You’re cocky now.”

  The sheriff said that Sue Peters, Randy Mullinax, Jon Mattsen, and Tom Jensen were walking out of interviews angry because Ridgway had stopped giving them information. He had only two more days to tell them what he knew. Then he was going away, headed for prison. “My detectives are pissed, tired of your lies, your crap, your bullshit,” Reichert said. “You’re still hiding secrets. All the souvenirs that would give you credibility. I’m going to find them. We’re going to X-ray your houses—But we’re not going to come over there [to prison] to talk with you.”

  Ridgway wasn’t concerned about that. He planned on detectives from other counties—Snohomish, Pierce, and maybe San Diego—visiting him to ask questions. What he couldn’t recall right now, he figured he could spend his time in prison trying to remember—if there were murders he’d forgotten.

  For the first time, Ridgway bridled at Reichert, telling him firmly that he would not find any evidence in the houses he and Judith had lived in. “There are no souvenirs—the jewelry was at Kenworth, and the other places I told you. Your X-rays won’t find them—that’s a major quote. I’m one hundred percent sure you’re not going to find anything.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Reichert said, and then asked, “Are you mad at me?

  “No.” But it was clear that he was. Reichert had managed to get under Ridgway’s skin. Whatever he remembered, he would have to walk a geographical tightrope, aware of county and state boundary lines. He admitted that he was worried that he may have forgotten some of his murders, and that would mean he had broken the agreement. He said he expected to be back in King County within a year on new charges. He didn’t mention that there could be other counties and other states involved. He wanted to live, but he knew the death penalty was hovering over him. That was what was scaring him.

  He was clearly holding back. Earlier in this last interview, Ridgway had mentioned seventy-one victims, and yet he had admitted to only forty-eight. Kase Lee, Keli Kay McGinness, and Patricia Osborn had never been found. And there were still unidentified bones, and probably undiscovered bones, of some of the women who had never been reported missing. Who were the others? And what proof did any of the agencies interested in him have that there weren’t eighty-one or ninety-one? He had sometimes said he had killed right up until 2001.

  Ridgway’s eyes darted, showing that his mind was racing, searching the dark corners of his memory to be sure he didn’t reveal something that would break his deal with the prosecutor.

  “You’re a coward,” Reichert said scathingly. “You’re an evil, murdering, monstrous, cowardly man. You got behind sixteen-year-old girls and choked them.”

  “They died slow,” Ridgway said, accidentally giving new information in his anger. “I never had one wake up on me. I counted to sixty to be sure. I used a ruler to twist the knot to be sure they were dead. That’s why there was a tourniquet mark. That was after they were dead.”

  “You’re a rapist.”

  “I had sex for money.”

  “Isn’t that rape?”

  “No, it’s robbery.”

  “A rapist is lowest on the totem pole in prison.”

  “I’m not a rapist. I paid them for sex and I killed them.”

  “No, it’s rape, robbery, and murder,” Reichert countered. “You’re a coward. That’s why you chose women. You chose weak, young women because you’re a coward.” He reminded Ridgway that he hadn’t killed the witness in the raft in the Green River because he was a man.

  “I might have,” Ridgway objected. “I might have.”

  “Judith and Chad won’t visit you,” Reichert said. Why would Chad visit his father now that he knew he might well have killed him?

  Ridgway said he thought Judith was going on with her life, and seeing other men. “I have to suffer now,” he said mournfully.

  “You think you’re going to suffer?”

  Dave Reichert gave Gary Ridgway one more chance to tell the task force everything he knew. If he did that, the sheriff would try to buy him another six months outside prison walls. He wouldn’t have to watch his back all the time, the food would be better, and there would be more field trips. Eventually, of course, he was going to the “joint,” but he could stave it off if he told them the truth—all of the truth.

  “Right now, give me something?” Reichert asked, mentioning the name of an unsolved case.

  “I can’t.”

  “Then you’re on your way,” Reichert said in disgust. “I hope, Ridgway, for your sake, you’ve told us everything you know. Well, this is it. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure because it hasn’t. I don’t like you. I don’t like what you did. No one does. You don’t even like yourself…. This will end the interview process.”

  The scene froze on a room empty save for Gary Ridgway. It was the end of the interview process. But he still had to face a courtroom full of people who had every reason to hate him.

  THE WEATHER on December 18, 2003, was unseasonably warm and the sun shone brightly on the self-contained satellite television trucks parked along 4th Avenue and Yesler Street, and even on the scrubby grass of City Hall Park next to the courthouse. The moment the sentencing was over, local stations, Court TV, and CNN would go on-air. Media seats for December 18, 2003, were at a premium. Reporters would sit where juries usually sat, our names thrown into a “hat” to be drawn, hopefully, by Gene Johnston, the designated Associated Press correspondent. Because I was neither fish nor fowl—not a newspaper, radio, television, or wire service correspondent—I first had to establish that I was a journalist, albeit one whose coverage of legal proceedings came out months after verdicts and sentences were announced. I managed to do that by listing my twenty-two books and hundreds of articles on actual criminal cases. I was relieved to see my name on the list of those who would be allowed into the courtroom. My assigned seat was in the middle of the front row of the jury box, between Liz Rocha from KOMO, the ABC affiliate in Seattle, who had covered the Green River murders for almost as long as I had but in more depth in recent years, and a Washington Post correspondent.

  I’d won the draw, but was I lucky to be there? As a journalist, yes, but the pain in that courtroom was pervasive, clinging to everyone, except, perhaps, the man who would be sentenced. I had never witnessed a more intensely compressed period of grief, fury, hopelessness, or, in a few surprising instances, forgiveness.

  Before Judge Jones handed down Ridgway
’s sentences, each family member who wished to speak directly to the man who had murdered a daughter, granddaughter, sister, mother, niece, or best friend would be allowed ten minutes to tell him what they thought of him. That broke down to less than thirty seconds for every year they had waited to see the nameless, faceless Green River Killer caught. It had to be that way, or the proceedings could go on endlessly.

  The families filled the benches from the front of the courtroom to more than halfway back, some just behind the rail where it looked as if they could have leaned forward close enough to touch Gary Ridgway, although court security would have stopped them. Most of the detectives who had worked the Green River cases since 1982 sat in the rear, or off to the side. Many of those who had retired, including Dick Kraske, had come back to see the ending of it all for themselves. Frank Adamson had decided he couldn’t stand the pain of it. Some detectives were long dead.

  Court security was no-nonsense, and everyone had passed through very sensitive metal detectors outside the courtroom in addition to those at the entrance to the courthouse itself. I hugged Mertie Winston, a friend as well as Tracy’s mother, and was told the press was not allowed to talk to anyone. When Sue Peters said “Hi” to me, it was the same. No conversation. Everyone in the courtroom was to take his or her seat, entering and exiting as we were directed. This was, of course, understandable. Despite the court deputies’ vigilance there was great potential for violence. Ironically, Gary Ridgway had to be protected from harm.

  Once everyone was seated, Ridgway was brought in through a door on Judge Jones’s right, surrounded by armed guards and his six attorneys. Although he had claimed he was five feet ten inches tall, he appeared to be five feet six at most, a pallid little man in white scrubs that advertised his ultra-security status. Beneath that, he wore his usual wine-colored long-sleeved T-shirt. The central crease in his forehead had deepened since his arrest, and there were several half-moon-shaped wrinkles above his eyes, all of which made his face appear to be made of immutable clay or plastic. Six feet away from me, he sat looking down, both hands flat on the table in front of him.

  There were no empty seats at all. No room for the regular court watchers. The tension in the room was palpable, the air itself difficult to draw in. Someone coughed and an infant wailed.

  Deputy Prosecutors Sean O’Donnell and Ian Goodhew took turns reading the sentence guidelines for each victim’s murder, and what was over quickly in an ordinary hearing took a long time for this one. “The defendant has pled guilty and agreed to a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of early release or parole.”

  O’Donnell repeated the phrases forty-eight times, naming each victim. It was only fair. Each victim had died her own death at Ridgway’s hands. Each deserved to have her life matter. His sentences would run consecutively, not concurrently.

  Ridgway would be in prison for eternity, and Goodhew said that he would also face a fine of $50,000 on each charge. The families would be allowed to submit their claims for restitution at a future time, although there would be little reason for doing that. He had no money. With her greatly reduced income and attorneys’ fees, Judith had had no choice but to sell their home at a loss.

  The Son of Sam law would be invoked, preventing Ridgway from profiting from his crimes. Under no circumstances would he ever be allowed to contact his victims’ families.

  Deputy Prosecutor Patty Eakes acknowledged the family members in the courtroom who had chosen not to speak to Ridgway, and also those who could not be there but who had sent letters to Judge Jones to be passed on to Ridgway. Then she introduced each family member as they approached the lectern next to the jury box to speak directly to Gary Ridgway. At the Court’s direction, he had turned in his chair so that he had to look into their eyes. As the survivors stood at the lectern, they were, perhaps, fifteen feet from the killer.

  Those who still mourned deeply were from all backgrounds, all races, all ages, all demographic groups. Although it was probably the first time most of them had spoken in public, they were remarkably eloquent as they stared at the man who had taken the lives of the young women they loved. No one else could have scripted what they needed to say. All of their stories were different and yet, in some ways, the same.

  They told Ridgway what the girls he had called “garbage” and “trash” were really like, and about the sadness and loss he had caused their families: the premature deaths caused by grief, the suicides, the memories that crowded back, especially at holidays or when babies were born who would never know their aunts.

  Garrett Mills recalled his lonely memorial to the little sister he had promised to protect forever. He had visited the junior high where he and Opal had their last happy times, and he’d left roses in the dirt beneath the swings where they used to play. He’d also eatena doughnut—something Opal always enjoyed—in her memory, remembering how she worried continually about losing weight. At the Green River, he had sat and cried for Opal. He recalled two fishermen who had paused as they tossed beer cans into the water, staring at him and clearly wondering “what kind of fool I was.” They were unaware that Opal’s body had once lain there. Garrett said he had left roses and doughnuts on the riverbank, too.

  One woman said that her sister had “met her first monster” in her own home, enduring a family member’s abuse until it drove her out to the streets in a desperate escape. And there, the teenager had met her second monster: Gary Ridgway.

  Many family members wanted Ridgway to “burn in hell,” or wished him a long and miserable life behind bars. They warned him of what lay ahead and said they would rejoice in the news that a guard had been distracted just long enough for an avenging prisoner to attack him. They called him a disposable man consumed with evil, “garbage” and “trash” himself, the spawn of the devil, and almost every epithet known in the English language. And yet they did it with a dignity born of years of suffering. They were not out of control; they had waited so long to face an unknown terror but their words were measured and well thought out.

  I never saw Ridgway change his expression. He seemed incapable of grasping any emotion at all. Their words bounced off his “plastic” face, and only rarely did he even blink behind his thick glasses.

  Beyond seeing their limitless pain, I was most impressed by how many of the dead girls’ survivors said they refused to remain hostage to Gary Ridgway. They had come to realize, they said, that if they continued to despise him, he would win. And they would not allow it. He would not be part of their thoughts any longer, not even as an object of hatred.

  Many of those who spoke thanked the Green River Task Force, specific detectives who had helped them, Sheriff Reichert, and the prosecuting team for bringing justice to their loved ones. One even thanked the defense team for doing a job that must have been onerous for them. Original poems had been written and classics were quoted, and the ghosts of the long-dead victims were somehow present in the courtroom, silent and invisible witnesses. Almost all of us had tears in our eyes.

  And still Gary Ridgway’s facial expression remained the same. Untouched. Removed. It wasn’t until three survivors forgave him that his eyes filled. Opal’s mother, Kathy Mills, thanked him for the fact that there had been no trial. She didn’t think she could have gone through that. “You have held us in bondage for all these years,” she intoned, “because we hated you. We wanted to see you die, but it’s all going to be over now…. Gary Leon Ridgway, I forgive you. You can’t hold me anymore. The word of God says I have to.”

  Ridgway blinked at that. He was as he always had been. If something directly affected him, he reacted. He had always felt sorry for himself.

  Linda Rule’s father, Robert, was a large man with a snowy beard, and I jotted down “Santa Claus type” next to his name. As it turned out, he did work as a store Santa Claus during the holiday season. But he, too, got a reaction from Ridgway. “Mr. Ridgway,” he began, “there are people here that hate you. I’m not one of them. I forgive you for what you
have done. God says to forgive all so you are forgiven, sir.”

  At this, Ridgway took off his glasses so he could wipe the tears that coursed from his eyes with his handkerchief. He had told Dave Reichert that he hoped he wouldn’t cry during the sentencing, but he appeared touched by forgiveness in the face of so many who had not forgiven him, and probably never would.

  I didn’t believe his tears. It was obvious that they weren’t for his victims—they were for himself. As Green River investigator Kevin O’Keefe said, “I think he’s got all the emotions of a reptile.”

  Trish Yellow Robe’s sisters were the last to approach the lectern. When they had spoken, committing her to “The Great Spirit,” it was time to hear any remarks the killer might choose to make. He did have words, and he shuffled up to stand before Judge Jones and haltingly read his statement, stumbling over what he had printed. He did not look at his victims’ families, however, the group to whom he should have directed his “apology.”

  “I’m sorry for killing all those young ladys,” he said, choking up a little as he read the short sentences he or someone else had printed on a single sheet of paper. The words were mostly spelled correctly in this document, unlike the letter he had once sent to the newspaper. There were commas and periods.

  I have tried hard to remember as much as I could to help the detectives find and recover the ladys. I’m sorry for the scare I put in the community. I want to thank the police, prosecutors, my attorneys and all the other, that had the patience to work with me and help me remember all the terrible thing I did and to be able to talk about them. I know how horrible my acts were. I have tried for a long time to get these things out of my mind. I have tried for a long time to keep from killing anymore ladys. I’m sorry that I’ve put my wife, my son, my brothers and my family through this hell. I hope that they can find a way to forgive me. I am very sorry for the Ladys that were not found. May they rest in peace. They need a better place than where I gave them. I’m sorry for killing these young Ladys. They had their whole life ahead of them. I am sorry I caused so much pain to so many families.