IN COLD BLOOD: This man brutally murdered 80 people

Serial killer Gary Ridgway jailed for 49 murders confesses to 85 to KOMO-TV

Claims he killed 85 women ... Green River killer Gary Leon Ridgway. Picture: AP

AMERICA'S most prolific serial killer, who is in jail for killing 49 women, has now confessed to a TV crew to killing 85.

Gary Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, claims he is revealing the true number of his victims to try to help bring closure to their families.
Ridgway, who murdered prostitutes and teenage runaways in King County, Washington State during the 1980s and 1990s, made the revelation in a series of telephone interviews with KOMO-TV's Charlie Harger.


Ridgway, who was arrested in 2001 through DNA evidence, avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to killing 48 women and was sentenced to 48 consecutive life terms. A 49th victim was later identified and a 49th life sentence was added in 2011.

Some of Gary Ridgway’s 49 victims ... (L-R) (top row) Denise Darcel Bush, Shawnda Leea Summers, Shirley Marie Sherrill, Colleen Renee Brockman, Alma Ann Smith; (bottom row) Delores LaVerne Williams, Gail Lynn Mathews, Andrea M Childers, Sandra Kay Gabbert and Kimi-Kai Pitsor. Picture: AP

Three of Gary Ridgways’s 49 victims ... Tracy Ann Winston, Maureen Sue Feeney and Mary Sue Bello. Picture: AP

Three further victims of Gary Ridgway ... Kimberly Nelson, Lisa Yates and Mary Exzetta West. Picture: AP

Ridgway, who was married three times, was a truck painter from Seattle. He admitted picking up prostitutes and teenage runaways, strangling them during sex and dumping their bodies in wasteland near the 105km-long Green River.
Ridgway has previously confessed to US Congressman Dave Reichert, then part of the police task force trying to solve the murders, to killing 71 women. Now he has told Harger that he murdered more.

Gary Ridgway interview with FBI agent