INTERVIEW WITH THE WIFE OF THE GREEN RIVER KILLER

Transcribed BY Christi Punteney - Art by NICHOLAS RAIMO

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Reporter #1. Gary Ridgeway has become known as the Green River Killer.

Reporter #2. That’s right, he’s the man who terrorized the Northwest back in the 1980’s. He murdered more than 48 women, and more than oth…, more than, that’s more than any other serial killer in U.S. history. The Eye at 5’s Liz Rocca reports.

Liz: July 1982, a woman’s body is found in the Green River. Her name, Wendy Coffield. No one knew it then, but she was the first victim of a brutal serial killer. Four more women’s bodies turned up in August. They’d been strangled. Most of them worked the streets around the Sea-Tac strip. By the late 80’s, more than 50 women were either dead or missing. But the identity of their killer remained a mystery, until 2001 when DNA tied a mild mannered truck painter named Gary Ridgeway, to three Green River victims.

Gary: Pulled her back as far as I could, an…

Liz: A year and a half later, Ridgeway gave police a detailed confession. He even led investigators to the undiscovered graves of some of his victims.

Gary: Guilty

Liz: In 2003, Ridgeway pleaded guilty to 48 murders. Although it looked like the final chapter, one story remained untold. Ridgeway’s wife, Judith, who looked so stunned, so surprised the day of his arrest. After six years, she’s out of hiding and ready to tell her story.

Liz: What do you remember?

Judith: I was in shock that day when I heard someone driving up in the driveway an, PHEWWWW… it’s, I couldn’t believe it.

Gary: I did it, first time I choked, like this…

Liz: When she found out about the secret…

Gary: Pulled her back as far as I could an…

Liz: Her husband had been keeping, shock and shame drove her into hiding. She never answered the phone, she changed her name, her hair color, and appearance. She wanted to look nothing like the suburban housewife married to Gary Ridgeway, the mild mannered truck painter who turned out to be the notorious Green River Killer. A discovery both devastating…

Judith: I still can’t believe it, but it has happened.

Liz: And humiliating for Judith Ridgeway, the serial killer’s ex-wife.

Judith: Oh it was like a brick wall dropped in front of me, an, didn’t know what to do, everything stopped.

Liz: And it feels that way even today as if time is standing still, because Judith can still hear the sound of police cars coming down the driveway to deliver the news.

Judith: It’s, it’s a day I will probably never forget, a day when life as she knew it began to unravel. How could the man she adored for sixteen years, be a killer?

Judith: He was always happy, his smile never changed, none, for me.

Liz: Gary had always been a loving husband.

Judith: He made me feel like a newly-wed every day.

Liz: They met in 1985, married in 88. She moved into Gary’s modest rambler in Sea-Tac. A home where unbeknownst to her, scores of young women had been brutally murdered. From there, they moved to their dream home in Auburn. Judith describes their life as loving and content. They were surrounded by treasured pets and took many weekend trips that hold fond memories, even today.

Judith: What I miss the most is the love that I had, and our life, and, he was the best. To me anyway.

Liz: That’s why it was easy for Gary to convince her his arrest was just a case of mistaken identity.

Judith: He was reassuring me that everything would be ok, an, it was painful.

Liz: Painful in part because the pieces just didn’t fit. Gary had never raised a hand to her. Never even raised his voice. And if he was away from home he always had a logical explanation. He was working overtime at Kenworth, or attending a union meeting.

Liz: You never saw anything suspicious?

Judith: No.

Liz: Still, detectives went through the Ridgeway’s cozy home with a fine tooth comb. This never before seen video shows the aftermath of a necessary but intrusive search that sent Judith reeling. Investigators seized her jewelry and some of her clothing, convinced they could be trophies Gary took from his victims. Still, in Judith’s mind, Gary was innocent.

Judith: I was, still in just such denial.

Liz: And then a series of discoveries and photographs shattered Judith’s trust. Suddenly all the pieces that didn’t fit, began to fall into place. Judith found a stash of condoms in the couple’s garage. Detectives found more stuffed in the framework of Gary’s pickup truck. And it gets worse. They tore Judith’s car apart. The crime lab found traces of semen. Investigators told Judith, Gary had probably used her car to pick up some of his victims.

Judith: Then I felt the, the anger, that he had sex with someone else, that he, um, hurt me. That he betrayed me. He said he did not do anything with those women, but then when I found the condoms and stuff, then I, realized that he did.

Liz: But for Judith, there would be one more staggering surprise, Gary had killed four out of his forty-eight victims during the years he was with her.

Judith: Oh, I’d say well you son of a bitch, why did you do this to me? Why did you put me through all this?

Liz: And why, Judith thought, did he kill all those women?

Liz? Do you think about the women, and their family’s?

Judith: Oh yes, my heart goes out to all of the families and the victims, that, he hurt, and, I can’t even imagine their, how they, their, what they’ve been through.

Liz: And what about him? The man she believed was her Price Charming. Judith refuses to visit Gary in prison, she won’t take his calls, and she told him to stop writing letters, but her heart is still conflicted.

Liz: Do you love him?

Judith: Now? I love the man I knew, and I hate the man that took him away.

Liz: For the Eye at 5, I’m Liz Rocca in Seattle.

Reporter #1: And Judith now believes that there were two distinct, different Gary’s. Is she happy that he escaped the death penalty? Well, believe it or not, she says no. She believes he deserved to die for killing all those young women and girls.