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Gary Ridgway Pleads Guilty to 48 Green River Murders in a Deal That Spares His Life

Answering "yes" as each name was read, the Auburn truck painter admitted more murders than any serial killer convicted in U.S. history to that time.

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Gary Ridgway in glasses and a white jail uniform in a King County courtroom, his lawyer beside him

"I killed so many women, I have a hard time keeping them straight," Gary Ridgway wrote. On November 5, 2003, in a Seattle courtroom, he pleaded guilty to murdering 48 of them.

Ridgway, 54, a truck painter from the Auburn area, entered the pleas to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder before King County Superior Court Judge Richard Jones. The lead prosecutor, Jeff Baird, read out the names, dates and places one by one, and to each Ridgway answered "yes." The list began with Wendy Coffield, Debra Bonner and Marcia Chapman, whose bodies were left in the Green River in 1982, and ended with Patricia Yellow Robe, killed in 1998. It included 42 of the 49 killings investigators had attributed to the Green River Killer and six that had never been linked to him.

In a 16-page statement read in court, Ridgway said he chose sex workers because he hated them and believed he could kill as many as he wanted without being caught. He said he killed most of the women in his home and left their bodies in "clusters" so he could keep track of them. "In most cases, when I murdered these women, I did not know their names," the statement said.

Under the agreement, signed in June, Ridgway would spend his life in prison without parole instead of facing the death penalty, in return for confessing and helping investigators find remains. King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng said his first instinct had been to refuse, but that trying Ridgway for a handful of murders would have left too many families without answers. "Gary Ridgway does not deserve mercy, and Gary Ridgway does not deserve to live," he said. On December 18, 2003, Jones sentenced him to 48 consecutive life terms.

The Seattle Times spelled the last victim's name Patricia Yellow Robe, while The Associated Press spelled it Yellowrobe.

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