"I Just Wanted Her to Stop": Gary Ridgway on His Mother, 2003 Interview Tape

Name: "I Just Wanted Her to Stop": Gary Ridgway on His Mother, 2003 Interview Tape
Uploaded: 2013-12-16
Duration: 14 min 50 s
Description: Fifteen minutes of unedited 2003 tape in which a questioner presses the Green River Killer on his anger at his mother, his fantasies about her, and the violence of his boyhood.

Fifteen minutes of unedited 2003 tape in which a questioner presses the Green River Killer on his anger at his mother, his fantasies about her, and the violence of his boyhood.

Subject: Gary Ridgway
Recorded: 2003
Runtime: 14:50

Content warning: Ridgway describes sexual fantasies about his mother and fantasies of killing her ("cut her throat"), stabbing a child, and killing and hurting animals.

The Interview

In 2003, while Gary Ridgway was answering investigators' questions under the agreement that spared him the death penalty, he was also questioned at length about his early life. In this unedited tape, a questioner who is not named presses him on his anger at his mother, what he imagined doing to her, the violence of his boyhood, and the sexual fantasies about her that he says began in his early teens. Ridgway answers slowly, often hesitating. The tape begins in the middle of an answer and ends in the middle of another, so it is an excerpt of a longer session.

Historical Context

From 1982 the bodies of young women, many of them sex workers or runaways from the Pacific Highway South "Strip" near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, were found along the Green River and in wooded areas of King County, Washington. Ridgway, a truck painter, was arrested on November 30, 2001. In 2003 he agreed to plead guilty and to help investigators find remains in exchange for his life. The plea agreement was signed on June 13, 2003; his cooperation lasted about six months, and the sessions were videotaped. On November 5, 2003, he pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder, and on December 18, 2003, he was sentenced to 48 consecutive life terms without parole. He pleaded guilty to a 49th murder in 2011.

Circumstances of the Interview

Most of the 2003 sessions were conducted by detectives of the Green River Task Force. The tapes King County released also included sessions with a forensic psychologist. The questioner on this tape asks about feelings and fantasies rather than about crimes and body sites, and says this is "one of the things we're looking to get a better understanding of", which fits such a session; who the questioner was is not stated and is not confirmed. A reference to "yesterday" shows that the subject had been discussed in an earlier session. The tapes were released by King County prosecutors beginning in 2004.

What the Interview Covers

Ridgway says that from about the fourth grade he was angry at his mother for "pushing and pushing and pushing on me to, to remember", and that he "just wanted her to stop". Pressed, he says he thought about killing her, with his hands or a knife, and, asked what he would do with the knife, answers "Cut her throat." He says that instead he took his anger out on "other things": he describes killing birds and a cat, shooting at dogs, throwing rocks at his brother and breaking windows, and says, "I stabbed a kid one time", a boy near Chinook, where he went to school, who survived. He places the stabbing in the sixth or seventh grade. He says his parents argued over sending him to a special school, and that his father was rarely home. He then describes, in explicit terms, sexual fantasies about his mother from the age of 14 or 15, when he watched her sunbathing in the backyard. Asked how the hatred and the fantasies fit together, he describes her as two people: "a sex object" in the backyard and the mother he hated when she tried to teach him to read.

What Makes the Recording Significant

Ridgway did not stand trial, and his taped sessions are the main record of his account in his own words. Most of the excerpts that were broadcast concern the murders and the search for remains. This tape records, at length and unedited, his own account of his childhood and of the anger and fantasies centred on his mother, material the press summarised in 2004 (CBS reported that he "acknowledged having problems with women, beginning with his mother").

Archival Importance

The tape preserves the questioning itself, not a broadcaster's selection from it: the questions, the pauses and the answers as they came.

Important Caveats

Everything Ridgway says here about his childhood, his mother and his own feelings is his own account and was not tested on the tape. He places the stabbing of the boy in "sixth grade ... I think it was seventh grade"; documented accounts say he was about 16 when he stabbed a six-year-old boy, who survived. The boy is not named in the recording and should not be named. His mother is not named on the tape. The questioner's identity, the session date and the copy the uploader used are unknown. Several passages are indistinct and are marked in the transcript. The uploader's title, "Interview", gives no date or source.

Gary Ridgway: I didn't really think I had an urge to kill her. I just wanted her to stop, and, um...

Interviewer: What did you want to do to her?

Gary Ridgway: What did I want to do to her? Uh, just to have her stop, and, uh...

Interviewer: But how would you do it? What did you think in your head about how you would do it? That's, that's what we're trying to get at. When did you first think about treating your mom violently to get what you wanted her to do?

Gary Ridgway: Probably in fourth grade.

Interviewer: Okay, there we go.

Gary Ridgway: Fourth, fourth, fourth, fifth and the sixth was probably about that grade.

Interviewer: And what, what was in your mind that you wanted to do to get her to treat you a certain way? What did you want to do to your mom here?

Gary Ridgway: Uh, I wanted to, to, um, stop, um, being angry at me for not knowing how to, uh...

Interviewer: But she wasn't stopping. No, she wasn't stopping, was she?

Gary Ridgway: No.

Interviewer: She kept picking at you, she, belittling you [Ridgway: Mm-hm.], embarrassing you. I mean, that was pretty clear from yesterday.

Gary Ridgway: Mm-hm. That happened in school too, so I had...

Interviewer: So what did, what was your way of retaliating against her in your mind? What, what were you thinking to do to your mom?

Gary Ridgway: Um, [unclear: "I don't know if I was thinking of, uh, hurting" / "I was thinking of hurting her"], or I just wanted her to stop and, um, let me, let me alone. Um, [unclear: "angry, uh, her" / "I was angry at her"] for, uh, pushing and pushing and pushing on me to, to remember, and I just, just couldn't remember, and I just wanted her to stop. Uh, but she didn't. But [unclear: "she" / "you"] didn't know. She didn't stop.

Interviewer: So somewhere in the fourth or fifth grade, that sense of helplessness that you had, not being able to get her to stop [Ridgway: Mm-hm.], would very likely have produced thoughts of taking back some power and control over your mom to get the bitch to shut up. I mean, I'm sorry, but Gary, that's what we hear. And that's, one of the things we're looking to get a better understanding of.

Gary Ridgway: During that thing, I usually took it out on, uh, uh, uh, other things instead of hurting her. Um...

Interviewer: Living things?

Gary Ridgway: Living things, killing, killing animals.

Interviewer: Okay.

Gary Ridgway: Killing animals. Um, I stabbed a kid one time.

Interviewer: Okay.

Gary Ridgway: Stabbed a kid with a knife.

Interviewer: Tell me about that.

Gary Ridgway: Um, down by, uh, Chinook, where I used to go to school. And, um, boy was playing, I stabbed him [unclear: "inside" / "in the side"], and didn't kill him. Um, was about sixth grade, I think it was seventh grade. And I, I, um [inaudible]... That was the same time I was, you know, breaking out windows, throwing, throwing rocks at windows, [unclear: "interested now, but that's" / "at a school. How did you stand down?"], but I took my aggression on... I couldn't take it on my mom. I had to take it on my animals [unclear: "and" / "and any kids"].

Interviewer: How many animals did you kill?

Gary Ridgway: I killed a lot of birds, but, uh, one cat suffocated in a, a [unclear: "nice chest" / "his chest"; probably "ice chest"]. [Interviewer: Mm-hm.] And, um, shot, uh, [unclear: "babies"; probably "BBs"] at, uh, dogs, to hurt them, and, um, threw, um, threw rocks at my brother about that time. I think I was [unclear: "getting out of that" / "beating out of that"], though.

Interviewer: You couldn't take your aggression down on your mom.

Gary Ridgway: No, I couldn't.

Interviewer: But you could think about it.

Gary Ridgway: I could think about it.

Interviewer: And what'd you think?

Gary Ridgway: I thought about hurting her, uh, so she'd shut up and, uh, leave me alone.

Interviewer: And then how did you think about hurting your mom?

Gary Ridgway: Killing her.

Interviewer: And how would you do that?

Gary Ridgway: I thought, uh, with my hands, or, uh, I didn't have no guns or anything, or so I didn't, it hadn't been, uh, hands or a, um...

Interviewer: And then after she was dead, what were you going to do in your head?

Gary Ridgway: In my head, I, uh, I don't know what I would do. I just, just, um, just wanted her to stop. One time there, they were going to put me in a, a special school. I didn't want that. My dad and my mom were arguing about it all the time. And it was, uh, for r----- people, and I didn't, [unclear: "I didn't been r-----, I think" / "I didn't r-----, I don't think"]. So I was mad at them for wanting to put me away from other kids, and [unclear: "wanting to hurt her" / "wanting to get rid of them"], and, uh, hurt her bad.

Interviewer: What does that mean, hurt her bad? Help me to understand that.

Gary Ridgway: Just [unclear: "be drip"] so she wouldn't, [unclear: "leave me alone"].

Interviewer: And how would you do that in your head?

Gary Ridgway: My hands. [unclear: "Be, be ding with my hands"]. Uh, [unclear: "maybe use a knife" / "I could use a knife"].

Interviewer: What would you do with the knife?

Gary Ridgway: I'd probably stab her with it. Um, she was a, the big problem I had. I mean, there was, um... My dad wasn't around that much. He was working all the time, and she was [unclear: "on one of was control" / "one of us in control"; perhaps "the one in control"], and she was constantly trying to get me to, uh, do better in school, and, and, uh, I just couldn't do better. I wanted to have her stop, and the only way was to, to kill her, to hurt her bad.

Interviewer: But help me explain, help me understand the knife.

Gary Ridgway: Well, knives are in the drawer, that would be... I use a knife on that, [unclear: "stabbed" / "stamp"] that boy, and use, use a knife on her if I wanted to. [unclear: "It's a way of killing" / "We'd kill him"].

Interviewer: Okay. Walk me through what you were going to do with the knife in your head to your mother.

Gary Ridgway: Cut her throat. [unclear: "So she" / "She"] wouldn't, wouldn't, uh, stop, um, uh, degrading me, and, uh, and putting me in, uh... I, I, I couldn't remember things, and that was the only way I could think of hurting her to get her to stop.

Interviewer: When, when did you think about having sex with your mother?

Gary Ridgway: When, um, 14 or 15, I think.

Interviewer: Tell me about that. It's about the same time frame. (speaker uncertain for the second sentence)

Gary Ridgway: Mm-hm. I, I'd see her out, uh, sunbathing, and, uh, I feel that she, you know, [unclear: "to be good" / "she'd be good"] to have, have sex with, but she, she's my mother, and I [unclear: "never know, never, uh, never really, woman in, in my life other than" / "did her, you know, different, uh, never really, she's the only woman in my life, I just"], you know, [unclear: "neighbor one girls" / "neighborhood girls"], but, uh, so, she... [unclear: "get" / "I'd get"], uh, fantasies of having sex with her, and, and, uh, wanting, wanting to, but being restricted on that part.

Interviewer: Explain to me fantasies and restricted on that part.

Gary Ridgway: Well, because if she's my mother, it's not right for having sex with your mother. And she, she was, she was always in, in, uh, two pieces, and, and, uh, and she'd come off work, she'd go in the backyard, so [unclear: "was a, he was inviting" / "it was inviting"] to fantasize with her. She was there sunbathing and tan, and, uh, it was, it was a, uh, something to really, uh, [unclear: "treat me" / "intrigued me"], as all women like this, um, they're, they're different, and they, uh, [unclear: "brows me" / "roused me"; perhaps "arouse me"] to, I get a, a hard-on sometimes. [Interviewer: Mm-hm.] And it was, it was the only time, I had [unclear: "an opted sex" / "an opposite sex"] in class, everybody's clothes and stuff like that. This was a woman [unclear: "was" / "that was"] sometimes, you know, laying down with no, no bra on [unclear: "him"], you, you couldn't see anything but bare skin. And, uh, it was, it was a, it was a turn-on [unclear: "on the way" / "in the way"], and I enjoyed looking out the window at [unclear: "when" / "her while"] she wasn't watching.

Interviewer: Did your mom enjoy that?

Gary Ridgway: She wouldn't even know I was there, no. She was down just doing, just sunbathing, and then she turned over, and before she turned over she always fastened her bra and turned over, and maybe a little bit up here, show, because she [unclear: "no tan marks" / "had no tan marks"]. And I, uh, I stared and looked out all the time.

Interviewer: And had your fantasies?

Gary Ridgway: I had a fantasy, yes.

Interviewer: Makes sense to me. Makes sense that you would have a fantasy. [Ridgway: Mm-hm.] [unclear: "Need to have you tell me what that, at that, what that was" / "Have you told me what that was?"]

Gary Ridgway: Just a fantasy of wanting to have sex, touch her, feel her body, um, have her show me how to have sex, um, 'cause mother's teaching a lot of things, you know. It's just, it's just a fantasy. [unclear: "Something she wouldn't do" / "Sometimes she wouldn't do it"], but it's...

Interviewer: What would, in your fantasy, what would your mom have you do to her?

Gary Ridgway: Have me do to her? Uh, my fantasy would be to, uh, and explore, to, uh, find the different things [unclear: "what woman has, girls have" / "which a woman has, a girl's half"] that guys don't have. Show me how to have sex, good sex, uh, what, you know, what, what the woman wants, uh, feel every bit of her body to, to enjoy a, a woman and have sex with her.

Interviewer: But at the same time in your life, and listen carefully to this, um, at the same time in your life, you also hate your mom for what she's doing to you.

Gary Ridgway: Yes.

Interviewer: So how are those thoughts and fantasies colliding together? 'Cause we know that that happens. [Ridgway: Mm-hm.] Um, how are they colliding together in your head?

Gary Ridgway: In, colliding together in my head, when there, when she was just laying down there, she wasn't, she was more of a sex object than a, than a mother, and more of the fantasies of having sex with her and [unclear: "nothing to have to kill her" / "nothing to have and to kill her"]. Two different, uh, things. When she was always [unclear: "Dr jec repli" / "Dr. Jekyll Hyland"; probably "Dr. Jekyll and Hyde"]. When she's down there, she's a sex fantasy, sex object. When she's up there, uh, trying to get me to read, and she's, uh, uh, the other side of, uh, something, something I hated. I loved the part of her being a sex object, but I didn't like the part of her being the mother and, uh, [unclear: "brooken with me" / "working with me"], is trying to help me in reading, and, and I like the sex part better than I like the, the mother that was always trying to hurt, uh, [unclear: "be little mean" / "be a little mean"; perhaps "belittle me"], and, uh, 'cause I wasn't, uh, I wasn't, uh, I wasn't learning. [Recording ends, mid-answer, at 14:50] ---