Escalation Toward Serial Murder

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That's when the cannibalism started It was thered He you we go Be T trying to get into the Gary Ridgeway headspace, I put a plastic bag over my head a while this morning to kill off some of those extra pesky brain cells. you know, I was just trying to get good guy g kill the bitch. I'm just like that's the way to get into Gary Ridgeway. You kill the bitch, you can kill the bitch. This because that's one of his favorite saying. See what this yeah,'s catch phrase. Y. Yeah. I didn't wantan to get too crazy and violent with it, so I just did a really bad job of painting a truck Welcome the last podcast ofve, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with metethod actor Henry Zabrowski. I'm gonna go because he reminds me a little bit of the What's his name? F South Park. Oh, Tammy Timy Timyy. Jimmy. Jimy. Jmy. Yeah . Yeah. He's got those little eyes, d. He's got those little blinky little rat eyes. The beatiest eyes msterial Kill. He has that He has the Arthur Shawcross tell. Yeah, where when they're saying when they're talking about things that particularly make them horny, they get real blinky. Yeah Yeah and we have the man who doesn't get blinky at all when he gets harny, as far as I know, it's Ed Larson. Yeah, no I don't think I just shut him and go to sleep. See my eyes are wide open. one long blink. I want to see. Today we have A redo We have a second pass It's yet another look at a serial killer that we covered long ago. todayoday we start our journey on Gary Ridgeway. I've brought this up before and I once did one of those like horrible tests like which serial killer are you and I got Green Rver killer Yeah, you know what I can see it. Okay, yeah, you your blue collar. Yeah. what I need to do is go I gota kill it She's a bitch. I gotta kill. I like the woods. He does love the woods. He does, He does. amongst many other things, he does love the woods. I was just in Renton which is next to seea Tac. Oh yeah. I was just there and we had a nice place on the right on the right on the Lake Washington there and I walked through the woods and It's nice. You see why it would get you horny. It's real quiet and private too, right? Oh, absolutely. I was smoking all kinds of weed. No. It's great. But the reason why we're doing this redux is because, you know, when we were when we did this series back in the day, we had kind of like it was we're still in the research figuring out what were was Very I mean, this is back when it's like at that point, I was still on like six podcasts a week and also editing all of them and producing all of them. So like I was basically like looking at Wikipedia pages and like checking out like a couple of like murder media pages and trying to put shit together, not sleeping much and working like ninety hours a week It was insane. So it was, let's say, a bad job but it was fun to do, but at the same time, we did not because normally it's like the opposite. Normally when we do the old episodes, we got into the really graphic shit and we didn't get to all the other like context and stuff where this time, it's so wonderful to know that when we got back into it, the information's actually way more fucked up than we even ever thought in the beginning. And that's great for us. Yeah. Now from I watched the documentary on HBO Max yesterday and obviously I read the script in prep today He seems like he might be the worst love fest en of. He's up there. he's definitely as far as body count goes, he's one of the most prolific in American history. Samuel a little beat him though. by a lot. So he is but he is definitely in that area of like amongst the worst. And you know how I described them style He's simple. Yeah. right You know what I mean He's the bunter That's this is all that's on base. This is moving guys around bases. Yeah Mving sex workers to various shalls.s an RBI guy, not a home runun. Exactly.. So as we said, many years ago, we attempted an episode on Gary Ridgeway. And while we did the best we could with the resources we had at the time We realized after looking at this story again that we didn't really capture the full picture, especially considering how new information has come to light that might actually explain the mystery of Gary Ridgegway. See last time, we described Gary Ridgegway as a man who was really only good at one thing. He was a dullard, but he also managed to evade police for decades as one of the most prolific serial killers in American history despite the efforts of a massive task force. In fact, before the advent of DNA testing, the so called Green River Killer case, as Gary Ridgeway's murders are known was shaping up to be yet another unsolved serial killer mystery, like the Zodiac or Jack the Ripper The biggest difference between those cases in Green River is the sheer volume of victims. While Jack and the Zodiac only got five each, Gary Ridgeway murdered at least forty five women between nineteen eighty two and nineteen eighty four alone, twoo fucking years. And that doesn't even count the women he murdered afterward And the women he possibly murdered before. And we've talked about this before with these types of serial killers. There's always the ones in which they killed way less than they said that they did and they're doing it for attention. And then there's the ones that might have killed way more. And Gary Ridgeway is firmly in the camp of might have killed way more Yeah because he even he said I don' rem I don't remember heck of that. I kinda go in a different direction of my mind. and then he just like starts thinking about it in a way where like he goes off into a fantasy world and he doesn't even remember. And then he starts being, I don't know whether or not that was a dream. or that was that a fantasy. And he's just like he was thinking about killing for so long. that he also doesn't remember what was the ones he actually did and what were just a walking fug state fantasy he was in. Yeah, You know, what's interesting is like sometimes like I bet when I was younger It's catching. It's catching. When I was younger, I remember I used to get in a lot of fights. and I remember one fight, my biggest fight I don't remember it Yeah likeike I want to like a fewu state and so like they kind of makes I feel like violence extreme violence can bring on It's just you not knowing what's going on. It's not violence, it's anger Because I bet that during that fight, you were probably the angriest you have ever been in your entire life. I guess, I don't even remember. That was perfectly fine afterwards And it's the power of man. So Gary Ridgeway would pick up sex workers from the areas around the CTC International Airport and the Interstate five Corridor ended as if it was going to be a normal transaction, then he would strangle women to death before dumping the bodies in isolated wooded areas around the Seattle Tacoma region Gary was able to do this. dozens of times, because the area in which Gary obtained and disposed of victims was almost tailor made for a serial killer. Thanks God I did that. God and man. You were God and man working together. Yeah, there's a reason I think Bigfoot's in those fucking hills. Yeah But during the years Ridgeway was active, the corridor where you'd find CTAac airport between Seattle and Tacoma was known as the Strip The strip was essentially a sex buffet of lost women plying their trade on two lane highways and logging roads, which was all prior to CTax and Corporation as the city, surrounded by wilderness So all Ridgeway had to do was find a place where he could murder someone out of sight and once the deed was done, he was spoiled for choice as to where he wanted to dump the body. Now, had Bridgeway buried his victims instead of just rolling them into ditches or leaving them out in the open, the Pacific Northwest likely wouldn't have even known there was a serial killer on the loose, because his victims were all sex workers whose disappearances likely wouldn't have been investigated. Well, they would have known there was a serial killer on the loooose because as we'll get into in the next episode There are about four to six serial killers operating at the same time as Gary Ridgeway in this area. Really? I also truly think the key to Gary's successes was simplicity. I think if we're adding you didn't get all fancy with it. No, no, no. I think we'reing steps. Hold trophies or anything like that, right? No, no, well he did he did bad horrific things But he did it in the old fashioned way by letting it just sit out. You know, like he was not digging holes. If he was digging holes, we might have actually ced a lot more evidence than he wanted to because he's a fucking moron. He might have him But after looking at Ridgeway again, there really is so much more to his story than just a guy with an AQ of eighty two, a grudge against women and a Bible to clutch whenever he needed justification for his actions. Be that was last time when we did it, like we went really hard on the missionary killer angle. that you know he did it because he believed that the sex workers deserved it that he was getting them that he was wiping the earth clean of these sinful ladies. It's a lot more complicated than that. That's way too simplistic. Oh, it's way more complicated than that because he has this push and pull with them. You even hear now now that I've watched chunks of the confonfessions can see it, he had that sort of like the only ones to get me. but also they must be killed. They must got to kill the bitches because he's like he can't handle the fact that they're the only ones giving him any form of affection at the time M And then he got married three times. Three times. It's easy, guys. I would push back on him not getting any affection. Oh Gry Ridgeway was never, ever, ever without a girlfriend or a wife. Ladies love Gary. He was fine for a trailer park. He looked al right. Yeah What You looks fine. He looks like a shop teacher. Y stories LoL Gmail dot comot please answer alady. I said fine. Yeah exc gu past. Well What we missed last time was that Ridgeway exhibited a wide range of serial killer behaviors that we saw in many of the most infamous mass murderers of the late twentieth century He somewhat attempted to be a kind of BTK or zodiac by writing near unintelligible letters to the press and police, and he committed necrophilia multiple times throughout his most active period In other words, he exhibited far more complicated behavior than what we had originally covered. Thank you. People said would I do get it since I see it. Earlier you shortened Jack to ripper to Jack, and I've never heard anyone do that before. Yeah Oh know I mean you can call him saucy Jack. No But I think Zodiac killer, I will Zodi. Z Zodi Zod. od' t like to fuck up. He's got the best Z! She's got the shot of the kn today, Zod. We never sh. big enough flare But the question people always have about these guys is why they did what they did. And while the easy answer is they do it because it makes them feel good, the real question is How does a mind that gets pleasure from murder develop And why the fuck were there so many of them during the seventies, eighties and nineties Where do they all go? Well, now that we're decades past these crimes, and we can take a larger view of the twentieth century, I mean, the twentieth century is twentyenty six years ago at this point We might finally have an answer here, something far more definitive and proable beyond the soul theory that leaded gasoline ruined the brains of the boomer generation. But it is going to take us three full episodes to explain it And now that we got a whole team working on this weekly grind of ours, we can finally tell the story of the Green River Killer the way it was meant to be told. Through Pantomime. You can't hear it. You can't hear it. It's hard. Just imagine Yeah D describing it. if good. Yeah Henry is choking his hands now he's's crying while he does it. and hey, that's it. you know, Yeahah, no stabs or nothing. No, no, he did all chokes. Yeah. I think that there has been a major calm down in this type of stuff because of DNA testing I think that people just get caught way earlier. It's part that is part of it. It is definitely a part of it, but it's not are just as evil now as they were back then. But the phenomena might have changed to more Effective attention seeking. because I think a lot of serial killing does also involve attention seeking. And now it's much easier because you could just get all you need to get a military grade rifle and bring it to a public square and squeeze off a bunch of shots and then you immediately get all the attention you grave. Yeah, now you just do it all at once. Yeah.. And I mean there are other things besides DNA testing's also Social media people are it's noticed when people go missing Rike you faster. Yeah, like things like that. So yeah, people do get caught earlier, but the don't run away anymore. They they need to stay in their homes now. Yeah. because kids are they don't don't have any functional skills. so they don't go hang out at the train yards anymore. Sure're all playing video games Yeah. you miss the days when kidsan away. Now the scariest place to be was on rooblox. But the other thing is is that the seventies, eighties, and nineties, like the one on one crime, like just general all around crime, that is way, way, way down. Yeah It's still way I mean, there's still just as many lost people around that you can prey on today as there were back then. In fact, there are more. there are far more people in this country now than there were back then. But there are reasons why things have calmed down so much and why crime is at its lowest Yeah. Also like I feel like back in the day you would get into a fist fight, a cop would catch you like all right, boys, break it up. goo home, walk it off. now you're like everyone just goes to jail. Y it was also back in the day not the children weren't ar And I think they used to just fight each other and then they wouldn't go back and get guns and then come back and finish the jobs. Yeah. Maybe so maybe no. We'll see We'll say I mean, but that's think we're going to get more into that in the coming episodes. Okay. But before we get to the story of Gary Ridgeway, let's acknowledge our sources. First, we've got the classic Green River Run and Red by Anne Rul. It is eight hundred pagesow. That's a big one. Yeah. Eroold. She's the same one who you know wrote the definitive book on Ted Bundy famous Jue grimm aut Then we've got the source for the juicy stuff, which was found in Gary Ridgeway, The Green River Killer by James Richmond. And finally, we got the new kid on the block, Murderland by Caroline Fraasier. This book was released just last year, and for me it really is the final word on why and how the seventies, eighties, and nineties will forever be known in the annals of true crime history era of the serial killer So without further ado, let's get into the story of Gary Ridgeway, AKA, the Green River killer. Pary P p Sary. So Gary Leon Ridgeway. cool name. Yeah, Gary Leon. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. He was born in February of nineteen forty nine in Salt Lake City to Mary Rita and Thomas Ridgeway two people hold the distinction of being one of those rare double shots of horrible serial killer parents because both of them absolutely contributed to the horrific mindset that enabled Gary to do what he eventually did. Usually it's just one, but this time, boom bar And that's how we get the number one killer in America next to Samuel Littleittle who, you know, again, I feel like he didn't count enough because he didn't really he wasn't proud.. Gary was proud. Yeah Now Gary grew up as the middle child in a struggling family that grew their own food and searched junkyards for useful scrap that could be fixed up and sold. It was a family trait that Gary would carry throughout the rest of his life as a free man. It was a practice he called fandon treasures. I' by because get all this new stuff. It's crazy get own stuff Let's go to resue, compete, go to pooping It's treasure to be. You guys do like this? You do this? Are there scrap families? Scrap Absolutely. Yeah. Wow, yeah, yeah. ye, they're very popular still to this day. Yeah, my family was we were like firmly middle class. We still love going to the dump. It's great, wow. Yeah You know they still c the copper wiring? You know, it's got a lot of copper wiring. What Danison Let's go! N to run. So after a short lived and failed attempt at running a bar together, Mary Rita Ridgeway settled temporarily into the role of a housewife while Gary's father, Thomas, worked construction and a few stints as a truck driver. One job had late hours, while the other required Thomas to be gone for days at a time. Once, when Mary Rita was home alone, Gary's little brother Eddie got sick The ridgeways had no money, so Mary Rita took littleittle Eddie out into the snow bank to bring his fever down The kids did survive, but Little Eddie came away with permanent brain damage owing to Marary Rita's attempts at a folk remedy. Like he was Conan's sword just held him by his ankles and dipped him into the snow. little Tang holds. Little Eddie, however, was not the only person with developmental problems in the family Gary Ridgeway himself was always described as slow Besides being dyslexic, it took him a long time to memorize anything. And when he did, his recall was still full of gaps Gary couldn't remember the names of his own pets, couldouldn't remember the names of his fellow children. socks, scraps dusty spookers. You can't get out of here. I'm try to go into the bathroom. He was considered such a lost cause from a young age that teachers would routinely sit him in the b back of the class just so he wouldn't bother the other children so they wouldn't have to pay attention. They could just forget about it. Shut up Gary. The kids with the future are trying to learn Gary. be burn to school then. A slow intellect, however, wasn't Gary's only childhood problem. Oh no. Gary Ridgway was a bedwetater, which only added to the annoyance that his mother, Mary Rita felt towards him for being slow Can we change the distinction here because some people bed Scary Ridgeway was a bed soaker Yeah, yeah. he was There's a different There's a distinct difference in Bed Pe. He's the Michael Phelps Yeah of Bed Peepe. Yeah, he was a water bed filler upper. Yeah. some people are seventy percent liquid. Gary Ridgeway as a child was like eighty three percent liquid. Yeah, he's like in that first X Men movie where the guy tried the senator turns into water like that That's him But Gary also had severe allergies and a constant runny nose, which he always wiped with his shirt sleeve. His eyes would swell and tears would constantly run down his face, which earned him the nickname Cry Baby amongst his fellow children. That of course, was in addition to the bullying he got just for being slow By the age of eight, Gary remembered being always sad, always angry because there was just so many things wrong with them, littleittle things, but they added up Out of the three Ridgeway boys, Gary had two brothers, Gary became the primary target for his parents' anger and punishment. It's like the Goldilocks scenario. Yeah ye, but for punishing your child. Gary's younger brother, Eddie, he had the brain damage. So he got pity from Gary's mother and her own guilt about the fever Often got Little Eddie a pass Gary's older brother, Greg was intelligent and handsome. So his parents were constantly asking, why can't you be more like your brother, Greg, Gary? Why can't you be more like Greg? That's myself every day by mean That's myself every day, I wish I could be more like And it'd be kind of nice if you could maybe put my head on I should a little bit maybe just something make me a studum and they give me Eddie because he seem everybody likes him more. Well, there's a Greg Ridgeway, who's a professor of crriminology. It's not the same guy, but I find it interesting. It is interesting. Wow guy who runs a hamburger joint name Hey My name's mister Cheeseburger. All That's the whole name. It's my wife Buns. So to make matters even worse, Gary's family moved frequently, so Gary never had time to make friends. Wherever the Ridgeway family went, the bullies found Gary, but Gary had no refuge at home either His father would actually get angry at Gary instead of the bullies every time Gary got the shitbeat out of him Now because he was slow and because the family moved around so much, Gary got held back in grade in elementary school and it wasn't the last time that this would happen to Gary. But when Gary learned that he was going to have to repeat a grade, something snapped Because the kids had nothing but hatred for him and his parents had nothing but disappointment. In fact, Mary Rita came to believe that Gary was just lying about not being able to read. I wish I honestly could be this would be truly be the funniest breinkable t, but it's not, you know, I can't read. I don't know how to read M And so, Gary's legendary anger, the anger that would be unleashed upon the Pacific Northwest of the nineteen eighties began to manifest itself physically After learning that he was gonna to be held back, Gary walked to his school and smashed out several windows by throwing rocks. me, I', I can't go back to eighth grade. I'm just gonna throw a rocks pile of rocks here throw these rocks in there. This is like second grade. Scond, third grade, it's around there I went to a school where our classes were, you know, between ten and fifteen kids really small. and man at the start of every school year, It was always the kids who got held back because every year you'd get a kid added to your class and you'd lose a kid. Yeah. And those were always the bullies. They were always the angriest kids. they were also older and bigger than everybody. F older, far bigger. Oh yeah, the kid who broke my collarbone. He was the one who spiked me. He'd been held back twice, I think, by that point. I made him very strong. He was very strong. incredibly strong I think he's dead now. Yeah. there was a guy who straight up like shot someone in the head in his front yard and he was like twenty my high school. Yeah. Yeah He's just like he's smoking with the security officers podcasting the L is all about the facts. So when Southern New Hampshire University came on as a sponsor, it was time to do some research It Turns out they offer more than two hundred online degree programs, and get this, criminal justice and psychology are some of the most popular Classes have no set meeting dimes and tuition rates are some of the lowest in the US Want to learn even more about SN HU Visit snHu. edu slash last. This is a paid ad by Betterhelp. You know, stigma shows up in a lot of different places. 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God bless you please Godood blessing you Experience greater peace of mind with SimpllySe, now available with an exclusive discount for our listeners. Right now you can get fifty percent off of your new system by visiting simpllySe d. com slash loTl That's half off at simlyafe d. com slash LPOTL There's no sayfe Like simply safe. L from your brain A aroundround the same time that Gary was being held back, Gary also started experimenting with fire. In second grade, he started playing with matches and eventually set his own garage ablaze He became terrified and ran away while a neighbor called nine hundred eleven. And even though he assumes his parents beat him for starting the fire, he said he doesn't remember, his experimentation with fire didn't stop He just learned to do it elsewhere so we wouldn't get caught. So starting in the second grade, Gary started setting fires in garages around his neighborhood before running away when he heard sirens to hide until it got dark enough to safely sneak back home crazy. know there's this demented second grader, seven year old running around your neighborhood An open garage running inside setting on fire. Yeah, dude, I feel like that's how it goblin loose. Yeah is the goblin loose. and that's why I I think you have full Imunity clonk a little child in the head that's doing that. Like if you're setnd things on fire and setting structures on fire, I think you can get one clk From a stick. H dad tried. I know. You know what I'd say? I wouldn't say a clunk in the head because that can cause permanent damage ick him in the stomach. Oh, ye. go kick in the ass. you daddy. You can tie him up, throw them in the swimming pool. Yeah, That' be fun. God, theseese are all great to you when you a child. But besides the bed wedding and the arson. Besides that Gary also had a streak of animal cruelty. When he got older, he found that he enjoyed herding things, starting with the birds that he would shoot with his BB gun. Gary found that when the birds hit the ground dead It made him laugh Another time in a moment of frustration, Gary took one of his own pet cats and suffocated it by throwing it in the cooler and shutting the lid And so, that brings us back to the infamous McDonald tririad, which for years was used to identify serial killers See, it was widely believed, specifically after true crime got so popular in the twenty thousand ten s that if someone wet the bed beyond the age of five, started fires and engaged in animal cruelty as a child, it was a good indicator that they would become a serial killer as an adult But while the McDonald tririad has since been discredited or at least criticized, I got curious about the triad's origins when it all came back with Gary Ridgeway, and I got curious as to why people no longer use it as an indicator that someone might be a serial killer. Thatcauseuse lots of people do it. it's not that uncommon. It It's really not. I mean, I'm glad it's not that common. Yeah. but it's not uncommon enough that it's just tied to serial killer. I know. But you're a boy fiire cool stepping on a lizard's cool Yeah You get over it pretty fast. I know that I anyime curious about doing something weird to an animal and stuff like the second anythingything felt like bad. I was like,, you know, like my brain would be like, no, I wasn't into it. I always saw I always saw that as a once you made the jump from like cold blooded to warm blooded. That's when you like really, that's when the evil really starts. A that' actually actually that is the that is the line. Yeah strangely enough. I never crossed that line myself, but ye Frogs beware. I mean, frogs are different. A frog is different than like a cororgi. Yeah. It's a big difference. Well, the McDonald triad came from a six page paper called Threat to Kill by a forensic psychiatrist named John McDonald, published in nineteen sixty three McDonald was studying violent psychiatric patients and noticed that bedwedting, beyond the age of five, compulsive fire starting and animal cruelty, appeared in many of the children on these psychiatric wards. MacDonald, however, never explicitly said that his triad of bedwetting, fire starting, and animal cruelty in children led them to become serial killers as adults. It actually didn't even lead them necessarily to become violent as adults. In fact, McDonald only used a sample of one hundred patients, and none of the people he studied for the paper had actually committed violence. They'd only threatened it, hence his title threat to kill pioneers of behavioral science, the FBI, profilers Robert Ressler, Anne Burgess, and John Douglas, whose story was loosely adapted for the Netflix show Mind Hunter, they combined Threat to Kill with a book McDonald had written in nineteen sixty called The Murderer and His Victims. They then ran with the so called McDonald Triad in a direction that even McDonald himself didn't expect all in an attempt to try and solve the why of serial killers. When serial killers began to be a they were started to acknowledge it. the the main issue is as always we see is that they want structural fix that works every time.. So they'll give you money, right? Be even the guys in within these like the FBI and all this stuff, they have to like pitch their own inner projects up the channel. So it's like stuff like this, they put together this like McDonald Triad like all like look, this is how we'll find serial killers and stop them. It was just it was a part of a, you know, a massive thing And then all everybody jumped on it because like, oh good, then we can fix serial killers. And it's just like, o well let's hold on a second. Yeah After the McDonald Triad was introduced into the cultural zeitgeist by the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, it became almost a comfort to a lot of laype. It was a path towards maybe explaining the act of serial killing, which to most people is something that seems utterly unexplainable. But in twenty eighteen, authors Charlotte Parfitt and Emma Ailen they looked at the McDonald Triad with fresh eyes and found that while the triad is not necessarily a predictor for future serial killing or even violent behavior, it is most definitely a sign of childhood abuse And as we know While not all serial killers have childhood abuse, the vast majority do have absolutely horrendous childhoods. So we can forgive the BSU for jumping the gun a bit on the McDonald Triad This revelation was actually a fucking it was a great relief to me personally because I absolutely hit every single point of the McDonald triout as a child. I wet the bed beyond the age of five. I can admit it now. as a forty three year old man. I was absolutely obsessed with fire. and although I'm not proud of it, I dabbled in animal cruelty with various local amphibians cruel and increasingly bizarre ways. Yeah. that disturb memories that disturb me today., but it's good that they disturb you. Yes, mee too. You know, you know, Thai a lizard or a bottle rocket, you know you know, shit like that, you know, was boys having fun. See I was always with girls. Yeah never did that. We played animals. Yeah. where we'd act like different animals That's a fun. I did that game, but it was always in a pool. I was always a dolphin and I lost Well I you know, I didn't wet the bed as much, but like I slept walked and peed in cabinets. Yeah. Wow. I slept walk a ton too. Yeah. I'd had none of these. Really? Yeah. good boy. are. You are such a good boy. was. I was, but I didn't sleep until I was like eight. Yeah. And there's no extra lizards and uc no, no. I wasn't like that. I wasn't surrounded by nature. But it turns out the McDonald tririad is not an indicator that we had the seed of a serial killer or the seed of a violent person laying dormant somewhere inside of us. It is, however, an indicator that my personal childhood environment created conditions where I have to do a shitload of therapy to untangle all the shit that happened to me and around me when I was a kid If I ever want to live a happy and healthy life. It wasn't my fault that I was raised in a West Texas nightmare factory seemingly designed to traumatize people like myself, but it is my responsibility to deal with that shit so it doesn't continue to fuck up my life Gary Ridway, needless to say, never dealt with anything. In the anger he felt as a result of his childhood traumas, which are about to get a lot worse, it was so intense that it contributed to the violent deaths of dozens of people. And of course, the childhood trauma is only one of many factors that led to the creation of Gary Ridgeway. I also think it's Gary hiss attitude I think dudes got a little bit dud. Oh Henry thinks Gary Ridgeway has a bad attude. I thking he needs a People come here for intense hot takes. They really do. They really do. I mean fuck it, I hope Netflix keeps us after that one. Yeah. I He's a real jerk. N norm Now When Gary was eleven years old, his family finally moved to the Seattle Tacoma area, where Gary would live until he was finally arrested decades later The Pacific Northwest is also where Gary Ridgeway's behavior would greatly escalate in a number of ways for reasons that we will discuss in depth on episode two So Gary's dad got a job driving metro buses in the Seattle area, while his mother got a part time gig as a salesperson at a local JC Penny. That's what my mom did. Really? She worked at JC Penny. Really? Pennies.. Are you lying about anything in your childhood about the things that you did or didn't do No Mom didn't wash me till I was a wrecked. That was dad's job. I spent a lot of time in JC Pennys, but it was just my mom, you know, that was the card. The place that we give her creditard. Yeah of course ye. But that's, you know, we our all of our families did credit card fraud at JC Pennence. Yeah. That's also where the ticket master was. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, wait in line But the family bought their first house in an area that is now known as the city of Setac But with yet another move, Gary's bed wedding returned with a vengeance. Starting when Gary was around the age of twelve, Mary Rita Ridgeway began angrily yanking him from bed when he would wake up and announce that he had wet himself She'd drag him to the bathroom and throw him into a tub of ice cold water, sccreaming that quote. Only babies what the bed Gry. Only babies. Are you a baby Hry? A direct quote I can do wh the bed Okay, you cored like me talk I're like, hey J seeo With the bed? Oh man. My bed's all wet, mom Well this would be yelled repeatedly while Mary Rita dragged Gary through the house, which of course woke everyone up. And it was meant to add to Gary's humiliation. This would happen at least three times a week during this time period. Sometimes it would happen every single night. And this happened up until Gary was about fifteen or sixteen years old from twelve to fifteen or sixteen. yearsars of this. Let's just say, I don't know if it was just about the pePe Mcus. Well we're not gonna get into that right now. I don't know if it was and that's the problem thates Mommies can be a little naughty too. And that's what you gotta be careful of. ' sometimes mommies, if you're too naughty, you make the baby naughty Hope all of our mothers out there really paid attention to that. Just know that, right? you naughty mom. It's a good advice. nauy momm makes naughty baby. Yeah. Write that down. Wink can that makes Ary daddy. But because the return to bedwedding coincided with Gary Ridgeway reaching puberty, the mommy wires got appallingly crossed Mary Rita would often leave her bathrobe open, especially when she was dragging Gary to the bathtub in the middle of the night, and Gary would become aroused at the sight of his mother's big hooters. 'Cause you know moms, I always think I always love when my mom slept in the nude You you know how fucking awesome that was when your mom got done with the penny. She got done offph of pennies, kicked off those heels, stripped down to her bush and just fucking relax. It's crazy. I grew up in South Florida, one of the hottest places in the world and I don't think my mom could have worn more clothes. My mom was so sheathed. She was so clothed Thank Christ. Once Marita got Gried to the bath, she would furiously scrub his genitals until they were raw. Baby's penis is covered in urine. Baby's penis needs to be cleaned by My. Yeah. It's crazy, we got all these quotes Yeah How was a direct recordment When she would overly focus on cleaning his privates while barely dressed herself. Bubby, I think you just said we were run the top Then she'd vigorously dry him off when she was finished. Gary remembered many an erection during this whole process Gary in fact said that his so called sexual awakening came while his mother was scrubbing as junk with a grimace on her face. A, look at what you done you pig, o, look at this. Oh, look what you o, you disgusting urine covered bitick. Oh, I hate how covered piss and shit you are. The pig, you got that from your mother. Yes call the pig. My mum. Yeah. old Henry's mum was treated like a bad dog. Yeah. Yeah. And later, Gary said that he was both angered and incredibly horny every time his mother scrubbed the urine from his genitals, which of course fused anger, hatred, and sex in Gary's developing mind Keep in mind that this is not something that happened. Once, twice, five times, ten times. Three times a week for years, if not every night. for years. Could I ask you both? Like let's say you were fathers and you were like let's say, let's put yourselves in this kind of scenario Mr. Ridgway? Yes. I'm mr. Ridgeway. Yes. And you nototiced every single time, you know, they're bringing them in there They're washing all the peoplee off of his penis and he's getting super hard right. And the boy keeps getting older Right? at some point when he gets hard, like do you think that like there's no like breaks on the process here. You're assuming that the father ever got out of bed. Thomas like that was the thing lucky. Thomas Ridgeway would just stay in bed. It's not like he would come in and supervise. But what if you saw your son getting hard every time his mom was wh? Y teenage son. Every time she washed his genitals covered in urine and he got hard for conversations gonna be had. Yeahah, would you be like this should probably I think we should let his coach do this L this maybe's a teacher's job. They should be doing this at school. Yeah. I just think he was just not present. You know, was know just hammered and smoked cigarettes in the other room. and ging a fuck about his family. Being a real dad. He was also he was terrified of Mary Rita. Like M Rita was an incredibly domineering woman Don't worry, I mean, his contributions to Gary Ridgeway's pathology is gonna be coming up soon. It's just because of Mary Reida has got those big old stinky bags. That's right. big stinky bags. Big stinkyy bags. How I wish I was baby Gary. Since the area where the Ridgeway family had moved to was not yet a city, their home was surrounded by woods where the Ridgeway boys would explore and play. Gary therefore became very familiar with the forests of the Pacific Northwest And that familiarity would later be used to find all the right spots to hide bodies Ppartly, though, Gary was going out into the woods to avoid the constant conflicts between his parents. Mary Rita had become more dominant over the years, ordering Thomas to beat their children when she thought they deserved it Gary therefore began to view his father as weak and soft, while women in general became monsters Mary Rita also got far more serious about religion. The Ridgeway boys were brought to Mary Rita's Catholic church every Sunday, but their father was barred from coming because the local priest had a problem with the divorce Thomas had before his marriage to Mary Rita. This of course, caused even more riffs. Let's go, Gary, we go to church where your father's not allow Let's go, Gary, Oh you got urine all over. Let me let me reim impress it Let's go! Your father's not allowed at God's house! Let's go, Gary! Your impression is scaring Markcus. All right, let me pack my tits. I forgott to pack my tits at loose Stinky. big. Ys before they me tit deodorant. Big stinky bags. Big stinky flopping bags. Even though Mary Rita was obviously noticing her son's bathtime boners. Did I show you what JC Brady today? Sexual pleasure was something that was discussed with scorn in the Ridgeway home. Mary Rita herself taught her boys that masturbation was one of the worst sins of all. that she actually told them that it was better to rape a woman than it was to masturbate This is much changes This is what Gary was being told right as he entered puberty. And the shit that Gary was hearing from his mother resulted in a myriad of abnormal sexual habits. He became a neighborhood window peeper, spying on girls in his neighborhood before being chased off by a parade of angry fathers In one instance, Gary believed when an older girl came over to his house with friends to watch TV, that all he had to do to have sex with her was to surreptitiously put his erection in her field of vision by pulling his shorts to the side and showing off his erect penis. It seems that the elevator has to reach his floor Ding down over here, over here He Hey. I actually just watched a body cam where a guy would hang out at a gas station with his penis and a penis pump And he wouldd like get it all in gorge and open the window and he would do this thing where women go by. He'd go, exxcuse me, miss. mayay I interest you In this A Awful I hate when they're nice. Yeah. It almost worse. It like Gray Poupon commercial? Yeah. Well, supppposedly Gary watched TV with his neighbor and a whole group of his older brother's friends and he tried this bizarre little game over and over again For months, the girl never once reacted at the very least never acknowledged it. She did the right thing. Well she should just sort have stopped going over there. Yeah She sure slugged him in the fucking mouth. Yeah. and sh of some of those boys. Yeah Yeah. Well, you know what it is? Well I think no one noticed. That's what he he said he always said that no one noticed. no one said anything If He was bullied as much as he was because this is like his older brother's friends. Yeah. and like I know neither of y'all got older brothers. I got two older brothers. When your older brothererss friends see Anything to make fun of you four. They go for it. They go for fucking hard. But what an ultimate example of what Gary's sort of talking about, right? He can't even pull his dick out and get a reaction. He's in this area of all these kids and he's going to ABC See what Gary's doing? Everybody see what Gary's doing? And he's in the corner and there' nobody everybody's just g. He's like, nobody kidres occasionally Gary ps p. And that's exactly how we got away with it for so long. Yeah. Yeah it is. Now Gary was a loner both before and after puberty, and since he believed masturbation was a sin that was worse than rape He got his Jimmies out by becoming a fraoture. How do you actually how do fraudu? Honestly, let's not put the French fucking spin on. I never heard the word before Frouder. Froud. Fud callallem just a fraud. Fraudage. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of that's the terms. It's when you rub up or brush up against somebody for sexual pleasure. yeah, of course the French thought of that But you know, it's like you do it on the train like it's it happens a lot in New York City. It's the thing of where you could just kind of like the guy just sort of lets the tip of his penis touch you. Or it's also trying to rub up against a woman's breast, you know, just like that s and you always making it look like an accident like, oh, sorry, but you very much doing it on purpose. Walk around with the palms of their hands facing out stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Are you a froter? No, I got grabbed. Okay, yeah. Yeah Mee, I've been frouded. Yeah I've been several times. I've been frauded myself a few times It was also around this time that Gary found that killing living creatures made him feel better about his anger. After suffocating the aforementioned cat at the age of fourteen and throwing the corpse amongst the local roadkill, Gary found that killing something, killing anything, made him feel strong and important While Gary was discovering this disturbing quirk to his personality, his father took a second job at a mortuary and quite unwisely decided to be open and honest with his son about everything he heard while working with the dead Thomas Ridgegway would tell the teenaged Gary stories about a coworker who would commit necrophilia with the female corpses. go into grotesque and unnecessary detail with his young son about his coworkers's necrophilia. Son, this is a funny story. I don't know why you're not laughing. Son, this is a funny story about the time I saw Carlos and we eiffel toowered that old blind woman. Stop taking notes of telling a story. interest Goddamnit every fucking time you say you say that we don't spend any time together and the moment that we find something that I think that we're gonna connect on you just blow me off. Whats you like? Well, this caused necrophilia to become central to Gary's sexual fantasies, because he began to believe that when you were having sex with a corpse, there were no feelings involved one way or the other. It could be super casual. Yeah. Thomas would also be quite vocal about his personal hatred towards sex workers. He thought they were subhuman. and even though Gary would become a frequent customer on the block, both with sex workers he did and did not murder He would hold the same opinions as his father throughout his life Now as far as his mother went, she also overshared with Gary when it came to the sexual escapades that came as a result of her work at JC Penney. Hen didid your mom ever talk about her sexual escapades at JC. Penney? how sexy things got? The worst part is when I learned how she knew the term Bukaki. And at first I thought it was because she had went by the sushi area in the food court And it turns out no, no, no, no, she met mister Yakimoto. No, no, she never had sex there. No. I don't think so. because when we went to JC Pennneies, you gott to remember, that was a classy place for us. Sure. Oh yeah. That was the classy place. That's where I got my communion suit Yeah. Yeah, well, JC Penny way. I mean, really, I mean, Dillard's was always considered to be a J You guys have we dreamt of Dillard's. Yeah, really. Yeah. occasionally, we'd go to a Bloomingdales. or a bird. Who are you? What are you? Oh, mrter Vanderbilt. I mean to get me started on service merchandise. No, my mom never fucked her got sucked her, fucker got fucking gaped in a JC Penny's At least that she told you about. Yeah. Okay. And honestly I her and ask. ' if she tell me and she wouldn't tell you. I'm trying to personally, I'm trying to separate the art from the artist The art being her motherhood of me Understandable Well Mary Rita would tell Gary how much she enjoyed measuring men who needed to be fit for pants Some men, she said, would get involuntary erections from her touch. Like you, Gary? Yeah.' usually when I'm trying them off. Others would emit a certain scent that Mary Rita would inhale while she knelt in front of their crotch That's not real No, it's like a musk. like to She like shoot scent out of their cock? No, she's smelling a guy's dirty ass balls. Yeah. that's turn she's turned on by smelly balls. Yeah, she's turned on by smelly balls And she told her son about that. Which is like the most like truly one of the yeah, sure you could be into dirty smelling balls. God bless you. But I'm just saying that, you know, you just save that for the quilting room. But think about this. he's got his mother is talking about how much she gets turned on by smelly balls. his father is talking about like Yeah, you can fuck a de there girl. It's fine, it's okay. And this is what Gary Ridgeway's fucking growing up with Bath's got dejau. It's interesting. It's certainly interesting. to be my playground. But Mary Rita also continued pushing her son around to the point of depression and deep embarrassment, even beyond the bedwedding incidents So Gary began fantasizing about murdering his own mother in great detail. He thought about stabbing her in the heart, choking her to death, and setting the house on fire with her still inside. St house on fire Gary even the building fire. Sit the building on fire. Gary even fantasized about torturing his mother, thinking often about what it would be like to sew up her vagina with a needle and a thread. It'd be difficult, but also I'd be proud If I could do it Itust because I finally finished something that I wanted. I mean, it's the first time he showed creativity. Yeah. Just trying to stay positive. I suppose'sue. it does show vague creativity. I bet you he just watched his mom preparing the turkey one year for Thanksgiving. He's like That's a good idea. From fantasizing about killing his mother, Gary moved on to fantasizing about raping and killing his classmates. He began following them home with a massive erection while thinking about all the horrible things he wanted to do privately refer to this as patrolling because these serial killers do love their little terms for their little games. It's all validating, it's all the shit in their head that makes it a structure. Yeah. Yeah. Eventually, Gary's constant rage translated itself into property damage, breaking and entering, excessive drinking, and theft Gary found that the only thing that really released the pressure valve all the way was violence. And Gary's first violent act towards another human came in nineteen sixty five when he was just sixteen years old. This is like out of Stehen King novel. It really is. In a wooded area beside Gary's high school, Gary stumbled upon a six year old kid dressed as a cowboy innocently just Ping For some reason, seeing this child enjoying an afternoon playing cowboy, this filled Gary with uncontrollable rage. Is he an Indian I don't think he had any Cherokee. So he approached the boy with a plan. He asked the kid if he wanted to go into the woods with Gary where they'd build a fort together. because Gary said, there were a lot of people around, quote who'd like to kill little boys like you. So when Gary got the kid out to the woods and the kid picked up a stick, Gary pulled out his knife and stabbed the child in the torso, hitting his liver. Gary watched and laughed as the blood flowat out of the wound and filled up the child's cowboy boots. But instead of finishing the act, Gary simply walked away The boy made his way to the road and was found bleeding out by a teacher. He survived Gary Ridgeway would not be named as the perpetrator of this crime For another thirty six years course was after he was arrested as the Green River Killer, and he began listing his crimes throughout his life Cops looked back at the records, looked and found When Gary said it happened, that there was a kid who was stabbed, dressed as a little cowboy. It all happened. Gary Ridgeway could not remember the names of his childhood pets, but he had a near photographic memory of every single crime he ever committed. That's not true. He would Well, it depends on what like because of the you could tell that he fantasized And thought about the stuff Yeah That was important to him. Yeah. there's there's a lot of there are things that were photographic, there were some things that were hazy. Let's just say he was all fucked up. He was all fucked up But I mean, it just turns out for somebody who couldn't remember his pets, it was shocking how many different shallow graves he could remember different places could go. I just can't believe he was dresseding up like a cowboy ats sixteen No! I was getting high and shit. No no no boy one boy was dressed as a cowboy. Oh No G G Rid was a cowboy today. Howd hope youre ready to set we're gonna settle up and go down to the bridge. Oh, so the kid was much younger. okay. Yeah the kid was six years old. Oh I see it all makes sense now I'm sorry But while the incident with the L littleittle cowboy was Gary's first act of serious violence against another human, he also very likely committed his first murder around this time Later, Gary would say that he was unsure if his first murder was a hallucination or a dream, which, as you're about to find out, is a common theme amongst Gary's confessions. There is, however, usually evidence linking Gary's hazy recollections to real life events, so they are worth taking seriously In nineteen sixty four, Gary said that he and a younger boy were swimming in a lake near Seattle when Gary suddenly wrapped his legs around his swimmate's neck and drag the kid into the water below. Gary said that the kid did fight back, but Gary held the kid underwater until he stopped moving And onnce the kid was dead, Gary said he pulled the body under a nearby dock and left it floating there. Now, while that might have been a hallucination or a dream Public records show that two boys did indeed drown in that same lake during the same year Gary recalled drowning this boy. So it is possible that Gary was responsible for at least one of them. And it's not uncommon for serial killers at this age when they're teenagers, especially even if they end up killing women later on to kill little boys and to just kill anyone. Well they're around a little boy. Yeah. And that's but it sounds a lot like Ted Bundy. It sounds a lot like there's that story, you know it with Ted Bundy with the little girl when he was a little girl. and matches all his MO's later on Actually and we'll find that Gary Ridgeway and Ted Bundy share A lot in common But even though Gary's life was becoming increasingly dark, both within and without He actually evened out once he got to high school when it came to social interaction He actually began dating and eventually got a pretty girl named Claudia Craig to go steady after the two of them met at the supermarket where they both worked. Interestingly, Claudia's mother later said that when Gary came over to their house when you know he was sixteen, seventeen, He just sit there and never say a word. One day she said he came over and just sat in a chair So hours He didn't say a word to anyone. That's fascinating. He stared at the wall. It's just weird, oh de. He's just always been He doesn't know how to human. Like he doesn't know how to be a human being. It's better jammer it on for a fucking eight hours. That is true That is true. It's all fine if it wasn't Gary Ridgeway. I'd far rather forget that he was there. the end of the eight hours. And look, if you bring that kid over here, one more time out I hate Gary. Gary smells like pee. Yeah. But by the end of it, Gary Ridgeway came out of high school in nineteen seventy with the reputation of a normal, if dim witted individual. He'd been held back twice by the end of it, and therefore graduated at the age of twenty, barely able to read or write. Wow. But since this was nineteen seventy and the draft for the Vietnam War was in full effect Gary was actually smart enough to join the Navy to avoid the army. becausecause in nineteen seventy, guys like Gary Ridgeway, thati. e., guys that were poor and not too bright, they were amongst the first to be handed a rifle before being sent to die in the jungles of Vietnam. God, he would have been a great Vietnamese corpse. God He would haveve been great over there So after going through basic training in San Diego, Gary was assigned to the USS Vancouver in the Philippines, making him yet another serial killer who served in the Vietnam War, but came nowhere near combat Its interesting. Seven or eight. Wow dont you know of the very And that's just that we know. Who are some of the popular ones David Berkowitz, Leonard Lake Yeah, Leonard Lake was a definitely ye he was a big liar. I think Arthur Shacross maybe. Yes, I'm pretty certain Arthur Shaross. Henry's dad. Yeah. My dad My dad only could kill my dreams. Well like so many other serial killers in Vietnam, Gary Ridgeway discovered the wide world of sex workers overseas. David Berkowitz was another who got very involved with sex workers over there. You could barely tell. Yeah you don't know Apparently though, something happened to Gary that he would never actually discuss, which is surprising considering how Gary would talk about pretty much anything once investigators got him going Gary said that something happened with sex workers in the Philippines that he never got out of his system. somethingomething that was so bad that he said he probably should have gone to counseling for it. Gary refused to elaborate any further on what actually happened. Probably got the shit kicked out of him by a pimp. Maybe. Maybe Well one thing that Gary definitely talked about was how the Philippines kickstarted his lifelong fetish for inserting foreign objects into vaginas.. He said this developed from experiences with local Filipino sex workers who would walk up to sailors, reach under their skirts and pull out pre inserted beer bottles straight from the vagina. Wow. Were they cold? They were very warm. Oh. These beer bottles would then be handed over to a potential customer, I suppose, as a way to impress or titate the American sailors. What did we just learn from the Antela Vay series? What have we learned about oldld Men recently They were disgusting. Yeah. oldlder men and what they liked was actually way grosser than even what we like now. You mean men that from the time from that time period. Yeah. Yeah. there's something about like Like that being like the stories I heard for my dad when he used to go to hogs and heifers, It was a lot of girls peeing on things heifers. Oh the original Coyote Ugly. Yeah really? Yeah, that's what it's all based off of. It just a lot of old play that we weren't, you know, there was like panny raids. Yeah., you know? Yeah But a lot more. They stopped putting up with stuff. Yeah. I think I think that's what changed. He said stop. stop. Call me a squirrel because I'm covered in acorns. That's right. 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Gary would, however, also later tell his second wife that he developed a hatred for these same Filipino sex workers And so, Gary had developed a relationship with sex workers that was, to say the least, messy He both loved them for giving him pleasure, and he hated them for what that sin represented But even though Gary was having sex with women in the Philippines who both were and were not sex workers, he had shipped off to the Navy as a married man his high school girlfriend, Claudia Craig, had actually agreed to marry Gary before he went off to the Philippines. Marrying Pete Pants, Gary, man. Yeah. It's fucking men are dogs. Unbelievable. You fucking take on that piss soaked gentleman And then he's gonna go and get covered in fucking gonorrhea in the war. By the time they got together, he'd cleared up the PP. The bed wedding stopped when he was about fifteen. You' know if it ever leaves your spirit. You know what I mean? In in the doc it said that he got gonorrhea and chlamydia And that he resented the sex workers for it and that's kind of like why he started killing people down the road. The doc simplifies Huge simplifications. Yeah. Yeah, that's a massive massive simplification. Doesn't Clydia untreated make you crazy? He was treated Yeah because goes he got treated at the military hospital. He went and got he went and got V. If you catcht you go something get for it.. Yeah. And yeah, and really all of these details and true crime. It's really hard to pin down what's real and what's not. Did he get gunnerhea twice? Did he get gunnerhea once and Clamedia once It's from It's his story. Yeah ye yeah yeah ye because he lies too. Yeah Now Claudia was left back in San Diego, but she was just as unfaithful as Gary. And because both of them were unfaithful, the marriage fell apart less than a year after they got married Gary branded his wife a whore, even though he had also stepped out dozens of times, and Gary's hatred towards women grew even more. Now he had tried a few relationships after returning from the Philippines to Washington State, but after he found that he couldn't make anything last more than a few months, he returned to sex workers, all while his rage towards women continued bubbling in his belly After Gary received an honorable discharge after twenty three months in the Navy, he got a job at a plant called Kinworth Trucking that specialized in the production of medium and heavy duty commercial trucks, eighteen wheelers and such. There it was discovered that Gary had an affinity for detailing vehicles, which involved painting the lettering, logos, and stripes that indicate which truck belongs to which company or which trucker. because this is the age trucker Oh yeah Coy. This is when truckers, they were the ones killing sex workers with impunity and we should have, you know, like we celebrated them by saying here you go. hereere's some PTSD. Kings of the road they were. Yeah. But Gary did not start off as a master detailer And whatever Gary did, he always started off making mistakes, but once he got it, he could nail it The only thing that would trip Gary up is if some part of the process changed, and Gary fucked up so often that he got the long lasting nickname Wongway because of how many times he would have to repaint an entire truck after using the wrong color or the wrong kind of paint. Wrongway, Ridgeway And he did not like the nickname. He did not like being called because they would call him wrong way Gary. Yeah wrong way Gary Wong way, which is placed replaced Bispant Gary. Yeah he' just been like a been no ing them pretty second ground As far as his reputation at work went, Gary was known as friendly if overbearing, because what gave people pause was Gary's behavior towards female employees On many occasions, Gary would approach a female coworker and massage their shoulders without asking them. And since this was nineteen seventy two, his behavior was shrugged off as, oh, Gary, he's friendly. He's just a little too friendly, but essentially harmless. All I think all the sex worker kind of made him weird with ladies. He might have. Yeah, man But even though Gary was a creep, he never had trouble getting wives, much less girlfriends. And he met his next wife, Marha Winslow, using a tactic that would probably get him pepper sprayed in this day and age. It's just hard out there for women. Okay. And the bar is extremely low and it is only just raised about Three inches, maybe Yeah When nineteen seventy two, Marsha Winslow was driving a scenic loop that circled Lake Washington, and a car very suddenly pulled up quickly and closely behind her own Marsha pulled over, assuming it was a cop that was trying and somehow failing to give her a ticket. because For being honest, it's not like Gary Ridgeway. He did not The women that he was with were also a They were about as smart as he was. Yeah it kind of it comes up over and over again. You have to be Yeah. because this because any intelligent woman would just shit him out. Yeah. This woman was pulled over by him in a way that is very frighten. Very frightened. in the fact that she's just like, Oh Okay,. I guess I'll see what he wants.. But instead, it was Gary Ridgway, who introduced himself as an interested romantic party. just want to say you were speeding back there Int my romantic inclination. Incredibly, Marcia was charmed by his clean cut appearance and his military manners. And even though he accidentally called Marcia by his first wife's name the first time they had sex class Marsa and Gary quickly moved in together and were married by nineteen seventy three Now while Gary's first wife said that his sexual habits weren't anything special, Gary insisted on anal sex with his second wife, Marsha, and sometimes tied her hands and feet with belts from bathrobes. He started getting into bondage. S doing it upside down onesia. Gary also began exploring his fetish for having sex outdoors, usually off hiking trails or campsites. Incidentally, he and Marscia would have sex in many of the same places that Gary would later hide the bodies of his murder victims Cute Eventually, Gary became so fond of having sex outdoors that he installed silk screen wallpaper featuring forest scenes on the headboard of his bed so he could still quote enjoy the view while having sex indoors. It good if you could just stop moving your head around because I got all these pine guns T goes ms your head On these trips though, Gary's behavior was also becoming more sinister. He would suddenly disappear into the woods during hikes so he could practice being completely silent to the point where his wife was worried that he wasn't coming back. And then at the height of her fear, as she's wandering around saying, Gary, Gary, where are you? he'd either jump out from behind a bush and go or he'd grab her arm from behind. Later, Marscia would say, quote, He'd liked to see how softly he could walk so that he could be just totally noiseless And he could do it too. There's an exclamation point on that. I ' that's the thing like that's not the voice that I hear is just like it's he likek likes softly. And he could do it too. You know he got s as snow. A lot of people say I sound like a man. . Now Marcia lasted far longer than Gary's first wife. And by nineteen seventy five, Marcia had given birth to Gary's first son, Matthew. Where's he at You know what? Give his privacy. S POTL and gmail dot com love to hear from you. I'm guessing wherever he is, he's got a different last name. Yeah A Matthew's birth, Biday. I'm sorry continue. I know we're supposed to give these people their privacy because it is only right. But I'm always so curious where the fuck they're off hiding Of course, you knows like because I mean, it's gott to just destroy you. Most of them are just off trying to live their lives. Every once in a while, you get somebody who wants to come forward and make it their entire identity Dennis Rayer's daughter. Yeah but that loed That's all sorts very rare. Most of the time these people change their names, like a lot of serial a lot of them in the past, like as soon as the guy, the husband gets arrested, the mother will Move, change your name and never speak to them again. Yeah. I would just if that was my dad, I would just make sure. I mean, I'm already not having kids, but like I would just make sure I don't have kids. Yeah, they just snip it off. Yeah, man do the inside cut.ill the butline Yes. Yeah ye, sorry, God. I know. We don't deserve it anymore. I'm actually there is an interview with Matthew Ridgeway In the news tribune from two thousand fucking from it was updated in twenty twenty one. Wow. And it's him being like, it's just weird because like my dad never used racial slurs. He never yelled and he never talked about prostitutes. It was just I mean, I don't know, he just he was just trying to be a father. likeike you see in the TV shows. Father knows best. Gary knows best. Gary knows best. That's how bored we all were during COVID A twitch hiding about his father. Thank. I can use some attention. I didn't you guys notice I' been I've been twitching home. Well, after Matthew's birth, Gary got far more religious. But rather than following in his mother's Catholic footsteps, Gary joined several Protestant churches as if one church wasn't enough Marcia described Gary as being almost fanatical about religion after the birth of their son. He would read the Bible both at home and at work She said that tears would fall from Gary's eyes during church services, and he'd spend his nights watching TV while clutching his Bible Gary even started walking door to door in his neighborhood trying to convert his neighbors, but he would get furious when those neighbors inevitably slammed their doors in his face Ag and again. Is that common People being really religious and also being serial killers? No, not really. They usually atheists U It depends. Its's also there's a whole subset. There's the missionary killer. There a There's a subset of killer that is entirely religiosity like based. It's all like their own fantasy world. So It really depends like largely you it would it would turn into a new category. He is a guy that would use the Bible for what I'm going my call, my fucking Sunday morning psychiatrist call is the fact that he used it as like a lot of people use it, which is the possible hellmary pass at the end of life. And that he was constantly trying to validate the feelings that he was feeling because weirdly it all came from this like emotional place. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's very easy with Christianity to come to the conclusion that women are evil. Because there are many churches that preach that specific thing. Yeah many verses in the Bible talk about it and the whole story of Adam and Eve and every single woman that is ever around Jesus Christ is always just tempting him and doing it. It's almost like they've been putting that idea that women are evil, expendable whores in our brains ever since we started this whole process. Yeah, it' the Catholic church still won't let women be priests and whenever they want to get more involved, they put them in a habit and stick them in a building. You want to know why? You you wonder know why it's because I'm starting to think it's because women Hold people accountable. Yeah. And I think that might be a part of the function. Yeah. I I remember him saying in the doc that that he thought that he would be forgiven if he asked for it. S There's the hell areary that Yeahah every' talkking about.'s always there's always that back pocket. They always got. look at David Berkowitz. That's all it is. He's mister Jesus now Yeah, when David Berkowitz and Gary Ridgeway die by by the rules of Christianity, both of them are going to heaven. Th This gonna be them, Charlie Kirk, Michael Jackson, all of our Connor McGregor having a great time other. But Gary's main church was Pentecostal and his pastor and Steel, which is bad Yeah, bad idea for him Pastor instilled even more archaic views about women beyond the horrible shit his parents had already taught him Pentecostals taught that wives and daughters wouldn't make it to heaven if they didn't obey their husbands. And even something as small as having short hair or wearing the color red, bothoth of those things massive sins for women. What hair even worses out of her. Cut her out Cut her fucking head off. Cut her suckking head off Save it. This of course caused a rift in Gary's marriage just like it had in his parents' marriage, although the male and female roles in Gary's marriage were reversed. But speaking of Gary's mother, Mary Rita soon became the main pressure point in Gary and Marsha's marriage. For some reason, Mary Rita had access to Gary's bank accounts, and she made her opinions known concerning how Gary and Marscia spent their money. People are weird with that. Really weird about it. On weekends, Gary would spend his free time with his mother instead of his wife. But Marscia soon discovered that it was probably for the best if Gary went on these visits alone. One night when Marcia came along, Thomas and Mary Rita got into a fight, and Mary Rita got so worked up that she smashed a plate over her husband's head. Thomas left the room without saying a word, which had become a pretty common reaction from Gary's father throughout Gary's life when his mother got abusive. But by the early the mid seventies, Gary's head was filled with a bunch of pentecostal bullshit about how women were supposed to act and Mary Rita had only become more domineering after she'd been promoted to a manager position at JC Penney. You can't fuck with that shit. Yeah ye. Isn't it wrong that I'm like rightfully so Yeah. We're at nine to five So the idea of how a woman was supposed to act as it was presented in Gary's Pentecostal church, that became mixed with Gary's hatred towards the faire sex, which edged him closer and closer to serial murder After Gary got switched to night shifts, detailing trucks and Marcia started taking classes during the day, the relationship began to dissolve. Marcia then got gastric bypass surgery and lost a lot of weight. It always a warning sign, fells. And she used her newfound confidence to start a career as a professional singer, entertaining locals at nearby bars. I just love her life. I love. Her life is insane. She's fucking on a great trajectory I don't like this family, Gary. I'm getting a bypassing and I'm becoming a singer. I a s about it Gary. Gary always making a big deal about the Bible But my Bible's the songbook of Liza Manelli. But Gary, of course, hated his wife's new lease on life And he started accusing her of sleeping with other men during her late nights entertaining. This was of course projection because Gary had never stopped seeing sex workers throughout his two marriages, despite what the church might have to say about it. because remember, He still thinks that masturbation is one of the worst sins in the world Things between Marcia and Gary came to a head one night when they returned home from a party where they'd both been drinking They argued all the way home, but when they pulled into the driveway and Marcia got out of the car, Gary hung back He then snuck up behind her using his silent technique and he began choking her. so she couldn't see who was doing it Marcia actually thought for a second that some stranger was indeed attacking her But she soon realized what was really happening See, after Gary let go, he tried dodging around the other side of the car like a fucking little kid trying to get away with something. Then he emerged, pretending to be shocked that oh my go, some guy just tried choking you. That's crazy. you wouldn't believe me. I saw him at be eyes a big dumb mouth dum wringo hair, mustache Marsha, of course knew that Gary was the perpetrator For Gary's part, he said that this was the moment when something vicious and evil had been unleashed He later admitted that choking her had majorly turned him on He said, quote, Well A to that I wanted to have sex with a prostitute And killer doing that? And one of the many things it's hard to pin down concerning is what I like. You know what I mean? It's so hard. We go through everybody's always like,, do what your love and then you never have to work a day in your life. And actually what Gary shows is an exact example. when your passion becomes your work, you actually never stop working. Yeah, Yeah, it's true. Epiphanyanies aren't always good There's been a couple of Eureka moments that have been pretty bad for them. Yeah reallyally bad. Yeah. Yeah. the same guy who created leaded gasoline also created CFCs. We could have used Tw less eurekas from that guy. You you see the guy pour in COVID seventeen pouring eighteen together in one vial. Now one of the many things that's hard to pin down concerning Gary Ridgegway is exactly when he began murdering women He told investigators that it was, quote, very possible that he'd killed several women during the nineteen seventies, but his memories were hazy The best he could offer was a vague memory of killing a sex worker while he was living with Marscia, but he could only remember that something went wrong on a so called date and that he'd probably killed a sex worker during that date. That's just saying, this is just how many he killed. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. I kind of believe him. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, one hundred percent. I absolutely believe him. He's not smart enough to lie. And he's not a Henry Lee Lucas There is he brought he corroborated quite a bit of what he was talking about later on. It's just, you know, it's just hard when you look at him and you're like, you can't believe how much devastation this little fucking idiot did. But you can also tell he's also tryrying to figure out like What happened? he's trying to figure out like that's why he's talk he talk so much and he's he's like, he even it's a he's a mystery even to himself. they do those right we'll get into it later on, when they do the thing where they drive him around and stuff. and he's just been thank you mister Grayson Thank you so much. And he's just like this nice little man's like whistling and stuff Now, according to Marscia, Gary kept coming home later and later throughout the mid to late seventies, and he'd often walk through the door wet and covered in dirt with no other explanation other that his car had broken down again and again and again She also noted that Gary always kept several roles of a protective plastic covering called VQeen in the bed of his truck And several of his later victims would of course be found covered in the same variety of plastic wraps And you know he got that from his detailing job. Yeah. Yeah, of course. So no fingerprints on that Um, no, actually. So we must have used gloves. Yeah. Well, this is it really depends, dude, because it's like In terms of the technology, fingerprint technology is really Nowhere near anything that they show on movies and television. Yeah. It is so it's such an inexact science and it's so not dependable that like it's so hard to do because you have to you have touck you have to make sure nobody fucks up the scene. Yeah. It has to be pristine and I guess it's all covered in dirt too. Well also remember like his victims were usually found twowo, three days later, sometimes later S weeks later, years later. this is the Pacific Northwest. It's fucking raining all the time. Yeah. you know So that makes forensic evidence like fingerprints really difficult to lift Now investigators tried their damnedest to pin down Gary's first kill, but the best Gary could do was vaguely recall two or three times in which he thought he'd killed a woman. In these incidents in the late seventies, Gary said that he might have strangled women, then left their bodies in the middle of the street, against the fence in a popular park, or lying against a newstand where they would definitely have been found Ridgeway said that he'd never heard any reports in the media about these women, so he concluded again and again that he had only choked these women until they'd lost consciousness. And after Gary left them, he thought that they'd just woken up and walked away, saying, quote, Youd figured she'd wake up if she wasn't dead G figure Yeah, you would. If I was a bitmen Which I am? I put ten thousand dollars Then I killed those women. And by nineteen eighty, Marcia had finally had enough of Gary Ridgeway That summer, she told Gary to go out and treat himself to a nice breakfast alone. And while he thought it was a strange request, he still did what he was told. Simple guy. simimple little guy. simimple guy, simple gal. Go get some breakfast. Youagine that You magioned you come home, you know you're in trouble. Youar know how much trouble you're in if if your wife goes, Hey Go get some fucking breakfast. Go off, G off. go get breakfast. Yeah honestly, it'd be a great way to deal with fights. Yeah. Just keep driving. But when Gary came back home, he found a moving van in the driveway and a very surprised Marcia, who she had expected to have All of her shit and all of her sunhit packed up and gone by the time he returned. Didn't you go to the goddamn Shonies? I thought you were going to the buffet. Well as a matter of fact, o I actually stoped by you stepped by the b in it gets pretty twoing so It was actually pretty fasttery. ' you know, Marcia thought that she could get all of her stuff moved out in the time it takes a man to eat a stack of pancakes. Like I said, not the brightest bulb either.. But regardless of Marscia's cognitive abilities, Gary was extremely upset that Marscia had left. He'd wanted to be a normal family man, and now he'd had his second marriage fail after seven years, and they've also got a five year old son together Gary's anger only grew when he found out he had to pay child support, but the new expense certainly didn't stop him from doling out twenty bucks a blow job to the sex workers he continued picking up around the CTax strip Later, a forensic psychiatrist asked Gary why he wanted to hurt sex workers in the first place, and Gary lamely offered that it was because women had hurt him, specifically his first two wives had hurt him Gary in fact said that he had thought about killing Marscia because he didn't want to be seen as a loser with two failed marriages. Gary even speculated that if he had just killed Marscia back in nineteen eighty, He would only have the murder of one woman on his conscience instead of fifty plus. And he actually used that number. He said Plus becausecause by the end of it, Gary himself only had a vague idea of how many women he'd killed But he said the only reason why he didn't kill Marscia is because he knew he would be the prime suspect, which proved that for Gary Ridgeway, killing was absolutely a choice. Yeah. So it's weird. he's stupid, but he knows that. See, well that's because this is what being stupid That's like one of the biggest injustices about being stupid is that you can be stupid And know you're stupid and he know he's just smart enough to know how stupid he is and he can't see it is like a fog like he can't see all of the reasons for the decisions that he makes because he works really instinctually and he doesn't have which shows again, he he would have killed Marsha. If he was going to kill her, he would have killed her And I actually partially think it's the other it's the I kind of thought in my head This sect should have been free We should be doing this She should be loving me. This is like a thing. And when I kill her it wipes out the whole incident. I feel like there's some of that too. And then we'll also find her later on. he killed them to freeze them in place. Possibly. Yeah. I mean So then he could do whatever he wants Not all the time, but sometimes dn. Oh Yeah I mean, I think with Marscia the only reason why he would kill is like he would kill her. so No one would find out about the divorce. Yeah. becausecause if he killed her, then he's a grieving widower with a young son and he gets a lot of sympathy from his church, from his peers, from his parents, from everybody. But he knew he was smart enough to know like the husband's always the first person. So yeah, always a choice for him Nowot too long after Marsha Fall for divorce, Gary was arrested for the first, but certainly not the last time in relation to prostitution. Cruising for a lady of the night, Gary picked one up and began choking her the same way he choked Marcia. This woman survived and did report the assault to the police Guess what happened Police absolutely questioned Gary, but Gary calmly explained that the choking was a justified act of self defense because the woman had bitten his penis during oral sex. The charge got dropped. Yay that st. Yeah buddy get out it! get out it. And the cops had no further questions for Gary Ridgway G are great. damn. That's fucking horrifying. Verablyak. Ver b even if his case is C train