Gary Ridgeway Case News Today

Jim cannot remember the private investigators name and seattle police can find no records pertaining to the case. one thing is for certain, gary ridgway was never arrested or punished for the attempted murder. and he told his questioners that if he had been, it might have changed things. >> could you have been stopped at any point along the way? ever asked yourself that? >> either to jail could have stopped me. >> how often in the years before you found out who ridgway was did you find yourself ...

Michele bachmann, and others are instituting a lawsuit. mitt romney and ron paul are the only candidates to qualify for virginias ballot. now, back to "chasing the devil." we return to "chasing the devil" with stone phillips. >> flash forward to 2001. after ten years of no new leads and no progress and no murders that looked like the work of the green river killer, this cold case was about to come out of the freezer. two things were about to make a difference in the search for a suspect. first...

She says she felt intimidated too. >> he would come up behind me and like rub my shoulders. >> put his hands on you? >> yes. i just felt uncomfortable around him. >> parkhill says everybody at work knew he had been questioned about the green river murders in the 1980s. >> when i first started there, that was the first thing people pointed out to me was gary ridgway and telling me his nickname, green river gary. >> but ridgway had an explanation for that. he told his co-workers it was all a misun...

On his failed second marriage, which sheriff reichert rejected. >> theres no reason that you can give that can justify what you did. >> the accepted theory on serial killers is they cant stop killing or even slow down. thats why when the bodies of young prostitutes were no longer being discovered in clusters around seattle in the late 80s, many thought the green river killer had moved on to another city, or had been put in prison for some other crime. gary ridgway had not moved on but he had cha...

Terms as sheriff, reichert ran for congress is and won. his reputation as a straight shooter who finally got his man precedes him. ridgeway is now in the washington state penitentiary at walla walla, serving his 48 consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole. he is considered the worst serial killer in the history of the united states. profilers tell us theyve learned some important lessons from the gary ridgeway case, notably ridgeways behavior was different from other serial kille...

Bridge before i left. >> when he started to talk, gary ridgway demystified the whole scene in a hurry. the items were just stuff he had around the house, not carefully chosen at all. almost an afterthought, tossed in the back of his pickup. >> i was just going to put them on her to throw off the task force. make it stand out from the rest of them so they would have to think is this a green river case or is this not a green river case? playing with them jerking them around. >> ironically, in taki...

Enough? what if after years of pursuit just when he finally got his man, he could not make the charges stick? ridgways defense lawyer was already attacking the core of the case. >> it proves he was a customer, not a killer. assuming that they can show it was mr. ridgways dna, and were not conceding that for a minute, theyre not going to show he was the last customer. >> reichert was determined to do whatever he could to put gary ridgway away for good. he launched a full-bore investigation. >> wo...

Bring my mother back. there is nothing thatll ever change the things she meant. >> gary ridgeway did offer his proforma apologies. >> im sorry for killing these ladies. they had their whole lives ahead of them. im sorry for causing so much pain to so many families. >> then the judge asked for 48 seconds of silence. one second for every woman gary ridgeway admitted killing. >> id ask this moment of silence in honor of all of the young women who are victims in this case and cannot speak for themse...

>> i am passionate about it and i do have a personal relationship with the victims. >> families and friends of the dead women were looking forward to the trial of gary ridgway. hoping for answers to questions that had haunted them for 20 years. >> i want to know a reason why. i want a reason why do you take somebody elses life? right? i mean, a mother, somebodys sister, daughter. you dont go out and just pick them up off the street just to kill them. >> but as investigators and prosecutors prepa...

Prospect of reliving the horror of a loved ones death. task force investigators were working hard building their case, evidence that they had the right guy. within months they were able to confirm that paint flecks found on the bodies of other victims matched paint gary ridgway used in his job. they filed three new murder charges, bringing the total to seven. with that, the defense, confident about challenging 20-year-old dna, blinked. lead attorney tony savage knew he had to change tactics. wha...