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For almost two decades, Green River Killer claimed many lives in the state of Washington and avoiding authorities – until Ted Bundy cooperated with the authorities to catch him.
A serial killer To help law enforcement in capturing another mass murder is the action of The silence of the lamb But it also happened in real life. The unusual partnership is the subject of the new Hulu documentary, Ted Bundy: Dialogue with the devilout on August 7.
It contains extracts from the 1995 book The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I chase after Green River KillerWritten by Bob Keppel, who helped catch Bundy. The documentary shows how Keppel worked with the management detectives at the Green River Killer case, Dave Reichert, when Bundy’s killer instincts guided them.
Bundy was enough for investigators and gave insight into how Green River Killer thought. The two men were both murderers, and they focused both victims in the same area, in the Pacific; Bundy in the 1970s and Green River Killer in the 80s and 90s.
So who was Green River Killer, and why did Ted Bundy offer to help catch him? Here is what to know about the Green River killer, including why he was called it and if he was ever convicted of his crimes.
King County Prosecutor’s Office via Getty
Green River Killer’s real name is Gary Ridgway, who was born on February 18, 1949, in Salt Lake City and raised in Seattle.
After graduating from high school in 1969, Ridgway went to the Navy, where he served on a delivery ship in Vietnam, according to Military.com. Ridgway was later released and returned to Seattle.
There he was a truck painter for 30 years, until he was arrested in 2001.
Andrew Parsons -PA images/PA images via Getty
That serial order became known as the Green River killer because his first victim was found along the Green River, which is outside Seattle.
On July 15, 1982, the body was discovered by 16-year-old Wendy Lee Coffield fluid in Green River, Per King 5 News. “She was found naked with a pair of blue jeans tied around her neck. This was obviously not the victim for an unintentional drowning,” according to Ted Bundy: Dialogue with the devil.
In the next month, another five bodies were found along a mileage, which led to the authorities creating the Green River Task Force, according to FBI website. The working group’s mission was to scrub the area for additional clues that can help reveal the murderer’s identity.
One of their first results was the fact that Gisele A. Lovvorn, Debra Lynn Bonner, Marcia Faye Chapman, Cynthia Jean Hinds and Opal Charmaine Mills were sex workers. They had all been suffocated.
“The crew that went into the Green River, they stumbled upon the bodies. That’s how he got the name, Green River Killer,” Flodman Co-author William J. Birnes said in the Hulu documentary.
Green River Task Force expanded to a larger team in 1984 when bodies continued to be discovered.
King County Sheriff’s Department, via AP; King County Sheriff’s Department/Facebook
Ridgway was convicted of murdering 49 women and teenage girls, but he has admitted that he killed at least 71, and investigators believe the number can be closer to 100 – which makes him one of the most productive serial murder in US history.
The King County website List the names of the confirmed deaths linked to the Green River killer, including some women whose identity has still not been established.
Ridgway later admitted in a courtroom statement that he was aimed at prostitutes because he “knew they would not be reported” directly.
“I chose prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed,” he explained, New York Times reported. “I chose prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting stuck.”
Bettmann/Getty; Elaine Thompson-Pool/Getty
One of the detectives who tried to capture the Green River murderer was leader Dave Reichert, who said he was “surprised” when Bundy – who was on the death row – sent a letter and offered his help.
“He made it very clear what his purpose was in his letter. What he wanted to do, according to his description, was to get us into a serial killer,” Reichert said Fox News In June 2022.
He thought Bundy “just injected himself into the situation and tried to find out as much as he could about the case.”
Reichert reasoned that Bundy was anxious to offer his services because he wanted to be known as “number one notorious serial killer in the United States.”
“I think he was jealous that the Green River killer took hold of all the headlines at that time,” the detectives continued. “Ted Bundy was in prison, so he was a forgotten unit.”
© Seattle Times/KRT/ABACA/ALAMY
In 1984, Keppel and Reichert collaborated when the latter was enough for the then head of criminal, and knew that Keppel had helped catch Bundy, Per Dialogue with the devil. On November, Keppel and Reichert Bundy met in Florida State Prison, where he was held.
The conversations with Bundy did not lead directly to the Green River Killer’s arrest, but helped detective to place himself in the murderer’s mind. Bundy’s observations gave insight into what Ridgway did to the bodies.
Bundy suggested that the Green River killer may have returned to the victim’s bodies and performed sexual acts on them, which turned out to be true. As Keppel entered FlodmanBundy also suggested that the police practice one of the body burial sites to catch the killer if he returned to the scene.
“Ted Bundy was more accurate when it comes to profiling this serial killer than the police were,” Birnes said in Dialogue with the devil. “He was right the whole line. Where can he find the victims and why he attacked the victims.”
Josh Trujillo-Pool/Getty
The Green River killer was captured with the help of DNA certificate. Although Ridgway had been suspected since the beginning of the investigation in the 80s, he was not linked to the murders until decades later.
Evidence was arrested from Ridgway’s house and cars in 1987 and tested in 2001, when the authorities got a match. (An investigation of NBC News In 2024, they discovered that places with industrial spray paint were found on Ridgway’s early victims that could have pointed to him much in the past.)
At the end of 2001, Ridgway was taken into custody in connection with the Green River murder. New York Times Reported that he was linked to three deaths and one suspect in four more. Two years later, the former painter was accused of all seven murders.
AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
In November 2003, Ridgway agreed to invoke to 48 murders of aggravated murder in the first degree, according to the King County website. He accepted a basic agreement that would spare him the death penalty, Per New York Times. The following month he was sentenced to life in jail without parole, Reported.
“I’m sorry for killing these ladies,” he said. “They had their entire lives in front of them. … May they rest in peace. They need a better place than where I gave them.”
Less than a decade later, in February 2011, a 49th life sentence was added to Ridge’s conviction. As part of his basic agreement, Ridgway admitted that he killed 20-year-old Rebecca Marrero, whose body eventually found, according to Kgw.
Today Green River Killer is imprisoned in Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Wash. Per Seattle’s Applicant newsIn September 2024, Ridgway was briefly transferred to the King County prison to help detective with an ongoing investigation related to additional victims. He was then brought back to the Washington State Penitentiary.