Ridgway's life, habits detailed
The bodies of many of the victims of the Green River killer were left in remote areas, often down embankments people used as illegal dumps.
Ridgway, 52, of Auburn, was charged yesterday with four counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the deaths of Opal Mills, 16; Carol Ann Christensen, 21; Marcia Chapman, 31; and Cynthia Hinds, 17. If convicted, Ridgway faces either the death penalty or life in prison without release.
The four women are considered among the 49 victims in the Green River killings between 1982 and 1984.
Key among the documents released yesterday was the affidavit detectives used to get a warrant to search Ridgway's former and present homes and vehicles, work lockers and safety-deposit box. The affidavit lays out a volume of circumstantial evidence implicating Ridgway as a suspect in the four killings and possibly in others.
It asserts:
• Ridgway admitted to police he frequented prostitutes in the areas where many of the Green River victims, most of them prostitutes, had last been seen. He described a fixation with prostitutes, and said he had repeatedly acquired venereal diseases from them. A former girlfriend told police Ridgway saw prostitutes as "things" to be used.
• According to his two former wives and girlfriends and to prostitutes, Ridgway liked to have sex outdoors, including at or near many sites where victims' remains were found. Among these was a spot along the Green River where five victims were found. Others included near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, off Highway 410 near Enumclaw, off Star Lake Road south of Kent, near the intersection of Interstate 90 and Highway 18, and at Seattle's Seward Park — all areas where remains were found.
• Two women — one a prostitute and one a former wife — described being choked by Ridgway. All four women he is charged with killing died of asphyxiation. The prostitute told police Ridgway placed her in what she described as a police-type choke hold in 1982. She said she was sure he was going to kill her, but she was able to escape. Ridgway's second wife, Marcia, also described being placed in a police-type choke hold by him after a party at which he had been drinking heavily.
• Marcia, to whom Ridgway was married from December 1973 until May 1981, said he was often gone in the evening for long periods, and frequently returned home dirty or wet.
• In spring 1983, some Green River victims were last seen entering pickups described as blue or green. Ridgway told investigators his own maroon pickup was broken down at that time and that he rode the bus and borrowed his father's brown and gold pickup. But a girlfriend told police Ridgway also borrowed his brother's pickup, an aqua, or blue-green, 1970 Dodge.
• Ridgway was contacted and let go at least twice by Port of Seattle police during the height of the Green River killings. The first was in August 1982, a day after one victim disappeared, at the end of a dead-end road by the airport near where two victims were later discovered, and again in February 1983 while on a "date" with one of the prostitutes who later died.
• Ridgway was not working during the times 27 Green River victims disappeared, including the four he is charged with killing.
Affidavits in support of search warrants are filed to persuade a judge to allow police to search property of crime suspects. They do not require proof for the assertions they contain, nor do they provide the suspect or his lawyer opportunity to dispute the assertions.
One of Ridgway's attorneys, Mark Prothero, said last night he had not seen the affidavit. He said he understood Ridgway was changing attorneys, moving from public defenders to criminal-defense lawyer Anthony Savage of Seattle.
Much of the information in this affidavit was recycled from a 1987 affidavit used to obtain a search warrant of Ridgway's home. Because he was not arrested then, much of the affidavit was deleted when it was made public then.
This 29-page document described in sordid detail Ridgway's relationships with women and his sexual proclivities.
A woman detectives refer to only as "Girlfriend A," told police Ridgway once took her to a campground near Cle Elum, where he tied her to wooden stakes he had driven into the ground. He then used nylon rope to tie her wrists and ankles to the stakes. She later was released.
Ridgway's first wife told a detective and an FBI agent that she had become romantically involved with a man in San Diego while Ridgway shipped out on a six-month Navy cruise shortly after they were married.
She said he returned to Seattle after he was discharged from the Navy in 1971 and that she joined him for a short time, but the marriage failed.
Ridgway is accused of making numerous angry accusations about his two ex-wives and spoke of them in derogatory ways.
His second wife said Ridgway became "fanatical" about religion from about 1976 until at least 1980. She said he went door to door for a Pentecostal church and got angry when people closed their doors on him. She also said he "would sit at night watching TV with an open Bible in his lap (and) would frequently cry after, or during, the church service."
One wife said Ridgway's mother often yelled at his father and once broke a dinner plate over his head while he was at the table (the father "only got up and left"). She said Ridgway was "very close" to his mother but not to his father.
Ridgway's first wife, Claudia, reached at her California home last night, said their brief marriage broke up in the early 1970s because she felt he was dominated by his mother's influence. For example, Claudia, who asked that her current last name not be used, said Ridgway wanted the couple to move onto his family's property at his mother's urging.
The documents describe hundreds of pieces of evidence seized in the searches — materials ranging from newspaper clippings and jewelry to latex gloves and carpet fibers.
In a search of the house where Ridgway grew up on South 175th Street in SeaTac, police took two Seattle Times newspapers, possible glass particles and a roll of gray duct tape.
A latex glove was found in a bathroom and a green paint sample was taken from a closet door.
A book, "The Skull Beneath the Skin," a P.D. James mystery, was found in another room and a tuft of hair was found in a "decorative tin container."
A search of Ridgway's current home on South 348th Street found three wigs, a book about exploited street children, dozens of boxes of jewelry and a copy of a book about the search for the Green River killer.
Hundreds of other items of evidence were collected at other locations. Police have estimated it could take months or years to analyze and match all the materials with other clues gathered in the investigation, which dates back some 19 years.
Ridgway's arraignment is scheduled for Dec. 18.
Seattle Times staff reporters Peyton Whitely, Nancy Bartley, Duff Wilson, Alex Fryer, Carol M. Ostrom and Craig Welch contributed to this report. Carlton Smith, who is on special assignment with the newspaper, also contributed.