38: The Green River Killer: Conversations with Gary Ridgway

What does one of America's most prolific serial killers say when he's spent more than two decades behind bars?

For years, author Maria DiLorenzo has corresponded with Gary Ridgway—the Green River Killer—offering a rare window into the mind of a man convicted of murdering 49 women and who later confessed to many more.

In this episode of UNMARKED, I sit down with Maria to examine what Ridgway's letters, interviews, and prison conversations reveal about the psychology of one of history's most prolific serial killers. We explore the violent fantasies that preceded the murders, the role of psychopathy, why Ridgway targeted vulnerable women, how he evaded capture for nearly twenty years, and why he may still be trying to control the story of who Gary Ridgway really is.

If you've heard the legend of the Green River Killer, this may change how you understand the man behind it.

Read Confessions of the Green River Killer — The True Story of Manipulation, Madness and a Search for Justice:
https://amzn.to/4ph903W

Research in This Episode:

Levi-Minzi, M., & Shields Levi-Minzi, M. A. (2007). Serial Sexual Murderers and Prostitutes as their Victims: Difficulty Profiling Perpetrators and Victim Vulnerability as Illustrated by the Green River Case. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention, 7 (1), 77-89.

Castillo, Natalie V., "They Have Names, Too: A Case Study on the First Five Victims of the Green River Killer: Examining the Construction of Society and Its Creation of Victim Availability" (2020). Women, Gender , and Sexuality Studies Under gr aduate Honors Theses. 2.

Aggrawal, A. (2009). A new classification of necrophilia. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 16(6), 316–320.

Atherley, Loren T., "Profiling Ridgway: A Retrospective Analysis of Criminal Profiling through the Green River Investigation" (2010). Master of Arts in Criminal Justice Theses. 5.

Show Notes:

If you want to go deeper into the Charles Manson case, my book Charles Manson: The Last Words documents years researching the story and speaking directly with members of the Manson Family — including Charles Manson himself.

Read it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ6QRVQ7

If you want to follow the cases as I’m working on them, you can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesbuddyday/

For those who want to examine the evidence directly, complete phone calls and documents are available inside UNMARKED: Case Files, our research portal, along with ad-free episodes.

Join here:
https://www.patreon.com/Unmarked_TrueCrimePodcast

UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast is hosted by Audioboom.