Ridgway gave tips to police in '83
He told them in 1983 and again last year, when it was far too late: how to catch the "Green River Killer."
Gary L. Ridgway actually gave crime-solving tips that might have been used against him in his first contact with a Green River Task Force detective, in 1983, and again last year as he sat in a cell writing confessions, maps and recollections, newly released records show.
The King County sheriff and prosecutor, responding to public-record requests, yesterday released two digital discs packed with more than 32,000 pages from the official Ridgway file.
For instance, Ridgway said that in the early 1980s he dated 20 to 40 women he did not kill. Misspelling many words, he wrote: "I needed some prostetutes out there that were alive in case I got caught. To say I didn't hurt them."
One page, in Ridgway's handwriting, was titled, "Going About Catching the GRK."
Here's advice he gave on how to catch the killer:
"(1) All custumers don't want photos taken of them with prostitutes. All police cars should carry a small camera (35 mm)(Instamatic). Take pictures of customers with ladys. Out of car & in. Those cameras can be used in other crimes to. If the lady died he would be the last one seen with her.
"(2) Better police and prostitute relations. Ever prostitute should be ask if they had bad customer. Would they like to press charges.
"(3) All crime sites take vedeo of people watching. (That wouldn't have cought me though) It might catch some other killer... ."
This was an apparent reference to police looking at who shows up at crime scenes when a body is found.
"(4) My letter to the paper. I might have mailed another if you would have posted something in the paper, TV or radio about it." (The letter refers to an anonymous note Ridgway typed and mailed to a newspaper in February 1984, containing details only the killer could have known. It was dismissed as a hoax by prominent FBI profiler John Douglas.)
"(6) ... Show prostitutes the locations of the sites, find out who they went to that site with (me). I did go ther with other ladys but didn't kill them.
"(7) Camera mounted on a street light. To see who comes and goes at my house. You would have caught me."
"At his house?" task-force Detective D.B. Gates responded yesterday. "We would have had to know who he was."
Gates said that while detectives listened to Ridgway's advice, they already did many of those things and that the ideas probably didn't originate with the serial killer.
Ridgway advised police in his first contact with a Task Force detective, Larry Gross, on Nov. 16, 1983. He escaped suspicion partly by admitting he dated prostitutes along Pacific Highway South.
"His suggestions, as far as helping us catch the killer," Gross wrote, "would be to set up officers with cameras out on the highway and take pictures of all cars and license plates, utilizing decoy officers, female-type, to catch the guy; somehow, get the community more involved ... " The detective concluded, "He is not a prime suspect."
After Ridgway was identified by DNA technology and confessed last year to killing 48 women, he wrote almost 300 pages of notes for detectives. He had to give full cooperation to avoid the death penalty.
Among the killer's notes released yesterday:
• He told a friend in 1982 that he "did something you well see it in the paper tomorrow or on TV. I don't know which. That was the night I killed my first person."
• He insisted he didn't beat up or tie them up or shoot or stab anybody. "I well not take credit for any killings I did not do."
• He described his health. "I have worked out 1 or 2 times a day sense I been in jail. That is why I look stronger. I do it for my health and relaxe, take the presser off. To protect myself from the other prisoners. It helps me sleep at night."
• He wrote his lawyers, "... I have hid this for 19 years ... I don't want any of them lost forever. Please help me find all of them. I get down on my nees and pray every night that we well."
The Ridgway file also has details on the now-familiar litany of close calls with police and some evidence pointing to him. For instance, Port of Seattle police contacted Ridgway on Aug. 29, 1982, on a dead-end street within 100 feet of where two victims' bodies were later discovered, and Feb. 23, 1983, in a car on a date with a woman who later disappeared.
Polygraph examiner Norman Matzke said Ridgway passed a May 1984 test. However, an examination of the results by two independent polygraphists found that Matzke's examination was incomplete and, therefore, invalid.
Matzke could not be reached for comment.
The county's own investigation developed enough evidence for a search warrant of Ridgway's house and vehicles in 1987 but found no proof.
Sgt. John Urquhart, spokesman for Sheriff's Office, said, "We absolutely considered him a viable suspect, but it was a very subjective situation. ... At no point was there probable cause to arrest him" until the DNA evidence.
Duff Wilson: 206-464-2288 or dwilson@seattletimes.com