Former neighbors express their shock after Ridgway plea

SEATAC — For a time in the mid-1980s, Kay Thomas lived four doors away from Gary Ridgway in this suburb south of Seattle. When he pleaded guilty to 48 murders last week, she learned what went on in his house.

"I was sickened by that, but not necessarily surprised," said Thomas. She declined to elaborate.

Ridgway told investigators he preferred to kill at home, where his victims were lulled by an appearance of normalcy that included toys and his little boy’s bedroom. He also strangled women in his truck and in area woods.

Thomas said she saw Ridgway bring young women into his house. She never saw anyone leave — or Ridgway carrying out anything that could have been a body wrapped in plastic.

And she and Ridgway never talked "about anything like that," she said.

Ridgway worked the swing shift as a truck painter, and some of the other neighbors worked odd hours as well, she said.

"It’s amazing no one saw anything," Thomas said.

Ridgway told police he had a foolproof disposal plan. He would unscrew a light bulb in his kitchen, back up his truck to the door and load the bodies. Once, he used his son’s footlocker to remove a victim’s body from the house.

Thomas said they discussed their sons, who played together every other weekend in about 1984 and 1985, and chatted about other things. Ridgway had visitation rights with his son Matthew, born in 1975, after he and his second wife, Marcia, divorced.

She knew Ridgway was a suspect in the Green River case, but says she let her son play with his child because the killer wasn’t targeting young children. And "he just seemed to be an absolutely friendly, normal neighbor," Thomas said.

Now she knows Ridgway sometimes took Matthew along when he picked up women to kill.

"That is disgusting," she said. "That was hard to hear."

King County Sheriff Dave Reichert said Thursday that Ridgway’s son — now an adult living in California — was "far too young" to remember anything.

Another former neighbor said Ridgway’s confession was not much of a shock.

"I am not surprised at all. Not really," said Clem Gregurek, who lived near Ridgway in Auburn, where he was arrested. He has talked with Green River detectives and knows that DNA doesn’t lie.

They occasionally shared a few beers, he said. Once, when he told Ridgway he often fished the Green River, he remembers Ridgway abruptly walking off to mow the lawn.

He shudders remembering that he used to leave his wife home alone when he went on hunting or fishing trips, with Ridgway’s house across the backyard.

"He had complete access to my backyard," he said. "And he was doing all that killing."