Green River suspect charged in 4 deaths

By Gene Johnson

Associated Press

SEATTLE – Gary Leon Ridgway, a truck painter from Auburn, was charged Wednesday with four counts of aggravated murder in the Green River serial killings case.

King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng said he has not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty, but he said he would not allow Ridgway to plead guilty in exchange for assurances that his life would be spared.

“We will not plea bargain with the death penalty,” Maleng said.

The case has baffled investigators since 1982, when women’s bodies were found in or near the Green River in Kent, south of Seattle. Forty-nine women – most of them prostitutes or runaways – were believed to be victims of the serial killer.

Ridgway is charged in the deaths of Opal Mills, Marcia Chapman and Cynthia Hinds, whose bodies were found in the river on Aug. 15, 1982, and Carol Christensen, found May 8, 1983, in woods in nearby Maple Valley. Hinds and Mills were both teen-agers. Christensen was 21 and Chapman was 31.

Maleng said there is no statute of limitations for murder.

“For the victim, the loss is ultimate. For the family, the grief is permanent, and for the community the harm and danger do not diminish with the passage of time. Justice is a concept that never gets old,” he said.

Investigators this fall were finally able to link Ridgway to the crimes through DNA evidence. Ridgway had complied with a 1987 court order to chew on a piece of gauze, and investigators used new DNA technology to match his saliva to semen found on three of the victims.

The fourth victim, Hinds, was linked to Ridgway through circumstantial evidence, investigators said. She was found near Chapman in the river; both were submerged with large rocks.

Ridgway’s public defenders said they would push to have the trial moved to another jurisdiction because they believe there has been too much publicity surrounding the case for Ridgway to have a fair trial in King County.

They also said they would question the techniques used to collect, preserve and test DNA samples taken so long ago.

“There’s a human element to all of this,” said defense lawyer Mark Prothero. “To accept it all at face value would be jumping to a conclusion that shouldn’t be jumped to.”

Of Ridgway, Prothero said, “He’s stressed, but he’s handling the pressure as well as one would expect given the circumstances.”

Ridgway, 52, an employee of Kenworth Truck Co. in Renton for 32 years, was arrested Friday as he was leaving work. Charging papers said that in an interview, he told investigators he knew Christensen but never had a sexual relationship with her.

Following the charging announcement, two friends of Mills and Hinds hugged Sheriff Dave Reichert, who, as a young detective, was one of the first investigators to work the case. All three cried.

“He’s been living through this with us,” said Tara Kinzy, 31, of Federal Way. “He’s gone to bed with this every night.”

She and Deniece Griffin, 35, said they hope to organize a vigil for victims of the Green River Killer and said they will push for the victims’ families to receive aid under a state compensation law.

A suspect in the case since 1984, Ridgway was known to have contact with several other victims on the Green River list, and investigators are looking at all 49 deaths, plus more than 40 other unsolved killings in the region.

Authorities won’t say whether they think the Green River killer is responsible for any deaths beyond 1984, but the arrest has prompted investigators in San Diego, Calif., and Vancouver, British Columbia, to review files on scores of slain women for possible links.

Maleng declined to say Wednesday whether investigators had evidence Ridgway traveled.

Meanwhile Wednesday, detectives finished searching the last of four area homes where Ridgway has lived since the killings began.

They seized envelopes containing bone fragments, boxes of latex gloves, copies of old newspapers and myriad other items, court papers showed.

In addition, the court documents offered graphic accounts of Ridgway’s sex life, as described by ex-wives, girlfriends and prostitutes, and past incidents of alleged violence toward women.

Washington state Democrats – Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Adam Smith – have secured $500,000 for King County in the bill that funds the Justice Department. Murray’s office said the money would go toward further DNA testing and analysis.

President Bush has signed the bill. Details about the grant will be unveiled at a news conference Friday in Seattle.

Still, Maleng said the state must provide better funding for its crime lab, which performed the DNA testing.

“Our state crime lab is not in good shape,” he said. “They’re understaffed; they’re overworked; they’re underpaid.”

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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