It’s in their blood

By Gene Johnson

Associated Press Writer

SEATTLE — Officially, the Green River Killer’s death list stops in 1984, at 49.

But experts, who long speculated the killer was either dead or in jail, say serial killers rarely reform on their own. That knowledge has detectives wondering whether dozens of more recent cases — from San Diego to Vancouver, British Columbia — can be linked to the Green River Killer.

"They become compulsive," San Francisco State University criminology professor Mike Rustigan said Monday. "Once they’ve killed two or three or four, it’s in their blood. There’s an urge that does not go away."

The Green River killings, named for the river where several of the first bodies were found, have long been the nation’s most prolific unsolved serial killings. According to the official list, from 1982-84, 49 women were killed or disappeared.

Gary Ridgway, 52, was arrested Friday for investigation in the deaths of four of the Green River victims. Detectives said DNA and other evidence linked him to the crimes, and court documents from 1987 say at least three of the dead or missing women were last seen with him.

Most serial killers wind up being caught because they get sloppy, Rustigan said. Ted Bundy, suspected in as many as 36 killings, and William Lester Suff, who killed 12 prostitutes in California, were caught during traffic stops. Richard Ramirez, a Los Angeles transient known as the Night Stalker, was caught as he attempted a carjacking.

That would make Ridgway an exception — as would several other facts about his life. He appeared to lead a somewhat normal existence, keeping the same truck-painting job for 32 years, getting married and holding garage sales.

And that has some experts wondering: If he in fact was the Green River Killer, could he have stopped? In British Columbia, there are 52 unsolved murders of prostitutes, and another 45 women involved in prostitution or drugs are missing, said Constable Danielle Efford of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Police up and down the Pacific Coast are looking for possible connections to other deaths.

"He wasn’t like these others, stealing cars, shoplifting, doing something dumb," Rustigan said. "He had a marvelous double-life. It was well-compartmentalized. There’s a good possibility that he’s an exception."

Ridgway, whose taste for prostitutes has been known since he tried to solicit an undercover policewoman in 1982, has long been a suspect in the killings — and he knew it. Police first questioned him in 1984. They searched his house and took saliva and hair samples in 1987.

If he was the killer, that knowledge might have persuaded him to cool it, Rustigan said.

Robert Yates, the Spokane serial killer who confessed to killing 13 people and awaits trial on two other deaths, apparently stopped killing prostitutes — but continued to patronize them — from 1998 to 2000, when he knew detectives were watching him. Ridgway was convicted two weeks ago on charges he tried to solicit a prostitute.

When the Green River killings appeared to stop, many figured that the killer had gone to prison on an unrelated charge or had died.

Criminology professor Candice Skrapec of California State University at Fresno strongly believes that the Green River Killer kept killing.

"The urge to kill seems to be so compelling, he’s more likely to have changed his M.O., or maybe changed his location," she said. "Generally, they don’t stop until we stop them."

She said she hopes investigators take an especially close look at unsolved killings of women in Vancouver.

"I’ve done that drive from Vancouver down to Seattle several times," Skrapec said. "It’s just so easy to do in a weekend."