| Popis: |
In August 1982, the bodies of three strangled and sexually assaulted women were found south of Seattle, Washington, near the banks of the Green River. The discovery of these bodies led to a task force to hunt for the “Green River Killer.” More than twenty years later, on November 5, 2003, a fifty-four-yearold truck painter named Gary Ridgway pleaded guilty to murdering these three women and an additional forty-five women over a sixteen-year period. By committing these forty-eight murders, Ridgway became the worst serial killer in the history of the United States. When asked why he killed the women, many of whom were prostitutes, Ridgway responded: “I hate most prostitutes. I did not want to pay them for sex. . . . I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up, without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away, and might never be reported missing.” Ridgway also commented that he targeted prostitutes “because I thought I could kill as many as I wanted without getting caught.”1 Although Ridgway was convicted in a state with the death penalty (that is, Washington), he will not be put to death, because of a plea agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors requiring him to plead guilty to the forty-eight murders and to help locate the bodies of four of his victims. Ridgway was sentenced to forty-eight consecutive life sentences in prison without any chance of release and a $480,000 fine ($10,000 for each women he admitted to killing). |
