Gary Ridgway: The Green River Killer
Gary Ridgway, commonly known as the Green River Killer, was convicted of 48 murders and it has been presumed that Ridgway had killed twice that number (Murray, 2008). Figure 1 is a map of where the police have found bodies of Ridgway's victims, many of his victims were found near or in the Green River in Seattle, which was why he was named the Green River Killer. Also in figure 2, one of Gary Ridgway's victim was found in the Green River by the authorities. However due to the Seattle police department’s “absolute incompetence when it came to investigating the cases”(Philbin, 2009), Ridgway was free to do whatever he wanted to do and murder who he wanted. It was not until 2001, 19 years after the Green River murders started in the year 1982, Gary
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Ridgway did indeed had a troubled childhood. His mother humiliated him by making him stand nude in a tub of cold water, while his brothers watched him (Philbin, 2009). His mother also belittled him because he wetted his bed until his early teens (Levi-Minzi, 2007) thus, leading him to over generalising and hating most women. He also had a love hate relationship with his mother, as he wanted to: “Slit her throat with a kitchen knife as relieve his frustrations of never being able to please her” (Levi-Minzi, 2007). Even during his childhood, Gary Ridgway was showing signs of becoming a serial killer.
Choice in victim and method of murder is psychological because of his hatred of women, stemming from his early childhood and anger towards his mother. As stated before, this is psychoanalytical because he targeted specifically women ages 15-38, mainly prostitutes. “Society typically looks down on prostitution as a profession, seeing it as immoral (Levi-Minzi, 2007)”, perhaps Ridgway thought that he could have gotten away with murder because of their
Ridgway did indeed had a troubled childhood. His mother humiliated him by making him stand nude in a tub of cold water, while his brothers watched him (Philbin, 2009). His mother also belittled him because he wetted his bed until his early teens (Levi-Minzi, 2007) thus, leading him to over generalising and hating most women. He also had a love hate relationship with his mother, as he wanted to: “Slit her throat with a kitchen knife as relieve his frustrations of never being able to please her” (Levi-Minzi, 2007). Even during his childhood, Gary Ridgway was showing signs of becoming a serial killer.
Choice in victim and method of murder is psychological because of his hatred of women, stemming from his early childhood and anger towards his mother. As stated before, this is psychoanalytical because he targeted specifically women ages 15-38, mainly prostitutes. “Society typically looks down on prostitution as a profession, seeing it as immoral (Levi-Minzi, 2007)”, perhaps Ridgway thought that he could have gotten away with murder because of their