“I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.”
(Gary Ridgway)
Gary Ridgway is one of the most prolific serial killers in US history, but was much less prolific when it came to communicating with the media, writing a single letter to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1984. The letter was received by Mike Barber and is titled “what you need to know about the green river man” and is entirely typed in lower case without spaces. It is also littered with spelling and grammatical mistakes, although many of these appear to be deliberate. It is widely believed that Ridgway often wished to be caught; this would explain the clues to his identity revealed in the letter.
In an article written in 2003, Gary Barber shares his experiences of receiving this letter, and the protocol and emotion which surrounded the incident.
“I received it two months after the launching of an enhanced Green River Task Force that the new King County sheriff, Vern Thomas, had set up. The official body count then was 21. But it was actually 47, as remains that were discovered over the next three years would show.”
“I remember the morning the letter landed on my big gray desk in the old P-I building at Sixth Avenue and Wall Street, where Group Health now has its headquarters. I was a relatively new 32-year-old reporter in Seattle, hired the year before from a newspaper in Ohio. I was tossed immediately into the Green River story to help our police reporter, George Foster.”
The letter that morning already had been handled by several copy aides, opened and paper-clipped to the envelope. The typing was illegible, and the writer hadn’t bothered to put spaces between his words. You had to decipher it by drawing lines between words.”
As I perused it, however, the letter immediately took on the aura of something important. I remember stopping suddenly and thinking “fingerprints,” and making a copy so I could write on it. I looked for a clear plastic lunch bag in which to put the letter. I called together a couple of my editors to consider what we had.”
“Adamson sent the letter to the FBI for analysis and kept his agreement to keep us informed — as best he could. If the killer wrote it, the P-I would be in the middle of the case. The newspaper’s reporters and editors would have to figure out how to both cover and participate in the hunt for the Green River Killer.
“I never wrote about the letter, being unable to prove who wrote it.”
(http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Letter-from-a-serial-killer-1129155.php)
The following documentary is an emotional and emotive insight into the life and crimes of Gary Ridgway.
Red Ink Letters 