Text of Green River killer's confession

[Charlene]

Text of Green River killer's confession

November 5, 2003

From statement of Green River killer Gary Ridgway, read in court on Nov. 5 by prosecutor Jeff Baird:

I killed the 48 women listed in the state's second amended information. In most cases when I killed these women I did not know their names. Most of the time I killed them the first time I met them and I do not have a good memory of their faces. I killed so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight.

I have reviewed information and discovery about each of the murders with my attorneys and I am positive that I killed each one of the women charged in the second information. I killed them all in King County. I killed most of them in my house near Military Road, and I killed a lot of them in my truck not far from where I picked them up.

I killed some of them outside. I remember leaving each woman's body in the place where she was found.

I have discussed with my attorneys the common scheme or plan, aggravating circumstance charged in all of these murders. I agree that each of the murders I committed was part of a common scheme or plan. The plan was I wanted to kill as many women I thought were prostitutes as I possibly could.

I picked prostitutes as my victims because I hate most prostitutes and 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. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.

Another part of my plan was where I put the bodies of these women. Most of the time I took the women's jewelry and their clothes to get rid of any evidence and make them harder to identify. I placed most of the bodies in groups which I call clusters. I did this because I wanted to keep track of all the women I killed.

I liked to drive by the clusters around the county and think about the women I placed there. I usually used a landmark to remember a cluster and the women I placed there. Sometimes I killed and dumped a woman intending to start a new cluster and never returned because I thought I might get caught putting more women there.