Gary Ridgway, 69, is serving a life sentence in the Washington State Penitentiary
A former FBI profiler who interviewed the Green River Killer has spoken out about her belief that there are many more victims who may never be found.
In a new episode of the Oxygen series Criminal Confessions airing on Saturday night, profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole reveals insights from her interviews with serial killer Gary Ridgway.
Ridgeway, 69, is currently serving a life sentence in Washington State Penitentiary for convictions of the murders of 49 women – the most confirmed kills of any U.S. serial killer.
The murders occurred in the 1980s and 90s, but Ridgway was not arrested until 2001, when DNA evidence linked him to several of the murders.
Ridgeway admitted to the 49 murders in a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, on the condition that he help investigators locate and identify the remains of his victims, who were often runaways or prostitutes.
A former FBI profiler believes that Ridgeway (left and right) killed far more victims than the official count of 49, but fears that the remains will never be found
But the serial killer has mentioned higher numbers of victims, and at one point even told investigators that he had lost count of his sick crimes.
O’Toole says that Ridgway offered in 2012 to tell her about additional women he’d killed, but then clammed up when she arrived at the prison to to interview him. Likely, he feared the death penalty if he confessed to any murders outside of King County, Washington.
‘The plea agreement was only applicable to the murders that occurred within King County, which is Seattle,’ O’Toole explained in an interview with Fox News.
‘So, the fact that he would only kill in one small county in the state of Washington, which is huge, just defies common sense,’ she said.
‘We know that there are other victims out there, but he could not talk about them because the plea agreement was only applicable to the women who were found within King County.
‘If he were to talk about the other murders, he could be charged by their prosecutor and given the death penalty and he did not want that.’
Investigators search for the remains of one of Green River killer Gary Leon Ridgway victims at a unknown location. Ridgeway pleaded guilty to 49 murders to avoid the death penalty
The plea deal only applied to murders committed within King County, Washington (above)
O’Toole first interviewed Ridgway in 2003, when she used a trick to appeal to his vanity to get him to open up.
“One of my first conversations was to tell Gary I was headed up to work on another serial murder case and that I might not have a lot of time to stay and talk with him,’ she recalled.
‘Because I know from prior experience that they compare themselves, and they want to be the best at being a serial killer.’
Virginia Graham, sister of Green River Killer victim Debra Estes, speaks in court during the sentencing of Gary Ridgway in 2003 in Seattle, Washington. Ridgway recieved a life sentence
The trick seemed to work, and O’Toole went on to interview Ridgway regularly over the course of six months, gathering information about where the victims were buried.
She says that there was ‘nothing remarkable’ about Ridgway that would give away the fact that he abducted, raped and murdered dozens of young women, and often returned to their bodies to commit necrophilia.
‘He’s kind of a quiet guy,’ said O’Toole. ‘He comes across as being respectful. He could smile, he smiled.’
The full episode of Criminal Confessions airs on Oxygen at 6pm ET on Saturday.