GREEN RIVER SERIAL KILLER
Biography
of an Unsuspecting Wife
Pennie Morehead
Copyright 2011 Pennie Morehead,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by Branden Books
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
Branden Publishing Company, Inc.
PO Box 812094
Wellesley MA 02482
ISBN-13: 978-0-8283-2277-5
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Dedication
To all those who have had their futures stolen
by deceitful lovers
Acknowledgments
Judith, thank you for your courage and trust in me to tell your story. You made the decision to come out of hiding, gather up your wounded self, and take the first step forward. It has been a thrill for me to watch you become stronger.
Jim and Linda Bailey, your support, encouragement, and committed friendship with Judith perpetuated this project. All the work you did, from tedious errands to liaison coordination with critical personal contacts, was appreciated.
Professors Phil Jack and Marcie Sims, I hope that the folks at Green River Community College in Auburn, Washington, recognize the talent and high-caliber character you two possess. Your mentoring and excitement for this book were incredibly inspiring to me.
Mr. Adolph Caso at Branden Books, thank you for taking a chance on me and giving this book a publishing home.
Finally, to my family, thank you for your support. You teasingly referred to me as “certified intense”—a name I deserved.
Introduction
When I first met Judith Ridgway, she was still clinging to the hope that her husband, the infamous Green River Killer, was innocent. She struck me as being someone who had endured a lot in her life, and I assumed this was the result of her relationship with Gary, her husband. However, I soon discovered that there was more to her story than that, and the true irony was that the man, known to have murdered more victims than any other serial killer in the United States, was the hero in Judith’s story.
So, this book is more than a biography. It not only provides a picture of Gary Ridgway through Judith’s eyes, but includes interviews, personal documents, and a professional analysis of Gary’s handwriting. By taking this approach, I am able to provide multiple lenses through which to view the Green River Serial Killer.
To accomplish this, I begin the multi-prong format with a bird’s eye view of Judith, Gary’s wife, as she experiences what begins as a typical day. Without warning, she feels the support walls of her life come crashing down when detectives deliver the devastating news that her husband is the Green River Killer. By taking this personalized approach, I hope to help the reader understand her feelings and reactions to the terrible news.
Then I provide information about Judith’s background so that the reader can learn about Judith Ridgway’s difficult entry into the world and her dramatic, painful childhood. Before Gary, Judith was married to a man who had challenged her will to survive. But Judith did survive!
This will help the reader understand how Judith felt when she met the man of her dreams—Mr. Gary Ridgway. Intimate details of the Ridgway courtship and marriage unfold as the reader is led to the day that Judith’s world ended—November 30, 2001—when the long search for the Green River Serial Killer ended at her doorstep.
At this point, I have included interviews with Gary’s close friends, co-workers, and Judith. Even Gary speaks out from prison about his feelings for his wife and what he hopes will happen in her future.
I’ve also included a chapter that includes private photos, cards, and letters from Gary to Judith over the years before and after his arrest, which leads to my professional evaluation of Gary’s personality using graphology, or handwriting analysis.
Chapter 1 - Buried by Bricks
November 30, 2001:
At exactly 3:30 a.m. he got up from his warm bed. The master bedroom was dark and silent on this chilly fall morning. He did not flip on any lights. Didn’t need to. He moved about the room with the automated gestures of a workingman who had been doing this ritual for 32 years.
He’s going in early for two hours of overtime, his wife sleepily acknowledged, partially awake.
His routine was intimately familiar to her. She smiled to herself without opening her eyes, rolling over onto her other side. She thought that she was one of the lucky ones. She had finally made it to a place in life she had never thought possible before. She was Mrs. Gary Ridgway. She had a good husband—a non-abusive husband—who earned a nice living so she could stay at home and pursue her hobbies.
This morning was no different. Gary was quietly dressing himself: climbing into his work jeans; buttoning his plaid, long-sleeve, flannel shirt down the front of his slim torso; always having his white cotton tee-shirt underneath. He crouched down, using both hands to pull white, cotton crew socks over his feet, one at a time while balancing on the opposite foot, and then finally guided his feet into his sturdy, steel-toe work boots. He laced them up tightly.
She knew he would not shower in the early morning. Why bother? He would surely get dirty at work painting trucks all day. She appreciated the fact that when he got to work, he would put on big, industrial coveralls to keep his own clothing from being ruined.
She stretched her legs and moved them to a spot in the bed that still held Gary’s warmth. As she fell back to sleep, she could imagine Gary finding the hot coffee ready downstairs that she had set up the night before. They had a fancy coffee maker now with a timer that could be set at bedtime, and somehow the machine would make the coffee at the precise time she had set it for. She was simply amazed by this advancement in coffee- making technology. Gary’s habit was to pour himself a cup of hot coffee to begin sipping after adding a dribble of cold milk from the refrigerator. Then he would pour all but one cup of the coffee into his dented, several-year-old, Thermos bottle, leaving the remaining cup for his wife to drink when she would get up later in the morning.
The next step in the morning ritual would be for Gary to take two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, his favorite of all sandwiches, out of the freezer. There he would find about a dozen pre-made sandwiches, all peanut butter and jelly, of course, neatly displayed in individual plastic sandwich bags in the freezer that Judith had lovingly constructed. Once in a while, Judith changed up the pattern and made a few ham and cheese with lettuce sandwiches, but she didn’t freeze them. That would ruin the lettuce. She would giggle to herself later, knowing that she had surprised Gary with
