Matthew Ridgway Biography | Who is Matthew Ridgway, Gary Ridgway’s son?
Gary Ridgway’s son Matthew Ridgway holds memories of regular soccer dads. Matthew Ridgway remembers his father as a relaxed man who never yelled and who took him camping, taught him to play baseball and always showed up for school concerts and soccer practices.
“Even when I was in fourth grade when I was with soccer, he’d always, you know, be there for me,” Matthew Ridgway, now 28, told investigators Dec. 1, 2001, the day after his father’s arrest for four murders.
“I don’t think I ever remember him not being there,” he said. During the years when Gary Leon Ridgway was taking his son on bike rides and to eat doughnuts, he also was terrorizing the South Sound by killing women and dumping their bodies in deserted areas.
In fact, Ridgway’s son, born in September 1975, played an unwitting part in the Federal Way-area truck painter’s rampage.
Gary Ridgway told investigators this summer he sometimes showed his son’s picture or the boy’s room at his home to women to put them at ease.
In July 1982, Ridgway picked up a woman with his son in the car, killed her in a nearby woods, and then told the boy the woman had decided to walk home. Another time, he had sex with the dead body of one of his victims while his son slept in his truck about 30 feet away.
Matthew Ridgway told investigators in July that he doesn’t remember any strange women in the car, or being left in the truck for a long time.
Matthew Ridgway said his father — who was sentenced last week to life in prison for killing 48 women between 1982 and 1998 — never talked to him about girls, prostitutes or the Green River killings. Matthew Ridgway, who’s married and lives in California, had no idea his father was anything more than a regular, albeit part-time, dad.
Even though Matthew’s mother told him when he was in fourth or fifth grade that police were questioning his father about the murders, he never believed his dad could be the Green River Killer.
When he was younger, Matthew Ridgway said he thought his father was just one of 500 possible suspects in the killings. “I think that’s how I related,” Matthew said in 2001, “that he’s just one of the guys that happened to be one place and, you know, he’s my dad. He didn’t do it, you know.”
King County officials on Monday released transcripts of investigators’ interviews with Ridgway’s son in 2001 and 2003, with his ex-wives and with one of his brothers, as well as with a woman who said she escaped after Ridgway tried to choke her in 1982.
In more than 100 pages of transcripts, Matthew Ridgway describes his relationship with a father who wasn’t as close as he wanted it to be because of divorce.
But the two camped in Washington and Oregon on their alternating weekends together. Gary Ridgway taught his son to play baseball near the Green River, where he dumped the bodies of several of the women he killed during his son’s early years.
The two rode a bike — with 4-year-old Matthew in a child seat — on a trail along the Green River, where they stopped to eat Hostess cakes and play at a park.
Matthew Ridgway said his father never talked about prostitutes or hurting anyone. He never used racial slurs, he never yelled, and he rarely argued with Matthew’s mother, Marsha.
As Matthew Ridgway was growing up, his father would figure out what he was interested in and “try to be a father … like you see on the TV shows.”
It never quite worked, Matthew Ridgway said. But even in 2001, Gary Ridgway was still trying to make his son laugh, “like I’m a kid again.”
Matthew Ridgway said that when he was in fourth or fifth grade, his mother told him about the Green River investigation and that police were questioning his father.
“And if the media came to me that I was to say, ‘No comment,’” Matthew Ridgway said.
Matthew Ridgway Age | How Old is Matthew Ridgway?
Matthew Ridgway is the son of an American serial killer, he was born in September 1975, age 44 years old as of the year. His father name Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949), also known as the Green River Killer, is an American serial killer.
He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders. As part of his plea bargain, another conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, making him the second most prolific serial killer in United States history according to confirmed murders. He killed a large number of teenage girls and women in the state of Washington during the 1980s and 1990s.
Most of Ridgway’s victims were alleged to be sex workers and other women in vulnerable circumstances, including underage runaways. The press gave him his nickname after the first five victims were found in the Green River before his identity was known.
He strangled his victims, usually by hand but sometimes using ligatures. After strangling them, he would dump their bodies in forested and overgrown areas in King County, often returning to the bodies to have sexual intercourse with them.
On November 30, 2001, as Ridgway was leaving the Kenworth truck factory where he worked in Renton, Washington, he was arrested for the murders of four women whose cases were linked to him through DNA evidence.
As part of a plea bargain wherein he agreed to disclose the locations of still-missing women, he was spared the death penalty and received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
Matthew Ridgway Wife, Married, Background
Serial killer Gary Leon Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, murdered at least 49 women in Washington state before he was caught in 2001. Serial killer Gary Leon Ridgway was born on February 18, 1949, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He held a job painting truck for 30 years and was married three times.
He began murdering women in 1982 and was caught in 2001 when a DNA test revealed a match. Ridgway told investigators he killed as many as 75-80 women along Route 99 in South King County, Washington. He was convicted and received multiple life sentences.
Gary Leon Ridgway was born on February 18, 1949, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Raised near Seattle’s Pacific Highway, a deprived neighborhood near SeaTac airport, Ridgway was a poor student and was sent to Vietnam after high school.
When he returned, he got a job painting trucks, which he kept for 30 years. Though he married three times and was fanatical about religion, Ridgway was a frequent customer of prostitutes. Spouse(s) Claudia Kraig Barrows(m. 1970; div. 1972),Marcia Lorene Brown (m. 1973; div. 1981),and Judith Lorraine Lynch(m. 1988; div. 2002)
Green River Killings
Ridgway’s slayings began in 1982, when young runaways and prostitutes began disappearing from state Route 99 in South King County, Washington.
He brought many of them to his home and strangled them, then left them in woodsy, remote sites. The first few bodies turned up along the now-notorious Green River.
Dubbed the Green River Killer, Ridgway eluded the law until 2001, when King County sheriff Dave Reichert, the first officer assigned to the case in 1982, called a meeting to re-examine evidence using newly developed DNA-testing technology.
The analysis produced a match between evidence from the victims and Ridgway, and he was charged with four counts of aggravated murder in December 2001. Ridgway eventually pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder.
Multiple Life Sentences
Facing the prospect of execution, Ridgway made a deal with investigators to revealed where he’d hidden the bodies of several of the young women who’d never been found while also agreeing to plead guilty to any future cases where his confession could be substantiated by evidence.
He was sentenced to life in prison in December 2003, having committed more murders than any serial killer in U.S. history.
An additional body was found in 2011, with Ridgway receiving another life sentence. In 2013, he claimed in an interview with a news media outlet that he had murdered 75-80 women, with speculation over Ridgway was telling the truth or seeking further attention.
Gary Ridgway’s son Matthew Wife
MATTHEW RIDGWAY – SON OF THE GREEN RIVER SERIAL KILLER GARY RIDGEWAY
He is the son of the famous Green River Serial Killer Gary Ridgway. Matthew unwittingly played a part in his father’s murders.
Gary would sometimes show photos of his son to his victims to make them more at ease before killing them. Matthew remembers his dad like a normal dad who went with him on camping trips, taught him how to play baseball and showed up for soccer practice and school concerts. Matthew said that his father never yelled and hardly had any fights with his mother, Marsha.
His father had a busy life with being the perfect husband, father and serial killer. July 1982, Gary picked up a woman with Matthew in the car, took her into the woods and killed her; he told Matthew that she decided to walk home.
Another time Matthew was sleeping in his truck about 30 feet away while he was having sex with a corpse. Luckily Matthew never remembered any of these things.
Matthew is married and lives in California. Matthew and his dad continued to have a good relationship, and his father even made him laugh in 2001. To Matthew, his dad will forever be just a regular dad, and he loves his father for giving him a wonderful childhood