Transcript of Episode 671: Gary Ridgway : Redux Part I - Wrong Way Gary

There's no place to escape to. This is the last.

On the left.

That's when the cannibalism started.

What was that? We going? We're trying to get into the Gary Ridgway headspace. I put a plastic bag over my head for a while this morning to kill off some of those extra pesky brain cells. You know, I was just trying to get— I'm gonna kill the bitch. I'm just like, that's the way to get into Gary Ridgway. I'm gonna kill the bitch. I'm gonna kill the bitch. Just because that's one of his favorite sayings.

Oh yeah, his catchphrase.

Yeah, yeah.

I didn't want to get too crazy and violent with it, so I just did a really bad job of painting a truck.

Welcome to The Last Podcast on the Left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with method actor Henry Zabrowski.

I'mma go. Because he reminds me a little bit of the, what's his name from South Park?

Oh, Timmy.

Timmy.

No, no, not Timmy, Jimmy.

Jimmy, yeah. Jimmy, yeah, yeah. I think he's Jimmy. Oh, stand up. Yeah. He's got those little eyes too. He's got those little blinky little rat eyes.

The beadiest eyes in serial killing.

He has that, he has the Arthur Shawcross tell.

Yeah.

Where when they're saying, when they're talking about things that particularly make them horny, they get real blinky.

Yeah, that's indeed. Yeah. And we have the man who doesn't get blinky at all when he gets horny. As far as I know, it's Ed Larson. Yeah.

No, I don't think, I think I just shut him and go to sleep.

See, my eyes are wide open.

It's one long blink.

I want to see.

And today we have a redo. We have a second pass. It's yet another look at a serial killer that we covered long ago. Today we start our journey on Gary Ridgway.

I've brought this up before, and I once did one of those like horrible tests, like which serial killer are you? And I got Green River Killer.

Yeah, you know what, I can see it.

Okay. Yeah, you're blue collar.

Yeah. What I like me to do is go, I got to kill a bitch.

She's a bitch.

I got to kill this bitch.

I like the woods.

He does love the woods. He does.

He does. Amongst Many other things. He does love the woods.

I was just in Renton, which is next to SeaTac.

Oh yeah.

I was just there and we had a nice place on the right on the, right on the Lake Washington there. And I walked through the woods and it's nice.

It is.

I can see why it would get you horny.

It's real quiet and private too, right?

Oh, absolutely. I was smoking all kinds of weed. No one said nothing. It's great.

But the reason why we're doing this Redux is because, you know, when we were, when we did this series back in the day, we had kind of like, it was, we're still in the research, figuring out what we're doing.

Very— I mean, this is back when it's like, at that point I was still on like 6 podcasts a week.

Yeah.

And also editing all of them and producing all of them. So like, I was basically like looking at Wikipedia pages and like checking out like a couple of like Murderpedia pages and trying to put shit together, not sleeping much and working like 90 hours a week. It was insane.

So it was a, let's say, a bad job, but it was fun to do. But at the same time, we did not— because normally it's like the opposite. Normally when we do the old episodes, we got into the really graphic shit and we didn't get to all the other like context and stuff where this time it's so wonderful to know that when we got back into it, the information's actually way more fucked up than we even ever thought in the beginning. And that's great for us. Yeah. Now he—

from my— I watched the documentary on HBO Max yesterday and I obviously I read the script to prep today. He seems like he might be the worst.

No, he's up there.

Like, he's definitely— as far as a body count goes, he's one of the most prolific in American history. Samuel Little beat him though, like by a lot. Um, so he is, but he is definitely in that area, uh, of like amongst the worst.

And you know how I described him? Okay, he does it the Kirby Puckett style. He's simple.

Yeah, right.

You know what I mean? He's the bunter. That's what this is all about.

It's on base.

This is about moving guys around bases, right? Moving sex workers to various shallow—

he's an RBI guy, not a home run guy.

Exactly. He's a clutch player. Yeah.

So as we said, many years ago we attempted an episode on Gary Ridgway, and while we did the best we could with the resources we had at the time, We realized after looking at this story again that we didn't really capture the full picture, especially considering how new information has come to light that might actually explain the mystery of Gary Ridgway. See, last time we described Gary Ridgway as a man who was really only good at one thing. He was a dullard, but he also managed to evade police for decades as one of the most prolific serial killers in American history, despite the efforts of a massive task force. In fact, before the advent of DNA testing, the so-called Green River Killer case, as Gary Ridgway's murders are known, was shaping up to be yet another unsolved serial killer mystery like the Zodiac or Jack the Ripper. But the biggest difference between those cases and Green River is the sheer volume of victims. While Jack and the Zodiac only got 5 each, Gary Ridgway murdered at least 45 women between 1982 and 1984 alone. 2 fucking years. And that doesn't even count the women he murdered afterward and the women he possibly murdered before.

And we've talked about this before with these types of serial killers. There's always the ones in which they killed way less than they said that they did and they're doing it for attention. And then there's the ones that might have killed way more. And Gary Ridgway is firmly in the camp of might have killed way more. Yeah, because he even, he said, I, I don't remember, I don't, I, I don't remember heck of a lot. I, I kind of go in a different direction I'm not. And then he just starts thinking about it in a way where he goes off into a fantasy world and he doesn't even remember. And then he's like, I don't know whether or not that was a dream or that was just a fantasy. And he's just like, he was thinking about killing for so long that he also doesn't remember what was the ones he actually did and what were just a walking fugue state fantasy he was in.

You know what's interesting is sometimes, I bet when I was younger, Pip pip— What did I say?

It's catching!

It's really catchy.

When I was younger, I remember I used to get into a lot of fights, and I remember one fight, my biggest fight, I don't remember it. Yeah. Like, I went into like a fugue state. And so that kind of makes sense. So I feel like violence, extreme violence can bring on just you not knowing what's going on.

It's not violence, it's anger because I bet that during that fight you were probably the angriest you have ever been in your entire life.

I guess. I don't even remember. I was perfectly fine afterwards. I'll tell you that much.

And then That's the power of man.

So Gary Ridgway would pick up sex workers from the areas around the Sea-Tac International Airport and the Interstate 5 corridor, pretend as if it was gonna be a normal transaction, then he would strangle women to death before dumping the bodies in isolated wooded areas around the Seattle-Tacoma region. Gary was able to do this dozens of times because the area in which Gary obtained and disposed of victims was almost tailor-made for a serial killer.

Thanks, God. God did that.

God and man working together.

Yeah, there's a reason they think Bigfoot's in those fucking hills. Yeah.

Well, during the years Ridgway was active, the corridor where you'd find Sea-Tac Airport between Seattle and Tacoma was known as the Strip. The Strip was essentially a sex buffet of lost women plying their trade on two-lane highways and logging roads, which was all prior to Sea-Tac's incorporation as a city, surrounded by wilderness. So all Ridgway had to do was find a place where he could murder someone out of sight, and once the deed was done, he was spoiled for choice as to where he wanted to dump the body. Now, had Ridgway buried his victims instead of just rolling them into ditches or leaving them out in the open, the Pacific Northwest likely wouldn't have even known there was a serial killer on the loose because his victims were all sex workers whose disappearances likely wouldn't have been investigated. Well, they would have known there was a serial killer on the loose because, as we'll get into in the next episode, there are about 4 to 6 serial killers operating at the same time as Gary Ridgway in this area.

Really? I also truly think the key to Gary's successes was simplicity. I think if we're adding—

he didn't get all fancy with it. No, no, no.

I think we're adding steps.

Hold like trophies or anything like that, right?

No, no. Well, he did it in wor— he did bad, horrific things, but he did it in the old-fashioned way by letting it just sit out, you know? Like, he was not digging holes. If he was digging holes, we might have Actually created a lot more evidence than he wanted to because he's a fucking moron.

He might have. Yeah. But after looking at Ridgway again, there really is so much more to his story than just a guy with an IQ of 82, a grudge against women, and a Bible to clutch whenever he needed justification for his actions. Because that was last time when we did it. Like, we went really hard on the missionary killer angle that, you know, he did it because he believed that the sex workers deserved it, that he was getting them, that he was wiping the earth clean of these sinful ladies. It's a lot more complicated than that. That's, that's way too simplistic.

Oh, it's way more complicated than that because he has this push and pull with them. You even hear now, now that I've watched chunks of the confessions, can see it. He had that sort of like, the only ones to get me, but also they must be killed. They must got to kill the bitches because he's like, he can't handle the fact that they're the only ones giving him any form of affection at the time.

Mm-hmm.

And then he got married 3 times. 3 times. And that's, it's easy, guys.

I would push back on him not getting any affection.

Oh no.

Gary Ridgway was never ever, ever without a girlfriend or a wife.

Ladies love Gary. He was fine for a trailer park.

He looked all right.

Yeah, what?

He looks fine. He looks like a shop teacher.

Sadstorieslpotl@gmail.com. Please answer, Eddie.

I said fine.

Yeah, I think that's past.

Well, what we missed last time was that Ridgeway exhibited a wide range of serial killer behaviors that we saw in many of the most infamous mass murderers of the late 20th century. He He somewhat attempted to be a kind of BTK or Zodiac by writing near unintelligible letters to the press and police, and he committed necrophilia multiple times throughout his most active period. In other words, he exhibited far more complicated behavior than what we had originally covered.

Thank you. People said what I do is complicated.

Earlier you shortened Jack the Ripper to Jack, and I never heard anyone do that before.

Oh yeah. Well, you know, I mean, you can call him Saucy Jack.

Oh, but I think Zodiac Killer. I would love Zody.

Zody. Hey, Zody. Hey, Zody. Zody.

That's how you call him at a party.

You'd be like, hey, hey, hey, shut the fuck up. Hey, you got your mask, Zody. You got the gun or the knife today, Zody? I never should have told that guy. God, the guy got a big mouth flare.

But the question people always have about these guys is why they did what they did. And while the easy answer is, "They do it because it makes them feel good," the real question is, how does a mind that gets pleasure from murder develop? And why the fuck were there so many of them during the '70s, '80s, and '90s? Where did they all go? Well, now that we're decades past these crimes and we can take a larger view of the 20th century— I mean, the 20th century is 26 years ago at this point.

Shut up.

We might finally have an answer here. Something far more definitive and provable beyond the soul theory that leaded gasoline ruined the brains of the boomer generation. But it is going to take us 3 full episodes to explain it. And now that we got a whole team working on this weekly grind of ours, we can finally tell the story of the Green River Killer the way it was meant to be told.

Through pantomime. You can't hear it. You can't hear it. It's hard to just imagine. Describe it, Eddie, if you could.

Oh yeah, Henry is choking his hands. Now he's crying while he does it. And hey, that's it. Yeah, no stabs or nothing.

No, no, he didn't.

Just all jokes. Now, I think that there has been a major calm down in this type of stuff because of DNA testing. I think that people just get caught way earlier.

That is part of it. That is definitely a part of it. But it's not all.

I think people are just as evil now as they were back then.

But the phenomenon might have changed to more effective attention seeking because I think a lot of serial killing does also involve attention seeking. And now it's much easier because you could just get all you need to get a military-grade rifle and bring it to a public square and squeeze off a bunch of shots, and then you immediately get all the attention you crave.

Yeah. Now you just do it all at once.

Yeah.

Yeah, and there are other things besides DNA testing. There's also social media. People are, it's noticed when people go missing a lot faster. Red light cameras. Yeah, things like that. So yeah, people do get caught earlier, but the one—

And kids don't run away anymore. They need to stay in their homes now.

Yeah, yeah.

'Cause kids are, they don't have any functional skills, so they don't go hang out by the train yards anymore.

Yeah, now they're all just playing video games.

Yeah.

Like you'll miss the days when kids ran away. Now the scariest place to be is on Roblox.

But the other thing is, is that the '70s, '80s, and '90s, like the, the, the one-on-one crime, like just general all-around crime, that is way, way, way down. Yeah, it's still— well, I mean, there's still just as many lost people around that you can prey on today as there were back then. In fact, there are more. There are far more people in this country now than there were back then. But there are reasons why things have calmed down so much and why Crime is at its lowest point ever.

Yeah. Also, like, I feel like back in the day you would get into a fistfight, a cop would catch you like, all right boys, break it up, go home, walk it off.

Yeah.

Like now you're like, everyone just goes to jail.

Yeah.

So it was also back in the day, not the children weren't armed. And I think they used to just fight each other and then they wouldn't go back and get guns and then come back and finish the jobs.

Yeah.

Well, maybe so, maybe no.

We'll see. We'll see.

I mean, but that's the thing. We're gonna get more into that. About in the coming episodes.

Okay.

But before we get into the story of Gary Ridgway, let's acknowledge our sources. First, we've got the classic Green River Runnin' Red by Anne Rule.

It is thick!

800 pages!

Wow!

It's a big one. Yeah, Anne Rule, she's the same one who wrote the definitive book on Ted Bundy. Famous true crime author. Then we've got the source for the juicy stuff, which was found in Gary Ridgway: The Green River Killer by James Richman. And finally, we got the new kid on the block, Murderland by Caroline Fraser. This book was released just last year, and for me, it really is the final word on why and how the '70s, '80s, and '90s will forever be known in the annals of true crime history as the era of the serial killer. And so, without further ado, let's get into the story of Gary Ridgway, aka the Green River Killer.

Peep hates Gary! Peep hates Gary!

So Gary Leon Ridgway— Cool name! Yeah, Gary Leong.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, he was born in February of 1949 in Salt Lake City to Mary Rita and Thomas Ridgway. These two people hold the distinction of being one of those rare double shots of horrible serial killer parents because both of them absolutely contributed to the horrific mindset that enabled Gary to do what he eventually did. Usually it's just one, but this time, boom, two barrels.

And that's how we get the number one killer in America next to Samuel Little, who, you know, again, I feel like he didn't count enough because he didn't really— he I wasn't proud. Gary was proud.

Yeah. Now Gary grew up as the middle child in a struggling family that grew their own food and searched junkyards for useful scrap that could be fixed up and sold. It was a family trait that Gary would carry throughout the rest of his life as a free man.

It was a practice he called "fandin' treasures." I just can't believe you guys get all this new stuff. It's crazy. I'm used to old stuff. It's coming— old rusty crap. Pee and poop. Great treasure to be. You guys don't like this? You do this? Are there scrap families?

Scrap?

Absolutely. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They love— they're very popular still to this day.

Yeah, my family was— we were like firmly middle class. We still love going to the dump.

That's great. Wow. Yeah, you know, if they still got the copper wiring, you know what's got a lot of copper wiring? What? Data centers.

Let's go, Naruto! Run!

So after a short-lived and failed attempt at running a bar together, Mary Rita Ridgway settled temporarily into the role of a housewife while Gary's father, Thomas, worked construction and a few stints as a truck driver. One job had late hours while the other required Thomas to be gone for days at a time. Once when Mary Rita was home alone, Gary's little brother Eddie got sick. The Ridgways had no money, so Mary Rita took little Eddie out into the snowbank to bring his fever down.

Pssst!

The kid did survive. Survive, but little Eddie came away with permanent brain damage owing to Mary Rita's attempts at a folk remedy.

Like he was Conan's sword.

Just held him by his ankles and dipped him into the snow.

The tang holds!

Little Eddie, however, was not the only person with developmental problems in the family. Gary Ridgway himself was always described as slow. Besides being dyslexic, it took him a long time to memorize anything. And when he did, his recall was still full of gaps. Gary couldn't remember the names of his own pets, couldn't remember the names of his fellow children.

Socks, Scraps, Dusty, Spookers. Cat, get out of here. I'm trying to go to the bathroom.

He was considered such a lost cause from a young age that teachers would routinely sit him in the back of the class just so he wouldn't bother the other children and so they wouldn't have to pay attention. They could just forget about him.

Shut up, Gary!

The kids with the future are trying to learn, Gary!

I'm going to school.

A slow intellect, however, wasn't Gary's only childhood problem. Oh no, Gary Ridgway was a bedwetter, which only added to the annoyance that his mother, Mary Rita, felt towards him for being slow.

Can we change the distinction here? Because some people bed wet.

Yeah.

Gary Ridgway was a bed soaker. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He was—

there's like a difference. There's a distinct difference in bed pee pee. He's the Michael Phelps of bed pee pee.

Yeah. He was a water bed filler upper. Yeah.

Some people are 70% liquid. Gary Ridgway as a child was like 83% liquid.

Yeah, he's like in that first X-Men movie where the guy, the senator, turns into water.

It's like that. Yes, that's him.

Well, Gary also had severe allergies and a constant runny nose, which he always wiped with his shirt sleeve. His eyes would swell and tears would constantly run down his face, which earned him the nickname "crybaby" amongst his fellow children. That, of course, was in addition to the bullying he got just for being slow. By the age of 8, Gary remembered being always sad, always angry because there was just so many things wrong with him. Little things, but they added up. Out of the 3 Ridgway boys—Gary had 2 brothers—Gary became the primary target for his parents' anger and punishment.

It's like the Goldilocks scenario. Yeah, yeah. But for punishing your child.

Gary's younger brother Eddie, he had the brain damage. So he got pity from Gary's mother and her own guilt about the fever often got little Eddie a pass. But Gary's older brother Greg was intelligent and handsome, so his parents were constantly asking, "Why can't you be more like your brother Greg, Gary?

Why can't you be more like Greg?" I ask myself every day, Mommy. I ask myself every day. I wish I could be more like Greg. And honestly, it'd be kind of nice if you could maybe put my head on ice a little bit. Maybe do something and kind of make me a snowman like you made Eddie, because it seems to be everybody likes him more. Oh, there's a Greg Ridgeway who's a professor of criminology.

It's not the same guy, but I find it interesting.

That is interesting. Wow.

It's like a guy who runs a hamburger joint named Burger.

Hey, my name's Mr. Cheeseburger. All right, that's a whole name. That's my wife Buns.

Mmm. Mmm. Now to make matters even worse, Gary's family moved frequently, so Gary never had time to make friends. Wherever the Ridgeway family went, the bullies found Gary. But Gary had no refuge at home either. His father would actually get angry at Gary instead of the bullies every time Gary got the shit beat out of him. Because he was slow and because the family moved around so much, Gary got held back a grade in elementary school, and it wasn't the last time this would happen to Gary. But when Gary learned that he was going to have to repeat a grade, something snapped. Because the kids had nothing but hatred for him and his parents had nothing but disappointment. In fact, Mary Rita came to believe that Gary was just lying about not being able to read. I wish I honestly could be—

this would be truly be the funniest prank of all time, but it's not, you know? I can't read. I don't know how to read.

Okay. And so Gary's legendary anger, the anger that would be unleashed upon the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s, began to manifest itself physically. After learning that he was going to be held back, Gary walked to his school and smashed out several windows by throwing rocks.

Tell me I'm a— okay, I can't go back to 8th grade. I'm just gonna throw rocks, pile of rocks here, throw these rocks in there.

This is like 2nd grade, 2nd, 3rd grade, so it's around there. And, you know, I, and I, you know, I went to a school where our classes were, you know, between 10 and 15 kids, really small. And man, at the start of every school year, it was always the kids who got held back because every year you'd get a kid added to your class and you'd lose a kid. Yeah. And those were always always the bullies. They were always the angriest kids because they were also older and bigger than everybody. Far older, far bigger. Oh yeah, the kid who broke my collarbone, he was the one who spiked me. He'd been held back twice, I think, by that point.

I made him very strong.

He was very strong. He was incredibly strong. I think he's dead now.

Yeah, there was a guy who, um, straight up like shot someone in the head in his front yard, and he was like 20 in my high school.

Yeah, yeah, it's He's just smoking with the security officers. Rise from your grave.

Now, around the same time that Gary was being held back, Gary also started experimenting with fire. In second grade, he started playing with matches and eventually set his own garage ablaze. He became terrified and ran away while a neighbor called 911. And even though he assumes his parents beat him for starting the fire, he said he doesn't remember, his experimentation with fire didn't stop. Stop. He just learned to do it elsewhere so he wouldn't get caught. So starting in the second grade, Gary started setting fires in garages around his neighborhood before running away when he heard sirens to hide until it got dark enough to safely sneak back home. It's fucking crazy. Just know there's this demented second grader, 7-year-old, running around your neighborhood, any open garage, running inside, setting it on fire.

Yeah, dude, I feel like that's how—

a goblin loose. It is a goblin loose. And that's why— but I think you have full immunity to clonk a little child in the head that's doing that. Like, if you're setting things on fire and setting structures on fire, I think you can get one clonk from a stick. His dad tried. I know.

You know what I'd say? I wouldn't say a clonk in the head because that can cause permanent damage. Kick him in the stomach.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go kick in the ass. Like, one of those, get out of here, kid.

You can tie him up, throw him in the swimming pool.

Yeah, that'd be fun as hell. God, these are all great to do to an arsonist child.

Besides the bedwetting and the arson— besides that— Gary also had a streak of animal cruelty. When he got older, he found that he enjoyed hurting things, starting with the birds that he would shoot with his BB gun. Gary found that when the birds hit the ground dead, it made him laugh. Another time, in a moment of frustration, Gary took one of his own pet cats and suffocated it by throwing it in the cooler and shutting the lid. And so that brings us back to the infamous McDonald triad, which for years was used to identify serial killers. See, it was widely believed, Specifically after true crime got so popular in the 2010s that if someone wet the bed beyond the age of 5, started fires, and engaged in animal cruelty as a child, it was a good indicator that they would become a serial killer as an adult. But while the Macdonald Triad has since been discredited, or at least criticized, I got curious about the triad's origins when it all came back with Gary Ridgway. And I got curious as to why people no longer use it as an indicator that someone might be a serial killer.

Killer.

It's because lots of people do it. It's not that uncommon.

It's, it's really not.

I mean, I'm, I'm glad it's not that common. Yeah, but it's not uncommon enough that it's just tied to serial killers. Yeah, I know, but you're a boy.

Fire's cool.

Stepping on a lizard's cool. Yeah, you get over it pretty fast. I know that I have— anytime I was curious about doing something weird to an animal and stuff, like the second anything felt like bad, I was like, ah, you know, like my brain would be like, no, I wasn't into it. Yeah.

Well, I always saw, I always saw that as, uh, once you made the jump from like cold-blooded to warm-blooded, that's when you like really, that's when the evil really starts.

Actually, that is the, that is the line. Yeah. Strangely enough, I, I never crossed that line myself, but yeah. Frogs beware. I mean, frogs are different.

A frog is different than, um, like, uh, a corgi. Yeah, exactly. It's a big difference.

Well, the Macdonald Triad came from a 6-page paper called Threat to Kill by a forensic psychiatrist named John Macdonald, published in 1963. Macdonald was studying violent psychiatric patients and noticed that bedwetting beyond the age of 5, compulsive fire starting, and animal cruelty appeared in many of the children on these psychiatric wards. Macdonald, however, never explicitly said that his triad of bedwetting, fire starting, and animal cruelty in children led them to become serial killers as adults. It actually didn't even lead them necessarily to become violent as adults. In fact, MacDonald only used a sample of 100 patients, and none of the people he studied for the paper had actually committed violence. They'd only threatened it. Hence his title, Threat to Kill. But the pioneers of behavioral science at the FBI, profilers Robert Ressler, Anne Burgess, and John Douglas, whose story was loosely adapted for the Netflix show Mindhunter, They combined threat to kill with a book MacDonald had written in 1960 called The Murderer and His Victims. They then ran with the so-called MacDonald Triad in a direction that even MacDonald himself didn't expect, all in an attempt to try and solve the why of serial killers.

When serial killers began to be a— well, they were starting to acknowledge it. The main issue is, as always we see, is that they want a structural fix that works every time. Sure. So they'll give you money, right? Because even the guys in within these, like the FBI and all this stuff, they have to like pitch their own inner projects up the channel. So it's like stuff like this, they put together this like McDonald triad, like fix-all, like, look, this is how we'll find serial killers and stop them. Well, it was just, it was a part of a, you know, a massive thing, and then they're all, everybody jumped on it because like, oh good, then we can fix serial killers. And it's just like Oh, well, let's hold on a second. Yeah.

After the Macdonald Triad was introduced into the cultural zeitgeist by the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, it became almost a comfort to a lot of laypeople. It was a path towards maybe explaining the act of serial killing, which to most people is something that seems utterly unexplainable. But in 2018, authors Charlotte Parfitt and Emma Aileen, they looked at the Macdonald Triad with fresh eyes and found that while the triad is not necessarily a predictor for future serial killing or even violent behavior, behavior, it is most definitely a sign of childhood abuse. And as we know, while not all serial killers have childhood abuse, the vast majority do have absolutely horrendous childhoods. So we can forgive the BSU for jumping the gun a bit on the Macdonald Triad. This revelation was actually a fucking— it was a great relief to me personally because I absolutely hit every single point of the Macdonald Triad as a child. I wet the bed beyond the age When I was 5, I can admit it now as a 43-year-old man, I was absolutely obsessed with fire. And although I'm not proud of it, I dabbled in animal cruelty with various local amphibians in very cruel and increasingly bizarre ways.

Yeah. Like, memories that disturb me today.

Yeah, but it's good that they disturb you.

Yes. Me too. You know, I, you know, tie a lizard to a bottle rocket, you know, shit like that. You know, as boys having fun. See, I was always with the girls.

Yeah. Never did that. We played animals. Yeah. Where we'd act like different animals.

That's fun. I did that game, but it was always in a pool. I was always a dolphin and I lost. I would, you know, I didn't wet the bed as much, but like I slept walked and peed in cabinets. Yeah, that's cool.

I slept walk a ton too.

Yeah, yeah, I had none of these. Really? Yeah. Good boy. Yeah, you are such a good boy. He was. I was, but I didn't sleep until I was like Yeah, and there's no extra lizards and fucking queens. Yeah, no, no, I wasn't like that. I wasn't surrounded by nature.

It turns out the Macdonald triad is not an indicator that we had the seed of a serial killer or the seed of a violent person laying dormant somewhere inside of us. It is, however, an indicator that my personal childhood environment created conditions where I have to do a shitload of therapy to untangle all the shit that happened to me and around me when I was a kid if I ever want to live a happy happy and healthy life. It wasn't my fault that I was raised in a West Texas nightmare factory seemingly designed to traumatize people like myself, but it is my responsibility to deal with that shit so it doesn't continue to fuck up my life. Gary Ridgway, needless to say, never dealt with anything. And the anger he felt as a result of his childhood traumas, which are about to get a lot worse, it was so intense that it contributed to the violent death deaths of dozens of people. And of course, the childhood trauma is only one of many factors that led to the creation of Gary Ridgway.

I also think it's Gary's attitude. I think Gary's attitude's got a little bit to do with it. Henry thinks Gary Ridgway has a bad attitude. I think that he needs a little—

People come here for intense hot takes.

They really do. They really do. I mean, fuck it. I hope no one Hopefully Netflix keeps us after that one. Yeah.

I for one think he's a real jerk.

Thanks, Norm. Now, when Gary was 11 years old, his family finally moved to the Seattle-Tacoma area where Gary would live until he was finally arrested decades later. The Pacific Northwest is also where Gary Ridgway's behavior would greatly escalate in a number of ways for reasons that we will discuss in depth on episode 2. So Gary's dad got a job driving Metro buses in the Seattle area while his mother got a part-time gig as a salesperson at a local JCPenney. That's what my mom did.

Really? She worked at JCPenneys. Really? Pennies.

Yeah. Are you lying about anything in your childhood about the things that you did or didn't do?

No. Mom didn't wash me till I was erect. That was dad's job.

I spent a lot of time in JCPenneys, but it was just my mom. You know, that was the car wash. Card, the place that we give her credit card.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, but that's, you know, we all of our, all of our families did credit card fraud at JCPenney.

Yeah, that's also where the Ticketmaster was. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, wait in line. So the family bought their first house in an area that is now known as the city of SeaTac. But with yet another move, Gary's bedwetting returned with a vengeance. Yeah, starting when Gary was around the age of At the age of 12, Mary Rita Ridgway began angrily yanking him from bed when he would wake up and announce that he had wet himself. She'd drag him to the bathroom and throw him into a tub of ice-cold water, screaming that, quote, "Only babies wet the bed, Gary.

Only babies. Are you a baby, Gary?" I can do it better. I can do it better. Wet the bed! Okay, do you come in and be like, "Hey, just so you know, wet the bed." Oh man, my bed's all wet, Mom.

Well, this would be yelled repeatedly while Mary Rita dragged Gary through the house, which of course woke everyone up, and it was meant to add to Gary's humiliation. This would happen at least 3 times a week during this time period. Sometimes it would happen every single night, and this happened up until Gary about 15 or 16 years old, from 12 to 15 or 16 years of this.

Let's just say, I don't know if it was just about the peepee, Marcus.

Well, we're gonna get into that right now.

I don't know if it was, and that's the problem, is that sometimes mommies can be a little naughty too. And that's what you gotta be careful of, because sometimes mommies, if you're too naughty, you make the baby naughty.

Hope all of our mothers out there really paid attention to that.

Just know that, all right? No, you naughty mother.

It's good advice. Naughty mommy makes naughty baby. Yeah. Write that down. Wink.

And that makes angry daddy.

Because the return to bedwetting coincided with Gary Ridgway reaching puberty, the mommy wires got appallingly crossed. Mary Rita would often leave her bathrobe open, especially when she was dragging Gary to the bathtub in the middle of the night, and Gary would become aroused at the sight of his mother mother's big hooters. Because, you know, moms—

I always think, well, you always love when my mom slept in the nude. You know, like, you know how fucking awesome that was when your mom got done with the penny— she got done off of pennies, kicked off those heels, stripped down to her bush, and just fucking relaxed. Yeah, it's crazy.

I grew up in South Florida, one of the hottest places in the world, and I don't think my mom could have worn more clothes.

My mom was so sheathed, she So clothed. Thank Christ.

Once Mararita got Gary to the bath, she would furiously scrub his genitals until they were raw.

Baby's penis is covered in urine. Baby's penis needs to be cleaned by mommy. It's crazy we got all these quotes. That was a direct recording.

She would overly focus on cleaning his privates while barely dressed herself. Bobby, I think you missed somewhere around the tub. Then she'd vigorously dry him off when she was finished. Gary remembered many an erection during this whole process. Gary, in fact, said that his so-called sexual awakening came while his mother was scrubbing his junk with a grimace on her face.

Ah, look at what you've done, you pig! Oh, look at this! Oh, look what you— oh, you disgusting urine-covered dick! Oh, I hate how covered in piss and shit you are! The pig—

you got that from your mom. Father. Yes, getting called a pig.

My mommy. Yeah, they gave her Old Henry's mommy. Just treated him like a bad dog.

Yeah, yeah. And later Gary said that he was both angered and incredibly horny every time his mother scrubbed the urine from his genitals, which of course fused anger, hatred, and sex in Gary's developing mind. And keep in mind that this is not something that happened once, twice, 5 times, 10 times, 3 times a week for years, if not every night for years.

Can I ask you both, like, let's say you were fathers and you were like, let's say, let's put yourselves in this kind of scenario.

Mr. Ridgeway? Yes.

I'm Mr. Ridgeway. Yes. And you like noticed every single time, you know, they're bringing him in there, they're washing all the pee pee off of his penis and he's getting super hard, right? And the boy keeps getting older. Older, right? At some point when he gets hard, like, do you think that, like, there's no, like, putting some brakes on the process here?

You're assuming that the father ever got out of bed. Thomas, like, that was the thing. He's lucky. He is. Thomas Ridgeway would just stay in bed. It's not like he would come in and supervise.

But what if you saw your son getting hard every time his mom was— why, your teenage son, every time she washed his genitals? Covered in urine.

He got hard from it. Conversation's going to be had. Yeah.

Would you be like, this should probably— I think we should let his coach do this. Like, this maybe is a teacher's job. They should be doing this at school.

Yeah. I just think he was just not present, you know? He's probably just hammered and smoking cigarettes in the other room and not giving a fuck about his family.

Being a real dad. He was also—

he was terrified of Mary Rita. Like, Mary Rita was an incredibly domineering woman. But don't worry. I mean, his contributions to Gary Ridgway Gary's pathology is gonna be coming up soon.

It's just because Mary Rita's got those big old stinky bags. That's right, she's big stinky bags. Big old stinky floppy bags. How I wish I was baby Gary.

But since the area where the Ridgeway family had moved to was not yet a city, their home was surrounded by woods where the Ridgeway boys would explore and play. Gary therefore became very familiar with the forests of the Pacific Northwest. The Midwest, and that familiarity would later be used to find all the right spots to hide bodies. Partly, though, Gary was going out into the woods to avoid the constant conflicts between his parents. Mary Rita had become more dominant over the years, ordering Thomas to beat their children when she thought they deserved it. Gary, therefore, began to view his father as weak and soft, while women in general became monsters. Mary Rita also got far more serious about religion. The Ridgway boys were brought to Mary Rita's Catholic church every Sunday, but their father was barred from coming because the local priest had a problem with the divorce Thomas had before his marriage to Mary Rita. This, of course, caused even more rifts.

Let's go, Gary. We're going to church where your father's not allowed. Let's go, Gary. Oh, you got urine all over. Let me really wash him up. Let's go. Your father's not allowed at God's house.

Let's go, Gary. Your impression is scaring Marcus.

Oh, let me pack my Tits. I forgot to pack my tits. That loose and stinky. Yeah, that big. Yeah, yeah, it's before they made tit deodorant.

Big stinky bags.

Big stinky flopping bags.

Even though Mary Rita was obviously noticing her son's bath time boners— did I see you at JC Penney's earlier today? Sexual pleasure was something that was discussed with scorn in the Ridgeway home. Mary Rita herself taught her boys that masturbation was one of the worst sins of all. That she actually told them that it was better to rape a woman than it was to masturbate. This is what— so much changes. This is what Gary was being told right as he entered puberty. And the shit that Gary was hearing from his mother resulted in a myriad of abnormal sexual habits. He became a neighborhood window peeper, spying on girls in his neighborhood before being chased off by a parade of angry fathers. In one instance, Gary believed when an older girl came over to his house with friends to watch TV TV that all he had to do to have sex with her was to surreptitiously put his erection in her field of vision by pulling his shorts to the side and showing off his erect penis.

It seems that the elevator has reached its floor. Ding dong! Over here, over here. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! I actually just watched a body cam where a guy would hang out at a gas station with his penis in a penis pump, and he'd like get it all engorged and open the window, and he would do this thing where women go by, he'd go, "Excuse me, miss, may I interest you in this?" Ugh. It's awful. I hate when they're nice.

Yeah.

It's like almost worse. It's like, "Yes." Great coupon commercial?

Yeah. Well, supposedly Gary watched TV with his neighbor and a whole group of his older brother's friends, and he tried this bizarre little game over and over again for months. The girl never once reacted. Great. Or at the very least, never acknowledged it. It. She did the right thing. Well, she should just— should have stopped going over there.

Yeah, she should have slugged him in the fucking mouth.

Yeah. And been like, should have some of those boys.

Yeah. Well, you know what it is? I think no one noticed.

That's what he said. He said— he always said that no one noticed, no one said anything. And I think if he was bullied as much as he was, because this is like his older brother's friends. Yeah. And like, I know neither of y'all got older brothers. I got two older brothers. When your older brother's friends see anything to make fun of you for, they go for it. Like, they go for fucking hard.

But what an ultimate example of what Gary's sort of talking about, right? He can't even pull his dick out and get a reaction. He's in this area of all these kids and he's going like, anybody see what Gary's doing? Anybody see what Gary's doing? And he's in the corner and there's nobody. Everybody's just got— he's like, nobody cares. Nobody cares if Gary puts his penis out.

And that's exactly how he got away with it for so long.

Yeah, yeah, it is. Now, Gary was a loner both before and after puberty, and since he believed masturbation was a sin that was worse than rape, he got his jimmies out by becoming a frotteur. How do you actually—

how do you— is frotteur? Honestly, let's not put the French fucking spin on it.

I never heard the word before my whole life.

It's just a frauder. Fraud. Fraud. Fraud. You can call him just a fraud.

Fraudage. Yeah, fraudage. Yeah. That's one of the— that's the terms where it's when you rub up or brush up against somebody for sexual pleasure.

Oh yeah, of course the French thought of that.

But you know, it's like they do it on the train. Like it's, it happens a lot in New York City. It's the thing of where you could just kind of like the guy just sort of lets the tip of his penis touch you.

Or it's also trying to rub up against a woman's breast, you know, just like that. So, and you're always making it look like an accident, like, oh, sorry, but very much doing it on purpose.

Walk around with the palms of their hands facing out and stuff like that.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Are you a froter? No, I got grabbed.

Okay, yeah, yeah. See, I've been frottish several times.

I've been frotted myself a few times. Yes, it was also around this time that Gary found that killing living creatures made him feel better about his anger. After suffocating the aforementioned cat at the age of 14 and throwing the corpse amongst the local roadkill, Gary found that killing something, killing anything, it made him feel strong and important. While Gary was discovering this disturbing quirk to his personality, his father took a second job at a mortuary and quite unwisely decided to be open and honest with his son about everything he heard while working with the dead. Thomas Ridgway would tell the teenaged Gary stories about a co-worker who would commit necrophilia with the female corpses. He would go into grotesque and unnecessary detail with his young son about his co-worker's necrophilia.

Son, this is a funny story. I don't know why you're not laughing. Son, this is a funny story about the time I saw Carlos and we Eiffeltowered that old blind woman.

Stop taking notes. I'm telling a story.

It's just, it's so interesting.

Goddamn it. Every fucking time you say, you say that we don't spend any time together.

And the moment that we find something that I think that we're going to connect on, you just blow me off.

So, what's it like? Well, this caused necrophilia to become central to Gary's sexual fantasies because he began to believe that when you were having sex with a corpse, there were no feelings involved one way or the other.

It could be super casual. Yeah.

Thomas would also be quite vocal about his personal hatred towards sex workers. He thought they were subhuman. And even though Gary would become a frequent customer on the block, both with sex workers he did and did not murder, he would hold the same opinions as his father throughout his life. Now, as far as his mother went, she also overshared with Gary when it came to the sexual escapades that came as a result of her work at JCPenney. Henry, did your mom ever talk about, uh, her sexual escapades at JCPenney? The way the sex— how sexy things got?

The worst part is when I learned how she knew the term bukkake. And at first I thought it was because she had went by the sushi area by— in the food court. Um, and it turns out, no, no, no, no, she met, uh, Mr. Yakimoto. No, no, she never You guys ever had sex there? No, I don't think so, because when we went to JCPenney's, you got to remember, that was a classy place for us. Sure. Oh yeah, that was the classy place. That's where I got my communion suit.

Yeah, yeah. Well, JCPenney's, I mean, really, I mean, Dillard's was always considered to be— you guys had—

you know, we, we dreamt of Dillard's.

Yeah, really? Yeah, occasionally we'd go to a Bloomingdale's. Yeah, or a Burdines.

Who are you? What are you? Oh, Mr. Van Vanderbilt over here. Don't even get me started on service merchandise. No, my mom never fucked or got sucked or fucked or got fucking gaped in a JCPenney's.

At least that she told you about.

Yeah. I'll call her. Yeah.

And honestly, I'll call her and ask. 'Cause I feel like she'd tell me and she wouldn't tell you.

I'm trying to personally, I'm trying to separate the art from the artist. The art being her motherhood of me. Understandable.

Well, Mary Rita would tell Gary how much she enjoyed measuring men who needed be fit for pants. Some men, she said, would get involuntary erections from her touch. Like you, Gary.

Yeah, usually when I'm drying them off.

Others would emit a certain scent that Mary Rita would inhale while she knelt in front of their crotch.

That's not real.

No, it's like a musk. She liked it.

People shoot scent out of their cocks? No, she's smelling a guy's dirty-ass balls.

Yeah, she's turned on by smelly balls.

Yeah, she's turned on by smelly balls. And she told her son about this.

Yeah, which is like the most, like truly one of the, Yeah, sure, you could be into dirty smelly balls. God bless you. But I'm just saying that, you know, you just save that for the quilting group.

But think about this. He's got his mother is talking about how much she gets turned on by smelly balls. Her, his father is talking about like, yeah, you can fuck a dead girl. It's fine. It's okay. And this is what Gary Ridgway's fucking grown up with. Yeah.

Is it bad that I just got déjà vu?

It's interesting. It's certainly interesting.

This used to be my playground. But Mary Rita also continued pushing her son around to the point of depression and deep embarrassment, even beyond the bedwetting incidents. So Gary began fantasizing about murdering his own mother in great detail. He thought about stabbing her in the heart, choking her to death, and setting the house on fire with her still inside. Still house on fire. Gary even Set the building on fire. Set the building on fire. Gary even fantasized about torturing his mother, thinking often about what it would be like to sew up her vagina with a needle and a thread.

It'd be kind of difficult, but also I'd be proud if I could do it. Just because I finally finished something I wanted.

I mean, it's the first time he showed creativity. Yeah. Just trying to stay positive. I suppose.

It's true. I guess it does show vague creativity.

I bet you he just watched his mom preparing the turkey one year for Thanksgiving He was like, ooh, that's a good idea.

From fantasizing about killing his mother, Gary moved on to fantasizing about raping and killing his classmates. He began following them home with a massive erection while thinking about all the horrible things he wanted to do. Gary privately referred to this as patrolling because these serial killers do love their little terms for their little games.

It's all validating. It's all the shit in their head that makes it a structure. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eventually, Gary's constant rage translated itself into property damage, breaking and entering, excessive drinking, and theft. But Gary found that the only thing that really released the pressure valve all the way was violence. And Gary's first violent act towards another human came in 1965, when he was just 16 years old. This is like out of a Stephen King novel. It really is! In a wooded area beside Gary's high school, Gary stumbled upon a 6-year-old kid dressed as a cowboy innocently just playing. For some reason, seeing this child enjoying an afternoon playing cowboy, this filled Gary with uncontrollable rage. Was he an Indian?

I don't think he had any Cherokee.

So he approached the boy with a plan. He asked the kid if he wanted to go into the woods with Gary where they'd build a fort together because, Gary said, there were a lot of people around, quote, "who'd like to kill little boys like you." So when Gary got the kid out to the woods and the kid picked up stick, Gary pulled out his knife and stabbed the child in the torso, hitting his liver. Gary watched and laughed as the blood flowed out of the wound and filled up the child's cowboy boots. But instead of finishing the act, Gary simply walked away. The boy made his way to the road and was found bleeding out by a teacher. He survived, but Gary Ridgway would not be named as the perpetrator of this crime for another 36 years. This, of course, was after he was arrested as the Green River Killer and he began listing his crimes throughout his life. The cops looked back at the records, looked and found when Gary said it happened, that there was a kid who was stabbed dressed as a little cowboy.

It all happened. Gary Ridgway could not remember the names of his childhood pets, but he had a near photographic memory of every single crime he ever committed. That's not true. He would— well, it depends on what he'd like. He— because of the— you could tell that he fantasized and thought about the the stuff that was important to him. Yeah, it's—

there's, there's a lot of— there are things that were photographic, there were some things that were hazy. Let's just say he was all fucked up.

He was all fucked up. But I mean, it just turns out for somebody who couldn't remember his pets, it was shocking how many, uh, uh, different shallow graves he could remember, different places he could go.

I just can't believe he was dressing up like a cowboy at 16. No, I was getting high and shit.

The little boy was dressed as a cowboy. Oh no, Gary, Gary Andre was like, pew, pew, I'm a cowboy today. Howdy, partner. I hope you're ready to settle up and go down to the ranch.

Oh, so the kid was much younger.

Okay. Yeah, the kid was 6 years old.

Oh, I see. It all makes sense now. I'm sorry. It's all right.

But while the incident with the little cowboy was Gary's first act of serious violence against another human, he also very likely committed his first murder around this time. Later, Gary would say that he was unsure if his first murder was a hallucination or a dream. Which, as you're about to find out, is a common theme amongst Gary's confessions. There is, however, usually evidence linking Gary's hazy recollections to real-life events, so they are worth taking seriously. In 1964, Gary said that he and a younger boy were swimming in a lake near Seattle when Gary suddenly wrapped his legs around his swimmate's neck and dragged the kid into the water below. Gary said that the kid did fight back, but Gary held the kid underwater until he stopped moving. And once the kid was dead, Gary said he pulled the body under a nearby dock and left it floating there. Now, while that might have been a hallucination or a dream, public records show that two boys did indeed drown in that same lake during the same year Gary recalled drowning this boy. So it is possible that Gary was responsible for at least one of them.

And it's not uncommon, uh, for serial killers, uh, at this age when they're teenagers, especially even if they end up killing women later on. Yeah. To kill little boys and to just kill anyone.

Well, they're around a little boy. Yeah. And that's— but it sounds a lot like Ted Bundy. It sounds a lot like— there's that story, you know, with Ted Bundy with the little girl when he was a little girl, and it matches all his MOs later on. Mm-hmm.

Actually, and we'll find that Gary Ridgway and Ted Bundy share a lot. Oh yeah. Common. But even though Gary's life was becoming increasingly dark, both within and without, he actually evened out once he got to high school when it came to social interaction. He actually began dating and eventually got a pretty girl named Claudia Craig to go steady after the two of them met at the supermarket where they both worked. Interestingly, Claudia's mother later said that when Gary came over to their house when he was 16, 17, Quarantine, he'd just sit there and never say a word. One day she said that he came over and just sat in a chair for a full 8 hours. Didn't say a word to anyone. That's fascinating. Just stared at the wall.

He's just weirdo, dude. He's just always been like— he doesn't know how to human. Like, he's like one of— he doesn't know how to be a human being.

That's better than jammering on for fucking 8 hours.

Actually, that is true. That is true. It's all fine if it wasn't Gary Ridgway.

I'd far rather forget that he was there than to get to the end of the 8 hours. Like, if you bring that kid over here one more time, I'm fucking murder. I hate Gary.

Gary smells like pee. Yeah.

But by the end of it, Gary Ridgway came out of high school in 1970 with the reputation of a normal, if dimwitted, individual. He'd been held back twice by the end of it and therefore graduated at the age of 20, barely able to read or write. Wow. But since this was 1970 and the draft for the Vietnam War was in full effect, Gary was actually smart enough to join the Navy to avoid the Army. Because in 1970, guys like Gary Ridgway, i.e., guys that were poor and not too bright, they were amongst the first to be handed a rifle before being sent to die in the jungles of Vietnam.

God, he would have been a great Vietnamese corpse. Ah, he would have been great over there.

So after going through basic training in San Diego, Gary was assigned to the USS Vancouver in the Philippines, making him yet another serial killer who served in the Vietnam War but came nowhere near combat. So interesting. 7 or 8. Wow. That we know of at the very— and that's just that we know of. Who are some of the popular ones? David Berkowitz, Leonard Lake.

Yeah, Leonard Lake was a— he definitely— yeah, he was a big liar.

I think Arthur Shawcross maybe.

Yes, I'm pretty certain Arthur Shawcross, Henry's dad. Yeah, my daddy, my daddy only could kill my dreams.

Well, like so many other serial killers in Vietnam, Gary Ridgway discovered the wide world of sex workers overseas. David Berkowitz was another who, uh, got very involved with sex workers over there. Yeah, you can barely tell.

Yeah, you don't know, right?

Apparently though, something happened to Gary that he would never actually discuss, which is surprising considering how Gary would talk about pretty much anything once investigators got him going. Gary said that something happened with sex workers in the Philippines that he never got out of his system, something that was so bad that he said he probably should have gone to counseling for it. But Gary refused to elaborate any further on what actually happened.

Probably got the shit kicked out of him by a pimp. Maybe.

Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing that Gary definitely talked about was how the Philippines kickstarted his lifelong fetish for inserting foreign objects into vaginas. Whoa. He said this developed from experiences with local Filipino sex workers who would walk up to sailors, reach under the skirts, and pull out pre-inserted beer bottles straight from the vagina. Wow. Were they cold? They were very warm. These beer bottles would then be handed over to a potential customer, I suppose, as a way to impress or titillate the American sailors.

What did we just learn from the Anton LaVey series? What have we learned about old men recently? I— they were disgusting. Yeah. Older men and what they liked was actually way grosser than even what we like now.

You mean men that— from that time period? From that time period.

Yeah. There's something about like, like that being like my, my, the stories I heard from my dad when he used to go to Hogs and Heifers, it was a lot of girls peeing on dogs and heifers. That's the original Coyote Ugly. Really?

Yeah, that's what it's all based off of.

It's just a lot of old play that we weren't— you know, there was like panty raids.

Yeah, you know. Yeah, well, they put up with a lot more. They did. They stopped putting up with stuff. Yeah, I think that's— I think that's what changed.

He said stop, stop.

Rise from your grave. Like a lot of Navy men at the time, Gary caught gonorrhea twice during his time in the service, but he surprisingly didn't place the blame blame for that on the sex workers. He said they actually treated him well and they introduced him to the more erotic sexual practices beyond the vanilla missionary position.

He means doggy style. That's what he became obsessed with.

Gary would, however, also later tell his second wife that he developed a hatred for these same Filipino sex workers. So Gary had developed a relationship with sex workers that was, to say the least, messy. He both loved them for giving pleasure, and he hated them for what that sin represented. But even though Gary was having sex with women in the Philippines who both were and were not sex workers, he had shipped off to the Navy as a married man. His high school girlfriend Claudia Craig had actually agreed to marry Gary before he went off to the Philippines. Marrying pee pants Gary, man.

Yeah, it's fucking men are dogs. Unbelievable. You fucking take on that piss-soaked gentleman, and then he's gonna go and get covered in fucking gonorrhea in the war.

By the time they got together, he'd cleared up the pee-pee. The bedwetting stopped when he was about 15. I don't know if it ever leaves your spirit.

You know what I mean?

In the doc, it said that he got gonorrhea and chlamydia and that he resented the sex workers for it. And that's kind of like why he started killing people down the road.

The doc simplifies it.

That's a huge simplification. Yeah. Yeah. That's a massive simplification. Massive simplification.

Doesn't chlamydia untreated make you crazy?

He was treated. Oh, okay. Yeah, cuz they— he goes— he got treated at the military hospital. He went and got— he went and got, uh, VA. If you catch it, go up and get for it.

Mhm. Yeah. And yeah, and really all of these details in true crime, it's really hard to pin down what's real and what's not. Did he get gonorrhea twice? Did he get gonorrhea once and chlamydia once?

It's from— it's his story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cuz he lies Yeah. Claudia was left back in San Diego, but she was just as unfaithful as Gary. And because both of them were unfaithful, the marriage fell apart less than a year after they got married. Gary branded his wife a whore, even though he had also stepped out dozens of times, and Gary's hatred towards women grew even more. He had tried a few relationships after returning from the Philippines to Washington State, but after he found that he couldn't make anything last more than a few months, he returned to sex workers, all while his rage towards women continued bubblin' in his belly. After Gary received an honorable discharge after 23 months in the Navy, he got a job at a plant called Kenworth Trucking that specialized in the production of medium and heavy-duty commercial trucks, 18-wheelers and such. There it was discovered that Gary had an affinity for detailing vehicles, which involved painting the lettering, logos, and stripes that indicate which truck belongs to which company or which trucker. Because this is the age of the trucker. Yeah, convoy!

This is when Truckers, they were the ones killing sex workers with impunity. And we should have, you know, like we celebrated them by saying, here you go, here's some PTSD.

Kings of the road they were. Yes. But Gary did not start off as a master detailer. And whatever Gary did, he always started off making mistakes. But once he got it, he could nail it. The only thing that would trip Gary up is if some part of the process changed. And Gary fucked up so often that he got the long-lasting nickname Wrong Way because of how many times he would have to repaint an entire truck after using the wrong color or the wrong kind of paint. Wrong Way Ridgeway.

And he did not like the nickname.

He did not like being called that because they would call him Wrong Way Gary. Yeah, Wrong Way Gary.

Wrong Way, which just replaced Piss Pants Gary. And he's just been like, I'm gonna bring the building down.

As far as his reputation at work went, Gary was known as friendly if overbearing, because what gave people pause was Gary's behavior towards female employees. On many occasions, Gary would approach a female coworker and massage their shoulders without asking them. And since this was 1972, his behavior was shrugged off as, "Oh, Gary, he's friendly. He's just a little too friendly, but essentially harmless." All the, I think all the, uh, sex working kind of made him weird with ladies.

He might have.

Yeah, man. But even though Gary was a creep, he never had trouble getting wives, much less girlfriends. And he met his next wife, Marsha Winslow, using a tactic that would probably get him pepper sprayed in this day and age.

It's just hard out there for women, okay? And the bar is extremely low, and it is only just raised about 3 inches, maybe.

Yeah. Well, in 1972, Marsha Winslow was driving a scenic loop that circled Lake Washington, and a car very suddenly pulled up quickly and closely behind her own. Marsha pulled over, assuming it was a cop that was trying and somehow failing to give her a ticket. Because if we're being honest, it's not like Gary Ridgway— he did not— the women that he was with were also— they were about as smart as he was. I, I will— I— yeah, I get it. It kind of— it comes up over and over again.

You have to be, because this—

intelligent woman would just shit him out. Yes. This woman was pulled over by him in a way that is very frightening. Very frightening. In the fact that she's just like, no, hi. Okay. Hi. Hi.

I guess I'll see what he wants. But instead, it was Gary Ridgway who introduced himself as an interested romantic party.

I just wanted to say you were speeding back there into my romantic inclinations.

Incredibly, Marcia was charmed by his clean-cut appearance and his military manners. And even though he accidentally called Marcia by his first wife's name the first time they had sex. Classic. Marsha and Gary quickly moved in together and were married by 1973. Now, while Gary's first wife said that his sexual habits weren't anything special, Gary insisted on anal sex with his second wife Marsha and sometimes tied her hands and feet with belts from bathrobes. He started getting into bondage.

Suddenly do it upside down.

In Asia, Gary also began exploring his fetish for having sex outdoors, usually off hiking trails or campsites. Incidentally, he and Marcia would have sex in many of the same places that Gary would later hide the bodies of his murder victims.

Aww! Cute!

Eventually, Gary became so fond of having sex outdoors that he installed silkscreen wallpaper featuring forest scenes on the headboard of his bed so he could still, quote, "enjoy the view" while having sex indoors. If I could just— well, I'm good.

If you could just stop moving your head around because I got all these Pine cones. I'm putting these pine cones next to your head.

On these trips though, Gary's behavior was also becoming more sinister. He would suddenly disappear into the woods during hikes so he could practice being completely silent, to the point where his wife was worried that he wasn't coming back. And then at the height of her fear, as she's wandering around saying, "Gary, Gary, where are you?" he'd either jump out from behind a bush and go, "Ah!" or he'd grab her arm from behind.

Later, Marcia would say, quote, he liked to see how softly he could walk so that he could be just totally noiseless. And he could do it too.

There's an exclamation point on that. Because I can— because that's the thing is like, that's not the voice that I hear is just like, it's a—

he liked to see how softly he could do it too. You know, he saw all this snow A lot of people say I sound like a man. I, I, I, I, I agree.

Now, Marsha lasted far longer than Gary's first wife, and by 1975, Marsha had given birth to Gary's first son, Matthew. Where's he at?

You know what, give him his privacy. Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com. Love to hear from you.

I'm guessing wherever he is he's got a different last name. Yeah. After Matthew's birth, Bidgeeway. Sorry, continue.

I know we're supposed to give these people their privacy because it is only right, but I'm always so curious where the fuck they're off hiding. Of course. You know, it's like, because I mean, it's got to just destroy you.

Most of them are just off trying to live their lives. Every once in a while you get somebody who wants to come forward and make it their entire identity. Identity, like Dennis Rader's daughter. Yeah, like some— but that's fucked up. That's all sorts of very rare. Most of the time these people change their names. Like a lot of serial— a lot of them in the past, like as soon as the guy, the husband, gets arrested, the mother will move, change their name, and never speak to them again. Yeah, I would just—

man, if that was my dad, I would just make sure— I mean, I'm already not having kids, but like I would just make sure I don't have kids.

Yeah, you just snip it off. Yeah, yeah. Or just do the inside cut.

Yeah, kill the bloodline.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, God, I know we don't deserve it anymore.

I'm actually— there is an interview with Matthew Ridgeway in the News Tribune from 2000 fucking— from, uh, it was updated in 2021. Wow. And it's him being like, it's just weird because like my dad never used racial slurs. He never yelled, and he never talked about prostitutes. It was just— I mean, I don't know, he just— he was just trying to be a father like you see in the TV shows. Father knows best.

Gary knows best. Gary knows best.

That's how bored we all were during COVID Matthew Ridgeway came out of hiding to talk about his father. Actually, I give you some attention. I didn't— you guys notice I've been, um, I've been twitching my mouth.

Well, after Matthew's birth, Gary got far more religious. But rather than following in his mother's Catholic footsteps, Gary joined several Protestant churches, as if one church wasn't enough. Marcia described Gary as being almost fanatical about religion after the birth of their son. He would read the Bible both at home and at work. She said that tears would fall from Gary's eyes during church services, and he'd spend his nights watching TV while clutching his Bible. Gary even started walking door to door in his neighborhood trying to convert his neighbors, but he would get furious when those neighbors inevitably slammed their doors in his face again and again.

Is that common, like, people being really religious and also being serial killers?

No, not really. They're usually atheists. Uh, it depends, because there's also—

there's a whole subset. There's the Missionary Killer. There's a subset of killer that is entirely religiosity, like, based. It's all like their own fantasy world. So it really depends. Like largely you, it would turn, it would turn into a new category. He is a guy that would use the Bible for what I'm going to, my, my call, my fucking Sunday morning psychiatrist call is the fact that he used it as like a lot of people use it, which is the possible Hail Mary pass at the end of life. And that he was constantly trying to validate the feelings that he was feeling because weirdly it all came from this like emotional place.

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's very easy with Christianity to come to the conclusion that women are evil, uh, because there are many churches that preach that specific thing. Yeah.

And many verses in the Bible that talk about it. And the whole story of Adam and Eve and every single woman that is ever around Jesus Christ is always just tempting him and doing it. It's almost like they, they've been putting that idea, that women are evil expendable whores in our brains ever since we started this whole process. Yeah.

And it's the Catholic Church still won't let women be priests. And whenever they want to get more involved, they put them in a habit and stick them in a building.

You want to know why? You want to know why? It's because I'm starting to think it's because women hold people accountable. Yeah. I think that might be a part of the function.

Yeah. I remember him saying in the doc that he, uh, that he thought that he would be forgiven if he asked for it.

Sure, that's the Hail Mary that Henry was talking about.

It's, it's, there's always that back pocket. They always got— look at David Berkowitz. That's all it is. He's Mr.

Jesus now. Yeah, yeah. When David Berkowitz and Gary Ridgeway die, by, by the rules of Christianity, both of them are going to heaven.

Them, just gonna be them, Charlie Kirk, Michael Jackson, all of our favorites, Conor McGregor, all having a great time.

Gary's main church was Pentecostal, and his pastor instilled—

which is bad, bad idea for him—

and his pastor instilled even more archaic views about women beyond the horrible shit his parents had already taught him. The Pentecostals taught that wives and daughters wouldn't make it to heaven if they didn't obey their husbands, and even something as small as having short hair or wearing the color red— both of those things massive sins for women. What if it's her hair? Even worse.

Yeah. Grows out of her. Cut her out. Cut her fucking head off. Cut her sucking head off. Save it.

This, of course, caused a rift in Gary's marriage, just like it had in his parents' marriage, although the male and female roles in Gary's marriage were reversed. But speaking of Gary's mother, Mary Rita soon became the main pressure point in Gary and Marcia's marriage. For some reason, Mary Rita had access to Gary's bank accounts. And she made her opinions known concerning how Gary and Marcia spent their money.

People are weird with that shit.

Really weird about it. On weekends, Gary would spend his free time with his mother instead of his wife. But Marcia soon discovered that it was probably for the best if Gary went on these visits alone. One night when Marcia came along, Thomas and Mary Rita got into a fight, and Mary Rita got so worked up that she smashed a plate over her husband's head. Thomas left the room without saying a word, which had become a pretty common reaction from Gary's father throughout Gary's life when his mother got abusive. But by the early to mid-'70s, Gary's head was filled with a bunch of Pentecostal bullshit about how women were supposed to act, and Mary Rita had only become more domineering after she'd been promoted to a manager position at JCPenney.

You can't fuck with that shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is it wrong that I'm like, rightfully so?

Yeah, working 9 to 5. So the idea of how a woman was supposed to act as it was presented in Gary's Pentecostal church, that became mixed with Gary's hatred towards the fairer sex, which edged him closer and closer towards serial murder. Now, after Gary got switched to night shifts detailing trucks and Marsha started taking classes during the day, the relationship began to dissolve. Marsha then got gastric bypass surgery and lost a lot of weight.

It's always a warning sign, fellas.

And she used her newfound confidence to start a career as a professional professional singer entertaining locals at nearby bars.

I just love her life. I love it. Her life is insane.

She's fucking on a great trajectory.

I don't like this family, Gary. I'm getting a bypass and I'm becoming a singer.

I'm gonna sing about it, Daddy. Gary always making a big deal about the Bible, but my Bible's the songbook of Liza Minnelli.

Gary, of course, hated his wife's new lease on life, and he started accusing her of sleeping with other men during her late nights entertaining. This was, of course, projection, because Gary had never stopped seeing sex workers throughout his two marriages, despite what the church might have to say about it. Because remember, he still thinks that masturbation is one of the worst sins in the world. Things between Marcia and Gary came to a head one night when they returned home from from a party where they'd both been drinking. They argued all the way home, but when they pulled into the driveway and Marsha got out of the car, Gary hung back. He then snuck up behind her using his silent technique, and he began choking her so she couldn't see who was doing it. Marsha actually thought for a second that some stranger was indeed attacking her, but she soon realized what was really happening. See, after Gary let go, he tried dodging around the other side of the car like a fucking little kid trying to get away with something. Then he emerged pretending be shocked that, "Oh my God, some guy just tried choking you!

That's crazy!" "You wouldn't believe, I saw him, he had beady little eyes and he had a big dumb mouth, he had some Ringo hair." "Mustache, mustache." Marsha, of course, knew that Gary was the perpetrator.

But for Gary's part, he said that this was the moment when something vicious and evil had been unleashed. He later admitted that choking her had majorly turned him on.

He said, quote, "Well, after that, I wanted to have sex with a prostitute and kill her doing that." Direct quote.

And one of the many things, it's hard to pin down concerning Gary.

This is what I like. You know what I mean? It's so hard. We go through, everybody's always like, "Oh, do what you love and then you never have to work a day in your life." And actually what Gary shows is an exact example when your passion becomes your work, you actually never stop working.

Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Epiphanies aren't always good.

Couple of like eureka moments that have been pretty bad for us. Yeah, really bad.

Yeah, yeah, the same guy who created leaded gasoline also created CFCs. Oh, we could have used two less eurekas from that guy.

You could just see the guy pouring COVID-17, pouring 18 together into one vial.

Now, one of the many things that's hard to pin down concerning Gary Ridgway is exactly when he began murdering women. He told investigators that that it was, quote, very possible that he'd killed several women during the 1970s, but his memories were hazy. The best he could offer was a vague memory of killing a sex worker while he was living with Marcia, but he could only remember that something went wrong on a so-called date and that he'd probably killed a sex worker during that date.

That's just saying this is just how many he killed.

Yeah, it's weird. I kind of believe him.

Yeah. Oh, 100%. I absolutely believe him.

He's not smart enough to lie. And he's not a Henry Lee Lucas. There is— he brought— he corroborated quite a bit of what he was talking about later on. It's just, you know, it's just hard when you look at him and you're like, you can't believe how much devastation this little fucking idiot did.

But you can also tell that he's also trying to figure out like what happened. Like he's trying to figure out like— that's why he's talking. He talks so much and he's like, he even— it's a— he's a mystery even to himself. And when they do those—

right, we'll get into it later on— when they do the thing where they drive him around and stuff, and he's just been like, thank you, Mr. Grieser, thank you so much. And he's just like this nice little man, and he's like whistling and stuff.

Now, according to Marcia, Gary kept coming home later and later throughout the mid to late '70s, and he'd often walk through the door wet and covered in dirt with no other explanation other than his car had broken broken down again and again and again. She also noted that Gary always kept several rolls of a protective plastic covering called Visqueen in the bed of his truck, and several of his later victims would, of course, be found covered in this same variety of plastic wrap.

And you know he got that from his detailing job.

Yeah, of course. So no fingerprints on that?

No, actually. So he must have used gloves. Yeah. Well, this is—

it really depends, dude, because it's like, in terms of the technology, fingerprint technology is really nowhere near anything that they show on movies and television. Yeah, it is. So it's such an inexact science, and it's so not dependable that like it's so hard to do because you have to, you have to, you have to make sure nobody fucks up the scene. Yeah, it has to be pristine.

I guess it's all covered in dirt too.

Well, also remember like his victims were usually found 2, 3 days later, sometimes weeks later, years later. This is the Pacific Northwest. It's fucking raining all the time. Yeah, you know, so that, that makes forensic evidence like fingerprints really difficult to lift. Now investigators tried their damnedest to pin down Gary's first kill, but the best Gary could do was vaguely recall 2 or 3 times in which he thought he'd killed a woman. In these incidents in the late '70s, Gary said that he might have strangled women, then left their bodies in the middle of the street, against the fence in a popular park, or lying against a newsstand where they would definitely have been found. But Ridgway said that he'd never heard any reports in the media about these women, so he concluded again and again that he had only choked these women until they'd lost consciousness. After Gary left them, he thought that they'd just woken up and walked away, saying, "You'd figure that she'd wake up if she wasn't dead." You'd figure.

Yeah, you would.

If I was a bet man, which I am, I'd put $10,000 that I'd kill those women.

And by 1980, Marcia had finally had enough of Gary Ridgway. That summer, she told Gary to go out and treat himself to a nice breakfast alone. And while he thought it was a strange request, he still did what he was told. Simple guy.

Yeah. Simple little guy.

Well, simple guy, simple gal. Go get some breakfast.

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine you come home, You know you're in trouble. You know how much trouble you're in if your wife goes, hey, go get some fucking breakfast. Go off. Go off. Go get breakfast.

Honestly, that'd be a great way to deal with fights. Yeah.

I just keep driving. But when Gary came back home, he found a moving van in the driveway and a very surprised Marcia, who she had expected to have all of her shit and all of her son's shit packed up up and gone by the time he returned.

Didn't you go to the goddamn Shoney's? I thought you were going to the buffet. No, as a matter of fact, I actually stopped by the Burger King and I got some French toast things, so it was actually pretty fast for me. Pretty quick.

Because, you know, Marcia thought that she could get all of her stuff moved out in the time it takes a man to eat a stack of pancakes. Like I said, not the brightest bulb either.

Yeah.

But regardless of Marcia's cognitive abilities, Gary was extremely upset that Marcia had left. He'd wanted to be a normal family man, and now he'd had his second marriage fail after 7 years, and they've also got a 5-year-old son together. Gary's anger only grew when he found out he had to pay child support, but the new expense certainly didn't stop him from doling out $20 a blowjob to the sex workers he continued picking up around the SeaTac Strip. Later, a forensic psychiatrist asked Gary why he wanted to hurt sex workers in the first place, and Gary lamely offered that it was because women had hurt him. Specifically, his first two wives had hurt him. Gary, in fact, said that he had thought about killing Marcia because he didn't want to be seen as a loser with two failed marriages. Gary even speculated that if he had just killed Marcia back in 1980, he would only have the murder of one woman on his conscience instead of 50-plus. And he actually used that number. He said, "50-plus." Because by the end of it, Gary himself only had a vague idea of how many women he'd killed. But he said the only reason why he didn't kill Marcia is because he knew he would be the prime suspect, which proved that for Gary Ridgway, killing was absolutely a choice.

Yeah, so it's weird.

He's stupid, but he knows that.

You see, well, that's because this is what being stupid— that's like one of the biggest injustices about being stupid is that you can be stupid and know you're stupid. And no, he know he's just smart enough to know how stupid he is, and he can't see— it is like a fog, like he can't see all of the reasons for the decisions that he makes because he works really instinctually, and he doesn't have— which shows again, he, he would have killed Marsha if he was going to kill her. He would have killed her. And I actually partially think it's the other— it's the— I kind of thought in my head, get— this sex should have been free. We should be doing this. She should be loving me. This is like a thing. And when I kill her, it wipes out the whole incident. I feel like there's some of that too. And then we'll also find out later on he killed them to freeze them in place.

Possibly. Yeah, I mean, to free— to—

so then he could do whatever he want.

Not all the time, but sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, enough.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I think with Marsha, the only reason why he would kill is like he would kill her so no one would find out about the divorce. Yeah, because if he killed her, then he's a grieving widower with a young young son and he gets a lot of sympathy from his church, from his peers, from his parents, from everybody. But he knew— he was smart enough to know, like, the husband's always the first person. So yeah, always a choice for him. Now, not too long after Marcia filed for divorce, Gary was arrested for the first, but certainly not the last time, in relation to prostitution. After cruising for a lady of the night, Gary picked one up and began choking her the same way he choked Marcia. This survived and did report the assault to the police. But guess what happened? The police absolutely questioned Gary, but Gary calmly explained that the choking was a justified act of self-defense because the woman had bitten his penis during oral sex. The charge got dropped.

Yeah, yeah, we all know that fucking story. Yeah, buddy, get out of here. Get out of here.

And the cops had no further Questions for Gary Ridgway. Guys are great.

Damn, that's fucking horrifying. Very bleak.

Very bleak. Even if his case is true, it's still choking a woman. Very bleak.

Yeah, it's still choking a woman. Yeah, it's just ended.

But you forget, Eddie, it's not a woman to them. It's a sex worker, so she's expendable.

Yes. Did he still get arrested for the sex work?

Thing? No, not worth it. Well, they can't really prove that. Uh, they have to catch you in the act.

He said she bit his dick. Yeah, that's what guys do, buddy. Yeah, it's— you know how many whores you choke, right? You know how much you love doing that.

My insides just vomited when you said that.

You know how much you love doing it.

Yeah, some really foul shit, Henry.

You don't like that? No, I know what he likes.

After his divorce, Gary discovered a support group called Parents Without Partners, and he began meeting women that he didn't have to pay to be in his presence. After his divorce was finalized in May of 1981, Gary began dating a woman who is known only as Darla.

Darla sounds like she'd be for Gary.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, Darla's for— I would say, um, Darla's for Gary, but Gary's not for Darla. Damn. Now, just like he'd done with Marsha, Gary quickly moved in with Darla in her West Seattle home, although she had no idea what kind of person she was. Darla wasn't really a think-ahead type of gal.

No, man, she's a fun, fun lady.

She really is. She quickly discovered that Gary was the type who liked sex, wanted it up to 3 times a day. According to Darla, sex was basically Gary's hobby, and Darla liked sex too, so that was all right. As far as personality personality went, Darla described Gary as gentle, if a bit dim and detached. But Darla pretty much saw Gary as just a fun fling. He liked having sex outdoors. Darla was an exhibitionist. And since Gary was clean, considerate, and didn't drink much, he was surprisingly safe. Such a bar, it's just so low.

I like Gary because he likes to fuck outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hate wolves. That's what I like. I like it. Leaves in my clothes.

Yeah. Hell yeah.

That's a branch snapping. Oh, I just squirted.

Things used to be simpler. Yeah. Darla and Gary therefore began exploring their sexuality even more, and Gary reawakened his insertion fetish by shoving fruit up Darla's vagina while she was tied up. She did say he never hurt her, and the weirdness of it all was actually quite exciting for From my reading, Gary and Darla seem like the type of couple who would send nude Polaroids to men's magazines like Gallery for their girl-next-door spreads. Today, they're the type who'd probably upload videos to Pornhub under the amateur heading.

Nobody knows what Gallery is. Nobody knows.

It's only Marcus who collects hundreds of them. You know, you know how— you know your favorite magazine. Okay.

Gallery, it's better than Hustler but not as good as We. I'll say that as far as information goes and as far as, you know, you ever—

you know, you don't love— you don't have a subscription to Slit magazine? Dead girl is dead girl month. Hey, you took it to that place.

These are classy magazines.

Yeah, dead girl month. It's all girls that were alive last month.

But while they were all having a fun, sexy time, Gary decided in 1981 that he wanted full custody of his son.

Yeah, he needs to be a dad. Darla.

That's my first thought. Darla, however, already had 4 kids that were all in the custody of their respective fathers. Ooh, Darla.

She fucks in the woods.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, my father of my first son was the god Pan. Yeah, the green man of folklore.

Like I said, you look at these, like, you know, the pictures that they send in and these old magazines, like, what kind of person, what kind of people are these? It's Darla. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, Darla, waitress, Pacific Northwest. But she didn't really want to even raise her own kids. Nope. So she certainly didn't want a hand in raising anyone else's. So Darla broke up with Gary, and Gary got another woman to hate. Soon after though, Gary bought a house on the aforementioned mentioned strip in what is now the city of SeaTac between Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. This was the Pacific Highway South, Highway 99 corridor south of Seattle around SeaTac Airport, which was quite the popular spot for sex workers. And so Gary now had a house that was right next to a location where the sex workers were available in numerous. And if we go by what another of his girlfriends said, the one after Darla, this easy access was marching Gary closer to murder. This former girlfriend, whom Gary had also met through the Parents Without Partners support group, said that on fucking Christmas Eve 1981, Gary broke down and told her that he had nearly killed a woman recently.

Let's just say, Gary, these confessions are more of a February thing. Yeah, okay, because really Honestly, I just want to watch White Christmas. I don't want to do this right now.

Mid-January at the earliest. I think so. Also, Parents Without Partners is like a good idea, but it should clearly be single moms and single dads.

Separate meetings. Separate. It should just be, all right guys, you're sad, let's fuck. That's all it is.

Welcome to Mistakes Weekly.

2 months later in February February of 1982, Gary told another girlfriend that he'd done "something." And while he didn't say what that something was, he did tell his girlfriend to pay close attention to the news in the coming days. No sex worker murders showed up in the news, but Gary later said that he vaguely remembered murdering a woman at his house around this time and dropping her body off somewhere on Highway 18. The identity of this woman, if she does indeed exist remains unknown. But Gary was just 2 months away from his first official victim, whose murder would kick off a vicious 2-year-long murder spree and a decades-long investigation. That, of course, is where we'll pick back up next time for Gary's legendary rampage and a full exploration of the how when it comes to the age of the serial killer.

Woo! God, it feels so good to be back in the blood. Sure. I like doing true crime. I miss true crime, honestly. Yeah, so fuck it. Good work, Marcus. Thank you. Good work, everybody. Good work, Eddie. I didn't, I didn't do much but watch a documentary. Patreon.com/podcastontheleft. You can listen to these episodes ad-free. You can also see the last stream on the Left Live every Tuesday, 5:00 PM PST. Also go to LP on the Left for all of your social media needs. I am going to stress, you need to go to LPN TV on YouTube, watch our new HGX2. Yes. If I have to hear one more person says, you know, why don't they promo these on the show? This is the only— I know it's at the end. We do it at the end because in the beginning it's annoying, right?

It's sort of respect for you.

We do it at the end. But that's the thing, is that you don't listen to the end. But for those of you listening, I love you.

Check out HDX2, it's fucking great.

It really is unbelievable. Everyone fucking put their best foot forward on that one.

And we have an announcement coming very, very soon about Bloodbath 77. Yeah, that will be coming out very, very soon. And then we will also be, uh, go check out— we got new things from No Dogs coming out, we got new things from The Brighter Side coming out, we got new things from Spun, new things from Romantasy. Go and check out all of our various YouTube channels. Yeah, right now Nerd of Mouth 2 is on YouTube.

Yes, it is. We are—

we got them on camera. They are on camera now. It's a wide lens and you can really Really soak it in. Soaking them, nerd. Soaking our boys. Soak them in. I wish you could be in that room.

Oh man, we got 2 JK Ultras left. And most importantly, if you're sad that you missed the freaking tour, we are putting what our last show in Oklahoma City is going to livestream out. So you guys can get tickets to that. Stay tuned for exact instructions on that, but that is going to be shit next week. It's going to happen. I can't wait for everyone to see this show. We've refined it over 2 years. We've been working on this thing and we're going to put it to bed. And I really want whoever hasn't seen it to see it, cuz it is fucking amazing. So we're going to be in Tulsa, Oklahoma on July 17th, and then we're going to be in Oklahoma City on July 18th, and then I'm solo running over to Plano, Texas right after that on July 19th. So come hang out with me.

That's where you're going to meet like what's his name from No Country for Old Men. You're gonna go sugar? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You got to go over to San Angelo for that. Yeah, you know, you did— Plano, you're just basically close to Texas. You're in Dallas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Plano is Dallas.

I know you keep saying Plano, but it is Dallas.

Yeah, you're, you're, you're in Dallas and you got to travel quite far to get to the Psychopaths. Yeah, in San Angelo, one of those days. Yeah, we'll get you out there.

Thank you, I appreciate it. Also, this, um, next weekend, July 10th, 12th, and 13th, I'm gonna tri-state area, come find me. I'm going to be in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for Salute to Bethlehem, Newark, New Jersey on the 12th, and City Winery in New York City with a bunch of, uh, I booked, uh, some Friends of the Roundtable as a little surprise for you guys. Oh, fine. Yeah, so that's gonna be a lot of fun. That's really nice. Fuck yeah, bringing them chucklehutters out of retirement. Yeah, I love to hear it.

Dust them off, bring them up. We'll be back. We'll see you next week. Hail sweet Satan. Pee-pants Gary! You know what?

I'm gonna hail my new cousin Melody and Mitchell, who got married right next to the forest where Gary Ridgway was murdering these people.

Yay!

May your union be blessed! Yay! It's another wonderful connection! Welcome to the family, Melody!