I Survived The Great River Killer

He took at least 49 innocent lives – but one woman lived…

- Donna O Reilly

Gary Ridgway looks like an average man.

Perhaps that’s how he was able to become one of the world’s most prolific serial killers, evading capture for so long.

Ridgway got the nickname The Green River Killer after dumping the bodies of his first five victims in Washington’s Green River. 

Dozens more followed. 

Most of his victims were sex workers or vulnerable teen runaways – people he assumed wouldn’t be missed.

After picking them up from the street, often with the promise of cash for sex, Ridgway would then strangle his victims.

Even more disturbing was his tendency to return to his victims’ bodies a few days after the murder, to rape the corpses. 

Clearly, the man was a maniac. 

But, incredibly, one woman who could have been another of his murder victims got away…

It was a drizzly Seattle night in November 1982, and 20-year old Rebecca Garde was walking home when a car pulled up beside her.