Police have released this composite sketch and are actively seeking leads. "His crimes left an impact on our community that continues today." As of this writing, the remains of yet another girl in her late teens, known only as "Bones 17," are still unidentified. "Ridgway's murderous spree left a trail of profound grief for so many families of murdered and missing women," King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg said in a statement (via Westside Seattle). That changed in 2021 when DNA finally identified 14-year old Wendy Stephens. "Somebody had to be there for her, nobody else was." "How does somebody not miss someone that young?" wondered retired Green River detective Tom Jensen, per Q13 Fox. For years the remains of the other victim, a child or young teen, were known to investigators only as "Bones 10". On one such call, the manager of a local little league field alerted police his dog had come home with a human bone in his mouth. He was taking all his anger out on me." It would take nearly two decades before authorities would discover how correct she was and for a semblance of Ridgway's twisted motives to be revealed.ĭetectives spent a lot of 1984 collecting bodies. She told investigators (via Seattle PI), "I felt like I was his little revenge toy or something, you know. She got into Ridgway's truck like so many others but became one of the few to escape this maniac's clutches. But to the women he attacked, he was anything but banal.
It was this "banality" of evil, as writes The Washington Post, that kept Ridgway free and on the hunt for so long. Ridgway was a monster wearing the mask of a dull suburban family man. But conversations with Gary were never about anything. "When I was out in the yard, I couldn't get anything done because he wanted to talk all the time," Seattleite Paul Winkle told The News Tribune. He was a "model neighbor" and even "overly friendly," observed one slightly annoyed neighbor.
To his acquaintances and family, he was reserved, even-tempered, ordinary.