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Killer enjoys the spotlight

"I wouldn't be surprised if he is extremely cooperative with the detectives to try to ratchet up the score."

Scott Thornsley, serial murder researcher

Prolific serial killer Gary Ridgway considers himself only moderately evil -- a "three" on a scale of one to five -- since he refrained from torturing the 48 young women he murdered, a police official who knew him said on Thursday.

A day after Ridgway pleaded guilty to the murders in what became known as the Green River killings, Kings County Sheriff Dave Reichert said Ridgway refused to take credit for murders he did not commit, explaining to police: "Why, if it isn't mine? Because I have pride in ... what I do, I don't want to take it from anybody else."

But other criminal experts said Ridgway is probably enjoying the attention he is getting and could admit to even more killings to keep himself in the spotlight.

With dozens of murders still unsolved in Washington state during what Ridgway called his murder "career" and scores more in nearby Vancouver, British Columbia, the death toll of the "Green River Killer" could easily climb.

"Clearly he enjoys this. I wouldn't be surprised if he is extremely cooperative with the detectives to try to ratchet up the score," said Scott Thornsley, who teaches a course on serial murders at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania.

Officials in Seattle declined to discuss additional murder charges until Ridgway is sentenced in about six months, but they have talked with Canadian authorities about more than 60 missing prostitutes in Vancouver, where a pig farmer is facing charges for 15 murders.

Ridgway, who unflinchingly answered "yes" on Wednesday as a prosecutor and then a judge asked him 48 times if he had committed murder, has grown increasingly relaxed in custody and shows signs of pride in his work.

He told police of intricate plans to deceive them, how he considered killing his mother and his ex-wives, and how he kept his victims' bodies handy so he could have sex with them for days after their deaths.

"There was a look in his eye, kind of a satisfaction on his face, that even though he is caught ... he had fooled the investigators," Reichert said, describing Ridgway's demeanor under police questioning.

According to court documents, Ridgway believed he would never have been caught were it not for improved DNA testing that linked his saliva sample, taken years earlier, to bodies he left in wooded areas in the early 1980s.

Ridgway killed sporadically until at least 1998 and may have begun killing as early as the 1970s, though his known victims started appearing in 1982, initially in the Green River near Seattle's main airport.

Ridgway, who agreed to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty in June and is being held at an undisclosed location, spent much of the summer showing detectives where he left several bodies that had never been found.

He had clear memories of the sites, even 20 years later, and seemed to revel in revisiting the crime scenes, officials said.

"I think he enjoyed that. It was an opportunity for him to be out and he was ... matter-of-fact, `This is where it is, I know I stopped here, this is what I did,'" said Reichert, who spent several years investigating the Green River crimes.

Initially reluctant to give information to police after his arrest in 2001, Ridgway has gradually warmed to investigators and eventually the details gushed out in a torrent, uncovering his chilling lack of remorse, Reichert said.

Ridgway's apparent candor and smugness strongly suggest he will not withhold details, though he may use them to draw continuing media interest or to cut other deals with prosecutors.
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