/ Green River Killer

06:45 PM PST on Wednesday, November 5, 2003

By HEATHER FILKINS / KING 5 News

SEATTLE - For Gary Ridgway, admitting to the deaths of 48 women was almost mechanical, and those watching him noticed the lack of emotion in his face or voice.

Robert Freeman was a jail trustee on the same floor as the serial killer. He said there's one thing he'll always remember about their daily talks.

"Just the coldness in his eyes, like you know... he was sorry he got caught but he wasn't sorry that he had done any of it."

KING Gary Ridgway pleads guilty to one of 48 counts of aggravated first degree murder.

"It is unusual for somebody just to commit that type of behavior and cover it up for so long," said Jackie Helfgott, Ph.D at Seattle University, who teaches criminal justice at Seattle University and specializes in psychopathic personalities.

She said there's a possibility Ridgway began developing his proclivities by the time he was just three years old.

"Do they develop the defensive structure that makes it impossible for them to have empathy for another person, or to be attached to another person? A lot of that develops that early in life," she said.

But she also said his ability to separate groups of people, between the prostitutes, or women, that he could kill and the wives that he wouldn't is textbook psychopath.

"In order for one human being to kill another human being, there has to be this process of devaluation, and so in this case, someone who would devalue the prostitute, make that person into some sort of monster."

In the end perhaps Ridgway offers the best clue into his psyche, by telling detectives: "I thought I was doing you guys a favor, killing, killing prostitutes, hear you guys can't control them but I can."

Another interesting revelation about Ridgway's childhood is that he told detectives that he was sexually attracted to his mother, but he also wanted to kill her.

He also admitted to them that his first violent act - stabbing a 6-year old boy - happened when he was just 17.