/ Green River Killer

06:56 AM PST on Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Associated Press

SEATTLE - Green River serial killer Gary Leon Ridgway has finished leading investigators to places where he left his victims and will be formally sentenced next month to life in prison without parole, authorities said.

On Nov. 5, Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder in a two-decade-old rampage targeting runaways and prostitutes, putting more murders on his record than any other serial killer in U.S. history.

Under a plea deal, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty in exchange for Ridgway’s cooperation in helping to solve some of the unresolved Green River killings.

KING/NWCN Gary Ridgway (left) during his November 5 court hearing.

On Tuesday, however, Jones set the sentencing date as Dec. 18.

“He has taken them to every place he thinks he left a body,” said Dave Roberson, one of Ridgway’s lawyers.

Kathleen Larson, a Green River Task Force detective, said she also is confident that is the case but added that task force members will continue to interview him until his sentencing.

“During that time, if his memory is triggered from whatever, or we find a reason to take him out, we can do that,” she said.

She said the task force searched a small area in Tukwila on Monday, have a search planned for next week and may conduct another after that.

Ridgway, 54, was arrested in late 2001 after DNA evidence linked him to the first victims whose bodies were found in or near the Green River.

He has led detectives to dozens of body dump sites since he began cooperating in June. They found four sets of previously undiscovered remains this summer, and Ridgway pleaded guilty in those deaths.