Where Did the Green River Killer Commit His Crimes?

Gary Ridgway, infamously known as the Green River Killer, carried out the vast majority of his murders in Washington State. His hunting ground was concentrated in the greater Seattle metropolitan area, specifically within King County.

Between the early 1980s and 1998, Ridgway targeted vulnerable women, often sex workers and runaways, dumping many of their bodies in and around the Green River—which gave him his moniker—as well as in remote wooded areas throughout the county. The investigation, which became one of the largest and most complex in U.S. history, was centered almost entirely in this region before Ridgway's eventual arrest in 2001 and his 2003 plea agreement, in which he confessed to 48 murders.