It pressured Ridgway into confessing to 48 murders and leading detectives to four previously undiscovered bodies in exchange for sparing him the death penalty.īut in a recent interview, the trace evidence expert, Skip Palenik, said he could have done the same analysis, with the use of an infrared microscope, back in the 1980s. The spray paint found on the victims’ clothing wasn’t sold to the public, and it was used only in the Seattle area on a wide scale in the early 1980s by Kenworth Truck Co., where Ridgway worked.Īuthorities hailed the discovery publicly as another scientific breakthrough. Only after the DNA match that led to Ridgway’s arrest did a renowned trace evidence expert, brought in to help with the case, find the overlooked clues in 2003. Josh Trujillo / Pool via Getty Images Elaine Thompson / AP At right, members of the task force comb a hillside where Ridgway said he had left a body. “It would have been nice if we could’ve saved a life or two - or all of them.” Gary Ridgway after his sentencing in Seattle in 2003. “I’m appalled I didn’t know that that was even possible,” said Frank Adamson, a retired King County sheriff’s commander who supervised the Green River Task Force in the mid-1980s.
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