“Did you ever date her?” Sue Peters asked.

He wasn’t sure about that. It had been a long time ago. He remembered talking with her at the Barn Door. He seemed to be under the impression that the two investigators were looking for a witness who might be helpful in a trial someday should anyone ever be charged with Carol Christensen’s murder. He had always enjoyed offering his theories on unsolved murder cases and now he seemed relaxed, even when their conversation continued for almost two hours. No sweat beaded on his forehead and his body language betrayed little tension.

The next question was very important to Peters and Mattsen. In evidence since May 1983 was the DNA that Carol Christensen’s killer had left inside her vagina. “Did you ever have any sexual contact with Carol Christensen?” Peters asked as casually as she could.

He shook his head slightly. “No…no. I didn’t.”

Bingo. That was the wrong answer as far as the truth went, but it was the answer they needed in order to arrest him as the Green River Killer. Still, it wasn’t quite time yet. Gary Ridgway smiled at the two detectives as they walked out into the rainy morning. He figured the only thing they could get him for was lying to a judge about propositioning the fake prostitute two weeks earlier.

After they left, he went to the lunchroom where he sat in his usual spot. He liked predictable routines. Changes disturbed him, but he hadn’t even detected the slight flicker in the investigators’ eyes as he denied having intercourse with Carol Christensen. Even though co-workers teased him a bit about the cops being there and asked if it was more Green River stuff, he was calm when he said “no.” He was sure the police believed him.

He drank his usual cup of tea, but his stomach was a little queasy; he ignored the frosted brownie and the bag of peanuts Judith had put in his lunch.

On that last day of November 2001, he was working the seven AM to three PM shift, and he walked out the door a few minutes after three, heading through the heavy weather toward his truck, unaware of a camera clicking silently, frame after frame. Randy Mullinax and Jim Doyon were waiting just out of his line of sight, and they noted that he looked over his shoulder and around the parking lot, almost as if he expected someone. Even so, he jumped when they walked up to him and told him he was under arrest for murder, and read him his rights under Miranda.

Detective Paul Smith hadn’t lived to see Gary Ridgway arrested; the marrow transfusion procedure to fight his leukemia had left him vulnerable to the infection that claimed his life when he was barely past forty. But now, Doyon and Mullinax placed Smith’s handcuffs around Ridgway’s wrists in a symbolic gesture that acknowledged Smith’s dedication to the Green River cases. Later, they would give the cuffs to Smith’s widow.

Mullinax and Doyon drove Gary Ridgway to the Regional Justice Center in Kent, where he was photographed wearing a plaid shirt and jeans—the attire so many witnesses had described. His face was expressionless. He was medium height, medium build, totally average-looking, a man who scarcely resembled what they believed him to be—the most infamous and prolific serial killer ever known in America.

Standing on the porch of a large house on a quiet street in Auburn, Sue Peters and Matt Haney were at Judith Ridgway’s door at the same moment her husband was being arrested. It was a little after three on Friday afternoon when she let them in and led them through her crowded living room past Gary’s exercycle. She seemed slightly surprised to see the two detectives, but certainly not shocked. She thought they were there to discuss Gary’s recent arrest on the highway. She knew that was just a mistake because he had told her it was.

“We wanted to tell her that Gary was being arrested for some of the Green River murders before reporters got to her,” Sue Peters recalled. “And we could see she didn’t know why we were there.”

On a normal Friday, Gary would have been home within a few minutes, asking about her day, telling her about his. Instead, he was in an interview room at the Regional Justice Center being questioned by Randy Mullinax and Jim Doyon. She didn’t know that yet.

Judith had no objection to being interviewed and agreed to let Haney and Peters tape their questions and her answers. Sue Peters began by asking her if she knew that detectives had spoken to her husband earlier in the day.

“Yes,” Judith said with a nod, but she didn’t know why.

“And what we’d like to do is verify some information that he’s provided,” Peters said, “as well as ask you some questions about your background with Gary, and go from there. Okay?”

“Okay.” She was a sparrowlike woman nearing sixty, neither fat nor thin, with blondish brown hair and little makeup. Matt Haney found her almost a cookie-cutter image of Gary’s first two wives, none of them with his late mother’s flair for makeup and fashion.

At Peters’s request, Judith recalled the first time she’d met Gary at the White Shutters and their subsequent courtship. They had been together since 1985.

“What type of man was he [then]?”

“Oh, the best. Nice, sweet, gentle…. He comes home, and we’re still best friends.” She explained that Gary had few friends, just some men he talked to at work, although he didn’t socialize with them. He would rather be with her.

“What about female friends—female acquaintances, not a relationship-type thing, but a friendship?” Peters asked.

“No. I don’t know of any.”

“So you pretty much keep to yourselves and do your own thing?”

“Yes. If I’m at the grocery store I’ll, you know, notice what time it is. I know he’s coming home and I want to be here when he comes home every day.” Judith could not remember any trouble in her marriage or his prior unions, nothing more than slight arguments he might have had with his son’s mother, Dana. When Chad was a little boy, Gary’s mother had picked Chad up from his day care to bring him to Gary and Judith for his weekend visitations.

“Do you know why they broke up?”

“Oh, she [Dana] used to be a country-western singer and stayed out late with the band and groups, and he would be home babysitting. I don’t know all those details,” Judith said.

“He has mentioned that she was unfaithful to him. Do you know anything about that?”

“She was probably with some of the band people, maybe. I have no idea.”

As for Gary’s first wife, Judith knew virtually nothing about her. She had heard about some fight over furniture, but she thought that might have been Gary’s brother’s ex-girlfriend. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t think it was Heather who had demanded her furniture.

“Was there anything in particular you can think about any of his ex-wives that made him angry about them?”

“Real angry? Not real bad anger. He’s never been mad.”

“Okay. Does he have a bad temper?”

“No.”

“Have you ever seen him just out-of-control angry…or violent?”

“Not violent—he’s raised his voice to me one time. It was just something minor. I don’t remember exactly what it was.”

“Has he ever struck you, ever grabbed you? Have you ever had the police respond to any of your residences on a domestic violence?”

“No! Heavens, no. No.” Judith seemed shocked at the very idea of that.

“I’m just trying to get a better understanding of your relationship,” Sue Peters explained.

“He’s the best,” Judith said firmly. She still hadn’t asked them why they were questioning her. She and Gary got along just fine, always had.

“What’s Gary’s relationship with Chad?”

“Oh, it’s wonderful. He’s the best,” Judith said. “They shake hands, give each other hugs. When it’s his birthday, I’ll send him some money. We forgot his birthday [this year] because so much was going on with Gary’s mom, when she was sick. Chad is just like his dad. He’s in the marines, eight years now, in Pendleton, California.”