Background
Gary Leon Ridgway was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Gary was the youngest in his family of two brothers, a mother named Mary Rita Ridgway, and a father Thomas Newton. Thomas, worked as a bus driver in Utah and constantly complained about the prostitutes that frequently were on the route he drove on. His mother, Mary on the other hand ruled the household and was extremely mentally and physically abusive to Gary, his brothers, and even Thomas, her husband. As a child, Gary constantly wet the bed and instead of receiving nurturing from his mom she dragged him out of his room naked in front of his brothers. Then she would force him to stand in a cold bath tub. Outside and inside his home Gary was also always very violent. He was cruel to animals, and enjoyed torturing them as a child. Gary would lock cats into the frezzer until they would die, and shoot birds with BB guns with his brothers. At school he also wasn’t the brightest. He had estimated IQ of 80, and sometimes had to repeat grades twice just to pass.
At age 14 is when Gary first attempted to murder a human being. In 1963, Gary attempted to kill a 6-year-old boy by stabbing him, but was never caught. The first time he was successful of murdering someone was when he was a teenager. He did this by drowning a young boy by wrapping his legs