Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949), known as the "Green River Killer", is an American (United States) serial killer. Ridgway murdered numerous women in Washington during the 1980s and 1990s. Haglund, W.D.; Reichert, M.A.; Reay, D.G. & Donald, T. (1990): Recovery of decomposed and skeletal human remains in the ??Green River Murder?? investigation. Am. J. Forensic Med. Pathol., 11: 35-43. He strangled them, mostly with his arm, but he would also use ligatures (Strangling#Ligature_strangulation). After strangling the women, he would dump their bodies throughout King County.

On November 30, 2001, as he was leaving a Renton, Washington factory where he worked, he was arrested for the murders of four women whose cases were linked to him through DNA evidence. As part of a plea bargain, he was spared the death penalty and received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.