The Green River Killer’s confession count is 71. Why are only 48 convictions official?

Gary Leon Ridgway was a truck painter from Auburn, Washington.

In November 2001, DNA evidence linked him to several victims, and he was arrested.

Two years later, in 2003, he pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

The plea deal spared him the death penalty.

The official count is 48 convictions.

As of recent reports, he has confessed to as many as 71 murders.

That is a difference of 23.

How does one man confess to 23 more killings than the law recognizes?

The 71 figure is a claim of confessions.

It is not a number established by the record.

The exact number of confessions beyond 48 is not established.

What the record shows is a plea deal, a conviction, and a sentence of 48 consecutive life terms without parole.

What the record does not show is a final tally of every murder he says he committed.

The confessions came as part of his cooperation, a condition of the deal that kept him off death row.

Prosecutors argued that his full cooperation was necessary to bring closure to unsolved cases.

The families of the victims had mixed reactions.

Some found closure.

Others expressed ongoing anger.

Ridgway remains incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

He has no possibility of parole.

His health has declined in prison.

He remains alive.

He remains confined.

The number that doesn't add up is not a math error.

It is a gap between what a man has said and what the law has counted.

That gap is 23.

That would require evidence.

THE GREEN RIVER INVESTIGATION

The first bodies were found along the Green River in 1982.

Detective Dave Reichert of the King County Sheriff’s Office led the investigation from the start.

Between 1982 and 1998, a series of women were murdered in and around the Seattle–Tacoma area.

Most were sex workers, runaways, or otherwise vulnerable.

The victims were typically strangled and dumped in remote, wooded locations, often near the Green River.

That river gave the case its name.

The exact number of victims during that period is not specified in the record.

Early difficulties were everywhere.

Forensic technology was limited.

The victims were transient, often gone before anyone reported them missing.

The case became one of the largest serial murder investigations in U.S. history.

It was also one of the slowest.

Years passed without an arrest.

Then, in 2001, DNA evidence linked Gary Ridgway to several victims.

That was the turning point.

The investigation had run for nearly two decades before that link.

It had involved the FBI and multiple local agencies.

Reichert remained the central figure throughout.