Washington Supreme Court denies release for serial killer and others in 5-4 vote over coronavirus

In a narrow 5-4 vote, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that a large chunk of inmates shouldn’t be released because of the pandemic. The vote came after a lawsuit was filed that called for the release of about two-thirds of Washington’s prison population. The lawsuit claimed that inmates aren’t able to control their safety from the virus while in lockdown.

Gary Ridgway, 71, was among those who would have reportedly been released as part of the lawsuit. Ridgway, better known as the “Green River Killer,” preyed on young women and confessed to killing at least 49 people. He was sentenced to life (500 years to be exact) in prison in 2003.

How insane do you have to be to actively agitate and even go to court to get someone like that freed?  On the grounds that he might get the flu?

Insanity

The man we now know as the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway, was sent to prison for more than 500 years. He was convicted of 49 murders of prostitutes, girls on the streets and vulnerable runaways, but he was suspected of committing 71 murders in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.

He would take the women and girls, have sex with them, and then strangle them, watching the light go out of their eyes as he squeezed the life out of them. Sometimes he’d use a rope and sometimes he’d use his bare hands. He’d pose their bodies and sometimes come back and have sex with the corpses. His first victims were found in the Green River, giving the monster his moniker.

Released to society I’m sure he’d fit right in.  I think Antifa is hiring.

Ridgeway was spared the death penalty because prosecutors knew it would take many millions of taxpayers dollars to give him appeals for the rest of his natural life. There was understandable outrage at the time, but prosecutors assured victims’ families and the general public that he would never ever, ever get out of prison. Never.

Predictably, the move also lowered the bar for any other death penalty cases coming thereafter. “Well, if you didn’t give the Green River Killer the death penalty then my client, who is a much nicer murderer, shouldn’t get it … ”

When you get down to it, everything about his case stinks. If they didn’t go for the death penalty to save ‘money’ then I’d ask them the classic question, “How much is a human life worth?’.  49 lives? 71 lives?

A legal activist group, Columbia Legal Services, began agitating for inmates over 50 years old to be set free to save them from the virus. Ridgeway is 71 years old.