No decision on Green River death penalty

SEATTLE, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Alleged serial killer Gary Ridgway pleaded innocent Tuesday to four murder charges filed in connection with the Green River Killer murder series as prosecutors continued to decide whether to seek the death penalty for the 52-year-old truck painter.

Ridgway faces four counts of aggravated murder in the deaths of four women whose remains were found near the Green River outside Seattle nearly 20 years ago. He was arrested Nov. 30 while leaving the company in Renton where he had worked as a painter since 1969.

He was ordered to appear in court again Jan. 2, at which time King County prosecutors will have to decide whether to seek the death penalty in the case. The trial is not expected to begin for another two years due to the large volume of evidence collected over the years.

Defense attorney Tony Savage said he expected prosecutors would indeed seek a death sentence for Ridgway. Savage was given the court's permission Monday to bring three additional attorneys and two investigators aboard and was also authorized by a judge to spend $300,000 in taxpayer funds to pay for expert services that likely will include independent DNA testing.

A sophisticated DNA test on a saliva sample Ridgway provided to police in 1987 led to his arrest, the first in the baffling series of murders that terrorized the Pacific Northwest during the mid-1980s. The murders were dubbed the Green River Killer series since the victims, primarily prostitutes from the Seattle-Tacoma area, were dumped in and around the Green River.

Ridgway, five-feet-nine inches and 170 pounds, remained silent during Tuesday's arraignment in King County Superior Court. Relatives of his alleged victims were in the courtroom, however they were hustled away by bailiffs without commenting to reporters.

The massive investigation that had faded to only one full-time officer during the 1990s has been revitalized and is looking at old evidence in the remainder of the Green River deaths and at other unsolved homicides involving young women stretching from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Portland, Ore. and as far away as San Diego.

Ridgway had been questioned early on in Green River investigation after it was determined that he had a penchant for seeking out prostitutes, but the series appeared to die out while he continued living in the area and working at the same job. Ridgway's co-workers knew about his contact with detectives and gave him nicknames such as "Green River Gary."

King County Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart told United Press International that Ridgway was being held in a high security area of the county jail where he is allowed to have visitors but it was not known if anyone had been into see him other than his attorneys.

(Reported by Hil Anderson, Los Angeles)