30. A Dyslexic Religious Fanatic
Gary Ridgway’s father often complained about the proliferation of prostitutes in and around the neighborhood. Between that, the humiliation of his bed wetting into his teens, his mother’s habit of washing his genitals, and other dysfunctions in his upbringing, something went wrong with Ridgway. It did not help that he was dyslexic, with an IQ in the 80s.
Ridgway’s violent criminality began in the 1960s. At age sixteen, he led a six-year-old boy into the woods, and stabbed him in the liver. The child survived, and described Ridgway walking away laughing. After high school, Ridgway joined the Navy and was sent to Vietnam. Upon his discharge, he got a job painting trucks, and spent 30 years doing that. Ridgway was a family man, but one who had trouble keeping a marriage going: he was married three times. He was also a regular churchgoer, and many who knew him described him as a religious fanatic.
