Last known victim of Green River serial killer Gary Ridgway identified more than 40 years after disappearance
The remains of the last known victim of serial killer Gary Ridgway have been identified in Washington State, more than 40 years after her disappearance.
The King County Sheriff’s Office on Monday said the remains were identified as those of 16-year-old Tammie Liles of Everett, just north of Seattle.
“With this identification, there are no other unidentified remains associated with the Green River Case,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Ridgway targeted marginalized women and girls, including sex workers and runaways. He was long a suspect in the Green River killings, named for where the first victims were found. He was finally arrested in 2001 when investigators used DNA technology to link a 1987 saliva sample from Ridgway to several of the victims.
Liles was first reported missing in June 1983 and her body was discovered in April 1985. Her remains were identified as those of a Green River victim in 1988. Ridgway led investigators to a second set of her remains in 2003. A new DNA profile was created in 2022 and led to a relative of Liles, who confirmed the match.
“It’s an immense feeling of satisfaction that in this case, that started in the early 80s, we are able to identify all of Gary Ridgway’s victims,” King County sheriff’s spokesperson Eric White told The Seattle Times. “All 49 of them.”
Ridgway pleaded guilty to 49 slayings, including Liles’, to avoid the death penalty in 2003. He is serving life without the possibility of parole at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
