Excerpts from confession by US lorry driver Gary Ridgway, who has pleaded guilty to murdering 48 women in the notorious Green River killings, as read in court by prosecutor Jeff Baird. [Source: Associated Press]
I killed the 48 women listed in the state's second amended information.
In most cases when I killed these women I did not know their names.
Prosecutor Jeff Baird [left] in court with Gary Ridgway [right, in red shirt]
Most of the time I killed them the first time I met them and I do not have a good memory of their faces.
I killed so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight.
I have reviewed information and discovery about each of the murders with my attorneys and I am positive that I killed each one of the women charged in the second information.
I killed them all in King County.
I killed most of them in my house near Military Road and I killed a lot of them in my truck not far from where I picked them up.
I killed some of them outside. I remember leaving each woman's body in the place where she was found.
I have discussed with my attorneys the common scheme or plan, aggravating circumstance charged in all of these murders.
I agree that each of the murders I committed was part of a common scheme or plan.
The plan was I wanted to kill as many women I thought were prostitutes as I possibly
I picked prostitutes as my victims because I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex.
I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed.
I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported
I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.
Another part of my plan was where I put the bodies of these women.
Most of the time I took the women's jewellery and their clothes to get rid of any evidence and make them harder to identify.
I placed most of the bodies in groups which I call clusters. I did this because I wanted to keep track of all the women I killed.
I liked to drive by the clusters around the county and think about the women I placed there.
I usually used a landmark to remember a cluster and the women I placed
Sometimes I killed and dumped a woman intending to start a new cluster and never returned because I thought I might get caught putting more women there.