Gary Leon Ridgway, born February 18, 1949, is the world's most prolific serial killer. What makes him the world's most prolific serial killer? In addition to being a murderer, he was also a necrophiliac. The sheer number is a prime example of the psychotic things this man was capable of doing. He was convicted of forty-eight murders, but later confessed to up to twice that number. It is also astonishing that this horror lasted for over a decade between the 1980s and 1990s. As a young child, Ridgway was exposed to numerous arguments between his parents. He was belittled for wetting the bed by his mother for whom he had opposite and aggravated sexual feelings. This was the beginning of his sexual sadism. When he was sixteen, he stabbed a six-year-old boy in the woods. The victim and Ridgway said Ridgway walked away, saying, "I always wondered what it would be like to kill someone." This had started his passion for harming others. Ridgway tested with an IQ of eighty-two as a child, leading him to repeat two years of high school. He graduated at age twenty-one. He later married his high school sweetheart. Ridgway joined the Navy where he began soliciting prostitutes while married. He contracted gonorrhea for the second time in his life, but still had sex with several prostitutes. When he returned to his wife's house, he would ask her for very strange sexual favors, such as sex in public places, which his victims sometimes found later. They divorced due to both partners' infidelities and later he remarried. After claiming she had been strangled by Ridgway, his second wife divorced him. His second wife gave birth to his first child, a boy. He still had relationships with prostitutes. Ridgw...... middle of paper ......iller"" Np, nd Web. March 20, 2014 “Gary Leon RidgwayUnited States. » Gary Leon Ridgway. Np, and Web. March 20, 2014. http://serial-killers.findthebest.com/l/223/Gary-Leon-Ridgway Pulkkinen, Levi. "Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer: Photos from the Archives". Seattlepi.com. Np, November 4, 2013. Web. March 21, 2014. http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Green-River-Killer-Gary-Ridgway-Photos-from-the-4954198.php#photo-5415678 Wilma, David. "Gary Leon Ridgway pleads guilty to murdering 48 victims of Green River Killer on November 5, 2003." HistoryLink.org - the free online encyclopedia of Washington State history. Np, November 5, 2003. Web. April 7, 2014. http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=4262 "MO- The Bridge to Ridgway." The bridge to Ridgway. Np, and Web. April 9. 2014.