Today, Gary Ridgway pled guilty to the murder of 48 women, most of them providers. In exchange for saying "guilty" 48 times, he was spared execution and got life without parole. They called him the Green River killer because that's where he dumped some of his earlier victims.

He said he had several reasons for preying on prostitutes.

''I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex,'' he said. ''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 missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.''

He described enjoying driving by the scenes of his crimes.

I say if you can't give the death penalty to an animal like this, you might as well take it off the books.

But it should serve as a sober warning to any woman who does street work.

There hasn't been as much reported on this here in the UK as I imagine there is in the US so I don't claim to know all the details (who does apart from those in the courtroom?).  

However, I did see one report with a victim's family member who wanted him to be executed (the body of her relative had been found) and another saying that killing him will achieve nothing and she'd rather have him tell where her sister's body is and then spend the rest of his life in jail.  Things aren't always as straightforward as they may appear.

There's a very good article that kind of sums up the
case in today's NY Times.

Your description of what was "exchanged" is incomplete.

They had evidence on this guy for only seven of the
killings. The prosecutors would have brought these to
trial and pursued the death penalty.  The guy's lawyers
made a deal to identify his other killings if they took
the death penalty off the table.

These other killings were unsolved and not definitively
linked to this guy.  Given the number of killings, the
guy probably identified killings that they suspected
he had done AND killings that they had no idea that he
had done.

It's not that they can't or shouldn't give the death
penalty to this guy, it's that they decided that closing
all these other cases outweighed the need to put him
to death.  The guy is going to rot in jail for the rest
of his life.

It is sad to say that a seriel killer like this actually
has more leverage (the unidentified killings) than someone
else who isn't a seriel killer.

Also, if any other murders are identified outside the
juristiction - which I think is the county - he can be
tried for those with the death penalty on the table.

Once you've killed a few, you might as well kill a whole bunch more, so you have some plea-negotiating clout.

...genocide, children...shoot them all and live to tell!  Not a single person involved in the Mai Lai massacre served in jail much less executed...it's a crazy world.

Well said, that is the irony of it, isn't it.

Not to be too sympathetic to this guy, but let's face it, even within prison populations there are "classes" of criminals.  Serial killers (especially of women), child molesters, and the like are seen as exploitive cowards, not as "real man" criminals.  At best he will live as an outcast in constant, minute-by-minute fear for his life, and at worst his fears will be fulfilled in short order, ala Jeff Dammer (sp?) or that Boston Priest.

I read where he said that he felt he could 'get away with it"...prostitutes made easy victims.... I often wonder how you providers can get with a total stranger in such an intimate manner, not knowing if the guy is a maniacal killer...but I guess any woman going on a blind date or any date for that matter takes a certain risk.