Gary Leon Ridgway was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and after a string of killings that extended roughly 20 years he was dubbed, by local police, as the Green River Killer. He had admitted to killing over 90 prostitutes and had “lost count because it was so many”. Despite his IQ of 82, he had this serial killing down to a science and evaded police for quite sometime before a DNA test eventually convicted him of a murder and tied him to the whole string of murders that he had committed over the past decade. One has to ask themselves, “What makes a person such a monster?”, in this paper I will attempt to explain what may or may not have contributed to these horrific murders. However it is important to keep in mind that these are theories and not actual factual explanations for these acts of violence.

Neurosis is defined as various forms of mental disorders of less violent nature. Now you think how could I have chosen this, “less violent behavior”, when the man killed prostitutes by strangling them, one of the more violent things a person is capable of. I chose it because it includes anxiety disorders which I believe Ridgway must have had that stemmed into his adult life, I based this theory off the fact that his mother would embarrass him in front of family and friends because he had a bed wetting problem later into life than most. Also the list of disorders that neurosis had, one stood out to me, Post traumatic stress disorder or PTS. He did serve in the military during Vietnam and saw combat.
Another theory that I believe to be applicable would be the Neutralization Theory, which essentially states that the person attempts to justify their actions by blaming someone or something else. Also that the person dehumanizes, in their mind, the victim in the crime in Ridgway’s case he did not view the prostitutes that he killed as real people and felt like he was taking