Defending Gary: Unraveling the Mind of the Green River Killer
by Mark Prothero
Category: True Crime

At first, Mark Prothero, Defense Attorney for GaryRidgway, thought: "This can't be the Green River Killer! He'stoo ordinary! He's too small. He's too calm. He's too polite! Hecan't possibly have murdered forty-nine women. They can't beserious! They must have screwed up! I didn't realize then, but Iwas right. Gary Ridgway hadn't killed forty-nine women. He'd killed even more than that." Soon, Mark Prothero faced the question: "How could you possiblydefend the most prolific serial killer in United Stateshistory, the infamous Green River Killer? If anyone deservedto be executed for his crimes, didn't he?" Mark Prothero, co-lead defense attorney who helped save GaryRidgway from the death sentence, has heard that question manytimes. Now he’s written a book that reveals the true, insidestory of exactly how an idealistic public defender, high schoolswim coach, husband, and dad could bring himself to spend manymonths of close confinement with a man who brutally murdered atleast 75 young women, often in the act of sex. DefendingGary shows how Prothero could reconcile these monstrous actsknowing the reality of this unassuming fellow Gary Ridgway, amild-mannered, church-going, devoted husband, father, and formerNavy man, with an IQ of around 82 and a longtime job as a truckpainter from Auburn, Washington, near Seattle.