This is beautiful and unsentimental writing. Like it a lot.

When writing about someone who killed and dumped at least 48 innocent women, I think repetition is a useful tool, even if some shallow soul finds it upsetting. Edit nothing, IMHO. It's not a newsstory, it's a very personal essay.

I am writing an graduate Abnormal Psych paper about the investigation into Ridgeway's murders. I wish these pics were larger, but the writing may be just as vivid as any pic. The alienation that Ridgeway subliminally experienced is at the heart of my work, as well.

As an amateur essayist, published music and sports writer and ASCAP songwriter, I'm impressed with your writing. It touches me deeply.

I just re-read this piece ten years later. It seemed overwrought then, and now that I've moved to Kent and have experienced the area for almost a decade, the story rings even more false.

You write about how everything is so bleak, that the sun never seems to rise high in the sky, etc. Well, of course not! You wrote the piece at the beginning of winter! Rural locations, south, north, east or west fitting that bill are a dime a dozen.

"..an oblong region stretching from the Duwamish to Star Lake..." Rubbish! You pulled the Star Lake name from the investigation without even seeing the lake, which a good mile east of the killer's dumping ground. Why not include Mountain View Cemetery, several miles south in Auburn, where another cluster of bodies were found?

BTW, Ridgway lived on Military Rd at about 348th, which would put the sound barrier wall you wrote of next to Hwy 18, not remotely close to I-90.

Couldn't get Ridgeway for a comment, could you? You should leave this to the pros, Mr. Mudede.