One of the most prolific serial killers in American history took and passed a polygraph test

[NNN0LHI]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway

Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949), known as the Green River Killer, is one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. On November 30, 2001, as he was leaving a Renton, Washington factory where he worked, he was arrested for the murders of seven women whose deaths were attributed to the "Green River Killer". Four murders were linked to him through DNA and three through paint he used at his job. Two years later he pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder, although the estimates run much higher. Ridgway has been married three times and has one son. He carried his son's photo in his wallet to lure most of his victims into his pickup truck. snip

The murders

During a two-and-a-half-year period in the early 1980s, the Green River Killer is believed to have murdered as many as 50 women near the cities of Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. Most of the victims were either prostitutes or teenage runaways picked up along Pacific Highway South (State Route 99) and strangled. Most of their bodies were dumped in and around the Green River in Washington, except for two victims in the Portland, Oregon area.

In the early 1980s, the King County Sheriff Department formed the Green River Task Force to investigate the murders. The most notable members of the task force were Robert Keppel and Dave Reichert, who periodically interviewed incarcerated serial killer Ted Bundy from 1984 to Bundy's execution and got Bundy to confess to some unsolved murders he was suspected of having committed.

Ridgway was arrested in 1982 and 2001 for charges related to prostitution. He became a suspect in 1983 for the Green River killings, in 1984 took and passed a polygraph test, and on April 7, 1987, police took hair and saliva samples that were later subjected to a DNA analysis, which provided the evidence for his arrest warrant.

On November 30, 2001, nearly 20 years after first being identified as a potential suspect, Ridgway was arrested on suspicion of murder for four deaths after DNA evidence linked him to multiple victims. The four victims named in the original Ridgway indictment included Marcia Chapman, Opal Mills, Cynthia Hinds and Carol Ann Christensen.

[BadgerLaw2010]

1. Polygraphs do not work on natural or trained sociopaths.

[Warpy]

2. That's why polygraphs aren't admissible as evidence in trials

Sociopaths will beat them every time.

They only work on honest people who screw up and are ashamed of it.

[NNN0LHI]

3. It is admissible in some federal circuits and some states

http://www.truthorlie.com/admissible.html

Is a polygraph admissible in court?

Yes, if ruled on by the judge. The judge is least likely to use a polygraph test if it was given by an unaccredited examiner. There is a great deal of activity in the court system today regarding the use of polygraph, the laws are changing rapidly. We will keep you posted if you check back here at our Web site. This statement in available from the American Polygraph Assoc.:

Admissibility - Polygraph results (or psychophysiological detection of deception examinations) are admissible in some federal circuits and some states. More often, such evidence is admissible where the parties have agreed to their admissibility before the examination is given, under terms of a stipulation. Some jurisdictions have absolute bans on admissibility of polygraph results as evidence and even the suggestion that a polygraph examination is involved is sufficient to cause a retrial. The United States Supreme Court has yet to rule on the issue of admissibility, so the rules in federal circuits vary considerably. The Supreme Court has said, in passing, that polygraph examinations raise the issue of Fifth Amendment protection, The Supreme Court has also held that a Miranda warning before a polygraph examination is sufficient to allow admissibility of a confession that follows an examination, In 1993, the Supreme Court removed the restrictive requirements of the 1923 Frye decision on scientific evidence and said Rule 702 requirements were sufficient, Daubert did not involve lie detection, per se, as an issue, as Frye did, but it had a profound effect on admissibility of polygraph results as evidence, when proffered by the defendants under the principles embodied in the Federal Rules of Evidence expressed in Daubert, see Some circuits already have specific rules for admissibility, such as the 11th Circuit which specifies what must be done for polygraph results to be admitted over objection, or under stipulation, Other circuits have left the decision to the discretion of the trial judge. The rules that states and federal circuits generally follow in stipulated admissibility were established in The rules followed when polygraph results are admitted over objection of opposing counsel usually cite Primarily because of Daubert, as well as the impact the other cited cases have had, polygraph examination admissibility is changing in many states. Many appeals, based on the exclusion of polygraph evidence at trial are now under review by appellate courts.

[mzmolly]

4. And innocent people have "failed" them as well.

I'm reading FBI Profiler John Douglass at present ~ "Mind Hunter" it's very interesting.

[NNN0LHI]

5. Oh, I was sure of that

I bet a lot of people have been railroaded by them.

People think what do I have to lose, I am innocent they figure.

Then they find out what they had to lose.

Don

[realisticphish]

6. Polys are crap

bottom line :shrug:

they might help a case in some extreme circumstances, but not often enough (IMHO) to warrant making them a regular part of law enforcement

[Birthmark]

7. Polygraphs are bullshit

They don't work. Fer cryin' out loud, the guy that invented the polygraph was the same guy that invented the comic strip character Wonder Woman!

Polygraphs are slightly less scientific than alchemy.

[opihimoimoi]

8. Much evidence refutes the Poly Test....its not reliable...guilty guys occasionally pass

innocents sometimes fail...