‘THE DEVIL YOU KNOW’ TELLS FORGOTTEN VICTIMS’ STORIES

 “The Devil You Know” – airing Saturdays on Viva – tells stories of killers, con men, hustlers and sexual offenders from the perspectives of people who ended up on the bright side of their double lives.  For example, one particularly harrowing episode dealt with the woman who lived for 14 years as the wife of Gary Leon Ridgway, the Green River Killer.
This was a seemingly gentle, considerate husband, an all-American working-class guy. Yet somehow, in a life that seemed full to the brim with family activities and work obligations, he found time for a grisly hobby. He cruised the red-light district of Seattle over the years, picking up and murdering 48 prostitutes. Ridgway’s story is horrifying enough all on its own, but to add the aspect of putting oneself in the shoes of someone who lived with the guy for almost a decade and a half pushes it into the realm of hair-raising. The interesting thing about “The Devil You Know” is that it sets your flesh to crawling with a what-if: What if you got sucked into the vortex of someone else’s living horror – and maybe didn’t even know it was happening?  Then it dissects and analyzes that what-if through interviews with experts who pick apart the criminal mind and analyze the telltale signs of these con men and predators. The result is an intriguing take on the classic crime story: the view from the forgotten victim. And often the most mystifying thing is why these people are often spared direct violence and instead get co-opted into the shadows by someone they love. In the case of Ridgway, the perplexing thing was how he could have been so faithful and good a husband to one woman while killing scores of others.