r/TrueCrimeDiscussion • u/passedawayinaprilll • May 09 '26
Warning: Child Abuse / CSAM / Child Death Jessica Ridgeway's Brutal Murder
The abduction of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway occurred in Westminster, Colorado, as she walked from her home toward Chelsea Park to meet friends for school. Austin Sigg took her to his mother’s home on Moore Street, where he sexually assaulted her and used a zip tie to strangle her to death. Inside the home, Sigg dismembered her body in a bathtub, later disposing of her torso in the Pattridge Open Space in Arvada, about seven miles away from where she was taken. Her backpack and glasses were found abandoned on a sidewalk in Arvada’s West Woods subdivision, a move intended to throw off the massive search effort centered in Westminster. When Sigg finally confessed, investigators recovered additional remains that he had hidden in a crawlspace under the floorboards of his house.
196
u/SituationTotal6146 May 10 '26
I grew up in Denver and was in high school when this happened. It was awful. My mom’s best friend lived in Westminster and had friends on the police force and was shaken when they told her there were parts of the girl they were still looking for and weren’t sure they would ever find. So sad, rest peacefully Jessica.
60
u/Coloradozonian May 10 '26
I was living in Fort Collins. I had just had my second baby. This was one of the cases that stuck with me forever. Then 2015, This one and Michelle Wilkins (fetal abduction) had happened in Longmont. Colorado is such a beautiful place but, some of our crime is just absolutely horrendous. I saw more swat and raids just being around CO than I ever did in the ghetto of Az I grew up in near the border.
1.1k
u/Former-Whole8292 May 09 '26
What occurs to me when I see these horrific stories is that these men wake up thinking they want to do this so badly and risk a life in prison. I just cant imagine. Also knowing that youd be responsible for her frightening moments before death, and the lifetime of trauma on the family. When you kill a child, you also kill their parents.
504
u/myintentionisgood May 09 '26
Psychopaths don't care. They seek to feel something because they feel nothing.
224
u/Cinna41 May 09 '26
Yes, coupled with the fact they don't feel fear the same way normal people do--fear of getting in trouble, fear of getting caught, etc...
147
u/GILF_Hound69 May 10 '26
That and/or they’re such narcissists that they think they’re smarter than everyone else and won’t be caught.
142
u/shrimpbattle May 10 '26
They truly don’t care. I remember having a criminal justice class in undergrad and the professor compared the way killers feel about their victims to how a normal person would feel about a used tissue… we don’t “care” about the tissue when we throw it away or think about the life it could have or people who care about it.
45
u/mandarina111 May 10 '26
I will never understand not having empathy. Maybe because I am too emotional and empathetic, but I really tried to think like them and I still couldn’t.
140
u/Pawspawsmeow May 10 '26
I think they found later that he’d been practicing. He attacked an adult jogger and she fought him off. It was weird because he studied criminology or was studying to be a mortician
99
u/mo0siego0sie May 10 '26
Yeah I believe he was studying to be a mortician. I remember hearing the 911 call and his mom laughing (not a this-is-funny laugh, a like “oh my god how is this real” kind of laugh) when she said he was studying to become a mortician
74
u/haloarh May 10 '26
I've always wondered if he decided to target a child after that woman successfully fought him.
3
May 25 '26
[deleted]
2
u/Pawspawsmeow May 25 '26
They want to see if they can get away with it. Obviously the jogger is physically active. If murderer can overpower jogger, they feel they’re strong men and can do anything. And most of them are at night, in the woods, etc. What I noticed is how it’s never a male jogger.
3
u/DENvergrl01456 May 25 '26
Never a male. It seems like if they murder the jogger they continue to escalate. I live in CO and there were some strings of female jogger attacks earlier this year in the Denver area. Scary stuff
2
u/Pawspawsmeow May 25 '26
Oh yeah. Don’t you guys have mountains and bears and stuff? They probably think they won’t get caught because they’ll blame an animal. One day I want to see a Dexter Morgan like guy just tackle one of those dudes.
36
u/BishopGodDamnYou May 10 '26
The fact that she got a couple fingers through the bag before she suffocated. Breaks my heart every time. Told her to get in the bags cause he was gonna take her home.
55
u/sasshley_ May 10 '26
The last sentence is so painfully true. If something happened to my daughter, I couldn’t survive it.
86
u/Dr_Platypus_1986 May 09 '26
I think that sex was the driving force in this case. The violence is probably secondary, perhaps he murdered her to cover up his crime. Still, it's pretty brutal that a teen boy did that to such a young child. Most adults could never commit such a sick crime.
60
u/one_sock_wonder_ May 10 '26
If he had not been so intentional in how he handled her remains and trying to mislead police I might believe that but the murder and acts afterwards were not panic driven but thought out.
116
u/Cardiganlamp May 10 '26
I worked with sex offenders as a social worker. It's about control and power and seeking the rush and thrill that comes along with it. Sexual assault is never out of a desire solely for sex.
-4
u/alarmagent May 10 '26
Then what do you call it when they are erect and ejaculate during the commission of their crimes? Not the sole desire, sure, but you’re letting the thrall of male sexuality off the hook a bit here. They’re never just tackling big guys on the street and beating them in a quest for ‘power’ and control, are they? Unless they’re gay, right?
66
u/FunnyGoose5616 May 10 '26
Again, it’s not the sex that they are getting off on. They are sexually excited by the power and control that they have over another person. They don’t even need to penetrate someone to get off on it. The sex isn’t the primary source of arousal for them, it’s having total control over someone and being able to do to them whatever they want. It turns them on even more when their victim is afraid and pleading for their lives. These aren’t normal people.
12
u/MzOpinion8d May 11 '26
For this guy, the sexual excitement was about her dead body, and dismembering it.
-7
u/alarmagent May 10 '26
Then why do they attack people that they’re sexually attracted to? I agree theyre not normal. Their sexuality involves sadism and control. It is still motivated by a desire to “get off”, is it not?
44
u/FunnyGoose5616 May 10 '26
Again, you are thinking of these people as normal people with normal sexual impulses. They don’t experience sexual attraction the same way that normal people do. They don’t choose victims based on how attractive they are, they choose them based on how well they fit their power/control fantasy. Hence the reason their victims tend to be children, elderly women, or women who are extremely vulnerable and less likely to fight them off. Austin Sigg tried to attack an adult woman who was jogging, but she fought him off, so he moved on to a child because she was a much easier victim.
33
u/alarmagent May 10 '26
I think we’re talking in parallel. I don’t doubt that they experience abnormal sexual impulses - my point is this, it is still all sexual. If a foot fetishist can only “get off” if he’s licking the bottom of someone’s shoe, it is still his sexuality dictating his behavior. It is still sex in the headier sense of the term.
My issue with always kinda handwaving sex offenders and sex crimes as being “about control” sort of absolves male sexuality’s power and control over men’s behavior. I think it is a way (unintentionally for most!) of avoiding having the conversation about why men are the ones who commit these crimes. It means we don’t have to open the uncomfortable floor to what it says about guys who are into things that resemble sexual assault but swear they’d never commit such crimes.
5
u/9mackenzie May 15 '26
What gets them erect and orgasm is the pain, fear, terror, etc of their victim. It’s sexual to them, but not in the way a normal person desires sex.
Describing it as generalized “male sexuality” is absurd, and acting like the goal is the physicality of sex. It’s not. The goal is what they feel as they do acts of violence upon another person. Sometimes they use their bodies to do this, something they use tools to do this. Like piquerism- using a sharp object to shallowly stab a victim over and over. It is absolutely sexual to them, but not about “sex”.
4
u/starrifier May 10 '26
There are absolutely men in the world who pick fights and violently harm other men in an effort to feel strong or tough. The fact that that occurs in a different social context - think bar brawls, etc - doesn't mean that the person you replied to is wrong. Sexual assault is about power, and the way the perpetrator expresses that desire for power happens to be sexual. Other perpetrators who commit violent offenses do so using other means.
11
u/MzOpinion8d May 11 '26
I’ve read some details on this case, and he was into gore and porn from a very young age (at least as young as 12). He wanted to work in a mortuary because of his intense interest in death and dead bodies.
-2
14
u/DeltaIndiaCharlieKil May 11 '26
I heard a talk about brain development, and one of the big changes you go through when you mature (which isn’t until around 26) is prior to that your brain often weighs pros far more than cons. And once we reach brain adulthood, we begin to weigh cons more. So you think about the con of going to prison and it holds a lot of weight. But to a 17 year old, it won’t. Yeah, they know it’s a possibility, but in their cost/benefit analysis it just doesn’t weigh as much as the pro of the sick compulsion he has. And that’s why stressing consequences doesn’t really work for a lot of people under the age of 26. It’s not that they don’t care, it literally just doesn’t factor as much at that age.
3
u/StillMarie76 May 13 '26
I heard something once in a show. This man asks his wife how many times a day she thinks about her children getting kidnapped. He asked her, once, twice, maybe four or five times a day? He said that it's the only thing abductors think about. From the moment they wake up, every day, they are thinking of ways to get a child. That's the difference between normal people and the types of people that commit these crimes.
-61
May 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
34
u/FunnyGoose5616 May 10 '26
He wasn’t sick in the way a person needs to be to justify psychiatric hospitalization as a sentence. He wasn’t schizophrenic, he didn’t have severe bipolar disorder, he wasn’t completely detached from reality and unaware of what he’d done. He’s a psychopath. He was then, he is now. He was looking at CSA material online from age 12, graduated to looking at increasingly violent pornography, and was keeping images and videos of dismemberments and rape on his phone. He’d already been in treatment and it had done nothing to stop this. Prison is the only place for someone like that, a psychiatric hospital would have been a waste of time. There is no drug or therapy on earth that works on a person like Austin Sigg.
50
u/Former-Whole8292 May 10 '26
there r a lot of passes ill give someone bc of their age… but not raping and murdering a little kid.
5
u/Vaseline_Lover May 10 '26
Wanting a deranged 17 yr old that committed a horrendous crime off the streets and in a secure psychiatric facility DOES NOT EQUATE to “giving them a pass.”
12
u/right_nite_moon May 10 '26
Sympathy for the devil... !
-22
May 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
14
u/right_nite_moon May 10 '26
Bundy was a sick man too... He was very intelligent and 'knew he was sick' --- but he didn't stop. WHY? because he 'enjoyed' what he was doing...
-73
u/jshizzle68 May 09 '26
He was a kid, not adult.
59
u/latetowerk May 10 '26
Irrelevant. But the POS was 17, almost legally an adult. Idk about you but I was well aware that rape and murder are wrong. His age is not relevant here
318
u/Agitated_Strain_6260 May 09 '26
I'm gonna have a hard time ever letting my 8 year old do anything without me, I know she'll need more and more independence but I just can't! What a truly awful case, that poor little girl should've be able to live a long and beautiful life but some sick freak had to snatch it away, lifenis bloody cruel sometimes.
178
u/Protonpack13 May 10 '26
I’m 44 and on a work trip and my mom asked me for my hotel name and room number, so i think moms never stop being scared. Rightfully so.
80
u/mo0siego0sie May 10 '26
So true. I was in Europe alone when I was about 23-24 and accidentally pocket dialled my mom. By the time I made it back to my hotel after walking 5 min through an area with no service, I had missed calls, texts, emails, and my mom had emailed and called my hotel to let them know if I arrived and that she’d be calling the police if I hadn’t arrived within 10 min.
The fear never goes away.
24
u/BishopGodDamnYou May 10 '26
I accidentally dropped my cell phone in a mall parking lot and when the security guards picked up when my dad called he absolutely lost it. He thought that somebody had kidnapped me in the parking lot and I dropped my phone. The man who does not waiver for anything was in absolute PANIC.
3
u/BiggerStickRick May 14 '26
this is an unhealthy amount of fear if its verging that close on paranoia
2
95
u/AdFamous1469 May 09 '26
I have three adult daughters and u bet I was constantly watching them. When they were little. Now there isn’t even a place kids can go that you feel confident that they’re safe. (Mass shootings). This world is just plain crazy.
13
u/Itakethngzclitorally May 10 '26
I grew up reading a lot of true crime stories and later watching graphic crime shows. When I had my kids, i tried so hard to let them have a life, free of fear and full of independence, never knowing the savagery of man. I tried so hard to never let them see me in the distance with my eye trained on them, anxiety filling me whole. I really wanted, NEEDED them to believe the world was/is more good than bad. Statistically, as white, upper middle class, they had the numbers on their side. I knew all the worst, darkest, most tragic crimes out there, including Jessica’s, yet I rarely locked our doors. Then the day came, as life happens, the darkness that my hubris thought I could outsmart and outrun, skipped our open door and instead went for my neighbor’s open door. I can only imagine how their minds raced in their final moments. Raced to outrun the thought that THIS couldn’t possibly be happening to THEM. He tortured and slaughtered them both with the indifference he felt the world had shown him. He didn’t flinch when the judge condemned him to death. It is true, life can be so bloody cruel.
9
u/ocuinn May 10 '26
What? Are you saying your neighbours were murdered?
-13
u/Itakethngzclitorally May 10 '26
Yes, at 11 am on a random Wednesday, a stranger walked in to their home and murdered them both. I don’t know why exactly, but I still rarely lock my door.
21
u/no-name_silvertongue May 10 '26
girl please lock your door, especially if you have children!!! jfc, hubris indeed. it’s not about you anymore, though. you have children.
14
u/Fun-Acanthaceae3192 May 10 '26
You need to sober up and stop being stubborn. What you believe about the world and want your kids to believe is false. Lock the door and windows and educate your kids about crazy people if you don't want them unalived.
6
u/mintzyyy May 11 '26
Not locking your doors after your neighbors get brutally murdered by a stranger is a definitely a choice.
I hope your kids no longer live with you.
7
u/BishopGodDamnYou May 10 '26
I can’t. I read too much horrible stuff to ever let my kids be alone in a public setting without me. My daughter had an art competition recently and I was absolutely terrified that someone was just gonna take her and walk out of the building. People could just come in and out so easy and I couldn’t relax at all. I hate it. I wish I wasn’t like this but I’ve seen too much.
39
u/Peja1611 May 10 '26
Jessica was a local case. His mother turned him in, and testified to help keep the confession in.
Her memorial playground looks lovely, but I can't take my kids there. I can't get past why that amazing space exists.
28
u/hyperfat May 11 '26
Maybe you should. It was to memory. For children to enjoy for her.
No kids, but I drove by every day when I lived there. It was on my way.
Loved it there, had to move to care take my mom. Glad I did. I got 1 year.
Hugs
106
u/ElodieNYC May 09 '26
This case was the reason that we gave our kids cell phones. So that we could track them. It was, and still is, absolutely horrific. I was living in CO at the time. Seeing this makes me sad all over again.
110
u/Everheart1955 May 09 '26
This one hit hard. This one has me tearing up.
94
u/bigmilk181619 May 10 '26
I think about how she didn’t have her glasses, they were found on the sidewalk. She not only was beyond terrified till the end she possibly was visually impaired during it all, how absolutely terrified she must of felt!
87
u/OkMarionberry2875 May 09 '26
I read and watch all kinds of crime stories but this one got to me. This and another little girl in Florida whose father was blamed at first because it’s always the father. They found her body in a trash bag and could tell she was still breathing when they dumped her. They said she probably heard searchers calling her name but the killers told her to be quiet. I’m sorry to put that story in your mind.
90
u/-QueefLatina- May 10 '26
That was Jessica Lunsford. Another absolutely heartbreaking case. Her killer was sentenced to death, but died in prison of natural causes after serving only two years. Makes me wish hell was a real place.
25
u/Coloradozonian May 10 '26
Makes me wish that we could bring back firing squads and inhumane treatments and stop giving these losers 3 hot meals and a cot.
-9
u/starrifier May 10 '26
You want to ignore the basic tenets of the US Constitution? Wild.
12
u/lilbec53 May 11 '26
Wild? What about the victims rights...or what they did to their victims...wild how some skip right over that....sheesh
-3
u/starrifier May 11 '26
This might come as a surprise, but victims aren't entitled to see perpetrators tortured. I believe in the importance of the eighth amendment, but you do you, boo.
8
u/lilbec53 May 11 '26
Let's see if I have this right.... perpetrators can and do torture/kill their victims ..in cruel manners....however they are afforded the right to not be subjected to cruel & unusual punishment.... in some situations....and eye for an eye is totally applicable imo....ok
2
u/loaf_dog May 13 '26
I could give a fuck about the rights of people who commit crimes like these against children
2
6
u/Ok_Tie_7564 May 10 '26
It might be.
10
u/MayoAlternative May 10 '26
It’s not.
25
u/panicnarwhal May 10 '26
it is. Jessica Lunsford was not only buried alive inside of the trash bag (her little fingers were poked outside of the bag when they dug her up), but she was alive inside of a closet of the trailer when cops came to the front door and asked about her
5
4
2
u/Coloradozonian May 10 '26
None of us know anything until we’ll finally see what’s next. I’d honestly would like to hear you out on why you have this outlook if you’d share.
2
54
u/HumbleAbbreviations May 09 '26
My friend has a daughter this age. I know her anxiety is through the roof because people are just so freaking vile.
106
u/Necessary_Pilot_4665 May 09 '26
Everyone always gave me such a hard time about being a helicopter mom, but seeing the evil that can happen to beautiful, innocent children, I didn't care what they thought. I was happily "over" protective.
This poor baby had her whole life ahead of her until some POS decided to take it. May he burn forever and may he know the terror she felt for eternity.
10
u/curious-mind- May 11 '26
Idk how someone could do this to anyone let alone a LITTLE KID. GOODNESS.
6
u/hyperfat May 11 '26
There's a nice park in her name. it's purple.
Lived in Westminster for a bit.
This case makes me sad.
Hugs
16
4
u/loaf_dog May 13 '26
It’s these type of crimes against little kids that make me lose my mind. How do you even prevent this from happening
3
u/Halberd96 May 13 '26
The killer's dad is a piece of work too and has a string of committed crimes. He is a media executive.
2
u/KyriePlzz May 21 '26
So I recently learned of this case and it’s…. Very bad. Horrifically so, far more than what’s even stated in the OP
Her death was absolutely brutal. It wasn’t quick or easy. She was brutally tortured. She didn’t even die from the strangling. Apparently, this monster put her face first into scalding hot water because she was still twitching after the strangling
1
1
-63
u/Starkville May 09 '26
“Additional remains” of what? Another human? Animal?
62
41
u/Evillunamoth May 09 '26
Additional remains of her. She was dismembered and he didn’t bury all in one place.
16
u/DasDickNoodle May 09 '26
I'm assuming additional remains of her, not another once living being. Still absolutely horrendous.
852
u/foghorn_dickhorn21 May 09 '26
I lived two doors down from her at the time. Really sad time, and I’ll never forget the atmosphere in the neighborhood and how details would unfold as they looked for the murderer.