Dave Reichert — Hunting the Green River Killer | Part 2

For years, Gary Ridgway was at the top of the Green River task force's suspect list, but investigators lacked the evidence and the science to prove it. In Part 2, former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert describes how that changed.

DNA evidence collected in 1982 was sent to an East Coast lab in 1999, which warned that testing might destroy the sample. In 2001 the lab had the technology, and that September the results came back. Detectives brought a chart to the sheriff's office and handed Reichert an envelope. He didn't need to open it.

Reichert explains why investigators kept Ridgway under round-the-clock surveillance for two months, the decoy operation, and the arrest at Kenworth Trucking. He describes the 40,000 tip sheets the task force worked through, the defense strategy that collapsed when microscopic paint spheres tied Ridgway to three more cases, and why detectives supported a plea deal that would give answers to dozens of families rather than risk a trial on seven.

He recounts six months of interviews with a pathological liar, a field trip on which Ridgway pointed out the same trail Reichert had chosen years earlier, his unexpected path to becoming sheriff and serving in Congress, and the personal toll of two decades spent recovering victims and telling families their daughters had been found. Reichert's book about the case is Chasing the Devil.

This episode contains graphic descriptions of violent crime.

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