Detective Dave Reichert chased the Green River Killer for two decades. Even Ted Bundy wrote in offering to help.
In August 1982, a rafter on Washington's Green River saw bodies under the water and a man on the bank who waved and wished him a good trip. That man was Gary Ridgway. King County detective Dave Reichert was assigned one of the first cases and stayed with the investigation for the next two decades.
Reichert explains how evidence collected and frozen in 1982 would later connect to Ridgway through DNA, why Ted Bundy wrote to investigators and what three days with Bundy in prison confirmed, and how a task force was expanded, joined by the FBI, and then disbanded by a county spending $2 million a month on the case.
He also describes how Ridgway landed on the Priority A suspect list yet passed two polygraph tests, held the same job for 30 years, and moved through his community without anyone seeing a threat, and what Reichert believes made him a killer. In Part 2: the DNA comes back, a name in an envelope, and the arrest.
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Timestamps:
0:00 — The Man on the Riverbank
1:08 — DNA Frozen in 1982
3:22 — Ted Bundy's Letter and Three Days in Prison
9:13 — A Task Force Built, Expanded, and Disbanded
16:23 — Priority A Suspect, Two Polygraphs Passed
20:05 — Hiding in Plain Sight at Kenworth
27:48 — Born a Killer? A Childhood Stabbing
31:58 — No Remorse
Keywords:
Dave Reichert, Gary Ridgway, King County Sheriff, Green River task force, serial killer investigation, Ted Bundy interview, The Riverman, Bob Keppel, DNA cold case, homicide detective, King County Sheriff's Office, Washington serial killer, 1982 murders, polygraph, criminal profiling, psychopath, FBI task force, police podcast, law enforcement interview, true crime podcast
