The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – A Birthday to Die For by Frank Atchley

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

A Birthday to Die For by Frank Atchley https://www.amazon.com/Birthday-Die-Frank-Atchley/dp/1960946412 Dr. Paula Mitchell, a Seattle clinical psychologist, is in dire need of help to save her pat...ient’s life. Kae Carlson believes she will be killed on her twenty-sixth birthday, which is less than three weeks away. Through “Connie, Maxine, and Cathleen,” Kae’s other personalities, Dr. Mitchell learns that Kae was raped by the High Priest of a satanic cult on her thirteenth birthday. A miscarriage prevented her from delivering a baby to be sacrificed, so she must take its place. Having no other choice, Paula calls the police. Homicide Detective Jerry Riggs takes the call. Leads are scarce and witnesses disappear or die as Riggs and his partner hunt for cult members and the location where the sacrificial ceremony will take place. Time is short, breaks are few, and the cult members are getting more desperate. Can they save Kae?

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Starting point is 00:01:12 com, for it says Chris Foss. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, an amazing young man sharing his wonderful story on this show with us today. His book is entitled, A Birthday, to die for July 17, 2015. It came out. Frank actually joins us in the show. We're going to get into it. We're going to get into some of the deets and why you should pick up the book now before, you know, and get it read before all your friends do so you can beat him to it.
Starting point is 00:01:45 Frank is a retired police captain with 33 years of service throughout his career. He worked on numerous homicide investigations, including the Green River Serial Murder case, as well as an investigation involving a satanic cult, an experience that ultimately inspired his book, A Birthday to Die For. Welcome to the show, Frank. How are you? Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for coming, and thanks for having us with you. So give us your dot-coms. Any websites or social media you want people to look you up on the interwebs? I have a email address, but that's about it. Okay. And so, Give us a, do you want to, do you want to, I don't know if you want to put that out to people so they can contact you there or whatnot, but otherwise people can find it on Amazon, correct. That's correct.
Starting point is 00:02:40 Now, give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside this book? Well, this book has to deal with a satanic cult where young women were being abducted or introduced to the occult to have children, to have a baby to be sacrificed. I got involved in this when I got a call from a psychologist who had a panic in her voice on how she was going to save her patient who had come into her office saying that she was going to be killed. Oh, wow. The inquiry followed by the psychologist indicated that when she was 13, she was impregnated by a priest of a satanic cult to have a baby to be sad. sacrifice. She miscarried. And then for 13 years, she carried the fear that she was going to be sacrificed on her birthday, her 26th birthday, which was only three weeks away. The tone of her voice and the fear that she was stressing, the psychologist felt that it was absolutely true and knew that she could not save this girl's life by herself.
Starting point is 00:03:55 So she violated the doctor-patient confidentiality to call the police. Wow. She called the police, the call receiver in the communication center, took the call, didn't believe her, called me and asked me to take the call because she didn't think it was true. Well, I took the call from the psychologist. The emotions in her voice made me a believer. Wow. And I knew that I was going to have to. to do something to save
Starting point is 00:04:27 this girl's life. I've been working for 12 years working on homicide. All my victims were dead. Now I got a live girl that's going to be dead if I don't do a good job and find out the number of the names of the
Starting point is 00:04:42 cult members so I could make some arrest. Wow. And they were going to sacrifice her on her 26th birthday? Yes. During the 13 years she lived in fear, She developed three different personalities, which added to the confusion. When I was talking to her in one voice, it sounded like I was talking directly to the victim herself.
Starting point is 00:05:09 Then another voice would interject and accuse her of lying. Wow. Then on top of that, a third voice would come in and try and be a peacemaker between the two other personalities. Wow. So I had to, when I interviewed her, I had to develop a code with the psychologist who would hold up a one, two, or three with her fingers to tell me which personality I was talking to. Wow. I should use that with my girlfriends. I work.
Starting point is 00:05:48 There's more than three. That's the problem. I've been joking in the show. I have about 10 different. Well, it's good. You need a sense of humor. Yeah, the judge says I can't use the personality. It says kill, kill, kill anymore. That's no longer allowed, according to him. But I get one of my six ankle bracelets off next week, though. So that's good. It's a callback joke we're doing the show.
Starting point is 00:06:16 He's coming. He's good. He's got a whole leg full. The bad folks. That's the gist. So is this, is this, no, was this cult thing part of the Green River? Serial killer or was that a separate thing? It was a separate thing. And that added to the pressure on me trying to protect this girl's life. Because as I got into the investigation, I learned that the prevalence of satanic cults in our state, the fact of the United States and Canada. and also created a trust issue.
Starting point is 00:06:55 Who could I trust to help me save this girl's life? And how could I guard her 24 hours a day and still conduct the investigation? So I had to consult with fellow detectives, especially the ones that I had worked with for many years and trusted to help me out. We came to the conclusion, the only way we were going to be absolutely convinced of her truthfulness was to have her take me to the ceremonial sites that she remembered going to where actual sacrifices were made. Oh, wow. So I ended up going into three different counties in the state of Washington to these different ceremonial sites that were up in the hills, heavily wooded areas where they were going. go into a bunch of trees and they would cut down trees, make a half circle around an altar that was the actual place where they would put the baby up there to sacrifice.
Starting point is 00:08:04 Holy crap. Well, I took her out there and we found these hills. And as I checked one of the altars out, I saw this brown stain in the wood. So I cut it out, submitted it to the crime lab, and it came back both animal and human blood. Now I'm a believer. Wow. Wow. Animals and the thing, huh?
Starting point is 00:08:33 Yes. I also had the capability of using the police helicopter to fly over these three counties at certain hours of the evenings to see if there was anything going. on. One night at about 2 a.m. in the morning they picked up a hot spot on what we call a Ford imaging device on the helicopter, which
Starting point is 00:08:59 brings up, shows heat on the ground surface. And it also shows the human or an animal. And my philosophy or my theory at the time was at 2 o'clock in the morning, this is going to be
Starting point is 00:09:16 in, especially with the next day being a full moon night so that's what led us to the to the ceremony of sight where we thought there would be a ceremony and that's where we got firsthand knowledge and we uh end up getting shot out a little bit oh really wow that's a you if you shoot at the police things probably usually don't end well from what i've seen on the show cops it's about no no well We ended up taking this person out, and, of course, we had to talk to the autopsy, go to the autopsy in Sohomish County, and the examiner there asked us not to come back to his county. Wow.
Starting point is 00:10:03 Is it the cold thing or something, or what was the deal there? No, because of the dead bodies that were showing up. Oh, yeah. You guys keep making dead bodies whenever you come to town. Is that what, is that the angle there? is I don't want to give my whole book away.
Starting point is 00:10:23 Yeah, you don't want to give the book away. You definitely want people to pick it up and buy it. Now, tell us, we've teased out a little bit of this cold thing. Tell us about the Green River, too. Now, both these instances
Starting point is 00:10:35 were influences on you writing the book. Is that correct? It's correct. Plus, I was getting ready to retire. Yeah, we've got to give you something to do. Well, retirement. And write in the book help me, you know, get introduced into the retirement program. But Green River, one time, was considered the largest serial murder case in the history of the United States.
Starting point is 00:11:03 Wow. Keep in mind, we're not talking about mass murder. We're talking about serial murder where one person has killed. The victimology is about the same. The MO is the same. and we had 48 women killed in King County, my jurisdiction. Holy crap. And that was by, was that by one person then, the serial killer or the cult?
Starting point is 00:11:31 Oh, this is one killer named Gary Ridgway. Okay. What happened is when we were finding bodies sometimes three a day. But they were, but the first. The first five victims were discovered in and on the bank of the Green River. That's where it got the title of the Green River serial murder cases. Oh, I remember this guy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:57 We started finding bodies throughout the county and also in Oregon. And class on how to identify animal bones versus human bones. because the task force was getting called out on so many bone fines that turned out to be animals so then we'd have to go in and collect all the animal bones to make sure that the medical examiner
Starting point is 00:12:27 disposed up so we wouldn't waste more investigating time picking up animal bones these these victims were dumped in areas where fishermen hunters and hikers were and when they were found they no longer had any flesh on their body.
Starting point is 00:12:45 All we found was the skeletal remains, which made it very difficult to investigate because we didn't have a starting point. In order to have a starting point in a homicide, you have to know the identity of the victim. And we didn't lack the, lacking the flesh and the blood to make a good DNA thing, we had to find a dental charge
Starting point is 00:13:13 and we had a lot of animal activity around, so we would put a site where the skeletal remains were found, then we had to go to the University of Washington to talk to an animal husbandry person to learn how to identify animal trails. Oh, wow. So that we could follow the animal trails to the coyote dens to retrieve the mandible, which had the teeth.
Starting point is 00:13:46 Oh, geez. Wow. And so we had Explorer Scouts. We had a set up with schools where the Explorer Scouts had pagers, and the school agreed to let the kids out of class to help us do the searching for this. And the kids would all have magnifying glasses would be on their hands and knees following an animal trail, picking up the teeth that had fallen.
Starting point is 00:14:12 all now the mandible. Oh, geez. Mandible would be reconstructed by the medical examiner. X-rays would be made of that, and then it would be sent out to all the dentists, both in the United States and Canada. And that's how we identified most of the victims of the dental charts. Wow.
Starting point is 00:14:33 That is wild. And then there was one Hawaiian woman that we found her remains. No dental charge or dental. did we have any luck with, but she had a strange fracture to her, one of her fever bones. That x-ray was taken to that, and pictures were sent to the, to the hospitals and doctors in Hawaii, and we got an ID on her. Oh, wow. That is wild, man.
Starting point is 00:15:05 So you take both these cases and corporations and incorporate them in the book to tell the story. Tell us about what's going on in the book and all that's interesting stuff. You've got a character, Dr. Paula Mitchell, who's in the book. Tell us about some of the characters. Dr. Mitchell, psychologist is in Seattle, not too far from the University of Seattle. And she had her own private practice as well as working at this college. and this girl came to her. Now, keep in mind that the names that I've used for the characters of my book are ones that I've picked,
Starting point is 00:15:49 they're not the true names. Once you find out about the occult, you can find out why you want to conceal the identity of the people involved because it seems that the satanic cult has a long memory. Oh, wow. And don't know who they are, and they come from every walk of life. The fact is that was one of the problems I had. It could even be police officers. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:16 So I didn't know who to trust. And through the investigation. That'll do it. I mean, that's kind of a scary thing. You don't know who to trust. You don't know who's in the cult. You know, they could be your partner for all you know. It could be.
Starting point is 00:16:38 I had fellow officers that I knew personally and they helped me out on the case and they would follow her the victim and everything really kind of another thing that happened that kind of confirmed the fear that the girl had was the psychologist her office was broken into and it was located downtown Seattle and the only thing
Starting point is 00:17:11 that was missing was the file on the victim. Oh, wow. So now the victim, the occult knew where she was at, so we had to find other places to hide her out
Starting point is 00:17:24 until we could get it together. And I ended up working with other agencies to help identify these here occult members and it was
Starting point is 00:17:39 it was quite revealing and frankly pretty scary for the people involved in fact the fact is my wife when I was working this I was worried about my wife I didn't tell her about the
Starting point is 00:17:56 investigations because I'm afraid it's going to scare it too much oh yeah so I had officers coming by and spotlighting my house and check it out. Anybody moving in the area to try and protect her. And so with this story,
Starting point is 00:18:11 you know, we've had quite a few people in law enforcement, military, and different things, and they have such a rich background of stories and experiences. It really helps them write, you know,
Starting point is 00:18:25 different novels like this, suspense, and other things, because they can kind of pull from those stories and create amalgamations of them, you know, in their own storylines and words, so, you know, they don't expose whoever, the innocent,
Starting point is 00:18:39 whatever, yada, yada, yada. But it's amazing because you guys have such a rich thing. You guys usually have a whole series of books you guys write from your experiences in the police force. Well, that's something that I tell people. Yes, I wrote this book, but everybody's got a story to tell if they want to tell it. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:00 And with police, firefighters, you know, all first responders and military people, it gets a little bit more exciting. You guys do deal. I've watched a lot of cops, cops the TV show. That's my favorite thing to watch. Whenever I get depressed,
Starting point is 00:19:17 I watch about an hour or two of cops. Then when I get done, I'm like, why am I depressed? I have a great life. I don't, I'm not getting pulled over for meth and I'm not picking fights with cops
Starting point is 00:19:28 who have the ability to tase me. And, you know, I'm doing pretty good, actually why am I depressed it's a great it's a great uplifting it's a great uplifter when you watch the cops you know you're sitting there going oh my life's miserable it's so horrible and then you watch that thing and you're like hey man i'm uh you know i don't have cops coming over all the time being on my mobile home
Starting point is 00:19:52 see detectives who work you know like i worked 12 years of homicide and major crimes cases uh and and i've had so many bodies Green River alone, it was 48. Yeah. But you, as a police officer, as a detective, you're so intent on getting the bad guy. Mm-hmm. That you have, when you look at the bodies, you're looking at evidence. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:20 You can't let yourself get emotionally involved because you'll make a bad decision. It'll taint your sort of objectivity, maybe? Exactly. And it's also wise for you to talk to your fellow detectives about your case and that because sometimes you just might get tunnel vision based on a witnessing interview or something. And by talking over with the other detectives, they'll get, may offer another avenue of investigation that you didn't think of. It's like, you know, like the Green River thing. when detective solved that case.
Starting point is 00:21:06 Every member of the Green River Task Force, which was made up of 40 investigators, helped solve that case. We had two detectives from the Seattle Police Department, two from Auburn, two from Kent, two from Pierce County, one from the Washington State Patrol. Mm-hmm.
Starting point is 00:21:27 And we had us together, and we investigated and then we'd meet once a day, once every Friday, and we'd all compare notes on that to see if we were all on the right track. So that case was solved by the input
Starting point is 00:21:45 of every member of the task force. Wow. And we also had 12 FBI agents on board. Great guy. Great He killed up to 80, maybe more, I guess you can never know, 80 victims. So what was it, this is your first book you ever wrote then, right? Yes, it is. Yeah. What was it like writing your first book after, you know, I imagine you wrote a lot of, you know, as a police officer, you have to do those
Starting point is 00:22:12 police reports that are pretty lengthy and detailed. And, you know, you've got to explain the story and you're probably explaining the story to judges and prosecutors. And, you know, you've got to, you kind of learn to frame stories and how to communicate well, I imagine doing all that. Did you find that was kind of the case? A lot of that skill that you used or learned as a police officer integrated into writing books? My wife helped me quite a bit. No, kids. I'd write a paragraph, and I'd ask her to come in and read the paragraph, and she says,
Starting point is 00:22:46 you said I had to flower it up a little bit. It sounds too much like a police report. sounds like a police report yeah and the perp at 5 o'clock picked up the and you're like yeah you can't call him you gotta give him a character name
Starting point is 00:23:00 you can't call him the perp no I what I did when I become a detective a homicide detective there was a senior detective for Seattle Police Department who was in trial
Starting point is 00:23:14 on the case of that so I decided to go over there and watch him testify and The defense attorney was asking questions that were irrelevant. What color was the walls, how many outlets for the heat, all this superfluous stuff. And I asked the female prosecutor at the time, he says, why did you allow that? She says, because I knew he had the answer.
Starting point is 00:23:45 If every time he, if he answers something like, I don't know, I didn't take another. note that would make his case look weaker. So when I wrote the book, I kept that mind. And my investigation is a homicide investigator. I would set in my police car when I got the call at my home, usually. And I sent the car and I described the weather in the car before I took off. And then when I would ride with a crime scene, I would dictate who was there. there, how many houses, where the water hydrants were at, what the color of the house was,
Starting point is 00:24:29 cars, et cetera. And then when I went into the house, after I talked to the officers standing by, I just described the walls, everything I could lay my eyes on. That would be somewhere so that I always had the answer when I was testified in court. Wow. Wow. So as you, people read the book, what do you hope they come away with when they get done reading it? Well, I hope one of the reasons I decided to write the book was to kind of like a training thing and to make citizens alert that these cults do exist and they are dangerous. and I also have been advised that a copy of my book should be taken to the police departments and given to the detective units who may be unaware of the satanic cult in their area and something that the crime scene might give them a clue
Starting point is 00:25:33 different approach to the investigation. One of the one time I started about my career in Riverside, California, working as a patrol officer in the city of Riverside. Oh, wow. And one day, I got a call. I went to this church. The church door had been chopped down with an axe. What?
Starting point is 00:25:59 And this is at nighttime. And so I called the joining officer, the beat that was adjoined to mine, asked him to come by. We went into this church. We didn't know what the line was. which was. So he's on one side of the church.
Starting point is 00:26:16 I'm on the other side. We're walking down the aisle and that, and there was a red velvet curtain that covered the walls on both sides of the church from the ceiling to the floor.
Starting point is 00:26:31 And as I'm walking down this thigh, I see the toes of two shoes sticking out from under the curtain. So I gave a signal with my flashlight. so that my partner would come over.
Starting point is 00:26:46 When we pulled back the curtain, there was a guy standing there with an axe over his head ready to come down on us. Oh, wow. And, of course, we got in a big fight and struggled with him to take the axe away. Knocked over a few of the pews in the church. Took him into custody,
Starting point is 00:27:04 and then we booked him into jail. Wow. But what I found out, with that I had made contact with a detective out of LAPD, Los Angeles Police Department, who was assigned these type of cases. He kind of gave me an education on it, what to look for.
Starting point is 00:27:26 And a lot of these here cults were breaking into churches as their way of insulting God and holding their ceremonies into churches. Oh, really? And he also alerted me to the fact that I should be aware, of any animal mutilations in the area. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because these people would cut the testicles off of a bowl, for example, for a ritual
Starting point is 00:27:53 that they were holding. Boy, that sounds painful. That's, I can feel that right. Yeah. You get some triggering going on there. Well, you know, that's real important to know, Frank. Hang on one second. Hey, guys, we can't hold the cold things anymore at the church.
Starting point is 00:28:11 says the cops are watching that so anyway I just had to make a note for the staff here at the christmas so as we go out is what's the future looking like for books for you uh maybe extending the story and characters in this book or maybe another book on something else uh what's the future hold for you a couple of the books that i got at the rough okay one of the one of them is called the catnapper and that was for my i wrote this for my grandsons the uh they uh one 16 down the other one's 15 and uh what i did it i wrote it where when they were going to school a girlfriend of theirs that they knew was crying one day in school when somebody had stole her cat so i wrote a book on how they these two boys go in and help
Starting point is 00:29:06 solve the case and reek trees the cat it's one of them but I haven't I haven't put it up how to put it it it's all in the rough sometimes I just sit here if I get bored
Starting point is 00:29:20 I'll start writing on something that I remember investigating that is crazy well I mean you know the great thing like you said we have a lot of police officers
Starting point is 00:29:30 that have been on the show detectives and and the amount of stories that they have they can kind of pull from and you know change in amalgamate to change the names
Starting point is 00:29:39 of the innocent, as they say, all that. And sometimes just merge stories and make, you know, the, you know, sometimes you have the plot and you have subplot and other, sometimes two subplots, you know, and so you, it gives you a lot of material you can use. I think we've had some people on the show, they just basically use, they use a few of their files pretty directly. But, hey, man, story's a story. I mean, people love, you know, the CIS stuff.
Starting point is 00:30:05 Is it CIS? see the the crime yeah the CIS crime investigation shows they love those shows and so
Starting point is 00:30:16 so as we go out give people a final pitch out to pick up your book and any websites you want them to check you out on or any reach out or where can they find you on the webs through Amazon's one and then you can go on the
Starting point is 00:30:34 book you can just go run up my name and it'll tell you where the books are at too well thank you very much for coming on the show we really appreciate it thank you it's been a pleasure talking to you it's been fun talking to you too and i mean you got so many great stories i'm sure i'm looking forward to anything you put out on when it comes the books and stuff the stories i like your sense of humor ah well you got to have one you probably had to have a little bit of one do you You have to have a sense of humor as a police officer to have some, you know,
Starting point is 00:31:08 because I mean, you know, you deal with a lot of serious stuff. Well, as a captain, I also was the assistant chief of a city called Federal Way. And I had to hire temporary employees, you know, to come in to file reports and stuff like that. And I would interview these both bin and women and make sure that when they heard, police officers talking and joking about something that was pretty gruesome that it was their way of release attention themselves
Starting point is 00:31:42 I didn't want them to get upset you know thinking you're just joking around about stuff but yeah I mean it's a it's a pressure cooker I imagine you know and a lot of you know you guys see the good the bad the ugly in life I would have a hard time being a police officer because I would
Starting point is 00:31:59 I would have a hard time a lot of pedophiles that I would catch that I caught in the act would never make it back to the station. And I'd get in trouble for that. They'd be like, your gun keeps accidentally going off in the car, Chris. Every time you pick up a pedophile, what's going on there? And I'm like, I don't know. I just, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:32:18 It's got a loose trigger on it. I'd be like, well, you can't do that. That's not right. And I'd be like, well, we're down a few pedophile. So that's fine. So I would make a bad cop. I'd be in trouble. No, you have to, in order to be a good cop, you got to have a good imagination.
Starting point is 00:32:38 Oh, really? Yes. What I would interview people wanting to be a detective, I would test them. I'd ask them question so that I can see what type of imagination they had. When you go to a crime scene, you're looking at what's invisible. Then you start using your imagination to try and come up with a motive. and other things and give you some direction. And with your imagination, you'll develop a theory.
Starting point is 00:33:11 Then you work to prove or disprove that theory. And if you disprove it, then you think it was some other way. And you just keep doing that until you get to the right one. Does that help you put yourself in the mindset of what potentially the perpetrator could be up to, what their motives are, they're intense, things like that? yes you know I have you know like jealousy
Starting point is 00:33:38 no you know a lot of people killed another person because they're jealous oh so that's bad then let me write that too I say jealousy it's usually around a betrayal
Starting point is 00:33:53 oh it's always that yeah anger most yeah most people are killed by somebody they know ah this is why i don't keep any friends or relatives around me uh within proximity at least one of the one of the toughest murders to follow is when it's a stranger on stranger
Starting point is 00:34:16 oh yeah that's kind of how that green river killer was that's right and that's why it's so essential to get the ID identification of the victim because that gives you a starting point by contacting family and friends to find out what their routine is. Where do they hang out? Who do they hang out with that? And that's usually how you get to it. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just kind of going off of my memory.
Starting point is 00:34:46 But I think one of the things of the Green River killer is he was killing a lot of hookers and women of the night that maybe weren't in touch with their family or, you know, deeply connected with their family. And so when they would disappear, it was, you know, people a lot of people weren't looking for him maybe is that well that's true i don't want to say all of the victims were prostitutes okay however the area in which they were abducted was areas down by ctac airport where a lot of prostitutes worked okay and some of these women
Starting point is 00:35:23 we know almost to the minute when they were abducted really they were out walking in a business area along a sidewalk where they were abducted. And that's one of the things that led to the identification of Gary Ridgeway. Because this one couple were walking down near a bus stop on Pacific Highway South
Starting point is 00:35:49 when a pickup truck pulled up, jumped out, took the younger of the two who was never seen alive again. Wow. And the girl that was with her saw the pickup truck and that gave us a clue
Starting point is 00:36:08 that started looking for the pickup truck and the father and boyfriend of the girl that disappeared started cruising the area looking for the pickup and they found it parked in the driveway of Gary Ridgeway. Oh.
Starting point is 00:36:25 And that's where we start our investigation. and then there was another girl that we had heard while she was being abducted the suspect started strangling her manually she broke away he ran to a 7-Eleven store called the police detective went out took a statement from her
Starting point is 00:36:51 and then several months later when it's all came starts falling together with Ridgeway. We had the clerical personnel go through all the reports we had and they actually found this report that had been taken by the detective. That gave us the idea of the witness.
Starting point is 00:37:15 When we went to find her, we found her in Las Vegas, Nevada. Oh, wow. So I called Las Vegas, Nevada. I was a detective sergeant at the time. and I talked to the Metro Polo Police Department and the detectives there, and I asked for their help, and they agreed to locate this girl, and they did. And then I sent two detectives down that were met by Metro detectives,
Starting point is 00:37:43 went out and showed her a photo lineup that consisted of seven different individuals. She positively picked Gary Ridgway. Oh, wow. Now with the whole time. Yeah. Now with that, we had the information necessary to get a search warrant of his house and so on and so forth. And along with that, we got DNA samples from him. And as the investigation proceeded, we had four victims that had DNA on them that matched Gary Ridgeways.
Starting point is 00:38:22 So we had enough at that time, according to the process. to charge and maybe even seek the death penalty. Wow. But when we talked about it, we would have him only good for four when we still had 44, 45 more families that would go without closure. Oh, wow. So Ridgeways, a defense attorney, contacted the prosecutor and made a deal that he would have him plead to all the to all the women he killed in King County if there was a death penalty.
Starting point is 00:39:03 And as we talked about it, we said, yeah, that's good, but he's got to offer something else that would cooperate his confession. Because otherwise, he would be just confessing the murders just to avoid the death penalty. So he was with, we had him in custody and wherever he slept, the detectives slept. We had him under constant surveillance,
Starting point is 00:39:31 and he actually took us to a dump site where he had killed a woman and put her, we hadn't even found the body yet. Oh, wow. And by taking us to the areas where he had placed the other victims that helped corroborate because the only people who knew all the spots were the detectives, had the killer. Mm-hmm.
Starting point is 00:39:55 And so... Did you... Have you thought of ever writing a book of the real story and, you know, your investigation on that? That might be a hell of a, you know, real crime story people would want to read. Well, I actually started it. I haven't finished it.
Starting point is 00:40:13 Okay, so, yeah, it's in the works. That will definitely be something people should watch for coming from you. I think that would be a great story. If I were you, I'd publish that because, I mean, It was a, I remember during that time, it was crazy, a story to read. Oh, yeah. Make a long story short, though. Gary Ridgeway confessed the 48 homicides in our jurisdiction.
Starting point is 00:40:35 He was convicted. He got 48 life sentences to run consecutively. And it's kind of timely, I guess, two weeks ago, it looks like in the news, he's being given end of life care. So I guess he's on his way out And you might have a good timely book there If you time it right Yeah I got that I got
Starting point is 00:40:58 Yeah I got information on he was More less on his death bed Oh that's too bad I wish he'd suffer more Yeah Well you know I probably shouldn't say it But if anybody deserves the death penalty It's that guy
Starting point is 00:41:14 Yeah 80 people man That's a lot of impact And families and stuff Well thank you very much for coming the show. We really appreciate it, Frank, and we'll be watching for your next productions and what you do there. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Stay safe. Well, I definitely will. After some of the stories, you've got my hair standing in my arms here on some of these stories. So, folks, order up his book, wherever fine
Starting point is 00:41:42 books are sold, a birthday to die for out December 20th, 2020. I think we have here on the paperback by Frank Ashley. Thanks to mine us for tuning in. Go to Goodreach.com, Fortress, Chris Christchrist, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Forchess, Chris Foss, 1, on the TikTok, getting all those crazy places in it. Be good at each other. Stay safe.
Starting point is 00:42:02 We'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed.
Starting point is 00:42:21 All right, Frank.

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