Speaker 1: It was December twelfth, nineteen seventy three. It was a Wednesday.
Speaker 1: My two older sisters were home from college for Christmas break.
Speaker 1: My mom wanted to get some shoes for a Christmas party.
Speaker 1: So my sister Sheila said, Hey, I'll drive you and
Speaker 1: I will sit in the car with the two babies.
Speaker 1: My sister Shelly, and now, while you go in real
Speaker 1: quick and grab the shoes. So we go to the
Speaker 1: local mall. So my sister Sheila pulled where you would
Speaker 1: think it is kind of like the fire lane. So
Speaker 1: my mom was door to door. Could just jump in
Speaker 1: real quick, get the shoes, get back in the car,
Speaker 1: and go. Well, little did I know that I was
Speaker 1: about to witness my first death notification. Sheila was in
Speaker 1: the driver's seat with the windows down. Me and Shelley
Speaker 1: were in the back seat. We were five and six
Speaker 1: and we were singing a Livington John saw If you
Speaker 1: love me, let me know. I noticed a young boy
Speaker 1: walking up to the driver's side and he said to Sheila, Hey, Sheila,
Speaker 1: how are you doing. She recognized him immediately instantly, and
Speaker 1: she was happy. She said, Hey, I'm just home from
Speaker 1: college for Christmas break. What are you up to? His
Speaker 1: face changed and he said, you haven't heard now. Sheila
Speaker 1: was still smiling, but not as big, and she had
Speaker 1: a little concern in her voice, and she said heard what.
Speaker 1: And the young boy with long brown hair leaned into
Speaker 1: the car and touched Sheila on the arm and said,
Speaker 1: Ginger's been murdered. Ginger and her mom they were shot. Well,
Speaker 1: the next several hours were just awful. They were scary,
Speaker 1: they were confusing. There were rumors, there were some real details,
Speaker 1: and the reality was rushing at all of us. Fifteen
Speaker 1: years later, I was an intern for Max Clear in
Speaker 1: the Secretary of State and there was a gentleman by
Speaker 1: the name of Joe Drola who was the legislative liaison
Speaker 1: for the DA's office. He was always funny, really bright,
Speaker 1: and always had a story. I always loved running into him.
Speaker 1: Four years later, I was working for the Crime Commission
Speaker 1: and I would have the good fortune of working alongside
Speaker 1: Joe on many cases. Ironically, Joe was the assistant distric
Speaker 1: attorney who convicted the killers that had murdered my sister's friend,
Speaker 1: Ginger and her mother. I always had this overwhelming need
Speaker 1: to thank him for the job that he did on
Speaker 1: that case. A death penalty case, and one late afternoon
Speaker 1: I had the ability to do that. It was just
Speaker 1: the two of us in an office, and I broke
Speaker 1: the subject, and he immediately started talking about those murders,
Speaker 1: and he told me things I had never known. He
Speaker 1: was kind, he was smart, he was honest, He was compassionate,
Speaker 1: and he spoke about this family with nothing but love
Speaker 1: and concern. He was a true advocate. I admire Joe
Speaker 1: his legal mind, but mostly his compassion. Sometimes in your
Speaker 1: life there will be full circle moments that you could
Speaker 1: never predict. My guest has had a full circle career,
Speaker 1: and you ain't gonna believe it. She has written a
Speaker 1: book that I could not put down, y'all. I ran
Speaker 1: through that thing in a day. Lindsay Wade is a
Speaker 1: retired detective with fourteen years at a Seattle, Washington. She
Speaker 1: has arrested numerous cerrial rapists and cold blooded killers, and
Speaker 1: it says right there on the sleeve of her book
Speaker 1: she ain't never back down. She retired in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: but she didn't go fishing. She went to Attorney General's
Speaker 1: office as a senior investigator over the Sake program and
Speaker 1: solved even more serial rate cases and cold cases. Lindsay
Speaker 1: Wade had my undivided attention from Jump Street and she
Speaker 1: never let it go. Detective Lindsay Wade, Welcome to Zone seven.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you something. I was so honored you sent me an
Speaker 1: advanced copy of that book In My DNA, My Career
Speaker 1: Investigating your Worst Nightmares. It was listen. You know how
Speaker 1: you hear a song and you think, gosh, that literally
Speaker 1: was written for me, like word for word. Everything about
Speaker 1: it just made me think of my own career. That's
Speaker 1: how I felt reading your book. Oh, I'm so glad now,
Speaker 1: Detective Wade, can you tell us when your book will
Speaker 1: be available, because again I got me an advanced copy. Yes,
Speaker 1: so it actually is available for pre order right now
Speaker 1: through the publisher at one Idea press dot com. So
Speaker 1: you can actually pre order a copy that will be
Speaker 1: signed by me. Those will ship out by April thirtieth.
Speaker 1: The book will be available for purchase online and in
Speaker 1: bookstores May thirtieth. Her book in My DNA, Chapter one,
Speaker 1: line one, and I quote Dad, Dad, there's a man
Speaker 1: in my room. So you run into your parents bedroom
Speaker 1: and your parents basically try to calm you down, like, honey,
Speaker 1: there's no monster, there's nobody in there. Right. Tell everybody
Speaker 1: what your dad found on the recliner. Pocket knife. Now, y'all,
Speaker 1: if that ain't a heart stopping moment for a parent.
Speaker 1: You've got this little bitty girl running in your bedroom
Speaker 1: like children will do. They're scared, you know, they think
Speaker 1: they heard Something's all something. You calm them down, put
Speaker 1: them back in bed, and you just walk the house
Speaker 1: just to make sure, and you find a pocket knife
Speaker 1: on your recliner. Well, you know, the strange sank Cheryl
Speaker 1: is that I don't think he found the pocket knife
Speaker 1: until the next day, and you know later when we
Speaker 1: talked about it, because believe it or not, this is
Speaker 1: not something we talked about. When I was a kid
Speaker 1: kind of got I feel like swept under the rug,
Speaker 1: and my parents had sort of put together what happened
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to me. You know, my dad started putting the
Speaker 1: pieces together, finding some strange things happening at our house
Speaker 1: during that time. But you know, and he eventually figured
Speaker 1: out who was in the house. But I didn't know
Speaker 1: any of this stuff at the time. You know, in
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm just thinking if I know what I saw,
Speaker 1: I know what happened, and nobody really seemed to believe me.
Speaker 1: So it was, Yeah, it was. It was. It was scary, horrifying.
Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes parents think, well, if we do,
Speaker 1: you know, don't ever mention it again. Maybe she'll just
Speaker 1: forget about it and won't worry about it, when the
Speaker 1: reality is, little children always know more than way think
Speaker 1: they know, and especially in your kids, I think you
Speaker 1: had that detective mind as a little child. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think definitely from an early age I was
Speaker 1: I had an interest in crime, and you know, by
Speaker 1: the time I was in high school, no doubt, I
Speaker 1: was reading about Ted Bundy. And you know, I actually
Speaker 1: had a friend who, at one point in high school said,
Speaker 1: in a joking way, you know, you're going to become
Speaker 1: a detective one day and you're gonna end up solving
Speaker 1: my murder, you know, which is just a bizarre thing
Speaker 1: to say. But that stands out to me as you know,
Speaker 1: something that I was on the path to way back
Speaker 1: when as a teenager, and that's a remarkable another teenager
Speaker 1: could see that in you. That's kind of cool. All right,
Speaker 1: Let's get to chapter two where you say quote. Up
Speaker 1: until that point, I didn't know that evil existed or
Speaker 1: that monsters were real. Tell us what you're talking about there.
Speaker 1: One of the things that happened during my childhood. There
Speaker 1: were two young girls in my community who were murdered
Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty six, and I didn't know either
Speaker 1: one of the girls, but I was familiar with the area,
Speaker 1: definitely familiar with the park where one of the girls
Speaker 1: was killed, and they were kind of like urban legends,
Speaker 1: you know, in my community. I mean, I think most
Speaker 1: communities have those cases, right that like everybody knows about.
Speaker 1: They're just long unsolved, this mystery and kind of a
Speaker 1: black cloud that hangs over the town or the community,
Speaker 1: and everybody seems to have like some little nugget of
Speaker 1: information or connection to the case, right like, oh, my
Speaker 1: sister's best friend went to school with her, or I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's if that you know, it's true
Speaker 1: where you are, But in Tacoma, it's not a small town,
Speaker 1: but it's a small enough town that there's always it's
Speaker 1: not six degrees of separation, it's like one degree of separation,
Speaker 1: so there's always some connection. And that's kind of how
Speaker 1: these cases were where It doesn't matter where you go,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter who you talk to. I could walk
Speaker 1: into any bar in Tacoma and if I said the
Speaker 1: names of these two girls, there would be at the
Speaker 1: least a half dozen people in there that knew what
Speaker 1: I was talking about. There's several cases like that that
Speaker 1: I'm fully aware of as well. And to your point,
Speaker 1: somebody went to school with them, somebody dated their older sibling,
Speaker 1: somebody went to church with them, was in Scouts with them,
Speaker 1: lived in the same community next door. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you got a small town. You're absolutely right, one
Speaker 1: degree of separation. When I look back to my childhood,
Speaker 1: you know, these are cases that really left a mark
Speaker 1: because they were It was so terrifying, you know, to
Speaker 1: be young. I mean I was eleven. The thought that
Speaker 1: you know, a twelve year old and a thirteen year
Speaker 1: old could just be out, you know, for a bike
Speaker 1: ride or you know, visiting a local park and somebody
Speaker 1: snatches them in broad daylight and they're you know, they're
Speaker 1: never seen again. And with Michelle, she was found later
Speaker 1: the same evening by search and rescue, but Jennifer was
Speaker 1: missing for almost a month before she was found. And
Speaker 1: you know, so it was just those cases. They were
Speaker 1: just so horrific. Community was on edge because everybody thought
Speaker 1: there was a serial killer on the loose. You know,
Speaker 1: we already had Green River, the Green River Killer going
Speaker 1: in the background at that same time in our area.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about it from that perspective,
Speaker 1: we've already had Ted Bundy, he's coming gone. We have
Speaker 1: the Green River Killer, you know, at work at that time,
Speaker 1: and then we've got these two girls that are abducted
Speaker 1: and murdered and nobody is apprehended. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of questions and it was just flat out scary. And
Speaker 1: you know, as a young kid, you don't understand victimology.
Speaker 1: You don't understand jurisdictional things. All you know is a
Speaker 1: girl got killed or a woman got killed, and it's horrible,
Speaker 1: and it's on the news and it's you know, in
Speaker 1: the paper, and that could have been me. I go
Speaker 1: ride my bike all the time, I've been to that park.
Speaker 1: I went to daycamp at that park. You just picture
Speaker 1: yourself and not only does it kind of change the
Speaker 1: way you view the world, but it changes the way
Speaker 1: that your parents act, and you know, the way other
Speaker 1: parents act. One hundred percent. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: free range parenting. Prior to that. The kids ran out
Speaker 1: the door, and I mean you went all through the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Nobody had a cell phone, you know, I got to
Speaker 1: I was pretty pretty free to do what I wanted.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had to check in at certain times,
Speaker 1: but that was about it. Our rule growing up. We
Speaker 1: were encouraged get out of the house and come home
Speaker 1: when the street light turns on in front of our house, right,
Speaker 1: That was basically the rule. And we had five girls
Speaker 1: in my family. And to your point, we had a
Speaker 1: horrible serial killer in Atlanta from nineteen seventy nine to
Speaker 1: eighty one, Wayne Williams, killing young African American boys, and
Speaker 1: I'm in a house of five Caucasian girls. My mom
Speaker 1: was completely freaked out during those times, even though I
Speaker 1: wasn't a little kid. I was in high school, but
Speaker 1: she didn't care. All she knew in her mind as
Speaker 1: a mama was somebody was killing children. And she would
Speaker 1: always say, you know, y'all go in a group, y'all
Speaker 1: stay in a group. And again, I mean, I wasn't
Speaker 1: a criminologist then, but I mean I kind of understood.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I'm probably safe from this guy. But
Speaker 1: my mama absolutely thought every child was in danger. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of disconcerting for kids too, to see like
Speaker 1: their neighbors parents are afraid, and people at church are afraid,
Speaker 1: people you know at school, or afraid like adults. I mean,
Speaker 1: that is a little unsettling. It is, you know, and
Speaker 1: especially when you see, you know, kind of the way
Speaker 1: parents viewed things, and you know, you don't really know
Speaker 1: I was a kid, you don't get that perspective. You
Speaker 1: just know that all of a sudden, Okay, well now
Speaker 1: things have changed, and you know, you're not allowed to
Speaker 1: go ride your bike alone anymore, or you can't walk
Speaker 1: to Baskin Robbins by yourself, or you know, to seven
Speaker 1: eleven to get a slurpee. It's you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: for me, I don't particularly remember my parents saying like
Speaker 1: you can't do this or you can't do that. I
Speaker 1: just know that I had my own personal fear after
Speaker 1: that happened, where like I didn't want to go anywhere
Speaker 1: by myself. I don't know how it couldn't, but I
Speaker 1: think it also probably whether you were aware at the
Speaker 1: time or not, shaped the way you weren't the case
Speaker 1: looking back on these other moments, you know, with Jennifer
Speaker 1: and Michelle and this, you know, the incident where I
Speaker 1: wake up and find this guy standing at the foot
Speaker 1: of my bed. You know, all of those things I'm
Speaker 1: sure came into play at least, you know, in my
Speaker 1: subconscious just kind of changing, you know, the way I
Speaker 1: view the world. So here's another quote that I love
Speaker 1: you said. During the search of the vehicle, we found
Speaker 1: six rolls of various kinds of tape, thin white rope,
Speaker 1: a black handle butcher knife under the driver's seat. It's
Speaker 1: a rape kit. I also observed the interior passenger side
Speaker 1: door handle was missing. What are you piecing together there? Well,
Speaker 1: that was an interesting case that was a serial rapist,
Speaker 1: and I think I don't know if it was that
Speaker 1: case or another case, but I talked about some similarities,
Speaker 1: you know, another case where the door either the door
Speaker 1: handle was disabled or it was missing, and you know,
Speaker 1: I just was thinking to myself, Holy cow, is there
Speaker 1: is there a playbook? I mean, how do these guys
Speaker 1: know how to do this? I mean, this is this
Speaker 1: is like, you know, is there a class that they
Speaker 1: take where, you know, like serial rapist one oh one,
Speaker 1: you know, you hear, this is what you need to
Speaker 1: have in your rate kit, and then you know, let's
Speaker 1: think about how to disable locks and door handles and
Speaker 1: things I got in your vehicle that really scared the
Speaker 1: hell out of me. Those kinds of details stand out
Speaker 1: because that's not your And I hate to ever say
Speaker 1: typical rape, but when I hear something like that, or
Speaker 1: hear a detail like that, that makes the hair on
Speaker 1: the back of my next stand up, because that tells
Speaker 1: me this is somebody that's got a lot of victims,
Speaker 1: and this is somebody that it is at a different level.
Speaker 1: This isn't like an opportunistic predator. This is somebody that
Speaker 1: this is their job to be a predator, right, And
Speaker 1: they're preparing that vehicle as a cage. And you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be in this business too long,
Speaker 1: and you learn there is a playbook, and there are
Speaker 1: certain things for whatever reason, they all do, like domestic violence.
Speaker 1: There's things they all say. If I can't have you,
Speaker 1: nobody'll have you. There's things they do. They threatened to
Speaker 1: take the children, they threatened to hurt the pet, They
Speaker 1: threatened to hurt the pet in front of the children.
Speaker 1: Rapists tend to do similar things too that want you
Speaker 1: lock in on it, you know what you're looking at.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a great point you're making. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go to chapter seven where you right quote I
Speaker 1: would go to the crime scene to get a feel
Speaker 1: for the area, since I didn't have the advantage of
Speaker 1: being there when the crime occurred. Detective I tell people
Speaker 1: all the time, if you don't walt that scene, you're
Speaker 1: not going to understand it. The perpetrator picked that place,
Speaker 1: he picked that time, he picked that hour, he picked
Speaker 1: that victim. So if you go there, you can get
Speaker 1: insight to him. So kind of walk us through the
Speaker 1: importance for you of walking that crime scene from a
Speaker 1: cold case. I mean, I think there are a few
Speaker 1: different reasons to do it. You know. For one thing,
Speaker 1: photographs are only going to show you so much. You
Speaker 1: can't really understand what the environment is truly like unless
Speaker 1: you go there, and certainly in some cases the environment
Speaker 1: is one hundred percent different by the time I'm going
Speaker 1: back out there on a cold case, right Like, the
Speaker 1: business may be gone, but you still can understand what's
Speaker 1: you know, what's in the immediate area. You can understand
Speaker 1: is this a residential area? You know, is there a
Speaker 1: freeway nearby? What else is nearby? What kind of business is,
Speaker 1: what kind of neighborhood is this, what's the activity like?
Speaker 1: So I think that's really important. You know. The other
Speaker 1: thing that's really important, I think is, you know, you're
Speaker 1: going to be evaluating witness statements and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: You want to be able to go, you know, to
Speaker 1: the location to see if it even makes sense, if
Speaker 1: what someone's telling you. Especially, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: cold case where witness came forward. I think it was
Speaker 1: maybe twenty years after the fact. And this was a
Speaker 1: case that I was able to close, and there was
Speaker 1: no DNA evidence or anything like that. It was just
Speaker 1: based on very strong, circumstantial evidence and witness statements and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. But this witness described this particular
Speaker 1: location and that it was remote and you know, there
Speaker 1: were certain a certain way you had to get back there.
Speaker 1: I couldn't just take his word for it. I had
Speaker 1: to go out there and see, you know, does it
Speaker 1: really you know, do I have to actually take the
Speaker 1: route that he's talking about to get out there? Does
Speaker 1: he know what he's talking about? Does it make sense?
Speaker 1: Or you know, could this be made up? So I
Speaker 1: think going out to the scene also will help you
Speaker 1: evaluate the validity of someone's information. The other thing, and
Speaker 1: probably you know what you were talking about initially is
Speaker 1: kind of being able to get into that mindset of
Speaker 1: the offender. And you know, that was probably the primary
Speaker 1: reason for me to go in some cases to visit
Speaker 1: some of the scenes multiple times, because I just wanted
Speaker 1: to be out there at different times of the day.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be out there to see what it
Speaker 1: sounded like, what the you know, activity level was like,
Speaker 1: who else could see me when I was out there,
Speaker 1: just to try to kind of put myself in the
Speaker 1: mindset what happened here? You know, why did the victims
Speaker 1: stop here? You know, how did they connect? What could
Speaker 1: have caused the victim to stop on this deserted road?
Speaker 1: Did the offender user ruse? Was it a blitz attack? Like?
Speaker 1: You know, running through all those different possibilities is easier
Speaker 1: when you're there and you're inside the environment. And to
Speaker 1: your point, we had a cold case where the police
Speaker 1: report said the car was in an open area when
Speaker 1: it was set on fire, trying to hide the initial crime. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, in your head, to me an open area,
Speaker 1: are you talking about a football field, and is the
Speaker 1: car in the middle of it on fire where nobody
Speaker 1: would have seen the smoke or notice the car? Is
Speaker 1: it surrounded by woods? You know? Well, when I drove
Speaker 1: to it, I'm in a residential area, and I mean
Speaker 1: there's house after house, like really close together. When we
Speaker 1: get to the spot where the car was found, it's
Speaker 1: literally like a double driveway, and I'm like, this ain't
Speaker 1: an area. This is like a small clearing, you know.
Speaker 1: And so again it completely flipped who I thought the
Speaker 1: perpetrator was because this person drove there because they knew
Speaker 1: that spot and they knew where to run to get
Speaker 1: back to a house. So in that regard, it changed everything.
Speaker 1: This was not a way out of the way dumping
Speaker 1: ground that a lot of people use. This was a
Speaker 1: quick spot that I could get back to Mama's house.
Speaker 1: One thing, and this is another reason for the Legend series.
Speaker 1: But you are absolutely brilliant at utilizing resources, and you
Speaker 1: do so many smart things, like you use somebody to
Speaker 1: help you create a timeline that includes documents from law enforcement,
Speaker 1: Department of Corrections, employment history, vehicle registration, address history. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us who you use and how that came about.
Speaker 1: My two go to places for getting timelines done was
Speaker 1: the FBI, so the ViCAP unit, they were fantastic at
Speaker 1: putting together really comprehensive timelines, and the National Center for
Speaker 1: Missing Exported Children. If it was a you know, a
Speaker 1: crime that involved a missing child or an abductive child,
Speaker 1: they were just absolutely fantastic because you know, they can
Speaker 1: pull those journal searches and offline searches going back to
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. Whatever information you can provide them they can
Speaker 1: incorporate into the timeline. So you know, they don't have
Speaker 1: access to your local law enforcement databases, you know, RMS
Speaker 1: systems and things like that. They can incorporate what you've
Speaker 1: already compiled with the resources that they've got access too.
Speaker 1: But again, for somebody that's been a detective about a
Speaker 1: week and a half, that's something for them to have
Speaker 1: in their toolbox. Yeah. Absolutely, that maybe they don't realize
Speaker 1: the National Center can do. And you talk about you know,
Speaker 1: VYCAP and sake, I mean, you utilize every single thing
Speaker 1: and I have one mantra. I have several, but I
Speaker 1: have one that says every tool on every case, every time. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you're the master at that I'm telling you. Look, I mean,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. It's like nobody knows it all, nobody
Speaker 1: has the answers to it all. And so I think
Speaker 1: that you know, the best way to be successful in
Speaker 1: this business is to have a really good rolodex or
Speaker 1: in this case, you know, a really good contact list
Speaker 1: on your phone of people you can call people that
Speaker 1: you know that they know their business. They can help
Speaker 1: you do whatever it is that you need to get done,
Speaker 1: because you know you can't do it all yourself. So
Speaker 1: tell us about the John Doe warrant. This is another
Speaker 1: thing that you did a couple of times that I
Speaker 1: thought everybody needs to hear that and just be reminded.
Speaker 1: It always surprises me when I talk with one perstman
Speaker 1: and you know, I end up talking with detectives and
Speaker 1: there are still people that are not familiar with John
Speaker 1: Doe warrants. Basically, it's a warrant that is something to
Speaker 1: stop the statute of limitations on a case. So it's
Speaker 1: a case where you've developed probable cause to make an arrest.
Speaker 1: You just don't know who the person is, but you
Speaker 1: have their DNA profile. So instead of John Smith going on,
Speaker 1: you know, as the name of the person being charged.
Speaker 1: It's John Doe with their DNA profile listed in the
Speaker 1: John Doe warrant. And that warrant just stops the statute
Speaker 1: of limitations so that if later on down the road
Speaker 1: the person is finally identified through DNA or other means,
Speaker 1: they can be charged even if the statute of limitations
Speaker 1: has run out. And that's the thing that I want
Speaker 1: young detectives to hear. It stops the statue of limitations
Speaker 1: from running out. Another thing that happened with you. You
Speaker 1: find out that the Department of Corrections gets DNA from
Speaker 1: inmates upon release, not upon entry. Now a lot of
Speaker 1: people would learn that and go, God, that's truly not
Speaker 1: a great plan. Somebody ought to do something about that.
Speaker 1: But when you hear about it, you go, hey, that's
Speaker 1: not really a great plan. I'm going to do something
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, tell us about what happened then. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it actually was not Department of Corrections. So this
Speaker 1: is so strange, but it's actually like Department of Social
Speaker 1: and Health Services is what it's called in Washington State,
Speaker 1: and they run the Special Commitment Center. And so for
Speaker 1: people not familiar with what that is, there are twenty
Speaker 1: two states, and that includes DC and the federal I
Speaker 1: guess twenty states plus DC and the federal government that
Speaker 1: have civil commitment laws. And what that means is someone
Speaker 1: who is deemed to be a sexually violent predator can
Speaker 1: be detained civilly after their prison sentence. And in Washington
Speaker 1: were I believe the first state to enact a civil
Speaker 1: commitment sexual predator law back in nineteen ninety. So basically
Speaker 1: what that means is that we have this island, it's
Speaker 1: called McNeil Island. There used to be a prison there
Speaker 1: and the prison has long since been abandoned and now
Speaker 1: they just have the Special Commitment Center, which is where
Speaker 1: they house these individuals who are sexual predators. And these
Speaker 1: guys have and I say guys because I think there's
Speaker 1: one female out there and the rest are males. They've
Speaker 1: all either been convicted of sex offenses or they are
Speaker 1: being detained out there. You know, actually, I would be
Speaker 1: shocked if there was anybody out there that hasn't already
Speaker 1: been convicted of at least one sex offense. But basically
Speaker 1: these guys are the worst or the worst. I mean,
Speaker 1: they've they've been deemed too dangerous to be let out
Speaker 1: into society after serving their prison sentence, and so they
Speaker 1: get they have to go through a trial and if
Speaker 1: they are if they're found to be to meet the
Speaker 1: legal requirements as an SVP, they get detained out there
Speaker 1: indefinitely and they're they're basically considered residents. They're not considered
Speaker 1: inmates or anything like that. And that program is run
Speaker 1: by DSHS Department of Social and Health Services. So I
Speaker 1: happened to just stumble across this information on accident. I
Speaker 1: was working on a cold case back in twenty eleven
Speaker 1: and I was talking to someone from the Department of
Speaker 1: Corrections who was assisting me on a particular case, and
Speaker 1: I just for whatever reason, was like, Hey, just out
Speaker 1: of curiosity, do all the guys at the Special Commitment
Speaker 1: Center have their DNA and CODUS? And it turned out
Speaker 1: that the answer was no, and they didn't have a
Speaker 1: policy to collect from existing offenders basically once they got
Speaker 1: there from DC. I don't know if it was assumed
Speaker 1: that they had already provided their DNA while in prison,
Speaker 1: but their policy was to collect it upon release. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: some of those guys will never get released. In fact,
Speaker 1: I would say a lot of them, if not most,
Speaker 1: of them will never get released, some of them die
Speaker 1: out there, and you know they're not collecting their DNA
Speaker 1: at that point, so you know, there was this whole
Speaker 1: like missed opportunity, and you know, the thought process was, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're detained, they're not going anywhere, and they're
Speaker 1: not hurting anybody out here, and not even conceptualizing that
Speaker 1: these guys could be responsible for unsolved crimes. Correct. It
Speaker 1: was a fight. It took me a couple of years
Speaker 1: to advocate and lobby, and you know, I had to
Speaker 1: bring more people in from the Attorney General's office to
Speaker 1: kind of light of fire to get them to collect
Speaker 1: the samples from from these guys. And they were about
Speaker 1: forty offenders out there that had never provided and some
Speaker 1: of them had been out there since the center opened,
Speaker 1: since they started the project back in the early nineties.
Speaker 1: So you know, those guys concerned to me the most
Speaker 1: because those are the guys that are you know, sort
Speaker 1: of like operating. They were operating during that golden age
Speaker 1: of the serial killer, you know, back in the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties and early nineties. After finally getting all those
Speaker 1: samples collected, there was a hit to one of the
Speaker 1: guys out there to a rape and murder from nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: So that was really exciting. And you know, the detective
Speaker 1: that had been working on that case, he had probably
Speaker 1: collected a couple of dozen DNA reference samples from suspects
Speaker 1: on the case. He had been working the case for
Speaker 1: like twelve years, I think, And this guy's name never
Speaker 1: appeared anywhere in the case file. I mean, he never
Speaker 1: would have connected him at all. And that's unusual because
Speaker 1: most of the time their name is in there somewhere
Speaker 1: random complete stranger. And this was a home invasion. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm talking. You know, he didn't kick the door open,
Speaker 1: but he knocked on her door. She opened it, and
Speaker 1: he forced his way in complete strangers. Pretty frightening. And
Speaker 1: this guy had a just a really horrific history of rapes,
Speaker 1: and you know, he admitted to lots of other crimes
Speaker 1: that I think sometimes police don't take that seriously, like
Speaker 1: indecent exposure. I don't remember all the numbers, but a
Speaker 1: lot of different rapes that he was never linked to.
Speaker 1: And peeping Tom, and you know those are the guys
Speaker 1: like when I hear the peeping tom and the guy
Speaker 1: exposed himself of those guys make the hair on the
Speaker 1: back of my next stand up. Agreed, I hate the
Speaker 1: term peep and tall. We all know in this business
Speaker 1: that's not what they're doing. No, and here's one thing
Speaker 1: I want people to understand. You mentioned that sometimes perpetrators
Speaker 1: die before they release from prison. But I think it's
Speaker 1: important for people to know that there was a couple
Speaker 1: of inmates that did die and their DNA had not
Speaker 1: been taken, but you were not deterred. Again, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: y'all want to talk about the white hat is coming
Speaker 1: and the good guys coming over the ridge again and again,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell folks what you did with a
Speaker 1: couple of the guys that had died out there on
Speaker 1: that island. I was able to get autopsy samples, so
Speaker 1: on some of those guys. In most states, if somebody
Speaker 1: dies in prison, you know, there's a requirement to have
Speaker 1: an autopsy, so law enforcement should know that that is
Speaker 1: a place to look for. You know, a reference sample
Speaker 1: is you know, if somebody was an inmate who died
Speaker 1: in a state prison, there should be some evidence collected
Speaker 1: during the autopsy that could provide a DNA reference sample.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in this case, I think I was able
Speaker 1: to get four or five blood cards from these guys
Speaker 1: who also died, you know, at the Special Commitment Center,
Speaker 1: who did have autopsies, so you know, we were able
Speaker 1: to get them into Kodas for the purpose of solving
Speaker 1: cold cases even though they were done. Something I've noticed
Speaker 1: about you is every time you have a success, it's
Speaker 1: not like you just dropped back and take a vacation
Speaker 1: and ride that out for a couple of years. You're
Speaker 1: not one of those detectives that says, hey, remember what
Speaker 1: I did twenty years ago. Because even with all of
Speaker 1: these successes, you go right to the untested rape kits.
Speaker 1: And you said something in chapter thirteen that cracked me up,
Speaker 1: because this is when you want to know if somebody's
Speaker 1: a veteran detective when she has a quote that tell
Speaker 1: us what you said when you said, speaking of you know,
Speaker 1: like perpetrators, I didn't see Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: see shit. I don't know shit, and I didn't do shit.
Speaker 1: Say it again, I don't know shit, I didn't see shit,
Speaker 1: and I didn't do shit. That's when you know she's
Speaker 1: a veteran and she's absolutely right. So when you come
Speaker 1: across somebody like that. Again, you kind of zero win
Speaker 1: on them, don't you, and say, I gotta I gotta
Speaker 1: talk to him one more time, you know, you would think.
Speaker 1: But I kind of got to the point where, yeah,
Speaker 1: there were some people that it was fairly easy to
Speaker 1: read them, I think with that Michelle Welton Jennifer Baston case. Though,
Speaker 1: it got to be that there were so many good
Speaker 1: looking suspects in the case, like you'd read their criminal history,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd run them up and see what they've
Speaker 1: been up to since then, and you know, one after
Speaker 1: the other, you'd think, oh, this has to be the guy.
Speaker 1: You know, sexual psychopath, escape from the mental hospital. You know,
Speaker 1: no DNA collected, and blah blah blah, blah blah, and
Speaker 1: one after the other they were eliminated. So it got
Speaker 1: to a point where it was I was pretty frustrated,
Speaker 1: and I really didn't think that collecting DNA samples going
Speaker 1: to solve it. My honest evaluation by the time I
Speaker 1: retired from the police department in twenty eighteen was that
Speaker 1: the guy was probably either dead or he was sitting
Speaker 1: in prison somewhere in some state, and nobody had collective
Speaker 1: as DNA because I just could not believe that somebody
Speaker 1: who had committed these two horrific murders, sexually motivated murders
Speaker 1: of children would just be out walking the street. But
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. I mean, it's baffling. You would
Speaker 1: think mathematically they would be in prison for something else. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about chapter eleven.
Speaker 1: I saved this on purpose because here's the quote. Now,
Speaker 1: I want y'all to hear me. What do you mean
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy's DNA isn't Incodus tell us about that day? Wow? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so many things to say about Ted. Kind of shocking, right,
Speaker 1: Like who would believe that I had to literally stop
Speaker 1: reading for a second, and I have one to have
Speaker 1: a laughing attack, And I have wanted to call and
Speaker 1: make sure I've got a case right now that I
Speaker 1: wasn't even sure somebody could put into CODAS. So I
Speaker 1: made a phone call immediately and listen. Sure enough, because
Speaker 1: I didn't take the DNA, so I didn't have the
Speaker 1: sample to put into CODAS, but another investigator from another
Speaker 1: jurisdiction did, and I called and sure enough it was
Speaker 1: not in CODAS. So because I was reading your book,
Speaker 1: I stopped immediately and made sure. So thank you for that.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, appreciate you because I was like, surely
Speaker 1: everybody isn't thinking the other person did it, right, And
Speaker 1: that's what happened here. You've got an investigator in my department,
Speaker 1: you've got me, you've got the DA's investigator, you've got
Speaker 1: another jurisdiction, and everybody just assumed the other folks had
Speaker 1: done it. And that's you know, that's why we have
Speaker 1: this entire purpose area under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative
Speaker 1: right now to fund this very issue on a national level,
Speaker 1: so any law enforcement agency in the country can get
Speaker 1: funding from Department of j just to address this particular
Speaker 1: issue of collecting DNA samples from convicted offenders who slipped
Speaker 1: through the cracks, and there are every state has thousands,
Speaker 1: if not tens of thousands of them. When y'all read
Speaker 1: what she did, it will knock you out. And I'm
Speaker 1: not going to tell you it would. It would be
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting things you've read in a
Speaker 1: long time. And again, when I tell you, Lindsay Wade,
Speaker 1: don't quit, she don't quit. Doesn't matter what the obstacle is,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what while somebody built doesn't matter who tells
Speaker 1: her no. And this was one of those things. When
Speaker 1: I read it, I'm like, hmm, I'm not only a
Speaker 1: huge fan, but this person is going to be in
Speaker 1: my zone seven if I have anything to do about
Speaker 1: it immediately, because I just like the way you work
Speaker 1: and I like the way you operate. And there's not
Speaker 1: enough accolades I can say about you and the work
Speaker 1: that you have done. There's just not well. I mean,
Speaker 1: I greatly appreciate, it's just not so I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about chapter fifteen for sec get in the last
Speaker 1: words that you say. I may never respond to another
Speaker 1: crime scene, but seeking justice will always be in my DNA.
Speaker 1: I know we all dream, we all talk about year
Speaker 1: five into this business. When I retire, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm going to do and put in the badge in
Speaker 1: the drawer, so to speak. Tell us about the retirement,
Speaker 1: tell us about how you are, in fact still seeking
Speaker 1: justice for people. Well, you know, it's been a long road,
Speaker 1: and as much as I've tried to step away from it,
Speaker 1: you know, for my own sanity and probably mental health,
Speaker 1: I'm always drawn to it. You know, I can't get
Speaker 1: away from it at Geryl, whether I want to or not.
Speaker 1: You know, I spent twenty one years as a police officer,
Speaker 1: and you know that's all I wanted to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to be a cop. I wanted
Speaker 1: to work for Tacoma PDE. I mean, there was no
Speaker 1: doubt in my mind. It was like, no one's getting
Speaker 1: in my way, like it's going to happen. And you know,
Speaker 1: after twenty one years, you know, I just I did.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of done. I was burned out. I knew
Speaker 1: I just needed a different challenge and something else. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of a creative, you know, kind of a person,
Speaker 1: so I have to have things that exercise my brain
Speaker 1: or I get bored. You know. I decided that the
Speaker 1: opportunity at the Attorney General's Office was too good for
Speaker 1: me to pass up. They had just gotten a Sexual
Speaker 1: Assault Kit Initiative grant, and so I was going to
Speaker 1: be able to come in on the ground floor and
Speaker 1: help create the whole team and you know, build the
Speaker 1: program from the ground up. And so I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is another way for me to contribute. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be you know, going out to scenes anymore,
Speaker 1: and you know, being the lead detective anymore. But this
Speaker 1: is still a great way for me to share my
Speaker 1: knowledge and expertise with other people, help agencies with their cases,
Speaker 1: and still make a difference. So, you know, working as
Speaker 1: an investigator for the Attorney General's Office was fantastic, you know,
Speaker 1: and I did that for I think it was about
Speaker 1: four and a half five years. You know, I ended
Speaker 1: up applying to my current job now at RTI, and
Speaker 1: RTI is it's a global nonprofit, but they are a
Speaker 1: government contractor, and so RTI has a lot of government
Speaker 1: contracts and grants that we administer to include the Sexual
Speaker 1: Assault get initiative. So now I'm working on that project,
Speaker 1: but on the national level. Where As before I was
Speaker 1: working at the state level as a site, you know,
Speaker 1: a statewide site. Now I'm working and I primarily am
Speaker 1: asked to sort of be a subject matter expert on
Speaker 1: lawfully o DNA and so you know, that's kind of
Speaker 1: my focus area as of right now. It's different than
Speaker 1: being you know, an active law enforcement officer, but I
Speaker 1: still really really enjoy being able to you know, impart information,
Speaker 1: share information, generate ideas. You know, that creative side of
Speaker 1: me is you know, still always there and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm still the person that watches the you know, the
Speaker 1: Netflix documentary about some case and I'm like taking notes
Speaker 1: and taking pictures of the TV with my phone so that,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to, like, we need to look
Speaker 1: into this guy. Do we know if it's DNA is
Speaker 1: in CODIS Like? I don't. That probably should be my tagline,
Speaker 1: this is DNA and CODIS like, because there are so
Speaker 1: many of these people that just slip on through. And
Speaker 1: you know, genetic genealogy is fantastic and it's obviously changed
Speaker 1: the game for solving crime, but how many of those
Speaker 1: cases should have been solved with a CODIS hit. Yep.
Speaker 1: And you can't turn it off. I mean you can't
Speaker 1: stop who you are instinctively and just how you're describing
Speaker 1: how you watch TV. I get it. I get it completely.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'll hear something about another jurisdiction in another state
Speaker 1: and I still feel compelled to call them and just say, hey,
Speaker 1: I know you don't know me, but if he thought
Speaker 1: of this, you had such a full circle moment with
Speaker 1: the child from your community that was killed, and then
Speaker 1: you solving it when you were grown, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just think that is an unbelievable twist of fate that was,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, meant to be. Yeah, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: something I think you'll find pretty cool. With Ginger's murder,
Speaker 1: my sister's friend Joe told me years later how they
Speaker 1: caught the people that killed her. So there were three
Speaker 1: people that went in that murdered Ginger and her mother,
Speaker 1: and they stole things out of the family's safe in
Speaker 1: the wall of the living room, and one of the
Speaker 1: things they took were a ton of one dollar bills
Speaker 1: that had never been in circulation that were nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: Joseph W. Barr notes, And the detectives in each point
Speaker 1: put the word out everywhere, you know, Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida.
Speaker 1: If y'all see these, let snow well. There was a
Speaker 1: clerk in Florida that, because they had never been in circulation,
Speaker 1: thought they were like counterfeit. She wasn't sure they were
Speaker 1: even real money. So she called a detective friend of
Speaker 1: hers who went over there and said, let me see
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. So he calls these point and says, hey,
Speaker 1: we've got some. And then you know, they got the
Speaker 1: video of the guy that used it, and he was
Speaker 1: a cousin of one of the killers, and that's how
Speaker 1: they were called. So again, you never know. And the
Speaker 1: way you do, you call everybody, You let everybody know
Speaker 1: the information, You include everybody, and that's how you get
Speaker 1: stuff done. I mean crazy, right, just something almost like
Speaker 1: a fluke. And this guy thought, man, we're in another state.
Speaker 1: You know they did. And I'm gonna get my cousin
Speaker 1: to use it because he's not even on video anywhere.
Speaker 1: He wasn't in the car, or he wasn't even there.
Speaker 1: They'll never suspect him of anything. That's just good police work.
Speaker 1: It's all there is to it, and going that extra
Speaker 1: step exactly. But you know all about that. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to end Zone seven the way that I always
Speaker 1: do with somebody from my Zone seven. And tonight's quote
Speaker 1: comes from Tray Sergeant Knine, expert, and she says, have
Speaker 1: no regrets. Change the question mark into an exclamation point.
Speaker 1: One person can change the world. And I think that
Speaker 1: sums up Detective Lindsay Wade perfectly. I'm Cheryl McCollum and
Speaker 1: this is Zone seven.