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Ryan Waller
77 Plays2 years ago
On Christmas day 2006, Ryan Waller was taken into custody following the murder of his 21 year old girlfriend Heather Quan. This case gained internet infamy because the entire hour long interrogation is available on Youtube. What first seems like an open and shut case turns out to be anything but.
Ryan Waller, eye swollen shut and face bruised, is detective's number one suspect in the murder of Heather Quan. However, as the interrogation proceeds, it becomes more evident that something is seriously wrong. Waller's story is all over the place, and he's claiming that two men with bows and arrows shot him in the eye. What happened in Phoenix, Arizona on Christmas day 2006? The answer is mind boggling.
Sources:
this is monsters interview with Don Waller-- https://www.podcastone.com/episode/Searching-For-Justice-The-Ryan-Waller-Story
The interrogation video-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI8G0KOOtqk&t=1309s
https://www.vizaca.com/ryan-waller/
okaybliss.com/ryan-waller-story/
https://www.maricopacountyattorney.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=185
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/ryan-waller-obituary?pid=177547295
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Transcript
Episode Introduction: The Ryan Waller Case
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, I'm Kaylee.
00:00:01
Speaker
And I'm Sierra. And this is True Crime and Punishment. Episode three. Today, Kaylee will be walking us through the Ryan Waller case. Take it away, Kaylee. The Ryan Waller case gained internet popularity and notoriety because the entire hour-long interrogation video is available to watch on YouTube, actually. So it's kind of gained some infamy that way. You can actually go look it up. It's still up today. Don't go look it up yet. We're going to go through the case first. Then you can go watch it.
Christmas Mystery: Ryan and Heather's Disappearance
00:00:30
Speaker
This case starts on Christmas Day in 2006, so December 25th. 18-year-old Ryan Waller and his 21-year-old girlfriend Heather Kwon were supposed to show up for dinner at Ryan's parents' house for Christmas dinner. When they didn't show up, his parents were concerned, obviously, but their son is 18 years old. It's not completely unheard of for an 18-year-old to kind of drop off the grid for a couple of days. But it was Christmas, and that's, you know, a major holiday, so it was
00:00:56
Speaker
that his parents had never heard from him and they hadn't been able to get a hold of him. They'd called him before dinner, after dinner, and they just could not get in contact with him.
00:01:05
Speaker
And they all lived in Arizona, so it's not like his parents were very far away. They decided to drive over to his home and just check up on him and see if everything was going all right. If there was anything that they could help him with, just see what was going on. They showed up to Ryan and Heather's home where they shared that space with a roommate named Alicia. And they were unable to get into the house. They knocked on the door. No one showed up, no one answered the door. So out of concern, they called the police.
00:01:32
Speaker
The Phoenix Police Department showed up and they did not show up until around 11 o'clock that evening, so about four-ish hours after his parents had initially called for police assistance to do a wellness check just to make sure that everything was okay.
Discovery: Heather's Death and Ryan's Arrest
00:01:46
Speaker
While they were there to do the wellness check, one of the officers looked through the blinds of the house and said, it looks like there's a body in there.
00:01:54
Speaker
And so Ryan Waller's parents were ushered away from the crime scene, obviously. The police obtained a warrant to be able to enter the home after about 54 minutes of initially seeing that body. And then after that, a locksmith for the police department came to try and open the door. They were unable to open the front door, so they went around the back to open that back door.
Interrogation Ethics: Ryan's Injuries and Police Procedures
00:02:15
Speaker
And they weren't quite able to get that lock either. But 18-year-old Ryan Waller did end up opening that door for them.
00:02:22
Speaker
When they entered the home, they saw on the couch was 21-year-old Heather Kwon, who had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head. Ryan Waller was then taken into custody, and that's kind of where our story really gets started because of that interrogation video I mentioned. Ryan Waller's entire hour-long interrogation is available on the internet.
00:02:40
Speaker
Now remember the police did not get there until 11 11 30 they had to wait on that warrant to enter the home so Ryan Waller was taken into custody he was handcuffed let out of the house and then sat in a police cruiser for about four hours. After that four hours he's eventually taken back to the police station where he is photographed things are taken into evidence he's given new clothes and he is sent into an interrogation room.
00:03:05
Speaker
I have a question. Is it normal for someone after something like that to be in the police car for four hours, like to be held that long before they're taken to the station? I don't want to say it's abnormal because it does happen. They are on scene for a while, but it is a little bizarre. But the detective did have to go through the house and then get back to the station. But yes, four hours is a bit of a long clip in between, especially for a murder investigation.
00:03:31
Speaker
So then they're back at the station for about an hour and then that's where the video starts. You can see Ryan being led into an interrogation room if Phoenix police officer tells him to go into that room.
00:03:41
Speaker
Ryan then asks right here and the officer confirms. He walks in and he immediately sits sideways in the chair with his feet pulled up onto the chair. The officer then leaves and closes the door. And then Ryan is left alone in this room for several minutes. You can see in the video he is very evidently injured. His face is bruised. His left eye is swollen shut. It's very red. There's some obvious
00:04:05
Speaker
blood on his face. He's not covered in blood or anything, but it looks like he's been in a fight. His face appears swollen, but that's hard to tell if you've never seen a picture of him prior to his interrogation. Sierra, I sent you a couple pictures. I have one from the front angle and then one from the side. If you can look, he's got bruising around both eyes, but his left eye is very clearly swollen shut. His nose
00:04:30
Speaker
That looks awful. It looks very painful. His nose appears very swollen and kind of, I mean, I've seen a broken nose. It looks broken. Wounds to his nose. Yeah, it's very weird wounds to his nose, actually. It doesn't look, it looks like something other than getting punched.
00:04:49
Speaker
right it it looks like he's been assaulted it looks like he's been in a fight it looks it looks bad so he's in some evident pain in this video he's alone in this room so he he groans he says ow his face is is pensive he seems very uncomfortable um but he doesn't appear scared
00:05:06
Speaker
Not at all. So around the three minute mark, he begins to fiddle with a handcuff that is attached to the table. Like, you know, if you've ever seen any cop show or they had the interrogation table and there's a bar for a handcuff, there's a handcuff already attached to that rod. But he picks up the other end that is open and he places it on his own wrist and kind of plays with it and then he closes it.
00:05:29
Speaker
Now, remember, he's alone in this room. No one is telling him to do this. He just does it. Which is a little strange, I will admit. Some of them walks in around the four minute mark, but doesn't fully enter the room. Ryan shifts then to sitting with his arms crossed on the table in front of him, and he puts his hands on the table and his head in his hand. And he makes a couple of moaning or pain noises. It's like just kind of, he seems in pain and it's just like kind of like, ow, ow. And it's evident he's uncomfortable at the very least.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, well judging by his picture, I can understand that. Yes. He shifts his feet around, he's moving around. Around the eight minute mark, he's still alone in this room. He tries to stand up and stop by the cuff. He seems a little bit surprised by the cuff, which remember he put on himself. He grabs a blank sheet of paper or it appears blank from the video. It could just be so, the video could just be so blown out that it's hard to see.
00:06:23
Speaker
He looks at it, plays around with it for a minute, and just sets it back down. At nine minutes, two officers come in, and one tells Ryan to put his feet up on the table. He is barefoot. He's wearing one of those white plastic-y looking, I don't even know what the word would be, hazmat type suits, but it's not like a painter's suit. If you've ever seen someone who paints houses, like a plastic suit to protect their clothes, it's one of those, because they obviously would have taken his clothes as evidence. So he's barefoot. He puts his feet up on the table.
00:06:52
Speaker
The officer then tells him to pull up his jumpsuit leg and put his feet closer together. Ryan does his instructed. He doesn't say anything. He does listen. He's taking commands.
00:07:00
Speaker
doing exactly what the cops tell him to do. The officer proceeds to take several pictures. In about 10 and a half minutes, Ryan just says, I just want to go to sleep. And the officer responds, not unkindly. That'll happen sooner or later. The officer then, you know, takes several pictures of his feet. And then the other officer, which we find out his name is Detective Paul Dalton, and he'll be very vital to the story.
00:07:24
Speaker
tells him that in a few more minutes that they'll have a chat. His direct quote is, in a few more minutes we'll have a chat. Ryan says, all right, do I get to go home? The detective then says, no, you should go to the doctors. That's where you should go. Why wouldn't they send him to the doctors before?
00:07:40
Speaker
That is an excellent question. It's legal precedent that if someone is injured, they should take them to a hospital if they request it. Ryan did not request to go to the hospital. And even if they aren't requesting it, if they are deemed to be not of right mind, there's evident physical and bodily harm.
00:07:58
Speaker
they should go to the doctor or to the hospital just to cover the police. Honestly, you never want to be put in a situation where someone can come back and say, I was injured and you didn't take me to the hospital because that just shows a complete and total negligence on their part. But again, he has a black eye. He's obviously been in a fight and they fully do believe him to be
00:08:18
Speaker
Heather Quant's murderer. They are looking at him as suspect number one. They're there to interrogate him not to really find out what happened. He is there as the prime suspect. Yeah, so Dalton says he should go to the hospital because of his face. Ryan then points at his face and says, me, why? Dalton affirms. Ryan points to his eye and says, that? Dalton says, yeah. He says, is it bad? And then the detective says, I'd say it looks bad. And it does look bad. Yeah, it's ugly. It looks like it's very painful.
00:08:46
Speaker
If you've ever gotten a black eye, black eyes hurt. I speak from experience. I once banged my face on a doorknob and had a black eye that swelled my eyes shut. And that hurt extremely bad. So just the bruising and stuff, that looks very, very painful. Throughout this entire interrogation, Ryan does reiterate that he is tired. At one point Dalton tells him that if he has a concussion, he does not need to sleep. They continue to take pictures of the bottom of his feet. They swab the bottom of his feet.
00:09:13
Speaker
Ryan does seem to be in pain, and the officers are not aggressive with him at this point, which they are looking at him as the primary suspect. They think that he is the one who has
Suspects and Stories: Richie and Larry Carver
00:09:22
Speaker
murdered his girlfriend, 21-year-old Heather Kwon. But throughout this, this video is about Night-O-Long. The real interrogation does not start until...
00:09:29
Speaker
21 minute mark. At that point, Detective Dalton comes in, sits down and asks a few perfunctory questions. He is asked to confirm his name, his birthday, and his social security number. He's just asked to confirm with a verbal yes. He's not asked to recite those things. He's just asked to essentially agree. So if I were to say, is your name Sierra? And you would say yes, that's all we're doing here. He's not giving that information. He's confirming that information. And he only says yes when he is prompted by the detective.
00:09:55
Speaker
Dalton then asks if Ryan knows why he is there, to which Ryan says no. He's then read his right. And I guess in an attempt to kind of connect with Ryan Waller, Detective Dalton asks him if he's seen Cops or any sort of Cops show. He asks him directly, so have you seen Cops? Ryan says no, he's never seen Cops.
00:10:13
Speaker
The detective seems a little bit confused by that. He's like, you've never seen any cop show. Ryan then says yes. He agrees to the detective that he has. He's then read his rights, asked if he understands these rights. He says yes. After that Dalton asks him what the highest grade he went to in school is. Ryan had recently graduated from high school. He was in fact 18 years old. But when he's asked what the highest grade he went through in school is, he says, I don't know. Again, this could just be belligerence. Any suspect who's in there for a murder. So the detective asks again, what the highest grade he went through in school is. He says, I don't know.
00:10:42
Speaker
He's asked again, he says eighth grade. That is not true. Ryan Waller has a high school diploma. He did complete high school. He's asked if he graduated. He says yes, which contradicts him saying that he only finished the eighth grade. Then Dalton asks, well, do you have a GED? He says, I don't know. At 23 minutes, he reiterates that he wants to go home. Dalton then says, you're not going to go home right now.
00:11:10
Speaker
He asks again what the highest grade he completed is. He says B, as in the letter grade B. Oh. Dalton kind of abandons that line of questioning. And then he goes on to ask, do you have a girlfriend? Ryan says no, which does not look good. His girlfriend, Heather Kwan is in fact deceased at this point. They found her on their living room couch. And after that Dalton asks, well, do you know a girl named Heather?
00:11:36
Speaker
Ryan says, yeah. And then he asks what Heather's last name is. Heather's last name is Clon. But Ryan asks a question. He says, the one that lives there right now? Dalton confirms. And then he says, I don't know what name she's trying to use as her last one. She's trying to have a real last other nicknames. I don't know. This isn't making any sense.
00:11:57
Speaker
It really isn't, and you can see the detective is a little bit confused at this point, but he just says, well, what nickname does she go by? Ryan then says, she probably wants the last name, Kyman, which is not Heather's last name. I did not find any information to say that was ever her last name. Dalton then asks how to spell it. He asks if it starts with a C or a K. Ryan says K, but then he doesn't know how to spell the rest of it.
00:12:23
Speaker
When the detective asks how old Heather is, Ryan says she's 16 or 17. Heather Quant is 21 years old. So later, about 26 minutes, the officer asks Ryan what happened to his face. Ryan says he doesn't know. And then the officer says, well, you told the officer a few minutes ago that someone hit you. Do you remember who hit you?
00:12:43
Speaker
Ryan says, I don't know. I think it was Heather. Oh, that doesn't look good. Dalton, of course, thinks he's finally I've gotten an answer out of this guy. He asks why Heather hit him and Ryan says it was an accident. I forgot why. The officer asked him what was an accident. To that Ryan says Heather's last name.
00:13:05
Speaker
We tend to abandon this line of questioning about Heather's last name, so that's completely out of the blue. It's been a couple minutes since they've discussed that. And at this point, you can tell the detective's getting a little bit confused and he's like, no, what was an accident? Heather hitting me. What did she hit you with? Her hand in the eye.
00:13:25
Speaker
The detective asks, were you arguing? What was going on? He says that nothing prompted her to hit him, that it was an accident. Which if you look at his face, it's both eyes in his nose. That does not look like an accident. That looks very intentional. It looks very intentional. They often ask like, well, what was going on? Were you arguing? Ryan says she was giving Christina a cut or a head. I couldn't quite understand what he was saying. He said she was giving Christina a head or a cut. Like a haircut, maybe?
00:13:53
Speaker
And then he says that Heather was helping Christina with her hair and that hitting him in the eye was an accident. So he says it was, she was giving Christina a head or cut. Heather was helping Christina with her hair and that hitting him was an accident. So that doesn't make any sense. Who's Christina? Um, I don't know. She comes up a couple of times, but he brings up Christina.
00:14:18
Speaker
Okay. The officer then asked who Christina is and Ryan says, she's on the couch. Oh. That's where they found Heather Quant's body. So then Dalton asks what Christina's last name is. What does she look like? Ryan says, I don't know. They mentioned someone named Alicia and that's their roommate. Ryan and Heather had a roommate named Alicia and a guy named Eric. Ryan does not seem to know either of these people, but he's pretty sure that Eric owed him money.
00:14:44
Speaker
Eventually the officer goes back to Christina being on the couch but at that point Ryan cracks and says no Heather's on the couch. Throughout this entire interrogation one thing Ryan says repeatedly there's you'll hear him say three things kind of over and over again I don't know I don't know man and I just want to go to sleep.
00:15:05
Speaker
Sounds like a concussion. It really does sound like a concussion. And we'll get into that a bit later. I'm not a medical professional. I'm not a police officer. But at this point, even watching it, it kind of sounds like he's concussed, or he's at the very least being very, very uncooperative.
00:15:23
Speaker
Does he seem belligerent in the video? Like from his stance? No, he seems in pain. He seemed uncomfortable and he does come across as confused. Okay. At least that's my opinion. You can look at the video and decide for yourself. The officer asks what happened last night. Remember that he keeps saying last night, that'll come up again. What happened last night, you're all beat up. There's a big chunk out of your nose. And if you look at that picture, if you want to look at that picture again, Sierra.
00:15:48
Speaker
At first glance, it looks like there's just a bloody patch on his nose. It looks like there's a chunk missing out of his nose. Yeah, a couple. There's one there and one there. Yeah, there's one towards the, there's one on the nostril side and then coming out the other side about an inch up. So it looks like maybe someone's grabbed him or something. It looks, it doesn't look great.
00:16:13
Speaker
No. The officer asks what happened? Did someone grab you? Did you get into a fight with somebody? Ryan says no, I just need to go to sleep. They get back on the topic of who Eric is or who Eric's girlfriend is and Ryan says Eric's girlfriend is Heather. Hmm.
00:16:30
Speaker
And the officer is obviously a bit surprised by this. Remember, they've been in contact with Ryan's parents. They know that Ryan and Heather are dating. So the officer says, Heather, you're saying it's Eric's girlfriend? Ryan says, mm-hmm. And then the officer says, or your girlfriend? Ryan asked Heather. He says, mine.
00:16:49
Speaker
meaning Heather is my girlfriend. And then the officer asks, Heather did this to you, referring to his face. Ryan asks what? He says your eye. And then he says, nah. So remember earlier, he said Heather hit him in the eye on accident. Now he's saying Heather did not hit him in the eye. This is not Heather's fault.
00:17:04
Speaker
this is not making any sense right when asked who did it to him um ryan then says alicia and then says he isn't lying i swear he also says that that was the third thing i mentioned earlier i think earlier i just said i don't know man i want to go sleep you'll hear i don't know man i want to go to sleep and i'm not lying over and over and over again
00:17:24
Speaker
which normally that's not a good indicator if they have to keep saying I'm not lying. Right and if you've ever heard someone say I'm not lying like just overwhelmed like they can come across as either whiny or just like you're tired he throughout his entire thing just screams I am tired like bone-deep tired.
00:17:42
Speaker
At this point the officer is a bit fed up. He's getting conflicting information. He's heard that, you know, or Dalton's getting fed up. He's heard Heather hit him in the eye. Now he's saying Alicia. Heather is Eric's girlfriend, or Ryan's girlfriend. So at this point he just goes and says, Ryan, there's a dead girl in your living room. Ryan says, dead. The officer affirms. Ryan asks, Heather? And the officer says, I don't know. I want to know what happened in your house last night.
00:18:09
Speaker
And then Ryan says, the girl on the couch is dead. At that point, Ryan then goes on to say that people came over, Richie and his dad, they were shooting an arrow gun in darts and they hit me and her with that. And Heather wasn't there. And Eric wasn't there. It was just me and Heather.
00:18:26
Speaker
Heather wasn't there. It was just me and Heather. So within that sentence, you have new information of who is Richie and his dad. He's been shot with an arrow gun and darts. Heather wasn't there. Eric wasn't there, but Heather was there. So within that sentence, you have new information and conflicting information. So that's very strange already. Ryan then goes on to say that Richie and his dad tried to break in the back. When asked who Richie was, he said he didn't know. And then he said that he used to live there.
00:18:53
Speaker
When asked if he and Richie were friends he says they used to be. The officer asked if
Trials and Laws: Sentencing and Heather's Law
00:18:58
Speaker
it was Richie who hit him and Ryan says it was Richie and his dad. He said they were there to try and get their stuff but he didn't know why.
00:19:07
Speaker
So the officer is confused by the bow and arrow aspect of it all. So he's asked again about the bow and arrows. Ryan says, they each had two revolvers and they didn't leave any, they didn't left any shells. Wow. Dalton then asks, and then what happened? And Ryan says, and then they shot us both. And then Dalton says, they shot you, where'd they shoot you? Ryan then says he got shot in the eye. Hmm.
00:19:31
Speaker
this, Ryan lays his head on the table and denies shooting Heather. The officer does ask him if he shot Heather. He then says Richie and his dad put him in a sleeping hold and shot him with the arrows. The officer does not believe that he's been shot. And he says to Ryan, if they shot you in the eye with a revolver, you wouldn't be talking to me right now. Ryan then says, how do you know?
00:19:56
Speaker
The officer says, because most likely you'd be dead. And that sounds logical to me. You think of a gunshot wound to the head, to the eye. There's no way you'll be ambulatory and talking to an officer. Yeah. Although thinking back to Bermondsey, didn't they try to shoot Patrick in the eye? I mean, in the head. And it didn't work. Still, I feel like you would see a little more evidence. You wouldn't think. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense to me. But again, I'm just a common lay person. I don't know much about weapons.
00:20:27
Speaker
Ryan says, that's what I thought too. I really don't know. I just want to go back to bed. Throughout Ryan's entire interrogation, which I feel like you can agree it's all over the place, three details do not change. Richie and his dad came in the back door and shot them both. Ryan was shot first. He did not see Heather get shot because he was shot first. So Richie and his dad came in, shot him first, and then they shot Heather. Those details never change.
00:20:54
Speaker
When asked about Heather being shot, Ryan says she was sleeping still, so I just let her sleep. So Ryan says he thinks he thought that the girl on the couch was asleep. We know Heather Kwon was dead. Then the interrogator, Detective Dalton, is kind of getting a little bit more flustered, more frustrated. He then mentions an Ashley.
00:21:13
Speaker
I'm confident he means Alicia, who is their roommate, and says that you let Ashley in at 9.30 on Christmas Day. Ryan does not seem to know who Ashley is, which makes sense because Ashley is, in fact, Alicia, the detective, got that piece of information wrong. Despite accurately using the name Alicia earlier, slip of the tongue could be harmless. It's important to remember that Dalton says that Ashley is Ryan's roommate, not Ryan. Because then Ryan goes on, when he's asked who Ashley is, because he says he doesn't know who she is, he says that Ashley is Richie's dad's daughter.
00:21:43
Speaker
Later, he then mentions that Heather is Richie's dad's daughter. He's very evidently not sure what he's saying. He's very confused.
00:21:52
Speaker
The officer then asked why Ryan shot Heather. Ryan says again, he didn't shoot Heather that she was already shot once by her brother. He meant Richie. The officer confirms the brother he is referring to as Richie. Ryan then confirms at the 44 and a half minute mark, which means for 20 minutes, because remember they didn't start the real interrogation until 20 minutes in for 20 minutes they've been having for 25 minutes. They've been having a direct conversation.
00:22:33
Speaker
Dalton then asks Waller to move closer so that he can see his nose. Remember there's like a chunk missing out of his nose.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah. The officer, officer Dalton puts his hand on Ryan's head, moving it from side to side. He puts like on the top of his head, Ryan says, Oh, my head hurts. And says, Oh, but he lets him move his head around. He's not violent. He's not belligerent. At 45 minutes, the officer closes his binder says, Oh, okay. Be right back. And then he leaves. And he did set her on the okay. That wasn't just me adding that in. He was, Oh, okay.
00:23:08
Speaker
Be right back. His tone noticeably changes from one of frustration to one of. He's much more gentle. He is a tone of concern. And he leaves. Ryan then puts his head down on the table. You can hear voices outside of the interrogation room at this point. You can't quite make out what they're saying. At 48 minutes, the interrogating officer, Detective Dalton, comes back with another officer. He tells Ryan that someone is going to come in and take a look at him and that they're probably going to take him to the hospital.
00:23:39
Speaker
He says that if you've seen your face and the way you're doing things, we just need to make sure you're okay, speaking to Ryan. He then asks a couple more questions. He asks what Richie's last name is. Ryan then says that he thinks he only got shot once in the eyeball. The officer says, and then you just wanted to go to sleep. Did you go back to bed after the shooting? He then asks, adult, and then asks if he and Heather had a relationship. Ryan says not after the shooting, no.
00:24:06
Speaker
The officer then reestablished the relationship between Richie and Heather. Ryan then confirms that Heather is not related to Richie.
00:24:15
Speaker
Throughout the interrogation, he is constantly telling Ryan to get his feet off the table at something I didn't mention before. At this point, because Ryan would continuously put his feet on the table, and then the officer would be like, get your feet off the table, and kind of aggressively because, I don't know, he was threatened. And then at that point, Ryan puts his feet back on the table. Officer says nothing. He then takes the cuff off of Ryan. He then calls the fire department and he says, Captain, you're not gonna believe this one. The firefighter says, you're right, I've already heard the story and I don't believe it.
00:24:45
Speaker
Dalton then points out two injuries on Ryan's face, saying one looks like an entrance wound and the other looks to be an exit wound. On his nose? On his nose. It looks like it was going to his eye. He also tells him that he's been acting like he has a serious head injury. Oh my goodness. Just to finish up, Ryan then tells the officer who's looking at his face, the kid Eric did it. I don't know how he did it. I might've been shot. I don't know.
00:25:14
Speaker
Oh, no. Paramedics take his blood pressure, asked him where he was from. Blood pressure is 124 over 70, if anyone's curious. Ryan then walks out of the interrogation room and asks, where are we going? Someone says, we gotta go to the hospital, get you checked out, bro. You look like you got shot right in the face. Ryan Mulligan says, oh, I don't even know. So what happened? Yeah, that's what I want to know.
00:25:43
Speaker
First, let's go over Ryan Waller's injuries. He hadn't back been shot in the face. He was telling the truth. Oh my goodness. Now the details on this go a little bit all over the place. There are what you can find officially reported from the police and then what Ryan Waller's dad believes has happened. Either way, the culprits are the same. I'm going to say what the police have reported and then I'm going to tell you why I think that's not true. But essentially,
00:26:10
Speaker
It's believed that on December 23rd, I don't believe that 23rd is the correct date. I believe this all happened on the 25th. But from anywhere between December 23rd and December 25th, Larry Carver and his son Richie Carver went to Ryan's house. It's believed that they were there for a robbery. It's widely reported that they were there for revenge. That is not true, just based on the personal history between Ryan and Richie. And by that, I mean that there really isn't any. We'll get into that here in a second as well. The Carver has forced their way into the house
00:26:39
Speaker
And then on their way in the house, they shot Ryan in the face and then they killed Heather Kwon. They then left them for dead and stole a computer, several of their belongings from the scene. It's also reported that they stole several weapons that is not correct, but essentially they broke in, killed Ryan and Heather, robbed the place and left. When officers from the Phoenix police department arrived later that night on the 25th, they found Ryan Waller still conscious. He was able then to identify his assailants.
00:27:08
Speaker
As Richie and his dad, he did get his facts mixed up a few times, but throughout he does say that Richie and his dad shot him in the eye. So if there was no personal history, how did he know Richie's name? I'm glad you asked that. Richie did previously live in the house. If you listened to the interview and what I said earlier, when asked if Richie, who Richie was, he says that he used to live there. Now the police officer and many news outlets have taken that to mean that he was an ex-remate of Ryan and Heathers.
00:27:37
Speaker
This is incorrect. According to Don Waller, he was not a previous roommate of Ryan's. He was the previous tenant. And so the only overlap they had was when Richie was moving out and Ryan was moving in.
00:27:51
Speaker
Okay, and that would make sense why Richie and his dad would rob it then because they're familiar with the building and with the place and everything. Exactly. It's widely reported that there was some sort of altercation that Ryan and Richie had some bad blood between the two of them, that this was revenge. It's also you'll see a lot that Richie had made a pass at Heather and Ryan hadn't taken kindly to that. It's not even confirmed. I don't believe that Ryan or Heather never met Richie. There's nothing linking them together.
00:28:20
Speaker
It does sound like Ryan moved in with Eric who had lived with Richie and then I believe It's believed that Eric the man Ryan mentioned earlier had lived with Richie Eric kicked Richie out Ryan moved in and Then Eric moved out Heather and Alicia moved in
00:28:38
Speaker
So at the time of the shooting, Ryan, Heather, and Alicia lived there. But Eric was a previous tenant and so was Richie. He never lived with Richie. Richie was just a previous tenant, which is what Ryan says. He does say that he used to live there, not that they used to live together. Don Waller also says that Richie had come back by the house a couple of times once to ask for mail. And then apparently at one point they caught him in the backyard. This was when Eric and Ryan were there.
00:29:05
Speaker
kind of looking around and his story was that he lost a four foot long iguana and he was looking for it. Then Eric kind of threatened him off. Don Waller believes that this was him casing the house because he did see Ryan moving in and it said that Ryan had a couple really nice guitars, he had a computer, he had a couple of nice things. This was Ryan. He was 18 years old, he was moving into this new place.
00:29:30
Speaker
He hadn't lived there for very long when this happened. And something that Don Waller said, there's an excellent interview between They Were Monsters. You can find their podcast on Spotify. You can find them on YouTube. They have a wonderful website. They went out and interviewed Ryan's father. And Don Waller believes that he showed back up to the house, looked for his mail, and then took
00:29:52
Speaker
look for that iguana to case out the joint because honestly, that's a great crime. Not to be whatever. It's Christmas, they believe. It's reported widely that this happened on the 23rd. Don does not believe that and I'll go into why in a second. It's excellent. It's Christmas. Who's going to be home? Right. Because they weren't supposed to be home. They were supposed to be at dinner, but they came just too early or something along those lines.
00:30:15
Speaker
If you ever are suspected of the crime for burglary, well of course your DNA is in that house. You used to live there. That's reasonable doubt. Maybe they showed up and this is all speculation. Maybe they showed up. They were surprised by Ryan and Heather and now they had witnesses. You'll find that Richie Carver has a lengthy criminal history. This was not his first offense. This isn't even his first violent offense. Oh.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, so it would have been an easy hit, an easy robbery had things gone. What a plan.
00:30:52
Speaker
Moving back to Richie Carver and his dad, Larry Carver, they were arrested and convicted. They weren't arrested until I think about 35 days after Ryan had been run to custody. We'll get into that in a second. But in June 2008, Richie Carver was convicted of felony murder, burglary, aggravated assault, and misconduct involving weapons and was sentenced to a natural life in prison. Larry Carver, his sentencing was a bit different.
00:31:20
Speaker
So Richie Carver was arrested and sentenced, however Larry Carver was another matter. His wife Cheryl initially went to police and said that her husband was involved and later recanted her statement and said that she could not remember Larry's confession. She also claimed that she lied about that just to spite him because of a rocky relationship and because of marital privilege she could not be compelled to testify against him. So the case against Larry was dismissed because the evidence against him was based on
00:31:50
Speaker
confessions made to his wife. So he was acquitted. Now Heather's family obviously did not stand for that. Of course not.
00:31:59
Speaker
So they pushed to enact legislature that would become known as Heather's Law, which basically says that if you make a confession about a spouse, you can then be compelled to testify about the confession you've made. Marital privilege will not keep you from testifying about things you've already made a statement to police about. After Heather's Law was passed, there was a three-year battle, like a legal battle, over whether or not that could reopen Larry Carver's case, and it could be applied retroactively to Larry Carver.
00:32:28
Speaker
In November 2011, the Court of Appeals ruled that Cheryl could testify against Larry and he was re-indicted and at that point he was charged with first degree murder, attempted first degree murder for Ryan Waller, burglary, and aggravated assault.
00:32:44
Speaker
So in December 2012, specifically December 14th, there was a 10-day trial and a two-day jury deliberation. So in the end, Larry Carver was found guilty on all counts and was sentenced to life in prison without parole on January 25th, 2013. So Richie Carver and Larry Carver were both sentenced to life in prison for the murder and attempted murder of Ryan Waller.
00:33:10
Speaker
Now, I've mentioned throughout the past several minutes, there is a lot of misinformation out there. Even in official news channels, you'll see stuff reported like Ryan Waller had a plethora of weapons in his house. Even in his interrogation, Officer Dalton asks him if he has a lot of weapons at home and he says no. Don Waller says that the only weapon his son had was a handgun that was a gift to him from his grandfather. He did not have a ton of weapons. You'll see that reported widely.
00:33:40
Speaker
That's just not true. I found a lot of this information in the This Is Monsters documentary slash podcast. You can find it in video form on YouTube and then in podcast form pretty much wherever you can listen to podcasts. Sierra and I both try to not use podcasts as sources.
00:33:56
Speaker
just because oftentimes it's very easy to hear a podcaster's opinion and if you don't realize that it's an opinion you can consider it a fact and that's how you get misinformation being spread like crazy. However, considering that the podcaster interviewed Ryan's father Don Waller or Donald Don Waller, I decided to use this podcast as a source.
00:34:18
Speaker
in the interest of accurately expressing the feelings and opinions of the Waller family and Heather Kwan's family and those directly affected by Richie and Larry Carver, I thought it was necessary to use this podcast and specifically quotes from his interview. I highly recommend you go watch the interrogation video and listen or watch this documentary podcast. It's filled with great information about Ryan Waller, the case, and that's where you can get some solid information about what happened to Ryan Waller after the fact.
00:34:48
Speaker
Unfortunately, Ryan Waller did pass away in 2016 due to injuries sustained from his gunshot wound.
00:34:58
Speaker
So this did happen in 2006, so he did live for another 10 years after. But his quality, it's closer than 90 years because he passed away in January and this happened on Christmas of 2006. His quality of life was definitely lessened. Don Waller says that the rhyme was like someone with Alzheimer's and he would just tell the same story over and over again because he couldn't quite remember telling it before.
00:35:20
Speaker
He also had a seizure disorder, which is ultimately what led to his death. His father said he suffered many injuries. At one point he bit off half of his tongue, which is not uncommon for people with seizures that they'll accidentally bite themselves. It's unfortunately a common injury. He said at one point he got his foot stuck in between the posts of a bed and it broke his ankle. And then the injury that
00:35:48
Speaker
ultimately ended his life. He suffered a seizure in a grocery store and he ended up hitting his head on the ground like a cement grocery store floor. He had to get 40 stitches in his head and it caused a brain bleed which led to his passing on January 20th of 2016. He was only 27 years old.
00:36:09
Speaker
That's awful. After he passed away, the family could have brought murder charges against Larry and Richie Carver because their actions did directly lead to their son's death. They chose not to though, just because it would have been expensive a drawn out process and they were already serving a life term. So they felt that was adequate and it wasn't likely to change. They wasn't going to change their sentence.
00:36:31
Speaker
Right.
Family's Legal Battle: Justice System's Flaws
00:36:32
Speaker
So just to clear up a few facts that we found or that I found after the fact, because I'm going to tell you right now, it didn't take me that much longer to find all this information. But my first dive into this, I missed a lot. And I would have been sitting here telling you, oh, Richie Carver was his roommate. He wasn't. There was a lot of guns in the house. There was this, that or the other, because that's what's widely reported even from reputable news sources.
00:36:59
Speaker
Because it's just untrue now from here on out we're gonna talk about some facts then after that we're gonna get into some opinion cuz I really want to know what serious opinion is about some of this but So here's a few things that Don Waller specifically
00:37:14
Speaker
Um, gave us some insight too. Remember when we mentioned a random Ashley? And then that kind of brings Ryan in the interrogation where Dalton references an Ashley, he means Alicia, but he says Ashley. And then that's when Ryan starts saying, oh, Ashley is so-and-so's daughter. Yes.
00:37:33
Speaker
According to Don Waller, Ryan had a stepsister named Ashley and this is common with brain injuries where he has that piece of information and he's trying to fill it in so he knows Ashley is someone's daughter. Oh, I see.
00:37:48
Speaker
So that led to some confusion, some him just trying to fill in information. And then throughout this is several points where Ryan is talking and this is it. So some common misconceptions that you'll hear is you'll hear that Richie was Ryan's roommate and that they had bad blood. Incorrect, Richie was just a previous tenant of the home Ryan rented. You'll hear that Ryan had many guns in the home. That is false, according to Don Waller.
00:38:13
Speaker
He only had one gun and it was a gift from his grandfather. Another thing you'll see is that Ryan lost both of his eyes. This is incorrect.
00:38:23
Speaker
He only lost his left eye, which is the eye he was shot in. His right eye, according to Don, was removed during surgery, but then placed back in. So he could see out of his right eye. That is crazy to me. Just brain swelling, man. It's insane. Oh. Heather had likely never met Richie. You'll see that Richie had made a pass at Heather, and that's why Ryan was angry at him. That's why Ryan kicked him out of their shared home. Incorrect. It is unlikely Heather ever met Richie.
00:38:53
Speaker
Another thing you'll see is that this happened on the 23rd. That Ryan and Heather were shot on the 23rd and were not found until the 25th. Which, that's a long time for Ryan to be walking around with a bullet in his brain. Precisely.
00:39:09
Speaker
now. So how do we know it was not the 23rd? This comes from Heather's initial autopsy, Ryan Waller's father, and just Ryan Waller's injuries. Initially, Heather Kwan's autopsy showed that she died between 5 o'clock and 8 pm on the 25th. That was the date they believed her to have passed.
00:39:32
Speaker
Now, after they found out Ryan Waller had been shot in the face and then held in police custody for six hours, and not to go on a rabbit trail, that's another reason, another thing you'll hear a lot, that he was interrogated for six hours.
00:39:45
Speaker
Not true. He was in custody for six hours, so he wasn't just interrogated for six continuous hours. He was in a police car for four hours, brought back to the station for two, and then interrogated for an hour. But then after they found out Ryan Waller had been shot in the eye and he'd been in police custody for six hours before receiving medical treatment, those days got backdated. According to Don Waller, now, why would they be backdated, you ask?
00:40:11
Speaker
That's a great question. The Waller family sued the Phoenix Police Department and the city for $15 million, which I find to be reasonable.
00:40:21
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, Ryan's state of life was completely altered and he died an early death. Right. And you think about medical bills and just treatment and he had a continuing disability because of it. So it's not publicly reported, but Don Waller confirmed they were suing $15 million against the Phoenix Police Department and the City of Phoenix for the mishandling of Ryan's case.
00:40:45
Speaker
Three weeks before they were set to go to trial, the City of Phoenix brought in a document that says that the six hours Ryan was in police custody did not have any effect on his brain injury. The judge sided with the city and dismissed the case three weeks before trial was set to begin. I'm not a brain surgeon. But Don Waller said that he had a doctor that he had paid $10,000 on retainer out of pocket to review
00:41:15
Speaker
Ryan's injuries who says that every second in a TBI or traumatic brain injury is critical because when your brain is bleeding it is swelling and so every second every minute every hour that you are bleeding and swelling that's causing more damage. We also find out from
00:41:33
Speaker
Don Waller, that Ryan's eye socket had broken, six pieces of his eye socket were in his brain, a chunk of his skull. The second bullet hit his head, took a chunk of his skull, but did not strike his brain.
00:41:46
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Took a chunk of his brain or did not, took a chunk of his skull but did not damage his brain. Another thing is they were not able to operate on Ryan until the 28th of December. So for an additional three days he sat there with pieces of brain and pieces of skull in his brain because infection had set in through his nasal cavity. So his dad believed since the bullet went through his nose and through a sinus cavity and then into his brain
00:42:14
Speaker
that brought with it, you know, obviously some bacteria that could have been within his sinus cavity which led to an infection much but they couldn't operate. So his, the doctor he brought in said every second, every hour counts, those six hours could have been vital to even just that infection not setting in and saving him from an additional three days without operation.
00:42:33
Speaker
There's also something known as the golden hour within the first hour of a brain injury or that you want to seek treatment. You want to get that addressed because the longer you wait, the more damage you're doing because you have something sitting in your brain matter. Yeah. Makes sense. But this judge was okay with saying, I believe it was an in-state doctor that don't quote me on that, but that's what John Waller said.
00:42:58
Speaker
those six hours did not have any effect and the judge agreed and dismissed the case. The Wallers could have sued again. They chose not to because had they lost, all of the state's legal fees would have fallen on them and would have just destroyed them. And they felt that the deck was clearly stacked
Police Procedures and Medical Neglect: A Critical View
00:43:18
Speaker
against them. So the state is basically saying,
00:43:20
Speaker
Oh, well Ryan was shot on the 23rd. So those six hours didn't do anything. And they're basing that date off of a pizza was ordered to that address and that's the last time somebody saw Ryan and Heather was when they paid for that pizza. And no one heard from them on the 24th. And Ryan's dad says, yeah, he's 18. It's not unusual to go out of contact with someone for 24 hours.
00:43:42
Speaker
And I would agree. I mean, I live states away from my family. I keep in regular contact with them. Probably too much contact. Sorry, Mom. And if I were to go 24 hours without texting my mother, she would not think anything of it.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes I go for a few days without contacting my family and then I'm like, oh, I should probably, you know, see how they're doing and let them know I'm alive still. Right. I have like siblings that I haven't spoken to directly in months and I'm like, they're fine. Like it's not unusual. It's not weird. Oh, no one, no one spoke to them on the 24th. I mean, I guess there was no proof that they looked into cell phone records or something and said that, oh, nothing happened on their phones from the 24th to the 25th. But an autopsy initially found that Heather had died on the 25th.
00:44:26
Speaker
And that is not easy to determine, but easily determined. You know, through body temperature, lividity, things like that, how long someone has been deceased. And so the initial autopsy said, you know, she died between five o'clock and eight o'clock. Secondary autopsy report shows anywhere from the 23rd to the 25th. So she still could have died on the 25th, according to the second autopsy. Yes, but they're saying, oh, the 23rd. Because
00:44:55
Speaker
that fits their narrative a bit better and it takes some of the culpability off of the police department. And again, this information is coming from Don Waller and he is directly linked to this case that is his son. Yeah. Has a financial stake in this. However, the initial autopsy does say that she passed away on the 25th. And remember how I said, remember how the detective kept referring to what happened last night? Yes, at the time they believed it was the 25th.
00:45:22
Speaker
Yes. So at that point I feel it's convenient. I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
00:45:31
Speaker
I don't believe usually in governmental conspiracy, I'm not usually one to tear down police departments, but the Phoenix police department as of 2021 was being investigated by the FBI for misconduct on multiple levels, not just this case. And the detective Dalton also has a several, has a few allegations against him for misconduct involving different cases. Oh, the officer that was interrogating him?
00:45:58
Speaker
Also, according to Don Waller, he said that he lied, that he lied when being interviewed by a lawyer. He said that the, again, I didn't find this document, this is coming directly from the this is monsters documentary, where he, Detective Dalton said that the firefighters didn't believe that he'd been shot in the face.
00:46:19
Speaker
in that they said that it probably wasn't, but they'd taken it to the hospital anyway. That's on video. They don't say that. And again, as much as I don't want to believe that this was mishandled or covered up in any way to kind of save the police and face, it's a very either way the ball was dropped.
00:46:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Even if he was shot on the 23rd, he should have been taken to the hospital as soon as possible with those injuries. Like he was showing, he clearly showed signs of at least having a concussion. Any sort of brain injury should be taken care of. She had pretty clear signs of something called aphasia. Are you familiar with that?
00:46:58
Speaker
I am not. It's when you have a brain injury and you are filling in the wrong word from your mind, but you don't quite realize it. So if I were to have suffered a concussion or some sort of TBI and I could be saying literally anything, but think that I'm saying something else. I could think in my head that I said, how are you doing? But I've actually said like pan dinosaur purple because my mind is just filling in words. I see.
00:47:24
Speaker
So that's, and he shows signs of that throughout where he gets names wrong, he says things backwards, or he says that Heather is Richie's dad's daughter, or Ashley is Richie's dad's daughter. When he says Eric instead of Richie, and when a couple details get switched, that's a sign of aphasia.
00:47:42
Speaker
But yeah, there's a couple of things that definitely could have been done better. The ball was definitely dropped and I don't think it's unfair to say that. I don't think it's overly antagonistic to say that the ball was dropped. If it was just his injuries, I would not have thought, if you showed me that man's face and said he's been shot in the face twice, I would not have believed you. Right, I wouldn't have either.
00:48:01
Speaker
If you told me he got into a fight and got the snot beat out of him, I would have definitely believed you. He looks like he's been in some sort of assault, but he doesn't like, he's not what you would consider someone who has a gunshot wound to the head. So if they just said, oh, well, we thought he was fine.
00:48:19
Speaker
Another thing I want to bring up, I had not seen this anywhere in my initial research, but Ryan Waller also had a broken jaw at the time of his, his dad was called to the hospital the day after, it was the 26th, so the day after he'd gone to his house. And he said he got a call from the hospital at 703 in the morning.
00:48:37
Speaker
and the hospital said that his son was in critical condition and he went down to the hospital and they were explaining his injuries and they say that he has these gunshot wounds he has brain damage and things like this they're saying that he has a gunshot wound he's got this black eye his eyes his left eye is damaged he has pieces of his own eye socket in his brain and then they tell me as a broken jaw and he asks how that's related because there's if you look at the photos there's not injuries to the lower half like from
00:49:04
Speaker
his nose now. There's no injuries. His dad had gotten his hands on the police report and it said that when Ryan lets them in the house he would not comply with police commands to get on the ground. He just kept asking what's going on.
00:49:18
Speaker
which we know now he had suffered a traumatic brain injury that's not strange but they had to take him to the ground which means force and then they wanted him to put his hands behind his back and he wouldn't comply which is not
00:49:35
Speaker
Strange, he has a traumatic brain injury. But as far as they know, he's just being belligerent. And again, this is them looking at him as the culprit, not someone who could have possibly been also attacked. So the officer notes that he had to use a tactic to get him to stop talking. And what he did, there's a pressure point along your jaw that you can push your thumb into. And he did that. He issued that maneuver on Ryan Waller.
00:50:03
Speaker
And his father believes that is why his jaw is broken. Because that was something that they had done to his son. But you don't see that jaw, like his jaw being broken, reported anywhere. Oh my goodness. And I don't know. What really gets me, again, we're done with all the facts. This is just opinion. What really gets me is no one's going to blame you. Well, I won't say no one. Rational people are not going to blame the police department for not recognizing it immediately as a gunshot wound.
00:50:33
Speaker
oh no I would never have guessed that he was shot in the head because I would have assumed if you were shot in the head you would just be dead or at least have signs of like I would not have thought those two wounds on his nose were bullet holes oh yeah no it looks strange especially like when the head is concerned I mean smaller bullets can result in smaller wounds but even the difference between an entry and an exit wound it doesn't look that different
00:50:57
Speaker
Yeah. But it's, but you can be held callable for the fact that, I don't know, even if it had been a 20 minute interrogation at his like, or an hour long interrogation at the level of where his head was at, I still think that's ridiculous. That's more understandable than we left him in a police cruiser for four hours, we took pictures of him for an hour, or what have you and then interrogated him for another hour before we decided to get him help.
00:51:22
Speaker
This is after his family had called eight o'clock and then they didn't show up till about midnight and then they didn't get into the house for like another hour hour and a half after that.
00:51:31
Speaker
And I don't understand if it's just Phoenix law, I highly doubt it. But you can get, they stopped and they got that warrant to enter into that house. Now Ryan did not own that house he was renting, which could be part of it. But there is law set in place that if you have, as a police officer, reason to believe someone within the house is injured or needs assistance, you are allowed to enter the premises.
00:51:57
Speaker
That was actually something I didn't understand when you were first telling me because I assumed for a wellness check you could just enter the premises. That's what I would assume when you're not getting an answer. That was very odd to me. So especially when the one officer looked in the window and said there's a body, they waited 54 minutes according to Don Waller to get a warrant to enter the home. And then they waited for a police, like a lock pick to come.
00:52:23
Speaker
Yeah, that was the other thing. I was like, why couldn't they just break down the door once they had the warrant? For some reason, they chose not to. And this might be something we need to explore in a future Tangent Tuesday, like what the laws are as far as entry and all of that goes. As far as I understand, they were covered by that law.
00:52:39
Speaker
Okay. There is no reason that they should not have been able to enter that home. Why they chose to go about it the way they did and because when the officer said there's a body there, or I think there's a body there, his parents were removed from the scene. So they'd already established this as an act of crime scene. And Alicia, at that point, I didn't go into this earlier because it's kind of a lot of details and we're going back and forth with different dialogues. But she was home. And she had entered the home.
00:53:05
Speaker
and not thought anything was wrong. And Alicia and Ryan both say that this had to have happened on the 25th.
00:53:14
Speaker
So wait, she entered the home on the 25th. So was she gone while Richie and Larry were entering? Right. Don Waller believes there's like a 15 minute gap where they've been standing in front of the house from like 8 o'clock to 11 something when the cops came to check it out. There's a 15 minute break where they went to go get coffee and they missed her going in the house. So had that happened,
00:53:37
Speaker
it's very sad because had that happened you know they would have called the police but then they probably could have gotten an ambulance for their son because they weren't allowed to see him after because he was brought out of the house and put in that cop car and Dom Waller says that he was he was sitting on one end of a cul-de-sac and his wife was on the other and she was telling him it's Ryan it's Ryan because he couldn't see because his face was so
00:54:01
Speaker
his face was so badly bruised. And so we put him in a cop car, he tries to walk up to talk to his son, and a cop gets in his face, and he tells him, you know, you can't talk to your son, but then kind of like puffs up his chest and is getting aggressive with him. And you really listen to that podcast and documentary by They Were Monsters, or
00:54:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm going to have to give that a listen. This is insane. I'm sorry, this is monsters. Go ahead and give that a listen because he says I'm standing there with tears falling down my face because my son is in whatever situation this is. And I got this man trying to try to fight me. And so which again, you can't let somebody go talk to a suspect. Right. Yeah, I can. Oh, sorry. Go on.
00:54:47
Speaker
Well, I was going to say I can see both sides to this. Like you understand he didn't he does seem to be the prime suspect. He doesn't look like he's been shot in the head. And yes, like you said, you can't let the parents or anybody onto the crime scene. So I can understand why the police did most of what they did. I just think he should have been taken to the hospital way sooner.
00:55:04
Speaker
Innocent until proven guilty was not taken into consideration in this case. However, you can't. It's my personal belief that they were at least a little bit aware that he was concussed and maybe thought it'd be easier to get the confession out of him. That's all speculation. Because he could have and should have been brought to the hospital. Ron Waller also says when he was in the hospital, no one came to speak to him about anything until after he was out of the hospital.
00:55:27
Speaker
which meant that for over a month after killing Heather Kwan and brutally injuring Ryan Waller, Larry and Richie Carver were free to do whatever they wanted.
00:55:39
Speaker
And Richie already had a record, so he most likely would do something again, or there was a good chance of it. Right, he's already committed a murder. I mean, he can't go much further than that. He's already got a long rap sheet, he's committed a murder, and it was all for financial gain. You can see where they try and put a revenge aspect on this, but there really isn't one.
00:55:59
Speaker
there was no previous history that would require that kind of revenge, or not require, but, you know, where you would see someone wanting that kind of revenge. So it's just, it's absolutely crazy.
Reflections on Justice: Impact and Reforms
00:56:09
Speaker
And it's very, very sad that Heather Kwan's death is covered up by this kind of whole police conspiracy of misconduct and Ryan Waller's interrogation and this, that, and the other, and that the Waller family has suffered multiple times. They have no justice for this.
00:56:25
Speaker
that people who killed their son aren't even in prison for his murder, which that was their choice not to re-go into court for that, but they don't have the assistance for his finances and the financial burden that would have been. I mean, it would have been a financial burden. They're not expecting to have to care for their son and pay medical bills for an injury that
00:56:46
Speaker
harshly changed his life. It's absolutely tragic. It's tragic and it's senseless and it's very sad that this is the story that we're telling today. But again, go watch that video. Because when you think of interrogation gone wrong, you think of this whole mentality of a police officer who's aggressive and violent. But there's no violence in this. There's just straight up misconduct. There's just straight up
00:57:16
Speaker
mishandling of facts and evidence and not giving someone to the hospital in time, which ironically, Larry Carver, when they went to go arrest him, he ran and they sent dogs after him. And he was bitten by one of the dogs. So before he was taken into police custody for interrogation, he was sent to the hospital. But he was sent immediately. Well, probably because it was the police forces dogs that did it. Yeah. But that is a procedure. It's very sad. I mean,
00:57:47
Speaker
I don't know. It's a different story. I think if the Phoenix Police Department had come out here and said we messed this one up or or even if they had like the kind of response of oh we didn't know we followed procedure but then there's also kind of this seems to be this covering up of oh well
00:58:04
Speaker
any and all culpability because those six hours shouldn't make any difference to his overall diagnosis. Yeah, which again, I would disagree with. I mean, again, I'm not a medical professional, but even if he had been shot on the 23rd, which I do feel is doubtful that he would have lasted that long in the condition as good of a condition that he was on the 25th. But even if he were shot on the 23rd, six hours could still make a big difference.
00:58:32
Speaker
Right. And it's just the four hours in the police car. I mean, this could have been a two hour situation had they immediately brought him back to precinct and interrogated him then. And again, I don't know. I don't have a lack of faith in my police department. Right. But policemen are people as well. Like they make mistakes. And I'm wondering if this has altered the procedures for that police department at all, or other police departments, if this has made them more mindful of dealing with injuries.
00:59:00
Speaker
A lot of this came up in 2021, and it's now 2023. I've not found any update, so to speak, on what exactly has happened there. I know there was a review done by the FBI to check the procedures are being followed. And at the very least, if anything needed to be tightened up after that, I'm sure if the FBI is breathing down your neck, you're going to be like, all right, let's fix that. I mean, ultimately, the only thing that could have prevented all this was Richie and Larry Carver not being murderers.
00:59:27
Speaker
thieves yeah, it's very very sad yes, it is very sad and For a little while I forgot about Heather while we were going through everything that was happening with Ryan But that's the other thing to remember is that a woman did lose her life
00:59:41
Speaker
Well, and Ryan lost his life as well, just later. It's very sad for both families. Yes, it's very sad. We have Heather's Law, and I'm really, really glad for that. Maybe one day we'll get Ryan's Law and something on that side will be pushed forward about head injuries and handling interrogation in that regard, or I don't even know. But that is the story of Ryan Waller and Heather Kwon. Yeah, really look at that. This is Monster's podcast documentary and then also
01:00:11
Speaker
the interrogation video itself. I was very lucky the first time I saw that interrogation video. I went into it. It was just like the next thing. I was watching other interrogation videos on YouTube and it was Brian Waller interrogation and I almost didn't watch it because it was an hour long. But I did and I didn't let myself read the comments.
01:00:29
Speaker
Which is good because I really should have, but that would have, you know, everyone in the comments has obviously an outpouring of support for his parents or just outrage that this happened to him. But I did not know, watching that interrogation, that he had a bullet in his head at that very moment. So it's just wild that. Yeah.
Episode Conclusion: Teaser for David Leonard Wood Case
01:00:49
Speaker
also yes at the very least the good if we have to put a good spin on it that i'm sure this has changed some police officer's point of view when it comes to head injuries that someone could be more injured even if they are answering your questions and following your directives that wraps up this week's case next week sierra is going to be talking about david leonard wood if i remember to
01:01:10
Speaker
Yes, he is also known as the desert killer. He will be the first serial killer that we are talking about. And his case is interesting because although he was sentenced to death, he passed his execution date. He is still alive. No execution date has been no new execution date has been set. And next week we will get into why.
01:01:31
Speaker
Alright, this is really interesting. I'm not too familiar with this case, which I think will be good because usually I know too much about these things. Don't look anything up before then. Alright, that wraps it up for this week. Remember, be aware, take care and we'll see you next week. Bye.