Zone 7 Legends: Detective Lindsey Wade

my mom was door to door. Could just jump in real quick, get the shoes, get back in the car, and go. Well, little did I know that I was about to witness my first death notification. Sheila was in the driver's seat with the windows down. Me and Shelley were in the back seat. We were five and six and we were singing a Livington John saw If you love me, let me know. I noticed a young boy walking up to the driver's side and he said to Sheila, Hey, Sheila,

how are you doing. She recognized him immediately instantly, and she was happy. She said, Hey, I'm just home from college for Christmas break. What are you up to? His face changed and he said, you haven't heard now. Sheila was still smiling, but not as big, and she had a little concern in her voice, and she said heard what. And the young boy with long brown hair leaned into the car and touched Sheila on the arm and said, Ginger's been murdered. Ginger and her mom they were shot. Well,

the next several hours were just awful. They were scary, they were confusing. There were rumors, there were some real details, and the reality was rushing at all of us. Fifteen years later, I was an intern for Max Clear in the Secretary of State and there was a gentleman by the name of Joe Drola who was the legislative liaison for the DA's office. He was always funny, really bright, and always had a story. I always loved running into him.

Four years later, I was working for the Crime Commission and I would have the good fortune of working alongside Joe on many cases. Ironically, Joe was the assistant distric attorney who convicted the killers that had murdered my sister's friend, Ginger and her mother. I always had this overwhelming need to thank him for the job that he did on that case. A death penalty case, and one late afternoon

I had the ability to do that. It was just the two of us in an office, and I broke the subject, and he immediately started talking about those murders, and he told me things I had never known. He was kind, he was smart, he was honest, He was compassionate, and he spoke about this family with nothing but love and concern. He was a true advocate. I admire Joe his legal mind, but mostly his compassion. Sometimes in your

life there will be full circle moments that you could never predict. My guest has had a full circle career, and you ain't gonna believe it. She has written a book that I could not put down, y'all. I ran through that thing in a day. Lindsay Wade is a retired detective with fourteen years at a Seattle, Washington. She has arrested numerous cerrial rapists and cold blooded killers, and it says right there on the sleeve of her book she ain't never back down. She retired in twenty eighteen,

but she didn't go fishing. She went to Attorney General's office as a senior investigator over the Sake program and solved even more serial rate cases and cold cases. Lindsay Wade had my undivided attention from Jump Street and she never let it go. Detective Lindsay Wade, Welcome to Zone seven. Thank you so much for having me. I'm gonna tell

you something. I was so honored you sent me an advanced copy of that book In My DNA, My Career Investigating your Worst Nightmares. It was listen. You know how you hear a song and you think, gosh, that literally was written for me, like word for word. Everything about it just made me think of my own career. That's how I felt reading your book. Oh, I'm so glad now, Detective Wade, can you tell us when your book will

be available, because again I got me an advanced copy. Yes, so it actually is available for pre order right now through the publisher at one Idea press dot com. So you can actually pre order a copy that will be signed by me. Those will ship out by April thirtieth. The book will be available for purchase online and in bookstores May thirtieth. Her book in My DNA, Chapter one, line one, and I quote Dad, Dad, there's a man

in my room. So you run into your parents bedroom and your parents basically try to calm you down, like, honey, there's no monster, there's nobody in there. Right. Tell everybody what your dad found on the recliner. Pocket knife. Now, y'all, if that ain't a heart stopping moment for a parent. You've got this little bitty girl running in your bedroom like children will do. They're scared, you know, they think

they heard Something's all something. You calm them down, put them back in bed, and you just walk the house just to make sure, and you find a pocket knife on your recliner. Well, you know, the strange sank Cheryl is that I don't think he found the pocket knife until the next day, and you know later when we talked about it, because believe it or not, this is

not something we talked about. When I was a kid kind of got I feel like swept under the rug, and my parents had sort of put together what happened unbeknownst to me. You know, my dad started putting the pieces together, finding some strange things happening at our house during that time. But you know, and he eventually figured out who was in the house. But I didn't know

any of this stuff at the time. You know, in my mind, I'm just thinking if I know what I saw, I know what happened, and nobody really seemed to believe me. So it was, Yeah, it was. It was. It was scary, horrifying. And you know, sometimes parents think, well, if we do, you know, don't ever mention it again. Maybe she'll just forget about it and won't worry about it, when the reality is, little children always know more than way think they know, and especially in your kids, I think you

had that detective mind as a little child. Yeah, I mean I think definitely from an early age I was I had an interest in crime, and you know, by the time I was in high school, no doubt, I

was reading about Ted Bundy. And you know, I actually had a friend who, at one point in high school said, in a joking way, you know, you're going to become a detective one day and you're gonna end up solving my murder, you know, which is just a bizarre thing to say. But that stands out to me as you know, something that I was on the path to way back when as a teenager, and that's a remarkable another teenager could see that in you. That's kind of cool. All right,

Let's get to chapter two where you say quote. Up until that point, I didn't know that evil existed or that monsters were real. Tell us what you're talking about there. One of the things that happened during my childhood. There were two young girls in my community who were murdered back in nineteen eighty six, and I didn't know either one of the girls, but I was familiar with the area, definitely familiar with the park where one of the girls was killed, and they were kind of like urban legends,

you know, in my community. I mean, I think most communities have those cases, right that like everybody knows about.

They're just long unsolved, this mystery and kind of a black cloud that hangs over the town or the community, and everybody seems to have like some little nugget of information or connection to the case, right like, oh, my sister's best friend went to school with her, or I don't know if that's if that you know, it's true where you are, But in Tacoma, it's not a small town, but it's a small enough town that there's always it's not six degrees of separation, it's like one degree of separation,

so there's always some connection. And that's kind of how these cases were where It doesn't matter where you go, it doesn't matter who you talk to. I could walk into any bar in Tacoma and if I said the names of these two girls, there would be at the least a half dozen people in there that knew what I was talking about. There's several cases like that that

I'm fully aware of as well. And to your point, somebody went to school with them, somebody dated their older sibling, somebody went to church with them, was in Scouts with them, lived in the same community next door. So yeah, I mean you got a small town. You're absolutely right, one degree of separation. When I look back to my childhood, you know, these are cases that really left a mark because they were It was so terrifying, you know, to

be young. I mean I was eleven. The thought that you know, a twelve year old and a thirteen year old could just be out, you know, for a bike ride or you know, visiting a local park and somebody snatches them in broad daylight and they're you know, they're never seen again. And with Michelle, she was found later the same evening by search and rescue, but Jennifer was missing for almost a month before she was found. And you know, so it was just those cases. They were

just so horrific. Community was on edge because everybody thought there was a serial killer on the loose. You know, we already had Green River, the Green River Killer going in the background at that same time in our area. I mean, if you think about it from that perspective, we've already had Ted Bundy, he's coming gone. We have the Green River Killer, you know, at work at that time, and then we've got these two girls that are abducted and murdered and nobody is apprehended. There were a lot

of questions and it was just flat out scary. And you know, as a young kid, you don't understand victimology. You don't understand jurisdictional things. All you know is a girl got killed or a woman got killed, and it's horrible, and it's on the news and it's you know, in the paper, and that could have been me. I go ride my bike all the time, I've been to that park.

I went to daycamp at that park. You just picture yourself and not only does it kind of change the way you view the world, but it changes the way that your parents act, and you know, the way other parents act. One hundred percent. There was a lot of free range parenting. Prior to that. The kids ran out

the door, and I mean you went all through the neighborhood. Nobody had a cell phone, you know, I got to I was pretty pretty free to do what I wanted. I mean, I had to check in at certain times, but that was about it. Our rule growing up. We were encouraged get out of the house and come home when the street light turns on in front of our house, right, That was basically the rule. And we had five girls

in my family. And to your point, we had a horrible serial killer in Atlanta from nineteen seventy nine to eighty one, Wayne Williams, killing young African American boys, and I'm in a house of five Caucasian girls. My mom was completely freaked out during those times, even though I wasn't a little kid. I was in high school, but she didn't care. All she knew in her mind as a mama was somebody was killing children. And she would always say, you know, y'all go in a group, y'all

stay in a group. And again, I mean, I wasn't a criminologist then, but I mean I kind of understood. I'm pretty sure I'm probably safe from this guy. But my mama absolutely thought every child was in danger. And that's kind of disconcerting for kids too, to see like their neighbors parents are afraid, and people at church are afraid, people you know at school, or afraid like adults. I mean,

that is a little unsettling. It is, you know, and especially when you see, you know, kind of the way parents viewed things, and you know, you don't really know I was a kid, you don't get that perspective. You just know that all of a sudden, Okay, well now things have changed, and you know, you're not allowed to go ride your bike alone anymore, or you can't walk to Baskin Robbins by yourself, or you know, to seven

eleven to get a slurpee. It's you know, and you know, for me, I don't particularly remember my parents saying like you can't do this or you can't do that. I just know that I had my own personal fear after that happened, where like I didn't want to go anywhere

by myself. I don't know how it couldn't, but I think it also probably whether you were aware at the time or not, shaped the way you weren't the case looking back on these other moments, you know, with Jennifer and Michelle and this, you know, the incident where I wake up and find this guy standing at the foot of my bed. You know, all of those things I'm sure came into play at least, you know, in my subconscious just kind of changing, you know, the way I

view the world. So here's another quote that I love you said. During the search of the vehicle, we found

six rolls of various kinds of tape, thin white rope, a black handle butcher knife under the driver's seat. It's a rape kit. I also observed the interior passenger side

door handle was missing. What are you piecing together there? Well, that was an interesting case that was a serial rapist, and I think I don't know if it was that case or another case, but I talked about some similarities, you know, another case where the door either the door handle was disabled or it was missing, and you know, I just was thinking to myself, Holy cow, is there is there a playbook? I mean, how do these guys

know how to do this? I mean, this is this is like, you know, is there a class that they take where, you know, like serial rapist one oh one, you know, you hear, this is what you need to have in your rate kit, and then you know, let's think about how to disable locks and door handles and things I got in your vehicle that really scared the

hell out of me. Those kinds of details stand out because that's not your And I hate to ever say typical rape, but when I hear something like that, or hear a detail like that, that makes the hair on the back of my next stand up, because that tells me this is somebody that's got a lot of victims, and this is somebody that it is at a different level. This isn't like an opportunistic predator. This is somebody that this is their job to be a predator, right, And

they're preparing that vehicle as a cage. And you know, you don't have to be in this business too long, and you learn there is a playbook, and there are certain things for whatever reason, they all do, like domestic violence. There's things they all say. If I can't have you, nobody'll have you. There's things they do. They threatened to take the children, they threatened to hurt the pet, They threatened to hurt the pet in front of the children.

Rapists tend to do similar things too that want you lock in on it, you know what you're looking at. And I think that's a great point you're making. All right, let's go to chapter seven where you right quote I would go to the crime scene to get a feel for the area, since I didn't have the advantage of being there when the crime occurred. Detective I tell people all the time, if you don't walt that scene, you're not going to understand it. The perpetrator picked that place,

he picked that time, he picked that hour, he picked that victim. So if you go there, you can get insight to him. So kind of walk us through the importance for you of walking that crime scene from a cold case. I mean, I think there are a few different reasons to do it. You know. For one thing,

photographs are only going to show you so much. You can't really understand what the environment is truly like unless you go there, and certainly in some cases the environment is one hundred percent different by the time I'm going back out there on a cold case, right Like, the business may be gone, but you still can understand what's you know, what's in the immediate area. You can understand is this a residential area? You know, is there a

freeway nearby? What else is nearby? What kind of business is, what kind of neighborhood is this, what's the activity like? So I think that's really important. You know. The other thing that's really important, I think is, you know, you're going to be evaluating witness statements and things of that nature. You want to be able to go, you know, to the location to see if it even makes sense, if what someone's telling you. Especially, you know, I had a

cold case where witness came forward. I think it was maybe twenty years after the fact. And this was a case that I was able to close, and there was no DNA evidence or anything like that. It was just based on very strong, circumstantial evidence and witness statements and things of that nature. But this witness described this particular location and that it was remote and you know, there were certain a certain way you had to get back there.

I couldn't just take his word for it. I had to go out there and see, you know, does it really you know, do I have to actually take the route that he's talking about to get out there? Does he know what he's talking about? Does it make sense? Or you know, could this be made up? So I think going out to the scene also will help you

evaluate the validity of someone's information. The other thing, and probably you know what you were talking about initially is kind of being able to get into that mindset of the offender. And you know, that was probably the primary reason for me to go in some cases to visit some of the scenes multiple times, because I just wanted to be out there at different times of the day.

I wanted to be out there to see what it sounded like, what the you know, activity level was like, who else could see me when I was out there, just to try to kind of put myself in the mindset what happened here? You know, why did the victims stop here? You know, how did they connect? What could have caused the victim to stop on this deserted road? Did the offender user ruse? Was it a blitz attack? Like? You know, running through all those different possibilities is easier

when you're there and you're inside the environment. And to your point, we had a cold case where the police report said the car was in an open area when it was set on fire, trying to hide the initial crime. Well, you know, in your head, to me an open area, are you talking about a football field, and is the car in the middle of it on fire where nobody would have seen the smoke or notice the car? Is it surrounded by woods? You know? Well, when I drove to it, I'm in a residential area, and I mean

there's house after house, like really close together. When we get to the spot where the car was found, it's literally like a double driveway, and I'm like, this ain't an area. This is like a small clearing, you know. And so again it completely flipped who I thought the perpetrator was because this person drove there because they knew that spot and they knew where to run to get back to a house. So in that regard, it changed everything. This was not a way out of the way dumping

ground that a lot of people use. This was a quick spot that I could get back to Mama's house. One thing, and this is another reason for the Legend series.

But you are absolutely brilliant at utilizing resources, and you do so many smart things, like you use somebody to help you create a timeline that includes documents from law enforcement, Department of Corrections, employment history, vehicle registration, address history. Can you tell us who you use and how that came about.

My two go to places for getting timelines done was the FBI, so the ViCAP unit, they were fantastic at putting together really comprehensive timelines, and the National Center for Missing Exported Children. If it was a you know, a crime that involved a missing child or an abductive child, they were just absolutely fantastic because you know, they can pull those journal searches and offline searches going back to nineteen ninety. Whatever information you can provide them they can

incorporate into the timeline. So you know, they don't have access to your local law enforcement databases, you know, RMS systems and things like that. They can incorporate what you've already compiled with the resources that they've got access too. But again, for somebody that's been a detective about a week and a half, that's something for them to have in their toolbox. Yeah. Absolutely, that maybe they don't realize

the National Center can do. And you talk about you know, VYCAP and sake, I mean, you utilize every single thing and I have one mantra. I have several, but I have one that says every tool on every case, every time. Yes, absolutely, you're the master at that I'm telling you. Look, I mean, here's the thing. It's like nobody knows it all, nobody

has the answers to it all. And so I think that you know, the best way to be successful in this business is to have a really good rolodex or in this case, you know, a really good contact list on your phone of people you can call people that you know that they know their business. They can help you do whatever it is that you need to get done, because you know you can't do it all yourself. So

tell us about the John Doe warrant. This is another thing that you did a couple of times that I thought everybody needs to hear that and just be reminded. It always surprises me when I talk with one perstman and you know, I end up talking with detectives and there are still people that are not familiar with John Doe warrants. Basically, it's a warrant that is something to stop the statute of limitations on a case. So it's a case where you've developed probable cause to make an arrest.

You just don't know who the person is, but you have their DNA profile. So instead of John Smith going on, you know, as the name of the person being charged. It's John Doe with their DNA profile listed in the John Doe warrant. And that warrant just stops the statute of limitations so that if later on down the road the person is finally identified through DNA or other means, they can be charged even if the statute of limitations has run out. And that's the thing that I want

young detectives to hear. It stops the statue of limitations from running out. Another thing that happened with you. You find out that the Department of Corrections gets DNA from inmates upon release, not upon entry. Now a lot of people would learn that and go, God, that's truly not a great plan. Somebody ought to do something about that. But when you hear about it, you go, hey, that's not really a great plan. I'm going to do something about that. Yeah, tell us about what happened then. Yeah.

So it actually was not Department of Corrections. So this is so strange, but it's actually like Department of Social and Health Services is what it's called in Washington State, and they run the Special Commitment Center. And so for people not familiar with what that is, there are twenty two states, and that includes DC and the federal I guess twenty states plus DC and the federal government that

have civil commitment laws. And what that means is someone who is deemed to be a sexually violent predator can be detained civilly after their prison sentence. And in Washington were I believe the first state to enact a civil commitment sexual predator law back in nineteen ninety. So basically what that means is that we have this island, it's

called McNeil Island. There used to be a prison there and the prison has long since been abandoned and now they just have the Special Commitment Center, which is where they house these individuals who are sexual predators. And these guys have and I say guys because I think there's one female out there and the rest are males. They've all either been convicted of sex offenses or they are

being detained out there. You know, actually, I would be shocked if there was anybody out there that hasn't already been convicted of at least one sex offense. But basically these guys are the worst or the worst. I mean, they've they've been deemed too dangerous to be let out into society after serving their prison sentence, and so they get they have to go through a trial and if they are if they're found to be to meet the legal requirements as an SVP, they get detained out there

indefinitely and they're they're basically considered residents. They're not considered

inmates or anything like that. And that program is run by DSHS Department of Social and Health Services. So I happened to just stumble across this information on accident. I was working on a cold case back in twenty eleven and I was talking to someone from the Department of Corrections who was assisting me on a particular case, and I just for whatever reason, was like, Hey, just out of curiosity, do all the guys at the Special Commitment

Center have their DNA and CODUS? And it turned out that the answer was no, and they didn't have a policy to collect from existing offenders basically once they got

there from DC. I don't know if it was assumed that they had already provided their DNA while in prison, but their policy was to collect it upon release. Well, okay,

some of those guys will never get released. In fact, I would say a lot of them, if not most, of them will never get released, some of them die out there, and you know they're not collecting their DNA at that point, so you know, there was this whole like missed opportunity, and you know, the thought process was, well, I mean, they're detained, they're not going anywhere, and they're not hurting anybody out here, and not even conceptualizing that

these guys could be responsible for unsolved crimes. Correct. It was a fight. It took me a couple of years to advocate and lobby, and you know, I had to bring more people in from the Attorney General's office to kind of light of fire to get them to collect the samples from from these guys. And they were about forty offenders out there that had never provided and some of them had been out there since the center opened, since they started the project back in the early nineties.

So you know, those guys concerned to me the most because those are the guys that are you know, sort of like operating. They were operating during that golden age of the serial killer, you know, back in the seventies and eighties and early nineties. After finally getting all those samples collected, there was a hit to one of the guys out there to a rape and murder from nineteen eighty,

So that was really exciting. And you know, the detective that had been working on that case, he had probably collected a couple of dozen DNA reference samples from suspects on the case. He had been working the case for like twelve years, I think, And this guy's name never appeared anywhere in the case file. I mean, he never would have connected him at all. And that's unusual because most of the time their name is in there somewhere random complete stranger. And this was a home invasion. I mean,

I'm talking. You know, he didn't kick the door open, but he knocked on her door. She opened it, and he forced his way in complete strangers. Pretty frightening. And this guy had a just a really horrific history of rapes, and you know, he admitted to lots of other crimes that I think sometimes police don't take that seriously, like indecent exposure. I don't remember all the numbers, but a lot of different rapes that he was never linked to.

And peeping Tom, and you know those are the guys like when I hear the peeping tom and the guy exposed himself of those guys make the hair on the back of my next stand up. Agreed, I hate the term peep and tall. We all know in this business that's not what they're doing. No, and here's one thing I want people to understand. You mentioned that sometimes perpetrators

die before they release from prison. But I think it's important for people to know that there was a couple of inmates that did die and their DNA had not been taken, but you were not deterred. Again, Yeah, I mean, y'all want to talk about the white hat is coming and the good guys coming over the ridge again and again, why don't you tell folks what you did with a couple of the guys that had died out there on that island. I was able to get autopsy samples, so

on some of those guys. In most states, if somebody dies in prison, you know, there's a requirement to have an autopsy, so law enforcement should know that that is a place to look for. You know, a reference sample is you know, if somebody was an inmate who died in a state prison, there should be some evidence collected during the autopsy that could provide a DNA reference sample.

But yeah, in this case, I think I was able to get four or five blood cards from these guys who also died, you know, at the Special Commitment Center, who did have autopsies, so you know, we were able to get them into Kodas for the purpose of solving cold cases even though they were done. Something I've noticed about you is every time you have a success, it's not like you just dropped back and take a vacation

and ride that out for a couple of years. You're not one of those detectives that says, hey, remember what I did twenty years ago. Because even with all of these successes, you go right to the untested rape kits. And you said something in chapter thirteen that cracked me up, because this is when you want to know if somebody's a veteran detective when she has a quote that tell us what you said when you said, speaking of you know, like perpetrators, I didn't see Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't

see shit. I don't know shit, and I didn't do shit. Say it again, I don't know shit, I didn't see shit, and I didn't do shit. That's when you know she's a veteran and she's absolutely right. So when you come across somebody like that. Again, you kind of zero win on them, don't you, and say, I gotta I gotta talk to him one more time, you know, you would think. But I kind of got to the point where, yeah, there were some people that it was fairly easy to

read them, I think with that Michelle Welton Jennifer Baston case. Though, it got to be that there were so many good looking suspects in the case, like you'd read their criminal history, you know, you'd run them up and see what they've been up to since then, and you know, one after the other, you'd think, oh, this has to be the guy. You know, sexual psychopath, escape from the mental hospital. You know, no DNA collected, and blah blah blah, blah blah, and

one after the other they were eliminated. So it got to a point where it was I was pretty frustrated, and I really didn't think that collecting DNA samples going

to solve it. My honest evaluation by the time I retired from the police department in twenty eighteen was that the guy was probably either dead or he was sitting in prison somewhere in some state, and nobody had collective as DNA because I just could not believe that somebody who had committed these two horrific murders, sexually motivated murders of children would just be out walking the street. But that's exactly what happened. I mean, it's baffling. You would

think mathematically they would be in prison for something else. Well, I want to talk a little bit about chapter eleven. I saved this on purpose because here's the quote. Now, I want y'all to hear me. What do you mean Ted Bundy's DNA isn't Incodus tell us about that day? Wow? Yeah,

so many things to say about Ted. Kind of shocking, right, Like who would believe that I had to literally stop reading for a second, and I have one to have a laughing attack, And I have wanted to call and make sure I've got a case right now that I wasn't even sure somebody could put into CODAS. So I

made a phone call immediately and listen. Sure enough, because I didn't take the DNA, so I didn't have the sample to put into CODAS, but another investigator from another jurisdiction did, and I called and sure enough it was not in CODAS. So because I was reading your book, I stopped immediately and made sure. So thank you for that. That's awesome. Yeah, appreciate you because I was like, surely everybody isn't thinking the other person did it, right, And

that's what happened here. You've got an investigator in my department, you've got me, you've got the DA's investigator, you've got another jurisdiction, and everybody just assumed the other folks had

done it. And that's you know, that's why we have this entire purpose area under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative right now to fund this very issue on a national level, so any law enforcement agency in the country can get funding from Department of j just to address this particular issue of collecting DNA samples from convicted offenders who slipped through the cracks, and there are every state has thousands, if not tens of thousands of them. When y'all read

what she did, it will knock you out. And I'm not going to tell you it would. It would be one of the most interesting things you've read in a long time. And again, when I tell you, Lindsay Wade, don't quit, she don't quit. Doesn't matter what the obstacle is, doesn't matter what while somebody built doesn't matter who tells

her no. And this was one of those things. When I read it, I'm like, hmm, I'm not only a huge fan, but this person is going to be in my zone seven if I have anything to do about it immediately, because I just like the way you work and I like the way you operate. And there's not enough accolades I can say about you and the work that you have done. There's just not well. I mean, I greatly appreciate, it's just not so I wanted to talk about chapter fifteen for sec get in the last

words that you say. I may never respond to another crime scene, but seeking justice will always be in my DNA. I know we all dream, we all talk about year five into this business. When I retire, you know what I'm going to do and put in the badge in the drawer, so to speak. Tell us about the retirement, tell us about how you are, in fact still seeking

justice for people. Well, you know, it's been a long road, and as much as I've tried to step away from it, you know, for my own sanity and probably mental health, I'm always drawn to it. You know, I can't get away from it at Geryl, whether I want to or not. You know, I spent twenty one years as a police officer, and you know that's all I wanted to do. I mean, I knew I wanted to be a cop. I wanted to work for Tacoma PDE. I mean, there was no doubt in my mind. It was like, no one's getting

in my way, like it's going to happen. And you know, after twenty one years, you know, I just I did. I'm kind of done. I was burned out. I knew I just needed a different challenge and something else. I'm kind of a creative, you know, kind of a person, so I have to have things that exercise my brain or I get bored. You know. I decided that the opportunity at the Attorney General's Office was too good for

me to pass up. They had just gotten a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant, and so I was going to be able to come in on the ground floor and help create the whole team and you know, build the program from the ground up. And so I thought, well, this is another way for me to contribute. I'm not going to be you know, going out to scenes anymore,

and you know, being the lead detective anymore. But this is still a great way for me to share my knowledge and expertise with other people, help agencies with their cases, and still make a difference. So, you know, working as an investigator for the Attorney General's Office was fantastic, you know, and I did that for I think it was about

four and a half five years. You know, I ended up applying to my current job now at RTI, and RTI is it's a global nonprofit, but they are a government contractor, and so RTI has a lot of government contracts and grants that we administer to include the Sexual Assault get initiative. So now I'm working on that project, but on the national level. Where As before I was working at the state level as a site, you know,

a statewide site. Now I'm working and I primarily am asked to sort of be a subject matter expert on lawfully o DNA and so you know, that's kind of my focus area as of right now. It's different than being you know, an active law enforcement officer, but I still really really enjoy being able to you know, impart information,

share information, generate ideas. You know, that creative side of me is you know, still always there and I'm you know, I'm still the person that watches the you know, the Netflix documentary about some case and I'm like taking notes and taking pictures of the TV with my phone so that, you know, we need to, like, we need to look into this guy. Do we know if it's DNA is in CODIS Like? I don't. That probably should be my tagline, this is DNA and CODIS like, because there are so

many of these people that just slip on through. And you know, genetic genealogy is fantastic and it's obviously changed the game for solving crime, but how many of those cases should have been solved with a CODIS hit. Yep. And you can't turn it off. I mean you can't stop who you are instinctively and just how you're describing how you watch TV. I get it. I get it completely.

Sometimes I'll hear something about another jurisdiction in another state and I still feel compelled to call them and just say, hey, I know you don't know me, but if he thought of this, you had such a full circle moment with

the child from your community that was killed, and then you solving it when you were grown, I mean, I just think that is an unbelievable twist of fate that was, in my opinion, meant to be. Yeah, I'll tell you something I think you'll find pretty cool. With Ginger's murder, my sister's friend Joe told me years later how they

caught the people that killed her. So there were three people that went in that murdered Ginger and her mother, and they stole things out of the family's safe in the wall of the living room, and one of the things they took were a ton of one dollar bills that had never been in circulation that were nineteen sixty three, Joseph W. Barr notes, And the detectives in each point put the word out everywhere, you know, Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida.

If y'all see these, let snow well. There was a clerk in Florida that, because they had never been in circulation, thought they were like counterfeit. She wasn't sure they were even real money. So she called a detective friend of hers who went over there and said, let me see what you're talking about. So he calls these point and says, hey, we've got some. And then you know, they got the video of the guy that used it, and he was a cousin of one of the killers, and that's how

they were called. So again, you never know. And the way you do, you call everybody, You let everybody know the information, You include everybody, and that's how you get stuff done. I mean crazy, right, just something almost like a fluke. And this guy thought, man, we're in another state. You know they did. And I'm gonna get my cousin to use it because he's not even on video anywhere. He wasn't in the car, or he wasn't even there.

They'll never suspect him of anything. That's just good police work. It's all there is to it, and going that extra step exactly. But you know all about that. So I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I always do with somebody from my Zone seven. And tonight's quote comes from Tray Sergeant Knine, expert, and she says, have

no regrets. Change the question mark into an exclamation point. One person can change the world. And I think that sums up Detective Lindsay Wade perfectly. I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is Zone seven.