In 2006, Don Waller made plans to have Christmas dinner with his son Ryan and Ryan’s girlfriend Heather Quan. Don called Ryan before dinner and throughout the day to remind him, but Ryan never answered his calls. After Dinner, Don called once again, and again, the call went unanswered. Don went to Ryan’s house, and when there was no answer to the door, called the police to have them initiate a welfare check. When they finally arrived, they discovered that Heather was deceased after being shot, and Ryan looked as if he had been in a fight. They set their sights on Ryan as their prime suspect, but that all changed during his interrogation.
The Beginning
In December of 2006, Ryan Waller was in an interrogation room speaking with Detective Paul Dalton. Waller was being questioned about his girlfriend, Heather Quan, whose body had been found shot in the house the couple shared with another room mate, Alicia. Ryan looked like he had been in a fight, with some wounds on his nose and cheeks, and what appeared to be an extremely swollen black eye. In order to see how we got here though, we need to go back….
On Christmas Day, 2006, Ryan Waller and his girlfriend Heather Quan were enjoying a lazy day at home, with their only real plans being going to Ryan’s father’s house that night for dinner. At some point, they heard a knock at the door and Ryan went to answer it. When he was opening it enough to take a peek outside and see who it was, he saw Richie Carver and Richie’s dad, Larry.
Now, when this case first occurred there was lots of incorrect information out there. This is because most of it was taken from Ryan’s interrogation, which as we will discover later wasn’t the best source. Initially, Richie was reported as an ex-room mate of Ryan’s who he had “beef” with. It was reported by some that Richie had hit on Heather and that upset Ryan. Others reported that Ryan and Ritchie had an altercation that involved a firearm before, but there’s no evidence of this.
When Ryan first moved into the house they were living in, he had a different room mate, a fella named Eric. Before Ryan moved in, Eric lived in the house with… Ritchie. They had a falling out, Eric kicked Ritchie out, then Ryan moved in. Eric at one point talked about hearing some noise coming from the back yard one night and going out to find Ritchie creeping around. Eric had his gun with him and told Ritchie to kick rocks. This is the alleged altercation with a firearm that was being attributed to Ryan and Ritchie.
Even though he no longer lived there, Ritchie was still hanging around, with neighbors and just generally in the neighborhood. So, when Ryan was moving in, Ritchie was there and saw that Ryan had some pretty nice stuff. When Ryan was younger, he took an interest in the guitar and even taught himself to play. His dad said that he was the type of person who could hear a song being played, then within a very short time, play it himself. He had a few nicer guitars, a computer, and various electronics; this caught Ritchie’s eye.
Back to Christmas Day
Now, back to Christmas day. Ryan looked out the cracked door and saw Ritchie and his father Larry. They tried to push their way in and Ryan tried to close the door. Ritchie reached his hand through and shot Ryan in the head. Ryan fell back and the men burst through the door, shooting him again. They then went to where Heather was on the couch and shot her as well, killing her. They gathered up whatever items they could make out with and fled the scene.
Don, Ryan’s dad, had been calling his son throughout the day to remind him of Christmas dinner. Dinner came and went, and Don tried to reach his son again. When he didn’t get an answer, Don and Ryan’s mom drove to Ryan’s house. Once there, he knocked on the doors and got no answer. He said that at this point, Ryan had only been living at the house for about a month and a half. The garage was closed, so he couldn’t even see if Ryan’s car was there. He legitimately didn’t know if Ryan was home. At 10 minutes to 8 PM, they called the police and asked if they could do a welfare check, because they were worried about Ryan not answering the phone. If he was going to miss the dinner, he would have called to tell them at the very least. The dispatcher said they would have an officer call them back. It was around 11:30 PM when the officer finally called them back. They explained the situation, and the officer said they would come out for the welfare check.
At some point between the time they made the first call and the time the officer called back, they left Ryan’s house and went to get some coffee. Don estimated that they were gone for 15, 20 minutes max. In that window, Alicia had come back home and was now in the house. About half an hour passed, and the officers finally showed up. It was around midnight by this point, and about 4 hours from the time that Don says they originally called the police.
The officers knocked on the doors and windows and got no answer. Alicia was inside the house, but she assumed that Ryan would answer the door. One of the windows had vertical blinds, and they were swaying back and forth a bit, just enough for the officers to peer in and see a body. They immediately told everyone to back up and set up a perimeter.
Now, generally, when an officer or officers see a body or someone in distress, they can intervene and enter a home if someone’s life is in danger or they suspect someone is deceased. The officers outside Ryan’s house though, said they needed to wait for a search warrant, which they did. It took an hour to get it. They claimed that since it was a rental house, and Ryan didn’t own it they were required to get the search warrant. That’s another hour wasted.
Search warrant in hand, it’s time to kick down the door and see what’s going on, right? Naaaa. The officers called the department locksmith and waited for him to come out and attempt to pick the front door lock. When that didn’t work, they moved to the back. There was a sliding glass door that led into the kitchen, and another standard back door that opened into the master bedroom. As they were tinkering with the back door leading to the master bedroom, it opened. Ryan was standing there, looking like he had been in a fist fight, battered, bloody, and his left eye swollen and black.
For the last hour or so, Don and Ryan’s mom had been forced to stay away. He knew they saw a body and his assumption was that it was Ryan. He was crying and just a wreck. There were about 10 police cars on the scene and a helicopter overhead. Don saw them go into the house, then, about 3 minutes later, they came out with someone in handcuffs.
The house was at the end of a cul de sac, and due to the police sectioning the area off, they were about 75 feet away. Don was on one side of the cul de sac, and Ryan’s mom was on the other. Don saw when they brought the person out, but couldn’t really see much because the person’s head was kinda covered. He could make out that it looked like the person had an injury to their face. That’s when his wife shouted to him, “That’s Ryan!”
Don tried to walk up past the police tape. An officer stopped him and told him not to go near the car. He tried to explain that he just wanted to check and see if his son was okay, but according to him, the officer bumped chests with him and almost taunting him. Don said to himself, “It’s Christmas day, I’m not going to get arrested for this.” About 5 minutes later, a firetruck and ambulance pulled up and went inside the house. They came back out around 10 minutes later, jumped back in their vehicles, and left. No one checked on Ryan in the back of the police car. Don took that as a good sign that Ryan was ok and not injured. At the time, he didn’t know that Heather was dead.
Don got an officer’s attention and asked about Ryan’s condition. The officer told him Ryan was fine, he just had a black eye. They then told Don and his wife that they should just go home; it would be hours before they were able to talk to their son. Ryan was placed into the patrol car around 1AM. He sat there for almost 4 hours, and around 5AM the lead detective, Paul Dalton, told an officer to take Ryan to the station for interrogation.
Interrogation
Ryan was taken to the station and had some pictures taken of his face. His clothes were taken and he was given a white jumpsuit. His clothes had some blood on them, so they were taken in as evidence. Then, he was taken into an interrogation room and left alone for a few minutes. As he’s sitting there, he’s not cuffed, but finds a cuff dangling from the table, and puts it on himself. The whole time he’s sitting there, you can hear him, for lack of a better word, whimpering to himself, in a way that makes you think he’s in pain.
Dalton entered with another person. This person appears to be collecting additional evidence from Ryan’s body, particularly from his feet. They have him prop his feet up and take pictures for a few minutes. As this was going on, Ryan continued to whimper and say he just wanted to go to sleep. After he said it one time, Dalton said something to the effect of, “If you have a concussion, doctors will tell you not to go to sleep.”
Dalton sat down in front of Ryan and introduced himself. He then quickly confirmed some details about Ryan; name, DOB, SS#. He asked Ryan if he knew why he was there, and Ryan said he didn’t. Dalton then read him his Miranda rights, but before, he asked if Ryan had ever seen Cops or CSI, to which Ryan initially said no, then said yes. Dalton read the rights and asked Ryan what the highest grade he attended in school.
- R: I don’t know. I don’t know. 8th?
- D: Did you graduate?
- R: Yeah.
- D: Do you have a GED?
- R: I don’t know.
- D: You don’t know what?
- R: I don’t know. I don’t know. I just want to go home.
- D: You’re not going to go home right now.
- R: So… What?
- D: What’s the highest grade that you completed?
- R: B?
That’s how the interrogation began. It might not come through, but if you watch it, it’s very evident that something wasn’t right. From there, Dalton starts asking about Heather and if Ryan knew her. He asked Heather’s last name, and Ryan initially couldn’t tell him, saying, “I don’t know what name she’s trying to use as her last one.”
Dalton asked what happened to Ryan’s face, and he said he didn’t know. He told an officer earlier that someone hit him. Dalton brought that up and Ryan said that it might have been Heather. “It was an accident. I don’t know.” Dalton asked what was an accident and Ryan’s response was, “Heather’s last name?” There’s clearly something wrong.
At this point, Detective Dalton thought that Ryan killed Heather. Perhaps Heather got a few licks in before he did it, and that would explain a possible concussion and the way he’s acting. Dalton continued questioning Ryan about Heather and if they had an argument. Again, Ryan said it was an accident. “She was helping Christina with her hair. She was on the couch.” Dalton then questioned Ryan about Christina. Ryan gave a few details then Dalton moved on to Alicia and Ryan said she lived there. Dalton asked about Eric and Ryan said he knew him, didn’t know where he was or what his phone number was.
Dalton asked what happened last night. Again, Ryan said he didn’t know. He said that Heather hit him in the eye, and he went to sleep. Christina and Heather were in the house. Heather was on the couch. Dalton scooted in a little closer and said, “You told me Christina was on the couch just a minute ago.” The way he said it and his body language makes it seem like he thought this was the big “Gotcha” moment for him, and he thought Ryan was going to confess any minute. Ryan followed up with, “I don’t know man, I really don’t. I really don’t man.”
- D: You really don’t know or you just don’t want to tell me?
- R: I really don’t man. I just wanna go, I want to sleep.
- D: Well Ryan, you’re not going to go anywhere.
Dalton asked Ryan what happened at the house again and asked if Ryan owned the house. Ryan said he did, that he had purchased it and asked what happened. Dalton said he didn’t know what happened and asked Ryan to tell him. He then pointed out Ryan’s nose and that there was a big chunk missing out of it and asked if he remembered what happened. Again, Ryan said he didn’t know, over and over. Dalton asked if Heather did that to Ryan’s eye again, Ryan said no, Alicia. “I swear, I’m not even lying. I swear…. I just want to go to sleep man.”
- D: Ryan, there’s a dead girl in your living room.
- R: She’s dead?
- D: Yes
- R: Heather?
- D: I don’t know. I want to know what happened in your house last night.
- R: The girl on the couch is dead?
- D: I don’t know. If she’s on the couch, she’s dead.
- R: Well these people came over. Richie and his dad. Shooting arrows and darts, bow and arrows. You know what I’m talking about?
Dalton then questioned him about Ritchie. He asked if Ritchie was a former roommate, and Ryan said he was (Dalton brought up Ritchie being a former roommate and Ryan agreed, but they never lived together). Then he said, “They came over and they hit you? Now it’s Ritchie that hit you and not Heather?” Ryan said it was Ritchie and his dad and they were trying to get their stuff. He went on to say that they each had revolvers. Dalton then said, “You said they had bow and arrows, now they have revolvers? And then what happened?”
- R: And then they shot us.
- D: They shot both of you? Where’d they shoot you?
- R: I got shot in the eye.
- D: You got shot in the eye? With a revolver?
- R: I think. I don’t know man. I don’t know. Fuck.
- D: Then what happened?
- R: I don’t know.
- D: You don’t know a lot.
R: I don’t man, I really don’t. - D: Did you shoot Heather? I heard you have a lot of guns in your house.
Dalton pushed Ryan further and further and you can see Ryan getting upset.
- D: You’re all over the board. You’re saying bows and arrows, revolvers. You’re saying they shot you in the eye. Okay. They shot you with a revolver in the eye. Was it a BB gun?
- R: No, it was a real gun man, it was just a revolver.
- D: If they shot you in the eye with a revolver, you wouldn’t be talking to me right now.
- R: How do you know?
- D: Cause most likely you’d be dead.
- R: That’s what I thought too man, I just really don’t know. I just want to go to bed.
From there, it turned into Ryan trying to recount the story of what happened, with Dalton pushing him further and further, just trying to get him to confess. Dalton tried to go over the events from the night before again. He brought up “Ashley” coming home. He had mentioned the name earlier, but he was meaning to say Alicia. This guy couldn’t even get the names right when trying to question someone in a murder investigation. Again, Ryan just says he doesn’t know over and over. “Just ask me anything and I’ll tell you the truth.”
During this point of the questioning, Ryan still says he just wants to go to sleep. Now he’s saying that Larry is Heather’s dad, and they came over and killed her and shot him in the eye. Dalton just asks “Why did you shoot Heather Ryan? Ryan says, “I didn’t shoot Heather, She was already shot once by her brother.” Dalton sits in silence for a few seconds. Ryan puts his feet up on the table and says, “My feet hurt, I don’t know why.” Dalton told him to get his feet off his table. Then he says, come here, let me see your nose.
Dalton put his hand on top of Ryan’s head and kind of moved it around so he could look at Ryan’s face. Ryan just keeps saying, “Ow, my head hurts.”
- D: Okay, Be right back. — Dalton left the room.
Ryan sat alone for three minutes. Dalton came back in and had a more mellow tone in his voice, almost like he was a human and realized that Ryan had been shot in the fucking head and was a victim here. He said that the ambulance and fire department were on the way and they were going to take Ryan to the hospital. While they waited, Dalton tried to talk a bit with Ryan and get info on Ritchie and Larry, but Ryan couldn’t give him any info.
A few minutes later, Dalton lets EMS into the room and goes into “I’m a good cop mode.”
- D: This is my observation. This might be an entrance, this might be an exit, and this might be an entrance into this eye. And he’s acting like he has a serious head injury.
No shit, he’s been acting like that the whole time. The EMS do their thing and take a look at Ryan. They get his blood pressure and it comes back normal. They told him to get up and come with them.
- R: Where are we going?
- EMS: To take you to the hospital, get you checked out bro. You look like you got shot in the face.
- R: I don’t even know.
Ryan was taken to the hospital and checked out. At this point, Don is at home and at 7AM, his phone rang. It was Saint Joseph’s hospital. They told a shocked Don that Ryan was in critical condition, with a bullet in his brain. They rushed to the hospital and saw Ryan in the room. The doctors told Don that they had to wait to perform any surgery because in the time the police let him sit in the car, then the interrogation, an infection had started to set in. They needed to take care of that first. They gave Ryan antibiotics, and performed brain surgery on Dec 28th.
Ryan spent 35 days in the hospital recovering. No one from the Phoenix police department came to talk to him. No arrests were made during that time. Three days after he got home, detectives came to talk to Ryan. Four days later, Ritchie was arrested. About a week later, Ritchie’s mom turned in Larry.
Everything Else
When the police went to question Ryan after his hospital stay, Det. Dalton was not there. They were told he had a family emergency. Later in court, someone said that Dalton was taken off the case and assigned elsewhere. Basically, Phoenix PD was trying to keep Dalton away from this case any further. They knew they fucked up in not allowing Ryan any type of medical care, which is generally one of the first things given to someone when they’ve been arrested and are injured. Dalton ignored every sign in front of him and continued with the interrogation, even though Ryan was making no sense. At several different moments, it seemed like Ryan could barely string together words to form a sentence.
It had been hours between Ryan’s injury and the time he saw a doctor. When dealing with any type of traumatic brain injury, seconds count, there is no way of knowing how the delay in treatment affected Ryan’s long term outlook. The Phoenix PD knew this as well. In the days after the attack, Heather had been taken for an autopsy, and her date of death was listed as Dec 25th. About 2 months later, when there were several eyes on this case around the country, that date was changed to Dec 23rd.
Don claims that this change was made to offset the time it took them to get Ryan help. They tried to say that since he was shot on the 23rd, the damage had been done by the time they had him in custody Christmas night.
It also came out later that Dalton had another incident with someone, involving getting rid of evidence and focusing in on a particular suspect and creating a narrative. A young man was going away to basic training and his friends were throwing him a party. During the party, some other guys showed up and tried to crash the party and just cause trouble. They pulled out guns and opened fire. The young man had his own weapon and returned fire, striking and killing the driver. At the time, Arizona was a Castle Doctrine and a Stand Your Ground state, so the young man was within his rights to defend himself.
Dalton arrived at the scene and upon hearing the story basically said, No, why did you kill this guy, what gang are you in? The young man was shocked. He had graduated with a 3.8 gpa, was a several sport athlete, and did JROTC all throughout high school. He said straight up, “I kept myself involved in sports so I would avoid all the gangs and shit.” After school, joining the military was the next step to avoid that.
Dalton didn’t believe him though and he was taken to jail, where he was kept for 2 years, since he refused to take any type of deal. Leading up to his trial though, his lawyer had gotten a subpoena for Dalton’s phone records including text messages. In the messages were some sent to the victim’s family members, telling them that he would give them the gun they used and they needed to get rid of it. About a week after that text was sent, Dalton received one back saying “It’s done.”
During the jury selection phase, the young man’s lawyer brought up the text messages. Dalton then decided he didn’t want to talk to them anymore. All the charges were dropped except for one felony for discharging a weapon in the city limits. He agreed to it, and was given time served. But the damage was done. He was now a felon. He can’t join the military, vote, or legally own a weapon again.
Eventually, Ritchie was convicted of Heather’s murder and attempted murder of Ryan. He was given life w/o the possibility of parole.
Larry was going to go to trial as well, but leading up to it, his wife had a change of heart and decided that she would no longer testify against her husband, invoking her marital privilege. Heather’s family decided they wouldn’t let that shit fly, and they started a campaign to enact a piece of legislation that would go on to be called “Heather’s Law.” Essentially, it states that if the police know that a spouse has information about a crime their spouse committed, they can compel them to testify. Once that was passed, they had to fight to get it applied retroactively to Larry. The court ruled in favor of charging Larry again, and he was reindicted in November of 2011. After a 10 day trial, he was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life w/o parole as well.
After the attack, Ryan’s life had been altered to the extent that he had to move back home with his parents. He had a section of his brain removed. During the surgeries, at one point he had both of his eyes removed, but they put his right one back in. Several reports stated that he lost both his eyes, but that’s false, he lost his left eye permanently, and had a prosthetic. Don said that almost immediately after arriving home, Ryan began to have seizures. He was put on medication for them, but that only slowed them and didn’t stop them completely. He had several ER visits because of these, where he would be out and just have one then smack his head somewhere and need stitches. One time, he had one in bed and his ankle got twisted in the bed frame and snapped.
On Jan 20th, 2016, Ryan passed away. He had a seizure which caused a brain bleed to burst. Don suspected that the bleed occured from a previous incident in a grocery store when Ryan had a seizure and hit his head extremely hard on the concrete floor. Because his death was directly related to a condition caused by the attack, Ritchie and Larry could have been charged with his murder. Don said that after some time and consideration by the family, they chose not to pursue this since the men were already in for life w/o parole.
At this point, Don said all they really want is some kind of apology or even take any type of responsibility for their treatment of Ryan. The city of Phoenix and the Phoenix PD is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice about several things, including how they police and investigate themselves. They did an internal investigation regarding Ryan’s case and of course, found nothing to be out of the ordinary.
Before he passed, Ryan and Don had filed a lawsuit against the City and PD. It was thrown out because of lack of evidence after the internal investigation. Don says that he hopes that after the DOJ releases their findings, they can bring the lawsuit back and put it before the DOJ to decide if it should have been dismissed.
It seems like the biggest priority for the Phoenix PD isn’t to fix their mistakes, but to make sure no one finds out about them. The DOJ is asking for people to contact them if you’ve had an interaction with the Phoenix PD. Particularly, they’re looking for civil rights violations and police misconduct. They can be reached via email at: Phoenix.Community@usdoj.gov or by phone at 1-866-432-0335.
sources for this episode
CASE ALTERS POLICE INTERROGATION POLICIES – PressReader
Murderer behind Heather’s Law found guilty
Appeals court rules wife can be forced to testify against husband | Arizona Capitol Times
What are the most remarkable police interrogations ever recorded?
Ryan Waller Wikipedia Today – What Happened? Death or Injuries
