Behind the Headlines: The Man Who Caught the Nation's Worst Serial Killer

byDayna Gross

For two decades, Sheriff David Reichert devoted himself to tracking down the infamous Green River Killer. Now a congressman, Reichert talks about the impact of chasing a madman, meeting Ted Bundy and seeing the book about his life be made into the Lifetime Movie Network Miniseries "The Capture of the Green River Killer" (airing on March 30 and 31).

Lifetime: How difficult was it to watch the miniseries and relive so many emotional moments?

Reichert: I had a tough time. The movie opens up with this scene where I'm fighting a guy with a knife, and that's really hard to watch. It's hard to see the girls on the street [who ended up murdered]. And the scene where I was presented the DNA cards — that was a real emotional day too, because it was the first time I could see the end to this coming.

Lifetime: What was the impact of the investigation on your family back then?

Reichert: Initially, I didn't know what I was getting into. And once I did, I was totally obsessed and checked out emotionally. I think that the kids still have some memories that I wasn't quite aware of until I started to write my book. My daughter, Tabitha, had already planned her hiding place if one of the suspects showed up at the house and threatened to kill my family.

Lifetime: What about how it's affected the present?

Reichert: Right now, the impact today is that they [my kids] are all married, and they have happy family lives. We have six grandkids. I guess everybody is living happily ever after. However, I still have images of those days in my mind at night sometimes.

Lifetime: What was it that motivated you to never quit on the case?

Reichert: I can't give up on anything. Someone asked me, "Did you always know that the case was going to be solved?" And I said yes. I never hesitated. Part of it was faith. I was 100 percent certain that we were going to solve the case.

Lifetime: Have you been back to any of the crime scenes?

Reichert: Yes. It's emotional. They have a new running trail that I would use that goes along the Green River, and when I would get to the spots where the bodies were found — especially the first ones — I spent a number of hours just standing there staring into the water. I have this very haunting image of [victim] Marsha Chapman lying on her back with one of her hands free, moving back and forth with the motion of the river. And when I pulled her out of the water, parts of her body slipped off in my hand. Going back there is hard.

Lifetime: You had a face-to-face with Ted Bundy during the case. Was he what you expected him to be like?

Reichert: Not at all. And maybe the years in prison before I arrived to talk with him had taken their toll. But I was surprised when he walked in the room. He looked disheveled and disoriented, sort of pathetic. All this while, he'd been described as this suave, handsome ladies' man. I didn't get that impression at all. And when I shook his hand, I just got this feeling like, "The lives that this man snuffed out with this hand." He looked nervous to me. But still, in a way, confident. He still had this smugness about him.

Lifetime: What was your last encounter with the Green River Killer like?

Reichert: People question why I did that final interview [with him], and that puzzles me. For me, I had to face him. There was no doubt in my mind that I had to look at him eyeball-to-eyeball. That one hour that I spent with him, which is what the movie depicts, was my "We got you. You're staying here, and I'm walking home." The turning point for me was walking out of there and thinking It's done. I can look forward to whatever is ahead of me.

Lifetime: And you have moved on ... as a congressman. In this position, what causes are you focused on?

Reichert: Education and health care really are the basis for a strong foundation for a life to begin. If you don't have an education, you can't get a good job. If you don't get a good job, you can't get good pay. If you don't get good pay, you can't afford health care and you can't provide for your family. That provides stress and distress in a family, and that leads to alcohol abuse and drug abuse. That leads to runaways, and then you're right back at the beginning. So, I'm really trying to prevent domestic violence, sexual assault and all those things, which are very close to me professionally and personally, by looking at how we can make health care and education available to everybody.

Buy the book »

Join Rep. Reichert to help protect kids and keep them safe. You can learn more at these organizations:

• Children of the Night
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
• National Runaway Switchboard

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Sharon Lawrence: Fearless, Fidgety and Ready for More

byDayna Gross

Actress Sharon Lawrence, one of the stars of the Lifetime Movie Network miniseries "Capture of the Green River Killer" (airing on March 30 and 31 at 8 pm et/pt), talks about playing the dark side, filling a movie legend's shoes and what she'd call a Lifetime movie about her life.

Lifetime: Would you describe this as a true-crime story?

Lawrence: For me, the story was more about the difficulties of facing evil than about how many fingerprints they used, what was accurate, whether or not they could have caught the killer early and what were mistakes made.

Lifetime: How did you research this role of someone who lost a loved one to a serial killer?

Lawrence: I did not meet any of the victims' families. I watched a documentary about the Green River Killer; watching those mothers or grandmothers of the young women who were killed brought more life to this specific character than any one interview could.

Lifetime: Your character doesn't always come off sympathetic, because of some of her choices. How do you approach playing a character like that?

Lawrence: As an actor, my job is to understand the character, not necessarily to approve of them. I try to understand what drives people to make good and bad choices. If I cannot understand a character's motivations, I'm not going to do a good job playing them.

Lifetime: Do you have a favorite of all of the different roles you've played over the years?

Lawrence: I just finished playing Vivien Leigh in a production of an off-Broadway play called "Orson's Shadow." It's about Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier. I played Vivien Leigh when she was 45 and really in the midst of manic depression.

Lifetime: Why was playing the "Gone With the Wind" actress so meaningful for you?

Lawrence: I think I learned more from making the journey with that character than I have with any other. I got a chance to live in her beautiful, graceful, troubled mind, and it just made me so much more aware of how lucky I am to have never had to deal with that in my life. And it was incredibly satisfying. And I got to look like one of the most beautiful women in the world, with the great and immeasurable aid of my costumer and wig designer.

Lifetime: What's a dream role for you - something you always wished that you could play?

Lawrence: Now that I've spent so much time with Vivien Leigh, studying her work and her life, I'm finding Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" is interesting. (Leigh played her in 1951.) I'm just the right age now to get my teeth around it, and as a Southern woman, I think I want to spend some time with his [playwright Tennessee Williams'] characters now. I feel that I am technically skilled enough now. These are Shakespearean-size roles that Williams wrote for women.

Lifetime: You've become one of our favorite Lifetime ladies. Do you have a favorite Lifetime movie or actress?

Lawrence: I loved "Homeless to Harvard." What I found so powerful about that film was that it was a true story about someone whose life we could be proud of and encourage other young women to look towards. Sarah Paulson did one that I thought was a really lovely, a romantic film with Eric Mabius called "A Christmas Wedding." (http://www.lmn.tv/movies/details.php?id=MOVE+3997) I give credit to those two actors. Romantic comedies are hard to do well, and I think that they did it well.

Lifetime: If your life was a Lifetime movie ... any guesses about what it would be called?

Lawrence: I have had sort of a tag line for me, and I guess that it's true. It could be a cautionary tale. My motto is "Boredom is the eighth deadly sin." What that means is that I move around from thing to thing. I'm pretty good at not being bored, but it also means that I'm not very good at cleaning up after myself. So, yes, "Boredom Is the Eighth Deadly Sin."

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