For months, residents of Anchorage, Alaska, have been on edge amid a rumored serial killer on the loose — a mysterious figure who seemed to shoot strangers along the city’s hiking trails or public parks, one or two at a time, and then disappear. This past Saturday, a sudden attack on an Anchorage police officer may have proven those fears to be correct.
Just before sunrise on November 12, Officer Arn Salao responded to a complaint from a taxi driver who said a customer stiffed him. Salao approached the alleged passenger, James Dale Ritchie, 40 (above, right), who unexpectedly spun around and shot the patrolman four times with a Colt Python .357 revolver. Police describe the attack as an “ambush.”
Both Salao and Sergeant Marc Patzke returned fire, killing Ritchie in the process. Salao was rushed into emergency surgery and is said to be “recovering.”
Stunningly, ballistics have conclusively identified the weapon Ritchie “unloaded” into Officer Salao as the same gun used in two double homicides and in a fifth killing in Anchorage earlier this year.So does this mean James Dale Ritchie was the whispered-about serial killer? It’s too early to tell. The pistol was not registered to Ritchie, but authorities do consider the weapon a potential major break in the cases.
Anchorage Police Department spokesperson Jennifer Castro stated: “Without the ballistics and that gun, we had no evidential way of tying these cases together. That’s how important that gun is.”
Again, though, Castro retiterated: “We still have to determine who the suspect actually was in these cases. We’ve connected the weapon in these cases, but still have work to do on the suspect(s).”
The previous victims of this particular Colt Python .357 have been identified as Brianna Foisy, 20, and Jason Netter, 41, both killed on a bike path on July 3; Treyveonkindell Thompson, 21, shot to death on an isolated street on July 28; and Kevin Turner, 34, and Bryant DeHusson, 25, who were gunned down at the Valley of the Moon Park on August 28.
After the Thompson homicide, the Anchorage Police Department released a sketch of a “person of interest” in the shooting. On Tuesday, the APD showed the sketch alongside the photo from James Dale Ritchie’s driver’s license. The resemblance is striking.
In addition, authorities have released a full investigative timeline of the crimes (pictured above).Following the shootout, details about James Dale Ritchie are coming to light. The Alaska Dispatch News reports Ritchie grew up in East Anchorage and was apparently a popular athlete as a teenager, graduating in 1994.
From there, Ritchie’s appears to have continually made destructive choices, drifting into drugs and law-breaking. He served multiple jail terms beginning after a drug bust in 1998. He was arrested again for driving under the influence, drugs, and illegal gun possession in 1999. Most recently, Ritchie did two years behind bars for an attempted burglary in 2005.
Anchorage District Attorney Clint Champion said Ritchie has been laying low for the last decade, even relocating to Virginia for a while before moving back to Alaska this past February. Champion noted: “He hadn’t been on our radar for a while in Anchorage, so that’s part of what they’re trying to determine is, where he’s been, who he’d lived with, what other contacts he had.”
Police are asking anyone with information on Ritchie to come forward. Call APD at (907) 786-8900 or leave an anonymous tip through Anchorage Crime Stoppers online or by calling (907) 561-7867.
Read more:
ABC News
NBC News
KTVA
Alaska Dispatch News
Main image: Anchorage Police Department handout