Green River Saga Winds Way to TV

By Bill Hutchens, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.

Mar. 30–You probably know him best as Ed from TV’s romantic dramedy of the same name, or maybe as J.D.’s brother from the hospital sitcom “Scrubs.”

But in his 20 years as a professional actor, Tom Cavanagh has played dark roles before, although perhaps none so dark as the one he takes on for the miniseries “The Capture of the Green River Killer.”

As King County Police Detective Dave Reichert, Cavanagh got a feel for what it was like to doggedly pursue a serial killer and investigate gruesome crime scene after gruesome crime scene for two decades. The dramatization of Reichert’s experiences begins tonight on the Lifetime Movie Network.

“I actually have done a lot of that kind of stuff,” Cavanagh said in a recent telephone interview. “To prepare for it was less difficult than you might think. … In many ways it had a path and a flow to it already by the time I got on board. For me the challenge was trying to live up to the actual experience that Dave had and try to do that justice.”

He said he had a list of “117 or 118 questions” he wanted to ask Reichert before filming began. But Reichert, now a Republican U.S. congressman from Auburn, couldn’t match his schedule with the actor’s. So it was writer and executive producer John Pielmeier who got to do that direct research with Reichert.

Cavanagh had Pielmeier’s script, “a mass” of historical material on set and Reichert’s book “Chasing the Devil” to go on, but he didn’t get to meet Reichert until a screening of the miniseries in Washington, D.C., in early March.

“When I met him, it was a very strange thing because I’d been looking at his face for half a year and reading his book and reading his words,” Cavanagh said.

Reichert spoke in a separate phone interview about how the miniseries captures his experiences while taking some “artistic license.”

This is a movie, not a documentary, he said.

“What it does well is it shows a team of detectives who are very persistent, who persevere and never give up,” Reichert said. “They are committed. They’re passionate, and they care about the victims.”

There are points during the show’s four-hour run in which Reichert’s character and other characters are really amalgams of several real-life people, he said, and time is occasionally expanded or condensed for dramatic effect.

Even if it isn’t a perfect depiction, Reichert said it was important that key elements of the story made the final cut, specifically his kidnapping as a boy, the stab wound that got him transferred to the homicide investigation unit, his faith in God and his face-to-face time with incarcerated killer Gary Ridgway.

In 2003, after cutting a deal with the King County prosecutors, Ridgway was sentenced to serve 48 consecutive life sentences. Reichert said detectives tied 50 cases to Ridgway, who claims to have killed 71 women.

In a strange twist of fate, executive producer Pielmeier looks as though he could be Ridgway’s doppelgnger — and so he plays the role of the killer.

What matters most, Reichert said, is that the “real message” of the movie comes through. It’s something he’ll address in a public service announcement after the miniseries wraps up Monday night.

“There are still kids out there,” he said. “We need to reach out to them. They have a right to live, and we have the responsibility to care for them and love them and make sure they don’t stay on the streets.”

Bill Hutchens: 253-597-8460

What: “The Capture of the Green River Killer,” a two-part miniseries

When: 8 p.m. today and Monday

Channel: Lifetime Movie Network (Channel 504 on Comcast, Channel 305 on Click!)

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Copyright (c) 2008, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.

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