Murder Suspect Interrogated For 6 Hours Before Police Realize He’s Been Shot In Face

A man arrested on suspicion of murder was interrogated for six hours before police realized he’d been shot in the face. Ryan Waller was taken into custody in 2006 after a break-in at his house that resulted in his girlfriend’s death and his own serious injury. However, authorities didn’t get him medical attention for hours.

  1. What happened at Ryan Waller’s house? He lived with his girlfriend, Heather Quan, in an apartment in Phoenix. They had a roommate, but the roommate wasn’t there at the time. One night, another former roommate, Ritchie Carver, and his father, Larry, broke into the apartment. Waller heard the doorbell ring and went up to go see what was going on, but when he tried to shut the door on Ritchie, Ritchie shot him in the head twice and then shot Heather. It’s unclear what the motivation for the crime actually was.
  2. Police suspected Ryan Waller was responsible for the murder. While his girlfriend lay dead, Waller was said to still be walking around the apartment when police came to the apartment. He claimed he had no memory of what happened but that Ritchie Carver and his father had shot them both. However, he wasn’t taken to the hospital for several hours.
  3. He experienced serious complications from the delay in treatment. Waller eventually lost his left eye as well as portions of his brain. As a consequence, he suffered from seizures, one of which eventually led to his death in 2016, per Dignity Memorial.
  4. Ritchie and his father were eventually sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole. Waller’s family also decided to sue the Phoenix Police Department as a result of what happened. The investigator who worked on the case was eventually charged with tampering with evidence as well as lying about elements of the case to suit their own narrative.
Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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