Officer arrested in murder-for-hire case

DALLAS — A Dallas police officer was arrested Thursday on two counts of capital murder, more than a year and a half after a man told investigators that he kidnapped and killed two people at the officer’s instruction in 2017, authorities said.

Bryan Riser, a 13-year veteran of the force, was arrested and taken to the Dallas County jail, according to a statement from the Police Department. A lawyer for him couldn’t immediately be identified.

Riser was arrested in the unconnected killings of Liza Saenz, 31, and Albert Douglas, 61, after a man came forward in August 2019 and told police that he had kidnapped and killed them at Riser’s direction, Police Chief Eddie Garcia said during a news conference. He said investigators don’t know the motives for the killings, but that they were not related to Riser’s police work.

A police affidavit states that Riser told the hired killer that Saenz was an “informant.” The document does not elaborate, and police did not immediately respond to questions about whether Saenz had some connection to the department.

Garcia did not explain why Riser was arrested nearly 20 months after the witness came forward, and police did not immediately respond to questions about the timing. Riser joined the department in 2008, and Garcia acknowledged that he had been patrolling Dallas while under investigation in the killings.

Saenz’s body was pulled from the Trinity River in southwest Dallas on March 10, 2017, with several bullet wounds, the chief said. Douglas was reported missing that year and his body hasn’t been found.

(AP/The Dallas Morning News/Lynda M. Gonzalez) Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia talks Thursday at police headquarters about the arrest of officer Bryan Riser on capital-murder charges.