Judge orders release of Dallas cop who was arrested for 'paying a hitman nearly $10k to kill two people' after prosecutors admit investigators don't have enough evidence against him

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Bryan Riser, 36, was ordered to be released from custody on Wednesday after a Dallas County Criminal Court judge said there was no probable cause and prosecutors agreed that they didn't have enough evidence to move forward with the case

A Dallas police veteran who was charged last month with capital murder for allegedly ordering two killings in 2017 has now been released from jail after a judge ruled there wasn't enough evidence against him. 

Bryan Riser, 36, was ordered to be released from custody on Wednesday after a Dallas County Criminal Court judge said there was no probable cause and prosecutors agreed that they didn't have enough evidence to move forward with the case.  

Riser, a 13-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, was fired after his colleagues took him into custody in early March when he was charged in the alleged murder-for-hire scheme. 

He had been accused of offering $9,500 to three men to kidnap and kill Liza Saenz, 31, and Albert Douglas, 61, back in 2017. 

Those three men were later charged with capital murder. 

One of those men, Emmanuel Kilpatrick, later came forward in 2019 and implicated Riser in the alleged murder-for-hire plot, according to an affidavit for the officer's arrest. 

Riser's lawyer, Toby Shook, has maintained his client is innocent and said that the evidence against Riser is little more than the word of a man already convicted in other killings.  

Riser (pictured), a 13-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, was fired after his colleagues took him into custody in early March when he was charged in the alleged murder-for-hire scheme

He had been accused of offering $9,500 to three men to kidnap and kill Liza Saenz, 31, and Albert Douglas, 61, back in 2017.

Shook has previously said Riser knew Kilpatrick from high school and that they reconnected in 2017 after a chance encounter. 

The defense attorney described Kilpatrick, who is currently serving life in prison for the separate killings of a father and son, as someone who has 'all the reason in the world to lie and try to gain an advantage by trying to implicate a police officer'.

During the hearing on Wednesday to decide whether the case should go forward to a grand jury to consider an indictment, prosecutors disagreed with a Dallas homicide detective's assessment that they had enough evidence to prosecute.

'Where we stand as a district attorney's office right now today, we do not feel there's sufficient probable cause for this case,' Dallas County prosecutor Jason Fine told the judge.

A spokesman for the Dallas County sheriff's office said Riser would be released once the jail receives the paperwork for his case from the court. 

An exchange between Fine and homicide Detective Esteban Montenegro in court revealed that police and prosecutors first discussed the case in December 2019, but that prosecutors didn't think police had a solid case. 

Fine also said that prosecutors told police in March that they still didn't think there was enough evidence. 

Police, however, went ahead and arrested Riser. 

In announcing Riser's arrest last month, police chief Eddie Garcia had said the officer became a 'suspect' in 2019 and sought to distinguish that from being 'a person of interest'

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said on Wednesday that prosecutors don't have enough "corroboration of co-defendant statements and accomplice testimony" but that the investigation remains open and prosecutors continue to work with police.

In court, Montenegro admitted to a problem with a statement in the police affidavit that led to Riser's arrest. 

He said a claim that cellphone records placed Riser at or near where the victims were killed was "an error on my part'.

In a revised arrest warrant affidavit released this week, that line was changed.  

In announcing the arrest last month, police chief Eddie Garcia had said the officer became a 'suspect' in 2019 and sought to distinguish that from being 'a person of interest'.

Garcia said neither killing was connected to Riser's police work and that investigators were still trying to determine the motives.   

Both victims were shot and their bodies were dumped in the Trinity River, according to investigators. Saenz's body was recovered but Douglas' wasn't.  

The city's former police chief - who left at the end of 2020 - said investigators, in collaboration with the FBI, recommended not placing Riser on administrative leave after he was identified as a person of interest because they didn't want to tip him off.

Dallas detectives, however, had taken an interest in Riser as early as 2017. 

In September of that year, a detective said in court that Riser was the 'subject' of an investigation into the killing of Saenz, according to a transcript of the proceeding.

The detective also said Saenz lived with Riser's father and that before her death she had been a witness in another murder case. The testimony came during a detention hearing in a federal drug case against Riser's dad, Byron Riser.

Shook said Saenz lived with the elder Riser at one point but that his client 'didn't have a relationship with' her and didn't know Douglas.