Police timed release of Ridgeway info

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DENVER, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Police in Colorado may have flushed out a suspect in the slaying of young Jessica Ridgeway by revealing a key clue to the public, a source told The Denver Post.

The newspaper said Sunday the mother of 17-year-old suspect Austin Sigg contacted police the day after investigators told the news media there was a link between the Ridgeway slaying and an attack on a jogger in late May.

The source told the Post police were aware of the connection for more than a week. The specific reason Mindy Sigg called police has not been revealed due to a gag order on the case.

Austin Sigg was arrested Oct. 23 and ordered held without bond during a court hearing Thursday, where he was advised he was also suspected of criminal attempt to kidnap and murder in an attack on a 22-year-old jogger in May at Ketner Lake, a park-like open space in the city of Westminster.

Jessica Ridgeway was 10 when she disappeared Oct. 5 after leaving her Westminster home for school. Police have said Sigg has confessed and DNA evidence connects him to the crime, the Post reported.

Veteran investigators not involved in the Ridgeway case told the Post police often strategically release details of a major case to the media in hopes it elicits a reaction from the culprit or people close to the suspect.

"Whenever you are talking to the media and giving stuff to the media, you have to think that you are also talking directly to the killer," said Gregg McCrary, a former FBI profiler from Virginia. "You want to put out things that the people around the killer would know."