I knew that Ridley just keeps showing up for one reason or another, but I didn’t expect this to be one of them.
Knowing what we do now, I would say that the closest we get to Ridley in Dread is the Stealth Guardian. (I don’t actually know the names of most foes in Metroid games. Instead, I usually name bosses after what you get from them, which is how most are named in Metroid Prime 2.) It’s got the same spearlike tail and movements, though thankfully you end it there and it doesn’t get to grow any bigger. I don’t think it was a Ridley, but I’m not certain it’s not, and I can imagine Samus encountering that thing and thinking, “Oh, no, you don’t get to live this time.”
Anthony was the one person we were certain was innocent, because he carries that plasma cannon everywhere and the Deleter doesn’t have that. Nobody else has that kind of distinction. However, given who we’ve encountered and when, I’m inclined to believe the Deleter is James Pierce. He was alone in the tower when we got there, and the other three arrived as a group—and I’m fairly certain Lyle was dead before we ever arrived. His instructions were to fix the comms from the Control Bridge, but somebody rigged the place to explode, and he was there by himself for a while. Lyle had been instructed to “show a little restraint with the explosives.” I think I know where James would have gotten the gear to make that tower blow up.