October 1995 to October 1996

ISB Homicide

I got word I was heading to Homicide and would start that Sunday. My buddy Danny McMullen had just transferred there. I met up with him to get the scoop—what to expect, how not to screw up, which coffee pot didn’t have someone’s spit in it. Danny, in all his sage-like wisdom, looked at me and said, “You’re a detective. You DETECT.” That was it. That was the whole pep talk. No jokes, no metaphors. I had just been given the detective version of “just do it” by a guy who had been there almost no time at all.  (I absolutely love Danny and he's one of my best friends.)

“Welcome to the NFL,” said Sgt. John Rice at the end of my interview. That hit hard. I’d just gone from beat cop to homicide detective with zero detective experience—like getting drafted straight out of a neighborhood flag football league. He told me I was the youngest officer ever assigned there. Pretty sure that was nonsense, considering I’m older than Danny. So unless he’s aging in reverse, someone was padding my résumé with fiction.

I walked into that office and immediately felt like I had accidentally wandered into the Justice League’s break room. I was in the presence of legends—Marco Demma, Dwight Deal, John Ronquillo, Tony Small, Joe Waguespack... that wasn’t an office, that was Mount Olympus in polyester slacks. I got assigned to Gary Marchese and George Waguespack. Great detectives. Patient mentors. I, however, was still pretty lost. I kept hearing Danny’s voice in my head: “DETECT!”—like some kind of spiritual chant, but it just made me sweat harder in my Men’s Wearhouse suit, which, by the way, turned out to be the rookie scarlet letter.

How did I find out my suits were subpar? Joey Catalanotto told me. Loudly. Repeatedly. Joey is the Tom Ford of homicide. I said, “Didn’t know we were modeling while solving murders.” He just stared at me, like I’d farted in church. I learned quickly: in Homicide, it’s about collaring bad guys and coordinating your tie.  Joey is a GREAT guy and I always laugh at this moment, and still envy his style.

This is where I met my brother in blue, Pete Bowen. Kind, hysterical, whip-smart—and tragically taken too soon. Whether it was a barstool at the Beachcorner, Boondock or the backseat of a unit, Pete brought laughter, loyalty, and enough bad ideas to fill a highlight reel. I still miss him. I always will. The world was funnier with Pete in it.

Turkey killed Toki

One of the first cases that stuck to me like a shadow involved a young woman named Toki Mitchell, a college student murdered by her boyfriend “Turkey” for—get this—“dissing him.” Not exactly a Mensa member. Everyone knew he did it. Proving it was another story. He eventually got popped for something else, might be dead now, which... poetic. I stayed in touch with her family for a while. Her dad was a postal worker, and they were the sweetest people—sent Christmas cards for years. I reached out decades later and they still remembered me. That one still burns.  I even had Cold Case take a 2nd look, but they were also unable to gain any traction.

Antoinette Frank’s House of Horrors

One night we get a call: bones found under a house. Me, George, and Gary are en route, trying to place why that address feels cursed. Lightbulb: It was Antoinette Frank’s house.

In 1995, Antoinette Frank—an NOPD officer—murdered fellow officer Ronnie Williams (who joined the same time I did) and several members of the Kim Anh family at a restaurant where she was working off-duty. Monster in a uniform.

Fast forward: new owners removed the chicken wire around the bottom of the building and let their dog roam under the house and the pup comes back with a femur. (Good dog?) A forensic archaeologist shows up—which raised questions like: Where the hell do you find a forensic archaeologist on short notice? Craigslist?  Things got really interesting at this point.

The skull has a bullet hole. Shirt says “Joe Camel.” Turns out Antoinette reported her father missing, wearing—you guessed it—a Joe Camel T-shirt. Her defense attorney once asked upon her receiving the death sentence if she wanted to include her dad in her will. She replied, “He’s not coming back.” Uh... yeah. No kidding.

My favorite part? Det. St. Martin sees a bone being cleaned off and asks, with total sincerity, “Is that the earbone?” We called him “Earbone” for the rest of eternity. He hated it. We didn’t care. Welcome to homicide.

A Bad Two Days

June 17, 1996. Near midnight. A 108 goes out—cop life in danger. Chris McCormick, gunned down on Leda Street. We swarm the scene. K9 Max is sent under the house to flush out the suspect. Max gets shot. Keeps his jaws locked. Hardcore dog. We pull the suspect out—face down, arms tucked. We’re yelling, hitting him, trying to get that arm out because we knew he had a gun. Shooting back at the suspect was tricky because we had officers on both sides, and we didn’t want to hit another cop.  Chief Pennington rolls up and tells us to stop hitting him. We pretended not to hear. Found the gun right where we knew it’d be.

Less than 24-hours later, another 108. Joseph Thomas. Shot and killed during a narcotics warrant. His brother was my classmate. It was about 10:30 at night when they were serving a search warrant. The man was chased through the house, and he shot Officer Thomas, killing him. He had a vest on, but the bullet struck him on an uncovered area. Officers returned fire and ended it. One of them was Michael Harrison, who’d later become Superintendent. That 24 hours felt like a punch that wouldn’t stop landing.

Mission One

Around that time, the higher-ups birthed “Mission One”—the brilliant idea to send detectives back into patrol to help out. (Holy crap, if in 1996 we had any idea the level we’d be at in 2023 we would have given up all at once.) The idea was called Mission One. (Years later there would be Mission Two, then the Administrative Task Force, then DART…)  New ideas are always old ideas.  Basically, they wanted us to work the beat while officers “proactively patrolled,” which we all know meant “nap and paperwork.”

Me and Kevin Anderson were teamed up and dropped in the 5th District. Navigating it was like playing SimCity drunk. There wasn’t GPS, so back then we had these paper district maps.  Railroad tracks, canals—nothing went in a straight line. Our mantra became: “You can’t get there from here.” Still, we answered calls, cracked jokes, and did our best. Kevin would argue with sergeants about our stats: “Do you want quantity or quality, Sarge?” Classic.

PANO Golf Tournament

At some point, PANO held a golf tournament. I didn’t play, but I did drink. And that was enough. Eric Hessler asked me if I wanted to climb a tree naked and throw beer at passing golf carts. Sounded reasonable. Up the tree we went.  I didn’t notice the dried-up Christmas tree-like needles getting all over me. I sure noticed this later.

Next cart that passed? Pete Bowen. Perfect. We dumped beer on him. He looked up and saw two fully nude idiots in a tree. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?” One of my favorite moments ever.

Later that day, I joked to a respected, older officer that his visible gun looked like a colostomy bag under his shirt. Plot twist: it was a colostomy bag. Still feel bad. Like, “wake up at 2 a.m. with regret-sweats” bad.

Dead With Heater On

In Homicide, we also handled unclassified deaths. Sometimes, someone died in winter with the heater on, and no one found them till summer. Let’s just say… things got soupy.

Pro tips:
Vicks VapoRub under the nose.
Burn coffee grounds on the stove.

Works wonders. Still smells like a corpse sauna, but with notes of hazelnut.

Suicide

Some of the craziest things I have seen were suicides. Once a woman called the police because her husband was in the bathroom with his .22 handgun and was threatening to kill himself. She heard a shot and feared the worst. We got there, broke in the door to the bathroom, and found the guy sitting there on the toilet (clothed), bleeding from the ear, with the gun on the floor. He said he had shot himself in the ear but he wasn’t dead. In fact, he gave us all his information for the report and walked out to the awaiting ambulance.

As we spoke to the wife for reporting reasons, the EMT came hurriedly into the house beckoning us outside for a quick word. I went out and the EMT said the guy was dead in the ambulance. I looked in to see the guy dead on the gurney. I guess that .22 bounced around his head and took a while to finally kill him. Crazy. We then had to go back in and tell the relieved wife that she actually DID have a dead husband. Not a good day.

Another time there was this Tulane kid hanging from a sliding pocket doorway. This area was wider than a regular doorway and we could see two failed attempts before the third one worked. The first was where he had nailed a belt into the frame, but we could see the nails pulled out and/or bent downward allowing the belt to pull free. The second attempt was screws, but the belt was not formidable enough and had ripped, leaving a portion on the frame. This last time, however, he got it right. Determined! You’d think this kid would have gotten the hint someone was trying to tell him something.

We found his note: “If the Saints lose I’m ending it all.” The Saints were having an abysmal season that year, I think 3-13 was the final record. He didn’t have a chance. Seems his gambling debts had eaten up all his student loans and his military dad was gonna kill him anyway.