San Angelo's True Detectives

“You think of an autopsy, what do you think of?” San Angelo Police Department Criminal Investigations Division Sergeant Rusty Herndon counters. He’s responding to an inquiry about the most difficult part of his job.

“A cold steel table. A bleached white body…”

“Who’s being cut open? What does it look like?”

“The body shows some strangulation marks around the neck, has a blueish black ring around the right eye.”

“An adult?” he presses. “You don’t ever think of a child being cut open, do you?”

Hours of CSI Miami betray the question. Silence follows.

“We do that,” he says, point blank. “I mean, we have those—babies, a child. That part is [difficult], especially if you have children.”

Herndon is one of four sergeants that supervise the SAPD’s 13 detectives in the Criminal Investigations Division (CID). The division is comprised of 28 individuals under the direction of Lieutenant David Howard, including the four sergeants, 13 detectives, four CSI persons, two evidence technicians, two administrative assistants and two part-time cold case detectives.

Each year, the 13 detectives are assigned approximately 200 felony cases apiece, ranging from burglaries and sexual assault to online solicitation, child crimes, drugs and murder. According to Lt. David Howard, CID has seen a 25 percent increase in cases assigned over the past two years, largely attributable to the city’s rapid population increase. The number of officers employed by the department has remained stagnant.

“Monica Martinez was probably the most difficult [case for me],” Herndon continues. “Monica was killed back in 1992. She was taken out to the lake, she was raped and then she was murdered. Then she was moved from one spot to another and buried in a shallow grave…the next day.”

When her face showed up on a missing persons poster at the local Walmart in 1997, a Crimestoppers tip kicked off an investigation that led to the apprehension of two San Angelo men, Robert Villascaz and Timothy James Rodriguez. Herndon worked the case all the way up to the conviction of the two for murder in a Tom Green County court in 1998, but even with the aggressors behind bars his case still wasn’t complete: the body could not be found.

“For me, the hardest part was knowing that the body was out there and I couldn’t find it,” Herndon said. “Between that and having to tell family, I didn’t want to give up. A lot of us didn’t want to give up. But there comes a point where you’re spending a lot of resources on someone that may or may not be there. I mean, yeah, he (the suspect) tells us she’s there, but is she really? I thought she was, but we were just in the wrong spot.”

For approximately two weeks, SAPD Detectives, Tom Green County Sheriff’s Deputies, Texas Rangers and other investigators bulldozed, searched and guarded a 16-acre swatch of terrain where perpetrators purported to have buried her. Her remains were found 10 years later within 100 yards of the location, Herndon said.

“We had two bulldozers pushing down brush, we had two maintainers pushing dirt, we had another two front-end loaders moving the dirt, and all the detectives that are walking, scanning and sifting for anything,” Herndon recalled. “There comes a point in time where the economics just aren’t feasible and you just have to let go. Not to be forgotten—certainly if something comes up in the future we can always go back—but you have to move on.”

Herndon said moving on in this particular case was harder for him than in any other he’s investigated throughout his 27 years at the SAPD. While the family felt there wasn’t enough being done, Herndon and other detectives searched until their resources were exhausted with the hope of closure. Two hunters found the remains at the south shore of the north pool at Twin Buttes in November 2008.

Information Sharing and the Digital Age

Sgt. Rusty Herndon started at the SAPD in 1986 as a patrolman. For the past 17 years, he’s worked in CID: 10 years as a detective and seven as a supervisor. Lt. David Howard started in 1988 and worked narcotics for several years before promoting to lieutenant and taking over the Criminal Investigations Division roughly a year ago.

Technological advances and a flattening of the structure of the organization has radically changed how information is gathered, disseminated and shared, Lt. Howard says, and it’s also changed how crimes are solved.

“As a young patrolman [20 years ago] you would get into your car, you had your radio and your flashlight, and off you went into the night,” he said. “You had no set mission—you had your criminals that you kept up with, your own little area that you took care of, but as far as what everybody else was working on, it was all word of mouth. Now it’s a lot more structured…and there’s more coordination.”

Herndon and Howard recall a time when film was sent off to a lab for developing and cars had no computers or cameras. Back then, the accuracy of fingerprinting and DNA sampling had its limitations and the time required to process evidence and pictures was lengthy at best.

“Years ago, on patrol, if you had somebody out on a scene…and you thought they were lying to you and you had an idea of who they were, what we’d have to do is we’d have to drive out to dispatch, get a picture of them, drive back out to the scene…and have an officer show them the photo,” Lt. Howard said. “Now the photos are sent automatically through emails, through the in-car camera or through the computer systems.

“Now they can instant message car to car, emails throughout the department, text messaging—just the technology and the media we have available to us today is night and day from 20 years ago,” he said. “Twenty years ago we didn’t have cell phones; now we’re all carrying cell phones.”

San Angelo police vehicles were first outfitted with video cameras in 1998, and the cameras recorded to VHS tapes. Herndon said an officer would generally keep recording incidents on a tape until it was full, then turn it in. Nowadays, the films are uploaded as reports are completed over the internet.

But the advent of technology and proliferation of smart phones hasn’t only changed the way police do business, it’s also changed how witnesses are approached.

“Technology is a double-edged sword,” Lt. Howard said. “At the crime scenes we want to find uncontaminated witnesses. You want to find witnesses where their version is what they saw, they know what happened. If you’ve got somebody and they’re looking pictures of the evidence on the internet, they’re reading everything that other people are saying as it’s happening, then finding uncontaminated witnesses—it’s just a hurdle for us to cross. We want unblemished witnesses….so that’s kind of the downside of technology for us.”

Howard cites the recent officer-involved shooting at Walmart as example. “The incident at Walmart, I looked down and all these witnesses are waiting to be interviewed—we had between 60 and 70 witnesses to interview up there—and most of the witnesses have their cell phones out videotaping everything going on. That’s where we are today.”

Photo and video evidence from witnesses has been collected to help solve cases, Lt. Howard said, and people seem to be more willing to talk to police now than in the past.

“It’s a different generation,” Herndon added. “I think…this younger generation wants accountability. They’re not afraid to speak out. [But] there’s always going to be those that don’t want to be involved.”

Another significant difference that has risen throughout the years is advancements in DNA and fingerprinting technologies. Herndon says that as far back as he can remember, detectives have always gathered blood from crime scenes, but that now the quantity needed to obtain a match is far less than in the past.

DNA evidence was first used in Tom Green County courts in the mid-80s, Herndon said, to solve the murder of 20-year-old Sheila Elrod, who was shot in 1980 at the scene of a robbery at a local jewelry store.

Up until the 1990s, bodily fluids such as blood, semen, sweat or saliva were the only forms of DNA investigators could use to identify victims or suspects, but in the mid-90s mitochondrial DNA was introduced and enabled investigators to match individuals with strands of hair.

Reflecting back on the murder of Monica Martinez, Sgt. Herndon says that technological advancements ultimately helped investigators solve the case. Following the Crimestoppers tip, Herndon and SAPD detectives had the name of two suspects. One readily confessed, the other, Timothy James Rodriguez, wouldn’t talk.

When detectives seized the car used to move the body—which was still in the Rodriguez family—they found evidence that would indicate Rodriguez’s guilt.

“We seize that car four, five years later, we take that mat out and we find some long, black hairs,” Herndon said. “This is where the mitochondrial DNA came in. We sent that off to the lab in Seattle and they made a match off the victim.”

Both Rodriguez and Villascaz plead guilty to the murder in 2008. Rodriguez was sentenced to 75 years in prison, Villascaz received 40.

Making the Cut

Not every officer is cut out to be a detective, but those who do make the cut require a special set of nerves and constant availability. ‘When the phone rings, you’d better answer it,’ Lt. Howard says.

Like patrolmen, the detectives are divided up by sector, with a sergeant in charge of each team. Once trained, detectives are on call once every 12 days and those calls can come at any time, day or night.

“They may get a call at 2,3,4 ‘o clock in the morning, and they’re on their own,” Sgt. Herndon said. “They’re making big decisions on their own. If it’s a major crime like a homicide or an aggravated robbery, they’re going to get a hold of a supervisor. We trust in them a lot. We give them a lot of flexibility.”

A detective is assigned to be on call every night from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Should something happen, like a burglary, and suspects are in custody, the detective will be called out and assigned the case, regardless of the sector. Typically, a detective is only called when the suspects are in custody, but major crimes, such as aggravated robbery, aggravated sexual assault, murder, kidnapping and all child crimes mandate that a detective be present. If there are multiple witnesses, suspects or loads of evidence to deal with, additional detectives may be called out to assist, Herndon explained.

“These detectives don’t have to be on call to be called out,” Sergeant Doug Thomas added. “I know my guys get called regularly because of all the information sharing. We put out ‘Hey, there’s a red Chevy truck and there’s bad guys in it. We think that they’re doing this crime. If you stop them, patrolmen, then you call this detective.’

“Well, sure enough, 1:00 in the morning they stop that truck,” Sgt. Thomas continued. “They find a gun that’s stolen inside that truck and they call the detective and it’s the one that they’re looking for, so there’s four or five cases that are getting solved tonight. He’s not on call, but it’s his deal, so he comes out. He’s responsible for that case and if it comes out at 1:00 in the morning, so be it. He’s got to get up and go. That’s the fast-paced part of being an investigator. It can happen at any time.”

As opposed to patrol, which is regimented with set hours and duties to respond to calls for service, an SAPD detective has high degree of freedom. Each detective is responsible for making decisions that will help solve his case, making contact with victims and witnesses and putting the pieces together.

“Our guys, we give them the latitude to come and go when they feel necessary to solve the crime,” Herndon said. “They’re in contact with the public—the victim, suspects—but they’re also in contact with the district attorneys, the county attorneys, the judges, so integrity goes a long way, especially if they have to run a search warrant. If I get the reputation that my word is not golden, that there’s some deception to Rusty Herndon, then the judge is not apt to sign a warrant that allows me to go into somebody’s house and arrest them. So integrity on our part is a lot. We’ve had some detectives that have abused that and we’ve admonished them.”

Aside from integrity, sergeants Thomas and Herndon, as well as Lt. Howard list self-motivation and the ability to handle stress as key characteristics for effective detectives. Supervisors also look at reliability, attention to detail in report writing and whether or not an officer is willing to “go the extra mile” on patrol to provide relief to a victim.

“That’s a big deal, a self-motivated individual,” Sgt. Thomas said. “These guys—I’ll check in with my guys once or twice a day, but they’re on their own to set their own appointments, make their own agendas and solve these cases, and I don’t babysit them. They have to be self-motivated to do this work and to make decisions to further the case, because you can easily make a decision to end the case, just as quickly. It takes a lot of self-initiation. You can see that in young patrolmen when they’re out there self-initiating arrests and investigations from a patrol car. That’s the kind of guy I look for, making dope stops and trying to arrest people, investigating on their own. If they can bring those abilities in here, we can point them in the right direction.”

Danger, Difficulties and Birthday Parties

Every time an officer stops a car, walks into a house or approaches a suspect, a certain degree of danger exists. That danger, Sgt. Thomas says, is the unknown. While detectives have an advantage over patrol in that they possess more information on who they’re approaching, why and what for, unknowns still exist. 

Criminals regularly sit in detective’s offices upstairs at the police station, and some have broken out into fights in the interrogation room. Detectives confront suspects and witnesses at the scenes of crimes and frequently serve search and arrest warrants.

“When you go and you run a search warrant on someone’s house, that’s pretty spooky,” Herndon said. “That’s a real adrenaline rush. Kicking in someone’s door, going into their house, their kingdom, it’s like your raiding someone else’s kingdom and you’ve got to be prepared, so those are certainly scary.”

“The most dangerous part of the job is the unknown,” Sgt. Thomas added. You never know what’s on the other side of the door.

Between the dangers of the job, the long hours and the late nights, the detectives say the most difficult part of the position is not being able to solve a crime.

“It’s really frustrating when so much is going on and we may have a lot of evidence and we may have a lot of witnesses, we may have the evidence, but we can’t solve it, for whatever reason,” Sgt. Herndon said. “Suspect’s unknown, we just can’t get him identified. Especially when you pour heart and soul into it and you’re trying your hardest.”

Victims add pressure to detectives because the often don’t understand that acquiring evidence takes time, he said, and every victim’s case is in his eyes the most important a detective is working on.  

But even if the crime has been solved and all evidence seems to align, a case can hit a wall in the courts if a jury doesn’t find it compelling enough.

“Your facts and the circumstances before you may lead you to believe a certain thing but if the jury sees it otherwise, you have to deal with that,” Lt. Howard said. “I always just accept that the jury—if there was a jury involved—that they did what they thought was right and you have to respect that part of the system. That’s the way I deal with it. For whatever reason they made their decision and you have to live with it and go on. There’s no hanging on to it. “

Howard and Herndon said that being exposed to the criminal element and confronted with murder, death and violence is something every detective has to learn to adjust to. Also paramount to the position, they said, is having an understanding spouse.

“At some point I’ve had to leave our kid’s birthday party,” Sgt. Herndon said. "Or you had one of those nights where you got the in-laws to babysit the children, you’ve got a date with the wife and then you get out and the phone rings.”

“I’ve been married 25 years and one anniversary I took her to outback and we were having a nice dinner,” Lt. Howard added. “Throughout that dinner, I was outside on the phone. I went in there and she’d finished eating already and I hadn’t even got to start and I felt so horrible, so horrible. And I still feel bad about that. But she’s just so understanding.”

The divorce rate for police officers was once as high as 80 percent, Howard said, due to the long hours and the late nights. Since the scheduling has changed a bit that rate has fallen, but it still remains high. The key is in understanding, they said.

Despite all the difficulties, Lt. Howard and Sgt. Herndon say that being a detective is a calling that they both feel drawn to. Neither could imagine doing anything else.

“I feel sure that the guys that are doing it are doing it because they’re sure that they’re making a difference,” Howard said. “That’s why they’re dong it. They wouldn’t put up with all the calls, all the late nights, leaving kids birthday parties or their kids in from out of town at college and go out to a call out—they wouldn’t put up with that and all the hurdles that they face unless they felt that they were making a difference.”

In addition to the 28 employed in the Criminal Investigations Division, five volunteers assist in CSI, processing evidence and calling back victims. Last year, CSI was called out 1,500 times to crime scenes.

“It is a privilege to work with such a dedicated and talented group of men and women,” Lt. David Howard said. “They are a great team that works hard to serve the citizens of San Angelo.”