R.I.P., Sgt. Robert Douglas
Just got the call about 15 minutes ago.
Oklahoma City police Sgt. Robert Douglas, who spent five years in a coma after an on-duty traffic accident, died today. He was 44.
I wrote a notable obituary on Robert. It will be in tomorrow’s paper (Sept. 29) and should also be online at NewsOK.com.
Robert was a good cop and a good guy. He will be missed.
Remember that “major break” I mentioned before?
It’s still coming.
Just got off the phone with the Oklahoma City police cold case unit. There have been some exciting developments in several unsolved crimes, including the one I mentioned in an earlier post.
I still can’t release any details, but I can say that police think they’ve solved one of the high-profile cases featured on the Cold Case Oklahoma website.
As soon as I get the go-ahead to report on it, we’ll have something in The Oklahoman, online at www.coldcaseok.com and on this blog.
Thoughts on a dying cop
Oklahoma City police Sgt. Robert Douglas is dying.
He’s going to be a big loss.
Douglas, 44, hasn’t been himself for more than five years. A burly, laughing officer who loved his job, his family, good food and better friends, Douglas served as a “motor jock” in the police motorcycle unit.
In 2003, an on-duty motor vehicle accident left him in a coma. He’s been there ever since.
I knew Robert. We weren’t best buddies or anything, but I always enjoyed talking to him and joking around with him. Robert and I shared a fondness for fedoras, among other things, and often discussed hats. He was known for wearing his fedora when working as an on-call police spokesman, and I wore one regularly when I covered Oklahoma City police full-time.
In general, cops and crime writers have fairly bleak sensibilities, the result of seeing and thinking about the unpleasant things they encounter on the job. The grizzled, burned-out cop who’s seen too much is a stereotype in crime dramas for a reason.
But Robert seemed largely untouched by that sort of thing. He was always happy, and I always left a conversation with him feeling a little better about the world.
Last week, another cop called to tell me that Robert is on his last legs. His body is failing, and life is fading. He’s survived for five long years, but by all accounts, he doesn’t have much time left.
Robert’s one of the good guys. We’re losing him too soon.
Another victim checks in
If you read today’s paper, then you know why I have a personal stake in hoping you can help police catch this rapist: He struck about 100 feet from where I lived up until August.
In the years we lived there, my wife and I saw the neighborhood change from a safe, quiet area to a dangerous, scary place. We suffered a break-in, but didn’t lose much. Now we live in a much safer neighborhood. The difference is almost palpable.
In today’s newspaper story, I recounted some of the recent crimes that have occurred in the 11000 block of N Lincoln Blvd., which probably isn’t even a quarter-mile long. Those crimes include drug dealing, home invasions, beatings and a rape, among others.
A few minutes ago, I got a call from a woman reporting yet another crime there.
About a week ago, she said, her daughter came home to find that someone had broken into the home she’d lived in for seven years. The intruder smashed her belongings, stole some items and knocked holes in the walls with a baseball bat.
The woman and her husband came in from California to move their daughter to safety. They saw another family moving out and talked to their daughter’s neighbor, who said she’s probably going to leave, too.
“I read your story and just started crying,” the woman said. “I didn’t want to read it, but I’m glad I did, because it reinforced that we did the right thing by moving our daughter out of that neighborhood.”
It’s a sad thing. I know people who still live there — good people who would never harm a soul.
The bad guys are winning. They chased me away. They’re scaring others into leaving. And the good folks who are left behind are just becoming victims.
It’s not a cold case, although few, if any, of these crimes have been solved.
But people have been hurt, particularly the two most recent victims. One was hit with a blunt object, raped and stabbed. The other — a good Samaritan just trying to help her neighbor — was also beaten and stabbed.
This monster doesn’t deserve freedom. I hope you can help lock him away.
Do you know this man?
Oklahoma City police are seeking this violent rapist who attacked two women in the 11000 block of N Lincoln Blvd. on Saturday. He raped one and stabbed them both.
Rapists who beat and stab women are among the scariest criminals out there. It’s a small step to go from hurting someone to killing someone.
Let’s not let this one turn into a Cold Case.
If you recognize this guy, please call Crime Stoppers at (405) 235-7300.
R.I.P., Rocky Pennington
Roscoe “Rocky” Pennington, seen in the photograph above, died Sept. 8.
He was 66.
On Sept. 23, 1987, two of Mr. Pennington’s daughters, Cheryl Genzer and Lisa Pennington, vanished from the Oklahoma State Fair and were later found dead. No one has ever been convicted in their deaths.
Mr. Pennington, along with his wife and extended family, worked hard throughout the past 21 years to find justice for his daughters and learn exactly what happened the night they disappeared. When I talked to him a year ago for a Cold Case story on the case, he was losing his hearing and needed a liver transplant. He and his wife told me that losing their daughters had cost them their health and taken years from their lives.
“All of this we live with is just pulling us down,” his wife told me last year.
And now Mr. Pennington is gone. My condolences go out to his family and loved ones.
I don’t know if there is an afterlife or what it’s like, but I hope that somewhere, somehow, Rocky has been reunited with his daughters.
I hope he has all the answers he needs.
Paige, Tanner and Dave
I don’t think I’ve ever introduced you to the people who are responsible for creating the Cold Case Oklahoma videos. That’s a grave oversight on my part, because this project wouldn’t exist without their talent and professionalism. They’re an integral part of the team. Even better, they’re good people who are easy to work with and who care about Cold Case every bit as much as I do.
Paige Dillard writes all of the scripts for the Cold Case videos. She consults with me but does much of her own research, digging through the archives for past stories, searching the Web and wading through what is sometimes hours of footage to find the best clips to include in the documentary-style videos. Sometimes we go to interviews together and take turns asking questions. Her job is behind-the-scenes and pretty thankless, but she’s a talented asset, and she has to work faster than me: Her deadlines are often much earlier than mine.
If you watch many videos at NewsOK.tv, you’ve probably seen Tanner Herriott on-camera. (My favorite is the one where he basically gets beaten up by a self-defense instructor: http://www.newsok.tv/?titleID=1483902033.) For Cold Case, he works behind the camera as a skilled videographer. He has shot the video for every Cold Case I’ve worked on, and I couldn’t be happier with the job he’s done. Tanner works from Paige’s scripts to cobble the final videos together and add in the visual effects. If you think the videos look good, it’s because of him.
Everyone knows Dave Morris. I don’t think you can watch television in Oklahoma City for more than 30 minutes without seeing him in a NewsOK commercial. Dave’s a much better looking guy than I am, and he’s far more comfortable on camera, so he’s the face of Cold Case Oklahoma — and thank God for it. Dave hosts and narrates the videos. I think he does a great job.
Cold Case meeting
Four times a year, members of various law enforcement agencies gather at the Oklahoma City police training center to talk about cold cases.
The meetings, which are closed to the public, allow investigators to pool information on cases they’re working and seek advice from their colleagues. A case featured at one of the meetings was the Comanche slaying of Mary Pewitt. That case was profiled on the Cold Case OK Web site earlier this year.
I’ve been invited to two of the meetings but only made it to one. The sessions pretty much last all day, but I was there for just an hour or two.
It’s pretty fascinating. Police detectives, OSBI agents, sheriff’s deputies and others all gathered in one classroom talking about the cases that haunt even the most hardened law enforcement professionals, the cases that have crawled under their skin, the cases they just can’t forget. It’s a compelling reminder that cops care.
Their next meeting isn’t for a few months. Hopefully, some of those cases will be closed by then.
Black Muslims
Check out the new Cold Case on a string of unsolved crimes from the 1970s. For decades, police have attributed the crimes to a group of Black Muslims, but they’ve never been able to prove it.
Police are on one side. On the other is Alfred Brooks, the only man convicted in any of the crimes.
Brooks wasn’t a good guy when he was running free in the 1970s. He did some bad things, and by his own admission, if he didn’t kill one woman and wound another, he was at least there when it happened – and didn’t come forward to police. That’ll land anyone in prison, and he’s doing time for murder.
His friends, though, are convinced he wasn’t part of the other crimes in the series. Joe Long and Doobie Potter are kind, sensitive artists; Joe, a mime, has been a volunteer prison chaplain, and Doobie helped convicts write and stage plays. They’ve been around the system, and they trust Brooks enough that they’re willing to let him move in with them if he’s ever released. They told me that Brooks is completely rehabilitated, a rare success story in a prison underworld that often turns bad men worse. And they said that he’s been denied parole repeatedly because of unsubstantiated allegations that he killed other people, even though he was never charged in any of those crimes.
After 34 years, there are still so many questions.
Did Brooks commit the murder for which he was convicted? A jury and the surviving victim said he did.
Did Brooks commit the other crimes? That’s never been proven.
Does he know who committed those crimes? Even if he does and tells us, how can we ever know he’s telling the truth?
Can a convict truly be rehabilitated, and if so, what is the ethical thing to do with that person?
Should a man who once faced a death sentence (Brooks’ sentence was changed in 1977 to consecutive life terms) ever be allowed parole?
This Cold Case was more difficult to write than most, largely because of all of those questions and many more.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong?
Will we ever know for sure?
