By opening up lines of communication with the victim’s family, Greeley says he found himself inundated with keeping the family happy without jeopardizing the leads and evidence collected in the investigation.
As a detective with the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department, Greeley was one of the lead detectives, who investigated the death of a young woman in a rural Missouri town. Because of the brutality of the death, and the sequences played out, the case lead to a media frenzy. The investigation ended with a videotaped confession and multiple suspects arrested and charged as accomplices in the crime.
Greeley says he empathized with the victim’s mother, because he, himself, had two brothers, who were murdered in their prime. He clearly remembered his experiences and wanted nothing more than to find the person or persons responsible for killing the young lady.
By opening up lines of communication with the victim’s family, Greeley says he found himself inundated with keeping the family happy without jeopardizing the leads and evidence collected in the investigation. As Greeley spoke with the family, he discovered the family was open with their communication with the media outlets. He shut down the lines of communication with the family, which caused them to become upset with him.
He says, after building rapport with the family it was difficult to take a new stance, one he should have taken early on in the investigation. He said it’s one thing to have sympathy for a victim’s family, but to correlate feelings and to allow those feelings to interfere with your personal life is going too far.
