Police Veteran Assumes Mentor Role as Chairman Emeritus of Major Case Squad
Col. Robert G. Lowery Sr.
He's been a part of the unit since the day it formed.The Major Case Squad organized in 1964 with Lowery as one of its investigators. He later became a report officer, deputy commander and, for 12 years, its commander.He left the squad in 1979 to join the board -- board members are prohibited from doing actual investigations -- and became chairman a year later. "It's probably the greatest concept of cooperation in law enforcement that I've ever seen," he said in an interview last week.Lowery investigated the squad's first case: a shooting death in St. Charles in September 1965. It was solved four hours later. That's the kind of result the founders of the squad expected. They organized the Major Case Squad to help smaller police and sheriff's departments with major investigations beyond their own resources. What began with 97 investigators has grown to four times that.