CAPE'S TOP DETECTIVE LEAVING THE CITY'S POLICE DEPARTMENT

After 30 years of investigating nearly every murder in the Cape Girardeau area, Lt. John Brown is leaving the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

"I just thought it was time to let someone else have the reins," he said.

Brown, who had been in charge of detectives for the police since 1983 and was the first head of the Cape Girardeau-Bollinger County Major Case Squad, will go to work as an officer for the Department of Public Safety at Southeast Missouri State University.

"I have thought about the university before, and I have friends at DPS, so it just seemed like a good time," Brown said.

Many former Cape Gir-ardeau police have gone to work for the university after retiring, police spokesman Lt. Carl Kinnison said.

At a reception for Brown Friday at the police department, DPS officer Al Moore gave Brown three large rings holding more than 200 keys, since much of an officer's job at the university involves locking and unlocking doors.

"Actually, the key ring I get will be much smaller," Brown said.

Chief Rick Hetzel said his department will miss Brown, "Not only as a career law enforcement professional, but as one of the leading criminal investigators in the region," Hetzel said.

Through his work with the Major Case Squad, Brown has been responsible for building better relationships among law enforcement agencies in Southeast Missouri that were strained, said Morley Swingle, Cape Girardeau County prosecutor.

Solving the 1992 murders of Sherry Scheper and her sons Randy and Curtis was Brown's best case, he said.

"It was the most satisfying, because we worked so long and hard and solved it," he said.

The 1983 killing of truck driver Kenneth Wood, the first murder involving the Major Case Squad, was another success, Brown said. The three murders were arrested a week after the crime, after the shell casing from a bullet was discovered and traced to a St. Louis store where one of the killers had purchased it.

"It was significant because we had one person plead guilty to a capital crime," Brown said. "You realize what a good case you have when you get someone to plead guilty to a capital crime."

Along with his badge and gun setting off a metal detector at Lambert Field in St. Louis and the height of his chair needing constant readjustment after a tall FBI agent used it, Brown has left many memories for Cape Girardeau police, Capt. Steve Strong said.

During Hetzel's first week as police chief, Brown drove him to a meeting of narcotics officers in Dexter, Mo. But Brown's car ran out of gas.

"The gas gauge was broken," Strong said. "For a while John had been saying what good mileage he was getting since the needle wasn't moving."

Hetzel recalls other officers coming to pick him up, while Brown remained with the car in the rain.

"As we were driving away, we could see him banging his head on the steering wheel," Hetzel said.

Brown will miss his police colleagues most, but he said he hopes they continue to do the basics of investigation well.

"Buddha said before enlightenment, he chopped wood and carried water," Brown said. "And after enlightenment, he chopped wood and carried water. I hope the Cape Girardeau Police Department continues to chop wood and carry water."