Westrich remembered as 'street-smart officer'

After hearing that Rhonda Westrich had died last Friday, Cape Girardeau County Sheriff John Jordan drove to his office to prepare her eulogy. On the radio came a song by the group Alabama titled "Angels Among Us." That song, he said, spoke to him about the kind of person Westrich was because of her work with battered women and abused children.

Westrich, the domestic violence investigator for the sheriff's department, died in her sleep of a heart attack. She was 46.

"I think the words are 'I believe there are angels among us who send down to us from somewhere above, they come to you and me in our darkest hour, to show us how to live, to teach us how to give, to guide us with a light of love'" Jordan said. "She was an angel in that respect. She did so much to help battered women and children in this county."

Those who worked with Rhonda Westrich say she was a natural as an investigator. Westrich could get down to the perpetrators' level and get an admission or a confession. She could comfort victimized children and encourage them to talk to her about the abuse they had suffered.

"She was amazing," said assistant prosecuting attorney Angel Woodruff. "I can't imagine being able to find someone as good and as talented as she was. It takes a talent; you just have to have it. I don't think it's something you can learn."

Woodruff and assistant prosecutor Julie Hunter worked with Westrich on domestic violence and child abuse cases frequently.

"Angel and I take these cases because we have to," Hunter said. "Rhonda had a special gift for it. These cases are very difficult; you don't leave these cases at work. You take them home with you every night."

Woodruff recalled how Westrich would call whenever she had a case coming up to be prosecuted because she elicited a confession from the perpetrator.

"You could hear the glee in her voice --â 'I got him!'" Woodruff said. "It meant so much to her to do a good job for these kids."

Secretarial work

Westrich began her career as a secretary in the Cape Girardeau Police Department and seemed to find her calling there. John Volkerding, an investigator with the prosecutor's office, was a detective in the city police department when Westrich worked there transcribing detectives' case reports.

"We would have briefings once or twice a week," Volkerding said, "She would remember stuff and tie it in with different cases from week to week and detective to detective. She would make connections; she was real good at that."

Westrich eventually joined the police reserve and became a dispatcher before she left to go to work for the sheriff's department in 1999 as one of the first detectives to concentrate on domestic violence cases.

"When a child abuse case came through the door, she wanted to work on it," said Jordan.

"I don't know anybody who could replace her," said Lt. David James, who was her immediate supervisor in the sheriff's department. "We may fill her position, but as far as replacing her, that will be tough."

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said Westrich was "as tenacious as a bulldog, as poker-faced as a priest, and as hard-working as a ditch-digger."

Swingle said that once Westrich got on a case, she stayed with it until she got evidence solid enough to bring to court.

Swingle recalled one case where a man had snatched a small child from a home and assaulted her, ultimately leaving her alone and frightened along a dark county road when he realized police were gaining on him.

"Rhonda took that little girl and held her and made the child feel better," Swingle said. "Ultimately she took the confession from the defendant. She did an excellent job in that case."

Westrich was also known for her friendships with those she worked with.

"She was as mischievous as all get-out," said Jordan. "She could be a prankster. She was just a good person."

James said Westrich was very organized and efficient and easy to get along with. "She didn't take a lot of guff from anybody either," he said. "She was a good, street-smart police officer. Everybody who met her liked her."

Looking ahead to holiday

Woodruff said she had spoken with Westrich the day before she died and Westrich was looking forward to having four days off over the Memorial Day holiday. Instead she died in her sleep from a heart attack. Jordan said there are statistics that show law enforcement officers give of themselves every day, sometimes with their lives. The average life expectancy of a police officer he said is 57. Westrich was 46.

Volkerding said Westrich may have known her time was near. She had had a major heart attack when she was 32. He said she had told some of her friends that in her prayers she had asked that she be able to live long enough to see her children grow up and move out on their own because with her heart condition she feared she wouldn't live much past 50.

"Thursday night at 10 p.m., her youngest son left the house to go to a new apartment," Volkerding said. "She died in her sleep that night."

Westrich's coworkers and friends said they feel like they have lost a member of their own family.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160