Retiring detectives won’t soon forget faces of angels, images of hell

You’d need to be an astute reader of the newspaper to even recognize their names, but Jimmy Vaccaro and Tom Thowsen are well known in their world.

It’s not a place you’d ever want to visit. It’s a land littered with dead bodies, grieving families, and killers of every station and stripe. But it’s a place Metro homicide detectives Vaccaro and Thowsen know intimately.

After working hundreds of murder cases and piling up 60 years of collective police experience, Vaccaro and Thowsen are retiring. They had their send-off Wednesday night at Big Dog’s, and their paperwork has been processed.

They can now leave their world behind, or try to. That, I suspect, will be the challenge both men face in the coming months and years. It’s hard to imagine it being easy to leave the stories of all the dead people and their anguished families in the past.

You probably don’t know Vaccaro, but you might recall the murder of real estate man Ron Rudin by his wife, Margaret Rudin. Vaccaro and partner Phil Ramos worked that case together and ran the elusive Mrs. Rudin to ground.

Remember Jeremy Strohmeyer? He strangled 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a Primm Valley casino bathroom. Vaccaro and Ramos worked that case, too.

And given a lifetime, Vaccaro will never forget the killing of Jane “Cordova” Doe in January 2006. The body of the 3-year-old, later identified as Crystal Figueroa, was found in a trash bin.

“Jimmy’s one guy I wouldn’t want coming after me,” says Ramos, who estimates they worked 200 cases together and put half a dozen killers on Death Row. “He doesn’t quit. He’s dogged.”

Maybe that doggedness is ingrained. Metro investigator Kevin Manning worked narcotics with Vaccaro, who as an undercover detective was known for scoring dope without flashing much cash. “He went above and beyond,” Manning recalls. “He showed that same work ethic in Homicide. As far as I’m concerned he made himself into one of the premier homicide detectives in this department. He takes it personally.”

You probably don’t know Thowsen’s name, but you might recall the 1998 execution-style murders of four young men involved in a minor dope deal. Through all the trials, appeals and retrials, Thowsen helped see that case through to the end and the conviction of all the killers.

“Tommy was a heckuva partner,” Metro veteran James Buczek says. “His quest was for the victim. He became very close to the victims’ families.”

Thowsen is philosophical about his 16 years in Homicide.

“It definitely gives you a feeling that regular people have no idea of the evil that men do to each other, sometimes for very little cause,” he says.

Although the quadruple murder was grisly, the 1990 beating death of tiny Francine Meegan by James Meegan perhaps had the most impact on him.

Little Francine was born the same year as Thowsen’s son. He placed a picture of her on his desk as a source of motivation. Whenever he felt tired or frustrated by his job, he looked at the picture of the innocent spirit taken not long before she was beaten to death and burned.

That’s what homicide detectives do. They don’t just catch killers. They stand up for the dead in a society where life seems to get cheaper by the day.

Although Thowsen stopped counting the number of homicide cases he worked, he admits his professional life came at a cost to his own family.

“I’m sure it has to change you,” says Thowsen, who plans a second career in real estate. “I’m very close to my family. But the stress of what I’m doing, I’m sure it carries over. I think it changes you after a period of time. The more you do it, the harder it is to walk away from. You have a need for people to be held accountable.”

Vaccaro can now leave behind this world of consummate sorrow, but Ramos isn’t sure how long his former partner’s retirement will last.

Thowsen is free to set aside all the misery he’s witnessed and pursue the real estate trade. He’s already picked out his desk.

Something tells me he’ll keep the picture of the baby girl close by.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295.