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Cool cowboys
The Douglas County Cold Case Squad, from left, Syd Boyle, Tom Schultz, Al Olson and Tom Hall, have received national media attention following a Los Angeles Times profile last week.
When the "Cold Case Cowboys" rode across the front page of the Los Angeles Times last week, nobody in the Douglas County Sheriff's Office foresaw the riot of national media attention that would follow.
The story had scarcely hit the newsstands Jan. 29, when the volunteer squad and the sheriff's office were assailed by calls from major news outlets.
"Dateline." "48 Hours Investigates." "Nightline." CNN. "The Today Show." National Public Radio. The British Broadcasting Corp. ABC News. NBC News.
Even Playboy magazine wanted a piece of the action.
All for the four humble men who comprise the Cold Case Squad -- Syd Boyle, a retired homicide detective; Tom Hall, a former U.S. postal inspector; Al Olson, a retired police chief; and Thomas Schultz, a former detective.
The squad answered a 2002 sheriff's office plea for volunteers willing to help close the books on some of the county's most stubborn unsolved cases.
"It's nuts, it's just wild," said sheriff's spokeswoman Pam Frank. "I had calls at home (last) weekend from 'The Today Show' wanting to be out here ready to film at oh-dark-thirty Monday morning."
The men in the squad are surprised by the adulation, but perhaps they shouldn't be. They solved their first two cases right out of the gates: the 1978 murder of Roseburg teenager Benny King, and the 1988 disappearance of Azalea woman Barbie Gallagher.
The interest in the team also was fed by a quote from a Times source stating it may be the only volunteer cold case team of its kind in the United States. The newspaper cited a forensic anthropology expert in West Virginia who works with police agencies all over the country on cold cases.
One media representative said her decision to contact the Cold Case Squad members was at least partially based on that factor.
"I think the characters are interesting," said Anat Levy of Leto Entertainment in Los Angeles. "The fact that they're the only ones doing this in the U.S., and that they're doing it on a voluntary basis and appear to have a camaraderie amongst them."
Levy left a message recently on Thomas Schultz's home answering machine expressing her interest in producing something related to the squad. Her company develops characters and story lines for various media projects and then pitches them to the major networks and movie production companies.
Levy hopes to develop a fictional television series or film based on the Cold Case Squad.
A crew from the A&E television network's "Cold Case Files" is coming to town on Feb. 16 to produce a special on the Benny King case for the network's popular documentary series.
"It is a bit overwhelming when you get calls from major media sources saying, 'We can have a crew there tomorrow,'" remarked Hall. "All of us, to one degree or another, have dealt with the media ... (but) none of us has experienced this kind of interest from as far and wide as it's coming."
Hall attributes the flurry of interest in the team's work to the prominent play of the story in the Times, as well as the general interest in police work demonstrated by the success of such shows as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
"This, I think, is a story that is a little more than that because it's about real people doing real work," Hall said.
And doing it for free, chimes in his wife, Diane Hall.
"We all really support what they do and we think it's wonderful," she said, speaking for herself and the other cold case wives. "If we had had anything like this ever happen to people we knew, we'd want guys like this investigating it."
Although book, movie and television offers are still being thrown at them like confetti, the team is trying to take it all in stride.
Talk of getting an agent has surfaced, but the team insists they still have a job to do -- like finding out what happened to 26-year-old Dennis Ray Smith, who disappeared in October 1995. He was found just outside of Roseburg in January 1997, shot once through the head and buried in a shallow grave on his own property. The Smith murder case will be the squad's third.
"We don't want to sound like we're out ... trying to do books and movies," Hall said. "Our main goal is to, you know, do what we're doing, investigate cold cases."
* You can reach reporter Christian Bringhurst at 957-4213 or by e-mail at cbringhurst@newsreview.info.
The story had scarcely hit the newsstands Jan. 29, when the volunteer squad and the sheriff's office were assailed by calls from major news outlets.
"Dateline." "48 Hours Investigates." "Nightline." CNN. "The Today Show." National Public Radio. The British Broadcasting Corp. ABC News. NBC News.
Even Playboy magazine wanted a piece of the action.
All for the four humble men who comprise the Cold Case Squad -- Syd Boyle, a retired homicide detective; Tom Hall, a former U.S. postal inspector; Al Olson, a retired police chief; and Thomas Schultz, a former detective.
The squad answered a 2002 sheriff's office plea for volunteers willing to help close the books on some of the county's most stubborn unsolved cases.
"It's nuts, it's just wild," said sheriff's spokeswoman Pam Frank. "I had calls at home (last) weekend from 'The Today Show' wanting to be out here ready to film at oh-dark-thirty Monday morning."
The men in the squad are surprised by the adulation, but perhaps they shouldn't be. They solved their first two cases right out of the gates: the 1978 murder of Roseburg teenager Benny King, and the 1988 disappearance of Azalea woman Barbie Gallagher.
The interest in the team also was fed by a quote from a Times source stating it may be the only volunteer cold case team of its kind in the United States. The newspaper cited a forensic anthropology expert in West Virginia who works with police agencies all over the country on cold cases.
One media representative said her decision to contact the Cold Case Squad members was at least partially based on that factor.
"I think the characters are interesting," said Anat Levy of Leto Entertainment in Los Angeles. "The fact that they're the only ones doing this in the U.S., and that they're doing it on a voluntary basis and appear to have a camaraderie amongst them."
Levy left a message recently on Thomas Schultz's home answering machine expressing her interest in producing something related to the squad. Her company develops characters and story lines for various media projects and then pitches them to the major networks and movie production companies.
Levy hopes to develop a fictional television series or film based on the Cold Case Squad.
A crew from the A&E television network's "Cold Case Files" is coming to town on Feb. 16 to produce a special on the Benny King case for the network's popular documentary series.
"It is a bit overwhelming when you get calls from major media sources saying, 'We can have a crew there tomorrow,'" remarked Hall. "All of us, to one degree or another, have dealt with the media ... (but) none of us has experienced this kind of interest from as far and wide as it's coming."
Hall attributes the flurry of interest in the team's work to the prominent play of the story in the Times, as well as the general interest in police work demonstrated by the success of such shows as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
"This, I think, is a story that is a little more than that because it's about real people doing real work," Hall said.
And doing it for free, chimes in his wife, Diane Hall.
"We all really support what they do and we think it's wonderful," she said, speaking for herself and the other cold case wives. "If we had had anything like this ever happen to people we knew, we'd want guys like this investigating it."
Although book, movie and television offers are still being thrown at them like confetti, the team is trying to take it all in stride.
Talk of getting an agent has surfaced, but the team insists they still have a job to do -- like finding out what happened to 26-year-old Dennis Ray Smith, who disappeared in October 1995. He was found just outside of Roseburg in January 1997, shot once through the head and buried in a shallow grave on his own property. The Smith murder case will be the squad's third.
"We don't want to sound like we're out ... trying to do books and movies," Hall said. "Our main goal is to, you know, do what we're doing, investigate cold cases."
* You can reach reporter Christian Bringhurst at 957-4213 or by e-mail at cbringhurst@newsreview.info.
