Community very grateful for dedicated, dogged police

Published 5:12 pm Saturday, July 6, 2013

I don’t pretend to know how they did it.

Unlike television which — with all of its crime dramas — has it that cute, perky, somewhat edgy characters who have a lot of technical aid can unravel almost any crime in about an hour — minus, of course, 20 or so minutes for commercials.

Good entertainment, but it likely misses the mark of what’s required by several orders of magnitude.

What it no doubt involved was a bucket-load of hard work. Repetitive steps. Collecting a mountain of evidence, details, and tips. Sifting through statements. Eliminating false leads — of which there must have been many. Endless phone calls. Collating reams of data to begin forming a bigger picture. Asking for and obtaining the cooperation of other agencies. In other words, sweat and drudgery.

And, then, there was time.

Simply putting in the mind-numbing hours needed to sit down, look at all of the above and, then, attempting to connect the dots into some cogent, coherent, and comprehensive picture of how and why Molly Conley, age 15, was killed on the night of June 1 in Lake Stevens. The “who” part of that equation being an even tougher nut to crack.

Even with all of the current technology available, staring at large amounts of data and, then, making sense of it all still required endless effort and, more importantly, the willingness and drive to get to the bottom of it all.

Still, according to one of the stories printed in this paper:

“The suspected shooter is Erick N. Walker, a Marysville man who worked second-shift at the Boeing plant in Everett. Detectives contend that Walker is linked to Molly’s death through clues left at multiple crime scenes. He is suspected of firing multiple rounds as he drove from Lake Stevens to his Marysville home in the late hours of June 1 into the early hours of June 2.

The Seattle girl was struck in the neck as she and five friends walked back from Wyatt Park in Lake Stevens on June 1. Molly was celebrating her 15th birthday, staying with one of her friends, whose father lives in Lake Stevens.

Detectives don’t believe Walker, who turns 27 on Tuesday, knew Molly or any of her friends.

He also doesn’t appear to have any connection to the houses and vehicles that were hit by gunfire after Molly was killed. One bullet struck a Lake Stevens home where a 15-year-old girl was babysitting her 9-year-old sister. Another bullet broke a window in a bedroom where two young children were sleeping.”

From what little I do know about criminal investigation (which could fit nicely on the front of a 3 x 5 card with room to spare for copious notes), random acts of violence are among the toughest to solve. Acts perpetrated with no logical motive tied to them put police and detectives at the head of a trail that has no guideposts, no discernible path, and few clues to a destination. Consequently, starting such an investigation has to be, at best, daunting.

Which brings me to the point of this piece.

Add my name to the list of those who’ve already said “great work” to the police officers, detectives, technicians, witnesses, and everyone else who had a hand in the efforts which led to the arrest of the alleged perpetrator of this killing and the other random shootings that occurred that evening.

The suspected shooter, Erick N. Walker, is now in custody because of the sheer doggedness of a number of people and agencies who swore to themselves that they’d do everything necessary to find some measure of justice for Molly Conley and her family.

Most often — even when a crime does grab our attention — the work of the people whose job it is to solve them, goes without adequate (and well earned) notice or thanks. It’s just the nature of the beast. They get paid to do this and we, as a society, expect it of them. Consequently, gratitude too often gets left out.

Not this time, though. Rather, it seems that everyone who’s followed this case wanted to thank the individuals and agencies involved in doing the work necessary to arrest the alleged perpetrator.

Like I said, add my name to that list.

The words are nowhere near enough, but thank you for what you do.

Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Send comments to: larrysim@comcast.net