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How Are Homicides Investigated?
Dave Walker • 2025-06-03
Dylan Carnahan:Welcome to The Simple Questions Podcast. This is your host, Dylan Carnahan. The question for this episode is, how are homicides investigated? You will learn in this episode, what actually happens at a crime scene, how detectives gather evidence, and what it takes to live with the emotional weight of solving violent crimes. Our guest is a retired Tulsa homicide detective with 36 years of law enforcement experience. Gained national attention on the first FortiGate for solving homicides with precision and empathy, and has received numerous medals for his police work, such as a fire rescue, leading a violent crime task force, and leading a large federal narcotics investigation. I introduce to you Sergeant Dave Walker. I am very young, so young in fact that this memory is a little hazy. And I'm sitting by my nightlight in my room, reading a book from the series, Hank the Cowdog, which if you're not familiar, it's a children's book series about a dog who lives on a farm and solves mysteries. I think this is kind of the earliest memory I have of being exposed to someone solving mysteries or being as close as a detective as I can reflect on. So that's one of my earliest memories. It's one of my earliest memories of reading as well by myself. So Dave, I'm curious, how did you become a detective and how did you get introduced to that?
Dave Walker:Well, I would like to say that I started a long time ago saying I want to be a cop. And there's people that say I'm going to be a homicide cop. I want to be a detective. Now, that wasn't my goal. I mean, my goal was to play sports. That's where I was at. Eventually, you know, the coach says go see the JV coach. And you understand that that's not going to be your livelihood. Everybody had to go to college in my family. So I went to college. Didn't still know what I was going to do. You know, I, you know, partied a lot. I did those things that college kids do. And I understood that I didn't have a lot of money and I didn't want to be drunk and stupid the rest of my life. And poor would be one of those things I couldn't stand. So I had to get a job and my degree was criminal justice. So from there, Tulsa Police Department was on the tarmac of the grounds. And they had a booth up there. And I said, well, what do you pay? And they said, well, we pay this much when you start out. And I said, well, what I got? Where do I go to sign up? And they said, well, it's a little bit more involved than that. But so I went there and got hired in 1982, January of 82. So that's how it all begins. And to become a detective, I had no idea I was going to do that. What I was going to do is just be a cop for five years.
Dylan Carnahan:OK.
Dave Walker:And then go on to law school and make a bunch of money. Money was kind of the driving force, even though I didn't really care about money. But I saw that you had to live, you had to pay rent, you had to buy a house, you had to, you know, money. Money is the way we get around in the world. But it really wasn't that important to me. So I got out on the street five years in, and, man, I was just loving it. There was nothing. And I always talk about, you know, you're in the right spot. I know I wasn't really in the right spot in a patrol car, but I knew that's where I wanted to be. And so I was in the general area.
Dylan Carnahan:OK.
Dave Walker:And as you, for me anyway, I always wanted to be the best I could be. I'm not the smartest guy. I'm not the tallest. I'm not the biggest. So I had to work real hard. So I was always working. I was in the patrol car. I was always trying to sniff things out. If you can put things together, you know, who's in your beat? Who's the robber and the killers and the burglars? I always like burglars because I hate thieves. But so I got promoted in 1989. That was almost unheard of, our department. Seven years in as a patrol officer, get promoted to a sergeant. So obviously there was, and it wasn't really social, so I didn't have a lot of contacts with the brass. So it wasn't that that I got promoted. I just kind of snuck in there and they couldn't get rid of me. So, I immediately went to undercover work. I was young. And you talk about a fish out of water. Basically, when you're undercover, working drug cases, it's a detective. Because we're not in there deep undercover, you know, doing heroin with the boys. So we just worked in formative type search warrants and all that kind of thing. And I did that for 10 years. I ran a squad for 10 years.
Dylan Carnahan:Oh, wow.
Dave Walker:But I realized I wasn't in the right spot. You know, in those years, I got a lot of freedom to do things. I was on the SWAT team when I was there. And so a lot of that fun stuff that people want to do, you want to be undercover, you want to be on the SWAT team. But nothing seemed to fit until they kicked me out of drugs. I got rehabbed, so to speak. I had to go back, and for a year, I spent in hell in the Internal Affairs Unit. So I definitely knew I wasn't going to be there. And the chief of police kicked me out of there because he said, this isn't your... He told me that you need to get out of here because this isn't you. And then I went to the burglary division. And that's when my first thing as a detective, and that's where I said, well, this is where I belong. I mean, because I'm figuring who are the burglars, who are the people we need to chase, and why are we still having 200 burglaries a month if we're putting kids in jail? So, that's where my thinking started to solve stuff, and not just solve the stuff in front of me, it was to prevent the next crime. So if we can get these kids not to commit burglars, or burglary, and steal your stuff, then we get there. And I'm starting to say in kids, because adults are burglars too, and they're just kind of lost, and that's why we warehouse them. But, so, man, lo and behold, three years in burglary, I went to robbery. Now that started violent crime. And what I like to say about the burglars, that we chase them around a lot. And those are a lot of fun, because they probably won't kill you. They're just thieves, and you're kids, and you're jumping fences, and you're tackling them, and you do all that stuff that they see in the movies, but they don't see it out there, because they're not there. But robbery, when you start chasing robbers, they may kill you. So you have to be a little more careful, a little more cautious when you're chasing them around. And then when I went to the Homicide Unit in 2011, man, those people will kill you. They've already proven that. So it gets a little bit more intense, and experience pays. My experience was, where else am I gonna go? They didn't want to promote me anymore. You know, obviously, they said, you know, this is right where you need to be. You're not gonna get promoted. I wasn't gonna be on the command staff. So I just ran my squad, and that's where I really, what I wanted to do. I looked at, for those that are older, Combat was one of those TV shows that I had and watched. And The Sergeant was the one I always liked, because he was always in the mix, and he ran the show. The lieutenant was kind of in charge, but he never, he was kind of always clean. Sergeant was dirty, and so that's where I wanted to be. My dad was a sergeant, so that's where I was. So that's how I became a detective, and I guess got on your radar somehow.
Dylan Carnahan:Dave, there's a lot of interesting things. One thing I want to point out, just generally speaking, taking a step back from our conversation, which is if, for those of you that are listeners or have just maybe popped in for an episode or two, I think always the introductory story that everyone tells is that it's typically a very non-linear path, typically very non-linear. And so I just always find that that's an interesting commonality amongst most people. And I want to get into something you referenced quite a bit, which was a fit. Can you elaborate on, I guess, what was telling you something wasn't a good fit, or what it felt like once you did get that fit?
Dave Walker:The fit comes from, I think, your conscience. I mean, I always like to be a rule follower. I didn't always follow the rules, but when I was breaking the rules, I knew it. When I was a kid, if you argue with the referee on a basketball court, that didn't make me feel good, but boy, did I. It wasn't my fault that I didn't make a shot. Somebody had to perform. Well, I was always that way. Once I realized, probably my sophomore year in high school, that it's not the referee's fault, it's not the empire's fault. The only person really responsible for you is you. Then I knew I had it. But there's always places that you do. As you grow up, you start your crimes or your indiscretions start costing more. And every time I was doing something, me personally, and I believe everybody has that conscious, that back head saying, man, this is not the right spot for you. So that's what I'm referencing to. I mean, I still did a good job. I still got awards. I still, you know, but me personally, it just didn't feel like I was doing the best I could do until I walked into, you know, I always like to tell the story of recovering a digital camera from a commercial burglary. And the woman 20 years later says, I remember you because that was my, the only camera we had our wedding pictures on and you recovered that for us. And we gave it back and she remembers that 20 years down the road. I don't remember. I mean, I kind of remember the case, but I don't remember her. That's when you know you're in the right spot. You're feeling good about yourself. And you can, that feeling gets out to other people. When you're feeling good about yourself and you're walking around, then they say, well, what do you got? And I said, I mean, I'm just doing the right thing at the right time.
Dylan Carnahan:Dave, I appreciate you sharing that because that insight, that's helpful for anybody, wherever they're at. So I just like to dig into that a little bit because I know some people may have the feeling that you're describing, right? And maybe they're not totally sure what to do or maybe they are feel like they're in the right spot. And so I always think that that's a good thing to talk about. So I appreciate you sharing those insights. I had another question before we get into some of the investigation oriented things, which is the structure of things. You mentioned you being a part of a squad. What's the, I hate to be so business like, but organizational hierarchy, if you will, of that?
Dave Walker:Well, I'm glad you asked that question because that's one of the leadership topics that I broach a little bit is because any organization, our police department is about 800 sworn officers, so about 1,200 total people when you talk records, clerks and that sort of thing. But there's a chief that's over everything. And then we have three deputy chiefs that are then over investigations and patrol, and then the civilians. And then that goes down to there. So in detective division, there's a major. Now, the major is then broke down to two captains, and then the sergeant runs the squad. And that's what I like to talk about basically, because I was never a captain or a major or a chief, even though I think I could do it. It's just that nobody else thought I could. But, no, and so to run a squad, it's like, you know, widgets on an assembly line. My job is to make sure the engine gets put in the, you know, chassis and then somebody else hooks it all up. So if my job is burglary, that's what I'm supposed to do. And so if a burglar happens and they want information on that, they should come to me and I should know the answer. That's what I always told my people. You know the answer when the question comes when it is your job. And if you do that the best you can, you know, then the robbery is doing it the best they can and homicides doing it the best they can and patrols doing it, you know, you're divided into squads, then this thing will work. And it's like any other company structure. Now you're going to have somebody in the CEO or the boss that you probably should never see unless you're getting fired. And then you've got people coming down to say, okay, we want this done. You go get that done to the best of your ability. And that's when, you know, this thing works. And I think the Tulsa Police Department, just to give them a plug, is one of the better departments in the nation. And obviously, I'm biased, but I didn't leave, and they didn't kick me out. So that's what I kind of mean by, you know, your structure.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, no, that's very insightful. When we look at your work in homicide, I'm going to ask a question, and I feel like there would be a very easy, dismissive answer to this. But I want to kind of drill down, if you wouldn't mind, and be general here, which is, how does a homicide investigation start?
Dave Walker:Yeah, a real simple answer is somebody gets killed.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah.
Dave Walker:But there's so much that goes into that. That is what I'm talking about, the structure of it. And I like to use it as a baseball term. My team was of 10, 11 people. And so I was the manager of that team. I always gave the edict that we are here to prevent the next murder, not just solve the one we got, but prevent it. So the actual murder investigation starts well before a body drop, so to speak. Then we already have, and I'll give you an example of that. We had a 14-year-old girl shot and killed in a robbery attempt of their all-train vehicles. She's Hispanic, she's in the back, they were going to rob the dad of the ATVs, and they shot into the car and hit her in the head and killed her. And the only thing we had was a black Chrysler Dodge Charger. But I knew from reading reports that the guy driving that Dodge Charger was a knucklehead. And I said, well, go to his house and see if that's there. Now, really, he wasn't there and somebody stopped him, but it was the same guy and the same charger. So the murder investigation starts well before that, by just having intelligence on who's out there and who's running the field. And you learn that from burglary and the patrol world. If you know where to go to find the killer, it's a heck of a lot easier when you start the investigation. But, you know, that's not always the case. So the beginning starts well before that. And then we solve a lot of them. And we solved 98%. I believe that the way to make the cold case detectives go away is don't ever have a cold case. You know, solve them when you get them kind of thing. So, the investigation of a murder starts well before it happens. Now, when it happens, you know, the mindset is... I always like to say, you know, the dumb look on my face is not an act. And you'll probably see it here when you ask a question. But when we get to the scene, we just know we're going to solve it. I mean, you have to solve it. There's a killer out there. If it's not really readily apparent, then we need to get after and go get it. Now, we don't know how we're going to get there. You know, we may have to bump, we may have to hit and run, but, you know, eventually we're going to get to the killer. And that's just our mindset. And we're going to take whatever it does, you know, whatever we need to do, we're going to do it.
Dylan Carnahan:There's a level of commitment there that you've already made, and then you have that mindset. It seems like that would be very valuable, especially giving, quite frankly, what is a daunting subject matter to an average person, as well as knowing that that person is likely still running around.
Dave Walker:Absolutely. I mean, that's it. And you know, part of the deal with the chiefs that I had to deal with is they said whatever you need, you just ask them, we'll get it to you. So there was no restrictions on how we catch, you know, we had the law and the constitution and all those things we had to do. But if we needed a manpower, we got it. We needed to go to Kansas City, we got to go to Kansas City. We had to take a flight to Sacramento. That's where we were. Fortunately, we didn't have to do that a lot. But, you know, that freedom allows us to, the individuals to work. So the commitments there, you're right. I mean, my group was hand-picked. And it's kind of interesting, you know, we talk about, I always tell people, make it hard for me to fire you. So find something that nobody else does and do it well. You know, with your lady, that wasn't the best detective, wasn't the best interrogator. And we kind of covered for on a lot of things, but boy, you talk about juvenile records, she can get in there and find out whatever we needed to know. So her spot was pretty much going to be there. We're going to fire her for that. You know, I didn't find anybody to play first base. But I don't need five pitchers out there either. So I need a support cast. And that's one thing our team did. We had a great team. I'll give them all the credit.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, so when looking at, you know, we talked a little bit about the pre-work, so to speak, and how the investigation starts early in some instances. What are key things that investigators are looking for?
Dave Walker:Well, let me take you back to how these start. You know, I'm laying in bed at three o'clock in the morning and the phone rings. And all I need to know is there's a body. And then I need to know, how many people am I going to need to call in? Because nobody wants to get woke up at three o'clock in the morning. But if it's a big scene, those are things you need to know. If it's going to be a media event, we need to know that. If it's going to be racially driven, we need to know that. You also need to know what's going on in the world. So all those things come into play. And then when we get to the scene, man, you just, you start, as you're driving, let me try to take you to it. As I'm driving to the scene, I'm thinking about what can I do? What do I have to do? You know, you already know the bodies here. If it's three o'clock in the morning, it says Hispanic female. That's all you know. What's the Hispanic female doing out at three o'clock in the morning? Well, what are the females doing out at three o'clock in the morning? They're probably going to a bar or something along those lines. So you look at the location and you drive to the location and you start looking for bars. Those things, you start looking to solve it before you even get there. So you start assuming things. And then when you get to the scene, it could be totally wrong, but you haven't wasted anything. You know, if you're totally wrong, you just pivot and you move on. Could be the husband, you know, and that's pretty simple that way. But if it's a real whodunit, you start looking at it and you know, man, have we seen this before? Is it going to be gang related? Is it shot with a 25, which is very unusual? And we've had those. There's a shot with an AK-47, that's unusual. But we've had those, you know, is it 50 rounds at the scene? Is it only one? So all that tells us something, you know, and it tells us, you know, the intimacy of your victim. So initially, you start looking at things and you start assuming things. And I know they say you're not supposed to assume anything, and that's when I teach classes, I say assume something and then get after it. If you're wrong, you haven't wasted all day. You know, you're wrong. You just pivot and you move on to where you're right. But even the patrol officer standing around, you know, I chuckle because I draw a circle around all the cops. Cops will stand around and talk to each other at 3 o'clock in the morning. You have 12 cops doing nothing but standing there, and I always circle that and say, what are they doing, you know? Are they repairing the water line down the street? People standing and one person working. I said, well, get after and do something, solve it. We don't care who solves the crime. We don't. But it's very important that we get to kill them before they kill again, because that's on us then. They've already shown they're going to kill. Now it's your job, our job, to go catch them.
Dylan Carnahan:Just continue on this story, well, if you will, this walkthrough, right? So you get woken up, you're in transit, you're thinking based upon the information you do have, picking out what you might look into once you get there. You get there, again, you're reaffirming what you were speculating or maybe completely dismissing it. What kind of things happen on that scene and how does everyone interact with one another?
Dave Walker:Yeah. The way we worked is we didn't have to worry about collecting the evidence. We had an evidence team that did that. So when we get there, it should be pretty well taped off with that yellow magical crime scene tape. I mean, we got yelled at and rocks thrown at us and everything, but somehow they just will not breach that yellow tape. So maybe we need to put that around the border so people won't come across it. But it's an interesting dilemma. I don't know what we call it, but the yellow tape goes up, people stay back. So we see that, and then, you know, you're going under the yellow tape. I get to go under it because I'm the guy. Detectives get to go on it. But you can see the crime scene people dealing with, you know, protecting the evidence. Their job is to make sure that scene can be replicated in court. And they really get mad at us, the investigators, because we walk around it. And I always tell our detectives, I say, I know you want to look at the dead body, and I know you want to go look at the hole, but they're not talking. They're not telling us anything. But we all do. And so the crime scene guys are yelling at us, man, get out of there. What are you doing here? And then we got people that chew tobacco, and they spit the back of it. So we have to be disciplined in that scene, because we don't want to screw that up, because you never know what they touch, they being the suspect. So they're collecting that. And if we see things we want, great. But then when I talked about the cops standing around talking, I said, look outside the scene. There's evidence out there. They had to get, they left, right? They're not here. So let's look outside the tape. If they're inside the tape, this would be pretty simple. So, and then that goes on. You got to get the body ID, and you have to understand, and the people don't understand this, and cops don't understand it, is we don't get to touch the body. Most states, the medical examiner is the only one that can touch the body and get a wallet out. So, we don't know who this is.
Dylan Carnahan:So, when you say, touch the body, you're even referencing, you know, as simple as looking at someone's pocket, per se.
Dave Walker:Right. We don't get to do that.
Dylan Carnahan:Interesting.
Dave Walker:Now, if, well, I always say, if there's a reason for us, we'll do it. But if it's just curiosity, we better not. You better have a dog on good reason while you're broaching that law that says. So, we never really did. And I'll give you an example. The same thing I'm talking about, the Hispanic female with a cell phone in her hand, well, she's dead in the car. She's got the cell phone in her hand. So, what do we want? Because she might have been talking to somebody. We want to know that, right? Well, you have to wait. Medical examiner needs to get woke up, go to the medical examiner office, get the medical examiner van, and come out and do your medical exam and things. That takes time. But there's other things we can do. Video is a big part of what we do. Find the places that have cameras, go wake those people up, go break into their houses and say, hey, we're going to look at your video. We do it nicer than that. But there's things that we do as routinely because we know that solves the crime. Video, even if it's grainy, it leads us in a direction.
Dylan Carnahan:What are some other, I guess, processes that you would follow? You know, I know that you, that perhaps other people may not know, you know, again, referencing, this woman has a phone in her hand, and that's kind of a, hey, we're going to have to just wait for that. What are some other kind of processes or formalities like that?
Dave Walker:Well, I mean, here's the example that I'm using that most of this is, it was a Hispanic female. We get a call at 3 o'clock in the morning, she's got her foot on the brake, she's dressed like she is going out to party, basically. You know, she's dressed nice, a lot of makeup on, and, you know, you can look around the car and it looks like she's by herself, you know. Her window's down, it was July, so it's hot. The other windows were up. So that referenced something. She's dead in the car, her window's down. So somebody came up to her, she must have known somehow and rolled the window down. Otherwise, the window would be up, the air conditioner's on and all that. So you just start looking at the scene, and you start thinking, well, if I was the killer, what would I be doing? You know, a lot of things, and the thing you have to understand is, I always say money, sex, drugs and a vendetta will get people killed 98% of the time. So somewhere in those four little areas, this is going to fit. And, you know, other processes that we do, you know, it's, you know, I have Margo Hennibel, I'll give her a plug, because she was a civilian. She worked in the water and sewer department, or somewhere in engineering. And we brought her over because she was analytical. And we'd call her in, she was our intelligence analyst. So all I would have to do is say, here's the tag number, get me what you know on this car. It's a red Camaro, run through our databases and see what a red Camaro, what, you know, if it's been seen in the area. So just a lot of, you know, the victimology starts right away. You know, and if it's a, you know, a CEO from out of town, you know, then robbery might be the, or, you know, a prostitute may be involved. And so who's our prostitutes? Who's our robbers? You know, we kind of looked at it from a local standpoint. And very rarely do we chase killers nationwide. So, you know, it's going to be somebody local and it's probably going to be somebody we know. And now we just got to figure it out.
Dylan Carnahan:Throughout this process, something that you've indirectly highlighted is the timeliness of things. You reference, you know, you thinking on the way to the scene, you reference looking at other people and saying, hey, you know, this is a good opportunity for you to maybe look outside the tape, things of that nature. It seems like you really value time and not wasting it.
Dave Walker:Right. I mean, it doesn't do us any good to be at the donut shop and use those little things that people think about and sit around and talk about it. You know, that's not going to get it done. The killer is out there. The killer makes mistakes. The killer will continue to make mistakes until they have time to think about it. And then, once they get their story together, then it gets hard for us, because they can go and they can create an alibi. You know, but if we catch them within, you know, I hate to say this, but the 48 hours that they talk about, their mistakes are really going to shine. But if they have time to wait and get it all together, wait to get rid of the weapon, wait to clean the car, wait to, you know, vacuum and get rid of the evidence, then we're behind the eight ball a little bit. And, you know, jury trials like to have all that evidence. So if we wasted time talking about whatever we talk about or doing something silly, napping, you know, need to sleep, we need to get out there and get after it, then you wouldn't be a part of my team. Really, basically, that would be it. I would fire you. And so time is of the essence and it's very important. Now, if this murder was related somewhere else and another murder happened on the other side of town, and we weren't thinking like that, and we allowed somebody else to die, then that's on us. And, you know, it's bad enough seeing dead people. But to know that you didn't do what you could do to prevent the next one, it's just, it does happen, we've seen it. So, you know, and I'll reference here the little kit that we carry. Mine had tape recorders and cameras and things that we could hook up to the phone. I'm not very technical, so you have to just bear with me. And we plug it into a recorder and you hit record, and you can hear the conversation. Well, we set up a killer that way, had his son call him, and he admitted to killing the lady right before he admitted. And he said, we went to Glenpool, Oklahoma, and I killed that guy. We didn't even know about that guy yet. So but you have to record that for evidence. You know, otherwise, then it's hearsay evidence and you don't get that in. So all that is what you have to know about the law and who can touch the body and what you can present, legally, to a court of law, because that's where it's all going.
Dylan Carnahan:Two things I want to dive into. The first of which is, Dave, what? You know, obviously, you told us at the beginning of our conversation about kind of the chronology of how you got to where you were as a detective. And so I know it's been some time, but you have to think of the vast majority of people that are going to be listening to this have never seen a dead body. They've never, you know, this is something that maybe would have been much like me reading Haint the Cowdog or watching the TV series Dexter is kind of some entertainment, you know, fantasized version of things or dramatized version. So what's the psychological impact of for years having to maybe wake up in the middle of the night and rush to see, you know, a young woman or, you know, another person that maybe is a similar profile to a relative of yours that's that's been slain? What's that like?
Dave Walker:Oh, I mean, that it still stays with you. I mean, that's why people go in the war, have this PTSD, you know, you're in war only for 18 months or nine months or whatever, because you're subject to all that hypersensitivity. And in police work in 36 years, yeah, it affects you. And if you're a caring person, which you have to be a caring person to get on my team, because if you don't care, you're not going to do these things. It hurts. But I say this, you know, to say that, I cry alone. And you go to the scene and you see a baby, you see a kid, you see an adult, an older man that was one leg that his house got broke into and the person killed him. For God's sakes, that shouldn't happen. It's just, it doesn't matter where in town it happens, it just shouldn't happen. People should not do those things to people. But the lead homicide guy can't go out to the media crying and bawling, because that doesn't give you a lot of assurance we're going to do what we need to do. So what I would always do, if you're spiritual, that's fine and I take a little bit of time and go away, say a quick prayer. You know, if I got to cry, then I cry then by myself, and then you go back and gather yourself and you go to work. And so you put that behind you. Now, does it stay with you forever? I can't watch Texture now. It kind of just, there's no need for me to watch it. So, some of that stuff can hit and just make you go back into those times where we've already lived it and we've gotten past it. And, you know, if a cop that's retired says they don't go back and visit that, I think they're not being really, and we talked about self-critiquing. You're not being really honest with yourself, you know, because I can't help it. And I go back there, I cry still. I'm just a real sensitive type person. But boy, put me in a room with a killer and no, that's not going to happen.
Dylan Carnahan:I mean. What, what advice do you have for, you know, I think that's a very valuable thing to share. What you've shared is extremely valuable. I guess what advice do you have to maybe other people within the profession that you had, or just in general, that maybe you've had to, that are exposed to those things?
Dave Walker:The advice to the people that are exposed, lean on somebody. I mean, my wife had that. I mean, that was a growing process, really, because she was, you know, the SWAT team would get called out. She would try to get my uniform all ready and go and we'd be pumping into each other. And we just said, well, just get out of the way or go to sleep, do something. I got getting dressed. I can do that. She just wanted to help. And then she had to understand that when I got back after 28 hours of being out there chasing a killer, she wanted to know what happened. I don't really want to live it again. So give me a chance to decompress. So the advice to people is lean on somebody. I think top groups are now becoming a lot better psychological. We have peer to peer. You've got chaplains. It's okay if you're not. I know that's one of them things. But back in the 80s, the 70s, that was the Vietnam era. Those were the cops that came out of Vietnam and they were a different breed. I mean, really World War II. They're different people. You see a lot and you go through it. And now we're different. We're cops today. My kids are cops. I like to say I failed two of them because they're cops. The other one's not. Must have loved him more. So, but it's okay to say, hey, I'm having a little hard time here and I need some help. But there's ways to get around it too. I mean, there are psychological gymnastics that cops can do. And talking about is one of the things. You know, I was, you know, you brought it up. Not many people do. But I always said from the very beginning, if somebody's talked about that, you know, do you ever cry? Well, yeah. You know, we have to. Otherwise, we're robots and robots don't solve 98% of the murders.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. No, I really appreciate you, you know, allowing us to to kind of hear about that and give us a peek into that world. I think that's something again, that's valuable to know and to kind of humanize things. When we're looking at the investigation, we talked a lot about this kind of whole process of, you know, before the investigation and during, and it's been alluded to obviously, you know, that things will be used in court. What is a detective's involvement after an investigation has concluded?
Dave Walker:Well, it takes a lot of different angles here, after it's concluded because during the investigation, we're talking to families. You become that lifeline for the family, because they don't have their loved one. We've told them their loved one's dead. We live that moment with them. I mean, and it's pretty much the same reaction. It don't matter who the people are. They have a loved one that care. So there's that bond. So they keep calling. And so you have that... And you have the book on your shelf with the picture of the dead person. So that's a constant reminder when we're there that we're never done. These cases are still evolving even after the conviction. You know, there could be an appeal. There could be people that you talk to in the street that you develop for informational purposes. So if you're always nice to somebody, that's going to help. After the investigation is over, though, unfortunately, they're on to the next one, you know, and it's kind of like sports. Yeah, you got it. You went three for three today, but you're over two now and we needed a hit. So what have you done lately type of things, you know, and there's a TV show out there after the first 48 kind of puts people in perspective of the prosecutors and the victim witness people that are just heroes in this deal. So everybody cares enough to keep it with them. So it stays with us is the best I can say. I don't know exactly what our involvement is because, you know, if somebody had a question about it, that's where we'd go to the detective.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. As far as the legal proceedings, what is your involvement with that outside of maybe, you know, the initial collection of evidence or like interviews and things of that nature?
Dave Walker:Well, as far as getting ready to go to court.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. What's going on there?
Dave Walker:You know, well, from the very beginning, you're going to have to answer what you do. I mean, some of my reports have been 368 pages long, so I'm already published, so to speak. So everything you do, you're going to have to recreate and end up answering to. So in the interview of a suspect, I always put in place, one thing I did do when I came in is say, anytime we're dealing with a suspect, they will be on video camera and be recorded. There will be no way we're going to be able to say that we did this to them, or we did that to them, or we forced them to talk. There's no way we're going to do that. Ours will be above board and there will always be there where we can look at it. And that's one of the things knowing going in that, cops have tried to cheat years and years down the road. That's why we have the Supreme Court. That's why we can't strip people naked and beat them. That's been tried in the Supreme Court. It says you don't get to do that. Not that we would do it anyway, but it's been done. Cops have done some silly things. So, if we're always on tape, it won't happen. So, everything that we do is to go to court. And we have to have also the mindset in all these things is, what is the defense attorney going to attack? Because that's the way we have to do our case. You know, if we didn't do, if we screwed up the crime scene, it screwed up forever. You know, if we spit in the crime scene, we spit in it forever, and our DNA is there. And so everything we do is geared towards, you know, staying alive, obviously, is the big thing. But what's going to be admissible in court? Because it doesn't do us any good if it's not going to go to court.
Dylan Carnahan:Well said. I appreciate that insight. One of the things, and I know that you, you had brought this up when we were corresponding to set up this time together. But I had interviewed someone not too long ago that was wrongfully convicted, who was exonerated by the prosecutor's office. So I was curious, given I have some time with you, what is your opinion on wrongful convictions? Like, how could that happen, I guess?
Dave Walker:I don't like wrongful convictions. I shudder at the, I think you just, I listened to your last podcast, The Exoneration, and 20 years or 19 years, 362 days and 4 minutes of whatever we had, he had it down. That's, that's wrong. They're wrong. If, I don't know how it can happen, except there was a time where we need to get the killer off the street. And for some reason you got promoted if you had a good clearance rate. And people have that, doesn't have that thing in the back of their head saying, well, this is wrong, you know? If you investigate this, and I'll give you a good example. I thought this one guy absolutely did it. I didn't like him. He was a schmuck. He was lying. And we had him in the interrogation room and I'm watching it from the other room because I'm not really the initial investigator. And they said, you know, they being the other detective saying, it's not him. It's a little bullshit. I don't know if I can say that, but that's him. You mean to tell me it's not him? And we proved it wasn't because you just got to do the work. If it's not there, it's not there. If somebody, if you want somebody to be the killer and they didn't do it, there's reasons, there's ways to prove it didn't happen. I don't care how much you want to, you go after it a different way. I'll give you a couple of examples later. But as far as a false confession, it happens. I've seen it. We had, we could pull Susie on us. Susie was in the room. We had a quadruple killing. Four women tied up and killed, shot in the head. And she wanted to confess to it, and she did. But, you know, some of the things she was saying was like, it just doesn't make sense. And so we had to prove that she didn't do it, but she went to jail for it, you know. And that would go to court, you know, but all the other stuff that we gathered to find a killer would say it's not her. So I don't know how it can happen so people get really focused. And I do know there's some interrogation techniques that have been disproven now that will get people to falsely confess to things they didn't do. And you have to work to avoid all that. I would feel terrible if I put somebody in prison forever and they didn't do it. You know, your guy alluded to the real killer is still out there, if we get it wrong. And I will state my reputation on the fact that we don't have that in my time. It just didn't. And even when we released Susie, it would have been easy to say, ah, this one's over.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah.
Dave Walker:Right. So we went back to work and finally got the two guys that killed the ladies. But, you know, so people will false confess for whatever reason, I don't know. You just have to work to avoid that. And then when the suspect says they didn't do it and they tell you why they didn't do it or where they were, you have to check that out. You know, please do. You have to.
Dylan Carnahan:What I'm hearing is again, a lot of this is, you know, just a couple of these situations that it goes back to your initial commitment for at the onset for this investigation, right? You, as you're mentioning, how easy would it be? Hey, you have a, I would assume a case that has quite a bit of media attention, given that that many people were murdered. And here you got someone saying, hey, I did it. I mean, if you're only focused on the outcome of getting this off, you know, your desk, I mean, that would be very appealing. Or, yeah, I mean, and so it goes back to that initial commitment and to follow through with everything and do it the right way. Or as you mentioned again, someone that you do not like, and maybe your intuition's telling you that this is the individual behind this. But again, following through with that commitment to the case, that is kind of the guiding light that I'm hearing that resonates and can prevent things like that.
Dave Walker:Well, and I agree. And I think that the way we did it here, and I'm gonna say, you know, we do it and we did it the best. People need to look at it. We had a lot of people, a lot of eyes on our cases. So if a detective said, no, you know, Lincoln didn't do that, even though I wanted him to do it, they were saying, no, we didn't do it. And this is why he didn't do it. Yeah, he was at the scene. Yeah, he stole the rolling papers, but he didn't do it. He didn't pull a trigger, and this is why. And I have to come off of it and say, well, you're right, but I still don't like him. But another way to, and I don't know where he's at today, so we didn't do anything bad to Lincoln. He's still out there, whatever he's doing. But that happens, you know, and you just gotta have the integrity, the integrity of the investigation, integrity of the office. It is paramount to what we do. Just, I can't imagine that happening, but I know it does because I've read the cases.
Dylan Carnahan:We're gonna pivot a little bit, Dave, and I wanna hear from you, again, leveraging on all of your years of experience. What advice do you have for the average person?
Dave Walker:Well, it kind of goes back to the average top. You know, you'll know when you're in the wrong spot. You know, and I always like to say, because I was interviewed by the media all the time, and they said, well, how do you not become a victim? Well, if you're doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons, chances of you being in the wrong spot are very slim, and you won't really have to be worried about being a victim. The advice to the average citizen, if something bad is happening, get away. If you can't get away, observe. The thing we have here in Tulsa is people talk to us, law enforcement. We are in the community. They know who we are. They respect and we'll come forward with the information. If you are around a murder, you have to talk about it. Then you are in prison if you don't. And people realize that. And it's not any fun if we realize that you know something. And I'll give you an example of that. If they are heroin addicts, we'll dry up the heroin in this town. And you'll go hurt. I don't care about the heroin addicts. If you're addicted to heroin, that's your business. But if you know something about a murder and you're a heroin addict, then you're not getting your heroin. You're going to tell us what we need to know. And so, it goes along those lines of, but the average citizen is not a heroin addict, thank God. There's more good people than bad people. For the good people, I say do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. And yeah, you read about that all the time, you know, mass shootings in supermarkets or churches and those things. I don't have an answer for that. I said bad people do bad things.
Dylan Carnahan:Well said, well said, I appreciate that that advice. Now looking to you, what's the best way for people to learn more about you and the work you do?
Dave Walker:Well, I have a podcast. It's Solve Them When You Get Them and it's on Spotify and iTunes. It's podcasting for a purpose. It was more for done for law enforcement, kind of delve into the cases and one of the first 48 cases. You can see me on the first 48. You have to be up early in the morning because they're all reruns now. But I have an Emmy Tours fan page on Facebook that I'm playing, right now I'm researching a book, playing catch, trying to save the six-year-olds through baseball. And so you can follow that journey. And I'm trying to get that now onto a YouTube channel and just see where that goes. As far as law enforcement, I think my career is over. I don't think I've got it in me at 65 to go back and do that again, but I can certainly write about it. I certainly blog about it. But what I see mostly is today's world still affects my world yesterday when I was in the professional world, even some of the pardons that came out. Some of those people pardoned were people that we were chasing as killers. And so, you know, it's not... Shouldn't be political. Killing people shouldn't be political. So how you find me? Man, emmitours.cox.net is my email. You can find my phone number. You found it. People can find it. I'm not hiding. If you want me to do something, let me know. And if I can do it, I'll get it done. But right now, I'm coaching a 10-year-old baseball team. And we got practice tonight, so I'm trying to figure out if we're going to do it. But it's always sunny and 80 when you're on the field, so... Those are the places they can get me. I'm on LinkedIn and I'm on Instagram. And I think, you know, all you guys need to probably research it and find me. That would be more fun than me telling you how to find me.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. No, I like that. I like that. Dave, thank you for sharing your knowledge and time today.
Dave Walker:No, thank you for asking. And I appreciate you doing it and get after whatever you're getting after today.
Dylan Carnahan:That wraps up our conversation with Dave. We talked about the process behind a homicide investigation, a detective's involvement after the investigation has concluded, and contributing factors to wrongful convictions. Subscribe to The Simple Questions Podcast to get notified when our latest episodes are released. Thank you for listening, and remember to keep asking questions.