Justice is served, 8 years later |

In past columns, I’ve written about a deputy who will forever be a hero in my mind because he found a shotgun that was stolen from me and he returned it. That was in Madison more than 30 years ago. It was a .20 gauge pump that I had worked hard to purchase. 

To have it stolen and pawned by a low-life … well, it was beyond infuriating. I never expected to see it again, of course. Even in my teen years, I had a cynical side, I guess. 

In working close with law enforcement for two decades now, I learned that wasn’t cynicism — it was realism. Most of the departments I’ve worked with are small enough that they still care enough to want to get people their property back. But they know the odds ain’t good. 

Ask people in big cities who’ve had property stolen, and you’ll hear horror stories. The people in law enforcement often don’t even pretend to care about finding the property or catching the perpetrator. They’re just there to fill out a report for the owner to turn in to the insurance company. It’s a nuisance.

I’m so glad I’ve never had to work alongside officers like that. Most of the ones I’ve had the privilege of working around take great pride in those few cases in which they’ve been able to return stolen items to victims.

When I talked to Jasper County Deputy R.H. Stockman last week, he took so much pride in being able to bring those puppies back to those little girls in Louin (see story in Thursday’s edition), it was heartwarming. 

But the thing that really struck me about R.H. was his determination to get those puppies back — not only to reunite a crying youngster with her beloved pet, but for the purpose of restoring her faith in the profession.

In case you didn’t read the story, the little girl’s mother had recently been sent to prison on drug charges. R.H., who is a former Jones County deputy, made it his mission to change her perception of law enforcement, to show that they don’t just take loved ones away … they can save loved ones.

It’s amazing that he tracked down those puppies one county over within a few hours and had them back in the loving arms of a smiling little girl. Way to go, R.H. All of your brothers and sisters with badges should thank you, too. Your efforts probably won over one more for the good guys and gals.

When I first moved to Jones County in the spring of 2007, I had a few glorious months of getting much of the news from longtime Jones County Sheriff’s Department Investigator Carl Monk. I will forever treasure that time, which was way too short. Wish I’d written down some of the stories he told me. He was sharp and a great storyteller, whether he was talking about tougher times and tougher guys in the world of crime or his days playing for the Jones County Junior College football team that played in the Junior Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., in 1955.

In those days, I would also be directed down the hall to talk to then-Investigators Catfish Grimes and Brad Grunig for some stories I was working on. Both were likable and good at what they did.

Catfish went on to work as an investigator with the State Auditor’s Office (first for Stacey Pickering, now for Shad White) and Brad went to work as an investigator for Jones County District Attorney Tony Buckley. It’s in that position that he, too, has achieved hero status with Leader-Call owner Jim Cegielski and me.

It was eight years ago, or so, that LL-C employee Darryl Robertson stole a bunch of money from the paper. That was the thanks we got for believing in the convicted felon and giving him another chance to be a productive person in society. He was smart and he was hard-working and did a great job for us for a while. And in turn, Jim treated him like a son. He overpaid him for the work he was doing, he paid for at least a semester of his tuition at Southern Miss … and for much of the time, near the end of his days with us, he was using the company credit card for personal expenses and stole 32 checks from the back of the business checkbook and forged them. 

In all, it was well over $10,000. A lot of that was forgiven by the credit-card company. But we were out at least $4,000. Yet somehow, Darryl managed to skate by. So many people believed in him (some because of our stories/columns about him, some because he was passionate and charming) that they kept bailing him out, no matter what.

Once, when I knew there was a warrant for his arrest, I saw him working in a restaurant in Hattiesburg one night just before Christmas. I contacted DA investigator Wayne Black (another one who has achieved “hero status” in my book), and had Darryl behind bars in an hour or so. But as usual, he bailed out.

Not only did Darryl finish at USM, he earned some huge scholarship for grad school, and attended St. John’s and Fordham in New York City. He was writing for hip-hop magazines and interviewing rappers, proclaiming how he was going to “influence the culture.” A New York Times reporter called Jim one day to do a story about Darryl and his journey from drug-dealer to journalist. Jim said, “Sure, I’ll talk to you about him …” And when the reporter heard how Darryl had done us, he didn’t write the story. It didn’t fit the narrative he wanted to tell.

We never thought that Darryl would pay for his sins on Earth, and we certainly never entertained any notion of getting back the money that he stole from us. That was written off long ago.

Then in November, while I was covering court one day, Brad mentioned that Darryl was in custody in New York City for violating a protective order. Gruning said he was facing a couple of years because, apparently, they take that sort of thing very seriously in New York. Officials there also noted that the DA had placed a “hold” on him here in Mississippi, so he couldn’t bond out on his New York charges until his case here was resolved.

Tony and Brad saw an opportunity for us to get our money back, and they did just that. Amazing! 

Brad did all of the dealing with court and corrections officials in New York and with Darryl, and Tony got it finalized with the judge just this week. Amazing. Indictments can’t be served eight years late … but justice can. Thank you to Brad Grunig and DA Tony Buckley for not giving up on our case and for making us whole!

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Mark Thornton is editor-in-chief of the Leader-Call. Email him at editor@leader-call.com.

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