Episode 12: The Erik Hite Investigation with Bill Hanson

In this episode, we’re joined by retired detective Bill Hanson from Tucson PD to discuss the investigation into the murder of Erik Hite, a case that forever changed a family, a department, and a community. Bill shares an inside look at the investigation, the pursuit of justice, and the lasting impact Officer Hite’s sacrifice continues to have on the law enforcement profession. As attendees gather for the 2026 SEHIA Conference in Tucson, we’re honored to highlight the work of the Erik Hite Foundation, whose mission supports the wellness of public safety professionals, active military members, and their families while carrying forward Erik’s legacy of service. We hope this conversation not only sheds light on the investigation but also recognizes the resilience, compassion, and commitment to those who continue serving others every day. (erikhitefoundation.org)

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This podcast is intended for educational and discussion purposes only. Case studies and investigative topics are presented from the personal perspective of the guest and are not intended to represent official findings, agency positions, legal conclusions, or the Southeastern Homicide Investigators Association.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Well, welcome back to the show. This is Joe and Joanna's here with me. How are you, Joanna?

SPEAKER_00 0:05

I'm doing pretty good. I'm excited to be back to record.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

It is. It is good to be back on the air and uh and getting some some shows recorded. Today we have a pretty special guest. Um, this is uh pretty close to Sahia, and we're really excited to have uh Mr. Bill Hansen with us. Bill, how are you, sir?

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Doing well, guys. Pleasure to be on here.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Absolutely. Um, Joanna, why why exactly is this a special episode for us?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Yeah, so we're really excited because if anybody has attended Sahia before, you know that we have a nonprofit that we raise money for throughout the week, through a couple raffles, um, 50-50 tickets, that type of stuff. Um, and so this year we chose the Eric Height Foundation, which is based out of Tucson, um, which so it's awesome to be able to, you know, help out an organization for the city that we're gonna go have our conference in. Um, and so the Eric Height Foundation was formed after Eric Height was um killed in line of duty with Tucson PD. Um, his widow, Noemi, founded it. Um, so it's great to be able to support that foundation. And, you know, we had met with her when we talked about originally, you know, bringing on this organization for the conference. And she kind of talked about what their mission was and it hit close to home because you know, at the time that um Eric was killed, she had uh two young children, I believe, at least one. Um and so part of the focus when the foundation first started was to kind of assist uh law enforcement families with child care. Anyone who's in law enforcement knows that those 12-hour shifts, weekends, nights, holidays, that's difficult to find daycare for. Um, and so I have two young kids at home. So it's kind of really cool to hear how that started and how she can, you know, get something beneficial out of what was such a tragic situation for her family. So we would love to hear how that investigation went from Bill to kind of bring that to our listeners so that if anybody does attend to HIA, you'll know what that foundation is all about and you know, support it.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Absolutely. That's we're real excited about it. And and Bill, um, real quick, when was the Eric Height Foundation founded? Do you recall?

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Well, uh Eric's death was in 2008. I know that the Yime started it uh a few years after that. I I don't remember the exact date for you, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

No, that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

But uh I know that uh she started providing daycare and doing some of those things and started uh doing a lot of things like fundraisers and things of that nature, and uh she started doing that. My gosh. Maybe around 2010, I think. Wow. Uh so it was within a couple years.

SPEAKER_03 2:38

So you got to see some of those things. Yeah, that's really good.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yeah, yeah. I was uh I was in uh a couple softball tournaments uh that raise money for those uh type of things. Um, and uh I mean she's just done wondrous things. I know that Eric is looking down and very proud of her.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I can I can only imagine.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, when we met with her, it was impressive to hear. I mean, obviously, we're you know pretty far beyond that now, and to hear what she's managed to create with this organization and how involved in the community and everything like that. It was really cool to listen to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah, she's very well thought of. Uh the uh the community down here uh appreciates everything she does, and so does the uh police department and nonprofits that uh they help out.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

That's awesome. So you're living the good life of retirement, I understand. Is that correct? Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Uh I I teach I teach part-time for uh National and Criminal Justice Training Center, cool, and also for advanced police concepts. And I teach uh like I said, part-time. Okay. Uh matter of fact, I teach with your president, Jen.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

For APC. And uh teach death investigation and suspicious death and some crime scenes. So I mean I it keeps me in the blender a little bit, but uh it it's only a few times every couple months, so it was good.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

That's good. Keep your keep your feet in the water a little bit so you can uh keep your finger on the pulse. Yeah, true, very true. So tell us a little bit about Bill. Um what is it that that got you into law enforcement uh many moons ago?

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Oh, I've been on a lot of podcasts and talked about this before, but uh hopefully I won't throw the listeners if they've heard me before. Um when I was uh my dad was a Chicago fireman uh back in uh back in Chicago on the South Side. And uh I I knew at five years old I wanted to be a cop. He got me a Dick Tracy uh snub nose revolver cap gun. And I told him then I want to be a cop, and he wanted me to be a fireman as well. Of course he did. Um but I always kind of stared that way uh and tried to keep my nose clean a little bit to get on the south side in Chicago. Yeah, um, but uh, you know, as I as I went through school, I I knew where my career path was at. And I went in the military first. Uh I was a framer in Phoenix and uh had been married three months, and the lumber companies started folding up, and I went, I gotta go in the military. At the time I was on uh I was on Tucson PD's list for hire, that list got frozen. Uh, and I was also uh looking at corrections to get into there and also 10 P PD. I was in the process, but I knew I had to have a job. I I was gonna lose mine, and I got laid off uh probably about a week after I went down to the uh recruiter. Okay, so that that's that started me on my path. I went in the military in um 1990. I started as a deputy sheriff of Mojave County, and that's up in uh the uh area in the north uh west side of the state, and uh started as a deputy up there and then came down to Castle Grand for a cup of coffee. It was only about six months, and then uh came into Tucson PD.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

Wow, but uh nice and what year did you start at Tucson PD? 93. 1993.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

Uh so I had I worked at a sheriff's office and now I work for the state organization. Um, and you know, sheriff's offices are just the greatest, right? It's it's like family, and I'm sure a lot of PDs are like that. So, how did you how did it compare working from a sheriff's office at your first job and then going to a much larger uh PD? How was that?

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Well, I tell you what, being up in the middle of a freeway on a fight with somebody and you're waiting for somebody to get called out of bed to come out and help you. Yeah, it's no fun or hoping that the yeah, hoping that the tribal uh unit will go 10-8 and hear you or a TPS or chips unit because we're up there by needles.

unknown 6:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Um, between needles and have a su and uh Laughlin on the other side. So uh that was rough. When I got the Tucson, I mean C B in a fight. Next thing you know, you got 15 guys trying to take a swing at the guy, and it's like, wait, wait, wait, where'd all you guys come from?

SPEAKER_03 7:14

I just need one.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

I don't need all 15 guys. Just anybody. Well, not everybody. It was it was nice. It was nice coming in with a uh a larger department, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

Sure. Technology's better. Um, you know, you learn at a sheriff's office much smaller, you learn how to talk to people because you don't have an opportunity uh to always you know beat the brakes off of folks. You you've got to learn to really communicate and effectively communicate so that you don't end up, like you said, on the side of the iROAD waiting for your backup to wake up. So that's that's uh that's good. So you so you get a good good foundation in law enforcement from 90 to 93. You go to Tucson PD. Did you immediately start on the road or did you have to do any kind of internship or anything to get your feet wet? How did you do that?

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Well, I went through a full academy again when I got to Tucson.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Oh man, that's awful.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Yeah. Our our personnel director, I'm sitting there with a gun and a shield on in her office, and she's talking about when the academy is going to start. And I went, when's your lateral academy? And she went, Oh, uh, wait. And she pulls out my Aliwax certification and goes, We've already certified. And I went, Yeah. So when can I go through the lateral? Oh, we're not having those anymore. Oh, which she was lying about, but what through 17 long weeks, and I was the old guy, I was 33 years old when I came here. So to go through all that and run through everything and have all these kids that just got out of college. Oh boy, that I'm responsible for because I'm the class president. Oh, of course. Anything they get shit on for is my problem.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

That's you hold your own now, at least.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Yes. Good. Yeah. There you go. The only thing I was worried about was snapping a knackle or a knee or something and having an issue with that, you know, and then starting back at square one or something.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Did y'all have a live in academy or did y'all get to go home in the afternoons?

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Um, my first academy was a live-in. Okay. And then uh my second second academy was uh where we were able to come home.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

So it at least that part was nice.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Okay, so 1993, go through the academy again, 17 long grueling weeks, and then you hit the road. Um, did you join any specialized units? Uh, did you know you wanted to get into investigations or did you just enjoy being a B cop?

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Yeah, I I I knew uh early on. My I should back up a little bit. When I was 20, I was in basic training, and uh I got called into my commander's office and uh they said to go see the commander. And I went, oh geez, I'm in trouble for something. Went in there and they told me that uh my brother was murdered, and uh it was in an eastern town. I won't give you this the city.

SPEAKER_04 9:48

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Um, but uh I was going to go on emergency leave, go back home for his funeral, and then have to come back and after missing a week of basic training, hopefully make it back in time and uh you know hit the ground running because I if I couldn't, I had to be refaced. Oh and I was in like week nine of basic training, so it was like, oh dear god, I can't go back. Yeah, you know, I I want to make sure I do this. But um, and from that case, uh I got back home, I talked to my father, and he said that uh Greg was murdered, but they're calling it a suicide, and they closed it as a suicide case. And I went, wait a minute, how could it be a suicide? I said, give me, give me the and I wasn't even a cop yet, you know. I mean, I did police stuff in the in the military, but not uh not on the outside. And he said, Well, he was shot on a bridge by a blonde and she ran off with a gun. I'm like, how is that a suicide? This doesn't make any sense. So I knew at that point, I I knew I wanted to be a cop when I got the dig for AC gun. I knew I wanted to be a detective. When that happened, I went, you know what, this will never happen to anybody that I work for. And I want to make sure that the families uh got some got some uh you know positive results out of what I was working on. Yeah, so that was kind of my my factor. Um, but anyway, going back to uh Tucson, yeah, I I've worked uh I worked in the Bravo unit. Uh we've worked with uh prostitutes and drug dealers and things like that. Um and uh I was an honor guard, did some of those things, and then uh became a detective in '98.

unknown 11:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

And uh started in the burglary task force, did that for a little while, went to Agassault and started carrying my own homicide cases uh in Agassault, and then went into homicide full-time in 05.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Very cool. Did you when you started in you said 1998 you became a detective? 98. So 98. How many different branches of your detectives did y'all have? Obviously, you had the uh the the you said theft and what'd you say? Was it burglary and theft?

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Burglary, yeah. So it was major offenders unit, but it was burglary.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Okay, and then you went into Ag Assault. So you transferred. How many different detective divisions did y'all have? Or groups. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Um we we had like seven divisions. Wow, but we had, I mean, the groups are small. Our homicide, we had six people, six people for almost a million uh city and county wide for our area and 600 square miles. I mean, it's it's huge. Yeah, and we've got six detectives and no and no cold case detectives back then either. It was us. Yeah. Um, so we yeah, we had we had a lot of units. Um, and I mean they they went ahead and reduced those later on because they started going, wait a minute, do we really need to have all these specialized units and you know all these all these different detective areas? And they started condensing things a little bit. Um, but uh yeah, we uh I started in in uh crimes against property and then I went into crimes against people with the ag assault and and homicide.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

We Joanne and I had a had an opportunity to visit the Tucson Police Department back in the spring, and and it was impressive the the number of detectives that you guys have. It is it's it's insane. And I'm sure larger areas like you know, Nashville is close to me. I'm sure they have a a ton of detectives too. But to see that and to see all of them working together, and then another thing that was really impressive was the was the group that takes care of the detectives that takes care of the whole um the whole police department as a whole. That group was just as robust as one of the detective units. And so I thought that was really, really impressive.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah, like their mental health. Yeah, it was impressive, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Yeah, really, really cool.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Behavioral health, yeah. Yeah, yeah, they're good folks. Yeah, when when I uh became a detective, we had almost 1200 sworn. So it was a pretty good sized department back then. We're the second largest in the state, just behind Phoenix. Uh now I think Mesa is has got more because uh Tucson's been scaled back and forth on it.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

And they're still trying to hire more cops.

unknown 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

So you get you moved into homicide. Do you remember your first homicide case?

SPEAKER_02 14:19

I remember my first week. Come on. Uh my first week, my partner got a homicide. Uh and it was a cartel hit. Uh guy got whacked because he lost some loads. And they came up shouting through a doorway when he opened the door and left. That's still an insult case. Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

That one's that's a terrible start.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Because they all went back to Mexico. I mean, we couldn't we couldn't figure out who they were. Uh, there was information that maybe his uncle was even involved in this because he was one of the pieces of garbage that was moving some of that stuff through. Um, but that was my first case um that I was in secondary on. My second case was an officer-involved shooting a night later, and then my third case was a murder, my own murder, which was two days after that. So that was my first week in homicide. Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Solid introduction.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

Oh boy, yeah, I'm telling you. And this was in 2005 when you went into homicide. Okay. So at and in 2005, how many were y'all getting a year? Oh gosh. Roundabout.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Um probably close to probably close to 60. And that, and that was just homicides. That's not suspicious death. That's not officer involved, that's not in custody deaths. Those aren't those aren't counters for us. Uh, you're still in the you're still in the bubble once you hit those.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Quite a high number for a city police department, at least from where I'm from.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. When I teach, you know, I talk to these people and I just taught up whenever Washington, they were talking about, you know, the the third homicide case they've had of the year from last year. And it's like, wait, you guys have only had three? That's great. Don't don't get me wrong. Yeah, that's all you have. That's that's super. Yeah. That's it's kind of hard to hear some of these things and and think to yourself, three. I had that in my first week, but you know it's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

So how I'm not go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

But I I was gonna say, I'm not Phoenix, we're not Chicago. I mean, they've got even higher numbers, Detroit, things like that, but we have some good numbers. Sure. That's that's hold your own for sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

How many did you have to carry a year?

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Well, I mean, we we uh I probably had probably 40 cases on my desk, and a lot of those were also cold case files that we put it in the cold case room. We'd have to, you know how those work. You have to you have to work them until you don't have a suspect or you don't have any information to go on, and then they go in a cold case room. But again, we didn't have a cold case unit yet, so yeah. They were sitting on our desk along with everything else.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Jeez, that's incredible. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

You have suspicious tests, yeah. You have suspicious tests, ODs.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

I mean and you're also working on officer involved shootings, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Officer involved shootings and then custody desks.

unknown 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Wow. We didn't have an original team back then. We had uh we had our own squad that would do uh most of those. And we'd also do them for the sheriff's office, we'd do them for Department of Public Safety. Um, if tribal needed us, we'd go out and do those. Um, but uh we probably uh we we probably only had about maybe six officer involved for the year. Okay. Um, maybe a couple of in custody deaths, and that was because of the you know, the problem we have with everybody's heart blowing up from cocaine and things like that. And you know, it's positional, you know, that they're calling it nowadays. But uh, you know, back then we just had people who were out there out of their minds on drugs dying, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

That's crazy. So you uh as a homicide investigator, you're working officer-involved shootings. So where I'm from, the state comes in and they work all of the officer-involved shootings, whether it is uh alive or or dead, that they'll they'll work them all. Uh just that's just so they have a third-party, unbiased approach to it. But you're having to do this and you're having to work with you know 1,200 officers, and then you know, one of your guys gets into an OIS, you got to go down there and take care of it. And then I guess in 2008, um things really got serious for you when one of your own was was killed um in the line of duty. Um walk us through that day. So so you wake up on June 1st, 2008. Um, you report to you said the B shift at the time, or is that a different squad?

SPEAKER_02 18:38

No, yeah, we just have one shift.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

I mean, it was just a homicide unit, and we had it. Uh, you know, we're we're on call 365, 247. Um, and we just we just didn't really have a whole lot of time off. Um, but uh went on to work that day, pretty much a normal day of work. Um but uh and and that's leading into this because it happened on a Sunday. So I got called out from home, and uh for some reason we had something going on that day in Tucson, I can't remember what it was, but there was a lot of traffic on the roadway. Um and I remember going over towards the east side where this happened at, and it was just a lot of traffic. Uh and back then we had uh I had an idiot light in my car, but you couldn't use those. You we didn't have sirens. And you know, I mean you're driving with traffic, but in some cases, if you had that, it's even worse because you can't get people to move out of the way, you know how that how that worked. Um, but uh it took us over an hour to get over there, and we had about an hour response time we were expected to be there.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Uh that's from call-outs, from getting dressed, showering, out the door. You know, you need to be there in an hour. But I got over there and uh I remember seeing uh Kevin Holly, he was our sergeant now. He's a spoke hand uh PD chief up there in Washington. But uh I remember walking over and we had already had a murder uh Pat Hardesty a couple years before this, and that was a bad uh rough case, also. Um but as I walked up to Kevin, I said, uh, so it the first thing you always say, when you know it's an officer involved or something like that, how's the officer doing? How are we doing? And I kept hearing our command staff checking off at the hospital, and I'm like, Oh, that's that's probably not a good sign. And as I walked up, I I said, Kevin, uh, any more than the officer, he says, Yeah, it's not good. We need to brief over here. And we wanted to get away from the pressure as far as what was going on. Uh so we went over and we had our briefing and found out that uh he was not doing well. He was still surviving, but he was not doing well.

unknown 20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Did you know him prior to this incident? Did you ever had you met Eric before this?

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Yeah, yeah, I had uh Eric was a a uh first sergeant in the military, just like I was. And uh he came up to my desk one day when I was up there in homicide and had brought in somebody that we needed to question. I think it was a witness of a murder. And uh he saw that I had some military stuff up there, and he's like, Oh, military. And I said, Yeah. And I told him, I'm you know, 22 years Air Force. He's like, Oh, I was Air Force too. And I said, Well, I did 10 years active duty and then 12 air guard. He's like, it doesn't matter, you still did your time. But he had told me he was a first sergeant out of David's mountain, and uh I said, Oh, okay. So we I we developed a friendship there. But in just talking with him and the way he went through this uh situation, uh, he had talked to the female that was involved in this and uh you know, got a good rapport going with her. And I told the investigator that uh was going to go in and talk to her. I said, you know what, Harris got a pretty good rapport. Maybe we should put her in there or put him in there with her and let him talk to her for a little bit because I I learned. Early on, hey, if you've got a good rapport with somebody, I don't care if you're an officer, go ahead and sit in there. You know, I'll monitor and you know, come in there and give you a break or whatever it is. But uh I I knew when talking with Eric, he was he was a sharp, sharp person. And uh I asked him when he was sitting there, I said, When are you gonna test for detective? And he went, Well, he said, you know, I'm thinking about doing it. I've only been on the job a few years. And I said, Well, it doesn't matter. I said, when the time comes up, I think you should put in for it because love to see you show up in homicide one of these days and uh take over this seat, you know. And I was joking around with him. So yes, I I did know him. I mean, I mean, he wasn't a um close friend, but I mean he was a he was a buddy of mine that uh you know would would come in from time to time or send me an email and yeah uh ask me about cases and things.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Um at least you could picture his face when they tell you who he is.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

So yeah, that's yes stuff.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Yeah, one of the things that I knew also about Eric um early on and also Noeme, um, they had uh as a first sergeant, you know, you're responsible for disciplinary actions, you're also responsible for administrative things. And they had a troop whose uh one of the parents had died, and they didn't have a vehicle to be able to get back to, I think it was California, I want to say. Eric and the Weme drove them to California and then drove back and then arranged transportation for them to get back home.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

And I mean, I I was the first sergeant for a lot of years, but that's that's the epitome. You don't, yeah, you don't, you don't, yeah, beyond the uh beyond the scope of just being a supervisor. Uh he's uh he was a sharp person, so is Domet. And uh just hearing that story, I went, oh god. You know, I already love the guy. But uh hearing that was uh was something else. But yes, uh we were over there, we briefed, uh, we found out that uh the person that was responsible for this, he'd already shot it, shot at two deputies and hit one um uh at Oracle and Ina after he shot up a house. That's what started all this. Was he shot up a house at the Nora Valley and he was coming through Oracle and Ina, he shot at a deputy there and actually struck him. He wasn't seriously injured, thank God. Uh, but he was hit. And then as uh the person that was involved in this uh started going through town, he shot at another deputy who had uh glass uh come in and hit him and things like that, cut him up. And then he continued through town and shot at one of our sergeants and a baker unit, which is a two-person unit. He shot at them also uh before the end result with Eric. But we got briefed on all that. We're able to uh we're able to talk to the focus officers and this. Um one of the uh one of the people I talked to um early on in this investigation um was uh a sergeant who his name is Jennifer Hawkins, and it used to be Jennifer Turner. But when I talked to her, she's the one that first got the rounds coming into her window, and she also got sprayed with glasses. She was trying to get behind uh this person. And uh she said from what happened with Eric, she thought he was probably trying to save her life. And I can tell you more about that in a little bit here. And then uh Mike Tafault and Hector Reyes also got shot at as they were driving it through town.

SPEAKER_03 25:45

So at the time that you're having this briefing with with the supervision and the officers on scene, is this is this subject still outstanding? Do we know who he is? He was okay and we do we have oh, you don't know who he is, but he but he's been he's been wreaking havoc for it sounds like maybe a a couple hours or 30 minutes or so just shooting folks. So the city has reports of this happening. Had y'all connected it yet when Eric and his partner were were shot?

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Yes, uh, I think it was Jennifer, she was a sergeant on duty. Uh I was I'm pretty certain she already had information that uh this had happened in the county and he was coming in towards the city, and that's when she uh was able to uh find find the vehicle, the uh red uh red Mustang convertible and uh saw him, calls it out on the air. And then uh Mike Default and Hector Reyes both got involved in it and were following uh alongside with her, and that's when they started taking rounds in through the window. And what happened with Jen? She came up and got stopped at a red light. Uh, and again, a lot of traffic out there for some weird reason. It was a lot of traffic. Well, the bad guy is able to get through the traffic and shoot the light. Eric is sitting ready to go uh take a U-turn, and he has lights and turned and got right behind the bad guy. And Jennifer, Mike, and Hector are both stuck in traffic, and she was it he was able to get behind him then. But Jennifer said, I think he was trying to save my life because if not, that probably could have been me who uh who took that fatal round.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Sure. So you're responding to this scene. You get there. Um, are you at um the scene where Eric was shot? Is that where y'all are, or did y'all have a staging elsewhere? I know you said the media was already there. I mean, they're probably surrounding the area. Look you lose or gathering, your traffic is heavy, so everybody's slowing down, turning and and looking over their shoulders. Um could you could you see the scene from where you're at? He was he was in his police car at the time.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Right. Uh he'd already been they already warped him and had him uh at the hospital on a uh gurney, and we're putting well they actually they put him in a helicopter. Oh, okay, and uh flew him.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

He was in his vehicle when he was shot, or was he out?

SPEAKER_02 28:20

He was in the vehicle, right? He was in his vehicle. And uh Delek, he was shooting an AK-74, which is weird. It's uh it's an AK-47. Yeah, it's a 74 and it's a 5.45 by 39 millimeter uh standard Soviet military uh weapon, and it was a standard Soviet military round. It was a copper jacket and then it had a hardened metal cylinder core to it, where when the bullet penetrates that little solid core actually continues through. That's what uh caught Eric because it came through the engine area up in the hood and went right through that uh front steering area into his head. Actually, uh I the uh the round I had uh I had one of my friends dissect that and uh he was able to have that for our court information. And uh we also gave it to uh Luke Haig and he brought it and briefed it over in Germany as far as the round and uh the killing of Officer Height and things like that. But uh it was it it was interesting to see once you once you cut that down the way that uh round was stacked up.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

That's yeah, that's insane. So the bolo comes out, Eric happens to see him, he turns around in the in the intersection, starts falling behind him. How is it then that this target, who we don't know his name yet, um how did he engage um officer height? Was it a traffic stop? Uh or was it an ambush. Okay. It was an ambush. So the subject is in front of Officer Height and they come to a stop, and then does he just jump out of the car?

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Yeah, he uh from being a convertible, from what I remember, he spun around in the seat and just had it laid out. And when Eric came around, by this point, um they do have information on who they think it is. Okay, and it was Delek. And Delek had stopped his car, and once Eric had rounded that corner, uh, he started shooting into the vehicle, and you could actually see the rounds stepping up into the hood where Delek was shooting the rounds into the uh police vehicle.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

From that from that point, Delek got back in the car and drove north. And we had units that were following him. Uh he went up to Mount Lemon or the road to Mount Lemon. And uh he was uh stopped up there and fled on foot with the rifle, and then uh finally gave up when he was on uh up on Mount Lemon. He wasn't all the way to the top of the mountain, he was only a few few miles in. Okay, but uh it's a road to Mount Lemon.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

So at the time, at the time that you get this briefing, he has not been caught yet. He is still traveling north. The officers are still with him. Are they actively in a pursuit or do you know this?

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Well, I know they were uh actively uh trying to find that vehicle and they had information on the plate. And again, we didn't we didn't know a name yet. I mean it it could have been the person associated with that car, we don't know.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Um, you know, as far as registered owner. But uh yeah, they had a uh they had an active pursuit on him. And again, with all this goofy traffic in town that day, uh he was able to evade a couple of different areas, and then once he got up to the limit, he was able to get out of the car and uh go try to hide. And that's where they just set up and waited for him.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

Okay. So the first thing you do when you walk up, uh, do you have a crime scene team that comes out or are you the we're it? You're it, okay. We're it, baby.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

All right, we're it. That's crazy. Yeah, we do have a crime scene unit that comes out, and I should I should mention this because they're great folks. Yeah, uh, they're all civilians, though.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

So our crime scene unit, they take photographs, they uh can take prints off of things, they could take uh, you know, like touch DNA swabs and things like that. Um, they could do um we'll do the diagram and things like that, but they'll they could go ahead and put it into their machine and make it a better-looking diagram, which is what they did in this case. I mean, when you look at this crime scene from where it started at, we're talking miles and miles and miles that they had to get.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Yeah, someone who used to do crime scene, that sounds like a very overwhelming response.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Yeah, especially when he's firing off rounds out of this AK-74 as he's driving or trying to find the rounds on the roadway. Um, you know, it was it was crazy. And at one point, after he had shot up the first two deputies, they lost track of where he was at. That's why when they provided information on who they thought it probably wasn't that car, um, and information on the the plate, that's why uh our sergeant was you know waiting for him to show up.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

Sure. So you're you know this pursuit's going on. You know your your partner, your brother. He is fighting for his life, doesn't look good, and you're having to work this crime scene. And you're starting to build a case from day one. How do you how do you how do you deal with that mentally? You just pull your boots up and just go, or I mean what do you what are you doing? What's your thought process?

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Yeah, it's certainly not not easy. Uh again, from what happened to my brother, I knew I you you have to do the right thing. And this is somebody that's you know, you're like you said, your brother. Uh and I I didn't uh I didn't know Noemi that well yet. I didn't know Samantha, their daughter or their son who was in the military. Um but I knew that I I had to do the right thing for them. And uh, you know, a lot of these things that you're doing, it it almost it's all your training. It's all the things you've been used to doing with this. Um trying to work that crime scene. You know, you see you got bloody clothing there, you've got a bloody vest, you've got Sam Brown, you've got all this other stuff that you were trying to uh deal with. And since that was a primary, and my partner Kathy Kelly was in secondary, we were more involved with the uh interview. The other people in the homicide unit, they were doing uh a lot more the crime scene. Good. Uh Kathy and I looked at the vehicle to see where we where we were looking at things because again, when you want to do an interview with somebody or an interrogation, you have to see what's going on in the crime scene. Of course. Um, a lot of times we don't have that benefit necessarily. Yeah, uh, where we're able to do that. But for us, we wanted to be able to see what we had because we knew once we talked to this guy, um, we wanted to make sure we we had the specifics down as far as you know, if he said he he fired one one round into the car, I know that would be yes because we've got several rounds across that hood. Um so I knew that from what it looked like he was stepping up on his on his shots. And we actually had a computer system done by uh Jim Gamber and Jill Isley with our sheriff's office that uh did that to do a reenactment and showed where the rounds went to and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Wow, that's probably important in that case because it shows the intention at that point, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Yeah, yes, yeah, didn't he didn't fire one time and it fire off in the air and all of a sudden it hits him. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:57

Did did Officer Hype was he able to return any fire?

SPEAKER_02 36:02

No, uh actually when they Mike the Full and uh and uh Hecker, when they got to uh where he was at, Mike used to be an AMT, and Mike brought him out of the car, saw he had a head wound and tried to work work the best he could he could with that. But Eric had his uh block 22 in his lap. So he already knew once he was coming up, he was gonna be in a firefight, I think.

SPEAKER_04 36:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

And he didn't realize what this guy uh had set up.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Okay. We'll get we'll get more into to what he had set up later on. But let me let me tell you, so you and Kathy, y'all are uh starting putting pieces together. You hear the pursuits going on. I mean, what happens when you hear that he's been stopped and he's been captured? They put they chase him on foot, he goes up into the mountains a little bit, they get him in custody. Uh, it's a wonder that he didn't get shot. So if you can talk about kill himself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 37:00

I mean, that's that's a common outcomes. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Those are some of the questions we're gonna ask him later on. Okay. As far as uh, you know, those type of things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

Um walk us, walk us through that, the apprehension.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

As far as the apprehension, uh, he did give himself up. Um, in later interview with him, he said he was thinking about trying to take somebody else out, as far as some of the people that were up there. And we thought, well, that's an interesting statement. You know, if you're if you're gonna say you're innocent, why would you say something like that? Right. Um, but he was also talking about committing suicide that had that had reached his mind. Um for Mount Lemon, it's about a 90, 9,400-foot mountain um in southern Arizona. I mean, you could ski there in the wintertime and come down and play in your pool in the you know, in the same time frame. Um, but he had talked about trying to go up to the top of the mountain and either driving off the mountain or committing suicide. But he wouldn't expound on it too much. Um, but we we had heard he was captured. Uh, we certainly wanted to get down there to the main station so we could uh set everything up in the interview room uh to be able to talk with him. Uh, we also wanted to see who was going to be following the car, uh, the weapon, who was gonna be securing that. Yeah, because one of the early things, you guys both were crime scenes, you know that you don't want something like that to slip through the cracks where people go, oh, I thought you had the camera. I thought somebody else had it. Or who followed the car in? I didn't follow the car, it just showed up on the on a flatbed. You know, you want to make sure that we have uh a chain of custody with that, or you're gonna have issues in court. We knew that. Uh, we knew how important this case was gonna be. We just didn't know that Eric was gonna pass away until the following day.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Um, but we knew the guy was captured, uh, only single person in the car that we knew of. Um, the deputies, uh Eric Cervantes, he's the one that got shot on Oracle, and also uh Tori uh Schwartz. They they only saw the one person in the car. So they said it's probably a single occupant, but you never can't tell. I mean, somebody maybe handed them up a rifle or somebody maybe uh shooting shells, you know, never can't tell. But as far as these two gentlemen, and also Jennifer, Mike, and Hector, they knew single occupant in the car as far as what they could tell.

unknown 39:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

So when we heard he was uh captured up there, uh we heard that we he was alone and that uh they had another crime scene up there. So I mean, my gosh, at the end of the day, we probably had they're probably working with uh six main crime scenes, you know, where the deputies were shot at, uh, where the sergeant and the officers were shot at, and also where he was shooting along the roadway. Because once they come up with the cartridge casing, um, you know, that is another crime scene. Yeah, um, yeah, yeah. And as far as his direction uh of travel, back then we also had uh red light systems. So we were trying to track him on which red lights he was going uh through because he was blowing all the lights as he was driving. So we had to have our traffic folks look at that and find out where our uh travel is because we're not sure. We may have more evidence out there, but until we know which way he went, you know, we we may have additional victims. We don't we don't know that either. So um, you know, this is one of those cases where we were working well into the night and the next day and the following night.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Um I was gonna ask how long you were out there. About what time of day did this start?

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Oh gosh, I think it was it was uh in the morning when this first went uh when this first occurred. And I mean, two days into it, we were still going. I I was in the autopsy and um maybe 70 hours.

SPEAKER_04 41:06

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

You know, I can't even I can't even remember it anymore. And again, you're on adrenaline, you're just kind of adrenaline coffee.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

So did you in 2008 did y'all have, I'm sure you had in-car cameras. Did y'all have body worn cameras? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

No, sir. We we had uh dash cams on on some of the vehicles. Um the uh the body worn cams. What we what we first got were the glasses ones where you put them up on the glasses, um, around the hat and things like that, which didn't they didn't uh didn't work out too well. You know, they kept getting knocked off and you get in a fight when things happen. Um but we only had select cameras that were out there. But uh so we didn't have a lot of that to be able to fall back on. We used a lot of the red light cameras for those type of things, LPRs. Um, you know, we're looking for his plate on where he was driving and things like that.

unknown 42:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

When I say LPRs, I mean license plate ridgers. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 42:08

Sure. No, I don't mean to throw out acronyms. No, no, that's great. Uh, you know, and I I think it's interesting you have some towns like like Nashville, they they did a pilot program for LPRs last year, and they're still debating on where they get them. But in 2008, Teuton, Arizona had LPRs and was successful with it. So there's definitely it's a that's a completely different topic, but I think it's awesome that you guys had the technology. So you are back at headquarters, you're preparing for this interview, you got the room all ready, you're going through who's gonna be leading all the things. Did you get to watch the the in-car camera or the dash cam footage first before? Or all you the only knowledge you had was from the bolo, the other officers, and the scene. Yes. Okay, correct.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Yeah, we we we actually had a chance to talk to Jennifer, uh, the sergeant. We did an interview with her. Uh, a couple of the other uh detectives were able to talk to Mike Default and Hector Reyes later on. Um, but uh they were they were in the middle of trying to do some of their own things there at the scene.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Um, but uh we were able to talk to Jennifer first. We got her statement and we probably had her on tape for well, I don't know, probably an hour. Um so before we talked to the bad guy, we had we had interviewed her and knew what information she had. Um, but we didn't have a chance to view any cameras or anything like that uh up to that point. But again, that's why Kathy and I wanted to look at the car to be able to see what we had as far as the crime scene and uh you know where Eric was at in the car and things like that. And then later on, we found out from uh Mike and Hector when they got him out of the car, the position he was in. And he was hunched down behind the steering wheel. Uh so I mean he's he's trying to get the engine block between him and the bad guy, which is what you're taught to do. And it didn't matter. That damn round. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

No, you're okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, any other ammunition probably would have, you know, I don't, you know, speculate, but probably would have been a solid decision to stay behind the engine block. But like the perfect storm at that point.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

Yeah.

unknown 44:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

By that point, I mean, he's coming around the corner, you know, 30, 40 miles an hour, uh, trying to find out where this guy went to, thinking he is probably already blowing down that street.

SPEAKER_04 44:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

This is on a residential 25 mile an hour street. Uh actually, some of those locations are 15 miles an hour. So, you know, you have to be careful. Mom and pop or a kid are out there in the middle of the street.

unknown 44:43

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

So that's probably in the back of his mind as he's coming around that corner and this guy's already there. I I don't remember exactly off the top of my head the the distance of the shot, but I I want to say it was maybe 20, 30 yards.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

Jeez. Well, and and and he had the he had the upper hand because I mean he heard Eric with his lights and sirens coming. He heard the I'm assuming y'all had Crown Vic, so he heard that Crown Vic rearing up around that corner and and and and coming right at him. And so he was able to bear down and take that shot and and like Joe.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

And it sounds like take several.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We we also had the Caprices too with the vet engine, so that didn't help either. You can hear that coming a mile away.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

That's fun. Um okay, so you're back at headquarters, you've made all the decisions, you've done your first round interviews, and now you find out that Delek is coming. He's coming into the to the station. Um, what are you feeling? What are you feeling when he when he walks in and cuffs or when you hear he's coming?

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Well, the first thing that goes through your mind is am I am I gonna be able to talk to this guy without strangling him?

unknown 45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

Right. Because because of what happened and what happened with the sheriff's office uh deputies before that. Sure. Um, but I I've always been one uh just at a recent podcast where I talk about you have to have respect for somebody when you talk to them. Uh if they're gonna give you respect, you gotta give them back some respect, even though I'm on what happened. Um and uh I knew we we had to walk this one through correctly. We didn't want to have an issue where somebody says, Oh, you didn't memorize right, or you didn't read off the card correctly, or he said, Well, maybe I'll answer something, and you know, or no, I won't. Maybe I want an attorney. Well, is that is he asking for an attorney? Is he not? You know, we don't want to we don't want to have any type of issue with that, right? We don't have a clean interview if we can. It doesn't always happen. Um, but uh, I mean, I read it off my Miranda card and uh, you know, asked him if he understood and if he would talk with us, and he said, Yeah, I'll talk with you. But uh he was very elusive about things, sure.

SPEAKER_03 46:59

And uh was he just trying to maintain innocence?

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Well uh at first he was talking about the people's house he shot at and the fact that he used to be uh in love with a 1940s movie star, and it's like okay, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03 47:22

What are we talking about here?

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Yeah, but I know through interview and interrogation training and doing it enough times, you know, I'm gonna let him talk a little bit. I'm not gonna sit there and you know start throwing, no, no, get back on track, get back on track. Because you paint him in the corner, he's gonna go, I'm done. You know, so I wanted to let him talk a little bit, and he started talking about some of these things and and the people that he uh shot at in the house that had pissed him off. Um he also talked about his marijuana use and things like that. Um, so I let him talk for a while on that, then I kind of stirred him back to okay, so let's talk about what happened out there on the roadway. You know, you're you're upset with these people, that's fine. And we could get into some of that stuff. Do you do you know them? Um, you know, have you ever talked with them before? No, I don't I don't know them. I was just I was just pissed off at him. Um, you know, they got a nice house. And so I I let him talk about that for a little bit more, then I got him back on track. Um, as far as the deputies he shot at, he really didn't go into specifics about that at all. Uh he talked about the fact that uh he and his dad uh made weapons, and that's one of the things that uh his dad, he's an auto guy, uh, works with cars and things, but he also makes these weapons. Um and when we got around to it, we started asking him clarifying questions as far as do you know right from wrong? Um, do you know when you go into a court hearing, do you know, do you know who's there as far as who prosecutes, uh, who does the other stuff, who's gonna be in there with you? Uh, do you know that you have to be honest with things? We're just trying to clarify with things uh with him, but we're trying not to give him yes or no answers. We're trying to let him specifically talk a little bit so we can kind of guide through that part. Um, and again, he would go into these illusions of grandeur uh and kind of talk about some of these things that were a little bit uh off track. And at one point I kind of got pissed off at him and snapped at him, and uh Kathy did too. And um, you know, at one point I'm talking about the fact that listen, you know what happened today. You're responsible for all this. We saw you in the car, the the deputy saw you in the car. We've got people that are right behind you when you're when you're shooting the gun. So we already know about all this. So stop trying to blow smoke up my skirt. We know about what's going on with this. You need to be honest with this and talk. And again, I'm I'm I'm trying not to get that thing where he goes, lawyer. Yeah, you know, I want to hear the story, I want to get something. And our I I knew our chief was sitting out there watching a monitor, going, Oh man, Hanson, you know, let him talk. Oh, don't don't don't get him painted in that corner, please. Um, but he did finally end up admitting some of the things as far as the shooting, and I wasn't shooting at anybody in particular, and I wasn't trying to harm anyone. It's like, well, yeah, you definitely were.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

Yeah, you posted up on the tiller of the car.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Yeah, yeah. To get to get him to admit to some of those things, that was helpful.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 50:38

Uh, I did talk to him about stepping up the rounds on the on the uh vehicle for Eric, and he he did not. Oh, I don't even know what you're talking about. Um you know, I remember shooting a gun a couple times. I don't, I don't know who anybody was. No, I'm not saying you know who it was. I'm just saying you knew it was a police car.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

You saw the lights, you saw the uh he purposely stopped and aimed when he was coming around the corner.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

Yeah, yeah. Hey, he'd already been following you for how long? You were watching him through the rearview mirror.

SPEAKER_03 51:08

Yeah, that's permitted to do it.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

You know, he'd he'd lay hey lay that rifle across his his uh seat and fire off around. We are so thankful that nobody else got hit that day.

SPEAKER_04 51:20

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

As far as just somebody mom and pop driving their car with their kid.

SPEAKER_04 51:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

Um, how that it was miraculous that we didn't have something like that happen.

SPEAKER_03 51:29

Wow. How long was the interview?

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Yeah, we probably talked to him between breaks and uh getting him getting him some food and some drinks. We're probably in there for a better part of four hours.

unknown 51:46

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

Talking to him. And by that point, he was he was to the point of I think I'm done talking. You know, we asked him a couple clarifying things just to try to get that, but he was by that point he was kind of locking up.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

Did he have any negative comments or opinions about cops that that was part of his plan?

SPEAKER_02 52:11

No, no, and the the weird part about it, his dad, a lot of cops know him because he does a lot of uh, like I said, weapons and things like that. Um so a lot of cops knew him from that. They also knew him through the auto shop that he worked at. Um, and he worked on some of the uh some of the officers and sergeants' cars. Wow. So uh when we were talking to Delek, he said, Oh, I I've met some of the cops before, and it's like, okay, then why would something like this happen? You know, yeah, we're we're not understanding this. Um but again you go back and start talking about different things. So we we tried to um we tried to steer more towards the facts by that point, and we were starting to get uh a little bit more pissed off every time he'd start going into his uh things about marijuana love of an older 1940s star, and you know, it's like uh that's not that's not what we're here for. So did you ever find out the why nope, not besides the fact that he was pissed off at the people in the house, and he didn't even know the people in the house out in Ora Valley. He the first thing he did was shoot in the house. Yeah, he shot several rounds into this house. Thankfully, nobody was inside, right? Or those rounds would have gone right through him, probably. Um, but he shot several rounds into the house. The sheriff's office gets a dispatch on that shots fired in the area of and um that's when Eric Cervantes goes up there to uh Oracle and Ida and is sitting off waiting on this car because he knows he's got a red Mustang coming through this area somewhere. Right. Uh they're trying to get air one up in the air. That's our helicopter. Sure. Uh they're trying to see if they have a fixed wing in the air, if we could get Ranger out of uh DPS, Department of Public Safety. Maybe we could get Ranger up in the air. We're trying to see if we could get things working, you know, instead of just uh driving right to the house because he's already, we heard he's mobile. People are calling, you know, hey, this guy just shot at the house, he's driving a red Mustang. Yeah, he's already down the street. So it's not like they're gonna go straight to that house. He's not gonna be there.

SPEAKER_04 54:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

Um, eventually they had to go to the house, of course, to try to get the evidence and things like that. But they're more or less doing a bullseye target on him coming out of the neighborhood, hopefully, and catch him that way.

SPEAKER_03 54:34

Well, I'm gonna put the cart before the horse just for a second and ask a question, just for sure for brevity's sake. Did I hear I hear him say, well, that you know, this all started because I was mad at the people in the house. Who are those people? I don't know. I don't know who they are. Well, then what are you mad at him about? Who who are they? Why would you do that? It sounds like he was building like an infinity plea or something. Like, did that ever come up in the trial phase of this in in in any way? Okay. All right, so we'll we'll get to that in a minute, but the short answer to that is yes. So at the end of this interview, you you have him on multiple charges. Right. Uh, and I'm just gonna from what I know in intensity, you know, reckless endangerment for the house, the ag assault on the multiple officers, or attempted murder for the multiple officers, uh, attempted first degree murder or uh premeditated murder for officer height because he's not dead at this point. Um, and then the other sergeant that was shot. So four different alive victims, and then the people or the the house.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Um do do and then an endangerment, endangerment times however many on the roadway over there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:41

Sure. So so how many how many charges did you hit him with that night?

SPEAKER_02 55:46

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 55:49

A whole heap.

SPEAKER_02 55:50

Remember my I yeah, I I probably had three or four booking sheets filled. Jeez. So yeah, I I had numerous charges. So um, and of course, our our prosecutor wants to go with, you know, it's gonna be a first degree murder, which it is. Let's go with that. And then we'll look at the other charges.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

So at this point, Officer Hyde is still living. So you definitely want to get his bond as high as possible. Uh, did you make a special call to the prosecutor, the judges? Did you say, hey, listen, we need to get this guy held because uh our officer is in is in grave danger. He's not looking like he's gonna make it. We're probably gonna increase this to a first degree. Uh did that all happen?

SPEAKER_02 56:29

Oh, yeah. Yeah, he I think he had a I I want to say um I want to say he had like a four million dollar bond.

SPEAKER_03 56:38

You know, but I mean he's got it, he's got a successful business, he's he's in the community, people know him. I mean, people could come together and raise that money, but obviously he didn't. He was still there. The next day we find out that Officer Height passes.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Um then I went over there and gave him the first three order charge at the jail.

unknown 56:57

Good.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

Did he have any reaction? Did you get a chance to talk to him for that? Did he have any reaction when he found out that Eric had passed?

SPEAKER_02 57:05

No, he just came up and signed the paperwork. Um and he was and I'll tell you, just going back a little bit on this, yeah, uh putting the horse ahead of the cart again. Yeah, um, when we talked about the people in the house, the fact that he was pissed off at him, he talked about the fact that when he was he he drank marijuana liquid and smoke, but he thought the people in the house were going inside his head and calling the police and making him uh a bad guy in this area. So, but but again, he never talked to him. Um, but again, he's got this going on. That's why I was worried. I thought, oh man, you know, this guy's gonna all rule 11 hearings and things like that. We want to make sure that we we lock him up and make sure that uh we throw away the key after get the death penalty on him. But uh we knew we're gonna have an uphill.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

I'm sorry, did he have any mental health history that you guys knew of now that you're in this a little bit and kind of know a little bit more about him?

SPEAKER_02 58:09

He had he had some issues going on. Um, and uh the the dad we talked to him about it, and he said that he had a lot of issues because of mom leaving, and mom more or less left him at a younger, younger age with dad, and dad didn't even know if it was his kid, if they were actually related. Um, and he at one point talked about, you know what, maybe I'll do a DNA test. This is before anything like this happened. Yeah. But you know, when when he was having trouble in school and some of those things, dad was second, you know what, maybe I'll do a DNA test to see if he's even my child, and then we'll go from there. And he decided, you know what? No, I love him. I'm just gonna go ahead and uh raise him as well. You know, keep raising him. Yeah, so he raised them from teenage years, and at this point, uh Delek is uh in his 20s by the time this happened. So they they uh they got along pretty well. I know that uh he had some issues with mental health uh that we learned about, and uh, of course, you guys know what's going on in capital murder cases. You know, everybody and their brother wants to go in there and give them a review and see what they think and if he's able to stay in trial and all those type of things. So the was a non-stop uh you know, revolving door with doctors wanting to go in there and talk to them.

SPEAKER_04 59:36

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:38

So starting doing the trial, um he gets charged on numerous accounts. Um, the obviously the first degree or the premeditated murder was the was the highest charge. But then a whole bunch of other victims. Um how did trial go? How long was trial?

SPEAKER_02 59:56

You know, actually, in this case, we had gone with the death penalty. Okay, and that got uh looked at. And again, with all the doctors going in there and doing this, uh we went through and they decided that he did have some mental health issues and that if we went with the death penalty, we're probably gonna lose that side. So our our prosecutor um we went through months and months and months and then a year or more to try to get this thing going to trial. Uh the prosecutor had talked to uh his defense attorneys, he had a couple, and Delek decided that uh he would take a plea, but the plea would be to go to the state hospital for the next hundred years, and he would not get out. So we looked at that. We talked to, I know Noemi uh and Samantha and their son talked to uh the prosecutor's office about this, and uh Noemi's a sweetheart. Um, she just wanted to be over, of course. So did the kids imagine, yeah. So so did the kids. Um, when we talked to them about the fact that we're gonna bring this up in court, there's gonna be a lot of different things going on with this. We'd already gone through so many motion hearings and things and evidentiary hearings trying to get ready for all this stuff. Um, and this was just about court trial time when uh Rick Uncles Bay, our uh county attorney, uh, that was the deputy in charge of the case, he had talked to them and they said, We'll go ahead and take that plea and we'll put him in the state hospital. And with the caveat that if he goes into the state hospital, if he's deemed later on to be able to stand trial, we're going to trial. So he could could have been in there for 50 years and then he's able to stand trial. I could call that a retirement and go back and go through the trial.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:58

Lock lock him up.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:59

But uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:02

What what all is that meaning? That was the that that he he he now has to stay at the state hospital. Tell me exactly what it is. Uh I mean it's the Looney bin, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:10

Um State Hospital for the Medellin's saying, yeah, he's he's up in the Phoenix area.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:16

Um, I'm not sure if he stays in Phoenix or if they rotate him around in different places.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:20

I I'm not sure how that works on it. Um, but uh he went to the state hospital up in Phoenix, which is where Joe Arpio started with the whole pink underwear and things like that, uh, along with the jail system.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:37

But uh he's he's still up there, and he actually um, unfortunately, uh last year, I think it was, they actually were talking about a release on him. Oh, and they got a hold of the women, and she's like, Well, wait, no, this isn't supposed to happen. So she contacted the uh the department, went through county attorney's office. Rick, who's already retired, comes out and goes up there with her and our chief and a few others. I want to go also, but I didn't have a chance to attend with them.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:10

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:10

Um, but they all went up there and he explained to them again listen, this is what he's in here for, and this is why it's this way, and this is what the plea agreement was for. And they're like, Oh, yeah, so I guess she shouldn't be released. Uh no shit. I mean, that could have, I mean Oh, that would have been a mess.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

He could, I mean, well, I I guess he could still slip through the cracks. I mean, a new administrator comes in, new warden or whatever they call him, comes in and doesn't have the information. I just can't believe that it could be so easy that, oh well, Mr. Uh Mr. Delek is gonna be released today. Don't even know why he's here, actually. June, do you know why? No, sir. Let's release it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:50

He's in love with it, he's in love with an old star and he likes marijuana a lot. Seems fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

He's okay. I mean, everybody likes marijuana, right? That's just what they're saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

So I'm interested in knowing, you know, I obviously the the family had input on that plea deal. How did you feel about it personally?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:11

Um, you know, I I wanted to go to trial. I mean, we we had gotten ready, we crossed our teeth, dotted our eyes. Uh, we had evidence on this case. And what happened with the sheriff's office um later on when we were going through all this and we had all our evidence, we had all the evidence because we had the murder. Um, but the sheriff's office uh felt that since they had a couple of people that were involved in this, of course, uh, who were injured, they wanted to go ahead and collect their part of the evidence and they present their part of the case. And I didn't have much of a problem with that. I mean, I when I went in for grand jury, I was probably on the stand for three and a half hours explaining our case and going through all this stuff and trying to um go through all the information that we had. Um, and uh then they went ahead and their detective took the stand and uh went through and and talked also. So, I mean, we had that part already done, but we had already split up all the evidence and we had all of ours. Uh, they handled all the county evidence, we handled all the city, and then of course, Eric and our uh sergeant and officers got shot at. Um so we went ahead and we had all that done. Uh, like I said, we went through Rule 11 hearings uh on this. We went through evidentiary hearings and you know what was gonna be allowed, what was gonna be allowed. Uh, you know, if anything was um going to be a problem uh that was going to be addressed before the trial, of course. But I I was ready to go to trial. I I wanted first to be murdered and I want to make sure this guy was never, never uh going to get out until he found his uh shot or whatever it may be. And I was gonna be there for that. I was gonna be there with the women. Waiting for him in Florence or wherever they're going to do it at and uh be there when he got the injection. Um, but when that came out, I I was a little bit taken back. But when I I talked to Rick, I I respect Rick a lot. Rick Rick Uncle's bate, our county attorney. Um, and uh when I talked to him about it, the more he talked about it, the more it made sense. He's like, Bill, if we have anything that falls through the crack and this guy's able to get off on this, or they don't find him responsible for this at all because of some something like that. Yeah, and he could go to the state hospital and get out. We don't want that to happen. And I I agree with him in the end. I said, Yeah, you're right. That's what that's why you're the prosecutor. Um, but uh yeah, I I was I was a little taken back at first, but after more discussion, I did talk to Noime about this too. Um I knew that again, after being through a murder in the family, she didn't want to go for this. She doesn't want to see the autopsy findings and all that stuff in the pictures and see the car and you know, things like that. Um I I had a lot of discussion with her. We had a lot of prayer over it, and uh, you know, she gave me her blessing and said, let's let's do this. I want to make sure he's never out here for Samantha or our son or me. So we want to make sure he was locked up, never saw the light of day again.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:29

Yeah, it's one of those things, you know, it's easy to want that end result without seeing what everything in between or all those possibilities in between are. So, you know, good for you to sit down and talk to the prosecutor and kind of understand that and come to peace with it yourself. I mean, you were involved from the investigation in the beginning, you know, it has to be disappointing to have that outcome. So it's good for you to have had that conversation and kind of come to peace with it yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:54

Yeah, yeah, we don't do anything in a vacuum. Um, we we talk to our prosecutors, our medical examiners, um, everybody. Um and we let them know what's going on because we knew it was gonna be newsworthy. Um, you know, when somebody says, uh, yeah, Doug's gonna be going to the state hospital, people are going, what? Wait a minute, you just had the death penalty on the on the table and you're withdrawing that? What what are you doing? You guys are idiots. You're you're messing this up. But uh we we we made sure that uh people in Tucson knew why we were doing this. That's good. How did the department feel about it? Well, I mean, they wanted the first three penalty or death penalty also.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:34

Certainly.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:34

Um but uh with with the information they had from Rick, we knew that uh was gonna be taken off the table. So uh especially as far as his mental health. And since he was in there for a hundred years, he wasn't gonna be getting out. Uh Pat Hardesty, the officer that was murdered just before Eric, uh the kid that murdered him, Cruz, he had a death penalty and was in waiting on death row. And uh just a few years back, he had his sentence reduced to life. So they took it off the table for him, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:10

So mercy. Did you work that case too?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:13

Yeah, I did. I did. We we worked uh we worked the scene and we also worked uh a lot of different things as far as the uh search warrants and things, and then uh search warrant on Cruiser's car. He was a bad guy in this.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:28

Yeah, so it was hard to work two so close together, and you were still pretty early on in your homicide career too.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:37

So yeah, actually, when uh when Pat was killed, I was I was in Agassault again, working my own homicides and working with a homicide unit. And uh on that day, it was all boots on the ground. We all had to go out, yeah.

unknown 1:09:51

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:51

But uh, I was still in I was still in Agassault, and I probably had oh gosh, I don't know. I probably only had a couple years left before I moved over to homicide.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:59

But uh so when when you were digging into Deluxe's phone records, emails, and search history, was there anything in there that gave you any insight? I know that in the interview you weren't able to tell the why, but was there anything on the background that gave you any indication of what the why was? Or is he just some marijuana hippie that started losing his brain and felt like he needed to shoot folks with a Soviet war weapon?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

Yeah. Uh we looked at everything. We looked at uh he he had tried to purchase a weapon before uh before all this happened, and uh was denied because of one of the mental health flags that popped up. Um so we knew it he shouldn't have this. Um he unfortunately got it uh dad didn't give it to him, but I mean that's how he got the weapon because they they were putting these things together and was able to get one. Um but as far as some of the things we looked at, yeah, we we looked at some of those for the why, and we just couldn't wrap our brain around it. And his dad, every time you went in to see his dad or an officer stopped by to talk to him, because again, a lot of people knew him, he'd start crying. He'd start crying because he knew it was just it was terrible, and he'd he'd apologize every time he saw me. And it's like, look, you don't need to do that. I know that this is troubling for you. I understand that, yeah, but you don't need to keep doing that. I'm I'm just here to talk to you about your son and uh some of the information because again, we wanted to know the whys. And his dad, yeah, he he he couldn't search his brain for any answer on this uh that would make any sense at all. Terrible, and uh that's what makes the cases. Yeah, look at all the stuff as far as um he didn't have uh social media stuff that was popping off about you know hating cops or something like that. Um nothing in his phone information, yeah. Um a lot of stuff on marijuana, but I mean, not uh not anything like uh where he was a warmonger, you know, ready to go out and um you know do the right thing as far as he was concerned.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:18

He wasn't like an undercover sovereign or anything. I mean, he just there was no no explanation.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:23

No, not at all. Jeez, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:27

Well, so fast forward, um, Noemi gets involved and she starts the foundation, and and really now we know that Eric Heike Foundation is doing some really, really amazing stuff in the Tucson area. And I guess all throughout Arizona, correct? It's not just local to Tucson, but but started in Tucson, so the department is is 100% on board. Um we saw some of that. There was a there was a a flyer for for the organization in when we went on the tour, and I don't remember where I saw it, Joanna.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:59

Yeah, it was I think they had a run or a race coming up okay um for the foundation. But then when we spoke to Noemi, she said that their office is actually out of uh Tucson PD, that uh the PD had given her some space there to run the foundation out of. So just that support is impressive.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:16

It's really awesome. Absolutely. Yeah, they're they're uh they're all behind her. All the chiefs have always uh been uh behind the foundation. Anything she needs, they're there for, which is outstanding. You know, we'll tell you too, um in 2008 I got the officer of the year uh for some of the homicide investigations in Eric's case.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:39

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:39

And whenever on our department, we had a uniform day, which we wear a uniform with like once every couple months, but we wore our uniform, and uh I'd always wear my officer of the year pin. And I'm sure a lot of people were like, how are you wearing that for? You know, big deal. You won it one year, you know, you're wearing this thing all the time. You got your ribbons on, it's honor guard stuff. You know, why are you wearing that? And it was an honor of Eric because he should have been the one to get that pin that year, not me. Yeah, sure. But that's why I always wore it, and I always wore it with pride. And I my close friends knew about it. Uh, some of the people that I would talk to would know about it. Some of the other people were just jackasses that thought, you know, well, Hanson, look at all, you know, he's got all like uh, you know, grapefruit salad on his shirt.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:29

He's got to remind everybody that he was off to the year once. No, it's more than that, but yeah, it's more this is for this is for air.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:35

Exactly. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:38

That's awesome. So you continued on to work homicide up until 2016. Um you retired. How is it? You you've worked a lot of cases. I mean, how many murders do you think you've worked? And and I'm I'm sure you can't put a number to it, but I mean you could put a roundabout number to it. Hundreds.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:57

Hundreds, yeah. Yeah, hundreds. As far as as far as crime scenes, I mean, I've worked thousands of those things because they weren't just you know murders.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:06

We worked we worked a lot of different crime scenes. Uh got a lot of experience, a lot of uh exposure to it, so that's good. That bolsters it up. Um but uh to work a crime scene where you've got enough of it's that's down and you know them, that's that's rough. Um you know, I I I would say kid cases are are just as tough sometimes when you do these cases, but uh those are the ones that really affect you.

unknown 1:15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:34

Yeah, we always talk a little bit um on each of our podcasts about you know the the effects of mental health and you know this job and what that looks like. And Joe talked about it briefly, but you know, yeah, that mindset when you get on that scene and you said, you know, you rely on this experience and you kind of just keep moving forward. You're on adrenaline, you have you know, kind of a mission and a whatever, but there gets to be a point where you're you go home finally after the end of that 70 hours or whatever, and you take a breath. You know, what is that like? How hard was that for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:04

Well, it wasn't easy. I've got a very understanding wife, uh, great kids, got five kids, along with all those grandkids. Um, and she was very understanding of that. And uh she's uh one of the people I could talk to about this stuff. And uh we we learned from Dr. Gil Martin back in the day in our academy days, uh Kevin Gil Martin, you know, you you always ride that, you ride the wave, you know, and you go to work and you're up, and then you're coming down and you you're sinking. Um, and you know, you you have to be able to talk to somebody, you can't have only just cop friends, you can't go out and always hit the bar, you can't uh do those type of things. You know, you have to try to keep it even keel. And with my wife Laura, uh, she she certainly brings that. Um and I'll tell you, after after Pat's case and after Eric's case, uh it was rough for a while. Uh behavioral uh behavioral science was behind us 100%. And said if you guys need a hand with anything, let us know. Uh, we had a lot of uh group debriefs on some of these things.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:10

Yeah, um I'm not gonna lie, that's pretty impressive for 2008. 2008 for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:15

Yeah, yeah, they were pretty good. Yeah, I I mean I had in custody death uh that I was responsible for uh back in the day. And you know, it was like you know, you show back up at the station, hey kid, how you doing? I'm fine. Yeah, you better be fine, get back to work. Exactly. Yeah, you didn't time off BSU. What the hell was that? Yeah, you know, you just go back to work or you're some wimp, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:38

Yeah, and you dare not tell anybody that you're having troubles.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:41

David Aq shit. Oh, yeah, yeah, because if you do, you're gonna be out there working the front desk or fired, you know, or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:48

That's something that Joanne and I have talked about with a lot of our guests is that like law enforcement is well, first response in any way, death investigations at all, has come a long way with this. And something stigma. Absolutely, but something that was incredibly impressive was the was the Tucson Police Department, was the just the the sheer number of mental health people that you had there for the officers. And I just I thought that was that's unheard of. I I don't see, you know, we we have a couple folks at one of our agencies here that that does uh you know checks on the officers from time to times. But but what you guys have was a full-time staff, and that is that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:26

Yeah. And you need true testament if you had it in 2008.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:29

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:30

Why it looks the way it does in 2026, it's impressive in 2008 to recognize that, you know, that is necessary. And, you know, this is an extreme case, right? You know, a homicide, a death, those have the ability to hit home no matter what, if you can, you know, have some kind of likeness to it, right? But this is an officer, and for you, this is an officer that you have spoken to, that you have this camaraderie with the military, you know, like it this is something that's gonna hit close to home. So it is good that you were able to have those resources. Cause like I said, that that moment where you sit down finally, when you get that first break, that has to hit you hard. But you still have to get up. I mean, you have a family, you have five kids, you know, you still have to get up and live not only your life, but then go back to work.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:13

So you still got cases coming in.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:16

Yeah, that's true. They keep mounting up. Uh yeah. When uh when I was a detective, when I first started in detective work, uh, I got into peer support, and we had a pretty good-sized peer support unit uh that was run by Bob Easton. And uh he did a lot of great work and gave us a lot of good uh training in there. And I did that for several years. Um but uh the peer support group was always very good too, because we worked with officers and and talk to them and try to uh try to help with some of the issues we could. But then later on, like you talked about the behavioral uh science unit, the BSU, um Lou Cornell, she's the the boss of it, and uh with Monica Prieto, our chief now, and Chad Kazmire before that. Uh they're they're very supportive of that and they do a great job. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:12

Yeah, that's really cool. Well, Bill, thank you very much for sharing um Eric's story. Thank you for sharing us a little bit about your law enforcement history. I know there's probably hours and hours and hours of podcasts left in you uh to tell all your stories, but thank you for taking just a little while to talk with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:32

Um we really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:34

Absolutely. And uh we'll be coming to Tucson, so maybe we can uh maybe we can hook up sometime.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:40

Absolutely. I know you guys are coming in September. Yeah, it's coming. I talked to Jen about trying to get some dinner.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:45

Come on, hey, let's do it. Yeah, don't forget us now. We uh I'd love to I'd love to.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:49

I know I I'm I'm actually teaching in New Jersey that week for NCJTC suspicious death, but I I I might I might be back. We'll have to see.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:00

Love to see you guys. If not, we'll see you down the road.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:02

Well, and the board comes a little early and the board stays a little late because you know we have to put it all together. So maybe we can maybe we can make time to at least meet you and and and uh meet you face to face.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:12

Yeah, I'm a past president for the Arizona Hempstead Investigators Association, so I know all about what you guys go through and how you do it and set it up and build up and tear down and oh yeah, yeah, it's chaos.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:24

That's the word that's it. Bill, thank you so much. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, thank you so much, Bill. We appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:33

Thank you for what you do. Absolutely. Thank you. God bless you for what you guys do. You guys be safe. Thank you, Bill.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:39

Thank you, you too.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:41

And that wraps up this episode of Talk Murder to Me, the Sahia podcast. If you found value in today's conversation, be sure to subscribe, share this episode with a friend or a fellow investigator, and be sure to leave us a review. It really helps us reach out even more to the hot dog community. For training opportunities, upcoming events, or connect with Sahiya, Sahia.org.org, and follow us on all our social media accounts. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and until next time. This podcast is intended for educational and purposes only.