A Detective Prepares to Let Go of the Chase

Sheriff’s Sgt. Thomas Odle calls it “the chase.”

In any investigation, said the veteran homicide detective, facts must be gathered, witnesses interviewed and leads followed, sometimes across state borders. Physical evidence must be tagged, bagged, sorted and analyzed, as the case is prepared for trial.

“The chase”--the investigation itself--is, Odle says, the reason that he has stayed with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department for nearly 25 years.

“It’s satisfying . . . going from one lead to the next and developing those leads into a fileable case,” he said. “It’s been a good career, the fact that you don’t know what you’re going to be doing every day you come to work.”

But the chase is also the main reason that Odle looks forward to retiring in March.

“I get a little weary when the phone rings at 2 o’clock in the morning, and I gotta go pick up a body that’s been left by the side of the road somewhere or interview some drunk who’s incoherent,” the 50-year-old detective said.

Odle is quitting that life to expand his wedding photography into a full-time business and move with his wife, Yvonne, to land that they own in Nevada County. So this should be a time to wind down, take stock and tie up loose ends.

Instead, he is preparing to bring the most complex murder case of his career to trial in Superior Court.

Odle plans to testify today to help prosecutors fend off a defense attempt to have evidence--his evidence--thrown out in the 1986 murder case of Thomas Gottchalk.

Odle and his partners spent four years identifying Gottchalk as the suspect in the death of Linda Ellen Eubanks, whose body was found under a crude cairn in Matilija Canyon with two .25-caliber slugs in the head.

The Gottchalk case has been a challenge, Odle said, that has taken him on numerous trips to Utah, Arizona and Northern California in search of witnesses.

It was a problem case from the start, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Holmes said, because Eubanks’ body was so decomposed that she could not be recognized. That it finally has come to trial is testimony to Odle’s single-minded, even-tempered work, the prosecutor said.

“It’s meticulous research,” Holmes said. “Lake County had the missing person’s report, and the victim’s property was found in Utah before the body was found.” But Odle, Holmes said, “kept pushing it all along. He’s the bulldog.”

Odle’s partner on the Gottchalk investigation was Harlan Rudd, who called the case “a puzzle of 10,000 pieces.”

“I think it’s a personal challenge for him,” Rudd, now an investigator for the district attorney, said of Odle. “He’s always looking for that little thread that binds.”

Odle brings experience in all facets of detective work--as a photographer, evidence technician and patrolman--to an investigation, said his supervisor, Lt. Joseph Harwell. And the Sheriff’s Department will be the loser when he retires, Harwell said.

“I can train an investigator, but I can’t give him 24 years of police experience,” he said.

The 1985 William Nye murder brought all Odle’s talents to bear, Rudd said.

Nye, an elderly amputee, was slain in bed in Casitas Springs, his head so badly bludgeoned with a table leg that it appeared that he had been shot in the face with a shotgun, Rudd said.

The crime scene covered a quarter of an acre, both inside and outside the house.

Odle spotted a critical clue, a shoe print on the bedroom door where the intruder had kicked it in, Rudd recalled.

Odle and Rudd spent weeks rummaging through sporting goods stores, finally tracing the print to only 27 pairs of that size sold in Southern California. A meticulous check of sales records eventually led to a suspect, and to a shoe that perfectly matched the print, Rudd said.

In 1986, Timmy Morris was convicted of Nye’s murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The victim’s brother remembers Odle fondly.

“He was fantastic. He and Harlan worked together like a team I never could even imagine,” Robert Nye said. “They found footprints of the killer where I would never be able to see them. . . . It was really a pleasure to see them operate.”

Odle said scientific innovations have made his job progressively easier.

Newly developed DNA identification techniques could have tied Timmy Morris directly to the blood found at the Nye murder scene, and the relatively new Cal-ID fingerprint computer could have identified Gottchalk in a few hours, not a few weeks, he said.

But one vital aspect of the work has not changed.

“Legwork,” Odle said. “Talking to people. People are your best evidence. No matter how well someone’s covered what he’s done, usually he’ll make a misstep somewhere and tell someone.”

Holmes said Odle’s approach to interviewing witnesses is direct.

“He says, ‘I don’t care what else you did, I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if you’re a dope seller or a dope user. I’m interested in solving this case. Now what can you tell me?’ ” Holmes said.

Odle, born in 1940, grew up in north Dallas. A high school dropout, he met his wife while in the Navy and settled in 1960 in Ojai, taking a job as a cabinetmaker. A sheriff’s deputy working part time in the shop persuaded Odle to take the sheriff’s test at age 26.

“I flunked it the first time--nervous,” he said, grinning. “But then I went out and passed it on the following Saturday.”

Once a deputy, Odle patrolled the same beat he has today--Ojai, Ventura Avenue and El Rio--as he learned the basics of police work. His career has included stints as an evidence technician, property-crime investigator and administrative sergeant. But in 1984 he gravitated back to investigation of major crimes.

Odle has also worked for years as one of seven members of the department’s bomb squad. “I don’t know why I do it,” he said.

Former partner Rudd said he would sometimes be dragged along, against his better judgment, on Odle’s hazardous duty. He “put the ‘habeas grabbus’ on me too many times,” Rudd said. “He does have nerves of steel.”

Current partner Robert McFarland said Odle is no showboat. “He’s not one that’s gonna jump up and down and say, ‘I’m glad we got that guy.’ ”

While readying the Gottchalk case for trial, Odle is keeping his hand in others, including the search for the killer of Najat Chehade, whose body was found off California 33 near Ojai last month.

Odle shrugs. The chase just won’t let up. “They’re getting their money’s worth out of me these last three months.”