Detective Dan Shea announces his retirement effective today from the Police Department. I didn’t know the guy except from through the people I associate with in politics and they all vouch for him as a great guy. The Hamburg Police are some of the finest officers in the state and it’s most likely a result of the hard work from people like Dan Shea. Good luck Dan and enjoy that ridiculous Government State Pension you are about to receive.
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/557508.html
Forensics whiz retires as Hamburg police captain
Retires after career of lab, field work pursuing criminals
The exceptions include Capt. A. Daniel Shea, who oversees the Hamburg Police Department’s Detective Bureau.
After nearly 34 years on the job, Shea is hanging up his hat today and turning over the keys to the forensics lab that he helped to establish.
Shea is well-known throughout Western New York law enforcement circles as a top-notch detective and a forensics whiz who used all of his skills to put bad guys behind bars. He is also known for his compassion and sense of humor. Fellow officers and even victims of crimes he has helped solve all speak fondly of him.
Shea, 61, grew up in South Buffalo, which he says was the best schooling for becoming a police officer.
“I always said that growing up in South Buffalo — that little bit of city living — gives you some moxie, hanging out with the guys on the corner and everything,” he said. “I always felt like I had a leg up on all of the guys who grew up in the suburbs.”
Those South Buffalo boys almost kept Shea off the police force. Shea was arrested after he came to the aid of a buddy who was getting beaten by a police officer. He was exonerated, but when Hamburg officials interviewing him for the patrolman job asked him if he had ever been arrested, he had to answer: “Yes.”
Even though he was a Vietnam veteran, he had to try four times before the authorities finally decided to waive the rule about arrests.
After becoming a detective in 1983, he got involved with forensics while investigating a series of unsolved burglaries. In one case, a woman walked in on the burglary and saw the thief holding a big box, which he dropped before running away.
Shea dusted it for prints and found some that looked usable. At the same time, he heard from some Buffalo police about two arrests they had made in similar burglaries,
He wasn’t a fingerprint expert by any means, but when he compared the men’s fingerprints to those on the box, he thought he had a match. He took the two sets to a specialist at a local department to get an expert opinion.
“I’ve been doing this for 20 years: it’s not him,” he told Shea. The specialist’s boss agreed.
Shea then took the prints to a friend at the Erie County Sheriff’s Department.
“He calls me two hours later, and said, ‘I found 12 points on it. That’s your guy,’ ” Shea said.
To be double sure, he sent the prints to the FBI, which confirmed that the prints were a match.
Shea began doing more fingerprint work and kept sending them to the FBI. Eventually they told him he was sending too many, but the agents invited him to take a latent fingerprint class at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.
“All these guys who were with me were lab geeks,” he said. “I had to compete with these guys. It was hard.”
His forensics skills, and his detective’s instincts, were put to the test in one of the toughest cases Shea ever handled.
Shea and his wife, Linda, were at home, getting ready to head out for breakfast to celebrate their anniversary when a detective called and said that a man named Robert Piwowar had reported his wife missing.
Shea was familiar with Piwowar and knew he was no good. He also knew that, if Michelle Piwowar was missing, then foul play was involved. He told his wife he would have to skip breakfast.
He and his detectives began working the case. They began questioning Piwowar, who said he hadn’t left his home the night his wife disappeared. The investigators noticed he had a lot of dirt in his ear. Had he buried his wife? they wondered.
They also brought in his brother, who had autism. Some thought he wouldn’t help, but Shea decided to give him a shot.
“Did your brother leave home at night?“ Shea asked.
“Yes,” the man said. “What time?” Shea asked.
“He left about one o’clock,” the brother said.
“OK, what time did he come back?”
“3:10,” the brother said.
Shea recalled how he said out loud as he started to write: “about three.”
“Three-ten!” the brother yelled, slamming his hand.
Shea knew he had caught Piwowar in a lie: He said he had never left. He asked the brother what Piwowar was wearing when he came home.
“Wet shirt,” the brother said. “Wet shirt?” Shea asked. “Red! Red!” the brother said.
Piwowar had blood on his shirt, Shea realized.
Shea and his detectives got search warrants for Piwowar’s house and car. They searched for blood using a special light and found smears on the steering wheel and the floor of the car. In the house, they discovered a bucket used to clean the car: there were long strands of hair in it, and blood. But they found no sign of the missing woman.
The detectives had enough to arrest Piwowar even without the body. But when the district attorney met with Piwowar’s lawyer, they arranged a plea deal. Piwowar agreed to lead them to the body if he didn’t face the maximum sentence. He took the police to a giant uprooted tree in the Tifft Nature Preserve.
“It was like a big cave,“ Shea said. Inside was Michelle Piwowar’s lifeless body.
While still a patrolman, Shea became involved in another significant case.
In 1977, Renee Bahleda, 34, an art teacher and mother, had been found savagely beaten to death in her home. No one was arrested, but police suspected her estranged husband, James.
Sometime after the murder, Shea arrested Norbert Lepsch, a troubled teenager who burned down a house after burglarizing it. He thought that sounded like the kind of person who goes to extremes to cover up his crimes. He told his superiors, who shot down his idea.
James Bahleda never was charged but remained under a cloud of suspicion until 1994, when Shea got permission to reopen case.
He and fellow detective Bobby Williams found Lepsch in a flophouse and confronted him with a photo of Renee Bahleda’s bloodied face. Lepsch soon confessed and ended up pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter.
In retirement, Shea plans to spend more time with his wife and son, as well as teach at Hilbert College and possibly the police academy.
“It’s been a great career, really,” he said. “I think I helped a lot of people.”
Although it may not have been on purpose, it certainly appears that your statement of “enjoy that ridiculous pension” is a slam against Capt. Shea. The guy put in 34 years, he EARNED the right to collect that pension. Regardless of your view of gov’t pensions as a whole, this individual did not create the system. For you to call it ridiculous when it should be a time to honor a guy for a job well done is ridiculous in itself! What, are you jealous?
You know what they say Don’t hate the player. Hate the game
Dan shea as I have seen through some of the work he has done has been excellent and productive for the Town. He has brought us out of the 20th century and into the 21st with new detective work and crime fighting tools. Good luck I say to Dan Shea and may his travels be rewarding.