Before Tim Fennell was Butler County’s Chief Detective, he thwarted a robbery of more than $12,000 in diamond rings from a Main Street jeweler. Another time, he investigated a grave robbery that made national news.

Fennell, who spent almost 50 years removing drugs from Butler County streets, worked his last day on the job Friday, June 12. Over that time, he led the removal of hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs, but what’s stuck with him the most are the ways his work affected the community.

On Nov. 27, 1981, he encountered three men walking with a swagger he’d only seen once before. Relying on his intuition, he watched as the men entered Milo R. Williams Jewelers along Main Street and attempted to leave with $12,645 in diamond rings.

As the men walked out the door, Fennell was waiting for them.

“It was just weird that it was their walk that gave them away,” Fennell said.

The men were later identified as William R. Rhodes, William J. Greco and Dennis Crowley. Fennell knew they were going to rob the store by the way they walked.

He had encountered these three men before when he became a correctional officer at Butler County Prison in 1977. He said all three had previously been in the Allegheny County Workhouse and Inebriate Asylum in Blawnox before the county prison. The workhouse — and that swagger — were the only connections between the three men.

After Fennell stopped the crime, he went to the police station and wrote his report on his typewriter.

The store’s owner, Bob Moore, sent the police department a letter Dec. 1, 1981, thanking Fennell for his vigilance. He keeps the note and the Butler Eagle newspaper clipping in a scrapbook with other notable moments in his career.

The case was one of Fennell’s first big breaks after joining the Butler City Police Department in 1979. He was still studying criminal justice through Butler County Community College at Indiana University of Pennsylvania when he became a police officer.

At that time, Mothers Against Drunk Driving had a significant presence, swaying both lawmakers and police work as law enforcement attempted to crack down on driving under the influence.

Then, the crack epidemic took priority in the late 1990s, which is when Fennell became involved in countywide drug investigations. While Fennell was still a police officer, former Chief Detective Pat Cannon promoted him to field supervisor for an area including Butler and the northern region of the county. Officers would gather evidence, speak with confidential informants and bring their findings to him for investigations to proceed.

“We were kicking in doors constantly in the 90s,” Fennell said. “The crack epidemic was just huge. We were serving warrants all the time.”

Fennell was still executing warrants as a 70-year-old man, but he admitted he spent most of his time late in his career outside while his men conducted the raid.

The danger of serving warrants led Fennell to develop the precursor to today’s Butler County Emergency Services Unit (ESU). He said they “scratched, begged and borrowed” to get the equipment and training the unit needed.

“We used army surplus helmets and painted them black, we got a grant to get training from Pittsburgh SWAT, and we formed a high-risk entry team,” Fennell said.

“It grew and blossomed, and it’s a pretty professional outfit now,” he said of the ESU team.

Police technology has also come a long way in his career, Fennell said. Crimes today can be solved more quickly with shared databases across regions, license plate readers and facial recognition, which also helps with prevention.

“Facial recognition back in the day was if you remembered the face,” he said.

Other techniques, however, have largely stayed the same. He said surveillance techniques still largely involve long, boring hours of sitting outside in a car, only with a few more cameras for convenience.

Fennell served as a task force supervisor until Mayor Leonard Pintel promoted him to chief of the Butler City Police Department in 2003. He then served as chief until 2012, when he left for the county’s chief detective position.

Throughout his years, he conducted trainings on drug identification and trends at Parent Teacher Association meetings and teacher in-service days. Reaching people with the power to influence the next generation has long been an important part of the role, he explained.

“That was probably one of the most rewarding part of being out on the road,” Fennell said. “(I was) just amazed at how naive some people were as to what’s going on around them.

“Police can’t police your kids, but you can,” he added.

Fennell said the opioid epidemic was in full swing when he became county’s chief detective in 2012.

Heroin then overtook crack as the most common drug seized in raids.

Then, the drug mixtures began consisting mostly of fentanyl and synthetics.

With fentanyl on the rise, Fennell said overdoses in the county peaked around 2016 with about 90 overdose deaths. This year, the county is trending to have fewer than 20 overdose deaths, he said.

“The overdose fatalities have come way down,” Fennell said.

He added it was partially because more methamphetamine and cocaine have moved into the county, but he’s grateful those substances at least lead to fewer overdose deaths.

Fennell added during his tenure, he’s seen drugs enter the county from different regions with varying levels of organized distribution. He said it began with small independent dealers in Pittsburgh making their way into Butler to compete with each other.

Drugs from Philadelphia entered the county after and were much more organized than the Pittsburgh dealers. Drugs from Detroit took over for a period and weren’t quite as organized as dealers from Philadelphia.

Today, the biggest supplier is Youngstown, Ohio, Fennell said.

From here, it’s impossible to predict where drug trends will go, Fennell said. When one dealer is apprehended, or one drug seized, another takes its place, he said.

“Some chemist somewhere is going to come across something,” Fennell said.

Fennell knows law enforcement will never stop substance use, so in his later years, he focused his efforts even more on education and prevention.

Fennell had been involved in overseeing and choosing candidates for Butler County Drug Treatment Court since its inception in 2011. The court is designed to remove nonviolent offenders from the judicial system.

“The point being they’re not violent felons, but they have a drug issue, and they’ve been arrested a million times for minor (offenses),” Fennell said.

Fennell has personally gone to the prison to sit with inmates and talk them into trying drug treatment court. He said he’s seen three, and now sometimes four, generations of families become repeat offenders, and it disturbs him when someone he recognizes overdoses.

He said a lot of people only see the failures and intensity of those prevention initiatives. Fennell added the defendants he doubts are often the ones who make it through.

“When we see a success, that’s very rewarding,” Fennell said. “When you see someone out on the street who has made it, and they’ve changed their life around, they’re back with their family, and they walk up to you and tell you thank you, that’s an amazing feeling.”

Fennell also served on multiple boards regarding mental health and community outreach — despite his aversion for public speaking.

“You can’t just focus on law enforcement. You have to focus on the rest of it as well,” Fennell said. “You don’t always just see the bad in people as a police officer.”

For Fennell, seeing the bad and stopping the crime is better than not seeing anything at all.

On Sept. 29, 2011, Fennell responded to North Side Cemetery off the North Main Street hill for an incident that would make national news. Remains had been stolen belonging to 12-year-old Walter L. Roberts — who was hit by a train 100 years prior on Aug. 3, 1911.

The grave was perfectly squared, Fennell said, like someone with years of experience digging graves had used a machine to carefully remove the dirt, which was stacked in neat piles on the sides of the grave. Theories had sprouted such as treasure buried with Walter or a college prank being the reason for the robbery, but none were confirmed.

“That’s been a mystery that will bug me forever,” Fennell said.