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314 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Expansion: Special Agents Repositioned and the Creation of a Cold Case Squad “I, Larry Welch, solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Kansas, and will faithfully discharge the duties of director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. So help me God.” I repeated those words and that oath to Kansas Attorney General Bob Stephan on July 18, 1994, in the crowded auditorium at KBI headquarters, filled with active and retired KBI employees, family members, friends, and Kansas law enforcement officials. Former KBI directors Logan Sanford, Jim Malson, Tom Kelly, and Dave Johnson honored me with their presence, and Bob Davenport telephoned his best wishes from his home in Kentucky minutes before the ceremony. Weeks before he administered the oath of office to me, Attorney General Stephan and I had a few conversations in his Topeka office. The only request my old friend and future boss made of me in those discussions was to work on the relationship between the KBI and the Kansas legislature. The attorney general was aware that we had enjoyed an excellent liaison with the state legislature and governors at the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center (KLETC), the state’s central law enforcement academy and headquarters for training and central repository for Kansas law enforcement records. One of the liaison strategies we had employed at KLETC was an informal periodic letter that I sent to each legislator, the attorney general, and the governor, keeping each abreast of law enforcement training matters in Kansas. Each year we labeled one such letter as the “KLETC Annual Report ,” eliminating the traditional expensive, bound, boring annual report, full of meaningless facts, figures, and statistics, and devoid of much narrative . The new version of the annual report became quite popular with the legislators. Therefore, we added the same innovation at the KBI, eliminating the usual expensive annual report, which was often placed, unread, on legislators ’ bookshelves. Our annual letter to the legislators, governor, and attorney general summarized KBI developments and accomplishments of the previous year and identified current needs, punctuated with bits of humor where appropriate. Expansion 315 PJ Adair, the KBI’s executive secretary, served as editor for the annual reports and ensured that those communications never exceeded ten pages in length after I dictated them to her. Legislators thanked and complimented us for the unusual annual reports. Some confessed that it was the only state agency annual report they read each year. In addition to the governor and attorney general, PJ also sent copies of that annual legislative letter to law enforcement administrators and prosecutors, and I annually shared the document with selected media friends, who published selected portions of interest to their areas of the state. Before assuming KBI leadership reins in July 1994, I had been a close observer and unabashed admirer of the KBI for many years. Despite my familiarity with KBI operations, a few discoveries surprised me. Budget woes were more oppressive than I had anticipated, and the agency was more understaffed than I had realized. The shortages within the ranks of forensic scientists and agency support personnel were even more troublesome than that of special agents. Also, I learned that there was some laboratory staff sentiment for closing the forensic laboratory at Great Bend. That disappointed me, inasmuch as I had promised central and western Kansas police chiefs, sheriffs, and prosecutors that I would significantly reinforce, not close, that forensic facility. There were only three forensic scientists assigned to Great Bend in 1994, with no supervisor. Each scientist there reported to a different supervisor in Topeka. I intended to triple the number of scientists and add an on-site forensic supervisor. There were, however, warnings from laboratory staff critics of such lofty objectives. They explained to me that the legislature would never adequately support two KBI laboratories and, furthermore, any unlikely enhancement of the Great Bend forensic facility would come at the expense of the vital Topeka forensic laboratory. I disagreed, and, more important, so did Kansas legislators. Such fears and dire predictions proved to be unfounded. Before too long, with proper laboratory direction, the KBI would have nine scientists and a forensic supervisor in Great Bend serving central and western Kansas law enforcement and prosecutors. I was surprised in July 1994 to learn that the KBI Forensic Laboratory charged Kansas law enforcement agencies and prosecutors for the cost of forensic DNA analysis of evidence. We were the only state...

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