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Detective Pettie and his cold case files

InJanuary 1984 Marie Jenkins Zickefoose was discovered dead in her bed in her Skillman-Northwest Highway apartment, an open magazine at her side. Investigators guess she was reading when her killer struck. Her brother, his bloody and lifeless body nearby, apparently visited at the wrong time, interrupting the crime. Though investigators lifted a good print from the scene, they could not track down the murderer.

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The family of 41-year-old Jill Bounds, who was bludgeoned to death in her White Rockarea home in 1988, is still seeking answers.

And whoever killed 44-year-old Myra Barrett in 1991 inside the Uptown-area boutique she was preparing to open — the fulfillment of an entrepreneurial dream — just might get away with murder.

The idea does not sit well with Lake Highlands resident Ron Pettie, a retired Dallas police detective and reserve officer who dedicates some 50 to 60 hours a month these days to cracking unsolved mysteries.

Several oversized binders stuffed with letters of commendation, newspaper clippings and photos form a tippy tower in Pettie’s home office.

Information on murder cases that have gone cold fills one particularly fat book. Thousands of Dallas murders remain unsolved, and he can only investigate a handful at a time.

Flipping through pages — crammed with photos and copious detail about murder scenes, lists of victims’ acquaintances and evidence collected — Pettie explains that “someone out there is still actively seeking closure” in the cases he has chosen to re-examine.

“In the Zickefoose case, for example, the retired detective who worked it told me it still weighs on him. He said he got real clear prints. It is the kind of thing you can retest with the latest technology,” Pettie says.

“Jill Bounds’ mother persisted until she died a few years ago trying to solve her daughter’s murder. Now Jill’s sister has taken up the cause, and I meet with her on a regular basis.”

He hopes to solve some cold cases, he says. But meanwhile, he adds, “It helps the loved ones to know that someone still cares, that someone is still looking. That is a big part of why I do this.”

The Vietnam War in the late 1960s resulted in a scarcity of young men eligible for Dallas’ police force, so the department lowered the minimum age requirement. Pettie joined in 1969, when he was 19. Pettie obtained a court order declaring him an adult.

“Us youngsters were kind of a pain to the older officers,” Pettie recalls with a grin. “‘Kiddie Cops’ is what they called us.”

Despite his youth, Pettie quickly rose through the ranks to detective.

Old photos reveal a younger Pettie working crime scenes, using tape to lift fingerprints after a bank robbery/shootout — one of the pictures was taken by Pettie’s friend, Dallas Morning News photographer Jack Beers, best known for his famous photo of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.

Pettie treasures the black-and-white print of himself that Beers gave him.

“He died the day after he delivered this picture to me,” Pettie says. “His photo of Oswald was famous, but another photographer got the better picture a split second later — that one won the Pulitzer that year. [Beers] was never the same after that.”

In one playful photo, Pettie is wearing a Sherlock Holmes getup. In most, he sports lustrous sideburns and stylish jackets.

Yes, he admits when prompted, being a detective made you incredibly cool.

“Detectives, for a while there, were gold, almost untouchable,” he says. “We did not have to wear the uniform, and we did what we needed to do with little restriction.”

During the 1970s and ’80s, Pettie worked hundreds of crime scenes. “You were exposed to things, had to look at things, that no one should ever have to see,” he says.

Yet he enjoyed many a success:

He acquired several of the prints that helped convict Guy Marble Jr., the so-called “Friendly Burglar Rapist” (read more about that case on p. 38).

He and a partner in 1972 tracked a kidnapper involved in the abduction of Amanda Dealey, daughter-in-law of the Dallas Morning News publisher; they lifted prints from a pay phone used for a ransom call.

“Blonde Freed in Kidnap,” the papers read the day after her rescue.

He was instrumental in putting away several members of the Marrs clan — in a span of 30 years and two generations, the Marrs family and associates committed thousands of residential burglaries in Dallas and Park Cities and at least one murder.

“Yes, thousands,” Pettie says. “If you even printed the actual number of burglaries they are responsible for, no one would believe you.”

Pettie and his team’s police work on that case resulted in Texas’ first organized-crime conviction.

Pettie later worked Internal Affairs, where he exclusively investigated crimes committed by city employees. A 2011 Dallas Morning News photo shows Pettie escorting police officer Quaitemes Williams, under arrest for beating a handcuffed prisoner.

“Not my best moment,” Pettie says, explaining that while city employees must be held accountable, it is difficult to detain a fellow officer. “Some of them need to be gone — but sometimes these guys can make a mistake in a split-second decision that can ruin a career. Those are tough.”

Pettie has spent practically his whole life doing police work. He met his wife, Debbie, through the DPD (she worked in the DPD communications department before becoming a schoolteacher). He served on FBI and IRS task forces and won more awards and commendations than he can count. He still can’t tell you why he started or why, after retirement, he can’t stop (or why he owns all those binders filled with mementos, for that matter). When prompted he pauses, shakes his head. “You know,” he says, “I have no idea.”

The Dallas Police Reserve has existed for more than 60 years. Its members are professionals, often in fields of law or medicine, who undergo rigorous certification and dedicate at least 16 hours a month to police work. The reserve is a nonprofit enterprise. Visit dpdreserves.org to learn more.