Milledgeville resident earns GBI promotion

Published 3:00 pm Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Todd Crosby’s life has been about helping people, whether through solving various crimes in his law enforcement career or sharing with others the importance of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

“I truly believe those are the two big callings in my life from God,” said Crosby, a Milledgeville resident who recently was promoted as the assistant agent in-charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Region 13 Office in Perry.

Before his promotion near the end of last year, Crosby served as one of the crime scene specialists at the GBI’s Region 6 Office in Milledgeville. During the past several years through almost all of last year, Crosby worked dozens of murder investigations, shootings and many other criminal type cases in several surrounding counties. His efforts helped solve many cases.

Little did Crosby know that when he was a student at Georgia College in Milledgeville and working as a student auxiliary patrol officer with the GC Police Department that law enforcement would someday become his career.

It all began for him in 1990 as a police dispatcher.

“In July 1991, Ken Vance got me started in law enforcement,” recalled Crosby in a recent in-depth interview with The Union-Recorder. “He sent me to Mandate School. He was like my father when he served as chief of police at GC. We had a relationship, literally like that of a father-son. He helped guide me through, and taught me the ropes.”

Crosby worked there as a patrol officer until April 1993. He then left and went to work as a patrol officer with the Milledgeville Police Department from 1993 until June 1995.

“At that time, Dray Swicord was my shift commander, who is now the chief,” Crosby said.

In June 1995, Crosby’s career in law enforcement took another turn when Baldwin County Sheriff Bill Massee asked him to go to work for him as a deputy sheriff.

Crosby accepted a new challenge in his life.

At the time, Crosby was going to GC where he studied criminal justice.

“So, it actually worked out well having a new job,” he said, noting he worked in the county jail at the time.

When law enforcement friends of his learned of his promotion and that he would no longer be working as a crime scene specialist, Crosby said he told them he still could be reached by phone to assist them any way he could.

Already, Baldwin County Sheriff’s Detective Capt. Brad King has reached out to Crosby, whom he considers to be his best friend and thinks of him like a brother, a couple of times about certain cases since he has gone to Perry.

“If there’s something I don’t know, I’m going to get in touch with Todd and run by him,” King said.

Crosby said he deeply appreciates that kind of respect.

“I will walk any of them through whatever I can,” Crosby said. “I will still call the lab and grease the wheels for any of my friends who might need me. Whatever needs to be done, I can still do.”

Crosby said if he didn’t extend that help to those law enforcement agencies, the victim would ultimately be the one to suffer.

“My thought has always been this – the case suffers, and the victim suffers,” Crosby said. “You need the experience to go along with the training. My philosophy and we’re fixing to get deep in the weeds here, has always been – I’m very much a Christian and believe that God gives us all talent. He gives us all gifts to use. This is my gift. This is my talent.”

Even though he is now in a supervisory position and won’t any longer be answering calls as a crime scene specialist, he’s still most passionate about crime scene investigations.

“I had a friend of mine in New Jersey tell one time that very few people in the United States can walk into a crime scene, spend an hour in there and turn around and go, I know what happened,” Crosby said. “It’s really a talent. It’s a gift.”

Very few people are endowed with that gift.

“You’ve got to have sense of what happened there at that crime scene, just by looking at what evidence is there,” Crosby said.

Crosby said he enjoyed his many years as a crime scene specialist because he got to serve as the voice of the victims – those no longer in life.

“It was a big responsibility,” he said. “I worked hard at it so the bad guy wouldn’t go unpunished.”