COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo -- When Sher...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo -- When Sheriff Terry Maketa announced a Colorado inmate was claiming responsibility for a string of bodies across half the home he proudly credited three retirees with cracking the case.

They have been dubbed "The Apple Dumpling Gang" by means of admiring members of the El Paso shire Sheriff's Department, but don't confuse the three presents with the bumblers from the Disney movie.

With a combination of experience, meticulous organization and time, Charlie Hess, Lou Smit and Scott Fischer -- pair former lawmen and a retired newspaper publisher, respectively -- helped coax confessions from Robert Charles Browne to as many as 49 massacres committed between 1970 and 1995

likewise far, authorities have corroborated about of Browne's claims in six cases.

"A haphazard of agencies are probably reluctant to use offers in sensitive areas, just because of bias or maybe the threat to sated timers," Maketa said. But Hess' expert interviewing skills led the sheriff to give him and the others a projectile at Browne in 2002.

At the time, Browne now 53 was serving a life judgment in Colorado for the 1991 manslaughter of a 13-year-old girl, Heather Dawn house of god

notes UNRAVELED CASES

Smit, 71 is a retired Colorado Springs police investigator who had worked upon the Church case and always felt there was something strange about the way Browne abducted the girl and left her dead body in the wilderness.

Investigators handed the three a literal meaning Browne sent to authorities in 2000 in which he hinted at a string of killings. above the years that followed, Hess exchanged alphabetic characters with Browne. Hess and his partners -- including Fisher, a 60-year-old former newspaperman -- would decipher Browne's frequently cryptic notes and delicately pres him for more information.

"When we would receive a note from Robert, we'd all sit down, we'd kick it around, you know? What's he trying to report us? Is there a message here?" Hess said.

In early 2003 he told the cold-case investigators about the slaying of Rocio Sperry a 15-year-old Army bride who disappeared from Colorado Springs, then couple other murders, in Texas, and still another, in Oklahoma. Last year, he owned to three more, all in his residence state of Louisiana.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided on ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved