Ed Cantrell was the public safety director of Rock Springs, Wyoming, a town tied to widespread corruption, who killed one of his own officers in 1978 but was acquitted after trial.
13 Facts About Ed Cantrell
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2.
The son of Samuel Glenn Cantrell, a Nazarene minister and Vesta Marie Cantrell, Ed was born in Bloomington, Indiana.
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Ed Cantrell excelled in sports and graduated from Plainfield High School in 1945 with a football and basketball scholarship.
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Ed Cantrell immediately enlisted in the Army and spent three years as a military policeman in the "bombed-out ruin" south of Frankfurt, Germany.
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Ed Cantrell's job took him all over Wyoming as well as neighboring states in pursuit of lawbreakers.
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Ed Cantrell then formed a detective division from existing officers and hired Michael Rosa as an undercover detective.
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The events leading to Ed Cantrell shooting fellow officer Michael Rosa are disputed, although Ed Cantrell was later acquitted of all charges through the efforts of the famed lawyer Gerry Spence.
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Gerry Spence 8.
Several evenings before Rosa's scheduled grand jury testimony, Ed Cantrell is said by an investigative piece in People to have called Officer Rosa to his car and after he entered, shot him at point-blank range in the forehead while Rosa's gun was still holstered.
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Ed Cantrell had admonished Rosa for appearing on the witness stand in an unkempt manner.
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That evening Ed Cantrell was called at his home by Sergeant Callas, who wanted to discuss Rosa's $40 discrepancy with his boss at the station.
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Ed Cantrell got into the car and sat in the back next to Bider and behind Callas, who was sitting in the driver's seat.
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Ed Cantrell then called in the FBI, the state criminal investigation department and the highway patrol to investigate, and booked himself into jail, expecting a routine hearing.
13.
Ed Cantrell was then released on $250,000 bond and told to get out of town, but not the state.