Nelson J. Zoch served the City of Houston Police Department for thirty-six years from 1968-2004. His service included stints on the night shift in Radio Patrol as a street officer in the Third Ward of Houston and later as a Park Place Radio Patrol Shift Lieutenant. He also served in the Homicide Division from 1972-1977 as a Detective investigating murders and other Homicide related investigations. His return to the Homicide Division in 1980 continued a distinguished career in the Homicide Division where he served as a Murder Squad Lieutenant for over twenty-four years until his retirement in 2004.

In 1998, Nelson began writing about the lives and deaths of Houston Police Officers who had given their lives in the line of duty. The overwhelmingly positive reception of his first article about the Capital Murder of Officer Leon Griggs provided Nelson with the confidence needed to continue regarding the deaths of other HPD Officers. Nelson soon came to realize the personal fulfillment in meeting and speaking with the families of these slain officers, some of which Nelson knew. Those families that he did not know, he eventually came to know.

As a result of his research and documentation about slain Houston Police Officers, Nelson has been recognized and received many awards, including The Houston Police Officers’ Union Local No. 2 OFFICER OF THE MONTH, September, 2001; Houston Police Department CHIEF OF POLICE COMMENDATION, 2002; The National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund OFFICER OF THE MONTH, FEBRUARY, 2003; and most recently, the LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMENDATION MEDAL by the NATIONAL SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, March 2007.

Following his retirement from HPD in 2004, Nelson and his wife Mary Sue reside in the Kingwood area where he has continued his research with the able assistance of his wife and their son, Andrew, who is about to graduate from Texas A&M University in College Station.

This publication is a culmination of nearly nine years of diligent research and the compilation of that research into published form.

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