Alumni Spotlight
Linda Wheeler-Holloway
'71, Biology
Some of our alumni rigorously pursue their careers. Others, like Linda Wheeler-Holloway, fall into them
Life after CSU
Wheeler-Holloway didn’t enter law enforcement on purpose; in fact, it was a happy coincidence. After she graduated with a biology degree, she was doing part-time research as a lab technician at CSU for a diabetes grant. She needed another job and a friend told her about a part-time receptionist position at the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. “It was very small, and the women worked very traditional jobs supporting the officers, dispatch, and reception. There were no gun totin’, badge wearin’ women then, but we were all sworn and wore uniforms,” says Wheeler-Holloway.
A tough role
By 1978, Wheeler-Holloway had gotten a position as a jailer. She went to the police academy (after being kicked out in 1974 for being pregnant) and started as a patrol officer with the Fort Collins Police Department in 1979, the second ever female patrol officer for the county. “Not being accepted was tough, not only by your peers, but by the public,” says Wheeler-Holloway. But she learned how to handle it. “You learn that it’s brain over brawn. You talk yourself out of a lot of stuff, which is a more acceptable way of getting control of people: using your verbal judo instead of trying to wrestle someone down and handcuff them.” She transferred to the investigations unit in 1982.
From 1982 to 1995, she worked with the Sexual Assault Task Force, a multi-jurisdictional team of people throughout Larimer County who worked together on sexual assault cases. By 1991, Wheeler-Holloway was part of a team who set up uniform sexual assault protocols. “It was the first time that Colorado had a uniform kit and a protocol,” Wheeler-Holloway says. Prior to that, law enforcement was losing cases against sexual perpetrators. “If proper evidence wasn’t collected, or there wasn’t enough of it for the defense to test, cases were getting dismissed,” she says. “We needed to change the law and educate people.” Which is what the group of law enforcement, nurses, doctors, and victims advocates did through sheriff and police offices and district attorneys. And, as new laws and new technology emerged, the group reconvened in 2001 to enhance the so-called rape kits to include protocol for treating male victims and children.
Working the Tim Masters case
The most famous case that Wheeler-Holloway has worked on is that of Tim Masters, the 15-year-old boy who stumbled upon Peggy Hettrick’s mutilated body in a field near his house in 1987. Masters spent 10 years (1998 - 2008) in prison for a murder that Wheeler-Holloway helped prove he didn’t commit.
She continued her work as an investigator for the Fort Collins Police Department until 1995 when she took a job as an investigator with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. That’s when the Masters case was re-opened and the conviction ensued.
“People are extremely fallible,” says Wheeler-Holloway. “What you can rely on least is people’s recall of things. That’s why it’s important to keep trying to find facts and what is objective.”
A volunteer investigator
These days, Wheeler-Holloway continues searching for facts as a volunteer part-time investigator in northeast Colorado, the 13th judicial district. Her free time is spent in her garden, with her English Shire draft horses, or with her grandchild. “I like to nurture and take care of things and people,” she says.
Linda Wheeler-Holloway received the Women of Vision award from Colorado Women of Influence in July 2010.
Alumni like Wheeler-Holloway represent CSU with class and are important members of the CSU family.
This story originally appeared in the August issue of AlumLine.