Highland Heights 33-Year Veteran Officer Retiring

When he was 16, Detective Sgt. Gary McKee of the Highland Heights Police Department said his dad asked him what he wanted to do for a living.

"It never occurred to me that my parents wouldn't be providing for me," he said. "I saw a new '69 Ford come down the street, it was a Mayfield Heights cruiser, and said, 'That's what I want to do.'"

Driving around in an air-conditioned car on a warm summer day just looked good to him. Still, he forgot about police work and went to Kent State University to become a teacher working with hearing-impaired students.

However, no teaching jobs were available when he graduated, so he continued working at Heinen's as he did throughout high school and college and hit a low point when he was let go from that job on his birthday in 1977.

"I never thought about it at the time, but it was a sign," he said. "After that termination, I took the police test. What a bright day that was in hindsight."

He will have served 33 years when he retires on March 18.

"I am one of the lucky people who has a job they truly enjoy," McKee said.

McKee was a shift sergeant and had planned to retire after 25 years, but two people were leaving the detective bureau and Police Chief James Cook asked him if he would stay as a detective.

That led to the highlight of his career – the murder conviction of Yazeed Essa, charged with the 2005 killing his wife, Rosemarie. McKee and his partner, Dennis Matejcic, investigated the case.

"We all thought it was a medical problem, 38-year-old women just don't die," McKee said. After a coroner's report found no abnormalities in any of her major organs, police wanted to find out more about her.

Three weeks later, a friend of Rosemarie's said she was suspicious of Yazeed and knew he gave Rosemarie a calcium supplement on the day she died. McKee requested the pills, which turned out to be laced with cyanide, and Essa fled the country the day after turning the pills over.

"Obviously, he didn't wait to see the result," McKee said. "I was concerned we would never get him back."

As for the motive, McKee said the night before Rosemarie died, someone used the home phone to call Yazeed Essa's cell phone 14 times. Two days earlier, someone searched the name of one of Essa's girlfriends on the home computer.

Still, testifying at a major murder trial was wasn't easy because of the stakes involved.

"If you miss something on a breaking and entering trial, that's just property. When someone's life has been taken, the ante goes up. Nobody deserves this," McKee said. "I was the most nervous at the beginning when Steve (Dever, assistant county prosecutor) was talking to me."

Other highlights in his career include a moment at the old Front Row Theater when he noticed a person pushing people out of the way to approach him. It turned out that McKee had arrested the man three years earlier and going to jail helped him turn his life around.

McKee said his favorite part of the job is hearing from people who were troublemakers as juveniles and young adults.

"The most positive interactions I've gotten are from people I've arrested in the past who tell me how well they've done in life," he said. "They just woke up and a light turned on for them."

The down side of the job are long days and getting called in to work when he's off.

"What I will miss are the people, the camaraderie, the opportunity to help people and to set things right," McKee said.