FBI agent was robbery expert

By Azam Ahmed | Chicago Tribune reporter
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/chi-hed-childre-bd-pork...

As a general rule, FBI agents don't like speaking with the media.

So when three former agents talked at length about David Childre, it
spoke volumes about the kind of agent and man he was.

Mr. Childre, 58, died Tuesday, Sept. 30, of complications after a heart
attack while in Puerto Rico, officials said.

Quiet and understated, Mr. Childre was described as competent and
reliable. He began his career in the FBI's Chicago bureau in April 1983,
and spearheaded several high-profile robbery investigations in his
nearly 23-year career.

Those included the case against a husband-and-wife robbery crew that
ended in a fatal shootout, and a case against a father-and-son team that
robbed banks in seven states.

He would get upset if he wasn't included in a raid, and he was a
presence in the FBI office in a variety of ways, former co-workers said.
"When I went to work in the morning as a supervisor and Dave Childre
wasn't there, whether he was sick or on leave, I missed him," said
William Keefe, a former supervisor of the FBI's North Resident agency.
"There was always a void for me personally, and it's because his
judgment was always so very, very clear."

Mr. Childre displayed the same characteristics at home and work, said
his son, Dan.

"He was our protector, that's how I remember him," said his son, a
soldier who recently returned from Iraq. "He never did things because
other people were doing them; he did things because they were the right
thing to do."

Mr. Childre was the kind of guy who would drive out of his way to get
coffee from the same Starbucks every day in order to see friends,
despite passing five others on his way there, Keefe said.

"People were important to him," said another former supervisor at the
FBI, Robert Walsh. "[I believe] the staff from that Starbucks is going
to go to his funeral."

Mr. Childre, who rode a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, worked as an agent
most of his career, starting in Chicago and transferring to the North
Resident agency serving the north suburbs. He also worked as the
National Academy coordinator.

After retiring in 2005, former colleagues said Mr. Childre began doing
contract work for the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Childre's
work, colleagues said, included leading the investigation of Jeffrey and
Jill Erickson, a husband-and-wife team accused of robbing banks in the
northwest suburbs in the early 1990s. The case took a tremendous amount
of surveillance, colleagues said.

When Jeffrey Erickson went to trial in 1992, tragedy struck. While being
taken out of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in downtown Chicago, Erickson,
using a smuggled key, unlocked his handcuffs, disarmed a guard and
fatally shot a U.S. marshal and a court security officer. Erickson was
wounded in a shootout and killed himself a few feet from a rush-hour crowd.

When Mr. Childre arrived at the scene in the immediate aftermath,
colleagues said he knew what to do. "Dave was the only one smart enough
to say, 'We've got to rope this scene off,' " said Keefe.

Survivors also include a daughter, Lisa Pritts.

Services have been held.

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