http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-mcmanus5dec12,0,1315443.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines
By Zach Lowe
Staff Writer
December 12, 2004
STAMFORD -- Hugh McManus' father, Hugh Sr., told his son not to follow him into the Darien Police Department, where he was a captain and soon-to-be chief.
The younger McManus didn't listen and entered the department as a patrol officer in 1966, a rank he held until his father died in 1971.
Nearly four decades later, McManus, 61, is retiring from the same chief's office his father held, having guided the department into the computer age and held it steady when the nation's press corps descended on Darien to cover the Alex Kelly rape case.
"Parents always want their kids to do a little better than they did," McManus said. "But my father realized I was serious about being an officer."
McManus' father relented when his son promised to complete his college degree while serving on the force. Hugh McManus earned his degree from Iona College in 1971.
McManus held every rank in the department and was named chief in 1993. His colleagues described him as a reserved man who demanded constant vigilance from officers. McManus believed all officers should be well-rounded enough to reconstruct a car accident and then retrieve the police report from the records room a month later.
"They say your first supervisor is the biggest influence on your career," said Darien police Capt. Duane Lovello, who started his career as a patrol officer in 1981 working directly under McManus, who was then a lieutenant. "Hugh taught me the importance of the job, how to process a crime scene, how to use the records room. He wanted us to be able to do everything."
Lovello said that even as chief, McManus worked out in the department's exercise room every day.
McManus, like his father, encouraged officers to earn college and graduate degrees, Lovello said. Lovello earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Connecticut and a law degree from the University of New Haven -- all by going to night school while working days at the police department, and all with McManus' encouragement, he said.
Doug Campbell, a longtime member of the town's Police Commission, credited McManus with updating the department's radio and computer systems.
McManus' tenure on the force was defined by two cases, one that was successfully prosecuted and one that remains a painful, unresolved mystery.
McManus was the department's chief in 1995, when accused rapist Alex Kelly surrendered in Switzerland, eight years after he fled the country to avoid standing trial for two rapes.
The rapes occurred four days apart in 1986, when Kelly was an 18-year-old star wrestler at Darien High School.
The national press stormed into Fairfield County for Kelly's trials in 1996 and 1997. His first trial ended in a hung jury, but in 1997, a jury convicted Kelly of raping a 16-year-old Darien girl in the backseat of his car.
Kelly pleaded guilty to the second rape and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
"I'll never understand what all that attention was about," McManus said. "We've had sexual assaults before, but in this case, all the evidence was there and the outcome was not surprising. Everyone involved did an outstanding job."
McManus never gained the same closure on a case that hit closer to home. On May 31, 1981, Officer Kenneth Bateman Jr. was shot to death responding to a burglary at a Post Road restaurant.
Bateman was 34.
Police publicly identified a suspect in May, but the case remains unsolved.
"There is a small group of us who worked together and went out socially with (Bateman)," McManus said. "It's a big loss, a bitter loss. I'm disappointed the case has not been solved."
McManus is still close friends with Bateman's widow, typical for a man colleagues praised for his loyalty, especially his devotion to Darien, where he was born and raised.
"He was a super ambassador for the police force," Campbell said. "He was always at community meetings and events."
A new police chief will be named next month, and McManus will step down in February. Campbell said the new chief will come from the ranks of the Darien force.
McManus said his favorite part of being chief was hiring new officers.
"After 38 years, it was time for me to go," he said. "But it's neat to know some of these outstanding officers will go on for 20 or 30 more years."
Copyright © 2004, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.