the Sambos restaurant chain folded, Pfeffer talked to then Ruidoso Police Officer Paul Lukens, about becoming a full-time police officer. Lukens couldn’t understand—and who could blame him—why Pfeffer would want to go from making $60,000 a year to $450 a month. Finally, Lukens hired the persistent Pfeffer. The department staff never regretted the hire.
Pfeffer’s twenty-year career in Ruidoso was plagued by cases of political pressure. Pfeffer was supervisor over the criminal division and ordered the district attorney and the state police to report what his narcotics officer, who was assigned to a special task force, was doing at all times. Pfeffer was told the narcotics officer’s actions were none of his business. Pfeffer responded that if he were not made aware of all the officer’s duties—as a supervisor should be—then he would immediately transfer the officer onto another assignment out of the task force.
Almost immediately, the district attorney’s office and the state police began an investigation into the Ruidoso Police Department. Pfeffer was accused of stealing a nine-millimeter pistol. It was found in the glove box of Pfeffer’s marked police unit. Pfeffer showed it to them, pointed out that it was checked out of evidence and approved by the department’s deputy chief, which was later confirmed by the deputy chief, although the evidence card with Pfeffer’s signature to show he checked it out was oddly missing. The district attorney’s office considered charges against Pfeffer since the evidence card was missing, but the office backed down when Pfeffer hired Mitchell as his attorney.
“They were looking for anything to tag me with as they were very upset at my insistence to know what that officer was doing,” Pfeffer asserted.
During that time, lots of people were suing police departments and Pfeffer wanted to make sure officers under his supervision performed properly so the department didn’t get sued.
In another vendetta in Pfeffer’s past, he was accused of being the biggest dope dealer in New Mexico when he ran for sheriff of Lincoln County, Ruidoso’s county. “No one in the history of the Ruidoso Police Department had, to that point, ever put more drug dealers into jails and prison than I. Anyone with any sense would know that it would be impossible for me to be dealing drugs and busting drug dealers at the same time.”
Then rumors spread that he beat his children and sexually abused his daughters.
“Interestingly enough, they checked the schools and found that all but one of my children, a boy, were getting straight A’s and that after questioning them, they had told the officers that their ‘daddy was the best daddy in the whole world,’” Pfeffer said, quoting police documents.
Nevertheless, the rumor mill worked. Pfeffer wasn’t elected. He believes part of the problem was that his family lived in a beautiful home in the upper canyon area of Ruidoso. Pfeffer’s parents had put down a substantial down payment for them, which is how Pfeffer was able to afford it. The home was worth about $125,000 after Pfeffer made some improvements to it. People probably wondered how a police captain in Ruidoso could afford the house. Ruidoso is a beautiful, mountainous area that attracts a lot of visitors because of the horseracing track and the view. It’s a vacation spot—and the average home is very expensive there. Nobody bothered to ask Pfeffer how he was able to afford the home.
After Pfeffer retired from the Ruidoso Police Department, he began working as a private investigator. Finally, he opened his own business, calling it “Shamus,” an Irish word that means “sleuth” or “investigator.” Aside from the meaning, the word sounded to him like a perfect match to his golden retriever named Sherlock Holmes.
Pfeffer’s nose as well as his instincts had helped him solve some high priority cases, like a rape case in Ruidoso because of a bunch of partially-smoked Salem 100s strewn about in an obscure area in the stunning, hilly Hondo Valley of New Mexico, not far south of Ruidoso.
Gary Mitchell will never forget that case. “Doggone his hide!” The defense attorney smiled in exasperation speaking of then-Sergeant Pfeffer.
Both Pfeffer and Mitchell believe this old case is one of their most memorable on opposite sides of the law.
Pfeffer worked the case of a woman who was kidnapped late night from her job as manager of a motel by three unmasked men. Threatening to beat her with nunchuks, a martial arts weapon made of wood and chain, they forced her onto the floor of their car while they drove to a bar and bought beer. Then they drove a few more miles; the woman couldn’t really tell because she was on the floor, although she wasn’t blindfolded. She could tell they turned off the road and onto a dirt road. Finally they stopped. Each raped her in the back floor of the car. Then they forced her to sit in between them in the car seat. They were smoking. She smoked along with them, she told Pfeffer.
Pfeffer wanted to go to the scene of the crime. Asking the victim to close her eyes, Pfeffer drove her in an unmarked car past her motel onto a road to the only bar he knew of in the vicinity she described, if her left and right turn descriptions were correct. He parked at the bar and went inside to talk to the owner and see if he recognized anyone from her descriptions.
“All of a sudden, I heard this screaming and I mean this ungodly screaming.”
Pfeffer raced out of the bar, gun ready for action. A car was pulling out of a parking space. The woman in his car was pointing at it from the passenger seat.
“That’s them!” she screamed hysterically.
Pfeffer, dressed in plain clothes, pointed his gun at the driver. The driver stopped. The ashtray was stuffed with cigarette butts. Pfeffer found a pair of nunchuks under the seat of the car.
Pfeffer arrested the men.
He thought his job was pretty much over at that time, although he didn’t have much evidence other than her word against theirs. Or so he thought.
Later he drove the woman past the bar and she told him to “turn soon” when she thought he was near the right place where the men had turned onto a dirt road. Pfeffer found one quickly.
He drove to a fairly secluded spot and parked. Stepping out of the vehicle, he began walking around looking for any evidence. Not far into the walk, he found a patch of ground covered with cigarette butts which appeared to have been tossed out of either side of a parked vehicle. The partially-smoked cigarettes still had the Salem 100s markings on them. He knew he found the right place.
The busy day was not over yet. Pfeffer went back to the police department. An officer told him the prisoners were yelling for cigarettes. Back then, inmates could smoke in their cells; in fact, most places allowed smoking. On a hunch, Pfeffer brought two uniformed officers with him when he went to their cell.
“You want cigarettes?”
“Yeah!”
“What kind do you smoke?”
“Salem 100s.”
“Salem 100s?” Dave wanted to make sure he heard right.
“Yeah, that’s all I ever smoke.”
At the trial, Pfeffer and two uniformed police officers testified about the defendants’ smoking preference. Pfeffer and Mitchell believe it was the turning point for jurors, who convicted the rapists.
Mitchell was happy to have Pfeffer share an office with him.
Others of the more famous New Mexico cases the two worked include the murder of nine-year-old Dena Lynn Gore in Artesia by Terry Clark, who awaits death by lethal injection
