American public safety director of Rock Springs, Wyoming, a town tied to widespread corruption, who killed one of his own officers in 1978 but was acquitted after trial.
The son of a Nazarene minister, Cantrell excelled in sports and graduated from High School in 1945 with a football and basketball scholarship. Aspiring to be a coach, he had almost completed three years at Indiana State College when President Truman ordered the Berlin airlift in 1948. Cantrell immediately enlisted in the Army and spent three years as a military policeman in the “bombed-out ruin” south of Frankfurt, Germany. His tour of duty was then extended due to the Korean War. Upon discharge, he graduated with honors from the Indiana State Police Academy.
An avid hunter, fisherman and marksman, he later visited Wyoming and decided to relocate there. Accepted into the Wyoming Highway Patrol, he was assigned to the Rock Springs area in 1960.
In 1977 Cantrell assumed the post of safety director of a badly demoralized Rock Springs police force. He then formed a detective division from existing officers and hired Michael Rosa as an undercover detective.
The events leading to Cantrell shooting Rosa are disputed, although Cantrell was later acquitted of all charges through the efforts of the controversial lawyer Gerry Spence. At first Spence refused to take the case, but changed his mind after hearing Cantrell’s version of what happened. Acquitted by a jury after less than two hours of deliberation, Cantrell found that the general public had not accepted the verdict. His safety director’s job had been abolished and he eventually found work as a range detective in South Dakota.
Cantrell died on 11 June 2004, aged 76, in Salt Lake City, Utah, following a brief illness.
Link to Wikipedia biography