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Jun 03, 2024

Obituary: St. Paul Police Lt. Joe Corcoran led homicide unit

As St. Paul police Lt. Joe Corcoran would drive to a homicide scene, he would say a prayer: “Lord, I need your help with this.” Officers knew of Corcoran’s strong faith as an Irish Catholic and it was

As St. Paul police Lt. Joe Corcoran would drive to a homicide scene, he would say a prayer: “Lord, I need your help with this.”

Officers knew of Corcoran’s strong faith as an Irish Catholic and it was a bit of a running joke for them to ask him, “Did you talk to your Friend on the way over?”

With his faith, attention to detail and to victims’ families, Corcoran became known for his work as the head of the St. Paul police homicide unit for eight years in the 1990s. He was in charge during a time of historic cases, including the firebombing murders of the five Coppage children and the killings of officers Ron Ryan Jr. and Tim Jones.

The 83-year-old died last month and his celebration of life is planned for Sunday.

“The thing that stuck with him the most were the victims. He was a very big advocate for them and their families,” said John Corcoran, who followed in the footsteps of his older cousin and is still a St. Paul officer. “He looked like a big teddy bear and he really showed what it was to be a true public servant and to be a son of St. Paul. St. Paul was his heart.”

Corcoran pioneered fingerprint technology at the police department and worked to start an organization to help victims’ families, which is still in place. Those were the highlights of his career, Corcoran said in a 2008 oral history.

“I’m glad that I was able to do those and make a difference because, when I came on as a rookie, I said, ‘I’m going to make a difference in this town, that’s my goal,'” he said in the interview.

Born July 27, 1939, in Chicago and raised in St. Paul’s Macalester-Groveland area, Corcoran attended Nativity of Our Lord School and St. Thomas Academy. He went to the University of Minnesota for a year before leaving for the Navy. He was stationed on the USS Lake Champlain when they picked up the first American launched into space, Alan Shepard.

When he returned home, he was inspired by the path of his cousin, Larry McDonald, to become a St. Paul officer. At that time, the department required officers to be at least 5 feet 10 inches tall. Corcoran said he was about a quarter of an inch too short.

He went to a chiropractor, who told him his back was crooked. After he worked to straighten it, he told Corcoran to stretch himself by hanging from his mother’s clothesline pole in the backyard. He said the neighbors wondered, “What happened to Joe when he was in the Navy,” but he was tall enough when he was measured next.

Corcoran joined the police department in 1964, working as a patrol officer. He went to work in the department’s crime lab in 1970 and became a fingerprint expert.

Fingerprints were kept on paper cards and there wasn’t a database to compare them electronically, but Minnesota was the first in the nation to implement such a system and Corcoran became president of the manufacturer’s international users’ group.

His first crime lab case was on a stormy night investigating the 1970 murder of St. Paul officer James Sackett Sr. “That night I watched his blood flow down the street into the gutter and that was something I never forgot because it was like God was so upset he sent this storm to erase all evidence of this crime,” he said in the 2008 interview.

When Corcoran was appointed to head the homicide unit in 1990, Sackett’s widow called him and asked, “Will you solve this case?” he recalled. Investigators kept working on it during Corcoran’s time in the unit and afterward and, in 2006, two men were convicted.

Corcoran also oversaw the investigation into the killings of St. Paul officers Ron Ryan Jr. and Tim Jones, who were shot along with Jones’ K-9 on the same day in 1994. Police arrested Guy Harvey Baker, and Corcoran asked his investigators to build an air-tight case, so Baker would plead guilty and the families wouldn’t have to go through a trial. That’s what happened and Baker was sentenced to life in prison.

In the homicide unit, Joe Corcoran soon realized that, for victims’ relatives “(police) actually victimized them a second time by us not being with them through the process and telling them where the investigation was headed,” he said in the 2008 interview. “… We never provided any counseling for them. We never prepared them for the trip that they were going to take, without their loved one.”

Margaret McAbee was leading a homicide support group for another agency at the time and met with Corcoran. They and a small group worked together to establish a nonprofit, then called Victim Intervention Project Inc. Corcoran advocated to have its office at the police department.

“I think that contributed enormously to the success of our program,” said McAbee, retired executive director of the organization, which still exists and is now called Survivor Resources. “So many families had no idea that there would be an autopsy done, they couldn’t understand why the police couldn’t tell them everything and those were things we could explain.”

There was an average of nine homicides a year in 1990 when Corcoran took over the unit, but the number quickly rose to 35. He didn’t get more investigators, but Corcoran said he realized the power of talking to the media to get information out to the public and he held press briefings at every homicide scene, which led to tips coming in.

During two of the years that Corcoran led the St. Paul homicide unit, they solved all the cases, he recalled in 2008.

“I think he had a great deal to do with our (high) solve rate,” said retired investigator Neil Nelson, who recalled Corcoran gathering the unit together to hear an overview from a case’s main investigator and have everyone offer their input. “Joe had a unique way of having everyone vested in success.”

After retirement, Joe and his wife, Karen, moved to Waskish, Minn., on Upper Red Lake. They saw a need for a medical clinic and helped start a small one in the community.

He was president of the lake association, and worked with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to revitalize the walleye population and tourism for fishing, John Corcoran said. He also encouraged creation of Big Bog State Recreation Area.

In addition to wife Karen Corcoran, Joe Corcoran is survived by children Lisa and Kelly Corcoran and Sheri, Tony, Steven and James Bushinski, along with grandchildren.

Corcoran died July 9 of pneumonia in the hospital in Bemidji, his wife said. His celebration of life is Sunday, Aug. 6, starting at 1 p.m. at Mancini’s Char House in St. Paul.

There will also be a celebration of life at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Waskish on Aug. 13 at 11:00 a.m. Interment will be the same day at Bethlehem Lutheran Memorial Gardens in Waskish.

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