In a move to beef up the law enforcement end of her job as district attorney, Martha Warner has hired on veteran Bee County sheriff’s investigator Dan Caddell.

“We’re trying hard to train the younger officers,” Warner said Thursday as she and Caddell sat in his temporary office at the Bee County Courthouse.

A recent course on warrants and searches was just a start, the DA said. She plans others in the future so that local investigators can put in some class time.

Warner said she plans additional courses to educate the new crop of investigators now working with the Bee County Sheriff’s Office and Beeville Police Department.

“I’ve been doing this for 12 years now,” Warner said. She was an assistant district attorney for former DA George P. “Jeeper” Morrill II and she was elected to the position five years ago.

She and Caddell have worked up an impressive record for convictions in those years.

“There have been at least 20 cases where (the two of us have worked together to get life sentences for sex offenders,” Warner said.

And that doesn’t count life sentences for several murder suspects. One of those was an Eagle Pass man who kidnapped a nurse in Corpus Christi and drove her to Bee County where shot her in the back of the head and left her body on the side of a rural highway.

Caddell comes to the job with an impressive résumé.

Born in Cotulla, Caddell grew up in Seguin, graduated from high school there in 1970, spent two years in the United States Army and quickly joined the Navy after being discharged.

He retired from the Navy in 1992 after spending 20 years packing parachutes and doing investigative work for the military police.

After working as a rescue crewman in a Navy helicopter, making a few thousand parachute jumps and taking care of all the pilots’ equipment on aircraft carriers, Caddell worked as a reserve deputy for Sheriff R.L. “Bob” Horn while he was stationed at NAS Chase Field in the early 1980s.

Not long before retiring in Adak, Alaska, Caddell contacted Horn and as soon as he left the Navy he went to work in Beeville as a full-time deputy. Two years later, Horn put Caddell to work where he could use him the most, as an investigator.

Caddell was promoted to captain in charge of the criminal investigations division of the BCSO as soon as current Sheriff Carlos Carrizales was elected. He has been cracking cases and helping prosecutors ever since. One of his specialties has been helping prosecutors in the selection of jurors for felony trials.

Warner said she recently shifted part of her duties from prosecuting cases to getting state and federal grants for the DA’s office. With the help of a seasoned and respected prosecutors Deborah Branch and Tim Cariker, that’s been a little easier than when she first was elected to the position.

She plans to hire another assistant prosecutor in the near future.

Warner said the scope of work in her office is steadily expanding. And she expects Caddell to be a great help in those new cases.

The DA is taking on more Texas Department of Criminal Justice cases and working with federal agents in cases that are resulting from more concentration on the border with Mexico.

She said her office has received a lot of cooperation from state and federal agents. She is working closely with Texas Department of Public Safety investigators stationed in Beeville to prosecute narcotics and special crimes cases.

“But Dan is going to be a huge tool in helping the other agencies. Dan has more experience with critical cases in three jurisdictions.”