Retired Knoxville police detective Tom Pressley, who a colleague called "one of the legends of the place," has died at age 73.
Pressley had been with the Knoxville Police Department more than 35 years when he retired in 2005. He died Sept. 20.
"There's not a person who worked here before 2005 that didn't know Tom, that didn't have a Tom story," said Gary Holliday, KPD deputy chief over support services. "It's just a great loss."
Being a detective was Pressley's calling, Holliday said. He was old-school.
"He was like the old TV detectives. He was really methodical," he said.
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Among his most famous cases was the Thomas D. "Zoo Man" Huskey investigation. Huskey had a street reputation for picking up prostitutes, having sometimes rough sex with them and often ripping them off.
Pressley drove a victim out to a remote part of Knox County called Cahaba Lane in 1992 and discovered Huskey there in the middle of a sex act with another woman.
That became important months later when the bodies of four women were discovered under and near a billboard off Cahaba Lane. Pressley remembered confronting Huskey at that same spot.
Huskey was later convicted of kidnapping and raping some women in Knoxville. But a murder prosecution failed in Knox County Criminal Court. Huskey, now 57, is serving a lengthy sentence in the Tennessee prison system.
Pressley lived in the Corryton area.
Holliday said his colleague cared about more than just police work. He also enjoyed helping others through the Fraternal Order of Police's Youth Camp and its Shop With A Cop program at Christmastime, he said.
"He had a very, very charitable heart," Holliday said. "He did a lot of work with the FOP, and he really cared about the kids."
