By Dawn Schuett
schuett@postbulletin.com
A former Lake City resident will solve a murder case Sunday as thousands of Americans watch.
Timm Angell, a homicide detective for the San Antonio Police Department since 1999, will be among the investigators featured on the A&E; television network show, "The First 48," which is set to air at 7 p.m. Sunday.
The episode follows investigators working on two separate murder cases, one in San Antonio the other in Phoenix.
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Angell, 47, a 1976 graduate of Lincoln High School in Lake City, was the lead investigator for the San Antonio case involving the murder of a homeless man in September.
In a telephone interview Friday, Angell said luck had a lot to do with solving the case.
"We got a Crimestoppers tip that led us to two individuals and we were able to get confessions from both of them," Angell said. "It's not usually that easy. It worked out real well, and it's just lucky that everything kind of fell into place. A lot of times they don't."
In his years as a homicide detective, Angell has been assigned as the primary investigator in about 35 cases. He's solved about 23 of them, he said.
"Man's inhumanity to other men -- it never ceases to amaze me," Angell said. "You grow up in a small town, you don't see this type of thing. It maybe goes on, but you don't see it and you don't hear about it. When I got down here and started being exposed to it, it was eye-opening."
Angell moved to San Antonio in 1982 after being laid off from a factory job in Lake City. He still has a sister and brother-in-law, Vicki and Lyle Lichtblau, who live in Lake City.
Another of Angell's sisters, Jolie Jennings and her husband, John, already lived in San Antonio where John worked for the police department.
Although Angell initially intended to get a job there as a machinist, he took a temporary job as a tow-truck driver until he entered the police academy. He graduated from the academy in 1989.
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Before moving to Texas, Angell said, he had no interest in becoming a law enforcement officer.
"If anything, I think, when I was growing up I was on the other side of the law," Angell said. "I was a little bit of a wild kid."
Now, he said, he loves his job.
"I wouldn't do anything else," Angell said.
