South Side Detectives – Three retired St. Louis detectives revisit the personalities, neighborhood connections, investigative lessons, and unforgettable experiences that defined an earlier generation of South Side policing.
ST. LOUIS, MO – October 13, 2026 (TheBrighterSideofBlue) South Side Detectives – Long before modern digital surveillance systems, sophisticated crime-analysis software, and electronic investigative databases became everyday tools, detectives working the South Side of St. Louis depended heavily on something technology could not replace: knowing the streets, understanding the people, and learning from experienced investigators.
Those relationships, along with the unusual personalities and difficult investigations encountered during years of police service, are at the center of a memorable conversation on The Brighter Side of Blue podcast.
In the October 13, 2026, episode, “Southside Stories: The Criminals, Characters & Cops of St. Louis,” former St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department detectives Phil Menendez, Tony Lachenicht, and Leo Rice revisit their experiences investigating crime across South St. Louis.
Retired SLMPD detective and podcast host Tommy Sawyer helps guide the conversation, drawing on the participants’ shared understanding of police work and their familiarity with the neighborhoods, criminal investigations, and personalities that shaped their careers.
The approximately one-hour-and-44-minute episode is more than a collection of unusual police stories. It captures a professional culture built around experience, mentorship, neighborhood familiarity, and the relationships formed among investigators who spent years working challenging assignments.
It also shows why retired officers’ memories deserve a place in St. Louis’s historical record.
South Side Detectives – The Investigators Behind the Stories
Police departments are often remembered through major criminal cases, leadership changes, and public controversies. Less often documented are the everyday experiences of the detectives who investigate crimes and develop the information needed to solve them.
Menendez, Lachenicht, and Rice bring those experiences into focus.
Their conversation includes recollections of criminal families, burglars, drug crews, memorable suspects, neighborhood personalities, and veteran detectives who helped shape their investigative careers.
Although the episode includes considerable humor, the discussion also reflects the serious responsibilities of detective work.
Investigators must evaluate information, identify witnesses, understand criminal behavior, and determine whether evidence supports an arrest or prosecution.
Those responsibilities require judgment developed through training and experience.
A detective who has spent years investigating a particular neighborhood may recognize connections that are not immediately obvious to someone unfamiliar with the area.
A familiar name, a recurring location, or an unusual pattern of activity can provide an investigative lead.
However, familiarity alone is not evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Investigators must still establish facts and follow applicable legal procedures.
The distinction between knowing a neighborhood and proving a criminal case is fundamental to effective policing.
The podcast gives listeners a chance to hear how experienced investigators remember working in that environment.
South Side Detectives – Learning Police Work From the Veterans
One of the most valuable aspects of the Southside Stories episode is its attention to the detectives who taught younger investigators the profession.
Every generation of law enforcement officers inherits knowledge from those who served before them.
Formal police training establishes legal requirements, departmental procedures, and fundamental investigative techniques. Experienced partners and supervisors help officers apply those principles to real situations.
For a young detective, the lessons can be practical and immediate.
How should an investigator approach a reluctant witness? What questions might reveal inconsistencies in a statement? When should a detective revisit an earlier interview? How can investigators spot a potentially useful lead without jumping to conclusions?
These questions are central to criminal investigations.
Experienced detectives often develop techniques through years of interviewing witnesses, examining evidence, and reviewing cases that didn’t initially seem connected.
Their ability to explain those experiences to younger officers can be an important part of professional development.
The podcast participants remember veteran investigators who influenced their careers, illustrating how police knowledge passes between generations.
That kind of mentorship rarely makes it into official department histories.
Yet it can still shape the quality of investigative work.
The most experienced detective in a room may not always be the highest-ranking person. Sometimes, it is the investigator who has spent decades learning how people behave, how neighborhoods function, and how apparently unrelated details fit together.
Preserving those lessons is one reason conversations with retired officers remain valuable.
South Side Detectives – Knowing the South Side Meant Knowing Its People
South St. Louis has never been a single community with one identity.
Its neighborhoods developed through different waves of settlement, industrial activity, residential growth, and local commerce.
For generations, residents have identified with individual neighborhoods, parish communities, schools, businesses, and family connections.
Those relationships helped establish the distinctive character of South St. Louis.
For police officers working there, neighborhood familiarity could be a significant professional advantage.
A detective might know a business owner who could help establish a timeline, a resident familiar with activity on a particular block, or another officer who had investigated similar incidents.
That information could become useful during an investigation.
But community knowledge requires more than recognizing names.
Successful police-community relationships depend on credibility, fairness, communication, and trust.
Residents must be willing to share information, and officers must understand the importance of treating it responsibly.
The Southside Stories conversation reflects an era when investigators often developed deep familiarity with the people and places tied to their assignments.
The episode also demonstrates how strongly those memories can remain with officers after retirement.
Street names, neighborhood landmarks, former colleagues, and memorable personalities can bring back experiences that occurred many years earlier.
For listeners familiar with South St. Louis, those recollections connect the city’s present to its past.
South Side Detectives – McRee Town and the Changing Face of St. Louis
Among the locations discussed during the podcast is McRee Town, a historic St. Louis neighborhood associated with significant urban change.
The name remains recognizable to longtime residents and former officers who remember the neighborhood before later redevelopment transformed portions of the area.
For detectives, a neighborhood name can evoke much more than a location on a map.
It can recall investigations, relationships with residents, recurring problems, and the circumstances surrounding particular assignments.
A neighborhood’s physical appearance may change substantially, while memories of earlier periods remain vivid.
That makes police recollections an interesting form of local oral history.
They preserve perspectives on places that may no longer look or function as they once did.
However, those perspectives represent the experiences of the people telling the stories. They do not necessarily describe the experiences of every resident or provide a complete account of a neighborhood’s history.
Crime-related memories should also be understood within the broader social and economic history of the communities involved.
South St. Louis neighborhoods have long been home to families, workers, business owners, churches, civic organizations, and institutions that contributed to the city’s identity.
Their histories extend far beyond the criminal investigations that brought police officers into particular locations.
South Side Detectives – The Personalities Officers Never Forgot
Some of the episode’s most entertaining moments involve the unusual personalities officers encountered over years of police work.
The detectives recall individuals whose conduct, appearance, reputation, or interactions with officers made them memorable.
The conversation includes the kind of informal storytelling that frequently develops among colleagues who have worked together through difficult circumstances.
One person remembers an encounter, another recalls a different detail, and the discussion expands as participants compare their experiences.
These exchanges can be humorous, surprising, or occasionally unsettling.
They also illustrate the difference between an official investigative record and a personal memory.
Police reports are intended to document relevant facts, observations, statements, and evidence.
They generally do not preserve every conversation, unexpected encounter, or unusual personality associated with an investigation.
Those details often survive through officers’ recollections.
The podcast gives the participants room to tell those stories in their own words.
However, it is important to distinguish recollections about individuals from independently verified criminal findings.
A person’s reputation among police officers does not establish guilt, and allegations discussed in an informal conversation should not be treated as proof of a criminal offense.
That distinction allows historical police storytelling to remain engaging without confusing memory with a judicial determination.
South Side Detectives – The Humor That Comes With the Job
The Southside Stories episode is not a formal police presentation.
It is an informal conversation among people familiar with the profession, and the participants frequently use humor while discussing their experiences.
That style is characteristic of The Brighter Side of Blue, which combines serious law enforcement topics with personal conversations and stories about the people behind the badge.
Police work can expose officers to violence, tragedy, and emotionally demanding circumstances.
Humor may become part of how colleagues communicate and maintain relationships, although individuals respond to occupational stress in different ways.
In the episode, the participants move between serious investigative recollections and lighthearted exchanges.
Their familiarity with one another gives the discussion a conversational quality that differs from a conventional news interview.
The program also addresses the distinctive St. Louis use of the word “Hoosier.”
Outside the region, the term is widely associated with Indiana residents. In St. Louis slang, it has also been used as a derogatory description of certain behaviors or social stereotypes.
The participants discuss that regional difference as part of their recollections of South Side culture.
The term’s appearance in the conversation reflects the speakers’ language, not a characterization of South St. Louis residents as a whole.
That distinction matters because the city’s neighborhoods and residents cannot be reduced to stereotypes.
The episode’s humor is best understood as an informal exchange among former colleagues rather than an official description of the communities they served.
South Side Detectives – What Experience Teaches That Technology Cannot
Criminal investigations have changed dramatically as technology has advanced.
Modern law enforcement agencies may use surveillance recordings, electronic records, digital forensic examinations, and computerized systems to identify and evaluate evidence.
Those resources can help investigators establish timelines, locate information, and examine relationships between events.
But technology does not eliminate the need for sound investigative judgment.
A recording must be interpreted in context. Investigators must evaluate a witness statement for reliability. A potential lead must be supported by evidence.
Even sophisticated analytical tools cannot independently determine whether a witness is truthful or whether an investigator has considered every reasonable explanation.
The experiences of veteran detectives remind us that criminal investigations remain fundamentally human activities.
An investigator must listen carefully, recognize uncertainty, ask appropriate questions, and avoid allowing assumptions to substitute for proof.
The detectives featured in Southside Stories worked in environments where personal familiarity and information developed through direct contact were important investigative resources.
Their recollections offer a perspective on skills that continue to matter even as police technology changes.
For younger officers, listening to experienced investigators can provide historical context for modern investigative practices.
For the public, those conversations can help explain why detective work often involves far more preparation, patience, and persistence than fictional crime dramas portray.
South Side Detectives – The Importance of Police Partnerships
Another theme running through the episode is the relationship between officers who shared investigative assignments and professional experiences.
Police partnerships can develop through years of working difficult cases, responding to unexpected situations, and relying on colleagues for information and assistance.
Those experiences can create lasting professional relationships.
The podcast format allows former detectives to reconnect and revisit memories that might otherwise remain private.
Their exchanges also reveal how different officers can remember the same period from different perspectives.
One investigator may recall a particular suspect, while another remembers the detective who developed the original information.
A third may remember the neighborhood circumstances surrounding the investigation.
Together, those perspectives can provide a richer picture of the professional environment in which they worked.
They can also reveal memory’s limitations.
Events recalled decades later may be remembered differently by different participants.
That is one reason oral histories are most valuable when considered alongside available documents and other evidence.
The purpose of preserving those conversations is not to suggest that every recollection is beyond question.
It is to ensure that firsthand perspectives remain available for future generations to examine.
South Side Detectives – A Different Kind of St. Louis Police History
Much of the public record of law enforcement focuses on significant events.
Major investigations, criminal prosecutions, police leadership decisions, and changes in public policy receive attention because of their immediate consequences.
But investigators’ daily experiences also shape a department’s history.
The names of influential detectives, the relationships partners form, and the informal lessons passed along to younger officers can disappear from public memory if nobody records them.
That is one of The Brighter Side of Blue’s contributions.
According to its official website, the podcast was established by retired and active law enforcement personnel to share experiences from the profession, remember sacrifices, recognize influential figures, and preserve stories that shaped the community.
The Southside Stories episode directly supports that mission.
By bringing Menendez, Lachenicht, and Rice together, the program creates a record of their perspectives on South Side investigations and police culture.
The conversation also connects different generations of St. Louis officers.
Those who worked during earlier decades can recognize familiar names and experiences.
Younger officers can hear how investigators approached their assignments before many contemporary technologies became commonplace.
And residents interested in local history can learn how former detectives remember particular neighborhoods and personalities.
South Side Detectives – The People Behind the Police Reports
One recurring challenge in public discussions of policing is that people often view officers primarily through their official responsibilities.
A police uniform represents legal authority, professional obligations, and public accountability.
But the person wearing it also develops friendships, learns from colleagues, experiences difficult situations, and accumulates memories over a career.
Those personal dimensions are central to the podcast’s approach.
The Southside Stories participants are not delivering a formal department history or an official investigative briefing.
They are reflecting on their careers.
That distinction makes the episode valuable in a different way.
Listeners hear how the detectives remember their colleagues, how they describe neighborhood experiences, and which encounters stayed with them long after their active service ended.
Some memories are amusing.
Others involve serious criminal activity or difficult investigative circumstances.
Together, they offer a personal perspective on a profession whose daily experiences are not always visible to the public.
The conversation also demonstrates the importance of preserving the names and contributions of officers whose work may never have attracted major headlines.
An investigator can influence colleagues and contribute to important cases without becoming a widely recognized public figure.
For those who worked alongside that person, however, the influence may last an entire career.
South Side Detectives – Preserving Stories for the Next Generation
As veteran officers retire, departments lose more than years of accumulated service.
They also lose direct access to memories of earlier investigative practices, neighborhood conditions, and professional relationships.
Some of that knowledge lives on in training materials and official records.
Other parts survive only through conversations.
Long-form interviews provide an opportunity to document those recollections before they disappear.
The Southside Stories episode demonstrates how that process can work.
Rather than focusing exclusively on a single criminal case, the conversation lets the detectives move between people, places, investigations, and professional experiences.
That approach reflects how memory often operates.
A neighborhood recalls a former colleague. A colleague recalls an investigation. An investigation leads to a story about a particular individual.
The result is a collection of connected memories that offers insight into the culture of an earlier period of St. Louis policing.
For historians and researchers, such interviews can serve as starting points for further examination.
For families and former colleagues, they preserve familiar voices and experiences.
For the broader public, they provide an opportunity to understand the profession through firsthand accounts.
South Side Detectives – South Side Stories Worth Remembering
The October 13 episode of The Brighter Side of Blue illustrates why the history of St. Louis law enforcement cannot be told entirely through official reports and archived news articles.
Those records are essential for establishing facts, documenting criminal proceedings, and understanding significant events.
But they rarely capture the full personalities of the investigators involved or the relationships that influenced their careers.
Phil Menendez, Tony Lachenicht, and Leo Rice bring that personal dimension to the Southside Stories conversation.
Their recollections offer an entertaining and historically interesting perspective on South St. Louis, the people they encountered, and the detectives who shaped their professional lives.
The episode also reminds us that behind every generation of police officers is another generation that taught them the job.
Those lessons, friendships, and shared experiences deserve to be remembered alongside the investigations themselves.
For The Brighter Side of Blue, preserving those memories is an important part of telling the stories behind the badge.
And for St. Louis, the voices of former detectives help preserve another chapter of the city’s complicated, colorful, and constantly changing history.
Watch or Listen to Southside Stories
Podcast: The Brighter Side of Blue
Episode: Southside Stories: The Criminals, Characters & Cops of St. Louis
Release date: October 13, 2026
Featured guests: Phil Menendez, Tony Lachenicht, and Leo Rice
Featured interview begins: Approximately 24 minutes and 32 seconds into the episode
Total episode length: Approximately 1 hour and 44 minutes
Official website: https://www.thebrightersideofblue.com/
Page on STL.News: https://www.stl.news/business-profile-the-brighter-side-of-blue/
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/southside-stories-the-criminals-characters-cops-of/id1715141379?i=1000796125295
Editorial Note and Disclaimer
This article is an original editorial feature for The Brighter Side of Blue, developed from the podcast’s published episode information and transcript, with additional explanatory discussion of investigative practices and oral history. It is not a reproduction of the October 13, 2026, STL.News article.
The statements and memories discussed in the podcast represent the perspectives of the participating speakers. Historical recollections may not have been independently corroborated through court records or official investigative files. Do not interpret allegations of criminal conduct as established findings of guilt. Individuals accused of crimes are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
The views expressed by podcast participants are their own and do not necessarily represent the official policies or positions of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
Source references: The Brighter Side of Blue official website; October 13, 2026, podcast episode and transcript; STL.News, October 13, 2026, article reviewed for editorial differentiation.