Strong support system lifts Toledo police detective s widow

Nearly three months after her husband was killed, Danielle Dressel finds it difficult to accept the loss.

Danielle Dressel has been tugged in many directions since her husband, Keith, was killed working as an undercover vice officer in North Toledo.

Fund-raising events. Awards dinners. Her children s needs. Her husband s grave.

But there s one spot she hadn t been to until Thursday night.

The 1400 block of North Ontario Street.

The area where police said her husband was shot by a 15-year-old boy.

The 32-year-old mother of two and Toledo police Officer Mickey Mitchell, a close friend, drove to the neighborhood where a motorcycle ride and fund-raiser in her husband s honor passed yesterday.

We sat there and cried a little bit, Officer Mitchell said.

Mrs. Dressel was one of the hundreds of riders yesterday. And she didn t want the emotions of the first time in the area to occur while on the back of a bike.

I can t even imagine where I go without Keith, the widow said from a room in her South Toledo home that is filled with pictures of her husband, his badges and medals, and plaques in his honor. I can t ever imagine my life without him.

Danielle Dressel, with her son, Noah, has attended dozens of functions since the night her husband was killed on duty.

About 3 a.m. Feb. 21, the doorbell at the Dressel house rang. Mrs. Dressel opened the door. There stood three officers: two in uniform, one in plain clothes.

You really need to get dressed. You need to come with us right away, she recalled an officer saying. Mrs. Dressel was concerned about her children, Sydney, 6, and Noah, 4. Another officer stayed home with them.

It seemed like it took forever. It was foggy, so foggy, she said of the ride to the hospital. When we got to the hospital, the first thing I saw was 50 officers in the waiting room.

When they saw her, they got quiet and made a path for her. She walked into a conference room at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center and saw Pat Gladieux, the police s employee assistance officer.

At some point, she saw her husband s partner and another undercover detective, who wouldn t look at her. He sat in a chair, shaking and crying. She wondered what was going on. She wasn t thinking the worst.

Pat asked me, You know your husband s been shot. I said, I do. He just shook his head and said, He didn t make it. I thought, No, no, no. she said.

Mrs. Dressel began crying and fell onto Officer Gladieux. Two officers recommended that she not see her husband, and she declined when she was asked if she wanted to. It s her biggest regret.

I regret not holding him and being there in the room with him, she said.

Sheriff s Deputy David Lindhorst watches for traffi c while local motorcyclists ride along Erie Street downtown during the Detective Keith Dressel Memorial Ride and Benefit yesterday.

Hours after the shooting suspect, Robert Jobe, was caught, Mrs. Dressel went home. Then began the stream of people. Hundreds of them.

Initially, I was in shock. I could not believe it. I was watching somebody else s life, somebody else s movies, she said.

Through the process, Mrs. Dressel has evolved from private person to public figure. She s attended functions daily and sometimes multiple times a day.

Last week, after sitting through a daylong hearing for the Jobe teen, she accepted an award in honor of her husband in Maumee. Two days later, she attended a brick dedication at Harvard Elementary School.

On Friday, she received numerous accolades for her husband during the Toledo Police Department s annual awards ceremony and braved an emotional memorial service for fallen officers downtown as she held their sleeping son on her lap.

She and her in-laws, Michael and Larraine Dressel, stood with Chief Mike Navarre as the detective s street badge was retired.

Police Chief Mike Navarre embraces Danielle Dressel at a ceremony during which the late detective s badge was retired.

Chief Navarre said Mrs. Dressel reminds him of Jacquelyn Kennedy after her husband, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963.

Both were young with two children, the daughter being the older, the son the younger.

Both handled themselves admirably after their husbands deaths.

She puts her brain on autopilot and just speaks from the heart, the chief said of Mrs. Dressel.

But it s not just the public moments for which she s made time, he said. It s also the private ones.

Like the time she wanted to hear her husband s last police radio transmission where he reported being shot. Like the time she and the chief went to see Shonna Burris, whose husband, Andrew, a carpenter, died last month when the platform he was standing on fell off the side of the new I-280 bridge.

I think Danielle Dressel is an amazing woman in the way she s handled a tragedy of this magnitude, Chief Navarre said. It was extraordinary on her part to be there for Mrs. Burris, who lost her husband so soon after Mrs. Dressel lost her husband.

Mrs. Dressel said she s not strong, but keeping busy with events and having a support system of family, friends, and her husband s colleagues keeps her grounded. That s been helpful since it took her a month and a half to realize her husband wasn t coming home.

Normal widows get to grieve. She doesn t have time and sometimes it scares me that later on down the road it will be worse, said Tori Baertschi, a friend and police dispatcher who, with her husband, Dave, an officer, have been with Mrs. Dressel daily and who will continue to support her and her children.

Mrs. Dressel s mother-in-law understands the pain. She has good days and bad days, and she just passed her first Mother s Day without her son.

He was not just our Keith, the elder Mrs. Dressel said after the memorial service. He belonged to all these people.

Being with many of those people has provided Danielle Dressel with some of her best times recently. She likes attending events and being with her husband s colleagues because she feels connected to him through them.

During the last three months, officers have stopped by her house to take out the garbage, mow the grass, and check on her and the children. Their spouses provided nightly cooked meals.

Recently, she was at the grocery store and realized she forgot her wallet when she went to pay for her food. An officer, whom she hadn t met before her husband died and who was working security at the store, paid for her groceries.

They ve really accepted me in the family. Without them, I don t think I could get through it, she said. They re really taking care of me.

That force showed strongly last week when a wall of blue shirts filled a Lucas County juvenile courtroom where attorneys began arguments on whether the Jobe youth should be tried as an adult.

I loved seeing that, Mrs. Dressel said, adding that she was surprised to see that much support.

She said she has faith the justice system will work. She thinks she would want to talk with the Jobe teen at some point.

Mrs. Dressel said the worst times now are when she s by herself, especially in the morning when she and her husband would spend time together after he came home from court.

It s really, really hard, said the Tiffin University graduate, who received her bachelor s degree in criminal justice administration this month. Waking up without him is really hard. Driving in my car is really hard.

The widow has gone to her husband s grave in Michigan several times. Once, she lay on the grave to feel closer to him. She s not sure how she s going to handle their two-year wedding anniversary, which falls on Father s Day.

Mrs. Dressel who proudly showed off gifts of a bracelet with the detective s picture and a necklace of a police badge with his name said her husband never talked about retirement or growing old. He made sure she was up to speed on finances in case something were to happen.

The day before he died, he happened to mention to her a song he wanted played at his funeral the Hawaiian version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

He always lived for now, she said. It was never for later.

Contact Christina Hall at:chall@theblade.comor 419-724-6007.