Jerry Griswell committed to a life in law enforcement and became witness to a heinous Gwinnett County crime, a crime that never left his mind for 44 years.

Family (ENLARGE)

The killing of three officers in 1964 affected Jerry Griswell profoundly.

It was April 17, 1964. Three county police officers — Jerry R. Everett, Ralph K. Davis and Marvin Jesse Gravitt — surprised their assailants who were changing tags on a stolen car.

The criminals got the jump on the officers, handcuffed them together, marched them into the woods, ordered them to get on their knees, then shot each lawman in the head, firing a total of 16 or 17 shots.

A Gwinnett deputy sheriff at the time, Mr. Griswell was the first at the scene on Arc Way near Lilburn. He never forgot the sight of his three fellow police officers, handcuffed together and shot in cold blood.

"A waste of three fine men," Mr. Griswell said in a 1989 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article. He worked the case round the clock.

"For three days, he didn't hardly come home," said his wife, Dot Griswell of Lawrenceville. "He never completely got over it."

The funeral for Mr. Griswell, 77, of Lawrenceville is 1 p.m. today at Bill Head Funeral Home, Lilburn/Tucker Chapel. He died of a brain tumor Friday at Embracing Hospice.

The slayings made national headlines and prompted Gwinnett County to strengthen its law enforcement, according to the AJC article.

Mr. Griswell, trained as a policeman by the U.S. Air Force and the FBI, benefited from the county's emphasis on more and stronger law enforcement. Until then, he said, "There really weren't any qualifications to be a sheriff. They gave you a gun and a badge and that was it."

As for the police officers' killers, one was paroled, one died in 1983 and one is still in prison.

The rest of Mr. Griswell's law enforcement career with the Sheriff's Department and as a police chief was less traumatic, said his daughter, Denise Hughes of Suwanee. His children would monitor his work on a police radio at home.

"There was a robbery at Tucker Federal Savings and Loan that was a big ordeal," Mrs. Hughes said. "We listened on the police radio down in the den and could hear him running and talking on the radio and shots being fired, until Mama made us turn it off."

With a more flexible schedule as a chief, Mr. Griswell lovingly kept tabs on his only daughter. "He used to come home and check up on me all the time, but he would do it in a very nonchalant way," she said.

His respite from work was camping. The family cook at home, he relished turning out three meals a day on their two-week camping trips on Lake Allatoona, his daughter said.

Mr. Griswell retired from the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department in 1990. During his 32-year career, he had been police chief of Clarkston, Lilburn and Norcross, too.

One act, while he was Norcross police chief in the 1970s, summed up his commitment to law and order for his secretary and dispatcher, Kari Manning of Lawrenceville.

"There had been a homicide which never, ever occurred in Norcross. It was between two feuding families," Mrs. Manning said.

A suspect was arrested and had to be transported from the Norcross jail to the Gwinnett County Jail. Mr. Griswell feared retaliation from the victim's family.

"He and his officers surrounded the suspect and escorted him in a huddle out to the patrol car," she said. "It was a remarkable sight. No matter how much the person was suspected of murder, he wanted to make sure he was safe."

Survivors other than his wife and daughter include a son, Mike Griswell of Conyers; six grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.