The symbols and tools of his profession were scattered about his office.
Radios, tape recorders and a taser occupied two chairs.
His badge identifying his rank as lieutenant of detectives, two department IDs, and two clips of .45-caliber hollow point bullets from his Glock Model 21 service weapon sat on his desk, which for the first time in a long time is clean.
After 25 years, Lenard Cowart retired Friday from the McComb Police Department.
“I started in December of 1983,” he said. “This is the only law enforcement job I’ve had. I had a lot of good mentors and teachers, and I appreciate their help.”
“I was on the police department when he went to work there,” said Pike County Chief Deputy Steve Rushing. “I worked with him for 20 years.”
Cowart, Rushing said, “has always been a person who dealt with the public real well. He was always very professional about the way he handled his business.
“He always worked well with people, and that continued after he was in the investigative division working crime scenes. He always did an extraordinary job,” Rushing said. “I hate to see him retire from law enforcement.”
When he was younger, Cowart considered two possible career paths — the military or the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
“When I was in school, they held a career day, and a Highway Patrol trooper was there,” he said. “He looked impressive in his uniform.”
Cowart applied for the Highway Patrol, but was unable to meet the department’s strict physical requirements because he wore glasses.
He joined the McComb Police Department as a patrolman and worked his way up to shift sergeant before becoming the department’s crime scene technician in 1991.
Cowart remembers his first case — a hit and run fatality where a woman was killed, that was solved like the fictional cases seen on “CSI” television programs.
Glass collected at the scene and paint samples collected from the victim’s clothes by the Mississippi State Crime Lab were traced back to the car involved in the accident, and the suspect was arrested.
In 1997, Cowart was transferred to investigations.
“He made an outstanding detective and has been the chief investigator and lead detective since Perry Ashley moved to assistant chief,” McComb Police Chief Billie Hughes said.
“He is highly thought of statewide,” Hughes said.
Hughes said Cowart had a reputation for writing excellent reports, and “is known widely as a very detail-oriented and meticulous investigator who does excellent case reports and grand jury presentations.”
Cowart said investigating a criminal case involves balancing two different issues — using the evidence collected at the crime scene, and then questioning the suspect to get them to admit their guilt.
“The evidence from the crime scene is fact,” he said. “It is physical proof of the crime.”
Questioning a suspect, he said, requires an officer to sometimes “get into” the other person’s mind.
“Any feelings you may have about the person or what he did, you have to put those out of your mind,” he said. “You have to get to their level so you can talk with them.”
And getting an arrest, Cowart said, doesn’t end the case.
“It follows you,” he said. “There are other things you have to do.”
Some of those other things means getting a case ready to go to a grand jury and later to trial.
Cowart, U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton said, “was always very conscientious and diligent and always a professional.”
“What I liked about him was the way he could take scientific language and put into a mode that the jury could understand, and made it simple for them,” said Lampton, a former Sixth Circuit District attorney. The Sixth District Circuit includes Pike County.
“He was an excellent witness and very competent and professional.”
Lampton said Cowart’s testimony proved to be one of the key elements in a number of murder convictions.
Cowart said he always enjoyed taking cases to the grand jury, where the setting is not as formal as a court trial.
“You have 20 (county) citizens in a room; it’s a lot more laid back,” he said. “You don’t have the suspect and their attorney present.
“You go and present your case — the facts you have — the district attorney explains the law, and they (the grand jury) vote whether to charge the people.”
A court trial, he said, “is a whole different ball game.”
Cowart remembers the first murder trial in which he testified.
“I learned a lot from that trial,” he said, adding that the defendant’s attorneys put him through a lengthy cross-examination.”
He said the key to testifying is putting the facts in a way that the jury can understand them.
“You have to be honest,” Cowart said. “My reputation is on the line.
“There’s only one person in the courtroom who knows the truth, and if he knows I’m telling the truth, then I’ve done my job.”
One thing Cowart regrets is that he leaves with some homicide cases unsolved.
“That’s the hard part,” he said. “Knowing that these cases are unsolved, and the families don’t have closure. In some of the cases, we have a good idea who the suspect is, but we don’t have the proof to bring them in.”
He said he’ll miss working with people and the staff at the police department, and the work.
“I love what I do,” he said.
And his presence will be missed at the department.
“Detective Cowart has been a big asset to the City of McComb and to the citizens, along with his fellow employees,” said Detective Shannon Sullivan. “He got along well with everyone in the department.
“He’s been recognized for what he accomplished and for the mark he has made on the lives of the criminal society. For someone with that much knowledge in this field, I hate to see him go.”
Cowart, Sullivan said, was good to work with, adding, “if you had questions about anything, you could go and ask him.”
“This (police work) has to be something you want to do, and you have to put your mind to it,” he said. “You can’t let your problems interfere; you’re trying to solve cases.
“I know many times you want to pull your hair out,” Sullivan said. “But he’s hung in there for all those years and showed his support for the city and the department.
“I don’t think you can find anybody who would say anything bad about him.”
Sometime after noon on Friday, Cowart walked out of the McComb police station for the last time. He’s sure only about his immediate future.
“I’m going to take a couple weeks off, and I’ve got a lot of ‘honey dos’ waiting for me,” he said. “But I’m going to find some time to go to the mountains.”
