In Touch talks to retired homicide detective Rod Demery, whose 100 percent success rate is the focus of the new crime series Murder Chose Me
Murder Chose Me star Rod Demery reveals how cracking the case became his calling
Few people have seen the kind of brutal violence that haunts Rod Demery. Not only did the retired Shreveport, La., homicide detective witness unspeakable horror during a nearly 30-year career on the police force, but when he was 3, his mother was murdered — shot in the back nine times by her husband. More than two decades later, Rod’s brother was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after he killed a man during a fight. “I think law enforcement is a calling,” Rod tells In Touch. “Those personal experiences definitely made me a better detective.”
And an incredibly successful one. An investigator on more than 250 homicides, Rod, 51, delivered a remarkable 100 percent solve rate for the more than 60 cases on which he served as lead detective. “I was fortunate to solve all of my murders,” says Rod, who recounts some of his most memorable cases as the narrator on Investigation Discovery’s compelling new crime series Murder Chose Me. “I don’t have any cases where someone killed someone and I couldn’t figure out who it was.”
So how did he do it? “I think the biggest thing is that I’m non- judgmental. I don’t allow whatever I feel about the suspect to come out,” he explains, adding that the best detectives “suspend any personal beliefs or bias,” no matter how horrific a case.
Body language has provided him with some of the best clues. “Suspects’ body language shifts in a certain direction when they’re lying. They stop eye contact, repeat a question you know they heard,” Rod explains. “And the one thing that always happens when someone is about to confess to a crime is they release all their body language. Once they drop their head,” says Rod, it’s game over.
Rod used music to get himself in the zone. “I had these weird rituals,” he recalls. “The last four or five years when a murder file came in, I’d play Justin Bieber’s ‘Never Say Never’ really loud and just work the case. It motivated me!” And he’s seen it all. The most disturbing crimes involved young killers, child victims and abused women, while the most gruesome involved dead bodies “that had been left out for a period of time and started to decompose. The body starts to fill with gases and gets bloated, and the skin starts slipping off…it’s tough.”
He retired from the force last year only to take a job as a special investigator for the district attorney, primarily on homicides. “I’m not too far removed from what I used to do,” says Rod, who’s single. Though his personal life has suffered for his career — while working murder cases, friendships were “shallow,” he says, “and romantic relationship were nonexistent” — he has no regrets. “Solving murders isn’t a special skill that I believe that I have. It was my destiny.”