Over Chris Myers’ more than two decades in law enforcement, his love of the job and drive to bring closure to victim’s families have defined his career.

The 48-year-old has worked on the streets as a patrol officer and formed the Jennings Police Department’s first narcotics division, before spending nearly 19 years as an investigator for the Jeff Davis Parish District Attorney’s Office focusing on many of the parish’s homicide cases.

Now Myers is taking on a new role as assistant police chief and investigator for the Welsh Police Department.

“When I got into law enforcement I thought I could change the world and I still feel like that,” Myers said. “I haven’t slowed down. It’s the love of the job, it’s definitely not the money that keeps me going. It just gets in your blood.”

Myers was recently named assistant police chief and investigator for the Welsh Police Department. He brings with him 24 years of law enforcement experience, including nearly 19 years as an investigator with the District Attorney’s Office

Myers began his law enforcement career in his early 20s as a patrolman with the Jennings Police Department working his way up to the District Attorney’s Office and now the Welsh Police Department.

“As assistant police chief I hope to help build a better Welsh Police Department and help (Chief) Marcus (Crochet) anyway I can,” Myers said. “It’s always better when you get two people together with experience to put their heads together. You can get a lot accomplished.”

His first task as investigator will be putting a fresh set of eyes on the brutal death of Quentin Green. The case is the town’s only unsolved homicide.

“I think all kids want to be a cop or a fireman growing up,” Myers said of his decision to become a police officer. “I was a first responder with the fire department at the time and I knew all the police officers and knew they were hiring so I said ‘Let me try it.” I really thought I was only going to do it for a couple of years, but here I am.”

From December 1998 to March 2004 Myers worked at the Jennings Police Department as patrolman for two years, then formed the Narcotics Division in January 2001. During his first year in narcotics, Myers made 82 distribution cases and issued 28 drug-related search warrants.

He was later designated the department’s seizing agent by the District Attorney’s Office before moving to homicide investigations

His honors include being voted Most Likely To Succeed by his instructors in the Police Academy; Police Officer of Year in 2002 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and serving as the first vice president of the local Fraternal Order of Police.

From March 2004 to September 2022, Myers was an investigator for the District Attorney’s Office where he worked under four different district attorneys. He also served on the Jeff Davis 8 Task Force, formed to investigate the unsolved murders of eight women.

“Even though I have worked for the District Attorney’s Office for nearly 19 years, I am a law enforcement officer,” he said. “That has never left my system.”

Myers is looking forward to bigger things in his future and continuing in law enforcement.

“I have a lot left in me,” he said. “ I’m not even close to being done.”

Working homicides has always been his favorite because of the challenges of solving the crime, he said.

As an investigator with the District Attorney’s Office, Myers has gone to every homicide in the parish in the past 19 years. He also assisted area law enforcement agencies in investigating rapes, molestations and other major felonies.

“I would assist them,” he said. “We’d put our heads together and if they had any questions about evidence or whatever needed to be done I would help them. I wouldn’t tell them what to do, but I would assist them with what they needed to do.”

Once investigations were completed, Myers would get the cases ready for trial.

“There is no one else in this parish that has done what I have done,” he said. “I’d go out to the scene, I’d assist with law enforcement, then I’d put the case together for prosecution, then I’d walk into the courtroom and help them prosecute. There is no other law enforcement officer in the parish that has that experience.”

Among his most notable cases was helping try the Charles Talen Sr. murder case. Talen, 73, was found dead in his Lake Arthur home in 2015 by deputies doing a welfare check after finding his car abandoned and burned in a remote area near Gueydan. An autopsy showed he had suffered trauma to the back of the head.

“Everyone recused themselves and it was just me and Rick Bryant that tried that case,” Myers said. “It was a major case because there were 11 defendants.”

Other memorable cases include helping to apprehend Phil Karam after he fatally shot three people, including a Jennings police officer in 2000 and when former city police officer Ricky Benoit was shot and wounded while responding to a domestic disturbance in 2014.

When not working, Myers enjoys spending time outdoors hunting and fishing.