Mr Roger L Sealy, 41
RETIRED PATROLMAN ROGER SEALY DIES
Roger L. Sealy just wanted to be a good cop, but trouble wouldn’t leave him alone during his decade-long career as a Denver police officer.
The former patrolman and Weld County horse rancher died Sunday in University Hospital in Denver after a long illness. He was 41.
A memorial service was held yesterday in the Moore-Howard Mortuary, Berkeley Park Chapel. The body was cremated.
Before he retired in the early 1980s, Mr. Sealy had been shot at, run over, injured in three auto accidents and had shattered a shoulder when he slipped on ice while chasing a suspect. He endured six major operations from work- related injuries, which included removal of a rib and a bone from his shoulder.
Mr. Sealy also was a key figure in a notorious 1977 undercover murder-for- hire plot involving a fellow police officer. Sgt. William Angermann allegedly tried to hire Mr. Sealy to kill his wife. Mr. Sealy reported the incident to his superiors, who asked him to go undercover to gather more evidence.
Angermann eventually pleaded no contest to a charge of plotting to kill his wife and received five years of probation. Following that episode, Mr. Sealy received numerous death threats, and about a year later a bomb exploded in his front yard.
Returning to street duty after a temporary desk assignment following the undercover incident, Mr. Sealy fatally shot a west Denver man who lunged at him with a knife. The controversial shooting led to a lawsuit by the dead man’s family against Mr. Sealy and the Denver Police Department.
He ultimately was cleared of any wrongdoing and was given a medical disability retirement in the fall of 1982.
“I have always been a real trouble magnet,” Mr. Sealy said in a 1981 newspaper interview. “I’ve had a tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I’m a cop. That’s all I know. I love the street. And I’d like to think I’m doing some people some good out there.”
After leaving the police force, Mr. Sealy moved to Platteville, where he raised horses. He was a member of the American Quarter Horse Association and Northern Colorado Quarter Horse Association.
Survivors include his wife, Susan Bachman Sealy of Platteville; a daughter, Shelley Sealy of Denver; his mother, Leta Potter of Arvada; his father, William L. Sealy of Denver; two brothers; and three sisters.
Memorial contributions can be made to wildlife conservation.
Published in the Rocky Mountain News (CO) – Friday, June 15, 1990
