Former Caldwell County Deputy Brett O’Dell attributes his time behind bars to an addiction to prescription medications that he said started after a back problem he sustained during working hours.
“Helping the Fire Department do a lift assist for and elderly man,” said O’Dell. “He started to slip out of my hands. I went to catch him so he wouldn’t fall and when I caught him I started to lift back up and felt pops in my back.”
In 2014 O’Dell pleaded guilty to stealing around $5,000 and prescription drugs from the Caldwell County evidence vault. He was placed on five years suspension and was ordered to surrender his peace officer license and pay restitution.
“Had I not been addicted to drugs or alcohol I mean there’s really no doubt in my mind that none of this would have happened,” said O’Dell during Part 1 of this 5 part series.
After putting off his back pain for five years he said he got to a point where he simply couldn’t deal with it anymore on his own.
“I went to the doctor,” he said. “They diagnosed me with a couple of herniated disks, a couple of bulging disks that were getting worse.”
It was the beginning of a problem that he said would end up causing more than just back pain.
“They said I was too young for surgery,” he said. “I would have been I think 26 at the time and they told me they would prescribe me pain medication.”
O’Dell said he quickly became addicted to the pain killers. He was taking the narcotics Oxycodone and Hydrocodone. While working drug cases in the past he recalls dealing with many addicts but it didn’t occur to him until much later that he had become one.
“My addiction told me that I was different,” said O’Dell. “Because I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t like the people that were addicted to whatever the drug might be, meth, whatever when in all actuality there was no difference between the two of us other than drug of choice.”
Then, he said his addiction got worse.
“It had snowballed to the point of I was using the medication not just for pain but for anything,” said O’Dell. “To keep me going, to keep me moving. If I was stressed out I was using the medication to ease my stress. It was really a catch-all it would be a lie to say the medication was at that point just for my back.”
Then one day O’Dell said he got in his patrol car and everything else was a blur.
“I was 50 yards from a T-Intersection which I would have driven right through the intersection I pulled off the road and stopped, car still in gear,” he said. “I didn’t hurt anybody, I didn’t hurt myself, physically. And then like I said I woke up to the man knocking on the window and then I remember seeing the sheriff’s truck pulling up. I was put in an ambulance and taken to the hospital. They searched my patrol car and found…I don’t know what they found I know they found prescription pills in my car without bottles.”
After being released from care O’Dell said he realized he could no longer be a law enforcement officer. He said he went in and resigned.
“They told me that the Highway Patrol wanted to speak with me,” he said. “Wouldn’t tell me about what, but I’m not stupid either.”
Check back with the St. Joseph Post Wednesday for Part 3 of this 5 Part Series on how this former Caldwell County Deputy ended up on the other side of the law. Audio also airing on 680 AM KFEQ at 5 p.m. Wednesday.