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Parkersburg native reflects on long FBI career

Photo from Parkersburg News and Sentinel Glenn Dolphin
Photo from Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Glenn Dolphin

AIKEN, S.C. – From counterterrorism and serial murders to bank robberies and local government corruption, Parkersburg native Glenn Dolphin has worked a wide spectrum of cases in his 27 years as a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“I don’t see how it could have been any better,” said Dolphin, senior resident agent, Aiken resident agency, Columbia Division. “I got to work so many different types of cases. I got to work with so many good people out there trying to make a difference.”

As he approaches the mandatory federal law enforcement retirement age of 57, the 1976 Parkersburg High School graduate and former U.S. Marine is pondering what’s next. His last day on the job will be Dec. 26, but he’s already turned in his badge and credentials, which will be mounted on a plaque.

“It’s a really melancholy feeling. I’ve been carrying this badge for 27 years, and now you don’t have it,” Dolphin said.

One thing that could be on the horizon for Dolphin is more writing. In 2006, he published “24 MAU 1983: A Marine Looks Back at the Peacekeeping Mission to Beirut, Lebanon.” A member of the U.S. Marine Corps from 1980 to 1987, Dolphin wrote the memoir about his time in Lebanon, including the Oct. 23, 1983, explosion that claimed the lives of 243 service members when a truck bomb exploded outside the Marine barracks.

His FBI service has certainly left him no shortage of stories. As a resident agent, Dolphin said, he never specialized in investigating one type of crime.

“You just never knew what was going to come in your door,” he said. “They gave me a gun, a badge and a car and said, ‘Here’s seven counties; take care of business.'”

Sometimes he was called upon to investigate crimes that took place at the Federal Correctional Institution in Edgefield, S.C. One was the murder of another inmate by the founder of an infamous Chicago gang who was serving time on drug and gun charges. The killer stabbed the victim with an aluminum rod he’d sharpened to a point over time.

“I’ll never forget his eyes,” Dolphin said, recalling the “wild” look on the face of the muscular man in his early 50s, whose clothes were covered in blood.

When Dolphin said he wanted to hear the inmate’s side of the incident, “He said, ‘If he’s laying out there and I’m standing in here, then you know what happened,'” the agent recalled.

On another case, Dolphin was working with agents of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to apprehend a serial killer who had murdered children in that state and Georgia. When they located him in Macon, Ga., Dolphin drove with other officers at speeds reaching 110 mph or more as troopers with the Georgia State Patrol cleared the roads for them.

“I had never driven a car that fast for that long,” he said. “I’m just trying to keep up with those guys.”

The killer was caught and eventually sentenced to death. Later, S.L.E.D. officers presented Dolphin with a plaque certifying his graduation from the “Real Po-lice White-Knuckle Driving Academy.”

Dolphin was among agents called upon to debrief and interview detainees brought to Guantanamo Bay from Afghanistan in 2002. Some had been involved in heavy fighting when the United States invaded in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“Some of them were very talkative. Others just kind of stared at you,” he said. “They had been through the mill.”

Dolphin worked security for the water sports venues in Savannah, Ga., during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta; searched two years later for Eric Rudolph, the man who set off a bomb during those games; served as the FBI liaison to U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.; and conducted investigations that led to the conviction of 49 bank robbers.

Less high-profile work also brought a sense of pride to Dolphin, such as when he had a hand in bringing corrupt public officials to justice.

“I got nothing for a guy that holds himself out as a leader in the public and then at the same time he’s abusing his power,” he said.

At one time, Dolphin hoped to work his way to the FBI resident office in Parkersburg, but that closed down and Aiken became home over the years. He still comes back to the Mid-Ohio Valley about once a year to visit family and take in a Cincinnati Reds series with a friend.

Dolphin said he plans to do some “soul-searching” about his next step. He’s never looked forward to retirement.

“If you’re any good at anything … it becomes part of you,” he said. “You are that thing. It’s part of your life. You’re not just Glenn Dolphin; you’re Glenn Dolphin, FBI agent.”

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