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Edward William Eldridge Jr. took his own life at the age of 62.
He lived alone in a small semidetached, red-brick house on Daywalt Avenue in Northeast Baltimore. He had no wife, no known children, no brothers, no sisters, and his parents died years ago. He listed his only aunt as a beneficiary, but she, too, had passed away.He had no friends, at least none close enough or willing enough to stay with him at the hospital for a few hours so he could undergo the arthroscopic knee surgery he was scheduled to have on the day he died. He had nobody he could talk to or who could help him when he lost $100,000 of his retirement savings to the faltering stock market.
Now Eldridge's body lies at Ruck Funeral Home in Towson - a viewing is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. tomorrow, memorial service at 11 a.m. Wednesday - his earthly remains saved from becoming a ward of the state and from a pauper's grave by the Baltimore homicide detective who got the case, went to the house and recognized the dead man as a colleague and an old acquaintance. He had "shot the breeze" with Eldridge years ago when the detective walked a foot post and the now-dead officer was the Police Department's Central District wagon man.
His name, with rank attached, was Agent Edward William Eldridge Jr. He joined the Baltimore Police Department on Aug. 4, 1972, and retired Aug. 6, 1998. He had earned a degree in business and public administration from the University of Maryland, was drafted into the Army and sent to Okinawa to guard underground missile silos.
"He served his country for two years and he served this city for 26 years," Detective Randy Wynn said after he claimed the body at the morgue. "At the very least he deserves a proper send-off."
The detective is trying to get current and retired police officers to come to services for Eldridge, and he plans to display nearly two dozen certificates and commendations he found after spending days digging through boxes and bags at the house where Eldridge grew up and died.
Wynn found a neighbor who told him Eldridge fixed bicycles for the kids - there were parts scattered in his basement - and gave them money for candy. There were 40 names in Eldridge's address book, and Wynn called them all. Every single number went to a business where people had dealt with Eldridge but didn't really know him. Only his retired accountant thought Eldridge's demeanor had soured - "that he didn't seem the way he used to be," Wynn said.
He had lost contact with the cops he had worked with, most recently in the Northeast District.
He was so alone that he worried nobody would find his body after he died - maybe they wouldn't care enough to even look.
It was Jan. 29, a Thursday, at 9:09 in the morning, the day his surgery was scheduled, that he called 911 and told an operator, "Ma'am, I'm planning to shoot myself."
His voice was as steady and cavalier as someone ordering a pizza. He was polite, not a trace of urgency or hesitation. "I don't want the body to stink up the neighbor's house," he said into the phone.
The operator asked whether he had any weapons, and he said he had two. She asked where he was, and he told her he was in his upstairs back bedroom, and that he had left the front door unlocked so officers could get inside.
He had a .40-caliber Glock and a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver.
Eldridge chose the Glock - the kind of gun carried by city police - to end his life. The operator was still on the line when he pulled the trigger.
It's hard to imagine being so alone, and the extent and reason for whatever emotions caused him to take his life may never be fully known or understood. For Detective Wynn, who gets paid to immerse himself in this city's overabundance of death and despair, this case is a stark reminder that people need to help each other and ask for help for themselves.
Wynn could have shoved this file aside, written a perfunctory report and moved on. But he is driven to get others to care about a man who should not have been allowed to die as he lived - without family, without friends, without someone knowing even a little about him.
For the detective, who has spent 40 years on the city force, it's a lesson to get friends outside the job. "When you're in uniform, everybody knows who you are," he said. "Then all of a sudden you retire, and nobody knows who you are. After being in his house and reading his stuff for 12 hours, I realized he didn't have a friend in the world."
Eldridge was born June 27, 1946, at Union Memorial Hospital and grew up on Daywalt Avenue. His parents were both from Philadelphia; his father worked as a clerk at Sparrows Point. He graduated from Polytechnic Institute in 1964 and headed off to the University of Maryland.
Wynn made a list of Eldridge's varied and prodigious studies: introduction to business; introduction to philosophy; public speaking; introduction to world literature; general chemistry; Western civilization; social psychology; principles of government and politics; accounting; marketing principles and organization; auditing theory; income tax accounting; business statistics; and civil rights law.
The Army drafted him the year he graduated, 1968, but he was spared Vietnam and sent to train for a year at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, where he earned a marksman's badge for the M-16 before heading off to Japan. While on duty there, he had a security clearance, studied the Japanese language, attended a law enforcement program and rose to the rank of sergeant.
He lived alone in a small semidetached, red-brick house on Daywalt Avenue in Northeast Baltimore. He had no wife, no known children, no brothers, no sisters, and his parents died years ago. He listed his only aunt as a beneficiary, but she, too, had passed away.He had no friends, at least none close enough or willing enough to stay with him at the hospital for a few hours so he could undergo the arthroscopic knee surgery he was scheduled to have on the day he died. He had nobody he could talk to or who could help him when he lost $100,000 of his retirement savings to the faltering stock market.
Now Eldridge's body lies at Ruck Funeral Home in Towson - a viewing is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. tomorrow, memorial service at 11 a.m. Wednesday - his earthly remains saved from becoming a ward of the state and from a pauper's grave by the Baltimore homicide detective who got the case, went to the house and recognized the dead man as a colleague and an old acquaintance. He had "shot the breeze" with Eldridge years ago when the detective walked a foot post and the now-dead officer was the Police Department's Central District wagon man.
His name, with rank attached, was Agent Edward William Eldridge Jr. He joined the Baltimore Police Department on Aug. 4, 1972, and retired Aug. 6, 1998. He had earned a degree in business and public administration from the University of Maryland, was drafted into the Army and sent to Okinawa to guard underground missile silos.
"He served his country for two years and he served this city for 26 years," Detective Randy Wynn said after he claimed the body at the morgue. "At the very least he deserves a proper send-off."
The detective is trying to get current and retired police officers to come to services for Eldridge, and he plans to display nearly two dozen certificates and commendations he found after spending days digging through boxes and bags at the house where Eldridge grew up and died.
Wynn found a neighbor who told him Eldridge fixed bicycles for the kids - there were parts scattered in his basement - and gave them money for candy. There were 40 names in Eldridge's address book, and Wynn called them all. Every single number went to a business where people had dealt with Eldridge but didn't really know him. Only his retired accountant thought Eldridge's demeanor had soured - "that he didn't seem the way he used to be," Wynn said.
He had lost contact with the cops he had worked with, most recently in the Northeast District.
He was so alone that he worried nobody would find his body after he died - maybe they wouldn't care enough to even look.
It was Jan. 29, a Thursday, at 9:09 in the morning, the day his surgery was scheduled, that he called 911 and told an operator, "Ma'am, I'm planning to shoot myself."
His voice was as steady and cavalier as someone ordering a pizza. He was polite, not a trace of urgency or hesitation. "I don't want the body to stink up the neighbor's house," he said into the phone.
The operator asked whether he had any weapons, and he said he had two. She asked where he was, and he told her he was in his upstairs back bedroom, and that he had left the front door unlocked so officers could get inside.
He had a .40-caliber Glock and a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver.
Eldridge chose the Glock - the kind of gun carried by city police - to end his life. The operator was still on the line when he pulled the trigger.
It's hard to imagine being so alone, and the extent and reason for whatever emotions caused him to take his life may never be fully known or understood. For Detective Wynn, who gets paid to immerse himself in this city's overabundance of death and despair, this case is a stark reminder that people need to help each other and ask for help for themselves.
Wynn could have shoved this file aside, written a perfunctory report and moved on. But he is driven to get others to care about a man who should not have been allowed to die as he lived - without family, without friends, without someone knowing even a little about him.
For the detective, who has spent 40 years on the city force, it's a lesson to get friends outside the job. "When you're in uniform, everybody knows who you are," he said. "Then all of a sudden you retire, and nobody knows who you are. After being in his house and reading his stuff for 12 hours, I realized he didn't have a friend in the world."
Eldridge was born June 27, 1946, at Union Memorial Hospital and grew up on Daywalt Avenue. His parents were both from Philadelphia; his father worked as a clerk at Sparrows Point. He graduated from Polytechnic Institute in 1964 and headed off to the University of Maryland.
Wynn made a list of Eldridge's varied and prodigious studies: introduction to business; introduction to philosophy; public speaking; introduction to world literature; general chemistry; Western civilization; social psychology; principles of government and politics; accounting; marketing principles and organization; auditing theory; income tax accounting; business statistics; and civil rights law.
The Army drafted him the year he graduated, 1968, but he was spared Vietnam and sent to train for a year at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, where he earned a marksman's badge for the M-16 before heading off to Japan. While on duty there, he had a security clearance, studied the Japanese language, attended a law enforcement program and rose to the rank of sergeant.
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