Richard Forbes Barrett Sr., 78, Retired Police Chief, FBI Agent

Richard Forbes Barrett Sr., a one-time Hoquiam police captain whose career took him to California as a police chief then to the FBI and finally into private investigations, died Sunday. He was 78.

Mr. Barrett, a longtime Bainbridge Island resident, died in Olympia.

Friends and associates recall Mr. Barrett's keen eye for detail and his habit of leaving literally no stone unturned.

"He was a very good agent, very thorough," remembers Edward Brekke, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who worked with Mr. Barrett before retiring to Milwaukie, Ore.

FBI colleague Harry Wilson, now retired, was trained in firearms by Mr. Barrett at the Fort Lewis range before joining him in the Seattle office in 1960.

"He was a very highly regarded agent, well known for his meticulous work," Wilson says. "I worked with him on his last case and he was just as enthusiastic and as thorough to the last detail. But he also knew how to have a good time.

"Every summer he had a salmon bake at his Bainbridge Island house for former FBI agents, and then you'd see more of his fun side," Wilson recalled. Mr. Barrett was keenly interested in electronics and became expert enough at polygraph procedures to do consulting in the field.

Mr. Barrett's son, Richard, recalls his father's successful work in a number of cases from kidnapping to bank robbery.

He also remembers an unusual case his father solved in Hoquiam: "One citizen had a fur rug which mysteriously kept increasing in size, about the same time a number of cats disappeared. It turns out the fellow was a cat hater who used to greet all felines with his .22."

Born in Aberdeen, Mr. Barrett began a 28-year law-enforcement career in Hoquiam, where he served as police captain. He later moved to Santa Maria, Calif., where he was chief of police.

After graduation from the FBI academy at Quantico, Va., Mr. Barrett began FBI service in Los Angeles at the beginning of World War II.

He held field assignments in Jackson, Miss., Denver, Portland, Chicago and Seattle. He retired from the Seattle FBI field office in 1963.

With other retired agents, Mr. Barrett then began a Seattle private-investigation business.

In one of his more public cases, a 1969 Pacific Trail arson, Mr. Barrett's investigations led to the arrest and subsequent conviction of the arsonist.

After the death of his wife of 46 years, Elma Paavila, Mr. Barrett moved from Bainbridge Island, where he had lived since 1957, to Olympia.

He is survived by a son, Richard, of Seattle; a daughter, Barbara, of Albuquerque, New Mexico; and two brothers, Jack Baker of Coeur d'Alene and Ned Baker of Salem, Ore.

Remembrances may be made through contributions to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute.