Alva William Busch

Hard to believe he is gone. I met Alva several years ago . He was an investigator on several death penalty cases that came through the doors of the Capital Trial Office of the State of Illinois. On one particular case I was tasked with putting together a notebook of crime scene photos. This was my first crime scene . At a team meeting Alva asked for the book . He opened it and said "Well I can tell whoever put this together didn't know what they were doing." After the meeting I told him it...

We had many a good times with Linda and Al. At the wineries in Missouri and At Christmas time in Chicago. He will be missed. Our prayers go out to his family.

Is it a coincidence that me and a friend were on vacation in Colorado a couple of years ago and stopped in Idaho Springs for the day? Wish I had known he was there. I remember my 1st encounter with Alva as he was a patrolman with Collinsville PD and came by the new lab in Fairview Heights to say 'hi' ... 1973. I miss him.

One time Al was dropping me off at school and he was telling me how excited he was for his first book to be published. He said and I quote "it´s like if you went to a professional hockey game and sat behind the dugout." I started cracking up and he didn´t understand why :-D

Alva always tried to pass off as a tough guy who didn't have a soft side. In fact he could be a BIG softee. He just had a tough time showing that side of himself. I'd walked into his office one day as he was hanging up the phone with Linda and he just grunted and mumbled and hung up. I got on him about hanging up the phone with his wife without telling her he loved her. I then told him a story about a friend who'd lost a parent and had failed to tell them he loved them and the regret he...