First Responder Friday: Greenville County Sheriff’s Office veteran investigator

GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) – Greenville County Sheriff’s Investigator Jim Perry has come a long way since he started his law enforcement career more than a half-century ago.

So has Greenville.

“Back when I first started it, it was like the Wild West in downtown Greenville,” Perry said. “We had to get things done.”

Perry has spent more than 40 years with the agency. He started in the 1970s, but he left to start his own private investigator business in the 1980s and 1990s.

“The name of the company was Perry and Perry Investigations . Kind of like Simon & Simon (CBS TV show in the 1980s) It’s not like it is today. You didn’t have tracking devices. If you had to follow somebody, you had to do it Magnum PI -style without the Ferrari.”

The private detective business dried up for him in the early nineties and it was then back to the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office.

Perry’s career changed again in the early 2000s when he was asked to start the cell phone forensics unit.

“It may not be the smoking gun with the cell phone,” Perry told 7NEWS. “But they’re things that either they can catch the guy in a lie. People leave things on their cell phones and it ends up helping you.”

That unit now has seven members in all. Perry doesn’t deal with crimes against children anymore but handles all other cell phone forensics.

It requires him to stay up to date, or even ahead, of the latest technology. And don’t bother asking him about retirement.

“I’ve been saying for ten years, ‘I’m checking out’ and they just don’t believe me anymore,” according to Perry. “I said ‘y’all need to get somebody in. Let me train them on what we’re doing and everything else.'”

That day hasn’t happened yet for Perry and likely won’t for some time to come. “I’m tired of lying to people,” he said with a smile.

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