Ralph Sandars

Ralph Sandars was a Detective with the Hawthorne, California drug squad. He had previously served in the Army but had been discharged twelve years earlier. He had been married but had divorced some five years earlier and lived by himself in a one bedroom apartment in an older part of town.

It had been a slow day at the station with Sandars finishing up his paperwork right at quitting time. As he said to his partner Willie Payne, this was the first time he could recalled finishing his eight hour shift in eight hours. When he finished typing his report, he tossed it on his boss' desk, Lt. Joe Peroni, and headed home.

When he arrived home, he turned on his TV set in time for the six o'clock news which he watched as he prepared his supper. The big story was a drug bust on a tramp freighter in San Pedro Harbour. The Libertad was registered in Panama but sailed from Colombia and was discovered by Federal Agents to be carrying 100 kg of caffeine, with a street value of $8,000,000. The captain Rafael Ramos, the first mate Jorge Antonio San martin and three others, all Colombians, faced smuggling charges.