Retired NYPD Det. Sgt. Christopher Tully of Commack, who helped recover remains from 9/11, has died at 52

Det. Sgt. Chris Tully's wife, Agnes, was on a train out of Little Neck, bound for the ferry to her job in Weehawken, New Jersey, knowing her husband was at home asleep after working the night shift for the NYPD.

It was Sept. 11, 2001, and as the train came around the bend, she saw smoke rising from the North Tower of the World Trade Center and thought there must have been a fire at the Windows on the World restaurant.

By the time she was in the middle of the Hudson, she knew it was something far more catastrophic. And when she finally contacted her newlywed husband, he told her just what she'd expected.

"He said, 'I'm on my way down, I'm on my way,'" she recalled this week.

Agnes Tully said she felt overwhelming relief when she heard from him again late that night. Neither knew the terrible seed that had been planted, that would take root in the weeks to come, as Chris Tully worked sifting through remains, first at Ground Zero and later at the forensic yard at Fresh Kills on Staten Island, leading to the cancer that would take him years later.

Retired Det. Sgt. Christopher Michael Tully, of Commack, who served with the NYPD Intelligence Bureau, died Saturday after a four-year battle with 9/11-related cancer. He was 52.

Besides his wife, he is survived by their son, Connor, 15, and his mother, Barbara Tully.

"He was a family man, he was the best of friends," Agnes Tully said. "He loved his job, no matter how bad, and I don't know how a cop could love the job, sometimes, but he did. He was an amazing person … He just loved life."

Chris Tully was born Feb. 15, 1969, and grew up in Glen Oaks, lone child of a single mother, graduating Martin Van Buren High School, later taking classes at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He was already with the NYPD when he met Agnes Petronzio, though the two of them had lived their entire lives up the block from one another on 73rd Avenue. She was five years his junior, but the two had mutual friends, and one night he sat down at her table at a bar in Bayside.

It was October 1997. Two days later, she said, he called and asked her out.

"He had such a beautiful smile," she said, recalling a conversation they had about his philosophy on life. "You don't cut corners," he told her, "you do it right the first time."

When he asked her out again, he said, "You can come over and I'll make you dinner." She'd asked if he planned on heating up something in the microwave. Little did she know how good a cook he was, how serious he was about all he did.

"For an Irishman," she said, "he made the best Italian."

She laughed about how she later became his sous chef.

At the time, Tully had just been promoted out of Street Crimes. As the relationship bloomed, he decided to ask Agnes to marry him on New Year's Eve 1999 into 2000, but had to work, so he proposed on Christmas Eve 1999 instead. They got married May 11, 2001.

In the aftermath of the terror attacks, Agnes Tully asked her husband repeatedly how he kept sifting through the remains of those who died on 9/11.

He told her, she recalled: " 'This is what you do, you've got to get answers for the families.' I couldn't even wrap my head around it … But that was Chris."

Over the years, the couple and their son, Connor, traveled, buying a motor home and converting it to a four-wheel-drive, spending time on the beach in Montauk, or out in Greenport, or down in North Carolina.

Then in April 2017 a PSA test came back "with a blip," Agnes Tully said, hinting he might have prostate cancer, one of the many cancers related to 9/11. Soon there was a biopsy. By July, Chris Tully found out he was at stage 1. By the time he got to Sloan Kettering in August he was diagnosed at stage 4.

He went through experimental treatments, clinical trials, anything and everything, Agnes Tully said, as he fought to live. One experimental medicine was so toxic Chris Tully went blind for five days. Still, Agnes said, her husband cherished every moment he could with family, planning huge Halloween celebrations he loved to share with his son, traveling when he could, spending as much time as he could get.

During the pandemic "Our home became our place," Agnes Tully said. "We tried to live the best life we could."

There was talk of going to Germany for one last experimental treatment in June, only to learn cancer had spread to the liver, Agnes said. "He was told he had two months to live," she said. "He died two months and 10 days later."

Following a wake at Moloney's Hauppauge Funeral Home, Christopher Michael Tully will be celebrated Friday at Christ the King Roman Catholic Church in Commack. There will be a private burial at Northport Rural Cemetery, with Line of Duty honors provided by the NYPD Ceremonial Unit.

Agnes Tully says her husband would have been moved by the outpouring of love.

"The tributes that have been posted," she said. "The things people have written about him. So many people loved him. It's incredible. He would've been proud."

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”