George Reich, 79, of Bohemia, church deacon, retired NYPD, has died

By his wife Linda's estimate, George Reich went to about 2,500 crime scenes as a forensic scientist in ballistics for the NYPD, helping to solve murders and other crimes as he closely examined bullets.

But he had another life, also, as a churchman. After he retired from the NYPD and the Suffolk County Crime Lab, Reich became an ordained deacon in the Roman Catholic Church on Long Island. For years he worked in Catholic Charities’ Parish Social Ministry, helping the needy.

Colleagues and relatives said both lives had a common theme for Reich, a longtime Bohemia resident who died Saturday at age 79: service.

“Service is kind of essential to who we are as a community,” said the Rev. Joseph Schlafer, pastor of St. John Nepomucene in Bohemia, where Reich had been a parishioner since 1973. “You can do that as a policeman, you can do that as a deacon. It’s different kinds of service.”

Reich “just lived a wonderful life of what I would call loving, joyful service,” Schlafer said. “He was an example of what it means to live the values of the gospel. He was an example for all of us.”

His wife, Linda Sherlock-Reich, said, “He was like an angel on earth. So many people spoke to him, shared their woes with him. He touched the world.”

George Reich was born and raised in the Bronx, attending St. Raymond’s grammar school and then Fordham Prep for high school. From there he would join the NYPD, inspired by an uncle who worked in the ballistics section of the department.

As a detective and member of the team himself, Reich would go to shooting scenes and morgues, checking bodies, bullets and guns, and doing microscopic examinations to link — or not link — them, said his wife, who herself was a forensic scientist in the Suffolk County Crime Lab, where they met.

Reich became well-respected both in the NYPD, where he spent two decades, and later in the Suffolk lab.

“He was a consummate professional," said Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, who was an assistant district attorney in the 1990s when he worked with Reich. "He was a great guy. A great forensic examiner."

Reich was often called upon to testify at trials, Tierney said.

“George was the guy you relied upon because he really looked out for you, and really had a tremendous amount of expertise."

In the late 1990s, Reich was brought into a re-examination of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in part at the request of the civil rights icon's family, according to Tierney and Reich's wife.

Questions had been raised about who killed King, with allegations surfacing that “suggest that persons other than or in addition to James Earl Ray participated in the assassination,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice's website.

Reich was one of three ballistics experts who traveled to a lab in Rhode Island to conduct tests and examinations of the bullet and gun that killed King, his wife said. The investigation did not reach any new conclusions about King's murder.

Around the same time, Reich was moving full-time into his other passion: church work.

He and his wife went through training with the Diocese of Rockville Centre’s Pastoral Formation Institute, which prepared lay people to work in parishes.

He took a full-time job with Catholic Charities, helping to head their social ministry programs.

“His heart and passion was more toward people and not guns and crime anymore,” his wife said.

Yet there was a connection with his police work, she said, as he partly saw the church work as a way of preventing people from getting into bad situations.

“What can we do to help people before they get to that point where they are committing a crime,” was a theme that drove her husband, Linda Sherlock-Reich said.

“I know the people in need get to the point where they become in our eyes criminals," she said, "but a lot of times they are working out of survival and they do something because they are trying to survive.”

Laura A. Cassell, CEO of Catholic Charities of Long Island, said that after Reich retired from the social ministry team, he remained active with the organization, serving as its longtime chaplain.

Reich “held a very special place in the hearts of families we helped after 9/11, as well as those who were devastated by Superstorm Sandy,” Cassell said. “He helped build a better, gentler Long Island and brought comfort and healing to everyone he met.”

Besides his wife, Reich is survived by sons Brad, of Lindenhurst, Brian, of Patchogue, Christopher, of Wantagh, and  Frank, of Pennsylvania.

A wake will be held Wednesday from noon to 4 p.m. at Raynor & D’Andrea Funeral Home in Bayport. A Mass of the Transferal will be held on Wednesday at 8 p.m. at St. John Nepomucene, with a funeral Mass there at noon on Thursday.

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to St. John’s Parish Outreach, 1140 Locust Ave, Bohemia, New York, 11716, or Catholic Charities CARES Program, 90 Cherry Lane, Hicksville, New York 11801.