There was a night in the long and storied law enforcement career of John Dale Hartman in which he felt he was “on top of his game,” and he’s working on a book to tell the story of that very night.

On July 9, 1998, Hartman assisted in apprehending a man wanted in the killing of an 8-year-old Oklahoma girl.

He’d just finished his shift in North Franklin Township and went to work in Belle Vernon, where he was a part-time officer. He was called to Graham Street Park in North Belle Vernon to assist in the investigation of a suspicious looking van. It was a call he was on for about 2½ hours, but it was unlike any he’d ever responded to.

The driver was Michael Paul Drasher, who was traveling from Oklahoma to his mother’s home in Philadelphia. The van was in a very poor state, including having no license plate.

The fact that Drasher’s vehicle was found at a park raised some red flags, he said.

“He was facing the wrong way,” Hartman said. “Why would you do that if you’re tired and wanted to pull off? That was the first indication that I had that we had a problem.”

Even though other police officers had stopped Drasher along his route and even issued him tickets, none had taken the time to investigate all the evidence that would eventually lead to his arrest and eventual guilty plea for the murder of Jessica Dee Ann Price in Stillwell, Oklahoma.

“That was the highlight of my career,” Hartman said. “There was nothing I did beforehand or nothing I did after that, that is more important than what I did that night. I caught a guy who killed an 8-year-old girl. He sexually assaulted her and bashed her head in with a rock. Bottom line is, I got him. This was something that meant a lot to me personally and I wanted to share it.”

Drasher, who was then 26 years old, was eventually extradited and convicted in Oklahoma for using a large rock on July 5, 1998, to deliver fatal blows to the young girl in the head and face. He died on April 17, 2011 while serving a life sentence without parole.

Hartman’s work in the apprehension of Drasher earned him commendations from FBI offices in Pittsburgh and Oklahoma, and he wants to tell the tale of that night in a book on which he is working with author Michael Durkota. The title: “Good Cop: The Police Work That Derailed a Monster – The Murder of Jessica Dee Ann Price.”

“To tell this story, it requires an author,” Hartman explained. “I think it needs a professional to tell the story the way it needs to be told.”

Durkota, a former submariner in the U.S. Navy, wrote the fiction novel, “Once in a Blue Year,” which follows two friends during the Persian Gulf War as they struggle with their military service, adulthood and relationships.

He said he first met Hartman at a Rotary meeting.

“He said he had a story to tell and wanted to know if I’d be willing to help,” Durkota recalled. “It’s a different swim lane than I’m used to. I’m primarily a fiction writer. I saw the elements of the investigation, the history and the police force. They were intriguing. I saw the elements of a creative non-fiction.”

As for the “Good Cop” portion of the title, that comes from when Hartman showed his father John “Jack” Hartman his first accommodation from the FBI. The senior Hartman, who was dying of cancer, had a long career in law enforcement himself, spending 25 years with the Monroeville Police Department. The elder Hartman also was a prison guard at the Allegheny County Workhouse in Blawnox before that for about seven years.

“He started reading it and he started crying,” Hartman recalled. “He said he worked 30 years and never received anything like this. I said, ‘I got lucky, I was in the right place at the right time.’ He said, ‘No, you’re a good cop.’ That really started the whole concept of the good cop. If he wouldn’t have believed that he wouldn’t have said it. That’s why it meant so much to me.”

Hartman said the book is in “the infantile stages,” with much more work to be done.

Durkota, who lives in North Huntingdon, said the only two people who really know the whole story of the murder are no longer living so there are gaps to fill, such as what happened from the time Drasher left Oklahoma until the time he was apprehended in North Belle Vernon.

“A lot of good police work happened in 2 1/2 hours,” Durkota said. “What that unraveled was days and days, involving multiple people with many different cross connections, focusing on what put John there, what skills he had and what he was able to do and what put Drasher there. I want this to be a positive story about police.”

Also, Durkota would like to profile Drasher and what drove him to commit this crime.

“What he did in Oklahoma I believe was his first. He crossed a line,” Durkota said. “I don’t think you come back from that. We can’t prove that he acted out along the way. I would love to dig into those (gaps) and see if there’s any other suspicious activity reported, any other missing children or reports of harassment. I think he was unraveling. I think it was fate that brought (those) two together that night. I have no doubt that if John hadn’t done what he did (Drasher) would have killed again.”

There are interviews the pair would like to conduct, especially on the Oklahoma side of things. Hartman said they would like to meet the victim’s parents and possibly talk to Drasher’s sister or stepdaughters.

“We want to talk to the authorities,” Hartman said, adding he’d like to get the tickets Drasher was issued along the route. “We want to go to the area where she was from. We want to get a boots-on-the-ground view of this. We want to try to get a feel for who these people were.”

Hartman has had quite a career, made even more interesting by the fact that he did not become a police officer until the age of 40.

He started as a police officer in 1997 and retired in 2018. Prior to that, Hartman was a licensed private detective for 19 years.

Hartman established the Southwest Regional Police Department, which began in 2003, and retired as its chief. The department, which is based in Belle Vernon, currently covers the communities of Belle Vernon and Newell, in Fayette County, and Coal Center in Washington County.

Hartman has been hired back by the department as a consultant.

He’s also been an instructor at Penn State Fayette and teaches at the Beaver County Police Academy.

But nothing has resonated with him like the night of July 9, 1998.

“That night I was as good as any cop in the United States,” Hartman said. “I was on top of it. I’m going to tell you a story about what one cop did in 1998 that caught a real live bad guy and how he did it. I’m putting it out there to let someone know somewhere what it meant to at least one cop to be a cop.”