On March 14, 1987, Lancaster County Sheriff's Deputy Craig Dodge paid the ultimate price protecting the lives of others. People who knew Dodge say he was a brave man and his friends and colleagues remember him as person you could depend on.

The 42-year-old Lincoln Southeast graduate spent much of his life helping others in need. On that fateful morning in March of '87, Dodge responded to a domestic assault call in Hickman. Barb and Craig Dodge had only been married for 3 years at the time of the shooting. Barb had found the man of her dreams and she was ready to spend the rest of her life with him, "We were very much in love and we thought we had forever together you do, you just think you're going to get old together you think you're going to, you think you're going to get old together and you have plans for retirement and things we were going to do."

Barb says Craig was in the prime of his life, "He was a lot of fun, silly sense of humor, goofy and just a lot of fun."

Dodge was a giver and he loved to serve his fellow man. He and his brother founded the Eastern Ambulance Company in Lincoln and he ran that business for 25 years. He had only been with the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office for 2 years at the time of the shooting but he had found the perfect job, "He loved his job. He'd go to work, come home and say 'I can't believe they pay me to do this.' He'd get ready for work in the morning and he'd straighten his tie and say 'Look out bad guys, I'm on.'"

But for all the tough talk, Dodge enjoyed resolution than the conflict, "He loved doing it and he loved the peace officer part of law enforcement not so much apprehending the bad guys but being able to intervene and solve problems and to help people negotiate and get through things, he had a real calm head. He really liked that part of it, he liked the people he worked with, he liked the department."

And the department liked him. Craig Dodge's memory burns bright for Chief Deputy Bill Jarrett, "He just cared about people, no matter what he did he always gravitated back to the helping people service."

Jarrett says Deputy Dodge was destined for greatness, "It was pretty obvious from the onset that Craig was going to be one of those deputies that you could rely on, that you knew as far as a back-up that he was going to be one of the first guys there, that he was going to get there as quick as he could."

Jarrett says the U.S. Marine Corps Veteran had the maturity and business savvy that was going to take him places, "You knew Craig was eventually going to be a sergeant, probably a captain and who knows where he could have been had he not been shot and killed that day."

And the person responsible for that killing is Terry Reynolds, he's serving a life sentence at the Omaha Correctional Center.

Coming up in part two of my 4-part series, Reynolds speaks out for the first time in 22 years. The focus is on the morning of the shooting and the events surrounding the tragedy. You'll hear how Craig Dodge fearlessly put his life on the line to help save lives those in need. That's coming up Monday night at 6 and 10.