The Last Chance

The Last Chance (TLC) is a private nonprofit that organizes experienced investigators and forensic specialists to work on cold cases that law-enforcement agencies have stopped pursuing. Founded by Hedda Brinker after the unsolved murder of her daughter, it offers families a renewed chance to seek answers and gives investigators a structured way to volunteer their expertise. Its work on Roseanne Orozco’s case shows both the promise of that mission and the procedural difficulties that arise when a private organization tries to move an old investigation forward.

Origins and Founding Purpose

The organization grew out of Hedda Brinker’s effort to find help for the unsolved murder of her daughter, Ursula Brinker. According to Ralph Ames, Toby Brinker believed the killer was well connected and that a cover-up might explain why the case had never been solved. Several private investigators hired by Toby were unable to identify a viable suspect, however, and found no evidence of a cover-up. The family’s prolonged failure to obtain an answer remained central to Hedda’s interest in cold-case work.

Hedda had seen a television program about the Vidocq Society and tried to persuade it to take Ursula’s case. The group declined. She then asked Ames whether she had enough money to create a similar organization on the West Coast, extending its reach from the Mississippi westward. Ames initially advised that such an undertaking would require more funding than she had. After winning a jackpot, Hedda established a nonprofit through which the proceeds could be paid; she did not collect the first proceeds until that structure was in place. The resulting organization was named The Last Chance, a name reflecting the possibility of renewed attention for cases that had otherwise been set aside.

Membership and Investigative Structure

TLC admits members by invitation rather than through open enrollment. It seeks mostly retired police investigators and forensic experts whom it believes share its aims and will be motivated by the challenge of helping solve cases regarded as intractable. The organization’s design combines volunteer labor with financial and administrative support: investigators donate their services and expertise, while TLC covers expenses, laboratory facilities and analyses, and clerical and other support personnel.

The group holds monthly meetings, mostly in Phoenix and sometimes in Denver. Family members generally present the cases, bringing their understanding of the victim and their knowledge of how local authorities have handled the investigation. TLC may assign a case to two or three members, or members may vote to approach it collectively. This arrangement lets the organization vary the scale of its response while giving relatives a forum beyond the agencies they believe are unwilling or unable to commit further resources.

G. T. Farrell, a founding member, illustrates the organization’s connection to earlier investigations. He was a young campus police officer at Arizona State University when Ursula Brinker was murdered and remained in contact with Hedda and Toby Brinker over the years. His interest in having Brandon Walker join TLC links the organization’s founding case to its later work: the unresolved murder that prompted Hedda to seek help becomes part of the network through which another investigator is recruited.

Members and a Renewed Investigative Purpose

Brandon Walker had doubts about whether the organization could solve a case that had resisted earlier efforts for decades. When Ames described TLC, Brandon noted that even the private investigators hired by the Brinker family had failed to find an answer. Ames did not promise a solution. Instead, he presented the possibility that a case might eventually be solved and explained how Hedda had turned her own experience into an organization intended to assist other families.

Brandon accepted the invitation. He later questioned whether his quick decision had made him seem desperate, but six months afterward he recognized that joining Ames and TLC had given him back a sense of life and purpose. The work was not abstract to him: following Fat Crack Ortiz’s involvement, Brandon became responsible for shepherding a new case into and through the organization. His return to investigative work thus came through an institution built by someone else’s unresolved loss, a source of renewed purpose that also left him aware of the grief on which the opportunity rested.

The Orozco Case in Practice

Emma Orozco came to TLC seeking help with her daughter Roseanne’s unsolved murder. Brandon explained that the group was a private organization founded by Hedda Brinker after the murder of her own daughter, and that its stated purpose was to help other people. Roseanne’s case had not been actively investigated by law enforcement; Brandon told Fran Daly that he was working it through TLC rather than as an official Pima County case. That distinction defines both the organization’s opportunity and its limits: TLC could pursue a case that had gone cold, but it did not possess the authority or status of an active police investigation.

The case also shows how TLC’s work depended on listening to people whose earlier attempts to contribute had been ignored. Andrea Tashquinth had tried to tell the tribal police that Roseanne’s disappearance might be connected to the hospital where she had been treated, but at sixteen she felt no one was interested in her views. Years later, she again identified the hospital as a possible source of answers. Emma, meanwhile, challenged a hospital employee’s claim that no admission record for Roseanne existed: the employee had found records for Emma’s own stays, including Roseanne’s birth. Brandon’s approach to Emma was shaped by his understanding that direct questioning could be considered impolite in her community; he began with an observation rather than a blunt question. The renewed investigation therefore depended not only on records and research but on creating circumstances in which neglected testimony could be heard.

TLC’s role did not remove the complications of evidence handling. Emma arranged for Roseanne’s baby’s coffin to be exhumed without first obtaining tribal council permission, because she believed that the formal process would take too long. Brandon recognized that this had produced the remains quickly but had compromised the chain of evidence. As a TLC investigator, he felt caught between the need to obtain results for the family and the need to preserve evidence that could support accountability in court. The episode makes clear that the organization’s independence can enable action where official investigations have stalled, but that moving faster does not automatically satisfy legal or community procedures.

Research Capacity and Significance

TLC could support work beyond a single investigator’s interviews. Ralph Ames’s researchers assembled extensive material on Lawrence Stryker and Gayle Stryker, including biographical and public records, news coverage of their charitable work, and campaign-disclosure forms. In the accumulated material, Brandon found a short article from a congressional oversight inquiry concerning the Indian Health Service. It listed Lawrence Stryker among physicians dismissed after allegations of sexual impropriety. The discovery demonstrates the value of the organization’s research support: an obscure item buried among a large dossier could redirect attention in a case that had long lacked a viable lead.

TLC’s significance rests in the space it occupies between family grief and formal investigation. It does not guarantee that a cold case will be solved, and it cannot simply replace public law enforcement. Instead, it offers expertise, resources, and renewed attention when relatives believe official agencies have reached a dead end. Through Hedda Brinker’s unanswered search, Brandon Walker’s return to purposeful work, and Emma Orozco’s demand that her daughter’s case be reconsidered, the organization turns private loss into a collective investigative effort—while remaining answerable to the practical demands of evidence, procedure, and the people whose cases it takes on.