Chief Andrew Rademacher

Chief Andrew Rademacher is the head of the Derry Police Department during the 1985 resurgence of the town's cycle of child murders. A pragmatic and somewhat dismissive official, he represents the institutional skepticism that allows the supernatural horror to continue unchecked. His death, crushed by a falling tramp-chair in his own office, is a final, ironic testament to the town's enduring, inexplicable violence.

Role in the 1985 Murders

Rademacher is first seen interrogating fifteen-year-old Christopher Unwin after the murder of Adrian Mellon, pressing the boy for a confession while dismissing Unwin's story of a clown under the bridge as the "One-Armed Man Syndrome." He works closely with Assistant District Attorney Tom Boutillier to suppress the clown testimony, prioritizing a conviction over the truth. Later, when Mike Hanlon begins investigating the town's history of cyclical violence, Rademacher becomes annoyed, telling Hanlon he is "beginning to wonder if maybe you shouldn't see a doctor" and to "give it a rest." He refuses to share police photos and dismisses the high rate of child disappearances as kids getting "itchy feet." When confronted with the case of three-year-old Chad Lowe, who disappeared in 1958, Rademacher offers only a sour glance.

Confrontation with Mike Hanlon

On the night of May 30th, 1985, after Mike Hanlon is stabbed by Henry Bowers, Rademacher answers the phone at the Derry Public Library. He questions Beverly Rogan, who called to check on Mike, with suspicion, demanding her name and implying she has guilty knowledge of the assault. His aggressive questioning reveals his frustration and his inability to grasp the larger forces at work in Derry.

Death

Days after the storm and the collapse of downtown Derry, Rademacher is killed in his office. A four-hundred-pound iron "tramp-chair," a relic from the town's past stored in the attic above, falls through the water-weakened floor and crushes him as he sits at his desk. The official report blames structural damage from the flood, but the event is a bizarre and fitting end for a man who refused to see the darkness that had always been there.