‘Superman’ Dave Madsen good cop, dad, husband

A glimpse at David Madsen’s life reveals that he lived up to the words he told his mom during his last days: “I tried to be a good man.”

“And he was,” his wife, Tricia Madsen, said tearfully. “He always tried to do the right thing.”

Spokane County Sheriff’s Detective Dave Madsen died from a short yet courageous, battle with cancer at the age of 53. He was diagnosed on May 12, and he died on May 29.

Tricia, Madsen’s wife of nearly 30 years, said her husband was a good cop, dad, son, husband, coach and friend.

He lived the philosophy that he imparted to his children: “Do your best; then you’ll be proud of it.”

“I could tell you how so much of his intelligence, strength, faith, humor and kindness, but you already know,” Tricia Madsen said. “I can tell you he was loved.”

Many knew Madsen for his work with the Sheriff’s Office, but other than being a great detective, his co-workers described him as a true family man who didn’t spend much time with co-workers outside the job.

Dave Madsen was father to five children – four girls and one boy.

“He loved babies,” Tricia Madsen said. After four kids, the couple still wanted another child, and Dave told his wife, “if a baby lands on our doorstep, it’s ours.”

When Tricia Madsen found out a family friend’s daughter was giving a child up for adoption, she called. She knew her husband would approve.

Maggie, now 9, was a gift, she said. She called Dave “Dadden” for several years, which was his favorite nickname.

“Our dad was Superman,” his daughter Jenny wrote in a speech she read at his funeral. “We always thought of him as only ours, having touched all our lives so significantly, but I can see now that he also affected others in big and small ways with his disarming personality and generous spirit.”

Tricia Madsen described her husband as a very involved father. He told one of the kids when he was dying: “You’ve been the loves of my life.”

Even with a busy career, he managed to coach at least one of his girls’ softball teams each year and still make it to the other kids’ games.

“We went to all their games,” she said. “In the summer we’d have eight games a week, plus practices, and we were coaching two of the teams. I can only think of a handful of games he missed. He’d show up in his detective’s car. He rarely missed a game.”

“We were the luckiest kids in the world,” Jenny wrote. “We never once had to ask him to play catch with us. He would already have all the equipment in the back of the car and would take us down to the school for extra batting practice and grounders. We would each field his incredibly hard-hit grounders until we were confident enough for our next game.”

Tricia said Dave often sacrificed his own desires for his children and she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

She said their Spokane Valley home is currently without some carpet because one of their daughters, who had a full-ride scholarship to a state college, chose to go to Dartmouth University on the East Coast.

“The kids always had what they needed for sports or college,” Tricia Madsen said.

A conversation between Dave Madsen and his son indicates just a hint of the impact sports and their dad’s involvement had on the kids’ lives.

John came to the house and he was practically in Dave’s lap crying: “I wanted you to be my kids’ grandpa, and I wanted you to teach them how to play ball,” Tricia said of her son’s comments to his dad. “I will,” Dave replied. “When you teach them how, I will teach them through you.”

Dave Madsen’s love for children made the cases involving kids toughest for him, but it also made him good at working them, his wife said. The two shared a love for law enforcement, so when he was troubled about what he’d seen on the job, his wife could relate.

The two first met in a criminal justice class.

“The first time I saw him, I remember thinking, he’s mine,” Tricia Madsen said. The two were married in 1976.

“We didn’t really talk about the job a lot, though; we were too busy talking about kids and sports,” she said.

But they didn’t really have to discuss what it meant to have a spouse in law enforcement.

“I remember one time I was headed out to the Valley with a car full of kids and the news on the radio reported that there was a shooting up north, which was where he was working, and someone named Dave had been shot. They didn’t know if it was someone in law enforcement, a bystander, a victim, the bad guy, and I had always knew that if David was shot or killed that at least two people, a brass and someone else, would come to my door, so I turned around and went home,” she said. “He called me later to let me know he was OK.”

Dave Madsen was true to his career until the end. A couple of weeks before David Madsen died,he got a call at 3 a.m. to investigate a triple stabbing. He went and worked through the next day.

“He was honorable,” Tricia Madsen said. “If he made up his mind he was going to do something, he did it.

“He was such a strong person. He was able to be comforting even though he was dying. He had Maggie climb in bed with him at the hospital two days before he died and explained: Now you know death is pretty permanent.

“He never complained about the pain. He never complained.”

The only thing he insisted on while he was at the hospital was going home, so he could be in his own bed.

He wanted to rest and listen to his favorite CD – the “Out of Africa” soundtrack.

“He loved music. He played the bugle, the trumpet and the French horn,” his wife said.

When they got him home from the hospital,they put the CD on. “His favorite part, when the French horns started, was when he quit breathing. I leaned down and put my head on his chest. I could hear three more beats, and I knew he had just sort of gone off with the notes.”