'Everything was Coming Together for Her': Mourners Honor Fallen N.Y. Deputy
By Jon Moss
Source syracuse.com
FULTON, NY — The past year was one of the best of Cailee Campbell’s life.
She was working her dream job as a patrol officer with the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office. She and her boyfriend, Josh Cruz, were planning to get married and start a family.
“Everything was coming together for her,” said her brother, Kyle.
Campbell, 33, of Central Square, died Wednesday when her patrol car was struck in a rural intersection in the town of Volney while she was responding to a call for a car crash.
On Tuesday, hundreds of friends, family and law enforcement gathered at Fulton Alliance Church for her funeral.
Police officers travelled from as far as Buffalo and Dutchess County. They lined up outside the church and saluted her casket as it was brought in and then out.
A three-volley salute was fired in her honor. Two helicopters, including the one from the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office, where Campbell once worked, flew over the church. An oversized U.S. flag, lifted by two fire trucks, swayed in the wind.
Friends and co-workers spoke at the service of their favorite memories of Campbell.
Cruz, her boyfriend, said he first met Campbell by accident. It was the day they would be sworn in as custody deputies, and she helped point him toward the auditorium where the ceremony would be held. They would end up seated next to each other based on alphabetical order.
“I had not the slightest idea that she had all the pieces that I had missing,” he said.
Cruz said he enjoyed spending time with Campbell, especially at Chimney Bluffs State Park on the shores of Lake Ontario. They would hop in a truck and go on hikes or trips to the range, he said.
Campbell was known for her bubbly, outgoing personality and how she cared for others around her. Among those she lifted up were fellow members of the so-called “fantastic four” women who attended the academy together.
Oswego County deputy Jea Adams told mourners how she felt overwhelmed on the first day at the academy, and hoped another woman would walk in. Then Campbell did.
“I remember the feeling of relief that settled in,” said Adams, who was flanked by the two other surviving members of the group as she spoke. “She never knew it, but that was the first time that I truly felt like I would be OK taking on this job.”
Adams said Campbell would help her with anything she needed, like when she poured them each a glass of wine and got to work polishing their work boots.
“You offered me guidance, clarity, hope and friendship,” she said. “Somewhere along the line, you became family to all of us.”
Campbell’s love extended to more than just people. She enjoyed animals and had two cats, Ginger and Mia.
Oswego County Sheriff’s Lt. Brian Wills recalled when Campbell pulled over in a rainstorm to help a snapping turtle safely cross four lanes of traffic. And then had to ask for help when her patrol car sunk into mud.
Wills recalled summoning Campbell to his office to say it wasn’t worth all that to help a turtle.
“I knew as I was saying this that she wasn’t listening to me,” he said, “and that her heart was way too big.”
Wills acknowledged that even though Campbell was “blue to the core,” her path to becoming a patrol officer was not straight.
In 2019, she was hired as a custody deputy with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office. Then, she went back to the police academy to become a patrol officer. That was derailed when her mother, Mary Drake, died in 2021 after a battle with cancer.
Campbell later went back to the academy and passed last year.
Wills noted that she did eventually earn badge No. 3142 and had been working for the last 17 months as a patrol officer with the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office. And Campbell was “a damn good one,” he said.
Long-time friends said at the funeral that Campbell was more than a deputy, and she was a loyal and compassionate friend to others.
Campbell forged deep relationships with some of her childhood friends, so close to each other that they considered themselves sisters and a family of sorts.
Ashley Contini said the bond also extended to the next generation. Campbell wanted to help care for her friends’ kids and filled with “extreme pride” when called an aunt, she said. There was a special room where kids could sleepover in Campbell’s apartment in Central Square.
“Not only willing, but eager and excited, by the idea of taking an eight-week-old baby overnight,” she joked of Campbell.
Campbell made sure her devotion to her friends was felt, Contini said. She would end every encounter by saying, “I love you.”
“Those words are sometimes not said enough to one another,” Contini said. “But with her, she always made sure you knew she loved you.”
Amanda Wentworth, another long-time friend, said she was excited by how Campbell was “madly in love” with Cruz. It was the first time she had seen Campbell be vulnerable around a guy, she said.
“It seemed like she was finally getting to live the life she deserved,” she said.
Wentworth encouraged those filling the church pews to love the way Campbell did — “deeply and unconditionally.”
“I know I will,” she said.
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