North Georgia sheriffs, police chiefs and a prosecutor received an email from Patrick Doyle the day after Thanksgiving, announcing he needed a break.
Doyle, 47, the commander of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force, was rushed to a hospital earlier in the week. He thought he suffered a stroke, LaFayette Police Chief Benji Clift said. But in the hospital, a doctor told him his cancer had progressed. He needed intensive treatment.
The email’s recipients were surprised. Except for his family and a couple of close friends, Doyle kept his skin cancer diagnosis a secret for nine years. He hadn’t previously taken time off as he underwent treatment.
Staff Photo by Tim Barber/Chattanooga Times Free Press – In this 2012 file photo, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force Commander Patrick Doyle heads up the ground unit of a three-county air search for marijuana in LaFayette.“He never wavered,” Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said. “I never saw anything that would cause me to know he was ill or sick or battling cancer. He always showed up to work, was a hard worker. He was just one of the good guys.”
He remained optimistic. Clift ran into him at Bass Pro Shop the Saturday before Christmas, making last-minute gift purchases. Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Greg Ramey visited him the next day and said Doyle was happy. Friends exchanged text messages with him on Christmas. But the day after, his condition worsened. After three days in a hospital, Doyle died Sunday morning.