Photo by Gage Vota Harry Trombitas , a 29-year FBI veteran, speaks about his book series "My Life as a Special Agent” to attendees at the Bethesda Community Center.

BETHESDA — Author and former FBI agent Harry Trombitas, a 29-year bureau veteran, shared stories from some of the most notable cases of his career Monday evening during a presentation at the Bethesda Community Center.

Trombitas spoke to attendees about his true crime book series, “My Life as a Special Agent.”

Trombitas became an FBI agent in 1983 and was assigned to the Omaha, St. Louis and New York divisions before transferring to the Columbus office in December 1991.

He said that he predominantly worked on violent crime cases, including serial murder, bank robbery, kidnapping, crimes against children, criminal profiling and threat assessment, until he retired from the bureau in 2012.

“I appreciate people having an interest in the books and the cases that I worked on. A lot of them had been on Discovery Channel and the FBI Files. I never intended to write any books, but after I retired, I had people telling me that I ought to write about what it was like to work the cases, because obviously there’s some interest since they’ve been on different T.V. shows and stuff,” Trombitas said. “Over the course of about three and a half years, I sat down writing three to four hours a day, three to four times a week and came up with a manuscript of 269,000 words. I sent the manuscript to the FBI pre-publication unit for approval. I submitted it and got an email back saying you’ll hear from us in four to five weeks, and about a year and a half later, I finally got the approval.”

Trombitas has completed a four-book series detailing his time working for the FBI.

His first book, “My Life as an FBI Special Agent: The Thomas Lee Dillon Case,” details the case of a serial murderer who shot and killed five outdoorsmen over three years in southeastern Ohio, leaving anyone who ventured outside afraid and looking over their shoulder.

Dillon murdered Bannock resident Jamie Paxton. In 1991, The Times Leader received a letter that has been credited with helping in the murder investigation. In that typewritten letter, Dillon identified himself as “The murderer of Jamie Paxton.”

The second book is “My Life as an FBI Special Agent: Murders, Motors, The Mob, and The Money,” which tracks his career from the FBI Academy to his first office in Omaha, where he worked a serial murder case involving the abduction and murder of three young boys over about a year.

“Then it was on to St. Louis, where I worked on an undercover car theft case, then to New York, where I worked on organized crime families, including John Gotti, then back to Columbus, where I spent my last 22 years before I hit the mandatory retirement age of 57,” Trombitas said. “In book 2, I also cover some of the bank robberies that I worked on and talk about how and why I started naming bank robbers to get media attention and garner more interest from the public to help us solve the cases.”

His third book, “My Life as an FBI Special Agent: Murder, Betrayal, and the Tragedy of Officer Bryan Hurst,” discusses his interaction with fraudster Frank Abagnale Jr., the subject of the movie “Catch Me If You Can.” It also details the violent takedown of white supremacist “Commander Pedro,” the brutal murder of armored car guard Renold Williams in Bexley, the gut-wrenching case of two kidnapped children in Champaign County whose fate was far darker than anyone imagined, the race against time to save abducted 3-year-old Ashley Taggart in Lancaster and the heartbreaking mystery of Erica Baker in Kettering, whose disappearance remains unanswered.

“I finish book 3 detailing the shocking murder of Columbus Police Officer Bryan Hurst, who was killed in a failed bank robbery attempt in Columbus,” Trombitas said.

His most recent book, “My Life as an FBI Special Agent: Final Cases, Lasting Impact,” is about his last three significant cases.

“‘The Horror Tree: The Matthew Hoffman Case’ describes the efforts of law enforcement working in Mount Vernon, Ohio, to quickly solve the disappearance of two women, a young boy, and a 13-year-old girl, not knowing if they were dead or alive, but realizing the clock was ticking if there was any hope of bringing the victims home alive,” Trombitas said. “Also ‘The Highway Shooter,’ which is the I-270 shooting investigation that had the central Ohio population of over 2.2 million on edge, and I finish with ‘The Lynn Breakers: The Brink’s Case,’ where I discuss how a group of sophisticated burglars, led by a top-level mastermind, traveled over 700 miles to Columbus to make entry into one of the nation’s most secure facilities using sophisticated tools and almost made off with $100,000,000.”

Trombitas’ books are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Walmart and Target websites or can be found at his website, Harrytrombitas.com.