Cormier outside what was
once the Pawtucket home
of ten-year-old Christine
Cole. Christine was
murdered in 1988, and is
the queen of hearts in the
deck of playing cards.
No one in her family was a cop, save for a cousin in the FBI.
“It was just something I always had an interest in, wanting to
help other people,” she says.
Cormier’s career is no surprise to childhood friend Jennifer
Bruno, who met Cormier in seventh grade at Winman Junior
High School.
“I was this incredibly shy, sheltered Italian kid,” says Bruno.
“One day waiting for the bus, this girl starts picking on me,
poking fun at me. Sue steps in and says ‘Hey, knock it off.’ ”
The friendship was instant and solid, Bruno says. “That’s
Sue’s character. I look back at that and know she is exactly
where she needs to be right now. She’s always aware of some-
one acting out against someone else; even then she always
conducted herself at a level of integrity you wouldn’t expect
in a teenager.”
When Cormier hears Bruno’s comments, she laughs and
shrugs. “I didn’t tolerate that stuff,” she says. “I don’t like
bullies, never have. People say I was intimidating then, they
say it now but look at me. I’m 5-foot-2!”
“She never stood up for nonsense,” says Jocelyn Newman,
another Cowesett friend. “She’d speak up for anyone being
mistreated, poor kid, rich kid, popular kid, it didn’t matter.
If you were a good kid, she’d stick up for you.”
Even as a child, Newman says, “Sue definitely had a pres-
ence, we all had a healthy fear of Sue. You didn’t want to be
on her bad side, and that said, she was never mean to anyone.
She would be one of the first to notice if you were having a
bad day, and she’d sidle up to you and ask if there was any-
thing she could do.”
Cormier and Bruno joined the police cadet program together.
“Sue took it very seriously, she absorbed everything she could.
Me, I was in it for the socializing,” Bruno jokes.
Cormier’s nurturing nature was evident in adolescence as
well. When the gang was out dancing and drinking, she would
be the sober one driving everyone home. And when the girls
married and became moms, Cormier would be the one with
the first-aid kit when the kids got hurt.
“She has the best grace under pressure I have ever seen,
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