Dallas-based Oak Farms Dairy has been offering rewards to help solve crimes in North Texas for decades, but the story behind the crime reward program is little-known.
It started more 40 years ago, back when Oak Farms Dairy was called Schepps Dairy. In 1973, a Schepps worker was killed during a robbery at a company-owned convenience store.
A reward helped crack the case, and the company has been doing it ever since.
"It may get some violent criminal off the street a little bit quicker," said company spokesman Jamaison Schuler. "And it might provide a small bit of comfort for a family grieving in a time of crisis."
The company's dairy plant near Fair Park bottles 250,000 gallons of milk every day.
Oak Farms has been in business for about 100 years, and in hundreds of awful crimes since the 1970s the company has quietly offered up $10,000 in reward money for each case.
"We generally get involved and offer up a reward in a case that's particularly violent – maybe an armed robbery or assault and hit-and-run – but it's going to be difficult to solve without having a tip," Schuler said.
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The $10,000 rewards have been offered in many recent high-profile crimes, such as the murder of Dallas teenager Zoe Hastings, who was killed by a stranger while she was headed to church.
The company offered a reward in the case of a hit-and-run that killed 13-year-old Ethan Vasquez, a local police officer's son, by two suspects trying to evade officers while they drove a stolen minivan.
And just this week, a suspect was arrested in the fatal shooting of Brittany Daniel, as the hotel supervisor drove along Interstate 30 in Arlington.
"This reward program is not about PR value. If we were looking for PR value out of it we'd name a stadium or something. This is truly about Oak Farms supporting the community that supports us," Schuler said.
Schuler said over the past 40 years the company has paid nearly $1.5 million in reward money, and because of the rewards there has been an indictment in more than 100 local cases.
"It's really about an arrest and indictment, not necessarily a conviction. So the reward can maybe come a little bit earlier," he said. "We have great relationships by this point with so many local police departments. Once there's an indictment, then generally they'll call us and ask us to process to the payment."
Oak Farms said it doesn't like to publicize when rewards are claimed. There are two main reasons for that, Schuler explained – employee safety and the risk that a major PR campaign could to do witnesses' credibility in a trial.
But Schuler said the rewards make a difference, and it's a program they plan on continuing, hopefully, for generations to come.
"We're pleased that we can support the community and support law enforcement with this," he said.
