FBI mourns dedicated agent claimed by cancer

FBI Special Agent David Schrom, who will be remembered for kindness and generosity, died from cancer last month at the age of 41.

The Army veteran, FBI agent and church volunteer passed away peacefully at home July 13 after a resurgence of the brain cancer he beat a few years ago.

Schrom started at the FBI’s Las Vegas field office in 2002 and worked on the public corruption squad, investigated cyber- and white-collar crimes, served on the SWAT team and helped local businesses deal with electronic threats as InfraGuard coordinator. Schrom also was the Las Vegas FBI’s media representative.

“He was very well liked,” said Joseph Dickey, supervisory special agent for the FBI. Dickey worked with Schrom for more than a decade and acted as his supervisor for his last year.

“He worked on a number of big cases,” Dickey said. “Even if they didn’t make the front page, they were still important for the FBI.”

The West Virginia native dreamed of being an FBI agent throughout his youth, and his life after graduating from Big Creek High School in War, W.Va., was tailored to achieve his goal: He graduated from journalism school at Ohio University, went to the West Virginia University School of Law, served four years in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps at Fort Hood, Texas, and was deployed to Bosnia.

He did it all to join the FBI, said Schrom’s loved ones.

“He was an outstanding FBI agent and an even greater person,” Dickey said.

Hundreds packed into Henderson’s Central Christian Church to honor Schrom. Rows of chairs with boxes of tissues stashed underneath quickly filled. Even with additional seating outside the room, many were standing along the back and in the hall. A large American flag was draped over a large wooden casket, but the atmosphere in the service was every bit as celebratory as it was mournful.

Michael Pedro Cervantes-Schrom described his husband as a generous man who couldn’t hold a grudge. The two loved their Thursday night dinner parties and spent countless private nights at home watching “The Price Is Right.”

“I couldn’t believe he was in the FBI,” Cervantes-Schrom said during Schrom’s Las Vegas memorial. “He was such a goofball.”

The couple met 12 years ago and were married in June in California.

Cervantes-Schrom said he was nervous when he couldn’t get out of a volunteer obligation and had to bring Schrom along on their first date. But Schrom volunteered at his church’s accounting office for years and, it turned out, loved giving back.

“From the beginning, I could tell he was a very selfless person,” Cervantes-Schrom said. “Seeing him smile for the first time, I knew he was the one.”

Cervantes-Schrom said their home always was filled with fresh flowers.

“Why do you keep doing this?” Cervantes-Schrom would ask when he brought home flowers.

“Because they’re beautiful. And so are you,” his husband would reply.

While loved ones are mourning a man they said would give the shirt off his back in a snowstorm, Schrom’s memory also will serve as an inspiration to those he left behind.

“I’m going to take everything I’ve learned from him and hopefully be just an ounce of what he was,” Cervantes-Schrom said.

Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0381. Find him on Twitter: @WesJuhl.