A native of Marion County, Kansas, Lou Richter attended Kansas State Agricultural College and graduated from Dougherty's Business College in Topeka. The only KBI director to have served in World War I, he was a long-time sheriff of Marion County and later a deputy U.S. Marshal and also a special agent for Rock Island Railroad, prior to appointment by Attorney General Jay Parker as the first KBI director. Ironically, he had served as president of the Kansas Peace Officers' Association in 1936, as sheriff of Marion County, and had been deeply involved in the campaign to create the KBI. Serving Attorneys General Parker, A.B. Mitchell, Edward F. Arn, Harold R. Fatzer and John Anderson, Jr., Director Richter was the longest-serving KBI director (17 years) and the only one to die in office. He died of cancer, September 13,1956, at Topeka, at the age of 63.