Monroe Cooper is a private investigator who like many other PIs, searched for the missing Navy Lieutenant Brian McAllister in hopes of claiming the reward money his family was offering to find his killer. Special Agent Timothy McGee was such a big fan of his book series, presumably based on the cases he solved, that he even had Cooper autograph one of his books for him. It's assumed that after he was exposed and arrested, Cooper was disgraced, with both career and reputation both being ruined beyond repair.