WEBVTT 00:00:02.569 --> 00:00:04.969 If you want to learn more about the topics of 00:00:04.969 --> 00:00:08.650 today's episode, visit the podcast website at 00:00:08.650 --> 00:00:11.750 naturessecretservice .com. Thanks for listening. 00:00:45.130 --> 00:00:49.130 Okay people listen up here we go This is nature's 00:00:49.130 --> 00:00:50.990 secret service the podcast that puts you in the 00:00:50.990 --> 00:00:53.469 room with the men and women of wildlife law enforcement 00:00:53.469 --> 00:00:57.130 I'm your hosted newcomer and We are in the middle 00:00:57.130 --> 00:01:01.350 of season three about wolves and I'm happy to 00:01:01.350 --> 00:01:04.709 welcome back former US Fish and Wildlife Service 00:01:04.709 --> 00:01:07.700 special agent Corky Roberts. You might remember 00:01:07.700 --> 00:01:11.260 Corky from episode eight of season one. He's 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:14.439 a former state officer with the Washington Department 00:01:14.439 --> 00:01:17.079 of Fish and Wildlife, and then for many years 00:01:17.079 --> 00:01:19.319 was a special agent with the U .S. Fish and Wildlife 00:01:19.319 --> 00:01:23.519 Service, former supervisor, agent, all around 00:01:23.519 --> 00:01:25.900 great guy. Corky, thanks for being back on the 00:01:25.900 --> 00:01:28.359 podcast. I appreciate it. That's great to be 00:01:28.359 --> 00:01:31.819 here, Ed. Looking forward to it. Yes. And one 00:01:31.819 --> 00:01:35.040 of the great things about having great former 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:37.959 agents on the show is that they often are involved 00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:42.239 in multiple good cases. So back in season one, 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:44.640 you were on and you talked to us about that amazing 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.359 case that you had in Washington involving a woman 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:50.959 who smuggled a live monkey into the US from Thailand 00:01:50.959 --> 00:01:54.900 in a pregnancy prosthetic. And that was like 00:01:54.900 --> 00:01:57.469 the bread and butter of what I was used to working 00:01:57.469 --> 00:02:01.129 on in los angeles but the cool thing about where 00:02:01.129 --> 00:02:04.109 you were is you got a really interesting diversity 00:02:04.109 --> 00:02:07.489 of cases and yeah you worked on a smuggling case 00:02:07.489 --> 00:02:10.409 involving a monkey but you also worked on a wolf 00:02:10.409 --> 00:02:14.430 case and that case is what we're calling today 00:02:14.430 --> 00:02:18.750 the omac wolf case before we jump into that corky 00:02:18.750 --> 00:02:21.150 i want you to tell the story but i just want 00:02:21.150 --> 00:02:25.719 to remind listeners and watchers that We have 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:28.280 been talking a lot about the reintroduction of 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:33.199 wolves into the lower 48 United States in 1995 00:02:33.199 --> 00:02:35.780 starting in Yellowstone National Park, but it's 00:02:35.780 --> 00:02:39.080 important to always remember that Wolves have 00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:41.400 been protected under the Endangered Species Act 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:44.159 going back to the earliest days of the act they 00:02:44.159 --> 00:02:47.879 were listed in the 1967 version and then when 00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:52.080 the Act was amended in 1973 they were also listed 00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:58.569 as threatened in the lower 48 then. So even prior 00:02:58.569 --> 00:03:01.969 to reintroduction in Yellowstone, wolves, if 00:03:01.969 --> 00:03:07.069 a wolf somehow appeared in the lower 48 United 00:03:07.069 --> 00:03:09.930 States, it had protection under the Endangered 00:03:09.930 --> 00:03:12.310 Species Act. So I think that's an important thing 00:03:12.310 --> 00:03:14.689 to remember because the protection didn't just 00:03:14.689 --> 00:03:17.449 magically appear when they were reintroduced. 00:03:19.509 --> 00:03:22.800 And there were occasions where wolves did naturally 00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:26.599 come in to the United States from Canada, particularly 00:03:26.599 --> 00:03:29.000 into the northern areas of Washington and things 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:32.560 like that. Let me ask you something. As an agent 00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:36.400 who was working up there, what would happen if 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:39.280 a wolf crossed the border? I've already mentioned 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:42.020 that snapping your fingers, they have protection. 00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:46.360 When you were working up there, what were the 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:48.479 rumors, what were people saying about wolves 00:03:48.479 --> 00:03:50.759 that were naturally migrating down into the U 00:03:50.759 --> 00:03:54.599 .S. from Canada? You know, when I worked, when 00:03:54.599 --> 00:03:59.039 I was a state game warden, the late 70s, or I 00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:02.080 would say the late 80s and early 90s, I was in 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:04.939 the far southwest corner of the state. But there 00:04:04.939 --> 00:04:08.300 were still, there were rumors of wolves, you 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:12.180 know, in the northern cascades. Which is right 00:04:12.180 --> 00:04:13.759 in this area where we're going to be talking 00:04:13.759 --> 00:04:17.160 about later. That's some remote country. You 00:04:17.160 --> 00:04:19.920 have British Columbia right above that and beyond 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:21.879 parts of the earth. Wolves there for sure. They 00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:23.579 have hunting, season, swarming, everything. But 00:04:23.579 --> 00:04:27.480 once that wolf steps across that border, he or 00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:30.480 she is protected. They have that endangered species 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:34.779 that kicks in and you know, it's forbidden to 00:04:34.779 --> 00:04:41.009 take one. great, I was pretty good ways to move 00:04:41.009 --> 00:04:44.829 through this. And there's before email and text 00:04:44.829 --> 00:04:47.389 messaging and all that. And so I didn't really 00:04:47.389 --> 00:04:51.230 hear things about people being angry about it 00:04:51.230 --> 00:04:54.170 or right, you know, alarmed that the wolves are 00:04:54.170 --> 00:04:57.470 coming to steal all our livestock. I just, you 00:04:57.470 --> 00:05:00.129 know, there's wolves there. Right. About the 00:05:00.129 --> 00:05:02.730 extent of it. Yeah, you know, also during that 00:05:02.730 --> 00:05:05.430 time there were not like game cameras everywhere. 00:05:05.589 --> 00:05:08.269 Camera traps were like not even invented yet. 00:05:08.449 --> 00:05:11.870 Yeah, exactly. It was a picture you took. They 00:05:11.870 --> 00:05:15.410 were all based on maybe sightings of tracks or 00:05:15.410 --> 00:05:18.290 scat or maybe some isolated sighting by somebody 00:05:18.290 --> 00:05:21.209 who knew what they were talking about. Howling. 00:05:21.509 --> 00:05:24.449 Yeah, howling. What was the reaction of like 00:05:24.449 --> 00:05:27.329 the responsible agencies at the time? Like if 00:05:27.329 --> 00:05:30.790 they heard a rumor. That a wolf, you know, wolves 00:05:30.790 --> 00:05:33.730 or a wolf had crossed the border. You know, we're 00:05:33.730 --> 00:05:35.389 talking about Washington Department of Fish and 00:05:35.389 --> 00:05:38.790 Wildlife or US Fish and Wildlife Service. What 00:05:38.790 --> 00:05:45.360 was their reaction? Back then. in the late 80s 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:47.639 and early 90s, I don't know, I had no clue. We 00:05:47.639 --> 00:05:50.019 didn't have like the biologists calling us on 00:05:50.019 --> 00:05:51.939 the phone or sending out an email, oh my God, 00:05:52.040 --> 00:05:56.040 wolves are here. Later on, when I moved back 00:05:56.040 --> 00:06:00.819 to Washington in 2006, there was a little bit 00:06:00.819 --> 00:06:03.759 more of a reaction when you had a report from 00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:06.819 either the public or state officer or police 00:06:06.819 --> 00:06:12.720 officer, whatever. It was quite a, I would get 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:17.399 a call And, you know, from a state game warden 00:06:17.399 --> 00:06:19.279 or something, hey, it's kind of reported with 00:06:19.279 --> 00:06:23.459 dead wolf up on the highway, such and such near 00:06:23.459 --> 00:06:26.839 Colleville. And of course, I was down southern 00:06:26.839 --> 00:06:30.600 part of the state. On several occasions, I'd 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:33.180 call up a contact deal with the ecological services 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:36.939 office in Spokane. That's a hybrid. Well, how 00:06:36.939 --> 00:06:39.000 do you know that? Because there's no wolves here. 00:06:39.699 --> 00:06:42.779 How do you know that? I just know it's a hybrid. 00:06:42.970 --> 00:06:45.430 And I mean, that was a pretty routine answer. 00:06:45.550 --> 00:06:48.470 And I don't remember there being, I mean, I know 00:06:48.470 --> 00:06:50.189 they were hybrid wolves in Washington. People 00:06:50.189 --> 00:06:54.449 had them, you know, but yeah, I was like, no, 00:06:54.649 --> 00:06:57.589 you got, you got these wolves that were just 00:06:57.589 --> 00:07:01.649 released over in Idaho and they're multiplying 00:07:01.649 --> 00:07:04.490 over there. I don't think Washington has an iron 00:07:04.490 --> 00:07:06.790 curtain that prevents them from coming over here. 00:07:07.350 --> 00:07:10.149 But, you know, what did I know? And, but it was 00:07:10.149 --> 00:07:12.329 several times I got that standard answer. It's 00:07:12.329 --> 00:07:15.149 a hybrid. Yeah, kind of the knee -jerk answer, 00:07:15.310 --> 00:07:19.750 right? Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Now, it's my 00:07:19.750 --> 00:07:21.889 fault. I never went up and tried to find this 00:07:21.889 --> 00:07:25.490 thing, and I never got a sample from them, so 00:07:25.490 --> 00:07:29.750 I really can't say for sure at that point until 00:07:29.750 --> 00:07:31.829 this time. Yeah, until this case. But, you know, 00:07:32.029 --> 00:07:34.589 in the same sense, they weren't going out to 00:07:34.589 --> 00:07:37.930 take a sample. They were just making a guess. 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:41.500 Right. So before we get on to the case, though, 00:07:41.560 --> 00:07:43.480 this is kind of an interesting thing because 00:07:43.480 --> 00:07:45.620 when you say ecological services, what you're 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:48.839 talking about is ecological services within the 00:07:48.839 --> 00:07:51.000 U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So same agency 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:54.019 that you and I were in. But these are like we 00:07:54.019 --> 00:07:56.279 were the law enforcement. Those are the biologists. 00:07:57.060 --> 00:08:01.620 And for anybody who's not an employee of the 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:04.639 service, you might not kind of intuitively know 00:08:04.639 --> 00:08:08.829 those those divisions are different. They they 00:08:08.829 --> 00:08:10.589 have, you know, we had line authority, which 00:08:10.589 --> 00:08:13.310 means our chain of command was only law enforcement. 00:08:14.209 --> 00:08:17.269 They had their own chain of command and they 00:08:17.269 --> 00:08:19.949 were often physically located in different offices 00:08:19.949 --> 00:08:22.910 than we were. So we actually didn't normally 00:08:22.910 --> 00:08:25.189 interact with the biologists of the service. 00:08:25.329 --> 00:08:30.629 Right. So all in the same team, but not working 00:08:30.629 --> 00:08:33.409 together every day. Why? What was the motivation? 00:08:33.529 --> 00:08:35.330 See, I think what you're getting at here is. 00:08:35.979 --> 00:08:38.879 My sense is that what you're saying is ecological 00:08:38.879 --> 00:08:43.399 services like almost didn't want to be in Washington 00:08:43.399 --> 00:08:47.240 Why why do you think that was? You know, I should 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:50.980 clarify when I say it There was just mainly a 00:08:50.980 --> 00:08:55.679 couple of three biologists that I Knew well enough, 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:57.759 you know had on speed dial for life with better 00:08:57.759 --> 00:09:01.019 time, right? And I can't say the entire division 00:09:01.019 --> 00:09:04.419 was going down. Oh, there's they're all hybrid 00:09:04.419 --> 00:09:07.350 wolves But I know these two or three were like, 00:09:07.350 --> 00:09:09.889 yeah, they're hybrids. And I think a lot of it 00:09:09.889 --> 00:09:15.070 was. They didn't want to deal with it, you know, 00:09:15.149 --> 00:09:17.049 if there were wolves here, that was and it's 00:09:17.049 --> 00:09:20.190 not that they were afraid of work. It's just 00:09:20.190 --> 00:09:24.029 it was very controversial work. Yeah. And then, 00:09:24.029 --> 00:09:26.350 you know, then you got the press and you got. 00:09:27.509 --> 00:09:29.190 You're going to have people knocking on the door 00:09:29.190 --> 00:09:31.090 and phone calls all the time to answer, and it 00:09:31.090 --> 00:09:33.409 would it would have been an increase in workload 00:09:33.409 --> 00:09:36.679 dramatically. Yeah, that's kind of what that's 00:09:36.679 --> 00:09:40.480 my guess, too, is what you were, you know, hinting 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:43.100 at is that, like you said, they weren't afraid 00:09:43.100 --> 00:09:45.340 to work, but it's just like they knew what was 00:09:45.340 --> 00:09:48.279 happening over in Idaho and Wyoming and Montana, 00:09:48.340 --> 00:09:52.080 where Wolf reintroduction was getting controversial, 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:54.399 or at least there were wolf haters out there. 00:09:54.700 --> 00:09:56.919 And yeah, I mean, you know, nobody wants to come 00:09:56.919 --> 00:09:59.120 to work and take those angry phone calls, right? 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:07.490 We've all had them. Anyway, so let's jump now 00:10:07.490 --> 00:10:11.590 to, I believe, December, late December 2008, 00:10:11.710 --> 00:10:14.870 and let's talk about this case you did that we're 00:10:14.870 --> 00:10:20.419 calling the OMAC wolf. Interestingly, I remember 00:10:20.419 --> 00:10:23.059 that when you were on the podcast the last time, 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:26.080 it was around a holiday that you were working. 00:10:27.299 --> 00:10:29.779 Yeah, this was a year, almost a year to the day. 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:32.159 And I told you the last monkey case was I was 00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:34.539 sitting there in my office, nobody around, my 00:10:34.539 --> 00:10:38.039 feet kicked up the phone rings. My life changed. 00:10:38.100 --> 00:10:41.559 Right around Christmas. And this was like two 00:10:41.559 --> 00:10:45.080 days before Christmas. And I was at home and 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:48.039 I got a call from a from a state game for it. 00:10:48.220 --> 00:10:54.100 December 23rd, 2008. And he proceeded to tell 00:10:54.100 --> 00:10:58.100 me about a package of the FedEx drop shipment 00:10:58.100 --> 00:11:02.460 in Walmart in Old Mac Washington that was bleeding. 00:11:04.019 --> 00:11:11.259 This could be interesting. Yeah, the story goes, 00:11:12.019 --> 00:11:15.990 he... owner of the FedEx place called the local 00:11:15.990 --> 00:11:17.909 police department, the Old Mac Police Department 00:11:17.909 --> 00:11:22.610 said, yeah, the FedEx delivery guy or pickup 00:11:22.610 --> 00:11:24.809 guy wouldn't take this shipment because the box 00:11:24.809 --> 00:11:28.370 is bleeding. And so the Old Mac comes over there 00:11:28.370 --> 00:11:31.649 and they look at it. Now, they open up this box 00:11:31.649 --> 00:11:33.970 and there's an unknown animal hide in there. 00:11:34.769 --> 00:11:37.490 So first person they call local game warden. 00:11:37.490 --> 00:11:41.959 Right. He comes out looking at this thing. and 00:11:41.959 --> 00:11:46.019 he's like, wolf, and he calls me, he said it 00:11:46.019 --> 00:11:47.720 looked like a wolf, and he calls me, and I'm 00:11:47.720 --> 00:11:50.179 on the phone, and I said, measure the paws. Oh, 00:11:50.419 --> 00:11:52.620 nice. And he says, yeah, they're about three 00:11:52.620 --> 00:11:55.500 inches. I said, you got a wolf. Yeah, not a coyote. 00:11:56.100 --> 00:12:00.159 No, not a coyote. Yeah. And I said, where's, 00:12:00.279 --> 00:12:01.840 you know, he says, can I take it? What? And I 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:03.200 said, where's it going? He says, it's going to 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:05.679 Canada. I said, oh yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, 00:12:05.700 --> 00:12:08.336 I want to say, that's a, you know, that's a... 00:12:08.330 --> 00:12:10.570 you know border exception to the search rule 00:12:10.570 --> 00:12:13.789 and so here we go and he took it and you know 00:12:13.789 --> 00:12:15.210 photographed it and that kind of like I like 00:12:15.210 --> 00:12:17.429 you have some of the pictures yeah we'll put 00:12:17.429 --> 00:12:21.149 those on the website yeah and he took some samples 00:12:21.149 --> 00:12:24.629 from it and things and and uh he interviewed 00:12:24.629 --> 00:12:30.309 the store clerk um and he said yeah a lady had 00:12:30.309 --> 00:12:34.269 come in earlier that afternoon and wanted to 00:12:34.269 --> 00:12:38.490 ship this box to Canada and so He told her, yeah, 00:12:38.509 --> 00:12:40.649 it's going to cost this much and it'll go out 00:12:40.649 --> 00:12:43.549 now. And she said, you know, I think I want to 00:12:43.549 --> 00:12:46.090 go over to the post office to see if I can ship 00:12:46.090 --> 00:12:48.629 it there because it might be less expensive and 00:12:48.629 --> 00:12:52.629 maybe they can get it out sooner. Okay. So she 00:12:52.629 --> 00:12:55.029 goes post office. Well, by the time she got back, 00:12:55.769 --> 00:12:58.169 it was too late for that day's shipment, but 00:12:58.169 --> 00:13:02.669 she just left it. And the interesting thing was 00:13:02.669 --> 00:13:05.850 she put a Canadian address on it to a guy named 00:13:05.850 --> 00:13:09.470 Ralph Browson up there in Hardesty, Alberta, 00:13:10.710 --> 00:13:14.870 and left the phone number, the name and phone 00:13:14.870 --> 00:13:21.029 number. But the shipper on the label was the 00:13:21.029 --> 00:13:24.990 guy himself, the guy that runs it. That was easy 00:13:24.990 --> 00:13:30.190 to explain away later. And so, of course, Anybody 00:13:30.190 --> 00:13:31.909 who thinks they're not under surveillance when 00:13:31.909 --> 00:13:34.129 they go in Walmart probably needs to rethink 00:13:34.129 --> 00:13:37.909 that because they keep those DVDs. And we got 00:13:37.909 --> 00:13:44.470 the game warden got the DVDs. And here comes 00:13:44.470 --> 00:13:46.769 a lady walking into Walmart with a white box 00:13:46.769 --> 00:13:49.750 and she's got a very distinct ski jacket with 00:13:49.750 --> 00:13:52.950 a maroon stripe on it. Now, let me let me back 00:13:52.950 --> 00:13:54.889 you up for just a second. Wal -Mart, is there 00:13:54.889 --> 00:13:57.250 like a FedEx facility in the Wal -Mart? Yeah. 00:13:57.610 --> 00:13:59.809 OK, drop the city. I didn't see him in most. 00:13:59.889 --> 00:14:02.269 Yeah. Yeah. There's a FedEx drop spot there. 00:14:02.529 --> 00:14:04.789 Then there's a couple of things I think are interesting 00:14:04.789 --> 00:14:06.909 here from an in like an investigator's point 00:14:06.909 --> 00:14:12.950 of view. So like you mentioned, this border search 00:14:12.950 --> 00:14:15.830 exception. So when somebody puts something in 00:14:15.830 --> 00:14:18.450 the mail or in FedEx and it's addressed out of 00:14:18.450 --> 00:14:22.740 the country, And they relinquish control of it. 00:14:22.820 --> 00:14:25.039 It's essentially on its way to that country. 00:14:25.879 --> 00:14:27.840 And Fish and Wildlife Service agents do have 00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:32.259 customs authority. And so, yeah, we could seize 00:14:32.259 --> 00:14:35.580 it at that point if we thought there was a violation 00:14:35.580 --> 00:14:38.600 taking place. But for listeners, some of my listeners 00:14:38.600 --> 00:14:40.940 are very savvy about this stuff. But what are 00:14:40.940 --> 00:14:43.600 the violations you're looking at? What violations 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:46.500 do you think occurred that would give you federal 00:14:46.500 --> 00:14:49.669 jurisdiction at this point? First off dangerous 00:14:49.669 --> 00:14:51.909 species that wolf is listed as an endangered 00:14:51.909 --> 00:14:55.570 animal It's being shipped sent beyond interstate 00:14:55.570 --> 00:14:57.870 or foreign commerce, right? You know, so we got 00:14:57.870 --> 00:15:00.590 that you got the Lacey act Which is you know, 00:15:00.629 --> 00:15:03.370 the act prohibiting the import export of illegally 00:15:03.370 --> 00:15:05.730 taken wildlife, right? You have to assume you 00:15:05.730 --> 00:15:07.610 could pretty well assume this animals you got 00:15:07.610 --> 00:15:09.450 probably call it believe this animal was taken 00:15:09.450 --> 00:15:14.789 illegally because it's in a box You know back 00:15:14.789 --> 00:15:19.320 and visit through another country You're smuggling 00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:23.820 goods out of the United States. False labeling 00:15:23.820 --> 00:15:28.200 is another part of the Lacey Act. That was going 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:30.519 there with the names and stuff that the lady 00:15:30.519 --> 00:15:34.360 gave. I assume the box did not say contents of 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:44.960 wolf. pelts. First of all, a bleeding package, 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:46.659 that's what we call in the detective business, 00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:54.500 a clue. What I think is really interesting about 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:58.120 these cases is right there, just in this moment 00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:01.100 of these few investigative steps that have happened, 00:16:01.659 --> 00:16:04.179 there's a lot of crimes in play here. right? 00:16:04.759 --> 00:16:06.759 And some of them pretty serious. Smuggling is 00:16:06.759 --> 00:16:09.960 a serious felony. I think outbound smuggling, 00:16:10.259 --> 00:16:12.860 the maximum penalties up to 10 years in prison 00:16:12.860 --> 00:16:18.480 and a $250 ,000 fine. So it's really amazing 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:22.049 how quickly, you know, If you're a good investigator 00:16:22.049 --> 00:16:24.070 you start like going through the laws that might 00:16:24.070 --> 00:16:26.590 be in play here So, you know, you've got jurisdiction, 00:16:26.590 --> 00:16:29.110 you know, you have potentially serious crime 00:16:29.110 --> 00:16:31.570 and you know, it's an endangered species which 00:16:31.570 --> 00:16:33.889 is a very high priority for the US Fish and Wildlife 00:16:33.889 --> 00:16:36.970 Service law enforcement because it's a law enforcement 00:16:36.970 --> 00:16:40.070 plays a role in recovering these species so I 00:16:40.070 --> 00:16:41.850 think that was important to go over because now 00:16:41.850 --> 00:16:44.629 we know you're off and running and And the and 00:16:44.629 --> 00:16:46.450 the cool thing is, you know these steps that 00:16:46.450 --> 00:16:50.000 you're taking to just start system methodically 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:53.360 narrowing it down. So you've got this footage 00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:56.200 now shows this woman going in, but there's no 00:16:56.200 --> 00:16:58.720 return, there's no sender address on this or 00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:00.379 return address. So how the heck do you figure 00:17:00.379 --> 00:17:03.539 out who this person is? The return address was 00:17:03.539 --> 00:17:05.700 the guy that ran the FedEx place. And he said 00:17:05.700 --> 00:17:07.839 FedEx set up his computer to do that, but she 00:17:07.839 --> 00:17:11.240 had given him a name of Allison and a phone number. 00:17:11.460 --> 00:17:15.640 Okay. But I guess I better go back first, and 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:18.240 we'll come back to this. When the OMAC Police 00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:22.660 Department opened that box and they saw it was 00:17:22.660 --> 00:17:24.640 being shipped to a guy in Canada, there was a 00:17:24.640 --> 00:17:29.059 phone number on there and an address. They called 00:17:29.059 --> 00:17:33.299 the guy, which when I heard that, I was just 00:17:33.299 --> 00:17:37.779 like... Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know why. But but 00:17:37.779 --> 00:17:41.279 why? Why did that upset you? It worked out beautifully. 00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:44.339 But you know, it immediately it's like, what 00:17:44.339 --> 00:17:48.539 were you thinking? Yeah. So anyway, I've talked 00:17:48.539 --> 00:17:51.180 to the officer since then and he's like, I don't 00:17:51.180 --> 00:17:55.119 know why. But explain to people why that would 00:17:55.119 --> 00:18:00.670 be like for an investigator. Now they know whoever's 00:18:00.670 --> 00:18:02.789 supposed to receive this package, you should 00:18:02.789 --> 00:18:04.789 presume that he would know that it's coming. 00:18:05.670 --> 00:18:07.269 He's going to get on the phone and he's going 00:18:07.269 --> 00:18:11.490 to call whoever, you know, shipped it and they're 00:18:11.490 --> 00:18:13.369 going to try to go underground, which is really 00:18:13.369 --> 00:18:15.349 hard to do when you're on a Walmart surveillance 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:19.049 camera. Yeah. But still, still now if they know 00:18:19.049 --> 00:18:22.049 you're after them, you're playing catch up. Yeah. 00:18:22.250 --> 00:18:24.930 Okay. Starting to have evidence. Exactly. Exactly. 00:18:25.150 --> 00:18:27.589 Is it, you know, we also had her walking out 00:18:27.589 --> 00:18:31.049 of the store, getting into a red SUV. This is 00:18:31.049 --> 00:18:34.869 another lesson I learned. So red SUV, you got, 00:18:34.890 --> 00:18:39.210 yeah, it looks like the Ford Explorer. I didn't 00:18:39.210 --> 00:18:42.410 realize how many SUVs look like Ford Explorers. 00:18:42.710 --> 00:18:48.400 There are dozens. Oh man, we started. how many 00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:51.460 marine SUVs are registered in Okanagan County? 00:18:52.039 --> 00:18:54.900 3 ,000. I can't remember what the numbers were, 00:18:54.940 --> 00:18:57.359 but it was astronomical. And so we're like, oh 00:18:57.359 --> 00:19:00.079 no, here we go. This is going to be a nightmare. 00:19:07.929 --> 00:19:10.829 We're getting all this evidence together. They've 00:19:10.829 --> 00:19:12.450 collected it all. And then finally, you know, 00:19:12.490 --> 00:19:14.549 after the holidays, I can't remember if I had 00:19:14.549 --> 00:19:16.750 a vacation plan that they did or something, but 00:19:16.750 --> 00:19:20.589 we all got together after the holidays up there 00:19:20.589 --> 00:19:22.970 and we had a briefing and we'd go through the 00:19:22.970 --> 00:19:25.250 evidence and try and do the transfers of the 00:19:25.250 --> 00:19:27.470 hides and the samples and all this kind of thing. 00:19:27.990 --> 00:19:30.650 And we're trying to figure out how are we going 00:19:30.650 --> 00:19:35.349 to identify these people. And I had called some 00:19:35.349 --> 00:19:40.029 contacts up in Alberta. with the Canadian Wildlife 00:19:40.029 --> 00:19:42.150 Service at that point, or Environment Canada, 00:19:43.970 --> 00:19:48.150 and got some information about the supposed recipient, 00:19:48.430 --> 00:19:51.170 Ralph Browsen. Phone numbers matched, everything 00:19:51.170 --> 00:19:54.970 matched. He was a hunter. And an interesting 00:19:54.970 --> 00:20:00.589 thing is he had a host license in 2007, which 00:20:00.589 --> 00:20:04.009 allows a resident of Alberta to take a non -resident 00:20:05.129 --> 00:20:07.970 moose hunting, big game hunting, you know, without 00:20:07.970 --> 00:20:10.589 having to hire a guide to get your host license. 00:20:10.690 --> 00:20:14.650 And his client, or hostee, or whatever you want 00:20:14.650 --> 00:20:17.049 to call him, was a guy named William White in 00:20:17.049 --> 00:20:20.029 Twist, Washington. That white, there's William 00:20:20.029 --> 00:20:23.190 White, no idea. Yep, right, just a name. Yeah, 00:20:23.250 --> 00:20:26.430 whatever. So this is where, and then so we're 00:20:26.430 --> 00:20:28.470 at this meeting with all these, the local game 00:20:28.470 --> 00:20:31.690 board and stuff, and we're talking about these 00:20:31.690 --> 00:20:33.809 SUVs and how we're going to figure this out. 00:20:34.659 --> 00:20:37.079 And one of the game boards guy named Caltress 00:20:37.079 --> 00:20:41.640 who died in twist Barry for, you know, before 00:20:41.640 --> 00:20:45.900 it was civilized, I think. Yeah. And, and he'd 00:20:45.900 --> 00:20:47.880 been there forever. And he says, Ralph Browson, 00:20:47.880 --> 00:20:49.640 he says, you know, I checked that guy several 00:20:49.640 --> 00:20:54.079 years ago. He said he was from Canada and he 00:20:54.079 --> 00:20:56.180 was up here. How nothing moved guy named Bill 00:20:56.180 --> 00:20:58.880 White. He's going to buy some dollars from me. 00:20:58.880 --> 00:21:01.380 He knew he remembered the whole story. Here's 00:21:01.380 --> 00:21:04.960 Bill White again. Now Ralph's down here. Things 00:21:04.960 --> 00:21:07.519 are starting to come together. I cannot tell 00:21:07.519 --> 00:21:09.720 you how many times that happened to me in my 00:21:09.720 --> 00:21:11.640 career I don't know if it goes back to you know, 00:21:11.700 --> 00:21:14.079 that old saying God loves game wardens or what 00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:17.460 or whether it's just honestly I don't think that's 00:21:17.460 --> 00:21:19.519 a fun thing to say but honestly what I think 00:21:19.519 --> 00:21:23.160 it comes down to is good police work because 00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:26.839 that happened to me so many times where You're 00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:29.799 in a group of law enforcement officers multi 00:21:29.799 --> 00:21:32.500 -agency and you're just going over what everybody's 00:21:32.500 --> 00:21:37.660 got And inevitably somebody remembers a name 00:21:37.660 --> 00:21:43.099 from a year to five years ago and they just are 00:21:43.099 --> 00:21:46.180 smart enough to say, you know, I ran into a guy 00:21:46.180 --> 00:21:50.740 once and that is the next thing that needs to 00:21:50.740 --> 00:21:53.460 be done. It's so amazing how often that happens 00:21:53.460 --> 00:21:56.579 that just good law enforcement officers kind 00:21:56.579 --> 00:21:58.880 of keep track of what's going on in their district. 00:21:58.880 --> 00:22:01.700 And they end up they end up just giving you the 00:22:01.700 --> 00:22:04.380 best information that that nobody ever could 00:22:04.380 --> 00:22:07.940 have seen coming as important, you know? It is, 00:22:08.019 --> 00:22:14.839 and it's just funny to me that most people, both 00:22:14.839 --> 00:22:17.940 hunters, fishermen, whatever, go almost their 00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:21.660 entire fishing career, life experience, whatever, 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:25.190 hunting, fishing. never get checked by a game 00:22:25.190 --> 00:22:28.250 board. And then here we are, we're all together 00:22:28.250 --> 00:22:33.549 and these two clowns, they're in the memory bank 00:22:33.549 --> 00:22:36.470 of this local game board and then twist Washington. 00:22:37.170 --> 00:22:39.130 I just think it, I think it's one of the coolest 00:22:39.130 --> 00:22:41.049 things about being in law enforcement. And I 00:22:41.049 --> 00:22:44.089 think it really illustrates the importance of 00:22:44.089 --> 00:22:48.150 building inter -agency relationships and communicating 00:22:48.150 --> 00:22:51.410 and not acting like this is my case and it's 00:22:51.410 --> 00:22:55.329 all secret. if you'd sharing information and 00:22:55.329 --> 00:22:57.509 talking to other law enforcement agencies and 00:22:57.509 --> 00:23:01.150 having a relationship somebody you can call results 00:23:01.150 --> 00:23:03.549 in the game warden calling you when they find 00:23:03.549 --> 00:23:06.990 a bloody package it results in you finding out 00:23:06.990 --> 00:23:09.009 some small piece of information that nobody thought 00:23:09.009 --> 00:23:11.230 was important until this very moment you know 00:23:11.230 --> 00:23:15.549 i just think that is so awesome anyway i love 00:23:15.549 --> 00:23:18.740 hearing about it because It's just that it's 00:23:18.740 --> 00:23:21.000 just the thrill of investigations when you hit 00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:24.299 those moments. So, okay. So this is kind of sorry 00:23:24.299 --> 00:23:25.960 to interrupt. I just had to talk about that. 00:23:26.380 --> 00:23:29.799 So Cal, he's talking about this white guy and 00:23:29.799 --> 00:23:31.740 he says, yeah, he says, I know Bill. He's a hunter 00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:34.779 instructor. He's, you know, I deal with him frequently. 00:23:34.779 --> 00:23:36.799 I see him, I drink coffee with him, that kind 00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:39.720 of thing. He said, you know, he's the first guy 00:23:39.720 --> 00:23:43.019 to ever get wolves on camera on a trail camera 00:23:43.019 --> 00:23:50.180 on his property on the lookout mountain. Yeah. 00:23:54.220 --> 00:23:58.859 Awesome. He wrote to the, you know, state fish 00:23:58.859 --> 00:24:01.500 and wildlife. Yeah, these wolves are evil. They 00:24:01.500 --> 00:24:03.519 should deal. I can't remember what all he said, 00:24:03.539 --> 00:24:05.960 but he was not in favor of it. Wait a minute. 00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:11.299 So Bill White, this landowner, the first guy 00:24:11.299 --> 00:24:14.140 to record wolves kind of naturally migrating 00:24:14.140 --> 00:24:17.539 back into Washington. Where were they like on 00:24:17.539 --> 00:24:20.339 his property or something on his property right 00:24:20.339 --> 00:24:22.880 near there? He called it Wichita Mountain ranches 00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:25.500 four or five hundred acres there near twist, 00:24:25.500 --> 00:24:28.940 Washington And he reported he like puts this 00:24:28.940 --> 00:24:32.920 in writing Trail camera photos of wolves. Okay, 00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:35.400 that's photos and he wrote he didn't write to 00:24:35.400 --> 00:24:37.200 the game part He wrote the prints, of course. 00:24:37.420 --> 00:24:41.200 Well bad, you know, right and but then game part 00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:43.970 picked up on it He hadn't got ahold of him and 00:24:43.970 --> 00:24:45.990 they corresponded a little bit and he was never 00:24:45.990 --> 00:24:47.950 favorable. He wouldn't let him on his property 00:24:47.950 --> 00:24:52.069 for his service and fishing wildlife and state, 00:24:52.289 --> 00:24:54.289 no, you can't come on my property, that kind 00:24:54.289 --> 00:24:56.769 of thing. So he was anti -wolf. That was pretty 00:24:56.769 --> 00:25:00.569 obvious. Okay. But it started to look, okay, 00:25:00.609 --> 00:25:03.250 we're getting close. Well, then Cal said, oh 00:25:03.250 --> 00:25:06.509 yeah, he's got a son and a daughter -in -law 00:25:06.509 --> 00:25:08.789 that live on the property just up the road from 00:25:08.789 --> 00:25:13.259 Tom and Aaron. Okay. All right, Erin. Hmm. Wonder 00:25:13.259 --> 00:25:15.160 what Erin looks like. Well, we've got a driver's 00:25:15.160 --> 00:25:17.980 license photo and voila. It's the same woman. 00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:21.279 Now, here's the term I use. She looked very similar 00:25:21.279 --> 00:25:24.420 to the same woman that entered the wall. Okay. 00:25:26.200 --> 00:25:29.059 So, search warrant time, you know, and I got 00:25:29.059 --> 00:25:32.619 email addresses. I got phone numbers, contact 00:25:32.619 --> 00:25:36.059 information from them. And at the same, at the 00:25:36.059 --> 00:25:39.880 same, like two days later, the game warden who 00:25:39.880 --> 00:25:42.720 called this in to me, I get a call from him, 00:25:42.819 --> 00:25:45.339 he was driving up over Luke Pass, which is between 00:25:45.339 --> 00:25:50.660 Old Mac and Twist, and he sees a red SUV coming 00:25:50.660 --> 00:25:56.059 over the hill with a lady in it, and all he gets 00:25:56.059 --> 00:25:58.339 is the first three numbers of the license plate, 00:25:58.559 --> 00:26:02.259 and he writes them down. And to his credit, he 00:26:02.259 --> 00:26:04.859 called Washington State Patrol and said, hey, 00:26:05.180 --> 00:26:08.680 can you tell me how many red SUVs have this? 00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:12.079 last September, we were like 3 ,000 or something 00:26:12.079 --> 00:26:15.920 in the state. How about in Okanogan County? Three. 00:26:16.559 --> 00:26:21.200 Nice. And then the one came back, Lincoln Navigator, 00:26:21.380 --> 00:26:23.259 which was not one of the cars we've been looking 00:26:23.259 --> 00:26:27.359 at, but similar registered, Detominer and white. 00:26:27.619 --> 00:26:33.440 Beautiful, beautiful. And they. So yeah, it's 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:35.700 just starting to look good. So anyway, so look, 00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:38.619 I gotta stop you one more time because. Is this 00:26:38.619 --> 00:26:41.519 the same game warden who intercepted the FedEx 00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:45.019 package? Yes. So that's also cool because you 00:26:45.019 --> 00:26:46.759 had a good enough relationship with that person 00:26:46.759 --> 00:26:48.740 that they're invested in your case and they're 00:26:48.740 --> 00:26:51.759 keeping their eye out. Funny thing though, that 00:26:51.759 --> 00:26:54.119 was a game warden named Troy McCormick, right? 00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:59.240 I actually, I knew Troy from my time when I lived 00:26:59.240 --> 00:27:01.660 in Washington and was an assistant attorney general. 00:27:01.880 --> 00:27:07.420 He was a brand new state game warden. He, yeah, 00:27:07.720 --> 00:27:10.470 and I, you know, very dedicated. Game Warden 00:27:10.470 --> 00:27:14.710 who really? Yeah, it makes me I'm not sure. I'm 00:27:14.710 --> 00:27:16.490 not sure either. I'm not in touch with him, but 00:27:16.490 --> 00:27:18.930 he was, you know, highly motivated. So it's not 00:27:18.930 --> 00:27:21.190 I'm not surprised that he would take the time 00:27:21.190 --> 00:27:24.869 to do this extra work. OK, so yeah, so now you're 00:27:24.869 --> 00:27:28.470 looking good. You've got a world's tied to Bill 00:27:28.470 --> 00:27:30.970 White's property. You know that Tom and his wife 00:27:30.970 --> 00:27:33.690 live on the property. His wife drives the same 00:27:33.690 --> 00:27:36.390 kind of car that was seen going to and from the 00:27:36.390 --> 00:27:41.799 FedEx and the postal and. The photo of her driver's 00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:44.259 license, I assume, looks very similar to the 00:27:44.259 --> 00:27:46.359 photo from the surveillance camera. That's looking 00:27:46.359 --> 00:27:48.880 good. That's looking good. It is. It's looking 00:27:48.880 --> 00:27:53.740 real good. And so I shipped the pad and the samples 00:27:53.740 --> 00:27:56.160 off to the forensic lab. And it was a pretty 00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:58.259 quick turnaround. They got back to me and said, 00:27:58.660 --> 00:28:02.359 yeah, that's a wolf. Good. Yeah, that's a wolf. 00:28:02.700 --> 00:28:07.529 It seems like it's probably an Alaska. Wolf and 00:28:07.529 --> 00:28:09.869 they have ways of the way they do that. Don't 00:28:09.869 --> 00:28:13.970 ask me to explain that. They can, they can narrow 00:28:13.970 --> 00:28:16.349 down pretty well. And it came back later to something 00:28:16.349 --> 00:28:18.529 a little bit different, but not too far off, 00:28:18.730 --> 00:28:22.109 but that was months down the road. Okay. Um, 00:28:22.109 --> 00:28:26.230 but anyways, so we got a wolf. We got the property. 00:28:26.289 --> 00:28:29.250 We got to, we got possible suspects. We got it. 00:28:29.250 --> 00:28:32.730 I didn't possible identity search warrant time. 00:28:33.630 --> 00:28:37.700 So I did. The email accounts, I did the preservation 00:28:37.700 --> 00:28:41.339 letters, you know, to basically what a preservation 00:28:41.339 --> 00:28:44.339 letter does is, you know, you send it in to Century 00:28:44.339 --> 00:28:50.299 Tale, Gmail, AOL, whoever, and say, freeze this 00:28:50.299 --> 00:28:52.259 account. And they don't want to say freeze. They 00:28:52.259 --> 00:28:54.799 don't freeze it. They don't say no more. They 00:28:54.799 --> 00:28:57.640 just basically take a snapshot of the records 00:28:57.640 --> 00:29:00.480 associated with that account. At that time, they 00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:03.240 get that letter. Right. And in anticipation, 00:29:03.319 --> 00:29:05.319 they're going to get a warrant. at a later date. 00:29:05.880 --> 00:29:10.839 Right. And so did all that and got the warrant 00:29:10.839 --> 00:29:15.660 sent in and got some phone record requests for 00:29:15.660 --> 00:29:19.380 Bill's phone number. And Canada was working on 00:29:19.380 --> 00:29:25.420 the Canadian side of this thing. And I get this 00:29:25.420 --> 00:29:30.660 warrant, US attorney looks at it and yeah, we're 00:29:30.660 --> 00:29:33.180 ready to go. And I take it into the magistrate. 00:29:33.279 --> 00:29:35.359 She reads the entire thing and says, I'm not 00:29:35.359 --> 00:29:39.539 going to sign this. That's a first. And I was 00:29:39.539 --> 00:29:42.059 like, this has never happened to me. I don't 00:29:42.059 --> 00:29:44.400 know what to do here. I mean, it was it was like 00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:47.779 devastating. Yeah. I thought, oh, my gosh. And 00:29:47.779 --> 00:29:50.920 I said, OK, what's wrong with the judge? And 00:29:50.920 --> 00:29:54.680 she said this comment about she closely resembled 00:29:54.680 --> 00:29:57.759 the person in the Wal -Mart. That ain't going 00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:03.599 to do it. What? Yeah. And anyway, it was just, 00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:05.960 you know, grainy photo and stuff from the Walmart. 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:09.220 The driver's license was perfect. So I got a 00:30:09.220 --> 00:30:12.240 friend of mine at Benton County Sheriff's Department 00:30:12.240 --> 00:30:16.980 helped me put together a photo montage. And I 00:30:16.980 --> 00:30:19.640 sent it up to Sergeant Jim Brown up with the 00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:22.220 Washington Game Department. I said, can you go 00:30:22.220 --> 00:30:25.279 talk to Mr. Ekstrom or the guy at FedEx place 00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:29.720 and let's see what happens. Good idea. You know, 00:30:29.839 --> 00:30:32.480 I've done several of these. I was always nervous. 00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:34.579 You know, they're looking at, well, I don't know, 00:30:34.680 --> 00:30:38.680 you know, and they point the wrong one. But Jim 00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:41.039 said he laid that thing down. Yep, right there. 00:30:41.299 --> 00:30:45.160 That's her. Nice. And like, OK, so we're back 00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:47.039 in business. We're back in business. So a couple 00:30:47.039 --> 00:30:51.000 of things there. First of all, for law enforcement 00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:52.579 listeners, they're going to know to get a search 00:30:52.579 --> 00:30:54.460 warrant, you have to have the probable cause. 00:30:54.720 --> 00:30:57.180 That's it. That's it. And that just means. Facts 00:30:57.180 --> 00:30:59.119 or circumstances that would leave you to believe 00:30:59.119 --> 00:31:00.900 that a crime had occurred and that there's evidence 00:31:00.900 --> 00:31:02.900 going to be found where you want to search. So 00:31:02.900 --> 00:31:06.680 that's not that big of a burden to do. So and 00:31:06.680 --> 00:31:09.619 it's unusual that a judge or magistrate judge 00:31:09.619 --> 00:31:11.740 would decline a search warrant. But actually, 00:31:12.779 --> 00:31:14.839 I think it's kind of good quirky because it reminds 00:31:14.839 --> 00:31:19.220 people that there is a check and a balance watching 00:31:19.220 --> 00:31:21.839 law enforcement to make sure that we don't just 00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:23.839 bust into somebody's home or go snooping around 00:31:23.839 --> 00:31:28.019 in their email unless we can show somebody else, 00:31:28.059 --> 00:31:30.859 a judge that we have probable cause to believe 00:31:30.859 --> 00:31:32.519 we're going to find evidence of a crime there. 00:31:32.700 --> 00:31:35.539 So it's not just like Corky Roberts goes snooping 00:31:35.539 --> 00:31:38.079 around in somebody's house or their email account 00:31:38.079 --> 00:31:40.720 or their bank, you know, you know, you have to 00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:43.799 get a warrant. So I think the judge was wrong 00:31:43.799 --> 00:31:47.539 there. But it is a it is a nice reminder that 00:31:47.539 --> 00:31:50.099 law enforcement does not go unchecked in this 00:31:50.099 --> 00:31:54.950 country. And yeah. Yeah, that's important to 00:31:54.950 --> 00:31:57.890 us as law enforcement officers. We don't want 00:31:57.890 --> 00:32:00.470 to run unchecked. We shouldn't. It is. There's 00:32:00.470 --> 00:32:02.910 been enough information out the last few weeks, 00:32:03.289 --> 00:32:06.690 months, whatever, about agents serving warrants. 00:32:07.670 --> 00:32:10.210 Most people don't understand. Just getting a 00:32:10.210 --> 00:32:12.029 search warrant is not like sitting on television. 00:32:12.659 --> 00:32:14.619 Oh, we need a search warrant, write it down, 00:32:14.740 --> 00:32:17.880 and you're going to get a sign. No, this is weeks. 00:32:18.259 --> 00:32:20.980 It sometimes takes weeks to put all this together. 00:32:21.319 --> 00:32:24.779 It just took weeks. It's not something that's 00:32:24.779 --> 00:32:28.180 very easy to do in the review process. Some of 00:32:28.180 --> 00:32:31.440 these are 30, 40 pages long. The review process 00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:34.900 is pretty intensive too. So it was a lesson for 00:32:34.900 --> 00:32:38.099 me, a good lesson. But in the long run, it also 00:32:38.099 --> 00:32:39.980 turned out good because we got to go back and 00:32:39.980 --> 00:32:43.490 visit with this guy. and we got some more information 00:32:43.490 --> 00:32:46.250 that helped us and further down the road. And 00:32:46.250 --> 00:32:49.950 so it was actually a plus to be able to do that. 00:32:50.190 --> 00:32:53.170 It tightened up your case and kudos to you for 00:32:53.170 --> 00:32:55.670 not just giving up. You're like, all right, well, 00:32:55.670 --> 00:32:58.089 I'll show you. I'm going to go get some better 00:32:58.089 --> 00:33:01.089 evidence, which is good. And you used what's 00:33:01.089 --> 00:33:04.450 called a photo lineup, which like you, whenever 00:33:04.450 --> 00:33:06.710 I used the photo lineup, I always had like this 00:33:06.710 --> 00:33:08.750 moment in my stomach where I was like, oh my 00:33:08.750 --> 00:33:11.230 gosh, am I going to pick the wrong person? But 00:33:11.230 --> 00:33:13.230 basically, what you're doing is you're putting 00:33:13.230 --> 00:33:18.789 out the picture of this woman, Ms. White, who 00:33:18.789 --> 00:33:20.910 you suspect went in there. But you're mixing 00:33:20.910 --> 00:33:24.170 it in with this probably driver's license photos 00:33:24.170 --> 00:33:26.589 of other people in Washington state who look 00:33:26.589 --> 00:33:31.490 similar to her. Same type of haircut, same complexion. 00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:34.759 the same details and you put them all in maybe 00:33:34.759 --> 00:33:37.859 a six or 12 person lineup and it's called a photo 00:33:37.859 --> 00:33:40.700 lineup. Yeah. And yeah, it's always a relief 00:33:40.700 --> 00:33:44.000 when your witness positively IDs the person. 00:33:44.200 --> 00:33:45.960 But you have to be really careful when you present 00:33:45.960 --> 00:33:47.200 it to them. You can't do anything that would 00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:50.359 give them a hint. Yeah. Yeah. And your photo 00:33:50.359 --> 00:33:52.500 line, like I said, has to be similar. Similar. 00:33:52.660 --> 00:33:55.920 You can't have, you know, five African -American. 00:33:56.119 --> 00:33:58.900 That was one. You know white female in there. 00:33:58.900 --> 00:34:02.160 It's like oh my god They have to be very similar. 00:34:02.200 --> 00:34:04.240 Yeah, and it's it is it's scary You start to 00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:06.259 look at these pictures going they look alike. 00:34:06.259 --> 00:34:08.480 I know I know you start to get nervous like, 00:34:08.719 --> 00:34:10.739 you know who she is But you wonder if who if 00:34:10.739 --> 00:34:13.119 somebody else might be confused. So that's good. 00:34:13.119 --> 00:34:17.320 So he immediately IDs er that goes Now I assume 00:34:17.320 --> 00:34:19.420 you've got rock -solid probable cause right? 00:34:19.500 --> 00:34:22.199 Yeah now it was it was not an issue and we did 00:34:22.199 --> 00:34:27.980 the same because we the You know, most of our 00:34:27.980 --> 00:34:30.920 information was for Bill White. Tom White was, 00:34:30.920 --> 00:34:34.360 and his wife, she was just the delivery agent 00:34:34.360 --> 00:34:36.880 of this thing. But, you know, still, there's 00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:38.619 going to be, that could be evidence in our house 00:34:38.619 --> 00:34:42.579 of, you know, blood, hair, skinning knives, rifles, 00:34:43.019 --> 00:34:45.920 you know, skull, you know, the big one. Yeah. 00:34:46.260 --> 00:34:48.739 You know, it could be at either place because, 00:34:48.739 --> 00:34:50.619 you know, they got Bill White's place there and 00:34:50.619 --> 00:34:53.179 he's been corresponding, you know, back and forth. 00:34:54.059 --> 00:34:56.760 And I don't know if I said it earlier, but when 00:34:56.760 --> 00:35:00.780 we got the phone records, when that old Mac officer 00:35:00.780 --> 00:35:05.760 called the number in Canada and, you know, I'm 00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:08.599 like, oh my God, well, guess what phone call 00:35:08.599 --> 00:35:12.480 we found about 10 minutes after the old Mac officer 00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:17.340 called. Beautiful. We had a number back to Bill 00:35:17.340 --> 00:35:20.619 White's house for a phone call. Yeah, it's just 00:35:20.619 --> 00:35:22.940 it was like ching ching, you know, here we are. 00:35:23.369 --> 00:35:25.269 Yeah, and who'd have thought of that? That actually 00:35:25.269 --> 00:35:29.550 is kind of a brilliant outcome, right? That I 00:35:29.550 --> 00:35:33.510 was thankful the guy called him. Exactly. Yeah. 00:35:33.829 --> 00:35:36.789 Oh, that's beautiful because it definitely kind 00:35:36.789 --> 00:35:39.530 of leans toward, you know, culpability there 00:35:39.530 --> 00:35:41.070 if the first thing you do after you get a call 00:35:41.070 --> 00:35:46.250 from a cop is warn the person, right? Yeah, that's 00:35:46.250 --> 00:35:52.789 a little suspicious. There's another clue. OK. 00:35:53.079 --> 00:35:56.380 All right. So, yeah. A few days later, we got 00:35:56.380 --> 00:35:58.980 teams together and we went and served search 00:35:58.980 --> 00:36:02.099 warrants on Tom Light, Bill Light's property, 00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:04.900 outbuildings, vehicles, computers. It wasn't 00:36:04.900 --> 00:36:07.579 a big one. And, you know, this is one of those 00:36:07.579 --> 00:36:11.539 things, you know, there was two fish and wildlife 00:36:11.539 --> 00:36:13.980 agents in eastern Washington at that time and 00:36:13.980 --> 00:36:15.760 four over in western Washington. There's not 00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:19.320 near enough people. We had, you know, the state 00:36:19.320 --> 00:36:20.940 game warden, there was three or four of them 00:36:20.940 --> 00:36:23.010 in the area, but still. You're searching two 00:36:23.010 --> 00:36:27.750 houses, you know, two properties. And so plus 00:36:27.750 --> 00:36:29.690 Fish and Wildlife Services, you know, didn't 00:36:29.690 --> 00:36:32.130 have a computer forensics specialist. Right. 00:36:32.409 --> 00:36:37.329 And so we had a contact I've worked with before 00:36:37.329 --> 00:36:41.050 on the monkey case, an ice agent, and he came 00:36:41.050 --> 00:36:44.469 along and handled the computer issues. Awesome. 00:36:44.829 --> 00:36:48.269 Yeah. Yeah, that was wonderful to have him on 00:36:48.269 --> 00:36:51.429 board. But I was on the team that did Bill's 00:36:51.429 --> 00:36:55.289 house. And agent for who was also on your season 00:36:55.289 --> 00:36:57.750 one stuff was on the team that led the team that 00:36:57.750 --> 00:37:02.349 did Tom's house. Awesome. I remember when we, 00:37:02.349 --> 00:37:05.050 we drove up to Bill's house, you know, and, you 00:37:05.050 --> 00:37:06.829 know, people think search warrants kick doors 00:37:06.829 --> 00:37:08.650 and stuff. And that was basically he's standing 00:37:08.650 --> 00:37:11.250 there on the porch. Howdy. Hey, how you got done? 00:37:11.510 --> 00:37:13.969 We've got a search warrant for your place. Oh, 00:37:14.130 --> 00:37:17.130 she's okay. It was, it was just like, like this 00:37:17.130 --> 00:37:19.690 happened every day. We would come by for dinner 00:37:19.690 --> 00:37:23.230 and except his wife was not too pleased. She 00:37:23.230 --> 00:37:25.309 was like, this is because you wouldn't let the 00:37:25.309 --> 00:37:27.170 Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Biologists 00:37:27.170 --> 00:37:30.329 on your property. It's retaliation, but you know, 00:37:31.889 --> 00:37:35.369 she quieted down. And so we, Jim Brown and I 00:37:35.369 --> 00:37:37.369 sat down at the table, Bill started talking and 00:37:37.369 --> 00:37:42.679 he just, he started talking and... Not a lot 00:37:42.679 --> 00:37:45.000 of truths. I was just going to say, did he lie 00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.599 or did he tell the truth? But it was, it was 00:37:49.599 --> 00:37:51.920 great because it's simultaneous. We had Canadian 00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:53.960 officers up there viewing the guy in Canada. 00:37:54.420 --> 00:37:56.900 Nice. And so, you know, we're a few minutes into 00:37:56.900 --> 00:38:00.019 this thing and you know, for a reason, I go outside 00:38:00.019 --> 00:38:03.260 and then I come back in and say, do you still 00:38:03.260 --> 00:38:04.940 want to stick with that story about not knowing 00:38:04.940 --> 00:38:08.280 anything about wolves getting killed? Huh? Yeah. 00:38:08.280 --> 00:38:14.079 Cause Ralph just said you did. Oh. Nice. There's 00:38:14.079 --> 00:38:15.800 a couple of little finer points in there. The 00:38:15.800 --> 00:38:17.980 same thing. You know, we talked to Bill about 00:38:17.980 --> 00:38:21.239 one thing and he'd make up a story and then Ralph 00:38:21.239 --> 00:38:25.400 would, Ralph was, he was spilling and. Yeah. 00:38:25.619 --> 00:38:28.159 Cause, cause, you know, pretty soon it's like, 00:38:28.440 --> 00:38:31.420 well, shut up. Cause Ralph is, you know, he's 00:38:31.420 --> 00:38:34.400 just a receiver. What, you know, that one question 00:38:34.400 --> 00:38:36.980 that I know people are going to have is, and 00:38:36.980 --> 00:38:38.639 I did when I first started hearing about this 00:38:38.639 --> 00:38:40.400 case. And then it of course made sense to me. 00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:45.079 But why is somebody in the States sending a wolf 00:38:45.079 --> 00:38:49.019 pelt to Canada? There are wolves in Canada, so 00:38:49.019 --> 00:38:51.619 why would you do that? That was one of the things 00:38:51.619 --> 00:38:54.579 that came up in the interview, and we suspected 00:38:54.579 --> 00:39:00.539 this anyway, is that they killed this wolf and 00:39:00.539 --> 00:39:05.800 they wanted to get it mounted because they liked 00:39:05.800 --> 00:39:09.969 taxidermy things. Yeah, there's a few deer mounts 00:39:09.969 --> 00:39:13.690 and things around. And you ship it up to Canada, 00:39:14.190 --> 00:39:16.670 you're laundering it basically, because it's 00:39:16.670 --> 00:39:19.150 legal to do, legal to kill wolves in Canada, 00:39:19.789 --> 00:39:24.469 trap them, whatever. And so it's shipping it 00:39:24.469 --> 00:39:27.090 up there to get tanned and then it would be imported, 00:39:27.309 --> 00:39:31.409 brought back in. I got you. I got you. So then 00:39:31.409 --> 00:39:34.210 to be clear on that. At that time, I can't remember, 00:39:34.210 --> 00:39:36.630 Corky, were there exceptions in the Endangered 00:39:36.630 --> 00:39:38.710 Species Act for people that went to Canada and 00:39:38.710 --> 00:39:41.329 lawfully hunted wolves up there? Could they bring 00:39:41.329 --> 00:39:43.750 their trophy back? Yeah, you could bring it back. 00:39:44.110 --> 00:39:47.590 Yeah. You know, I'm not sure if you needed to 00:39:47.590 --> 00:39:50.329 get a CITES II or not, if it was just us. I don't 00:39:50.329 --> 00:39:54.480 know. I can't remember right now. So that's an 00:39:54.480 --> 00:39:56.460 important thing for people to remember too about 00:39:56.460 --> 00:39:58.699 the Endangered Species Act. There are always 00:39:58.699 --> 00:40:01.679 going to be exceptions and rules specific to 00:40:01.679 --> 00:40:05.039 individual species. So like for example, just 00:40:05.039 --> 00:40:08.019 so people know, you know, the Endangered Species 00:40:08.019 --> 00:40:10.639 Act can list populations in a particular area 00:40:10.639 --> 00:40:14.639 of the country where those animals found in whatever, 00:40:15.420 --> 00:40:17.699 the Northwest. Louisiana black bear. Yeah, Louisiana 00:40:17.699 --> 00:40:20.000 black bear, perfect example for a long time. 00:40:20.829 --> 00:40:22.530 I'm not sure it still is, but for a long time 00:40:22.530 --> 00:40:25.530 it was listed as threatened, while black bears 00:40:25.530 --> 00:40:27.210 in other parts of the country, of course, were 00:40:27.210 --> 00:40:31.449 not at all protected by the ESA. So there always 00:40:31.449 --> 00:40:33.590 were rules and exceptions that agents and everybody 00:40:33.590 --> 00:40:35.650 else has to be aware of. And one of those, I 00:40:35.650 --> 00:40:39.190 believe, was Wolf hunting is legal in Canada 00:40:39.190 --> 00:40:42.130 and there are lots of wolves up there. So anybody 00:40:42.130 --> 00:40:44.349 who could show that they lawfully went to Canada, 00:40:44.630 --> 00:40:46.869 lawfully killed a wolf, they could import it 00:40:46.869 --> 00:40:49.030 into the US as long as they declared it properly 00:40:49.030 --> 00:40:52.829 at all the right paperwork as a trophy. So that 00:40:52.829 --> 00:40:54.590 would make sense what he's trying to do. He's 00:40:54.590 --> 00:40:56.090 like you said, he's laundering it. He's going 00:40:56.090 --> 00:40:58.570 to send it to Canada, have the taxidermy there. 00:40:58.670 --> 00:41:01.489 And then probably, I assume you found out the 00:41:01.489 --> 00:41:04.150 plan was He's going to import it back into the 00:41:04.150 --> 00:41:05.969 U .S. and make it look like he killed it in Canada, 00:41:06.010 --> 00:41:09.449 right? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty smart. Yeah. 00:41:09.849 --> 00:41:14.650 Except for the bloody package. Except being late 00:41:14.650 --> 00:41:19.469 for the FedEx delivery. Exactly. Okay. Oh, and 00:41:19.469 --> 00:41:22.769 one other thing. I'm just curious. When you would 00:41:22.769 --> 00:41:24.969 do an interview at a search warrant, did you 00:41:24.969 --> 00:41:27.230 normally Mirandize people even though you weren't 00:41:27.230 --> 00:41:30.710 going to arrest them? You know, I normally didn't. 00:41:30.710 --> 00:41:33.130 Oh, okay. Yeah, it's just because they weren't 00:41:33.130 --> 00:41:37.389 custody. Yeah, you know and but The state if 00:41:37.389 --> 00:41:39.070 there was a state officer there, they always 00:41:39.070 --> 00:41:41.769 did they always did. Yeah Yeah, I mean I normally 00:41:41.769 --> 00:41:45.389 tried not to but you know, it's uh that I always 00:41:45.389 --> 00:41:48.929 found that You know, I ended up later in my career. 00:41:48.929 --> 00:41:52.889 I did it anytime You know, there was even a remote 00:41:52.889 --> 00:41:54.949 impression that they might not be free to leave 00:41:54.949 --> 00:41:57.329 which during a search warrant They are free to 00:41:57.329 --> 00:41:58.750 leave that you can leave you just can't come 00:41:58.750 --> 00:42:02.739 back while we're there but Yeah, I usually did, 00:42:02.980 --> 00:42:06.699 but you know, that's agent prerogative. Did you 00:42:06.699 --> 00:42:08.380 ever give them, like, before you start talking 00:42:08.380 --> 00:42:10.179 to them, did you ever give them any kind of just 00:42:10.179 --> 00:42:13.619 informal warning about lying to a federal agent? 00:42:14.889 --> 00:42:18.250 Because some agents do that too, you know, because 00:42:18.250 --> 00:42:20.909 it's a so we listeners know It's actually if 00:42:20.909 --> 00:42:23.590 you lie to a federal agent in the course of an 00:42:23.590 --> 00:42:25.769 official investigation. It's a felony That's 00:42:25.769 --> 00:42:28.230 how Martha Stewart went to jail. That's how Marion 00:42:28.230 --> 00:42:31.070 Jones went to jail You know, they lied the FBI 00:42:31.070 --> 00:42:34.869 agents and so it's a great tool because if you're 00:42:34.869 --> 00:42:37.030 on an official investigation you and somebody 00:42:37.030 --> 00:42:40.449 agrees to talk to you Mirandized or not if they 00:42:40.449 --> 00:42:43.760 lie They're committing a felony, a separate thing 00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:46.579 you can charge them with. So sometimes I would 00:42:46.579 --> 00:42:48.800 warn people, hey, just FYI, you know, you don't 00:42:48.800 --> 00:42:51.079 have to talk to me. But if you do, don't lie 00:42:51.079 --> 00:42:53.300 because that's a felony. Did you ever do anything 00:42:53.300 --> 00:42:56.280 like that? No, I usually, you know, I can't say 00:42:56.280 --> 00:42:59.239 I never did talk to hundreds of people probably. 00:42:59.860 --> 00:43:01.900 But what I would usually when I approach the 00:43:01.900 --> 00:43:05.460 guy, I usually my mind was like, you're allowed. 00:43:06.179 --> 00:43:09.199 One lie to try to get yourself out of this pickle. 00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:12.679 Everybody allowed one, you get one free, you'll 00:43:12.679 --> 00:43:17.260 call it. Then I might slip in, you know, if you 00:43:17.260 --> 00:43:20.039 lie to me here, at least you get yourself in 00:43:20.039 --> 00:43:23.000 the worst jam. That's a good way to do it. Yeah, 00:43:23.300 --> 00:43:27.000 and so sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. 00:43:27.019 --> 00:43:28.960 I mean, I charged several people false statements 00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:34.900 over the years, but it often did. Yeah, can I? 00:43:34.860 --> 00:43:37.519 tell you something else now, you know, maybe 00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:39.920 I can change this up a little bit. It usually 00:43:39.920 --> 00:43:42.440 works, but I was, I was trying to figure just 00:43:42.440 --> 00:43:45.360 be a nice guy, you know, by trying to get themselves 00:43:45.360 --> 00:43:47.699 out of a pickle once in a while. You know, my, 00:43:47.699 --> 00:43:49.539 my thing was similar. It wasn't like you got 00:43:49.539 --> 00:43:52.360 a freebie, but basically you kind of got a freebie. 00:43:52.579 --> 00:43:55.219 If you, if I, if I knew you were lying, I challenged 00:43:55.219 --> 00:43:57.099 you and then you corrected it. Then I'm like, 00:43:57.219 --> 00:43:59.559 okay, I'm not going to charge you yet, but I, 00:43:59.659 --> 00:44:01.360 you know, it's funny. I'm sure this was your 00:44:01.360 --> 00:44:04.809 experience to warning or not. But it always amazed 00:44:04.809 --> 00:44:07.190 me. I would give that warning, you know, hey, 00:44:07.449 --> 00:44:09.210 don't if you are going to talk to me, don't lie. 00:44:09.590 --> 00:44:12.909 And the very next thing they said was a lie. 00:44:13.690 --> 00:44:17.429 You know, it's like I could never believe it. 00:44:17.489 --> 00:44:19.510 It's like you've given this nice warning. You're 00:44:19.510 --> 00:44:21.949 being such a good guy. You don't have to do these 00:44:21.949 --> 00:44:24.840 warnings for them. And they nod and they're like, 00:44:24.840 --> 00:44:26.900 I understand. And then you ask your first question 00:44:26.900 --> 00:44:28.500 and the first thing they say is a lie. And you 00:44:28.500 --> 00:44:30.579 know it's a lie because you're asking questions 00:44:30.579 --> 00:44:34.699 that you know the answers to. That's right. So 00:44:34.699 --> 00:44:37.820 anyway, so that's such a good setting for where 00:44:37.820 --> 00:44:40.239 you are. And you said that when you were interviewing 00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:43.400 him, he lied. What did he say? Do you remember? 00:44:43.599 --> 00:44:45.619 Oh, he just basically said he did. First off, 00:44:45.699 --> 00:44:47.179 he didn't know anything about wolves. He didn't 00:44:47.179 --> 00:44:50.059 know anything about. is anybody shooting a wolf 00:44:50.059 --> 00:44:52.340 up there and trying to ship a wolf to Canada. 00:44:53.719 --> 00:44:57.320 You know, he just flat out denied that. And then 00:44:57.320 --> 00:45:00.500 his information started coming in from up north 00:45:00.500 --> 00:45:07.380 like, well, yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, Tom, he found 00:45:07.380 --> 00:45:14.690 that wolf in a fence, caught in a fence. It slowly, 00:45:14.690 --> 00:45:17.710 slowly eroded to some semblance of the truth. 00:45:17.889 --> 00:45:21.269 Okay. And Ernie wrote it evolved to some semblance 00:45:21.269 --> 00:45:25.050 of the truth. Which was what? That Tom shot a 00:45:25.050 --> 00:45:30.570 wolf and that tried to ship it to Canada. Okay. 00:45:30.690 --> 00:45:38.940 And Tom is his son. And somebody else is doing 00:45:38.940 --> 00:45:41.400 a warrant at the same time at Tom's house? Yeah, 00:45:41.400 --> 00:45:43.179 Agent Farrer and some others are doing the warrant 00:45:43.179 --> 00:45:49.719 over in Tom's house. And basically, both he and 00:45:49.719 --> 00:45:56.639 Aaron Joe, we give up. Oh really? Yeah, it was 00:45:56.639 --> 00:45:59.420 pretty straightforward. And of course, when they 00:45:59.420 --> 00:46:01.860 walked in, they see hanging on the coat rack, 00:46:02.079 --> 00:46:04.599 a nice ski jacket with a white stripe down it. 00:46:05.260 --> 00:46:11.630 It's purple. Yeah, so it was pretty straightforward 00:46:11.630 --> 00:46:14.070 where this was going. So they took his computer, 00:46:14.289 --> 00:46:18.090 they took I think a rifle or some other stuff, 00:46:18.510 --> 00:46:21.070 but couldn't find a skull. Couldn't find any 00:46:21.070 --> 00:46:28.269 of the remnants of really the wolf there. And 00:46:28.269 --> 00:46:31.909 Tom made the comment that he burned basically 00:46:31.909 --> 00:46:34.150 everything associated with that and he couldn't 00:46:34.150 --> 00:46:38.440 remember what he did to the skull. Yeah, so it 00:46:38.440 --> 00:46:40.679 made me sit on somebody's mail piece around there 00:46:40.679 --> 00:46:43.159 somewhere Yeah, it was probably it was probably 00:46:43.159 --> 00:46:45.380 buried so a decomposer something. Yeah, it's 00:46:45.380 --> 00:46:48.579 sitting on somebody's mantle for sure. Yeah Okay. 00:46:49.059 --> 00:46:51.119 All right. So you got a good confession out of 00:46:51.119 --> 00:46:54.400 Tom. What do you do next? Of course the computer 00:46:54.400 --> 00:46:58.820 forensics. Yep, and Me knowing the computer forensics 00:46:58.820 --> 00:47:02.000 guy. I would get pieces and parts as we went 00:47:03.889 --> 00:47:07.989 And it was, there was just some gems, you know. 00:47:09.010 --> 00:47:10.949 A lot of enforcement, you deal with cases that 00:47:10.949 --> 00:47:13.650 are bad and bad things people do to wildlife 00:47:13.650 --> 00:47:16.070 and bad things people do to each other. And especially, 00:47:16.269 --> 00:47:17.829 you know, the local cops and stuff, they deal 00:47:17.829 --> 00:47:20.289 with some moral things. But every once in a while, 00:47:20.349 --> 00:47:25.030 you sure find some humor. You know, I was getting 00:47:25.030 --> 00:47:29.070 pictures and here's a picture of Tom White and 00:47:29.070 --> 00:47:32.300 I've sent you that one too. Holding up a wolf, 00:47:32.300 --> 00:47:35.119 you know, yes, I'm down. It's not the one that's 00:47:35.119 --> 00:47:40.659 in the that's in the The package this is a different. 00:47:40.780 --> 00:47:43.820 Oh you can tell yeah, you can tell just by looking 00:47:43.820 --> 00:47:45.860 at the pictures Yeah, it's just so it's a much 00:47:45.860 --> 00:47:48.880 lighter colored wolf and one of the paws is almost 00:47:48.880 --> 00:47:51.659 chewed off So it's gotten a trap. Okay, this 00:47:51.659 --> 00:47:56.059 or that and it probably got shot Okay, good sitting 00:47:56.059 --> 00:47:58.340 there in a trap trying to choose leg off or just 00:47:58.340 --> 00:48:01.349 wanted and so that was a You know, and then there 00:48:01.349 --> 00:48:03.469 was some more pictures of imposing with this, 00:48:03.469 --> 00:48:06.949 this wolf and the paw and the destruction of 00:48:06.949 --> 00:48:10.170 the paw was pretty prominent. And so, yeah, okay. 00:48:10.230 --> 00:48:12.150 We probably got a couple more here, you know, 00:48:12.150 --> 00:48:17.510 at least. And so you got that picture. Uh, then 00:48:17.510 --> 00:48:21.429 the Gmail search war started coming in and the 00:48:21.429 --> 00:48:24.969 emails were just fascinating. Uh, this was on 00:48:24.969 --> 00:48:31.460 bill white stuff and bill was a guy he. was, 00:48:31.480 --> 00:48:35.219 is, was, is. He may still be around. I don't 00:48:35.219 --> 00:48:39.639 know. But he, uh, he's a smart man. He was, but 00:48:39.639 --> 00:48:46.639 he wrote his correspondence in this hillbilly, 00:48:46.820 --> 00:48:52.800 cornpwn. Like really conversational, right? It 00:48:52.800 --> 00:48:55.679 was just, it was kind of difficult to read at 00:48:55.679 --> 00:48:57.199 first. It was almost like reading the foreign 00:48:57.199 --> 00:49:00.500 land. And then you start picking up on it. He 00:49:00.500 --> 00:49:03.000 just wrote that way. That was kind of his trademark. 00:49:03.340 --> 00:49:07.059 Can you remember an example? Oh, yeah. There 00:49:07.059 --> 00:49:11.099 was one email that he's writing. I think it was 00:49:11.099 --> 00:49:20.840 his brother. And he says, yeah, we was WZ. Seeing 00:49:20.840 --> 00:49:24.539 these wolves, these wolves up here, you know, 00:49:24.679 --> 00:49:27.659 wolves, wolves up here. They've come in here 00:49:27.659 --> 00:49:32.800 now and we've seen nine in one bunch and that 00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:35.420 nine turned into seven and then it turned into 00:49:35.420 --> 00:49:40.380 five. He said, but you know, I probably ought 00:49:40.380 --> 00:49:43.559 to stop. And I can't remember the exact language 00:49:43.559 --> 00:49:46.219 he used at this point. I could look them up and 00:49:46.219 --> 00:49:50.900 find them. But he said, I read somewhere that 00:49:50.900 --> 00:49:53.880 you probably need to stop because I read somewhere. 00:49:54.349 --> 00:49:56.510 You don't want to put anything in an email that 00:49:56.510 --> 00:49:58.269 you don't want to read about on the front page 00:49:58.269 --> 00:50:01.269 of the paper the next morning. Good. That's good 00:50:01.269 --> 00:50:04.130 advice, Bill. That's good advice. Yeah, you promised 00:50:04.130 --> 00:50:07.530 you would follow your advice. Yep. So I see what 00:50:07.530 --> 00:50:09.130 you're saying. So you would like to say he'd 00:50:09.130 --> 00:50:13.150 actually spell out was W -U -Z. Oh, yeah. Was, 00:50:13.550 --> 00:50:13.929 was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, 00:50:13.929 --> 00:50:14.489 was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, 00:50:14.489 --> 00:50:14.869 was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, 00:50:14.869 --> 00:50:25.340 was, was, was, was, was, was, He liked to kill 00:50:25.340 --> 00:50:30.579 stuff. He was an interesting person. Consequences 00:50:30.579 --> 00:50:36.679 catch up to people. They do. Okay, so now you've 00:50:36.679 --> 00:50:39.940 got evidence of maybe more than one wolf being 00:50:39.940 --> 00:50:42.679 killed up on that property. Pretty clear it's 00:50:42.679 --> 00:50:47.119 not a hybrid now. He's saying they're showing 00:50:47.119 --> 00:50:50.900 up on camera traps in multiples. That's not going 00:50:50.900 --> 00:50:55.900 to be hybrids. Okay, so are you charging anybody 00:50:55.900 --> 00:50:57.699 at this point or what's next? Oh no, we haven't 00:50:57.699 --> 00:50:59.860 charged anything yet. Okay. The other thing we 00:50:59.860 --> 00:51:03.440 got was just dozens and dozens of trail camera 00:51:03.440 --> 00:51:06.860 photos of not just wolves but predators in general, 00:51:07.360 --> 00:51:11.219 bears, skunks and there was one that is kind 00:51:11.219 --> 00:51:15.579 of this forested area, a canopy over it and they 00:51:15.579 --> 00:51:17.900 all seem to be in that same area and there was 00:51:17.900 --> 00:51:21.039 one picture, there's mountain lions Then there 00:51:21.039 --> 00:51:23.639 was a picture of an eagle, looked like either 00:51:23.639 --> 00:51:27.639 golden eagle or immature bald, underneath the 00:51:27.639 --> 00:51:31.659 canopy in this forested area on this trail camera. 00:51:32.780 --> 00:51:37.659 That's wild in the world. Stuff walking by is 00:51:37.659 --> 00:51:39.739 one thing, but eagles landing directly in front 00:51:39.739 --> 00:51:43.019 of a camera, that's unusual. We got a baited 00:51:43.019 --> 00:51:47.199 sight. There's no doubt about it. They were baiting 00:51:47.199 --> 00:51:50.079 stuff in for their trail cameras or for... more 00:51:50.079 --> 00:51:52.800 sinister reasons, which turned out to be the 00:51:52.800 --> 00:51:54.659 case. I assume you're working your way toward 00:51:54.659 --> 00:51:57.480 a good case now, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's 00:51:57.480 --> 00:51:59.300 pretty, it's pretty apparent that this is going 00:51:59.300 --> 00:52:02.539 to, this is going to result in some significant 00:52:02.539 --> 00:52:07.440 charges against, you know, everybody involved. 00:52:10.800 --> 00:52:13.440 So in the meantime, in the meantime, the press 00:52:13.440 --> 00:52:16.440 has kind of gotten wind of this. Oh, okay. The 00:52:16.440 --> 00:52:20.059 state, the states couldn't stay out of letting 00:52:20.059 --> 00:52:24.079 people know and so other calls are trickling 00:52:24.079 --> 00:52:30.400 in. I get a call from a lady, I get a call from 00:52:30.400 --> 00:52:32.519 a biologist who got a call from a lady who said, 00:52:32.820 --> 00:52:35.719 yeah, I live half a mile from Tom White and I 00:52:35.719 --> 00:52:38.900 had a wolf that was licking his paw in my front 00:52:38.900 --> 00:52:44.719 yard on May 25th or whatever day it was. She 00:52:44.719 --> 00:52:49.010 was pretty close to Tom White's place. I went 00:52:49.010 --> 00:52:50.750 up to talk to this lady, because we're still 00:52:50.750 --> 00:52:53.190 trying to get confirmation of the second, third, 00:52:53.190 --> 00:52:55.170 fourth, who knows how many wolves. Yeah, right. 00:52:55.909 --> 00:52:59.369 And so we, I go up and talk to her and she was, 00:53:00.869 --> 00:53:02.769 she told me the lady lived by herself up there 00:53:02.769 --> 00:53:05.849 in the woods. And she, I showed her pictures 00:53:05.849 --> 00:53:08.130 of wolves, like the one that was being held up. 00:53:08.230 --> 00:53:14.070 That's not my wolf. She had names and everything. 00:53:14.210 --> 00:53:18.199 Oh man. Not much came of that one, except the 00:53:18.199 --> 00:53:20.900 trapping aspect was pretty interesting to me 00:53:20.900 --> 00:53:23.159 because it was obvious that wolf was trapped. 00:53:23.619 --> 00:53:26.619 And did you find traps on the property or any 00:53:26.619 --> 00:53:30.079 evidence of trapping? We did. Well, I take that 00:53:30.079 --> 00:53:36.300 back. We found one that was fascinating. It was 00:53:36.300 --> 00:53:40.449 obviously a large trap. probably an old bear 00:53:40.449 --> 00:53:42.670 trap that had been modified was teeth on it. 00:53:42.670 --> 00:53:45.809 And I think I sent you a picture of it. Yeah, 00:53:45.809 --> 00:53:48.989 it was, and it was in this spot that was later 00:53:48.989 --> 00:53:53.809 found to be a bait pile or near there. So whether 00:53:53.809 --> 00:53:56.590 it was used or not, I don't know. It was close 00:53:56.590 --> 00:53:59.690 when we found it, but it was, it was a powerful, 00:54:00.230 --> 00:54:03.030 it was somebody had probably tried to set that 00:54:03.030 --> 00:54:06.469 at some point. Interesting. Yeah, it was, it 00:54:06.469 --> 00:54:10.170 was wicked looking. It sounds like these guys 00:54:10.170 --> 00:54:12.909 kind of had their own little war on wildlife, 00:54:13.030 --> 00:54:15.909 not just wolves, but maybe other species too. 00:54:16.590 --> 00:54:20.670 Did you find any evidence of that? They had pictures 00:54:20.670 --> 00:54:25.670 in this bait pile of bears, wolves, mountain 00:54:25.670 --> 00:54:27.590 lions. They'd hunted a lot of mountain lions. 00:54:28.110 --> 00:54:31.130 There's a lot of correspondence and pictures 00:54:31.130 --> 00:54:34.570 and stuff of mountain lion hunts. They took people 00:54:34.570 --> 00:54:36.789 on mountain lion hunts. I don't know if they 00:54:36.789 --> 00:54:41.260 were... guided or whatever, but yeah, they didn't 00:54:41.260 --> 00:54:43.500 care for predators too much. And they had some 00:54:43.500 --> 00:54:47.820 livestock, but not like, you know, they weren't. 00:54:48.300 --> 00:54:51.300 Yellowstone showed quantities of livestock, you 00:54:51.300 --> 00:54:55.039 know, 25, 30 cows or something. Right, right. 00:54:56.099 --> 00:54:59.940 Hunting was a popular activity for them. Gotcha. 00:55:00.219 --> 00:55:03.980 Okay. Did they ever try to poison stuff too? 00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:06.110 I think you. There was something about poison. 00:55:06.449 --> 00:55:09.789 This is what happened next. We ended up putting 00:55:09.789 --> 00:55:12.650 another search warrant together. We put together 00:55:12.650 --> 00:55:15.530 a search warrant for not just the houses and 00:55:15.530 --> 00:55:17.909 the outbuildings and the vehicles. We put together 00:55:17.909 --> 00:55:21.670 search warrants for the entire property. You 00:55:21.670 --> 00:55:26.150 were talking about 400 acres? 400 or 600. I don't 00:55:26.150 --> 00:55:30.309 remember exactly. The entire property. As you 00:55:30.309 --> 00:55:36.159 know, there is the open fields doctrine. If I'm 00:55:36.159 --> 00:55:39.860 in a place and I see a dead animal over there, 00:55:39.860 --> 00:55:42.400 I can hop the fence and go over there and take 00:55:42.400 --> 00:55:46.460 a look at it without a warrant. There's no reasonable 00:55:46.460 --> 00:55:50.000 expectation of privacy in an open field. Right. 00:55:50.099 --> 00:55:52.360 Open fields doctrine, basically, just so people 00:55:52.360 --> 00:55:54.920 know, allows law enforcement to go on to private 00:55:54.920 --> 00:55:58.420 property as long as it's an open field. And as 00:55:58.420 --> 00:56:01.300 long as it's related to a legitimate investigation, 00:56:01.480 --> 00:56:04.670 they don't need a warrant to do that. To be safe, 00:56:04.769 --> 00:56:06.610 you got yourself a warrant to go on the general 00:56:06.610 --> 00:56:09.449 property, huh? I did. We talked about it with 00:56:09.449 --> 00:56:11.769 the U .S. attorney and he was initially open 00:56:11.769 --> 00:56:13.750 field, sounds like a good thing, but then we're 00:56:13.750 --> 00:56:16.690 like, we're going to have horses, we're going 00:56:16.690 --> 00:56:19.670 to have four -wheelers, we've got to cover a 00:56:19.670 --> 00:56:21.150 lot of ground here. What we're trying to do, 00:56:21.250 --> 00:56:25.210 we're trying to match the photograph of this 00:56:25.210 --> 00:56:29.130 wolf that Tom's holding up, as well as some other 00:56:29.130 --> 00:56:31.539 pictures. We're trying to match those and like 00:56:31.539 --> 00:56:33.840 where we saw the eagle in the bears and you know 00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:36.699 where the trail can't work. So we got to cover 00:56:36.699 --> 00:56:38.860 a lot of ground. Yeah, we have a pretty massive 00:56:38.860 --> 00:56:42.239 team of agents to do this and we did. We brought 00:56:42.239 --> 00:56:46.099 horses dirt, brought horses over and you know, 00:56:46.420 --> 00:56:48.940 I think the horses came from Troy, I believe. 00:56:49.099 --> 00:56:53.670 Okay, so we had. Quite a set up. We even had 00:56:53.670 --> 00:56:56.269 a command post in TWISP with an old trader. We 00:56:56.269 --> 00:57:00.230 set it up and a couple others manned that while 00:57:00.230 --> 00:57:03.789 the other agents did the work. I had to write 00:57:03.789 --> 00:57:05.489 two search warrants while I was sitting in that 00:57:05.489 --> 00:57:13.050 command post for example. We covered that area 00:57:13.050 --> 00:57:17.849 pretty well. One of the things we found was the 00:57:17.849 --> 00:57:21.659 spot where those pictures of the wolves and the 00:57:21.659 --> 00:57:26.300 bear and the eagle and stuff were And the trail 00:57:26.300 --> 00:57:28.539 camera mounted on a tree there and there were 00:57:28.539 --> 00:57:38.760 bones everywhere Do your livestock Ravens Eagle 00:57:38.760 --> 00:57:43.340 skull is probably that same one. It was very 00:57:43.340 --> 00:57:49.230 apparent that there had been some some pesticides 00:57:49.230 --> 00:57:52.170 used there. And that goes back to those emails 00:57:52.170 --> 00:57:56.789 that we got. One of the emails was to a guy in 00:57:56.789 --> 00:57:58.690 Southern Washington, and it says, thanks for 00:57:58.690 --> 00:58:02.269 the stuff to fight the yachts, Y -O -T -E -S. 00:58:02.849 --> 00:58:06.670 I bet their guts are rumbling. The big yachts, 00:58:06.710 --> 00:58:09.489 yeah, so the big yachts, their guts are probably 00:58:09.489 --> 00:58:13.710 rumbling right now. And that's a pretty good 00:58:13.710 --> 00:58:16.420 indication. There was something ingested there. 00:58:16.639 --> 00:58:18.380 And for the people, for enlisters that don't 00:58:18.380 --> 00:58:23.619 know, sometimes people will salt an area. They'll 00:58:23.619 --> 00:58:25.639 put a carcass out or find the carcass, something 00:58:25.639 --> 00:58:28.579 like that, and they'll elace it with the various 00:58:28.579 --> 00:58:33.039 pesticides. And it basically kills whatever comes 00:58:33.039 --> 00:58:36.579 in to ingest feed on that carcass. And as they 00:58:36.579 --> 00:58:40.360 die, something comes in to feed on them and it 00:58:40.360 --> 00:58:43.019 just expands. It just goes on and on, depending 00:58:43.019 --> 00:58:45.460 on what the toxin is, of course. Yeah. And of 00:58:45.460 --> 00:58:48.079 course, of course, Yoats refers to coyotes, which, 00:58:48.280 --> 00:58:51.119 you know, I'm always appalled by anybody who 00:58:51.119 --> 00:58:53.739 still uses poison to kill coyotes in the West 00:58:53.739 --> 00:58:56.039 in particular, because it does kill just about 00:58:56.039 --> 00:58:59.139 everything else. A lot of protected animals, 00:58:59.400 --> 00:59:03.519 including bald eagles, ravens, you know. all 00:59:03.519 --> 00:59:06.880 kinds of stuff magpies foxes you know kills everything 00:59:06.880 --> 00:59:09.780 indiscriminately it's just a horrible thing okay 00:59:09.780 --> 00:59:12.239 and then and a bone pile would definitely be 00:59:12.239 --> 00:59:14.539 an indicator that a lot of stuff was dying in 00:59:14.539 --> 00:59:17.420 that area did you ever figure out if it was poison 00:59:17.420 --> 00:59:20.440 or what kind of poison they were using so we 00:59:20.440 --> 00:59:23.519 when we did the search warrant on on on the property 00:59:23.519 --> 00:59:26.719 and on bill's house and tom's house we we had 00:59:26.719 --> 00:59:31.179 an agricultural inspector with us and we found 00:59:31.179 --> 00:59:35.750 the coffee can with some granular material in 00:59:35.750 --> 00:59:38.150 it. And of course, we didn't know what it was 00:59:38.150 --> 00:59:39.829 at the time, but he later had attested that it 00:59:39.829 --> 00:59:43.000 was strict diamond. Obviously not in a labeled 00:59:43.000 --> 00:59:45.300 jug, you know, that says Strychnine or Gopher 00:59:45.300 --> 00:59:47.619 Bay or whatever. It was just something he kept 00:59:47.619 --> 00:59:49.619 in the coffee can somewhere. And I have a feeling 00:59:49.619 --> 00:59:51.659 it was probably Strychnine. Most of the animals 00:59:51.659 --> 00:59:56.219 were too far decomposed to be able to tell anything 00:59:56.219 --> 00:59:58.119 for sure. And we never charged anything with 00:59:58.119 --> 01:00:01.840 that, but he did not have a pesticide applicator's 01:00:01.840 --> 01:00:03.579 license and it was stored illegally. I mean, 01:00:03.639 --> 01:00:06.019 we could have charged him with some state agricultural 01:00:06.019 --> 01:00:10.780 violations, but it wasn't needed. Poison is so 01:00:10.780 --> 01:00:13.260 insidious because not only will it kill indiscriminately, 01:00:13.260 --> 01:00:15.019 but it'll get into the groundwater and things 01:00:15.019 --> 01:00:18.300 like that. And, you know, as an investigator, 01:00:18.820 --> 01:00:21.500 God, I dreaded running into poison anywhere because 01:00:21.500 --> 01:00:25.219 it'll kill you, too. And really scary stuff when 01:00:25.219 --> 01:00:27.780 you're out investigating poaching incident and 01:00:27.780 --> 01:00:30.940 you realize, oh, my gosh, this is a poisoning 01:00:30.940 --> 01:00:33.639 incident, because up to that point, you may not 01:00:33.639 --> 01:00:35.500 have thought about it and you may have already 01:00:35.500 --> 01:00:38.460 exposed yourself to the poison. Yeah, scary. 01:00:38.650 --> 01:00:40.690 Scary stuff. I know the long -term effects of 01:00:40.690 --> 01:00:43.130 that. How many agents that we worked with are 01:00:43.130 --> 01:00:46.190 no longer with us to die from these horrible 01:00:46.190 --> 01:00:48.750 cancers and things like that. A lot of those 01:00:48.750 --> 01:00:52.789 guys worked a lot of poisoning cases. It really 01:00:52.789 --> 01:00:56.590 makes me suspicious of what they were exposed 01:00:56.590 --> 01:00:59.230 to when they were working. Yeah, no doubt. I 01:00:59.230 --> 01:01:01.630 remember in my academy class, the lab came out 01:01:01.630 --> 01:01:06.269 and gave us a special segment about... Temic 01:01:06.269 --> 01:01:09.050 and aldecarb and strychnine and how you know, 01:01:09.050 --> 01:01:10.809 you breathe a little bit in or you even touch 01:01:10.809 --> 01:01:14.289 it with your hands ungloved Can cause serious 01:01:14.289 --> 01:01:17.250 problems for you. Yeah. Yeah, maybe years later. 01:01:17.250 --> 01:01:19.929 Maybe years later exactly I was always very nervous 01:01:19.929 --> 01:01:24.349 about poisoning cases. Yes. Okay. So So where 01:01:24.349 --> 01:01:26.150 we were what's happening next where we going 01:01:26.150 --> 01:01:28.289 with this case? Actually, you know, of course 01:01:28.289 --> 01:01:31.050 we we get this search warrant done and we never 01:01:31.050 --> 01:01:34.150 did find the spot where Tom was holding up that 01:01:34.150 --> 01:01:37.769 wall sweet We did identify some people who lived 01:01:37.769 --> 01:01:41.050 on the outskirts of the property and I went and 01:01:41.050 --> 01:01:43.969 did some follow -up interviews with with them 01:01:43.969 --> 01:01:49.090 and they all just spilled their guts. They had 01:01:49.090 --> 01:01:53.769 been observers of the whites activity for many 01:01:53.769 --> 01:01:58.989 months years and frustrated because they didn't 01:01:58.989 --> 01:02:01.969 want to Get their neighbor in trouble and bring 01:02:01.969 --> 01:02:04.909 trouble upon themselves, but boy when we knocked 01:02:04.909 --> 01:02:08.130 on their door It was like the door and all the 01:02:08.130 --> 01:02:11.150 floodgates opened on some of them and one lady 01:02:11.150 --> 01:02:14.750 was like, yeah I remember back in December We 01:02:14.750 --> 01:02:16.550 were sitting here and we heard this wolf just 01:02:16.550 --> 01:02:19.289 howl and said we hear wolves howling a lot But 01:02:19.289 --> 01:02:21.829 it was just howling and howling and howling and 01:02:21.829 --> 01:02:24.630 howling it was obviously in distress and here 01:02:24.630 --> 01:02:28.719 comes The lights pick up up the road next thing, 01:02:28.800 --> 01:02:32.460 you know pile and how it stops And I suspect 01:02:32.460 --> 01:02:35.920 that was that wolf that that we saw, you know, 01:02:36.019 --> 01:02:40.000 Tom holding up interest But sure the dates and 01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:44.139 everything, you know match up match up. Yeah 01:02:44.139 --> 01:02:47.139 So that would have been Nancy that actually would 01:02:47.139 --> 01:02:50.219 have been a great way to start this podcast Corky 01:02:50.219 --> 01:02:54.800 is to say You know tell the story about the rep 01:02:54.909 --> 01:02:58.550 the information you got in December of 2008. 01:03:00.610 --> 01:03:04.750 Maybe I can edit it so it comes out that way. 01:03:06.989 --> 01:03:11.150 Interesting. The neighbors are now telling you 01:03:11.150 --> 01:03:13.849 hearsay things that are confirming other facts 01:03:13.849 --> 01:03:17.309 that you already have. I talked to a couple of 01:03:17.309 --> 01:03:19.550 guys who contracted with the Forest Service. 01:03:20.569 --> 01:03:23.170 to follow the lookout mountain pack around. Once 01:03:23.170 --> 01:03:24.750 it was established there was a pack of wolves 01:03:24.750 --> 01:03:27.190 there. Everybody took a lot of interest. Sure. 01:03:27.849 --> 01:03:30.849 And they had had run -ins with the whites, you 01:03:30.849 --> 01:03:34.369 know. And these guys, man, their notes were just 01:03:34.369 --> 01:03:37.769 beautiful. Nice. They had run -ins with the whites 01:03:37.769 --> 01:03:39.929 about, well, you're getting close to my property. 01:03:39.989 --> 01:03:41.710 You stay off of it, you know, and that kind of 01:03:41.710 --> 01:03:43.170 thing, even though the wolves are right there. 01:03:43.289 --> 01:03:45.670 Right. Now these guys, they basically followed 01:03:45.670 --> 01:03:47.750 them around all winter, you know, with skis and 01:03:47.750 --> 01:03:50.309 everything else. Wow, cool. Yeah, it was pretty 01:03:50.309 --> 01:03:53.070 neat. Very cool. Wow, that's cool. So these, 01:03:53.190 --> 01:03:55.610 was it confirmed that these wolves came down 01:03:55.610 --> 01:03:58.289 naturally from Canada or did they come over? 01:03:58.650 --> 01:04:02.889 Okay. This is what, this and this is really got 01:04:02.889 --> 01:04:08.150 my attention. This was several months, you know, 01:04:08.230 --> 01:04:11.960 those DNA tests. especially in depth like that 01:04:11.960 --> 01:04:15.300 and take a while to compare DNA from other packs 01:04:15.300 --> 01:04:19.400 around. And they were from the archipelago of 01:04:19.400 --> 01:04:21.980 British Columbia. So over there on the coast, 01:04:23.079 --> 01:04:27.139 these wolves had made their way, a wolf, you 01:04:27.139 --> 01:04:29.500 know, cause they get kicked out of the den or 01:04:29.500 --> 01:04:33.480 out of the pack and, you know, they'll go on 01:04:33.480 --> 01:04:38.139 a walkabout. And, and, uh, this one made it over 01:04:38.139 --> 01:04:42.190 the, you know, into the Cascades from the coast 01:04:42.190 --> 01:04:45.769 of British Columbia and then down into the twist 01:04:45.769 --> 01:04:49.329 barrier. So it was called an archipelago wolf. 01:04:49.809 --> 01:04:54.269 Very cool. That is super cool. One of the myths 01:04:54.269 --> 01:04:56.789 about wolves in the United States that absolutely 01:04:56.789 --> 01:04:59.690 drives me crazy is you hear sometimes the anti 01:04:59.690 --> 01:05:02.329 -wolf people talking about how the wolves that 01:05:02.329 --> 01:05:04.949 were reintroduced that came from Canada into 01:05:04.949 --> 01:05:09.139 Yellowstone were larger than the wolves that 01:05:09.139 --> 01:05:11.840 naturally occurred in the lower 48 and you know, 01:05:11.840 --> 01:05:14.260 there's so many easy ways for an intelligent 01:05:14.260 --> 01:05:19.219 person to just Disavow themself of that Rumor 01:05:19.219 --> 01:05:22.019 because first of all, we know that wolves were 01:05:22.019 --> 01:05:24.599 killed in the United States the last wolf I think 01:05:24.599 --> 01:05:28.559 was killed in the lower 48 in the 1946 or maybe 01:05:28.559 --> 01:05:33.289 26 1926 Those pelts are still around you can 01:05:33.289 --> 01:05:36.010 do DNA testing on them and prove that they are 01:05:36.010 --> 01:05:38.309 the same species that we've reintroduced from 01:05:38.309 --> 01:05:41.590 Canada And it's not hard to know that you know 01:05:41.590 --> 01:05:43.329 You look at photos you can tell the wolves that 01:05:43.329 --> 01:05:45.869 were killed in the early 1900s are the same size 01:05:45.869 --> 01:05:48.230 as the wolves that are here today But you know, 01:05:48.309 --> 01:05:51.349 what's this is cool one. There's a wolf biologist 01:05:51.349 --> 01:05:54.769 that used to work at UCLA as a professor he passed 01:05:54.769 --> 01:05:58.309 away a few years ago, but He pointed out this 01:05:58.309 --> 01:06:00.289 is this is fascinating. I think you'll love this 01:06:00.289 --> 01:06:02.809 the movement of wolves, you know irregardless 01:06:02.809 --> 01:06:09.289 of men humans The it was the ice age 10 ,000 01:06:09.289 --> 01:06:12.889 years ago pushed wolves Far south into North 01:06:12.889 --> 01:06:15.889 America the ice sheet, you know, there was no 01:06:15.889 --> 01:06:18.909 habitat for wolves north of North of what is 01:06:18.909 --> 01:06:20.750 now the northern part of the United States. So 01:06:20.750 --> 01:06:24.429 all wolves were pushed down into so in reality 01:06:24.599 --> 01:06:28.199 when the ice age, when the ice sheets retreated, 01:06:29.099 --> 01:06:34.019 it was North American lower 48 wolves that repopulated 01:06:34.019 --> 01:06:38.699 Canada. So this idea that somehow Canadian wolves 01:06:38.699 --> 01:06:41.760 and historic U .S. wolves were bigger, smaller 01:06:41.760 --> 01:06:44.880 than each other is absurd. And there's so many 01:06:44.880 --> 01:06:47.579 ways you can You can just kind of, if you're 01:06:47.579 --> 01:06:49.679 an intelligent person who bothers to do even 01:06:49.679 --> 01:06:52.280 a minimal amount of research, you know that that's 01:06:52.280 --> 01:06:54.500 natural for these wolves to be moving that way 01:06:54.500 --> 01:06:58.400 anyway. So the reintroduced wolves in Yellowstone, 01:06:58.500 --> 01:06:59.980 they're no different than the wolves that were 01:06:59.980 --> 01:07:03.579 here 100 years ago naturally, you know? And what 01:07:03.579 --> 01:07:06.239 happened in NOMAC is the proof positive of that. 01:07:06.320 --> 01:07:09.969 These wolves move anyway. No, no, no, no, no. 01:07:10.349 --> 01:07:12.889 Say one of the one of the entertaining emails 01:07:12.889 --> 01:07:15.710 and this was not from one of the whites. One 01:07:15.710 --> 01:07:19.170 of the entertaining emails is they do some foreign. 01:07:19.230 --> 01:07:21.130 They knew where the wolves came from because 01:07:21.130 --> 01:07:26.670 he saw this writer saw the game department game 01:07:26.670 --> 01:07:28.809 department employee kicking wolves out of the 01:07:28.809 --> 01:07:34.989 back of a swan's truck. Okay. That's before marijuana 01:07:34.989 --> 01:07:40.789 was even legal in Washington. Yeah. Yeah. You 01:07:40.789 --> 01:07:42.750 can imagine I got a chuckle out of that one. 01:07:42.750 --> 01:07:45.789 Oh my gosh. The things people will convince themselves 01:07:45.789 --> 01:07:50.010 of in order to confirm their own bias is astonishing. 01:07:50.170 --> 01:07:52.570 Astonishing. Yeah. Hey everybody. I'm going to 01:07:52.570 --> 01:07:55.710 jump in here just with a quick note. When Corky 01:07:55.710 --> 01:07:59.389 references a Schwann's truck, he's referring 01:07:59.389 --> 01:08:02.190 to Schwann's ice cream. For those of you who 01:08:02.190 --> 01:08:04.349 have never lived in the Pacific Northwest, you 01:08:04.349 --> 01:08:07.429 might not know what Schwan's Ice Cream is, but 01:08:07.429 --> 01:08:10.289 people who live there certainly know Schwan's 01:08:10.289 --> 01:08:13.349 because their delivery trucks are very iconic, 01:08:13.829 --> 01:08:18.050 painted yellow with a very fancy cursive writing 01:08:18.050 --> 01:08:22.010 of Schwan's on the side. That company has since 01:08:22.010 --> 01:08:24.510 been renamed Yellow, but I'm sure their trucks 01:08:24.510 --> 01:08:27.600 still look the same. Okay, back to Corky. Okay, 01:08:27.779 --> 01:08:29.539 so we're running out of time here. We need to 01:08:29.539 --> 01:08:31.239 jump ahead. What happened? What happened to these 01:08:31.239 --> 01:08:35.000 people? Did you make a case? We presented everything 01:08:35.000 --> 01:08:38.279 to the United States Attorney's Office and came 01:08:38.279 --> 01:08:41.560 up with some charges and presented it to the 01:08:41.560 --> 01:08:45.539 grand jury. The grand jury immediately came back 01:08:45.539 --> 01:08:49.199 and, you know, I'd have to look at the piece 01:08:49.199 --> 01:08:51.880 of paper exactly, but there was, you know, smuggling, 01:08:52.300 --> 01:08:57.340 there was Laciak, Felonies. related to the false 01:08:57.340 --> 01:09:02.300 labeling, related to the export conspiracies. 01:09:02.979 --> 01:09:10.760 There was a number of charges that came out against 01:09:10.760 --> 01:09:16.239 everyone. My notes are you got a 12 -count indictment 01:09:16.239 --> 01:09:18.359 out of the grand jury. That's pretty good. Yeah, 01:09:18.359 --> 01:09:24.319 that was good. Aaron, Tom, Everybody was initially 01:09:24.319 --> 01:09:30.119 charged with felony violations. Had the suppression 01:09:30.119 --> 01:09:32.880 hearing on it. Nothing was drawn out. It was 01:09:32.880 --> 01:09:38.279 all rock solid. Nice. And eventually ended up 01:09:38.279 --> 01:09:43.619 settling on a plea agreement. And Tom Biden did 01:09:43.619 --> 01:09:49.439 that plea to misdemeanor. Lacey act? Lacey act. 01:09:49.560 --> 01:09:53.000 No, but dangerous species act. Maybe a couple 01:09:53.000 --> 01:09:56.840 of them, two of them I think. Aaron played two 01:09:56.840 --> 01:10:00.260 Lacey act misdemeanor. Everybody played the misdemeanor 01:10:00.260 --> 01:10:03.779 except Bill. He had to take the felony on this, 01:10:04.680 --> 01:10:08.000 but you know, and nobody got any jail time. Okay. 01:10:08.560 --> 01:10:10.720 You know, but they got some home confinement. 01:10:10.819 --> 01:10:14.880 Okay. Some fines, 10 to 20 ,000 bucks in fines, 01:10:14.899 --> 01:10:19.300 that kind of thing. That's pretty good. It's 01:10:19.300 --> 01:10:25.039 a wildlife crime. Very seldom do people get jail 01:10:25.039 --> 01:10:29.520 time for something like this. In fact, you can't 01:10:29.520 --> 01:10:31.760 own a fire, can't have a firearm again, can't 01:10:31.760 --> 01:10:35.020 vote, those kind of things. Yeah, and I noticed 01:10:35.020 --> 01:10:38.319 in the notes you sent me before we talked today 01:10:38.319 --> 01:10:40.859 that some of these, you know, there was hunting 01:10:40.859 --> 01:10:43.020 privileges restricted for a pretty significant 01:10:43.020 --> 01:10:46.399 amount of time. Guns were forfeited. That hurts 01:10:46.399 --> 01:10:48.819 people who are interested in hunting. But more 01:10:48.819 --> 01:10:51.520 importantly, you got some good finds. Ten, twenty 01:10:51.520 --> 01:10:54.560 thousand dollars. I think there was a total of 01:10:54.560 --> 01:10:57.140 either twenty or forty thousand as restitution 01:10:57.140 --> 01:10:59.220 for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. 01:10:59.860 --> 01:11:03.279 Yeah, pretty damn good. And, and like you said, 01:11:03.279 --> 01:11:05.920 you know, there's a record now. So, uh, what 01:11:05.920 --> 01:11:07.800 we've talked about before many times on this 01:11:07.800 --> 01:11:10.399 podcast is when, you know, you might be a little 01:11:10.399 --> 01:11:12.560 frustrated that he didn't get jail time on this 01:11:12.560 --> 01:11:15.000 first case you made, but you've laid down the 01:11:15.000 --> 01:11:17.859 record. If they show up again with another wildlife 01:11:17.859 --> 01:11:19.840 offense, particularly in federal court, that's 01:11:19.840 --> 01:11:22.100 when the heavier sentences tend to get laid down. 01:11:22.140 --> 01:11:24.180 Cause judges don't like to see repeat offenders. 01:11:24.880 --> 01:11:27.640 And like you said, that record follows you around. 01:11:28.259 --> 01:11:30.640 And we could have another discussion about how 01:11:30.640 --> 01:11:32.699 the sentencing guidelines impact whether or not 01:11:32.699 --> 01:11:35.579 somebody goes to jail. Wildlife sentencing guidelines 01:11:35.579 --> 01:11:38.720 at the federal level are painfully out of date. 01:11:40.079 --> 01:11:42.819 But you know what? Great case, Corky. I think 01:11:42.819 --> 01:11:45.079 this is a really interesting case to talk about 01:11:45.079 --> 01:11:48.300 in our discussion or overall discussion of wolf 01:11:48.300 --> 01:11:51.619 conservation and wolf repopulation of the lower 01:11:51.619 --> 01:11:55.020 48 United States. I think great work on your 01:11:55.020 --> 01:11:58.979 part. wolves now have kind of pretty much moved 01:11:58.979 --> 01:12:02.180 their way back into Washington. Most of them 01:12:02.180 --> 01:12:04.159 coming from the yellow, the original Yellowstone 01:12:04.159 --> 01:12:08.159 packs just making their way west. But yeah, great 01:12:08.159 --> 01:12:11.100 work. Cool case. Anything else you wanted to 01:12:11.100 --> 01:12:13.640 say about it? You know, you were going to ask 01:12:13.640 --> 01:12:17.819 about, you know, wolf reintroduction. Yeah, yeah. 01:12:18.399 --> 01:12:21.619 Yeah, absolutely. What? Let me ask you what? 01:12:22.060 --> 01:12:24.659 You know, as an agent, as a hunter, as somebody 01:12:24.659 --> 01:12:26.859 who's lived in a lot of the western parts of 01:12:26.859 --> 01:12:30.439 the U .S., what's your view on wolf reintroduction 01:12:30.439 --> 01:12:33.260 and how it works in the bigger scheme of things? 01:12:35.539 --> 01:12:39.220 I think they belong here. Now, do I think that 01:12:39.220 --> 01:12:41.520 they need to be coddled and protected and, you 01:12:41.520 --> 01:12:45.159 know, look at the nice wolf? No, I don't. I think 01:12:45.159 --> 01:12:51.420 that they're a reasonable. Hunting. season, what 01:12:51.420 --> 01:12:56.359 have you, an allowance for some form of predator 01:12:56.359 --> 01:12:59.640 control for livestock, because they do kill livestock. 01:13:00.079 --> 01:13:02.680 Yeah, they do. We're actually should have a right 01:13:02.680 --> 01:13:06.619 to protect his livestock. Now, should he be able 01:13:06.619 --> 01:13:09.520 to go out and use 1080 or something to do that 01:13:09.520 --> 01:13:13.880 anymore? No. There should be some kind of reasonable 01:13:13.880 --> 01:13:16.659 regulation, but I think they're here. Now that 01:13:16.659 --> 01:13:20.069 we've gotten rid of a lot of the legal... poisons. 01:13:20.869 --> 01:13:25.189 They're not going away. It's not just as a hunter, 01:13:25.270 --> 01:13:29.430 but I had the privilege of tracking a lot of 01:13:29.430 --> 01:13:34.890 these wolves from the air. I was also a pilot. 01:13:36.550 --> 01:13:41.029 I followed the one that started in northeastern 01:13:41.029 --> 01:13:44.090 Oregon. Eventually ended up all the way over 01:13:44.090 --> 01:13:48.289 in California and, you know, or seven, I don't 01:13:48.289 --> 01:13:52.569 think it was. And it was watching this whole. 01:13:54.109 --> 01:13:57.409 Migration and and developed and it just it was 01:13:57.409 --> 01:14:00.090 fascinating to me and I was glad to see they're 01:14:00.090 --> 01:14:02.729 here and you know you hear the misinformation. 01:14:05.010 --> 01:14:08.109 But then you read the official documentation 01:14:08.109 --> 01:14:10.050 and they're saying, oh, they're wiping out all 01:14:10.050 --> 01:14:13.920 the elk. Yeah, they're probably moving them around. 01:14:14.199 --> 01:14:15.659 Yeah, they're moving them around. Like Idaho 01:14:15.659 --> 01:14:18.300 and Montana, the elk populations, the number 01:14:18.300 --> 01:14:20.979 of successful elk hunters has actually meant 01:14:20.979 --> 01:14:24.079 that elk taken has gone up. Exactly. Since the 01:14:24.079 --> 01:14:26.619 introduction of wolves. They keep, they run them 01:14:26.619 --> 01:14:28.239 out of the habitat if they're eating too much. 01:14:28.500 --> 01:14:32.020 Exactly. It's just part of the cycle of nature. 01:14:32.650 --> 01:14:34.890 Exactly. The fact that you can't drive up and 01:14:34.890 --> 01:14:37.310 spot a herd of 400 elk anymore and take your 01:14:37.310 --> 01:14:40.170 best shot at one of them, that doesn't mean there's 01:14:40.170 --> 01:14:42.350 fewer elk. It just means they're changing their 01:14:42.350 --> 01:14:46.710 behaviors. That's another thing that bugs me 01:14:46.710 --> 01:14:49.050 on the MythBuster thing is it doesn't take much 01:14:49.050 --> 01:14:51.750 energy to go check hunter success rates over 01:14:51.750 --> 01:14:55.029 the last 25 years. It's all available online 01:14:55.029 --> 01:14:58.810 or easily gettable from any of the Western states. 01:15:00.470 --> 01:15:03.829 There's no, in terms of hunter success or number 01:15:03.829 --> 01:15:08.250 of tags issued, there's either no change or improvement 01:15:08.250 --> 01:15:10.890 in hunter success since wolves have been returned. 01:15:11.810 --> 01:15:15.310 So yeah, I'm with you, you know, properly manage 01:15:15.310 --> 01:15:17.090 them once they're off the endangered species 01:15:17.090 --> 01:15:19.750 list. Don't, don't slaughter them. Uh, but yeah, 01:15:19.869 --> 01:15:22.170 there's no reason why wolves can't be successfully 01:15:22.170 --> 01:15:27.430 hunted. I wish everyone could hear a wolf howl. 01:15:27.609 --> 01:15:31.840 Yes. 100%. I agree. Yes. Nothing. I heard it 01:15:31.840 --> 01:15:35.640 a few times and it is just bone chilling, but 01:15:35.640 --> 01:15:38.460 it's fascinating. And it's just, it's, it's a 01:15:38.460 --> 01:15:40.600 real treat to be able to hear it. And I wish 01:15:40.600 --> 01:15:43.220 that everybody could hear that. It triggers something 01:15:43.220 --> 01:15:46.680 in your ancient DNA, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. 01:15:46.760 --> 01:15:49.840 I've heard it too. And it is a very moving experience 01:15:49.840 --> 01:15:52.300 and one that I hope everybody has a chance to 01:15:52.300 --> 01:15:55.659 experience at some point. Yeah. Well, hey, Corky, 01:15:55.680 --> 01:15:58.100 thank you so much for being on again and telling 01:15:58.100 --> 01:16:01.140 us another fantastic story about your great work. 01:16:01.359 --> 01:16:03.720 You were an awesome agent and I'm glad we're 01:16:03.720 --> 01:16:05.460 still in touch. Thank you so much for being on 01:16:05.460 --> 01:16:08.720 the show. Well, my pleasure, Ed. It's great working 01:16:08.720 --> 01:16:11.340 with you and we got to work together and I'm 01:16:11.340 --> 01:16:15.260 glad we're still able to do it. Me too. OK, everybody, 01:16:15.319 --> 01:16:17.760 thanks for tuning in. I appreciate it. We'll 01:16:17.760 --> 01:16:21.279 see you next time. Nature's Secret Service is 01:16:21.279 --> 01:16:23.569 written and produced by me, Ed Newcomer. and 01:16:23.569 --> 01:16:26.750 is co -produced by the DHTV team here at California 01:16:26.750 --> 01:16:29.529 State University Dominguez Hills. Follow us on 01:16:29.529 --> 01:16:32.689 social media and connect with us online at naturessecretservice 01:16:32.689 --> 01:16:33.350 .com.