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OK, people, listen up. Here we go. This is Nature's
Secret Service, the podcast that puts you in
the room with the men and women of wildlife law
enforcement. I'm Ed Newcomer, your host. And
today we have a really cool guest, Ed Espinoza.
It's an Ed on Ed conversation today. And Ed,
until very recently, was the deputy director
of the Clark -Baven National Fish and Wildlife
Service Forensics Lab. I probably added a word
in there that doesn't belong in the title. But
the US Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law
Enforcement has a national forensics lab that
does forensic work for agents and inspectors
as needed. for many years, Ed was the deputy
director there and I'm super happy to welcome
him to the podcast. Ed, thanks so much for being
on. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me and
it's a pleasure to be with you. Yeah. And you
know, I just want to remind listeners, I've known
you since like pretty much my first couple of
weeks on the job, because one of the things that
happens when an agent is at the Academy or at
least used to happen while we were at the Academy
was people from the lab would come down and teach
a little bit about crime scene processing and
what the lab can do for agents. And you came
down when my class was going through the Academy.
So I met you very early in my career and honestly
couldn't wait to work with the lab. You taught
us well, by the way, mostly because there were
so many times in my career where I accidentally
forgot to do something you trained us to do and
I would kick myself because I was like, oh man,
Ed would not have liked this very much. And then
another cool thing is you and I crossed paths
while I was an attache in Africa because you
came over to Africa at least once while I was
there to help teach crime scene courses to African
law enforcement agents. So you and I met up I
think in 2016 in Malawi. It was Malawi. Yeah,
I had a great time teaching a crime scene course
there. So listen, can you tell everybody a little
bit about your background and how you came to
work for the lab and what that was like? My education
is a degree in forensic chemistry from University
of California Berkeley and I was interested in
working forensic cases. I always presumed it
was gonna be in a human crime lab because that's
the normal. And so a job opened and I decided
I would apply for a year to deal with bunnies
and whatever because I didn't know what it was,
but it seemed interesting. And I thought that
I'll do it for a year and then probably go back
to teaching at Berkeley because there was gonna
be an opening. After the first year, it was so
fantastic that I just stayed and stayed and stayed
and I stayed there for 36 years. That's amazing.
So the, pretty much the first job you got out
of, out of a university was at the Fish and Wildlife
Service Lab. It was, I was, I be previous to
that. I was teaching half time at Sacramento
State and teaching half time at Berkeley, which
really means you're not good enough to teach
at either place full -time. Before that, I had
done other consulting forensic work, but once
I graduated, that was the first and last job
actually. Very cool. How long had the lab been
around when you got hired? Because I can't remember
what year the lab was founded. was completed
in terms of the building in 1988 and I was like
the third or fourth higher in 1989. I arrived
there in February. Incredible. So you have this
whole history of the lab as it grew over time.
Yeah. Exactly. And just so listeners know, you
know, the name of the lab is the Clark -Baven
Forensic Lab and it, Clark -Baven was the director
of law enforcement. We always call it called
our directors, the chief, but he was kind of
a very, I don't know, how would you describe
him? He was a very forward -thinking progressive
chief or director of law enforcement who really
saw the need down the road as we were going to
be doing more international work, more like crime
scene investigations. He knew we were going to
need a forensic capability. He was he was that,
you know, he was a special agent, but he was
also had a law degree. Right. So he had both
the the knowledge of the law and the experience
of an agent. And so he was a good leader. Yeah.
Yeah. So he got the lab named after himself.
After he passed away, it was named after him.
Yes. You mentioned that, you know, you went there
kind of thinking you wouldn't stay long. maybe
not totally understanding the kind of work you
were doing, you might be doing, you know, referencing
bunnies and stuff, but you spent how many, 37
years there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there must've
been something you really loved about it. What
was it? What, what'd you really love about that
work? What kept you devoted to it for so long?
It, it basically comes down to being a service,
in a service position and servicing and helping
our agents conduct their cases. That's one aspect
of the job that was fulfilling. The other is
the questions that our agents would ask us that
needed to have some research done. Many of the
cases that our agents asked about, can you do
this, can you do that, were things that were
logical, but they had never been published before.
And so before we can take a mature science to
court, they have to be published given a legal
example called Daubert, Ed Ochs versus Merrill
Dow. And so there was a lot of opportunity to
do research, analyze the evidence associated
with a particular type of case, then go testify.
And it was a rewarding loop, it really was. So
there was so much opportunity in the early 90s
to do that kind of work that that I just kept
staying because it was it was fulfilling. It
didn't feel like a job. It just felt like you
were like I was at a university without the teaching
responsibility. So like it was the best of all
worlds. You know, that was my That was my feeling,
too, about being an agent. It never felt like
a job. It really felt like I was just going in
every day to hang out with people who shared
my interests and my passion. And that certainly
overlapped with lab personnel, too. Any time
I picked up the phone to talk to somebody at
the lab, you could just feel, or if I went to
the lab to talk to somebody, you could just feel
that you shared an interest and a commitment
to public service and protecting natural resources,
which, boy, that's just a freeing way to have
a career, isn't it? It's very liberating. It
was fabulous. That was absolutely fabulous. Fabulous.
Before I jump into my next question that's on
my list here, I want to ask you a couple things
because my students, I teach here at Cal State
University, Dominguez Hills, of course, and pretty
regularly I have students come through the criminal
justice program, or sometimes I have students
who are in a hard science program who come through
criminal justice because they want to do exactly
what you did when you were in college. You wanted
to come out and work in forensics. Is there any
advice you could give to somebody who is studying
this or wants to get into that forensic work
about how they might structure their educational
time to position themselves for that job? Yes,
I mean, I appreciate the question because I work
with many students while I work at the lab from
the local university, Southern Oregon University.
The first thing that I'll say is that if somebody's
coming through the criminal justice system purely,
they don't have the analytical skills usually
associated with forensic tasks. And I don't mean
they can't think right. I just mean they haven't
had their hands into calculating molarity concentration
of a solution or understand mass spectrometry
or know how to do STR genetics DNA testing. So
it's really it has to be the people that the
lab employs all forensics labs come with a skill
set that is very much analytical on the bench
and and so for that it's typically easier to
teach a scientist Some of the legal things than
it is to teach a criminal justice person how
to even understand the science because logically
most people who go into criminal justice Have
chosen a path to avoid some of those chemistry
and physics classes, right? And so and so it
it the the best candidate is somebody who has
a solid science degree with some analytical skills
through that experience. Got it. OK, that's good.
That's good advice. I always think it's pretty
smart of the students that I see come through
my class because because when I teach, of course,
I'm in the criminal justice program. But when
I see a student coming in who's doing some type
of premed or biology or any of the hard sciences
who comes over and takes a criminal justice class,
I always think, you know, that's pretty smart
of them. to already be combining the hard science
with the criminal justice, if that's what they
want to do, the forensics. Exactly. Yeah. OK,
great. And then I want to course back up, because
I think a lot of times people get confused about
what exactly forensics is. And the way I describe
it to my students is, look, forensics just means
that this is something that's going to have an
application or involvement in the justice system
somehow. And you mentioned Daubert, which is
a case that relates to admissibility of expert
testimony and things. You mentioned some of these
publications. And I think between the two of
us, we'll get to the right answer here. Why is
it so critical that these things be tested and
published, peer reviewed prior to a forensic
expert testifying about them in court? First,
I will say that our legal criminal justice system
does not differentiate between a bunny case and
a human case. The threshold of certainty is the
same. The Dobbert case really tended to be a
case that dealt with the damage to fetuses of
mothers taking certain medication. It was a civil
case. It wasn't a criminal case. From that, it
went to the Supreme Court. for the Supreme Court
to try to eliminate junk science coming into
the courts, they issued a decision, Mr. Daubert's
decision. And it's important because if somebody
is being accused, what you definitely want to
make sure is that the accusers, and in that case,
the forensics lab is part of the accusers, have
the correct science, not... not 50 % correct,
not the kind of certainty that a weatherman can
say it's gonna rain tomorrow with 80 % of probability
and it doesn't rain all day long, that wouldn't
fit. So it's really to help the criminal justice
system and in many cases to the disappointment
of our agents, our findings are exculpatory.
They are not helping the case. you can see the
eyes rolling of the agents and oh man that's
that was a waste of time but we at the forensics
lab don't think of ourselves as accusatory or
defenders we think ourselves of just interpreting
the evidence associated with the case the agents
brought to us exactly exactly and that's what
makes a forensic expert so valuable in court
is that Unlike a lay witness, a forensic expert
is going to be able to tell a jury or a trier
fact what their opinion is about their analysis
of the evidence. And I'm going to push back just
a little bit because when I was an agent, I never
minded if the lab came up with exculpatory. And
exculpatory, of course, means tends to show that
your suspect did not do the crime. Because in
all honesty, I don't want to catch the wrong
guy. You know, I'm after the bad guy. And I don't
want to ever go to bed at night thinking I might
have put an innocent person behind bars. So I
was happy if the lab showed that the suspect
was telling the truth and they weren't there
or they didn't do it or they weren't connected
to the crime scene. You know, that's fine. I'll
continue my investigation. But like you, Yes,
agents are very interested in solving the crime
and they generally have an idea of who the bad
guy is. But in the end, if an agent is rolling
their eyes at you, I will say to them, they've
got the wrong attitude because their job is a
fact finder and not to have an opinion. They
might have a sense of who they ought to be pursuing,
but never get too married to the fact that you
have to catch Mr. X because it might turn out
Mr. X is not guilty. And you better be willing
to recognize that if that's the case. And you
know, I love the way you describe that. And I
will just add to the conversation that most of
us have a dual system at work when there is an
investigation, either at the forensics lab or
in the field, right? There's the hunch and then
there's the facts. Yes. And a good scientist
ignores the hunch because that's a little bit
of the bias, right? and you tried to go by the
evidence. But we have to live with both because
the hunch many times is what leads us to find
the question or the evidence or the item. So
it's an interesting dilemma. And that's corrected
by ethics, I think. That's really where it comes
down to. 100 % is corrected. It's checked by
integrity, really. Because yeah, of course you
have to have a hunch when you're conducting any
kind of inquiry. But at the same time, you're
always cognizant of the fact that the hunch is
not fact, right? And you're going to have to
let go. I mean, sometimes like, man, I know it
in my heart. I just can't prove it. And just
like, OK. Exactly. And you know, my mentor and
trainer, Marie Palladini, she used to have the
best saying of all is that If we were unable
to make a case against somebody, they got away
from us because we just couldn't develop evidence
that proved they were guilty. She would just
kind of shrug and she'd say, you know, if they're
guilty, they'll be back. You know, they'll eventually
make a mistake. They'll be back. We'll see them
again. And I love that. I hadn't heard that.
You know, I respect Marie Palladini a lot. Yeah.
And, you know, just I think she kind of lived
the lived the example of don't get personally
wound up in your investigation because then you'll
become biased. You'll start to suffer from confirmation
bias and you'll make a mistake. Yeah. Along those
lines, I think this is a perfect segue into when
you train agents to submit something to the lab,
there's actually a form. What happens in the
field is I'm an agent out in the field. I collect
some piece of evidence. Maybe it's a carcass,
maybe it's a shell casing, a fingerprint, whatever,
and I'm going to submit it to the lab. There's
a form that we fill out that goes to the lab.
One of the things that I remember you training
us on when I was in the academy was to be very
specific about what you want and be very cognizant
of the question you are asking. What do you want
the lab to do? I think this is the perfect segue
because The lab is there to serve the agent or
the inspector and You're really you're not gonna
do something that the inspector agent doesn't
ask for Correct. Yeah, you might you might say
hey have you thought about this or that but if
it's not on the form You know, for example if
I say, you know, please identify this species
You will you know, you will use whatever techniques
you need to do that. It might be DNA. It might
be morphology but If I don't check the carcass
for poison, you won't do that, right? Or will
you? The one example you gave is slightly different
because cause of death involves looking, is it
a bullet, or is it poison, or is it natural causes?
Which is slightly different from an actual evidence
item in which you're asking, what is it? Or could
it be a species? In that case, we wouldn't do
anything. But if you decide to say what did this
die of, then we would look for poison and bullets
and all that kind of stuff. Exactly. So being
very important that if you want to know what
this confirmed, what the species is, and you
want to know what killed it, you better make
sure both of those questions are on the form.
Exactly. Yeah. Because that's just it. The lab's
not going to accept a piece of evidence and then
kind of run wild and do every test they can possibly
think of. Because we don't have we don't have
the the background or the the scope of what the
agent is looking for, right? So we try to assist
the agent with his question rather than Sometimes
new agents do the following They go to a crime
scene and they collect everything basically just
junk collect trash then send it to the lab says
what happened here and without without being
at the crime scene without actually doing the
measurements it's hard for us to say if this
particular evidence is associated with anything
or is just trash exactly because a very good
crime scene processing collects things that are
important to the hypothesis it's not cleaning
it up Exactly, exactly. And it's not picking
up something that is obviously a rusted old piece
of metal that's been there for 40 years. It has
nothing to do with your crime scene. Exactly.
That takes a little bit of decision making by
the agent out in the field. I remember when I
would submit forms to the lab, I would usually
bullet it out or number everything I needed.
Because another thing that I think TV probably
does a disservice to how forensics labs work
and how they work with the field, is what's depicted
on TV is often that we're going to hoover up
everything, send it to the lab, and the lab's
going to tell us what happened. And that's not
the way it works, because explain a little bit
about the capabilities of the lab, the different,
I don't know what you'd call it, branches, or
I guess labs within the lab. What are the capabilities
of the Fish and Wildlife Forensic Lab? Just generally.
So at our lab, we have grown and waned over time.
But at one point, we used to have a criminalistics
unit that analyzed fingerprints and bullets,
cartridge shells, all that kind of stuff. We
have a pathology unit that determines cause and
manner of death when a whole carcass arrives.
We have a genetics unit that uses DNA today,
at one point protein in the past, but uses DNA
to answer questions the agent might have. And
those questions come in many different ways,
and I can talk about that. And then we have a
morphology unit. That unit is usually invoked
when the evidence itself has some aspect to it
that is easily recognizable. could be fur, could
be an ivory object. So for example, in a case
in which you have morphological features, you
don't have to do DNA testing. DNA is expensive
and timely. And so somebody with the skills of
either ornithologist or a mammologist or herpetologist
can look at an evidence item and determine its
species, for example. And then we also have a
chemistry section. And the chemistry section
analyzes odd things that come to the lab. Specifically
to figure out what the chemical is that might
be involved in a case. Yeah, and that's that's
why it's so important. I think that asking the
right question on the on the agent side is because
it's not just the lab. It is sections within
the lab and so the lab kind of needs to know.
Well, where do we send this item? Does it need
to go to morphology pathology and? chemistry
or can it just go to morphology? You know what
I mean? Exactly. Yeah. So it's effective use
of lab resources, but also keeping in mind that
the lab is not going to solve your case for you.
It's going to turn back information to you that
you can then use to go forward. Exactly. The
lab is the handmaiden basically to the agent
to provide whatever information they need from
the evidence that we receive. That's all. Excellent.
So we're going to jump into a case now. Just
to briefly review, the case we're talking about
involves the poison meatballs that were distributed
up in Idaho and a case that was investigated
by Special Agent Scott Bergonier. And in that
case, Ed, as you know, it was a large crime scene.
And during that crime scene, Agent Bergonier
and his team collected more than 45 meatballs.
that were distributed out in this drainage area
out in the wilderness in Idaho after a domestic
dog had eaten one and basically gone into convulsions.
So typical example is Agent Bregonia at the crime
scene, he opened one of these meatballs and found
a gray granular substance inside. So he submitted
a request to the lab for two different things.
One is he wanted to know what animal those meatballs
were made out of. And he also wanted to know,
what is this granular substance? Assuming you
got a request like that from an agent and you
received these meatballs, what would the lab
do? And in what order would you do the work?
Probably on a case like you described. And knowing,
as you said, that there was a dead dog. poisoned
apparently by one of these meatballs. The first
thing we would do was a chemistry analysis to
determine if there's any poison present. We are
not going to give an evidence item to somebody
in genetics to analyze for species without alerting
them that this has something dangerous that could
kill you if you're not careful. Exactly. The
first step would be determine pesticide if present
or not or Poison doesn't have to be a pesticide.
And second, once that is confirmed or denied,
whatever, the rest of the evidence goes to the
genetic section to do a DNA analysis to determine
species. And which section would do the poison
identification or the chemistry section? And
so this raises two interesting questions and
two, I think, good points for people to remember
is that when it comes to this granular substance,
the chemistry section would be able to tell me
as an agent, what information would they be able
to tell me? Well, what the poison is, you know,
but there's also some morphology associated with
different poisons. For example, there's a poison
called carbofuran that has a little purplish
kind of look. And as soon as you see purplish,
you go, oh, that's probably carbofuran. Then
you test it. Interesting. On other cases, and
the way I like to describe it to agents, if you
arrive at a crime scene, and there's dead flies
on the evidence, and there is these little things
that look like fly poop, they're tiny little
round black granules, then that's another type
of poison called TEMEC, for example. So there
is some information that can be used at the very
beginning, and then once Once we have that hypothesis,
then we test for different pesticides. Gotcha.
So at least then the agent knows what chemical
they're dealing with, right? Yes. Yep. And then
over at the genetics section, what would they
be able to tell us or me about the meat in these
meatballs? So there's a process in which they
extract the DNA from the meat. There's a very
sophisticated process. They enhance the DNA by
using a procedure called PCR. PCR became very
famous during COVID years. Everybody wanted the
PCR test. Right. A little bit more accurate.
And once you do those two steps, then you do
an analysis of the sequence related to the material,
the DNA sequence. And that tells you, and you
compare that to a database, and then that tells
you what species the meat came from. In our lab,
we have a extraordinarily comprehensive database
of North American taxa, because that's the species
we see most often. Right. OK, so that's really
good information for the agent to know now. So
at the conclusion of this, Agent Bragonier sending
in these meatballs, he did know two things that
came back from the lab. The lab said the systemic.
that's in the meatballs. And so he knows it's
a poison. And he knows from his investigative
experience that this is a poison commonly used
to kill predators in the West, like coyotes.
And then other great information, he knows that
these meatballs were made out of elk rather than
beef or pork or something else. So that's good
information for him to have. But unlike what
we see on TV, those two pieces of information
are are valuable, particularly the meat. But
before a case can be solved, there's an important
thing that needs to happen. Can you explain,
I want to back up a little bit, but explain what
the Locard's principle is. Yeah. So, Locard was
this French dude from Lyon. He was in charge
of the crime lab in Lyon, France. And he postulated
or formalized something that people have known.
And it's called the Locard Exchange Principle.
And the idea behind the principle is that whenever
a bad guy commits a crime, there is a transfer
of evidence associated with the procedures or
the entry or the crime itself. So even if, in
a hypothetical way, if you touch somebody, and
you happen to have, I don't know, grease on your
hand, and you've transferred part of that evidence
to your, if you're the criminal, you've transferred
to the victim. And the Locard Exchange Principle
is the backbone of all forensic crime scene work
in which you're trying to make these linkages
between three things, the crime scene, of course,
the victim, and then the suspect. the subject
was under investigation. Many times the victim,
in human cases, 19 % of the time, 99 % of the
time, the human is found at the crime scene.
So those two are linked just by their location.
And then the third part, the subject is what
the rest of the investigation deals with. In
wildlife cases, many times the victim might be
in one country, the subject might be in a different
country, and the evidence might be in a third
place. Imagine a rhino horn from Africa. The
horn itself is found in China, Asia. The subject
lives in the United States, but the victim is
dead in Africa. So trying to connect those through
evidence is the basics of the Locard exchange
principle to make a connection between all three
of those. Yeah, and so where we are with with
Burgonyer's case at this point is that He already
knows that the meatballs came from the crime
scene. He knows the poisons at the crime scene
There's no victim. There's no dead body of a
wolf or anything He does find a wolf track at
the crime scene, but he finds dead birds He finds
a dead foxes and dead coyotes, but he doesn't
find any dead wolves But the most important thing
is just that what he's got is valuable information
But that information isn't really useful to him
unless he can compare it to something, right?
Correct. He's got very interesting information.
And now I presume he's developing a hypothesis
of how to continue, right? Exactly. And there's
one other thing he collected at the crime scene.
And I don't mean this. We're going to talk about
it. And it's not a criticism of Agent Bregonier
because, believe me, I've done this myself more
than once. But he took a photograph of a boot
print that he thought was highly suspicious.
It was kind of connected in the same area as
the meatballs. And it had a unique characteristic
in that it had some damage to the tread that
really made it stick out. But he took a photo
of it. Normally, that photo could be submitted
to the lab as what they call, what would that
be, imprint evidence? But can you explain why
that photo wasn't usable by the lab? I know you've
seen the photo. So in order to make an association
between a suspected boot and a photo, one needs
to have a ruler. If you do not have a ruler when
the image is taken, one can only guess of the
size or the dimensions. It is feasible to arrive
at a conclusion that is faulty and accuse somebody
of something if you don't have the right information
to start with. So if if the crime scene was photographed
properly, then a ruler would have been in place.
Right. But I don't want to throw anybody under
the bus either. But I'd like to highlight the
fact that agents typically when they're in the
field, they're alone. There's a lot of things
happening and There is so much going on that
they just don't sometimes have the awareness
that oh, yeah I I need to put a ruler next to
this thing before I can take a picture of it
Because they're worried about where's the next
evidence? I have a bunch of other dead birds
here So that's that that's why mature organizations
usually have crime scene techs that arrive at
a scene and they take over the Processing of
a scene and the agent investigates they don't
have to deal with a mundane collection measuring
all of the photographing, documenting the scene.
Right, because as you and I have talked about
before and you pointed out to me, if you're in
an agency that's large enough, has enough resources
to have a separate crime scene tech team that
comes out and processes, they're not invested
in the investigation. They're just doing their
job, just step by step by step. Whereas the agent
or the detective is thinking about 50 different
things while they're picking up evidence. And
like you said, sometimes it's personal safety,
sometimes it's, you know, coordinating other
team members or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. And
I think Agent Bergonia was the first to admit
that, oh, I effed this up because I didn't take
a picture with the ruler. But we've all done
it. I mean, I've done it. I've done it multiple
times where I've just like you said, I had a
million things in my head and I forgot to put
a ruler down. next to a piece of evidence that
I photographed. And to this day, I can even show
you to this day, even though I'm retired, I still
carry in my wallet an evidence ruler. I love
it. Because once I made that mistake twice, I
was like, screw this. I'm just going to carry
this in my personal wallet that I always have
in my possession. And I continue to carry it
as a good luck charm and memento of my time as
an agent. That is a smart thing to do. Anyway,
it turned out that the photo in his case was
still valuable to him because it did show the
damage to the tread. So even if now, if let's
say he had put a ruler down and he later found
the boots, there could be a forensic analysis
of, you know, Somebody could come up with an
opinion. This is the same boot or this is not
That's direct evidence very valuable right correct
what he was able to collect though Just documenting
the damage to the boot if he later finds a boot
with similar damage That is circumstantial evidence
still valuable to him. It may be not quite as
Devastating to the in the case, but still valuable
okay, so Then what we know from having talked
about this case in another episode is that Agent
Bregonia really, through very good detective
work, did develop a suspect. Just by his network
in the Idaho area there, he did develop this
suspect who was very anti -wolf and had even
made some posts online about how to make these
poisoned meatballs. So he's a pretty good suspect.
And he developed enough evidence to to execute
a search warrant at the guy's house. And at the
search warrant, they found, number one, they
found boots that had the same damage to the tread.
So at that moment, I think Scott was like, damn,
I should have had a ruler in that photo. But
they also collected a bone saw. They collected
saddlebags that had blood stains inside. And
then they collected a bottle, a little white
bottle that had a suspicious gray powdery substance
in it that to Agent Brigonier looked like the
same substance that was in the meatballs. So
now he's going to submit that information to
the lab and request some specific things from
it. Let's take each item by itself. When it comes
to the bloody saddlebags, if you've got saddlebags
that have blood and maybe tissue in them, I think
everybody who's listening, all my listeners are
like, I know exactly what Agent Bregonier was
going to ask the lab to do. But what kind of
information could you get from that tissue and
blood that was in the saddlebags and on the bone
saw? Well, so from the saddlebags, of course,
the blood can be characterized to what is the
source of the blood, right? So we can use the
same DNA techniques I described earlier to extract
that blood. with that determine what species
it came from. And if we have a comparison, in
this case, the meatballs or a carcass of an elk,
we can determine if it is the same elk or a different
elk. So it is, it is one can individualize. Other
things we can do if there was. proximity to the
pesticide involved, we can also test the saddlebags
for the presence of pesticide. So that would
be a second thing that would help the hypothesis
that the meatballs were carried in the saddlebags
from point A to point B, for example. And in
this case, in this case, that's exactly what
happened. The lab came back and said, the blood
and tissue on the bone saw and in the saddlebags
came from an elk and came from the very same
elk that those meatballs were made out of. So
now, Bregonier's got key element of Locard's
exchange principle, right? He can connect those
saddlebags and things found in the suspect's
home to that crime scene. And that's powerful
evidence. Powerful evidence. Yeah, super. And
you mentioned individualized, right? So it's
not just This came from elk and that came from
elk. It's that they came from the same elk the
same elk Yeah, exactly now with regard to the
poison That are there the suspicious gray powdery
substance He submitted that to the lab too and
that came back as the same type of poison but
this is this isn't a an important distinction
because Can the lab individualize? Poison or
can they only say same type? Okay, we could only
say it's the same chemical Okay. There's no attributes
that are characteristic to a batch or to a particular
type of pesticide to say it came from this bottle.
It is only a test to say it is the same chemical.
Excellent. But I will point out, since we're
talking about TEMEC, that it was a highly controlled
substance. It's not something that you can get
at Home Depot, for example. It's highly controlled
because it is so dangerous. Yeah, so there's
hopefully some type of paper trail that would
help. Maybe just to at least show that the suspect
had purchased Temick at some point or acquired
it somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Temick is one of
those things. I mean, talk about how dangerous
it is, Ed. I mean, if a human being, an investigator,
were to breathe it in or get it on their skin,
what could happen to that person? He would die.
It has the same potency as the some of the poisons
they use for war, right? They're illegal, but
it is the same kind of potency in terms of...
It has a threshold limit value that is very low.
So if you breathe it, you can start developing
symptoms. And if you breathe it repeatedly, it
could kill you. Wow. So it's very dangerous.
I don't know if in the previous episode you talked
about it but one of the terrible things about
these kind of cases is that there's this ring
of death that they talk about in which not only
does the pesticide kill the animal that it was
meant to be but other animals come and feed on
the primary victim and then they die and so many
times these crime scenes are Rings of death in
which you have multiple individuals of multiple
species all dead because of one poisoning event
Terrible. Yeah, and that's exactly what happened
in this case when agent Pergonia investigated
the scene. Initially. He did find dead coyote
dead red fox multiple dead Scavenging birds like
magpies and crows and things like that. So yeah,
just indiscriminate and in other other agents
on this season I've talked about that too, as
well, that just kind of the indiscriminate casualties
caused by poison. What about if somebody were
to get this TEMEC on their skin? Could it be
absorbed into the skin and be harmful? It does
absorb through the skin. Not related to this
case, but in a different case, different state,
we had an officer pick up some evidence of a
bait that was laced with a Carbamate which is
the the type of drugs that these belong to put
it on the in the trunk of their car and started
driving back to the office and started getting
symptoms of carbamate poisoning and very dangerous
because the officer became aware that this this
is bad and stopped and took measures I don't
know what measures were but That agent ended
up going to the hospital for a couple of days
because of just of the smell of the of the carbamate
Being volatilizing within the car Space I think
very dangerous super dangerous and I think you
know, it's it's on par with how you know urban
police officers often have to be aware of fentanyl
Issues when they arrest people Wildlife law enforcement
has of course drug issues too because we encounter
people with drugs all the time So we also have
to be aware of things like fentanyl, but unlike
urban police Detectives or investigators. We
have these unique poisons that are used for animals
to kill and poach animals that can be extremely
dangerous and I remember it was a Major point
of training that you gave us and we're issued
respirators and all the gloves and equipment.
We need to protect us But it's so easy as an
investigator to just be like, oh, I'm out in
the beautiful wilderness of Idaho. The air is
clean. It's beautiful. And you open that meatball.
And if you don't have gloves on or you accidentally
get some of that chemical up into the air and
you breathe it in, like you said, you could be
really sick in a very short time or dead. There's
been reported cases in less than five minutes.
People start getting symptoms of poisoning. That's
very fast. Really scary stuff. Very scary. Yeah.
So the cool thing is, though, that now once the
search warrant was done, Agent Bregonier has
direct evidence that the elk at the scene, the
meatballs at the scene, is the same elk that
was found in the suspect's house. And he has
circumstantial evidence that the poisons are
the same, because they're the same type. So that's
great. There was another thing that everybody
laughed about during this investigation that
actually was collected by a brand new state game
warden who really like was so bright -eyed and
bushy -tailed he He was so excited to be on the
crime scene. He really didn't know quite what
he was doing but he just wanted to do everything
and He had found a tube of these boot prints
kind of side -by -side and in front of them He
found yellow snow which was presumed to be urine
from the from the suspect. So everybody kind
of snickered about it. And there was some conversation
of, is that important? Should we collect the
yellow snow? And nobody wanted to collect yellow
snow, of course. But the game warden just bent
over, scooped it up, put it in a plastic bag,
and labeled it as evidence. And it kind of went
into the freezer and sat there for a while. But
once Agent Bergoner got to this point in the
case, he thought, well, maybe that yellow snow
might be important. So that raises two questions.
He's agent Bergonia is hoping he can find DNA
in urine, which my understanding is not very
easy to do But more importantly, can he submit
that to the Clark -Baven forensics lab for analysis
of human DNA? No, our lab is very much focused
on only non -human evidence. Okay There's about
300 plus forensic labs in the United States that
do human cases, including federal labs, FBI,
and so forth. And so we have focused only on
non -human related cases. And so if somebody
were to have that kind of question, going to
a human crime lab would be much better. Right.
And in my I worked with the FBI Forensic Lab
multiple times during my career on things that
your lab couldn't do. Not that it couldn't, it
just chose not to. It didn't have the facilities
to do that. And it was always related to human
DNA. And FBI Lab will do that work for free if
you're another federal agency. They don't question
it. You just submit it and they'll do it for
you. So that's how an agent would go about getting
that support outside of our lab. If they had
human DNA they need tested, they would go to,
like you said, a human criminal lab. Just kind
of to refresh everybody's memory, though, what
happened in that case was Agent Bergonier learned
from the lab that he was going to submit the
urine to that it was almost impossible to get
human DNA out of urine. The only exception is,
apparently, if the person has a cold immediately
before or while they're urinating. So at the
time they're urinating, or if they had a bad
cold before, they will shed cells out of their
urine. And Agent Bregonier remembered that one
of the things he had seen in the email evidence
and online evidence that the suspect had posted
was that about a week before the meatballs were
distributed, this person Mr. Sundles had complained
online about having had the flu. And so Agent
Bergoner was able to get a court order to take
a sample of Mr. Sundles' DNA to compare with
the urine. But before the lab could even do the
analysis, Sundles pled guilty. Instantly, he
knew his goose was cooked. Great outcome. Great
outcome. Super outcome. Gotta love it. Gotta
love it. So, you know, this is a classic example
of a, this case resulted in the first ever conviction
of a person for attempt to kill an endangered
species. So, Bergonir never found a body of a
wolf. There was no evidence that a wolf was ever
killed. Probably was because they found wolf
tracks in the area. But they never found a dead
body of a wolf. But he was able to charge Sundals
with attempt because of the, obviously they put
the poison out and Other evidence, circumstantial
and direct, pointed to him intentionally trying
to kill wolves. But it's a case that could not
have been solved without lab support, which is
one of the things I really love about it. The
results from the lab with regard to the poison
and the DNA, what you called specific identification
with the elk. Individualization. Individualization,
that's what it was. The case couldn't have been
made without lab support, which I think is just
one of the coolest. I love it when a plan comes
together. So in your experience, is that kind
of typical of how the lab interacted with agents
in the field and with positive results like that?
Very much so. Very much so. Sometimes the lab
contributes to support a hypothesis. Sometimes
The work done can only be done in a forensics
lab. For example, making a match between, let
me make it real here, a bare gallbladder that
is found in a suspect's home versus a bare carcass
found in the field. Individualizing those two
pieces, meaning using DNA to say they came from
the source, is the same case, which is an essential
component of this subject was involved in the
murder of that bear in a different state. And
if it doesn't, then there you go. Then we don't
support the hypothesis of the agent and he killed
the bear from a different place, just depending
on the laws of the state. Exactly. And the lab
reports that agents get back are very neutral.
And matter of fact, they will simply say, there
was no match or it is a match with no commentary
beyond that. Exactly. It's pretty dry. Yeah.
And I think that makes lab personnel such credible
and such valuable witnesses. There's never anything
in the conversations between them and investigators.
There's never anything in written reports from
them that would indicate that they are invested
or biased in any way, which I think is just It's
an amazing service that the service has that
have this forensics lab and it ought to be cherished
and it ought to be nurtured and it ought to be
cared for because it is such a valuable tool.
And I would I would agree with you. The lab has
amazing personnel and they're there to serve
law enforcement. I mean, that's that's a role.
Yeah. And it's not necessarily limited to federal.
The lab will sometimes do work on behalf of the
states, too, if a state has a particular issue.
Yeah. And many states now are starting to develop
their own wildlife forensics labs. California
has one, for example. But they have different
capabilities. And I think it's really valuable
to always know that the Fed's job is to support
not only their own agents, but law enforcement
in general. And so like the FBI supports local
law enforcement, so does the Fish and Wildlife
Service support local. Wildlife agencies state
wildlife agencies and the lab will do their work
as well if they if needed or if they can Yeah,
very cool. So looking back on your career ed
a long career What are some like are there any
cases that like really stood out to you is like
wow That was really one of my favorite all -time
Things we did together that came out. Well anything
like that that kind of jumps out at you I think
I kind of touched on it on passing in the first
few minutes of this interview, but we at one
point worked for about five years determining
if walruses' mortalities up in Alaska were wasteful
subsistence takes. There was one year that there
was over 500 walruses washed ashore. on the northern
Seward Peninsula and that particular case was
you know when investigators started talking to
the locals the statement was that yeah that's
the Russians killing the walruses and then they
take the heads and then the carcasses float over.
That led to about five years of work trying to
figure out marine currents, benthic feeding,
The whole aspect about it, tephanomic studies
about what happens when a walrus's head is cut
off and thrown into the water and comes back
out, and experiments offshore, talking to people
who had security clearance to know submarine
pathways and currents. And it was a fantastic
case. And at the end of five years, we were able
to share with the Walrus Escoe Commission, the
findings. And so the wasteful subsistence hunting
went down from over 95 % wasteful hunting in
one particular year to less than 12 % after five
years. So great, great for the resource. Some
people went to jail. We had some undercover people
who confirmed all the science that we had. it
had an impact on the population of walrus that
was obedient. It's not often that in the work
that we do, either the agents or the lab people,
do you get to see the impact to a whole species
of a particular piece of work. That was cool.
Very cool, especially a positive impact. If you
do see an impact, often it's a negative impact,
right? Good point. Good point. Yes. So it was
good. Was that, by any chance, do you remember,
was that Operation Whiteout? No. I don't know
what the operation name was because, you know,
we were lab people. They never tell us what the
operation name was. Just the lab geeks. That's
true. That's true. But it took about five years
to really put it all together. Keep studying,
doing surveys, figuring out what each walrus
has died of when we're finding them at the beach.
I don't know if you've been up to that area,
but that involved flying and supercubs. And anytime
you saw a walrus landing on the beach, doing
our thing, taking off, landing again. So the
risk involved was kind of intense over time.
But it was wildly successful for the species
case. Very cool. You mentioned a couple of terms
in there that I think I want to make sure listeners
are aware of. Subsistence waste. Up in Alaska,
Alaska natives are allowed to kill certain species
that other people would not because they're allowed
to do what's called subsistence hunting, which
is You know culturally significant traditional
hunting, but they're not allowed to waste, you
know They're supposed to use the animal as they
would have traditionally, but what was happening
up there? They were taking the heads and why
were they taking the heads and only the ivory
tusks? They wanted the ivory tusks. Yep, and
at that point You know the terrible terrible
story in terms of the legal commercial trade,
but at that point the native people were selling
one tusk for two marijuana joints, putting the
value of a walrus at four joints. It's just pathetic.
Yeah, pathetic. So the work that you did resulted
in, you know, poking a hole in this story about
Russians having killed the walrus and allowed
for some enforcement work to have a positive
result, yeah? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. There was
one word you used that I'm not familiar with.
It began with a T and it had something to do
with - Oh, a typhonomy. Yeah. What is that? Explain
what that is. I never heard of that. The typhonomy
is the study of what happens to things after
they die, basically. Okay. So, you know, the
simplest idea is if you have a bone left on the
surface of, I don't know, some animal died and
the bones, you know, it becomes, the bone starts
showing. How can we determine how long ago this
animal died by looking at markings on the bone?
That would be an example of taphonomic changes
over time. Got it. That could also be applied
in different scenarios, right? The accumulation
of grease after somebody dies is a taphonomic
change that happens. So there's multiple scenarios.
And so for us determining when a walrus died
or what happened to part of its exposed cervical
vertebrae was a taphonomic study that we ended
up publishing that was really the key to determine
if a walrus was killed only for its head or there
was actual subsistence take. Interesting. Also
presumably shows that it more than likely was
not killed in a faraway country and then floated
over here over a period of weeks. Exactly. Well,
it turns out that it's impossible for something
to float over from Russia. That's kind of like
what we found out. Ah, interesting. Because of
the current, current patterns. Because of the
currents and there was some great supporting
evidence. There was a group of religious people
who wanted to convert Russians, I guess, that
live on the Eastern side of Russia. Okay. So
they took a, they took a bunch of balls and Opened
them put a Bible inside and sealed these balls
and they had hundreds and you know, they went
to a place north of Gnome put them in the water
with the idea that they just float over and then
they would all be saved over there somehow and
And so they all kind of went around and then
end up in the northern shores of the Seaward
Peninsula So that was that was a really good
experiment from our purposes to show that if
you kill something in the Bering Strait, where
it usually ends up being, its body eventually
shows up in the Northern Sierra Peninsula. So
we were able to identify, pinpoint some areas,
very pretty exactly actually, where the portalities
were happening. Interesting. Indicating that
they weren't happening as the local natives said
they were? Yes. So they were not Russians killing
them. Interesting. Perhaps one of the most gratifying
science experiments I've done was that because
when we presented all of this to the Alaska and
Eskimo Commission, I had a gentleman who was
the chairman of the commission come up to me
after the presentation and said something to
the effect of, we knew what we were doing. We
just didn't know that you knew what we were doing.
And it was fantastic, you know, it was, it was
a really, because a lot of times the elders were
really against this discriminant killing just
for the ivory. They, they weren't, they weren't
part of it, but they didn't have, they didn't
have the enforcement to stop it. Right. Right.
They're part of the community. Right. So it was,
it was fun. That's a good case. That's awesome.
Uh, real quickly, what do you see kind of on
the horizon? You, you know, you're recently retired.
What's, what's an emerging. trend or something
emerging that the lab needs to be paying attention
to. Can you think of anything? So at my career
at the lab, we see these phases, you know, so
at one point there was a lot of ivory cases and
then those died down. Then there was a whole
bunch of gallbladder cases and then they called
that, that was caviar. Caviar. Swamp was caviar.
They died down. There's these different phases.
I think the last phase that we saw that it seems
to be wrapping up is timber. We just finished
doing a whole bunch of timber cases. Where it's
going, I have no idea. Our agents will surprise
us and they'll say, how come you're not ready
to do a case right now, you know? And it will
be something that requires research. Hard to
tell because, you know, all it takes is one phone
call and us to change directions. Yeah. Yeah.
That was, that was my experience too. It was
very cyclical. And I was part of that caviar.
We did a lot of caviar cases in Los Angeles during
that time that caviar was the rage. And yeah,
I think I like to tell myself that that's the
result of good enforcement work. The fact that
it kind of goes away for a while. Yeah. I think
it shows that we've been on top of it. We've
made some good cases and people go underground
or stop for a while. If I had to guess and, you
know, guess is as good as the next big thing
is going to be it doesn't matter what the species
is, is it wild versus captive bred? You know,
Namibia has a bunch of rhinos, right, that have
been captive bred. So is this horn really coming
from the captive bred population or not? Or parrots,
you know, captive bred parrot is not wild or
primates, the same kind of question. So I think
those questions are going to require a recommitment
to funding the lab. Yes. To do some testing that
is not available right now. Right. You know,
we know what the science is, but that'll be expensive.
Yeah. I have a suspicion about what the next
wild animal craze is going to be, but I'm not
going to say it because I don't want to give
anybody ideas. Good. I'll talk to you. Please
do not. No, I don't know how many listeners I've
got. the People's Republic of China, but I don't
want to give it, if I have even one, I don't
want to give them an idea about what animal I
think it's going to be next on their radar screen.
Well, and so, and so, uh, yeah. So, well, Ed,
uh, first of all, let me just say, I appreciate
so much the work that you did at the lab. Having
been an agent myself, the lab was a friend, a
lifeline and a savior all in one package. And
I really appreciated the work that the lab did
for me personally on my investigations. And you
were a big part of that. You were always you
always answered your phone. You were always polite.
You never talked. You never even when I asked
you a stupid question, you never talked to me.
There is no such thing as good questions. Well,
yes, there is. And we know we know that there
is such a thing as a stupid question. And I'm
sure I've asked a few. But listen, you know,
you were an excellent. you know, part of the
lab, great deputy director, you led there with
great distinction. And I just really appreciate
the work that you did. Thank you so much. Well,
thank you. You know, I've always been impressed
by the kind of cases you've done. Well, thanks.
You've had some amazing stories, though. So,
you know. Well, I'm glad you think so. I'm definitely
enjoying this podcast as an avenue to tell other
agent stories, because I just think this agency
is full of great people and full of great stories.
So true. So thank you so much for your time.
Thanks for joining us. I really appreciate it.
And I hope you'll be on again. Well, thank you
for inviting me. Absolutely. All right. All right,
everybody. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you
next time. Nature's Secret Service is written
and produced by me, Ed Newcomer, and is co -produced
by the DHTV team here at California State University
Dominguez Hills. Follow us on social media and
connect with us online at naturessecretservice
.com