Speaker 1: In two thousand three, forty four year old David Stack
Speaker 1: had everything a guy could want. A loving family, a
Speaker 1: successful construction business, and his own piece of wilderness, a
Speaker 1: sprawling one hundred ninety acres in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, a
Speaker 1: place where he could disappear into the woods, hunt turkeys
Speaker 1: and deer, or just relax and enjoy the sounds of
Speaker 1: cicadas and cardinals. It was a place he should have
Speaker 1: been safe. David, his son Brian, and his brother Jeff
Speaker 1: were excited to hunt turkeys on opening day, April twelfth.
Speaker 1: They'd scouted the night before they knew where the birds
Speaker 1: would be, and at five thirty a m. They split up,
Speaker 1: each heading to their own pre plant spots. Then the gunshot.
Speaker 1: Jeff heard it first, too early, too close, something about
Speaker 1: it didn't feel right.
Speaker 2: It was still dark.
Speaker 3: I don't think it was legal shooting.
Speaker 4: And I heard a gun shot, and as dust Zacky tell,
Speaker 4: it came from over there where Dave was. And I
Speaker 4: said to myself, Damn, Dave, I don't think that was
Speaker 4: a legal shot.
Speaker 1: Brian heard shots too, but the wind was up, the
Speaker 1: sound bounced around the hills and trees. He couldn't be
Speaker 1: sure where it had come from, so he shook it off.
Speaker 5: I dozed off and woke up to birds of my decoys.
Speaker 5: I can hear him out there spitting and drummond. And
Speaker 5: that was actually my first gobbler, you know. I shot
Speaker 5: the bird that morning.
Speaker 3: I think it was eight.
Speaker 5: Fifty nine o'clock somewhere in there, and you know, I
Speaker 5: was excited, fired up, and you know, I got my
Speaker 5: stuff together and was heading back to the cabin. I
Speaker 5: wanted to show it all.
Speaker 1: But David never came back. No texts, no radio calls, nothing.
Speaker 1: By noon, concern turned to unease. By four pm, unease
Speaker 1: became fear.
Speaker 5: Eventually started, you know, just whistling and call in, trying
Speaker 5: to you know, get some kind of response. And this
Speaker 5: went on until she probably, you know, four o'clock, and
Speaker 5: then we really started getting worried. It turned from you know,
Speaker 5: worried to panic.
Speaker 1: They searched the woods, called his name.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 1: By nightfall, the search intensified, neighbors, state troopers, a helicopter
Speaker 1: circling overhead, but still no sign of David. Then early
Speaker 1: the next morning they found him.
Speaker 4: I saw the Turkey decoys mars. I thought it was turkey,
Speaker 4: but they were decoys. And then there was turkeys in
Speaker 4: the trees right above them that we we spooked or
Speaker 4: jumped or whatever you want to call, and they flew
Speaker 4: out of the trees.
Speaker 2: That's about the time I then saw Day laying on
Speaker 2: his back.
Speaker 4: I did I did not get of course, I was
Speaker 4: very emotional, and uh, anyway, I checked.
Speaker 3: I think I checked the pulse, but.
Speaker 2: It was obvious she was dead.
Speaker 1: And the way his body was found, something was off.
Speaker 1: Kenny Graff, a close friend of David's, was there when
Speaker 1: they pulled his body from the woods after the crime
Speaker 1: scene had been processed. He'd been in law enforcement for
Speaker 1: nearly two decades. He knew what an accident looked like
Speaker 1: and this was not that.
Speaker 3: And we go to pick him up and they get
Speaker 3: blood on my hands. We rolled him over to one
Speaker 3: side and you just got to pullet. A bullet hole
Speaker 3: in his back. So that's when they say something's not right.
Speaker 3: This isn't an accidental death.
Speaker 1: A bullet hole in his back, no sign of a struggle,
Speaker 1: his gun untouched, his sandwich still in his vest.
Speaker 3: We get him out, and I mean, I'm just as
Speaker 3: a human being, I'm just struggling. I mean, I am
Speaker 3: fucking struggling. It's it's a bitch caring your best friend out,
Speaker 3: a dead body out of the woods, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. It's just no fun at all.
Speaker 1: But what's the out the most? The face mask pulled
Speaker 1: up and a single cigarette butt lying next to him.
Speaker 3: If you're familiar with turkey out, which I'm sure you are,
Speaker 3: you know you wear the full face mask and this
Speaker 3: and that for the spring God, where to keep the
Speaker 3: reflection off your face and stuff? Dave's was pulled all
Speaker 3: the way back over top of.
Speaker 1: His head, as if someone had pulled it up to
Speaker 1: see his face. For twenty years, no one has answered
Speaker 1: the one question that matters most. Who pulled that trigger?
Speaker 1: The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources says the case is
Speaker 1: still open, but in all these years, no suspects have
Speaker 1: been named, no grand jury has been convened, no arrests
Speaker 1: have been made. Kenny, Jeff and Bryan believed the shooter
Speaker 1: knew exactly.
Speaker 2: What they had done.
Speaker 1: They stood over David, looked at him, and walked away.
Speaker 1: But why was it a mistake, a moment of panic,
Speaker 1: or was it something worse? I'm Jordan Sillers and this
Speaker 1: is Blood Trails, a Turkey Woods cold case.
Speaker 2: Part one.
Speaker 1: The crime scene. Jeff, Brian, and Kenny all saw the
Speaker 1: crime scene, but their descriptions don't always match up. Here's Kenny.
Speaker 3: You can see where Dave cleared out a little spot
Speaker 3: to sit by a tree. He had a decoy set up,
Speaker 3: his gun was leaning against the tree, and he's just
Speaker 3: laying on his back. And I noticed it was a
Speaker 3: cigarette butt put out right there. Now, Dave did smoke
Speaker 3: once in a while, and he had part of a
Speaker 3: pack in his backpack with this brand not on the ground.
Speaker 3: Was a different brand than what they smoked.
Speaker 1: Kenny was a detective for nineteen years with the Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Washington Airport's Authority. He told me he's worked drug and
Speaker 1: homicide cases with other federal agencies, so he's the kind
Speaker 1: of guy who might notice the brand name of a
Speaker 1: cigarette butt lying on the ground. Brian and Jeff don't
Speaker 1: remember anything about a cigarette butt. Brian remembers the shotgun
Speaker 1: leaning against the tree, and they both agree that someone
Speaker 1: had walked up to the body.
Speaker 2: Here's Brian.
Speaker 5: He was laying away from the tree somewhat. His face
Speaker 5: mask was pulled down his glasses were pushed up, his
Speaker 5: sandwich was still in his vest. The decoys were only
Speaker 5: like like fifteen yards sixteen yards from him, which is unusual.
Speaker 5: So I don't think that was his location. I don't
Speaker 5: know if that's where he was setting up or what,
Speaker 5: but it definitely seemed unusual with it how close he
Speaker 5: was to the decoys with a gun sitting against the
Speaker 5: tree there, and you know how his face mask was
Speaker 5: pulled down and glasses were up.
Speaker 1: Those glasses are more important than they might sound. David's wife, Tammy,
Speaker 1: didn't see the crime scene herself, but her knowledge of
Speaker 1: her husband gave her an important insight into what those
Speaker 1: glasses might indicate.
Speaker 6: They said his glasses were up like he pushed his
Speaker 6: classes up on top of his head. And he would
Speaker 6: never ever ever do that. He would take him off
Speaker 6: and hang him from a shirt or take him off
Speaker 6: in some some place. He couldn't stand having them up
Speaker 6: on his head. I just I just have this gut
Speaker 6: feeling that whoever did it knows that they did it.
Speaker 1: I reached out to the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources
Speaker 1: to confirm some of these details, but they refused, citing
Speaker 1: the ongoing investigation. Fortunately for US, the agency hasn't always
Speaker 1: been so tight lipped. The incident gained tons of local
Speaker 1: media attention after it happened, and one of the best
Speaker 1: reports came in a May third edition of The Roanoak Times.
Speaker 1: Here's what the Virginia DWR, then called the Virginia Department
Speaker 1: of Game and Inland Fisheries, told reporters in the weeks
Speaker 1: following the murder. The shooting occurred on a property near
Speaker 1: the Saalville Hill section of Rockbridge County, between South Buffalo
Speaker 1: Road and Bluegrass Trail. David was likely leaning against a
Speaker 1: tree when he got shot. The bullet entered his body
Speaker 1: from behind, cut his aorta, and lodged in his heart.
Speaker 1: The terrain and angle at which the bullet struck David
Speaker 1: indicate that the shooter fired at close range and would
Speaker 1: have been able to tell what he'd hit. The hill
Speaker 1: and brush in the area would have kept the bullet
Speaker 1: from traveling very far. Kenny told me that the bullet
Speaker 1: itself came from a twenty two caliber center fire cartridge,
Speaker 1: such as a two two three Remington, two twenty two
Speaker 1: Remington or twenty two two fifty. I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: find any contemporaneous media reports with this information, and the
Speaker 1: DWR refused to name the kind of bullet that killed David,
Speaker 1: but I did speak with one of the neighbors, a
Speaker 1: man named James Lava, who still owns one of the
Speaker 1: adjacent par He declined to be recorded for this podcast,
Speaker 1: but he told me he was also turkey hunting the
Speaker 1: morning David was killed. Game Wardens knocked on his door
Speaker 1: in the weeks after the incident and asked if he
Speaker 1: owned any rifles chambered in a center fire twenty two
Speaker 1: caliber cartridge.
Speaker 6: He did.
Speaker 1: In fact, he said he hunts turkeys during the fall
Speaker 1: season with the rifle chambered in twenty two hornet, but
Speaker 1: he was hunting with a shotgun on the morning of
Speaker 1: the incident. Game Wardens apparently believed his story, because, according
Speaker 1: to Lava, they sent his rifle to Richmond for ballistics
Speaker 1: testing and returned it about a month later. Whatever they
Speaker 1: found it either didn't point to Lava or was inconclusive,
Speaker 1: but the suggests at least at the time, investigators believed
Speaker 1: David was killed with a Centerfire twenty two Many states
Speaker 1: do not allow turkey hunters to use rifles, but Virginia
Speaker 1: is not one of them.
Speaker 2: To this day.
Speaker 1: The only restriction they put on a turkey hunter's gun
Speaker 1: is that during the spring season they cannot use shot
Speaker 1: larger than number two. Kenny, Jeff, and Ran all agree
Speaker 1: that the shooting was most likely an accident. They don't
Speaker 1: recall David having any ongoing conflicts with anyone or any
Speaker 1: of the neighbors being upset about the recent purchase of
Speaker 1: the land. Here's Brian.
Speaker 5: My haunt ya is it's either what's a young haunor
Speaker 5: inexperience or older haunter that had poor vision. I don't
Speaker 5: think it's anything in malice done in on purpose, but
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 1: Know Part two the neighbors. Cases like this are difficult
Speaker 1: to investigate. There are no witnesses, and what physical evidence
Speaker 1: exists is hard to find in the leaves and dirt.
Speaker 1: But if you're like me, your first thought goes to
Speaker 1: the neighbors. It's easy to imagine a neighboring property owner
Speaker 1: wanders onto the stacks land, sees what he thinks is
Speaker 1: a turkey in the dimness of the morning, and pulls
Speaker 1: the trigger. That's where Kenny's mind went to, even before
Speaker 1: his friend's body had been found. While the rest of
Speaker 1: the Stack family was still searching the woods. He paid
Speaker 1: a visit to the neighbors.
Speaker 3: At daylight the next morning, which was the thirteenth, April thirteenth.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, well, maybe the neighbors know something.
Speaker 1: Kenny told me the names of the people who lived there,
Speaker 1: but we're going to bleep them out. None of them
Speaker 1: still live on those properties as far as I've been
Speaker 1: able to tell, and the Virginia d WR has never
Speaker 1: named an official suspect. You'll see why that's relevant here
Speaker 1: in a minute. The first house Kenny visited belonged to
Speaker 1: someone we'll call Johnson.
Speaker 3: We had met him the previous fall because he came
Speaker 3: over he was looked for his dog, and we talked
Speaker 3: to him a little bit. He says, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't allow not. I go to his house, played down
Speaker 3: again who I was, and I was looking for David.
Speaker 3: I wonder if he heard seeing anything. He said no,
Speaker 3: And I remember thinking, when I was standing in his house,
Speaker 3: he got all his turkey mounts, a deer mounts, and
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, this guy told me he didn't hunt, so huh.
Speaker 3: I didn't say anything about it then, but he pulls
Speaker 3: out a map, and this could be coincidence. Don't get
Speaker 3: me wrong, this could be coincidence. But he pulls out
Speaker 3: a map and he points at the map and he says,
Speaker 3: there's the property line where it is property George Dave's property.
Speaker 3: He says, you should look great in this area here,
Speaker 3: You should look great in this area here.
Speaker 1: Remember Kenny spoke to Johnson before they'd found David's body.
Speaker 1: So I asked, Kenny, what you're thinking was the spot?
Speaker 1: He pointed to the same spot they eventually found David.
Speaker 3: It was within feet, within feet.
Speaker 1: Kenny admits that this could be explained in a non
Speaker 1: nefarious way. Johnson wouldn't be the first hunter to hide
Speaker 1: the fact that he's a hunter, and it doesn't make
Speaker 1: much sense to lead investigators to the person you just
Speaker 1: murdered the day before. Still, it's weird, but Kenny's interactions
Speaker 1: with the neighbors got even stranger. Kenny stopped by another
Speaker 1: house where an elderly man told him that while he
Speaker 1: doesn't hunt, one of his friends had been hunting on
Speaker 1: the morning David was killed. We'll call this friend Smith.
Speaker 1: Smith lived down the road. So Kenny knocked on the door,
Speaker 1: but nobody answered. Kenny left a message on Smith's answering machine,
Speaker 1: using the phone number the elderly neighbor had given him.
Speaker 1: Kenny went back to the Stacks cabin and the phone rang.
Speaker 1: The woman on the line claimed to be Smith's wife.
Speaker 3: She says, uh, doesn't know anything. Did see anything?
Speaker 2: Did Aunt?
Speaker 3: And I said, told me? He told me his truck
Speaker 3: was parked at his house. Oh yeah, Well, he hunted
Speaker 3: opposite side of the road. And I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 3: how do you know what side of the road David
Speaker 3: was on?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: How do you know what's side of the road I'm
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 1: Kenny didn't think too much about it at the time,
Speaker 1: and David's body was found not long after, But that's
Speaker 1: not the last he heard of Smith. A year or
Speaker 1: two after David's death, Jeff was walking the property and
Speaker 1: he found something, something very out of place in the woods.
Speaker 4: I found the pillow bumble was.
Speaker 3: Same on it.
Speaker 4: It was right on the property line. It was a
Speaker 4: prescription for one of you know, one of these comment
Speaker 4: kind of anti depressant types.
Speaker 3: It was a feat.
Speaker 1: Jeff said. The place he found the bottle near the
Speaker 1: property line would have been less than a ten minute
Speaker 1: walk from where they found David's body. He sent the
Speaker 1: bottle to the lead investigator on the case at the time,
Speaker 1: but never heard anything more. The investigator has since passed away,
Speaker 1: and Kenny says they haven't heard anything from the DWR
Speaker 1: for years. The shooter could have been a neighbor, but
Speaker 1: it also could have been someone who didn't live in
Speaker 1: the area. That would make the culprit even more difficult
Speaker 1: to find, and it would help explain how this case
Speaker 1: has gone unsolved. Neither Jeff Kenny or Brian ever mentioned
Speaker 1: having a problem with trespassers, but Kenny did mention one
Speaker 1: alternative theory. One of the original DWR investigators on this case,
Speaker 1: a guy named Stephen Pike, knew a producer on the
Speaker 1: television show America's Most Wanted. He wanted to give this
Speaker 1: case as much exposure as possible, so he asked the
Speaker 1: producer for a favor. It wasn't the kind of story
Speaker 1: the program usually covered, but they decided to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: The segment aired on November one, two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: in episode seven thirty seven of the show. Younger listeners
Speaker 1: might not remember, but America's Most Wanted was a hit
Speaker 1: show back in the day at the time of its
Speaker 1: cancelation by the Fox Television Network in June twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: Its twenty four season run made it the longest running
Speaker 1: program in the network's history, and each episode was watched
Speaker 1: by thousands. The point is including David's story on amw
Speaker 1: as its fans call it would have exposed the case
Speaker 1: to a huge audience. The segment on David ended with
Speaker 1: an appeal to that audience for tips. We don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what kind of information came in, but Kenny claims
Speaker 1: that two tips came in from people in Rockbridge County,
Speaker 1: one of which pointed back to Johnson.
Speaker 3: The second tip stays, you should talk to he has
Speaker 3: a hunting camp and he had hunters there that morning
Speaker 3: and they left that morning.
Speaker 1: Kenny claims that Johnson was running an illegal hunting camp.
Speaker 1: An investigator spoke with several of the people who had
Speaker 1: hunted that morning.
Speaker 3: They talked to a couple of people that were there
Speaker 3: that morning but had left around ten o'clock. And I'm
Speaker 3: thinking to myself, it's opening day of Spring Gobbers season.
Speaker 3: Why do you leave at ten am and go home?
Speaker 1: It's a good question. David may have been killed not
Speaker 1: by a neighbor, but by someone who didn't live in
Speaker 1: the area. That person could have been hunting legally, or
Speaker 1: it could have been a poacher. In either case, the
Speaker 1: randomness of that scenario could make it even more likely
Speaker 1: that David's killer is never found. Part three The DWR
Speaker 1: the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources says this case is
Speaker 1: still considered active. Special agents are currently assigned, and they
Speaker 1: said in an email of that quote, recent investigative measures
Speaker 1: and evidence examinations have been explored. They've digitized the case files,
Speaker 1: and they're collaborating with Virginia State Police to have the
Speaker 1: case added to the state cold case database. So someone
Speaker 1: is working on it. How much they're working on it
Speaker 1: is a different question. Kenny says he hasn't heard from
Speaker 1: the agency in the last four or five years. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, his frustration has only increased.
Speaker 3: We had a very hard time for years just getting
Speaker 3: them to communicate with us, to talk to us. I
Speaker 3: don't want to say these guys screwed up, but somebody
Speaker 3: screwed up, and it's a shame, it really is. Haven't
Speaker 3: been a law enforcement officer myself, for twenty five years.
Speaker 3: I don't understand to this day why this case wasn't
Speaker 3: solved within a few days.
Speaker 2: I really don't.
Speaker 1: Kenny believes the agency failed to collect all the evidence
Speaker 1: at the scene, and they failed to investigate the neighbors
Speaker 1: closely enough, specifically Johnson and Smith. Remember that cigarette butt
Speaker 1: I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, the one that,
Speaker 1: according to Kenny, was a different brand than the one
Speaker 1: David smoked.
Speaker 3: Believe it or not, they didn't collect it. They police
Speaker 3: did not collect it. I was assumed they collected it.
Speaker 3: And then a few months later I talked to I
Speaker 3: was talking to DNR, and I said, well, what about
Speaker 3: cigarette button? I'd like, what cigarette butt.
Speaker 1: It's possible Kenny was mistaken and that the cigarette butt
Speaker 1: was actually David's. It's also possible whoever Kenny asked didn't
Speaker 1: know or was lying, or it's possible Kenny just made
Speaker 1: the whole thing up. But whatever the truth is, the
Speaker 1: DWR isn't saying. I filed a public records request asking
Speaker 1: for documents related to this case. The agency responded and
Speaker 1: said that while they have one d ten pages of files,
Speaker 1: they can't release any because they're part of an ongoing
Speaker 1: criminal investigation fair enough. Then, on June seventh, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: I sent an email to the agency's public information department
Speaker 1: and asked to interview the agent in charge of the case.
Speaker 1: The agency initially agreed to an interview, but wanted to
Speaker 1: see and approve any questions prior to the interview being recorded,
Speaker 1: so I sent a list of questions on July third,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, asking about everything you've heard in this
Speaker 1: episode cigarette butt, pillbottle, Johnson, and Smith. I even asked
Speaker 1: for the agency to confirm a few of the details
Speaker 1: that they had shared with the media in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, things like how far away the shooter was
Speaker 1: and whether he likely knew what he'd done. On November fifteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, which was for those counting over four
Speaker 1: months after I'd sent the list of questions, the DWR
Speaker 1: backed out of the phone interview they'd previously agreed to.
Speaker 1: Why well, here's what they said, Out of an abundance
Speaker 1: of caution to protect the integrity of the investigation, the
Speaker 1: department will not be available for any in person interviews
Speaker 1: or discussions. Instead, they responded to my list of questions
Speaker 1: with typed answers, but they refused to share any details
Speaker 1: of the case beyond when and where it happened, they said,
Speaker 1: quoting again DWR Conservation police officers spent a considerable amount
Speaker 1: of time and effort to identify the person responsible for
Speaker 1: mister Stack's death and followed all leads that were provided
Speaker 1: and developed through the course of the investigation. Specifics about
Speaker 1: their investigation are not available due to this being an
Speaker 1: open investigation. The only new piece of information they offered
Speaker 1: was about whether they ever identified a suspect, they said, quote,
Speaker 1: several persons of interest have been identified. These persons have
Speaker 1: been interviewed and declined a polygraph. Whoever those people were,
Speaker 1: the agency didn't gather enough information to make an arrest.
Speaker 1: Part four. An expert's opinion. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I have more questions than answers about this case.
Speaker 1: I frankly don't understand why the Virginia d w R
Speaker 1: hasn't been more helpful. I wonder how investigators knew what
Speaker 1: kind of bullet killed David, and I wonder whether they
Speaker 1: used every investigative technique at their disposal to help answer
Speaker 1: some of these questions. I call up my buddy and
Speaker 1: meat Eater's own Brent Reeves. You know Brent as the
Speaker 1: host of This Country Life, where he dispenses down home
Speaker 1: wisdom in a deep and melodious baritone. But Brent wasn't
Speaker 1: always a world famous podcast host. In a previous life,
Speaker 1: he served for thirty two years as a law enforcement
Speaker 1: agent in Arkansas. He's investigated homicide cases himself, so I
Speaker 1: knew he'd be the perfect person to help us break
Speaker 1: down this case. Brent, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, thank you for inviting me only here.
Speaker 1: So I know that you were in law enforcement for
Speaker 1: a long time, but could you fill in some of
Speaker 1: those details. What agencies did you work for and what
Speaker 1: kinds of things did you do well?
Speaker 7: I was a police officer, a law enforcement officer for
Speaker 7: thirty two years and seven months. The first two thirds
Speaker 7: of my career, I was actually doing police work what
Speaker 7: people think of as police work, answering calls, working accidents,
Speaker 7: investigating you know, robberies and thefts, crimes including homicides, and
Speaker 7: with a large portion of that my career was dedicated
Speaker 7: to undercovered narcotics and narcotics instigations. But when homicides would occur,
Speaker 7: especially in a department limited by manpowered And I'm talking
Speaker 7: about in the biggest department I worked in in South Arkansas,
Speaker 7: I think we had probably forty maybe forty deputies sworn
Speaker 7: officers that were working every day, and they would bring
Speaker 7: the whole CID Investigation division into work a homicide, which
Speaker 7: over the course of my career, you know, probably forty
Speaker 7: five fifty homicides during that during that length of time.
Speaker 1: So if if you were assigned this case back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, I'm curious what the first steps
Speaker 1: are on the first in the first few days, the
Speaker 1: first few weeks, what kinds of strategies would you use
Speaker 1: to try to figure out who did this?
Speaker 7: Well, well, you know, the crime scene, that's that's important,
Speaker 7: and limiting a crime scene, the parameters of where you're
Speaker 7: operating is important anytime that you're working with something outdoor,
Speaker 7: especially like this, and even.
Speaker 2: Add the fact that.
Speaker 7: Someone died as a result of a rifle shot, you're
Speaker 7: there's no telling how big your crime scene is. The
Speaker 7: cards are stacked against you to begin with in something
Speaker 7: like this, so as as large a perimeter as you
Speaker 7: can gather or that you can secure, and then it's
Speaker 7: just the meticulous going through everything that is conceivably close
Speaker 7: to where the incident occurred, because there's there's two places
Speaker 7: here that are important, where the shot was fired from
Speaker 7: and obviously where the shot was fired too, which you
Speaker 7: know caused the death of the man. So and in
Speaker 7: doing so, anytime that you approach or leave a crime scene,
Speaker 7: you take something in and you take something out unwittingly,
Speaker 7: You're you're stepping on leaves, you're making tracks, you're sweating,
Speaker 7: you're dropping DNA. There is there's so many things to
Speaker 7: consider that could either help or hinder the investigation. You know,
Speaker 7: somebody maybe you stepped on something you didn't see, a
Speaker 7: hull or a track or in this case, a cigarette.
Speaker 7: But I think that was a kind of a controversial
Speaker 7: part of the of what people saw there. So there's
Speaker 7: to answer your question, how would I approach it? You
Speaker 7: have to build as big a perimeter as you can
Speaker 7: and slowly work your way from the outside.
Speaker 1: And then so once you've done that with the crime scene,
Speaker 1: would you then be canvassing the neighbors and seeing if
Speaker 1: they saw anything or heard anything.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, I mean, you got to talk to You've got
Speaker 7: to run out every conceivable pathway, even if it's talking
Speaker 7: to the garbage man that's or the mail carrier, anybody
Speaker 7: that strip makes a regularly route through there, along with neighbors,
Speaker 7: anybody within earshot, anybody within reason that could have possibly
Speaker 7: saw something that morning that stood out of place, or
Speaker 7: saw something that wasn't out of place but just saw something.
Speaker 7: You got to exhaust every available opportunity to gather information
Speaker 7: as quick as possible. There was an old TV show
Speaker 7: the first forty eight.
Speaker 2: Called I think it was on A and E. We
Speaker 2: had a homicide that I worked.
Speaker 7: It actually was a focus of that, and it's true
Speaker 7: the first forty eight hours are usually the most critical,
Speaker 7: especially in something that's outside outdoors that you're affected by
Speaker 7: all kinds of environment environmental.
Speaker 2: Conditions, rain, wind, temperatures, whatever.
Speaker 7: Like I said at the beginning, the deck is stacked
Speaker 7: against you from the get go when you're dealing with
Speaker 7: anything outside, and time is absolutely a crucial factor in
Speaker 7: finding the correct path that you need to go from
Speaker 7: there to lead to where you know the suspect is.
Speaker 1: So I know you haven't seen the files on this case.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the files on this case either, but
Speaker 1: just based on what you know from what I've been told,
Speaker 1: you've listened to the podcast. What jumps out at you
Speaker 1: about this case, about the crime scene, about the investigation,
Speaker 1: anything kind of seem out of the ordinary.
Speaker 7: The magnitude of it is what jumps out at me
Speaker 7: is just the magnitude of the size of the crime scene.
Speaker 7: There's a lot to take in there, there's a lot
Speaker 7: to look at, and that, to me, through this whole
Speaker 7: thing has been I guess one of the key features.
Speaker 7: Another one being unfortunately, the gentleman was found by his friends,
Speaker 7: and you put emotion into testimony, and you put emotion
Speaker 7: into the things that were seen and observed, and sometimes.
Speaker 2: It affects what was saw.
Speaker 7: Now, I should have said this at the very beginning,
Speaker 7: and my heart goes out to the gentleman's family and
Speaker 7: his friends. But unfortunately, and I've said this before and
Speaker 7: it has approved fact that if you want two different
Speaker 7: eyewitnesses or two different statements to the same thing, get
Speaker 7: two eyewitnesses to it because the other. Because people observe
Speaker 7: and look at different things, different things stand out to them.
Speaker 7: It's not saying that they're wrong, but if you've got
Speaker 7: two people that saw the exact same thing, and when
Speaker 7: they write their statement, their word for word verbatim, or
Speaker 7: what's going on or what supposedly happened that it Sometimes
Speaker 7: that would lead one to believe that the statements were
Speaker 7: manufactured before you got there.
Speaker 2: This obviously was not there. That was not in this
Speaker 2: case at all.
Speaker 7: But different people see different things, and some people, you know,
Speaker 7: there's confirmation bias and everything, and you just have to
Speaker 7: be very careful about taking statements from people who are
Speaker 7: emotionally and physically and mentally involved with something and running
Speaker 7: out the line of questions those folks to make sure
Speaker 7: that they saw what they saw, give them every opportunity
Speaker 7: to prove what they saw. The face mask was something
Speaker 7: that stood out in the interior of this crime. Is
Speaker 7: how the gentleman's turkey mask was pulled up and his
Speaker 7: face was exposed.
Speaker 2: Now, I want to think if I remember you correct
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong, Jordan, that was what.
Speaker 7: Led folks to believe that the shooter had approached the
Speaker 7: person and to identify him. Is that?
Speaker 2: Am I correct in that assumption?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a face mask. And then also David's
Speaker 1: wife Tammy said that glasses yeah, and she said he
Speaker 1: never did that. He hated having his glasses kind of
Speaker 1: pushed up on his face. So yeah, those of the
Speaker 1: two things that made people think someone had done that
Speaker 1: to see his face.
Speaker 7: Okay, I'm not going to say that that didn't happen.
Speaker 7: I'm also going to say that there's a reasonable doubt
Speaker 7: that that was done. I can't tell you how many
Speaker 7: times I have left my truck going to a spot
Speaker 7: to turkey hunt, knowing where I was going to sit
Speaker 7: down and put my decoys out before daylight and getting
Speaker 7: completely ready and camoed up before I shut the door
Speaker 7: of my truck with my turkey mask flipped over it
Speaker 7: on the top of my head and walking to where
Speaker 7: I'm going. You know, a turkey mask, he's got holes
Speaker 7: in it. You can see out of it, but when
Speaker 7: it's dim outside or dark, it's absolutely in the way
Speaker 7: and hinders your peripheral vision. So there's reasonable doubt. There's
Speaker 7: a reason to think that just because that was done,
Speaker 7: there's got to be other factors in there that that
Speaker 7: that was correct. It's not a bad theory by any means,
Speaker 7: but it's also not you know, one hundred percent, the
Speaker 7: glasses on top of his head. His wife would know
Speaker 7: him better than anyone, you know, that's obviously something that
Speaker 7: that should have been looked at, or should be looked
Speaker 7: at and considered as well in the totality of the
Speaker 7: crime scene to what they saw there. But you know,
Speaker 7: to say, and I don't want to sound you know,
Speaker 7: unfeeling about this, but if he didn't die instantly, he
Speaker 7: could have pushed his glasses up on top of his
Speaker 7: head after he was hit accidentally, you know, just in
Speaker 7: the course of.
Speaker 2: Being hit struck from the bullet.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I think this is one of the
Speaker 1: big questions about this case, and it matters a lot
Speaker 1: to the family, is whether the shooter knew what he'd done.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So it's one thing if it's a stray bullet they
Speaker 1: have no idea. It's another thing, you know, even if
Speaker 1: the shooter didn't walk up to the body, if they
Speaker 1: were close enough to know something had happened and then
Speaker 1: walked away and has never come forward, that matters a
Speaker 1: lot to the family and friends. And this is a
Speaker 1: point that the dw R. Initially in the months after
Speaker 1: the murder, they said they think the shooter was aware
Speaker 1: that he was close enough to know. And then when
Speaker 1: I asked them, they they said, well, we can't speculate
Speaker 1: on that. So, just from your experience investigating cases, what
Speaker 1: kinds of evidence would they be looking at to indicate
Speaker 1: that the shooter was close enough to know that they
Speaker 1: that they had a knowledge of what they'd done and
Speaker 1: just decided to walk away.
Speaker 7: Well, the caliber bullet uh it was used, the amount
Speaker 7: of penetration into the victim's body, the angle that it was,
Speaker 7: there's a lot a lot of things that can go
Speaker 7: into that. You know, there's a if something is that
Speaker 7: close range and close if there's what's called stippling around
Speaker 7: the entrance the wound. It's always an indicator of something
Speaker 7: being fired at close range, which which is gunpowder and
Speaker 7: debris that gets absorbed into the skin from a close
Speaker 7: contact wound. If that wasn't there, it obviously tells you
Speaker 7: that the person the barrel of the of the weapon
Speaker 7: that was used was not close to the body or
Speaker 7: to the point of contact. So then you're going to
Speaker 7: go by the amount of penetration and the force that
Speaker 7: that the bullet retained from that from whatever distance it
Speaker 7: was shot from, so that that could be clues as
Speaker 7: to how far it was away, the time of day
Speaker 7: and being able to see in that environment was something.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: I think some of the guys that were hunting with
Speaker 7: him testified that, you know, the shot was so early.
Speaker 7: One guy thought, wow, is that legal. That leads me
Speaker 7: to believe that, you know, it was just you know,
Speaker 7: breaking day out there, that there was just enough light
Speaker 7: to be able to see if he questioned one way
Speaker 7: or the other, if that was legal to be shooting
Speaker 7: that early, which also makes me think that or would
Speaker 7: lead me has led me to believe that if he
Speaker 7: was shot from uh, you know, a distance away, it
Speaker 7: was after his decoys were set up and he was
Speaker 7: moving around and someone thought it was a turkey already
Speaker 7: on the ground and took a shot, which was you know,
Speaker 7: that's a violation of the first rule of hunting, of
Speaker 7: safe hunting is shooting not making sure you knew what
Speaker 7: you were shooting at when you pull the trigger. But
Speaker 7: that's what you know. I it's so hard to come
Speaker 7: up with conjecture. It's purely conjecture on my part from
Speaker 7: reading and listening to this podcast and having to come
Speaker 7: up with some type of credible scenario in which it happened.
Speaker 7: But from everything that I've taken at face value that's
Speaker 7: been heard here, on this podcast, it would lead me
Speaker 7: to believe, with no motive known motive of someone being
Speaker 7: angry or having a problem with the victim, that this
Speaker 7: was a hunting accident which resulted in the homicide of
Speaker 7: a turkey hunter a man, and whoever it was, you know,
Speaker 7: left the scene and didn't report it. That's everything from
Speaker 7: that I can take it face value and come up
Speaker 7: with in my mind.
Speaker 1: So next month, it'll be twenty two years. I'm doing
Speaker 1: my math right, since this incident happened, what what can
Speaker 1: be done at this point? If this was your case, now,
Speaker 1: what kinds of things would you be doing to help
Speaker 1: solve this?
Speaker 2: I would you know.
Speaker 7: All the evidence that was gathered from whatever evidence was
Speaker 7: gathered from there, if there science has come a long way,
Speaker 7: if if there was physical evidence gathered there other than
Speaker 7: you know, I think there has been some miscommunication or
Speaker 7: different stories about the cigarette, but the different cigarette brand
Speaker 7: of cigarette, but that was found there. Somebody remembered it,
Speaker 7: another person didn't, and did you I don't know, I
Speaker 7: don't remember if you got a straight answer from the
Speaker 7: DW or about if there was any of that gathered
Speaker 7: there or did they say anything about any physical evidence.
Speaker 2: No, they didn't.
Speaker 1: They said to protect the integrity of the case, they
Speaker 1: can't release that kind of information.
Speaker 7: I got you, Okay, and that's that's true obviously. So
Speaker 7: but d angie, question, what would I do different? Anything
Speaker 7: physical evidence wise that could have been submitted at that
Speaker 7: time to a forensics lab could be resubmitted. You know,
Speaker 7: testing has improved dramatically. Different tests have been developed and
Speaker 7: invented since then, for as far as DNA and different
Speaker 7: types of physical evidence that could be garnered from a
Speaker 7: crime scene. So you know, a resubmission of evidence to
Speaker 7: a forensics lab would be something that I would that
Speaker 7: I would look at specifically.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things that surprised me a bit in
Speaker 1: my interactions with the dw R is, like I said
Speaker 1: in the podcast, initially they agreed to an interview and
Speaker 1: then they backed out there. They didn't share a lot
Speaker 1: of information about the evidence like the cigarette butt, and
Speaker 1: they said that all of this was to protect the
Speaker 1: integrity of the case. As a as a formal law
Speaker 1: enforcement officer, can you break that down a little bit
Speaker 1: for us, because for for a layman like myself, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't quite understand why sharing a little bit
Speaker 1: more information to help get the word out about this
Speaker 1: case would would damage it, especially having not been solved
Speaker 1: for so long. Could could you help me understand kind
Speaker 1: of the the practical negative consequences of them sharing too
Speaker 1: much information.
Speaker 2: In something like this. Knowledge is power.
Speaker 7: I can't tell you how many times, And there's been
Speaker 7: some famous cases of people confessing two different things, different
Speaker 7: crimes that were totally you know, uh, made up lies
Speaker 7: from the beginning because that when asked certain details about
Speaker 7: the case, they couldn't give them, or they gave the
Speaker 7: wrong details. And it's just it's the It takes the
Speaker 7: investigators priorities away from investigating something that could be legitimate,
Speaker 7: to go down the rabbit hole of chasing ghost and
Speaker 7: something that's that's incorrect. So keeping as much critical, critical
Speaker 7: crucial evidence in a closed area it all or in
Speaker 7: a box where it's not subject to public information, it
Speaker 7: keeps the it keeps the the power I guess on
Speaker 7: the side of the investigators to be able to go
Speaker 7: after a certain if they laid everything out there, you know,
Speaker 7: we've got fingerprints, or we've got DNA, or we've got
Speaker 7: this or got that, anything that could be construed by
Speaker 7: the suspect even you know, we've got a hole, we've
Speaker 7: got the rifle hole that fired the shots. So as
Speaker 7: soon as we find the right suspect, we're going to
Speaker 7: match this hole with that rifle. Well, if that rifle
Speaker 7: is gone forever, you know, he gets rid of that rifle,
Speaker 7: there's no way to connect it. So and these are
Speaker 7: very arbitrary and things that I'm that I'm giving you,
Speaker 7: But to keep portions of the evidence and the.
Speaker 2: Things that they have in the.
Speaker 7: Investigation private is crucial a lot of times in solving
Speaker 7: the case. That's why that they would play those cards
Speaker 7: very close to their to their chest.
Speaker 1: Because maybe whoever did it, or the family of whoever
Speaker 1: did it could take actions that would, like you say,
Speaker 1: with the get rid of the rifle, that would undermine
Speaker 1: the evidence that.
Speaker 2: They have absolutely m hmm.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit about because I
Speaker 1: would have asked this to the d w R. But
Speaker 1: I know you've had this experience of you're investigating a
Speaker 1: case and you're being criticized by the family of the victim,
Speaker 1: by the friends of the victim for not doing enough.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit about what that's like.
Speaker 7: I've got one you know, you and I talked earlier
Speaker 7: about this. I've got one unsolved homicide in my career.
Speaker 7: It's the only copy of a case file that I
Speaker 7: brought home from my career one and it haunts me
Speaker 7: to this day. And I know who did it. We
Speaker 7: know who did it. We just never got the physical
Speaker 7: evidence to put them to get them arrested for it.
Speaker 7: And here's the thing that you got to think about.
Speaker 7: Once you arrest somebody, if you have enough to arrest
Speaker 7: them but not enough to convict them, and you'd go
Speaker 7: take them to trial on the chance that you might
Speaker 7: get them convicted, and they get found guilty, that's it.
Speaker 7: That was your swing. You don't get another chance. That's
Speaker 7: the end of it. There are no other tribes, so.
Speaker 2: There is.
Speaker 7: In my thirty plus years of being a police officer,
Speaker 7: I've never worked with any investigations, any investigation, or any
Speaker 7: department where solving a case was not their number one goal.
Speaker 7: Being closed mouth about how the investigation is going, and
Speaker 7: the tactics that you have to use, and the pride
Speaker 7: that you have to swallow when you're accused of not
Speaker 7: doing enough. It's tough, man, It's tough, but you know,
Speaker 7: we understand and I understand that that's coming from a
Speaker 7: place of emotion because these people have had a great loss.
Speaker 2: And they want justice.
Speaker 7: In my experience, there has never been anyone that won't
Speaker 7: adjust it for justice for a family anymore than the
Speaker 7: folks investigating the case.
Speaker 2: And it's it's just it's part of it.
Speaker 7: It's part of the things that police officers deal with,
Speaker 7: and I'm glad to talk about it now because it's
Speaker 7: a struggle.
Speaker 2: It's a hard thing to do, it's a hard thing
Speaker 2: to live with.
Speaker 7: It's not something that I could go to work for
Speaker 7: eight or nine or ten hours a day and leave
Speaker 7: at the office and go home, because when I went home,
Speaker 7: I was with my wife and my family. Somebody wasn't
Speaker 7: going home to their wife, the victim, or their husband,
Speaker 7: or their father or mother. And that weighed on me heavily,
Speaker 7: and it weighs on I'm sure it weighs on these folks.
Speaker 7: And I can assure you that there's no great joy
Speaker 7: than to be able to call someone or go and
Speaker 7: see them and tell them, Look, it ain't gonna bring
Speaker 7: the victim back, but we found who did it, and
Speaker 7: they're gonna, you know, they're gonna pay so it's a.
Speaker 2: It's a job that I volunteered for. I wasn't made
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 7: I'm not asking for sympthy and I'm not giving sympty
Speaker 7: to these guys. But I can understand where they're coming from,
Speaker 7: and it's just a it's just another It's a pretty
Speaker 7: tough road to hoe until you get somebody arrested and
Speaker 7: get them gone.
Speaker 2: But that's that's their job, and that's what they're there for.
Speaker 1: Thanks, Brent, I really appreciate you coming on and answering
Speaker 1: some of these questions for us.
Speaker 2: You bet man.
Speaker 7: Good luck to these guys, and I appreciate what you're doing,
Speaker 7: bringing bringing light to something. Maybe another obviously deserves another look,
Speaker 7: and I hope we get this thing to fruition. I'll
Speaker 7: be I'll be right here with you when you do it.
Speaker 2: Part five. What's next?
Speaker 1: As with many cold cases, David's death may not be
Speaker 1: solved unless someone who knows something comes forward. At least
Speaker 1: that's what a DWR agent told Kenny.
Speaker 3: He says, just gonna have to wait for somebody's wife
Speaker 3: to get mayn.
Speaker 1: In the interest of keeping this show semi family friendly,
Speaker 1: we can't air Kenny's response to that comment. But you
Speaker 1: can imagine it's a frustrating place for the family to be,
Speaker 1: especially when you think the DWR hasn't done enough. But
Speaker 1: it may be true that the only way this case
Speaker 1: will ever be solved is if someone's wife gets mad,
Speaker 1: or someone's grandchild learns the truth, or someone's neighbor finally
Speaker 1: does the right thing. There isn't any more physical evidence
Speaker 1: that can be collected from the crime scene. It's been
Speaker 1: nearly twenty two years since David was murdered, and while
Speaker 1: time might heal all wounds, it also cloud's memory and
Speaker 1: dulls whatever moral compass the killer may have once had.
Speaker 1: There was at one point at thirty six thousand dollars
Speaker 1: reward for information leading to the conviction of the killer,
Speaker 1: but that's no longer on the table. David's kids say
Speaker 1: their father always encouraged them to follow their consciences, to
Speaker 1: tell the truth. Those three kids are now grown with
Speaker 1: kids of their own, but they've had to live for
Speaker 1: the last twenty years wondering what happened to their dad. Now,
Speaker 1: their only request is that whoever did this, or whoever
Speaker 1: knows who did this, follow their dad's advice. Listen to
Speaker 1: your conscience.
Speaker 2: Do what's right.
Speaker 1: That's what Tammy said too, when I asked her what
Speaker 1: she'd say to the person responsible for killing her husband.
Speaker 6: I just wish that they would come forward say something.
Speaker 6: I mean, they've put us through hell. Have a soul
Speaker 6: man come out and say something. I don't think they
Speaker 6: did it on purpose, but come forward and say something.
Speaker 6: Don't put the family through all this in all these
Speaker 6: years just not knowing. You know, I hope nobody ever
Speaker 6: has to go through what we had to go through.
Speaker 1: If you, or anyone you know has any information about
Speaker 1: this incident, the DWR asks that you call their anonymous
Speaker 1: tip line at one eight hundred two three seven five
Speaker 1: seven one two. You can also text your tip to
Speaker 1: eight four seven four one one, or send an email
Speaker 1: to wild Crime at DWR dot Virginia dot gov. The
Speaker 1: murder took place in Virginia's Rockbridge County on April twelfth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, the opening day of spring gobbler season.