Speaker 1: And she said, have you ever got a second opinion?
Speaker 1: And I said, no, I've considered it. At that time,
Speaker 1: I was trying to get them cut it off. I could
Speaker 1: get it round, and you cut it off. I cut
Speaker 1: your leg off. Yeah, it was blue. It wasn't getting circulation.
Speaker 1: It had staff in it and nobody knew it, and
Speaker 1: the hardware had the bone locked the wrong direction. My
Speaker 1: foot was pointing straight to the right.
Speaker 2: In Part one of the Donnie Baker story, we heard
Speaker 2: the first hand account of the poaching of a two
Speaker 2: hundred and four inch drop time Missouri whitetail on the
Speaker 2: Fort Leonardwood Military base in central Missouri. In Part two,
Speaker 2: we'll hear the rest of the story about the spring
Speaker 2: of the coiled jaws of justice that finds in punishment.
Speaker 2: I have no doubt that the severity of it will
Speaker 2: surprise you. But after that we'll expand our vision to
Speaker 2: a larger story of the decade following the event. Two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine to twenty nineteen were a downward cascade,
Speaker 2: rife with tragedy for Donnie and his family. Unrelated to wildlife,
Speaker 2: crime and punishment, every headline that involves a human life
Speaker 2: is easily minimized into a SoundBite or a myopic label
Speaker 2: absence of context. And don't worry. This isn't a justification
Speaker 2: of an egregious crime, but a zoom out to a
Speaker 2: bigger story. Honestly, if this podcast was just about hunting
Speaker 2: or history, we'd have stopped at episode one when Donnie
Speaker 2: confessed to the crime, end of story. But as I
Speaker 2: talked with him and saw his openness regarding his failure,
Speaker 2: a larger question arose. Why was he so willing to
Speaker 2: share a story That was a big question that I
Speaker 2: had and I would be surprised at his answer, and
Speaker 2: I think you will too. I hope this story helps
Speaker 2: solidify in our hunting culture a deeper respect for wildlife,
Speaker 2: wild places, and the law. I have zero tolerance for
Speaker 2: deliberate law breaking, but this story really isn't about that.
Speaker 2: It's about the human life behind every headline, and I
Speaker 2: really doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one.
Speaker 3: We get my truck on sixty three, coming from VISI.
Speaker 3: I've known the road. Angela hasn't said a word.
Speaker 1: We get almost the vienna and she just looks over
Speaker 1: at me and says, I'll give my wedding dress money
Speaker 1: and marry you on the Ballfield and Dixon if you'll
Speaker 1: go back and get that dough.
Speaker 2: My name is Clay Nukem, and this is the Bear
Speaker 2: Grease podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 2: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 2: story of Americans who live their.
Speaker 4: Lives close to the land.
Speaker 2: Presented by f h F Gear, American made purpose built
Speaker 2: hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged
Speaker 2: as the place.
Speaker 4: As we explore on the last episode of.
Speaker 1: Bear Grease, through the rest of the summer, seen him,
Speaker 1: I think six times, always in the same place with
Speaker 1: that deer done. He lived in a little little block
Speaker 1: of brush behind the dining facility. I never seen it
Speaker 1: in a legal hunting area. The first time I seen him,
Speaker 1: I was one hundred p cent suries two hundred inch deer,
Speaker 1: which I'd never seen a while deer with two hundred
Speaker 1: inch and still at that time wanted to kill this deer.
Speaker 1: Right October fourth of nine, and as I'm driving down
Speaker 1: Army Street, I looked to my left and he's standing
Speaker 1: where I've seen him two or three times, and I thought,
Speaker 1: good grief, So I pulled down to those porta potties,
Speaker 1: and I thought, right, I thought I could kill it
Speaker 1: deer right there. So I draw my bow back and
Speaker 1: he's still just standing there. I mean, he's looking right
Speaker 1: at me. I know that if I can fall it
Speaker 1: into his front end, high success rate killing him. And
Speaker 1: I put that pen right underneath his nose, just right
Speaker 1: about the top of his white.
Speaker 3: Patch and turn it loose.
Speaker 1: And like I said, it was just kind of I
Speaker 1: don't know if you ever when you was a kid
Speaker 1: shot at a bird on a tree, setting in a
Speaker 1: tree or something, just kind of and then when you
Speaker 1: do kill, you think, oh, man, that's kind of what I.
Speaker 3: Went through there.
Speaker 1: And immediately I thought there's no way that I'm going
Speaker 1: to get away with this.
Speaker 5: Good evening. The crime was shocking, the verdict dramatic. The
Speaker 5: trial of O. J. Simpson is over. He is not guilty.
Speaker 5: Correspondent Bill Whitaker begins our coverage of the day's events. Here, Simpson,
Speaker 5: would you please stand and face the jury in a.
Speaker 6: Matter of the people of the State of California versus
Speaker 6: Oorenthal James Simpson, Case number B A zero nine seven
Speaker 6: two one one. We the jury and the embuffding title
Speaker 6: action find the defendant Orenthal Simpson not guilty of a
Speaker 6: crime of murder in violation of penal cult Section one
Speaker 6: eighty seven a a felony upon Nicole Brownson.
Speaker 2: As a society, we're very interested in the juncture of
Speaker 2: where crime and punishment meet. Were interested in the delivery
Speaker 2: of justice, whether extreme or lenient, were all ears. The
Speaker 2: oj Simpson verdict in nineteen ninety five was one of
Speaker 2: the most watched television clips in American history, and at
Speaker 2: the end of episode one of the Donnie Baker story,
Speaker 2: Donnie was in a room on Fort Leonard Wood, surrounded
Speaker 2: by multiple game wardens, a polyograph man, and an expert
Speaker 2: on determining the time of death who was brought in
Speaker 2: to analyze a photo of the dead buck that was
Speaker 2: posted online. In a way, this was the jury who
Speaker 2: met to deliver Donnie his sentence if he was willing.
Speaker 4: To settle outside of court.
Speaker 2: We ended episode one with Donnie confessing to killing the
Speaker 2: buck in a contonement area not open to hunting, then
Speaker 2: sneaking the buck off the base in Mary's County and
Speaker 2: falsifying that he'd killed the buck in Pulaski County. We're
Speaker 2: going to go slightly backward to just before the confession.
Speaker 2: Let's jump right in with Donnie, and very quickly we'll
Speaker 2: hear what the punishment was.
Speaker 1: Brace yourself right out of the gate. Aaron said, I
Speaker 1: don't believe you killed that deer anywhere, but right here,
Speaker 1: you know, just straightforward, which I respect him to be
Speaker 1: that kind of person. In case he just kept turning none,
Speaker 1: you're caught. We got pictures of it on Fort Larner.
Speaker 1: Would they knew exactly how many miles it was from
Speaker 1: where that deer picture was to where I had claimed
Speaker 1: to have killed that deer.
Speaker 3: I mean, they had enough evidence.
Speaker 4: And they no way the deer could have traveled that far.
Speaker 1: No, it had to swim the Gasconade River in miles
Speaker 1: to different county. And I thought, I have to I
Speaker 1: have to stick it. If somebody had been with me
Speaker 1: or seeing me, if a car would have pulled in
Speaker 1: there and seen me eleven or something, I knew i'd
Speaker 1: have meant. But I don't think you body see anything
Speaker 1: other than the blood on the tail gate, and it
Speaker 1: hadn't come up, so I knew that that was or
Speaker 1: figured that that was in.
Speaker 3: So they write the ticket out.
Speaker 1: They told me they was going to confiscate the deer
Speaker 1: and I would have to plead it in court, well,
Speaker 1: going through the gates of Fort Learn with federal installation.
Speaker 1: When you're in question, you're more guilty than tell you're
Speaker 1: proven innocent. It's a privilege to work and hunt out there,
Speaker 1: it's not you know, they don't owe you. So they said,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. We know you killed that deer here,
Speaker 1: and we can tell you're.
Speaker 3: Going to fight.
Speaker 1: What our ticket will be. It's one hundred and fourteen
Speaker 1: dollars falsifying TeleCheck ticket.
Speaker 3: That means that you.
Speaker 1: Didn't do anything wrong other than checking it into the
Speaker 1: wrong county, which means that we'll confiscate that deer. But Donnie,
Speaker 1: you can you can go to work tomorrow, you can
Speaker 1: go hunt out here tomorrow. But we know that deer
Speaker 1: is illegal, and this is the ticket that we're going
Speaker 1: to give you and that'll be the end of it.
Speaker 1: We don't want to fight this forever. I said, So
Speaker 1: if I played guilty this, it's one hundred and fourteen dollars,
Speaker 1: you're taking the deer. And they said yeah, And I said,
Speaker 1: I can hunt fish fort Land Woodn't bow Yes, And
Speaker 1: I said, I did, and I told them the whole story.
Speaker 1: The antlers I'd put in my uncle's house. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd had some people tell me that they'll steal them
Speaker 1: and everything and people find out where they're at. So,
Speaker 1: knowing that I was going to be out of town,
Speaker 1: it's late at night. It's ten thirty before I finally
Speaker 1: got out of there, and they said, all right, go.
Speaker 3: Get those antlers. And I said, those are.
Speaker 1: In my uncle will be in bed, They're in his basement.
Speaker 1: And I hadn't he didn't know the real story either.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not going to do anything. They said, listen,
Speaker 1: if you break those antlers or do something with them,
Speaker 1: we're going to charge you again for whatever. In Casey said,
Speaker 1: what time do you want to meet? And we set
Speaker 1: up a date in the early afternoon, and he said
Speaker 1: that's fine, and he told the other agents. He said,
Speaker 1: he said he's going to do that, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: And Casey showed up and then he just he took
Speaker 1: the antlers, and I felt like it was a relief,
Speaker 1: other than having to tell all the people in the
Speaker 1: area that I'd like to. Of course, news had already
Speaker 1: traveled in that day almost as fast as the deer.
Speaker 1: Of course, the stories were just out of control. They
Speaker 1: told that I'd spotlighted off the roof of the hospital
Speaker 1: with a rifle, and it was insane the stuff that
Speaker 1: was told. But behind the scenes, somebody took a picture
Speaker 1: of that deer and put it on the Internet, and
Speaker 1: it was called Mary's County Monster, because that's the county
Speaker 1: that I checked it in.
Speaker 3: It was actually killing Blaska County for learning one.
Speaker 1: And that page had gained a lot of traction, especially
Speaker 1: since one of the agents put that they'd recovered the deer,
Speaker 1: what have you. They didn't bash me on there, but
Speaker 1: everybody else in the world.
Speaker 3: Did you know?
Speaker 1: There was stuff on there saying that I was a
Speaker 1: prior convicted fella, and people claimed to see me have
Speaker 1: done stuff that I've never done, which was a lot
Speaker 1: of noise around the agents and Fort Lender would So
Speaker 1: a week or so went by.
Speaker 3: I went in one morning.
Speaker 1: When I opened up my email, the lead officer at
Speaker 1: Fortland woud Bill Force had emailed me the night before
Speaker 1: and said, hey, when you get in, email me or
Speaker 1: call me at this number.
Speaker 2: Remember Donnie worked on Fort Leonard Wood as the archery
Speaker 2: pro at the fort owned bow shop, so he had
Speaker 2: to go on to the base every day.
Speaker 1: So I called him and so he come out there
Speaker 1: and I don't want to misspeak of where the paper
Speaker 1: were come from, but I paid one hundred and fourteen
Speaker 1: dollars fine, which is the finalization.
Speaker 3: I guess I've admitting the gil. And as soon as
Speaker 3: I'd done that, the.
Speaker 1: MPs had barred me from Fort Leondarwood for life and
Speaker 1: my hunting privileges were evoked. And I said, well, Bill,
Speaker 1: you said that I am. He said, well, this hasn't
Speaker 1: anything to do with the conservation.
Speaker 3: This is the MPs.
Speaker 1: So I had through Christmas, my job through Christmas, and
Speaker 1: it's right out of November now, and truthfully, me being
Speaker 1: a civilian, they didn't want to see me. They didn't
Speaker 1: care about it.
Speaker 3: Deer.
Speaker 1: You know, if I'd done something enough to getting that
Speaker 1: much trouble over deer and good luck pretty well. I
Speaker 1: talked to multiple people, tried to talk to state representatives,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't trying to get my hunting privileges back
Speaker 1: at all. I just wanted to keep the job. He's
Speaker 1: a phenomenal job. I didn't realize that until I realized
Speaker 1: it's going to be taken away. So I was contacted
Speaker 1: by somebody in the military and said, you can't lose
Speaker 1: your job over this because you weren't at work and
Speaker 1: it didn't put another person's life in danger. So I
Speaker 1: tried to go that direction and they said, well, no,
Speaker 1: you don't have to lose your job, but when MP's
Speaker 1: borrow you from Fort Lenderwood you can't come to work,
Speaker 1: then you do.
Speaker 2: It's pretty easy to see what happened here, as multiple
Speaker 2: agencies overlapped in jurisdiction. A person could be torn because
Speaker 2: it sounds like he was misled to get the confession.
Speaker 2: But you can't justify a feeling bad for someone being
Speaker 2: misled when they themselves were the ones who started the line.
Speaker 2: He fought the law and the law won. But it's
Speaker 2: just interesting to see how it.
Speaker 4: All went down.
Speaker 2: But what we haven't talked about yet is the giant
Speaker 2: white mast don in the room. Mastadons are even more
Speaker 2: glaring than elephants, and that's the one hundred and fourteen dollars. Fine,
Speaker 2: I'm hearing this story for the first time. As I'm
Speaker 2: sitting across from Donnie in his home. I figured he
Speaker 2: was going to tell me they find him twenty grand,
Speaker 2: took away his truck and put him in jail for
Speaker 2: thirty days. I had to ask Donnie what he thought
Speaker 2: about the fine, the punishment that you got being one
Speaker 2: hundred and fourteen dollars ticket.
Speaker 3: If that's what the world would see.
Speaker 2: They wouldn't see that you lost your job and affected
Speaker 2: your life and all this stuff down the road. They
Speaker 2: would see you killed this tutorach deer and got a
Speaker 2: one hundred and fourteen dollars ticket and would say that
Speaker 2: it was like massively unjust. I would agree, Why did
Speaker 2: you get off so easy in terms of actual fines
Speaker 2: and jail.
Speaker 3: And all that. I think I got off that easy.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that if I'd shot it with again in
Speaker 1: bo season, or spotlighted and shot it or anything like that,
Speaker 1: it would have been completely different.
Speaker 2: So you think the fact that you killed it with
Speaker 2: a bow during an open season in the state like
Speaker 2: there was some factors.
Speaker 3: That made it. I think that made a huge difference.
Speaker 2: If you heard of a guy killing a tutor ince
Speaker 2: deer like that, would you want them to get a
Speaker 2: bigger punishment other than.
Speaker 1: One hundred and fourteen dollars ticket. Oh, if it was
Speaker 1: somewhere I was hunting, I'd.
Speaker 3: Be frustrated as heck, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1: I mean you couldn't say, yeah, if I was hunting
Speaker 1: a world class deer and somebody shot it.
Speaker 3: Illegally, I would be fit to be tight.
Speaker 1: And then if they got one hundred and fourteen dollars
Speaker 1: ticket and that was it, I really would have been Matt.
Speaker 2: This took place fourteen years ago, and I'm convinced in
Speaker 2: modern times the punishment would have been much more severe.
Speaker 2: In most states today, there is a poacher's trophy fee,
Speaker 2: where larger animals bring higher fines, often charged by the
Speaker 2: inch of antler. I had someone in law enforcement contact me,
Speaker 2: completely unconnected from Donnie's case, just a listener, speculating that
Speaker 2: they really didn't have that much hard evidence against Donnie
Speaker 2: and wanted to make it easy for him to confess
Speaker 2: because they might have a difficult time convicting him in court.
Speaker 2: Hard evidence could be video of a bloody tailgate as
Speaker 2: Donnie left the base that night, or an eyewitnessed who
Speaker 2: saw him load the deer in his truck. To my knowledge,
Speaker 2: the only evidence they had was the picture of the
Speaker 2: buck on Fort Leonard Wood, But I'm completely speculating. I
Speaker 2: don't know what evidence they had, and for transparency's sake,
Speaker 2: i'll let you know that I did contact the Missouri
Speaker 2: Department of Conservation hoping to talk with the officers who
Speaker 2: worked the case, but it just wasn't possible, which I
Speaker 2: completely respect. I was graciously contacted by a high level
Speaker 2: official in the department who answered multiple questions for me,
Speaker 2: and I was very grateful for that. I've always been
Speaker 2: impressed by the Missouri Department of Conservation. The trend of
Speaker 2: the hunting world is moving away from culturally glamorizing wildlife violators.
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about hunting media glad glamorizing them.
Speaker 4: That would be rare. I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Behind closed doors, around campfires and in family circles.
Speaker 4: I am exposed to a lot.
Speaker 2: Of the hunting community in a ton of different places,
Speaker 2: and I'm amazed in twenty twenty four what my ears
Speaker 2: here and how laxed people can be towards adherence to
Speaker 2: the law and how they handle it even in conversations,
Speaker 2: and those are the things that build culture, and I
Speaker 2: hope that in no way the work that I'm doing
Speaker 2: here could be portrayed as such. And I think it
Speaker 2: would be a stretch to say it was. I'm telling
Speaker 2: this story because we can learn a lot from it.
Speaker 2: I'm interested in human stories that overlap wild places. Some
Speaker 2: are positive, some are negative. I'm interested too, in the
Speaker 2: hunting community banding together to preserve wildlife, wild places and
Speaker 2: our right to hunt, and this demand strict adherence to
Speaker 2: the law. I'm also for stricter punishment for wildlife violators,
Speaker 2: especially repeat offenders. Let's get back into our story. Here's
Speaker 2: more from Donnie on the aftermath of the confession. And
Speaker 2: remember we're getting to the question of why was Donnie
Speaker 2: willing to talk to me?
Speaker 1: And people everything you could imagine. I had people come
Speaker 1: in to work at that time telling me how no
Speaker 1: good I was, and they hoped that I'd never get back.
Speaker 3: And then other guys come and say, Manny and by
Speaker 3: shot that deer. You know, So it was all over
Speaker 3: the place.
Speaker 1: But I'm still watching this page, and that's what that
Speaker 1: wasn't a good thing for me to do. It started
Speaker 1: getting depressed already, and I mean I hadn't even lost
Speaker 1: my job quite yet, but there was a lot of
Speaker 1: hate out there. I mean, people can really really say
Speaker 1: some mean stuff. I'm sure you being what you are there.
Speaker 1: It's amazing What people say, what did you learn from this? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a I'll always say, and I said before and
Speaker 1: I'll say after. I really believe that that hunters are
Speaker 1: the most greedy group of people there is. If it's
Speaker 1: a goblin turkey, or a good buck, or just even
Speaker 1: a a good loaded white oak acren tree. I learned
Speaker 1: not to claim, you know those deer, those those aren't ours,
Speaker 1: and just to do it. What I learned was and
Speaker 1: what if I didn't kill that deer like that? What
Speaker 1: if November first that that buck run a dough but
Speaker 1: I mean I killed it right, you know, or anybody else?
Speaker 1: You know, what if a thirteen year old kid killed
Speaker 1: that deer with both you know, that'd been pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Or if nobody killed it? What was that buck bred
Speaker 1: fifteen dough in his life? You know, good high quality
Speaker 1: do and what would be there now?
Speaker 3: And it was?
Speaker 1: It was a black guy that I still carry today.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can talk to three people in Fort
Speaker 1: Lendwood right now. Somebody tell you some type of story
Speaker 1: about that deer.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The issue is the main issue is I knew better
Speaker 1: but not only did I know better. I explained to
Speaker 1: people that come on Fort Leonard would where you can
Speaker 1: and can't hunt? I knew and almost still do today.
Speaker 1: Some of that stuff changed, but I knew to the
Speaker 1: foot of where you were allowed to hunt. There was
Speaker 1: no excuse about any of that. I knew for a
Speaker 1: fact that that deer not only couldn't be killed there,
Speaker 1: he was going to have to be a quarter of
Speaker 1: a mile from there before you could hunt him. Right,
Speaker 1: something about just actually know when he was a two
Speaker 1: hundred inch deer, and just thinking for some reason that
Speaker 1: that was going to be my right of passage to
Speaker 1: be the guy known as a as a good hunter.
Speaker 3: So, I mean, I guess that would just be ego?
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 1: It happened, I mean, that's to be the only thing
Speaker 1: good men. Yeah, had to be me thinking about me,
Speaker 1: and not that I was not wanting anybody yet.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess I was.
Speaker 1: I was worried that somebody else was gonna kill that deer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, And and that was a rough way to
Speaker 1: learn something like that. But I'm one of the least
Speaker 1: jealous people about deer that I know. You know today, yes, today,
Speaker 1: At that time, I didn't realize how jealous I was
Speaker 1: about that until it hit me in the face.
Speaker 2: You know, let's just take a minute and let all
Speaker 2: that settle in. Donnie paid the fine, lost his job,
Speaker 2: and his reputation was tarnished by the crime. Donnie's saying
Speaker 2: that hunters are the most jealous people on planet Earth
Speaker 2: hurts me down deep in the gizzard. I view the
Speaker 2: hunting community through rose colored glasses. Sometimes not all are jealous.
Speaker 4: The people can be.
Speaker 2: It's our job in modern times to change that in
Speaker 2: our culture. In the last episode, we explored what as
Speaker 2: a society that we expect or demand of people who
Speaker 2: mess up, and in short, we learned that a sincere apology,
Speaker 2: rife with remorse and compelling evidence that the person wouldn't
Speaker 2: do it again, goes a long way justifying actions. Blame
Speaker 2: shifting or lack of humility are sniffed out quickly like
Speaker 2: an unseen but potent pheromone. I have another question for Donnie.
Speaker 2: So in the Hunt, you're familiar enough with the hunting community.
Speaker 2: We've all heard you've heard stories of guy's killing an
Speaker 2: animal illegally. Yeah, what's the first thing you think when
Speaker 2: you hear about a guy killing a deer, And I
Speaker 2: mean this goes without saying.
Speaker 3: I mean what you did was more than just like.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like you messed up and did something on accident,
Speaker 2: like this was an egregious thing.
Speaker 3: You made a choice to do. It was blatant. I mean,
Speaker 3: there was no question.
Speaker 2: So when you hear a story of such and such
Speaker 2: a guy killing the deer illegally, what do you think?
Speaker 1: I probably look at it a little different than a
Speaker 1: lot of people. I'm the last one to bash them.
Speaker 1: I would think there's always two sides to something. And
Speaker 1: like the buck that I kill, if I wanted to
Speaker 1: proach it, I could have killed it many times before that.
Speaker 1: I'd been way better off to have went full out
Speaker 1: illegal and staged a place, prepared myself to kill it
Speaker 1: illegal instead of it just happening. But I still still
Speaker 1: despise somebody killing fifteen turkeys in a season. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna lie it makes me mad, or or everybody in
Speaker 1: their household getting a buck tag and then feel one
Speaker 1: guy feeling his whole family's deer tax. I'm still a
Speaker 1: hardcore against that. Noise have been and I'll be vocal
Speaker 1: about being against killing a bunch of deer a bunch,
Speaker 1: and I got kids that like to hunt, and nieces
Speaker 1: and nephews, and I'm against that one hundred percent. But
Speaker 1: sometimes when when you see where somebody's got a deer
Speaker 1: removed and they find out that they shot it in
Speaker 1: national force with rifle out the window, most people would
Speaker 1: say that that no good.
Speaker 3: Whatever.
Speaker 1: The first thing I think of was was he planning?
Speaker 1: Did he go out there with intent on driving around
Speaker 1: killing that deer? Or did it walk across the road
Speaker 1: and he'd hunted six days and hadn't seen anything and
Speaker 1: jumped and shot it. Do you think do you think
Speaker 1: that makes a difference from what I went You mean
Speaker 1: it being illegal?
Speaker 4: Well, I think.
Speaker 2: Because you're you're I see exactly what you're saying is
Speaker 2: that intent is important or it's not important, Like if
Speaker 2: you break the law, you break the law. But intent
Speaker 2: shows motivation. And what I'm hearing you say is that
Speaker 2: you didn't really have an intent to kill this deer,
Speaker 2: just an opportunity happened and somehow you cross that line
Speaker 2: real quick. Yeah, knowingly though, yeah, no, only I always
Speaker 2: look at it thinking that he or she go out
Speaker 2: there with one hundred percent intent of.
Speaker 1: Spotlighting that deer. I feel like that's worse as far
Speaker 1: as the law is concerned. It isn't illegal, is illegal.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we can get excited, man, it's something we all love.
Speaker 1: That's why you're here. We're passionate about hunting and the outdoors,
Speaker 1: and sometimes sometimes our passion makes us do some stupid stuff.
Speaker 2: Donnie isn't using legal terminology, but he's right. Intent does
Speaker 2: matter in the law and sentencing, and the research data
Speaker 2: intent is correlated with recidivism, meaning a person who commits
Speaker 2: a premeditated crime is more likely to do it again
Speaker 2: as compared to someone who acted on impulse.
Speaker 4: Now that doesn't give some I want a.
Speaker 2: License or justification to be weak and vulnerable to temptation.
Speaker 2: You may be able to cheat the law, but you
Speaker 2: can't cheat the system. Things earned the right way, beget
Speaker 2: the intangible things that comprise our character. I think there's
Speaker 2: incredible honor in doing the right thing when nobody's watching.
Speaker 4: Incredible honor.
Speaker 2: Now we're going to transition out of crime and punishment,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to ask the question I've been wanting
Speaker 2: answered this whole time. Why are you so open to
Speaker 2: telling this story to the world.
Speaker 1: Well, a few things that put a I skipped a
Speaker 1: lot that was pretty financially hard on my family. I
Speaker 1: had a lot of family step in and then I've
Speaker 1: been through way worse than that deer. I thought that
Speaker 1: was as bad as it could get that deer, having
Speaker 1: this world class deer taken away, just thought that I
Speaker 1: was as down as.
Speaker 3: A person can get. Right. I lost that John.
Speaker 1: I was known as a as an outlaw, still am
Speaker 1: a little bit today.
Speaker 2: I was surprised by his answer of why he was
Speaker 2: willing to talk. He'd been through way worse, he said,
Speaker 2: But I didn't really understand what he meant by that.
Speaker 2: Life is calibrated by a perspective, and perspective comes from
Speaker 2: our past. What we've lived through helps us respond to difficulty.
Speaker 2: The rest of his story isn't connected to him killing
Speaker 2: the deer, at least in any rational or natural pathway.
Speaker 2: But in Donnie's first correspondence with me, he told me
Speaker 2: his life began to unravel after he killed the buck.
Speaker 2: But strangely, it seemed that he viewed the unraveling as connected.
Speaker 2: In a person's life, it's hard to separate out isolated incidents.
Speaker 2: Events and time congeal into a glob for me, a
Speaker 2: singular journey, a coherent, unparsable, connected scene with incidents linked
Speaker 2: by cause and effect. If you do this, then this
Speaker 2: will happen. We feel safe by having a philosophy that
Speaker 2: garners guaranteed and predictable flow of events if certain rules
Speaker 2: are followed. However, the older I've gotten, I've learned that
Speaker 2: this isn't always true. Life often throws wild cards that
Speaker 2: are not earned by merit. When my wife and I
Speaker 2: got married, we jokingly said the mission of our marriage
Speaker 2: was to answer the question of why do bad things
Speaker 2: happen to good people. It was a joke, but it
Speaker 2: revealed a deep held philosophical position of many Americans and
Speaker 2: probably people across the world. Good things happen to good people,
Speaker 2: and bad things happen to bad people.
Speaker 4: It's complex because.
Speaker 2: Some things in life do elicit immediate recompense of good
Speaker 2: or bad fruit.
Speaker 4: That seems just.
Speaker 2: But other times life seems unfair, either in the direction
Speaker 2: of the prosperity of the wicked or the punishment of
Speaker 2: the righteous. It's one of the great mysteries of life.
Speaker 2: These things are on my mind as I hear the
Speaker 2: rest of Donnie's story on December twenty ninth, two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine, just two months after his confession, something terrible happened.
Speaker 3: Here's Donnie.
Speaker 1: Twenty ninth of December, A cousin of mine, Luke Fritchie,
Speaker 1: and my wife, which she was choosing as my fiance
Speaker 1: at the time, went rabbit hunting up towards Tipton Up
Speaker 1: and there we hunted the morning. Was on our way
Speaker 1: back and a guy I know that owns an excavator
Speaker 1: company called and.
Speaker 3: Said, Hey, are you looking for work? And I said,
Speaker 3: I definitely am right now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'll get back out there, but
Speaker 1: I need to do something like starting Monday. So I
Speaker 1: put them dogs up and dropped my wife and my
Speaker 1: cousin Lucas off. I headed to towards that guy's place,
Speaker 1: which was in Hey, Missouri, and I hit a slick
Speaker 1: spot right past the MM Highway on twenty eight. Wasn't
Speaker 1: running very fast driving an old jeep and lost it
Speaker 1: will run off in the gravel, and about the time
Speaker 1: I got it straightened up, I hit an oak tree
Speaker 1: head on by running forty five mile an hour and
Speaker 1: not didn't slow down any And when I hit that
Speaker 1: tree and just the ringing in the car and the
Speaker 1: steam rolling. I thought, good grief at first, zero pain,
Speaker 1: and I still had my overalls and hunting boots and
Speaker 1: stuff on. And it was the actual hood light from
Speaker 1: the hood being smashed in had come on and the
Speaker 1: steam rolling from the radiotor. I thought that thing was
Speaker 1: catching on fire. It looking flames, so I started to
Speaker 1: get out of it. When I stepped out on the ground,
Speaker 1: I just fell in the snow and I had a
Speaker 1: cordion fractured. My femur or butterfly broke a big chunk
Speaker 1: of it in the middle come out, and it was
Speaker 1: it was way off to the side of me in
Speaker 1: those overalls, and I grabbed that leg and slid back
Speaker 1: over straight.
Speaker 3: But I didn't feel the pain at all.
Speaker 1: Ambulance gets there and the first thing they did was
Speaker 1: go to cut these new overalls off of me, and
Speaker 1: I said, don't cut them overalls. So I fought with
Speaker 1: them for a while. When they went to try to
Speaker 1: take them off, I said, no, go ahead and cut them.
Speaker 1: So they trimmed all my overalls and my boots and
Speaker 1: stuff off of me. They rushed me to Rawla. I
Speaker 1: lost nine units of that. I guess that bone had
Speaker 1: cut a major artery in there. I passed out multiple
Speaker 1: times going to the hospital. They tied something on the
Speaker 1: end of my foot to keep that bone from moving
Speaker 1: cutting around there, so it's almost like a kettlebell tight
Speaker 1: on the end of your toes. With that, that was
Speaker 1: the most pain I've ever felt my life. Go around
Speaker 1: a corner that they could swing to one side then
Speaker 1: the other, and I mean I'd wake back up it.
Speaker 3: I was passing out. So when we get there, it was.
Speaker 1: Emergency surgery and they go in and I guess it
Speaker 1: was more dangerous than I realized.
Speaker 3: I was just thinking it was a broke leg. Anyway,
Speaker 3: they set.
Speaker 1: That bone back and it didn't set right. That started
Speaker 1: a whole new battle. It took thirteen surgeries to get
Speaker 1: that thing back right, with tearing acl redoing the meniscus,
Speaker 1: and all my tendons in my navy busted a time
Speaker 1: or two. How long is this after you were convicted
Speaker 1: of killing this deer right at the first of November?
Speaker 3: Was when I was just weeks after. Yeah, he killed
Speaker 3: this deer, yet this terrible car rock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm getting pretty down and out by now,
Speaker 1: and here I am in a wheelchair now can't walk.
Speaker 1: Every time I get a minute alone, I open up
Speaker 1: that stupid web page and read about how terrible a
Speaker 1: person I am, and uh, it got me in a
Speaker 1: dark spot. And did I had good family around me,
Speaker 1: you know, most of them forgave me, coming in, checking
Speaker 1: on me and what have you. But it was mentally
Speaker 1: a very, very tough time. One guy wrote on there
Speaker 1: that when they put it, I'd been a a I mean,
Speaker 1: they were putting my life on this on this web
Speaker 1: page of Mary's County monster couple. One guy on there
Speaker 1: said he gets everything he deserves. And you know, and
Speaker 1: those guys, some of them, some of them knew who
Speaker 1: they were, but some of them didn't know me. They're
Speaker 1: just just aggravated at me for killing this deer that
Speaker 1: they probably had a chance of kill her they were watching.
Speaker 3: You know, that deer got a lot of traction.
Speaker 1: You know, if it had been one hundred and ten
Speaker 1: inch eight point well I wouldn't have done that, but
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't have got that traction. Everybody in the
Speaker 1: state was all about that deer and other states. One
Speaker 1: of my nurses in Columbia knew who I was, said
Speaker 1: her kid had a picture of me and that deer,
Speaker 1: you know. And then she didn't know the rest of
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 3: I told her I had family bring We had only
Speaker 3: wood heat in that house. I had. I had multiple
Speaker 3: family members bringing loads of wood.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: I couldn't cut anything. My dad was trying to work
Speaker 1: in his old shop, his coldest winter we'd had in
Speaker 1: a long time. And it was just it just getting
Speaker 1: me down. I mean it really was. And about six
Speaker 1: months in I got murcia infection in that bone and
Speaker 1: all kinds of issues. And that doctor told me he said,
Speaker 1: probably never walk again without an aid. And I was like,
Speaker 1: this isn't broken the lake. People break their legs every day, huh.
Speaker 1: And it was actually set wrong and just by coincidence.
Speaker 1: August seventh, we had a a softball tournament and a
Speaker 1: guy I went to school with wife comes walking up
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 3: I didn't know her.
Speaker 1: Her name's Kelly Alexander and she said, how long have
Speaker 1: you been fighting that leg? And I had been over
Speaker 1: a year, and she said, have you ever got a
Speaker 1: second opinion? And I said, no, I've considered it. At
Speaker 1: that time, I was trying to get him cut it off.
Speaker 1: I could get a run and you cut it off.
Speaker 3: I backed your leg off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was blue, it wasn't getting circulation, it had
Speaker 1: staff in it and nobody knew it, and the hardware
Speaker 1: had the bone locked around direction.
Speaker 3: My foot was pointed straight to the right.
Speaker 1: And she said, I worked for a doctor in Columbia orthopedics,
Speaker 1: and she said, I would love if you'd come have
Speaker 1: him look at that leg. And like the following Monday,
Speaker 1: she had me appointment a very hard doctor to get
Speaker 1: into and I mean, he's super intelligent guy.
Speaker 3: And I brought my paperwork with me.
Speaker 1: Was leaned up against crutches standing there because it hurt
Speaker 1: bad to sit down and write anywhere. And I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: They'd done a few X rays and went out and
Speaker 1: he came back in. He said sit down. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel bettering. He said, I need you to sit down.
Speaker 1: That bone's not even touching and he said we're gonna
Speaker 1: have surgery this afternoon, and he started redoing the leg.
Speaker 1: I mean, I play a little ball now like Hunds
Speaker 1: hoar as I want to, and the fixed you he did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just just blessing of you know this girl. I didn't
Speaker 1: even really know.
Speaker 3: Kelly.
Speaker 1: Alexander just said, I know where a good doctor is,
Speaker 1: you know, And I'm not blaming the first doctor. I
Speaker 1: think I was bleeding out when they put it together.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was.
Speaker 3: A chaotic spot. Yeah, it's just just how it goes.
Speaker 1: But then when I got back on my feet, that
Speaker 1: started the happening to go start apologizing to people, and
Speaker 1: that was almost as hard as lying to him, knowing
Speaker 1: that you've done wrong and having to face them.
Speaker 2: You know, it's hard to imagine in Middle America in
Speaker 2: modern times, that fixing a broken leg could go so wrong.
Speaker 2: Did you hear him say that he was trying to
Speaker 2: get them to cut his leg off? A dark cloud
Speaker 2: seemed to descend over Donnie's life. He became depressed. Times
Speaker 2: were hard. It's wild that the boldness and concern of
Speaker 2: a stranger at a ballgame would change Donnie's life, as
Speaker 2: this lady helped him get an appointment with the doctor
Speaker 2: that fixed him the very afternoon of the appointment. But
Speaker 2: this was just the beginning. This next section will introduce
Speaker 2: us to a name we've heard a few times, Angela,
Speaker 2: who was at the time Donnie's fiance. This next story
Speaker 2: does a great job of painting a picture of their relationship,
Speaker 2: but don't forget that dark cloud.
Speaker 1: While I was crippled up. We've raised field Trout beagles
Speaker 1: for a long time UKC Beagles, and we've had a
Speaker 1: couple of good ones. My wife and I were playing
Speaker 1: on getting married in August, and she'd saved up money
Speaker 1: for a dress, and I mean we rubbing pennies raising
Speaker 1: two boys. It was tough, and she'd saved money for
Speaker 1: a year for a dress, and we had pretty well
Speaker 1: everything picked up. Of course, I wasn't helping it all.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in a chair with my with my leg
Speaker 1: all wrapped up. I'm one hundred and thirty pounds. I
Speaker 1: was two hundred and ten pound, a pretty big guy
Speaker 1: when I had this accident. She had to carry me
Speaker 1: to the bathtub and back out. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: just like take care of a feeld little man. And
Speaker 1: Angela and my dad were still running kind of in
Speaker 1: the Points serieses of these UKC hunts. We were going
Speaker 1: and I would show a dog once in a while,
Speaker 1: but me and the boys would stay in the clubhouse
Speaker 1: and hang out. We were at a hunt down South
Speaker 1: and Amona come walking and she said, did you see
Speaker 1: this dog tied up out here and I said no,
Speaker 1: and she said, come look at this dogs. I'd get
Speaker 1: up and cripple out there, and it was the prettiest
Speaker 1: biggel I've ever seen, big old bold muscled up, I mean,
Speaker 1: had more muscle.
Speaker 3: Than being livers in your life. And she said, I
Speaker 3: want that dog, and I said, we can't afford that dog.
Speaker 3: There's no telling it.
Speaker 1: So when he gets in and she makes him go
Speaker 1: out there and show her the dog, and they talk
Speaker 1: about you.
Speaker 3: My wife's was crazy over beagles.
Speaker 1: Some people. I've heard more than one person say when
Speaker 1: I die, I wanted to come back as one of
Speaker 1: Angela Vicker's biggles. I mean, you know, they got dessert
Speaker 1: and everything. So she told him we were interested in
Speaker 1: getting that dog, and I had an idea what that
Speaker 1: dog it costs, and we couldn't afford it no way.
Speaker 1: A month or so goes by and he calls me
Speaker 1: at my house. He goes, hey, I'm thinking about selling
Speaker 1: that dog.
Speaker 3: So we went over there Sunday even and hit a
Speaker 3: little side beside.
Speaker 1: He got me in, we went out, he cut I
Speaker 1: brought a couple of dogs with me and he cut
Speaker 1: them out and there was nothing.
Speaker 3: The dog done that was wrong and had him a
Speaker 3: huge mouth.
Speaker 1: It sounded like a person screaming what when he ran it,
Speaker 1: which is kind of something. You want to be able
Speaker 1: to strike your dog, if it's a good dog, you
Speaker 1: want it to be distinct from the other one so
Speaker 1: other people can't strike their dog on yours. We ran
Speaker 1: for a couple hours and we get back and load
Speaker 1: everything up, getting ready to leave, and he priced.
Speaker 3: The dog, and I thought, good grief.
Speaker 1: So we get my truck on sixty three coming from
Speaker 1: Visu and I've done the road.
Speaker 3: Angela has in said a word.
Speaker 1: So we get almost the vienna and she just looks
Speaker 1: over at me and says, I'll give my wedding dress
Speaker 1: money and marry you on the ball field and Dixon
Speaker 1: if you'll go back and get that dog. Turned that
Speaker 1: truck over, turned around sixty three, went back and bought
Speaker 1: the dog. And he was a huge blessing, just that himself.
Speaker 1: So she won Nationals a couple of times with him,
Speaker 1: multiple state hunts and shows. We just lost him last year.
Speaker 1: He was fifteen years old. That dog brought us really close.
Speaker 3: Comparing it on when we were young. You know, I
Speaker 3: had a couple of boys.
Speaker 1: Everything was fine, we loved hunt and fish, but that
Speaker 1: dog give us something to do big time together. So
Speaker 1: after him we end up purchasing another pup that turned
Speaker 1: out to be amazing, and at one time we had
Speaker 1: the top two dogs in this area points and hunt wise,
Speaker 1: field trial is what she loved. She loves competition. We
Speaker 1: played a lot of softball together. She just you could
Speaker 1: feel trial with the boys, take them with you. We Ohio,
Speaker 1: Indiana all over. That was something that was such a
Speaker 1: blessing to us. So, like I said, I thought that
Speaker 1: that really beat me down. So with the field trial island,
Speaker 1: Angela and I had done everything together. I still bow
Speaker 1: hunted a lot, done things like that, but we ran
Speaker 1: dogs two or three days a week and every weekend
Speaker 1: for a few years. And then in May May of
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, we were building this running pin up here
Speaker 1: and my dad got to have in pain and he
Speaker 1: had massive heart attack right above the wheelmaker. His heart
Speaker 1: still works today just over thirty percent. So already that
Speaker 1: deer that the issues of that deer didn't mean as much.
Speaker 1: But at the end of twenty fifteen, Angela started having
Speaker 1: issues with their stomach and not feeling good, losing weight
Speaker 1: and in March of sixteen, she was diagnosed with stage
Speaker 1: four cancer. But honestly, I mean it was scary. If
Speaker 1: you knew her, you'd understand. She was in the middle
Speaker 1: of CrossFit. They were trying to get her to compete
Speaker 1: at the time. Strong not female strong strong is anybody
Speaker 1: her size tough as she could be. I mean she
Speaker 1: packed water buckets with me. I mean we were just
Speaker 1: like two buddies. Really, that's what That's what made us close.
Speaker 3: She could be and she was a beautiful person.
Speaker 1: But she could wear car heart jeans and ston't brush
Speaker 1: pologies like anybody, and which is probably what attracted me
Speaker 1: her most. You know, she played on my men's softball team,
Speaker 1: you know, just But in sixteen, twenty sixteen, they give
Speaker 1: her eighteen months to live with treatment twelve to eighteen months.
Speaker 1: And honestly, it was scary, but it didn't It just
Speaker 1: she just wanted them. I thought, man, if he mightn't be,
Speaker 1: to be her.
Speaker 3: And she took.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she took twenty chemo treatments and forty eight radiation treatments.
Speaker 2: Angela's stage four cancer came as a complete surprise. The
Speaker 2: dark cloud had materialized overhead again, only in her late twenties.
Speaker 2: She was a beautiful lady, the picture of health and fitness.
Speaker 2: It's hard to imagine the shock of such a diagnosis.
Speaker 2: After she received the maximum amount of radiation and chemotherapy treatments,
Speaker 2: the doctors sent her home saying there was nothing more
Speaker 2: they could do and gave her twelve to eighteen months
Speaker 2: to live. At this point, Donnie and Angela began to
Speaker 2: research non traditional methods of cancer treatment. I struggled from
Speaker 2: an editorial perspective whether to include this, as it's just
Speaker 2: really personal, But in the end, it's Donnie and his
Speaker 2: family's story that's part of their journey through this dark
Speaker 2: decade from two thousand and nine to twenty nineteen. And
Speaker 2: Donnie included this in his story, so I did in
Speaker 2: this one too.
Speaker 1: So she found a show called Cancer Can Be Killed,
Speaker 1: and it was about natural you know, and not. He
Speaker 1: was actually explaining not to blame the doctors. That's Western medicine,
Speaker 1: how they're taught. But cancer the United States goes round
Speaker 1: because of cancer all the way to our newspapers and
Speaker 1: everything all trickled down money from Camp Street, and so
Speaker 1: we went to Florida.
Speaker 3: She went to Florida for six weeks.
Speaker 1: We didn't tell her doctor because he said, if you go,
Speaker 1: don't don't come back here because by the time you
Speaker 1: get back, he'll be out of control.
Speaker 3: And he's good dude. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, but he really believed it would be
Speaker 1: and we went to She went to Florida for six weeks.
Speaker 3: My sister set up I tenerate for every like five days.
Speaker 1: She would have some family member fly down there to
Speaker 1: hang out with her for three or four days and
Speaker 1: come back. Flew the boys myself down there, and I
Speaker 1: could tell when I got there, Clay, it was like
Speaker 1: on week four, I believe we hadn't seen her from of.
Speaker 3: Course, the boys were excited to see them.
Speaker 1: She had just settled into this place like she'd lived
Speaker 1: there a whole life, knew all the side streets, and
Speaker 1: we went to the beach, but she was laughing, running
Speaker 1: playing with kids. I could tell something was different. And
Speaker 1: when we got back, when she got back after six
Speaker 1: weeks of that, she was cancer free.
Speaker 3: I mean, well, I take that we didn't tell him.
Speaker 1: They went in to do her bi monthly cat scan
Speaker 1: and the last time she had outspots all in her
Speaker 1: bone and everything, and it'd spread, and of course she'd
Speaker 1: lived a long time after they said that she would.
Speaker 1: And when they got done with the cat scan, they
Speaker 1: come in they said, something's not rabber. We have to
Speaker 1: do that again, and she said, how come, he said,
Speaker 1: I it just it didn't show anything. So they took
Speaker 1: her back again and cat's canned her again. And when
Speaker 1: they come back out, he said, whatever you're doing, continue
Speaker 1: on it. And she was cancer free. It was a
Speaker 1: very strict diet. She could eat like three things, zero
Speaker 1: sugar ever again. And it was hard to do, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean not couldn't eat anything on the road, had
Speaker 1: to pack your mills for everything, and it was almost unfeasible,
Speaker 1: it was, it was. And then heat tank every day.
Speaker 1: You got to get your body cor up to I
Speaker 1: think over one hundred and three degrees. Cancer can't live
Speaker 1: it's so high. And it was just and she she
Speaker 1: stayed on track with that for for a long time.
Speaker 2: Angela would stay cancer free for just under one year,
Speaker 2: and during that time she had no chemo irradiation and
Speaker 2: was already alive past the original projected time. The doctors
Speaker 2: told her she'd live, but the remission didn't last.
Speaker 1: And then August of nineteen it come back, and that
Speaker 1: time it come back with a vengeance. And I could
Speaker 1: tell when it come back it was a different thing,
Speaker 1: and it was stage lived stage four both times. But
Speaker 1: when it come back, you could see it sapped the
Speaker 1: power out of her and she fought it a long time.
Speaker 1: But you know, we had these two boys, and my dad,
Speaker 1: my sister and mom. Everybody done what they could. But
Speaker 1: our little town, like a lot of little towns, has
Speaker 1: drug problems, and it has issues like all towns do,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, but Clay, this community was unbelievable. How they
Speaker 1: come together for us when it come back second time.
Speaker 1: I was still trying to work the boys multiple sports,
Speaker 1: and my sister stayed with us quite a bit through
Speaker 1: the night so I could try to sleep at night.
Speaker 1: I don't know how where she was sleeping that ever,
Speaker 1: But day after day for months longer than that, for
Speaker 1: over a year, we had dinner delivered here from just
Speaker 1: somebody else, I mean, just our community and my family's
Speaker 1: amazing and uh going through that and uh watching watching
Speaker 1: how it affected with myself, my dad and sister and
Speaker 1: my boys, especially that deer kind of started taking a
Speaker 1: back burner on me. Feeling pity for myself. It just,
Speaker 1: uh what I thought when I thought I was down
Speaker 1: and out and everything was gloomy, it was over a deer.
Speaker 1: And but watching her fight for her life like that
Speaker 1: made me realize it was just a deer. But that's
Speaker 1: why I'm open about it. Clay to say, in that
Speaker 1: second round of cancer, I was playing a lot of
Speaker 1: ball and stuff when I killed that deer. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't a drug riddled alcoholic or anything. But I was
Speaker 1: raised in church and I knew when I was doing
Speaker 1: right and when I was doing wrong and playing a
Speaker 1: lot of ball, drying a lot of beer, being routy
Speaker 1: with kids at home, you know, and doing things that
Speaker 1: that I shouldn't.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: My wife's faith never wavered one ounce. And as the
Speaker 1: man of the house, I should be the leader, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't.
Speaker 3: My wife was.
Speaker 1: And as she faded, I started realizing that's that's what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to be.
Speaker 3: But she could.
Speaker 1: She passed the twenty fifth of May of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: after a terrible fight, and the last thing she said
Speaker 1: to me was I'm ready to go home.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It was tough, but the time I had with her,
Speaker 3: I really cherished.
Speaker 2: I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease.
Speaker 2: I hope you've enjoyed and learned something from the Donnie
Speaker 2: Baker story. None of us are without fault, including Donnie,
Speaker 2: but he's one of us, an American woodsman and hunter,
Speaker 2: and a derned good one at that. Just the story
Speaker 2: we chose to tell of his overlap with the wild
Speaker 2: was one of his worst moments. After episode one, I
Speaker 2: was concerned that the world would make Donnie pay again
Speaker 2: for killing that buck, and I compensated for that by
Speaker 2: asking the listener to be sympathetic. And after the episode,
Speaker 2: Donnie reported back to me that he'd received almost one
Speaker 2: hundred percent positive feedback, which I was really glad to hear.
Speaker 2: But most importantly, I think now he can fully just
Speaker 2: put all this behind him. I'm grateful for compelling stories,
Speaker 2: positive and negative, and I look forward to telling many
Speaker 2: more in twenty twenty four. It means the world to
Speaker 2: Brent and I that you guys listen to our podcasts,
Speaker 2: and I really look forward to talking to everybody on
Speaker 2: the Render next week about this episode two. And Hey,
Speaker 2: I want to thank you all for the support of
Speaker 2: the launch of Steve Ranella and I's audio original, The
Speaker 2: Long Hunters. So far it has been a big success
Speaker 2: as it stood number one on the Apple Audio Books
Speaker 2: and reach number four on Audible, which is big for
Speaker 2: us and Hey. As another announcement, on March ninth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, if you want to come say hi to
Speaker 2: Brent and I all day will be at the Black
Speaker 2: Bear Bonanza in Bentonville, Arkansas. It's an incredible event, big time,
Speaker 2: big day. Google it and hope to see you there.
Speaker 2: Have a great week.