Speaker 1: And leard loading me on the stretcher to put me
Speaker 1: in the back of the amulets. And I looked up
Speaker 1: and the guy attended me. I'd had in federal court before,
Speaker 1: and I remember looking at my boss. I remember grabbing
Speaker 1: him by the shirt and pulling him down, and I said,
Speaker 1: don't leave me.
Speaker 2: On this episode, we'll be peeking behind the veil of
Speaker 2: the same world as we hear a wild story of
Speaker 2: attempted murder, a high speed chase, illegal drugs, and steaming
Speaker 2: hot irony, all on America's public lands. The host of
Speaker 2: our story is an old Bear Grease friend who spent
Speaker 2: his career as a special agent with the United States
Speaker 2: Forest Service. He spent time under cover, and in a
Speaker 2: past life, he was a bricklayer from Southeast Tennessee. His
Speaker 2: name is Russ Arthur. We first heard snippets from his
Speaker 2: career in our Genuine Outlaws series on Bear Grease, which
Speaker 2: started at episode fifty two. In this Russ described his
Speaker 2: memorable covert interactions with Louis Dale Edwards in Polk County,
Speaker 2: Arkansas in the nineteen nineties. But in Russ's real life,
Speaker 2: he's a real turkey hunter and a good one and
Speaker 2: he told two gobbler chasing stories on our Spring twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four Turkey Story series. You might remember him finding
Speaker 2: his father's journal on the day of his dad's funeral.
Speaker 2: Russ has lived an adventurous, interesting and rich life embedded
Speaker 2: in the hunting community of Appalachia, bringing law and order
Speaker 2: to public lands, but he's also worked all across America
Speaker 2: and in the latter years even into the far reaches
Speaker 2: of Southeast Asia. We'll learn where that passion came from
Speaker 2: on this podcast, and hear the story of attempted murder
Speaker 2: on his life. I really doubt that you're gonna want
Speaker 2: to miss this one. And hey, folks, remember that you
Speaker 2: can watch The Bear Grease Render, our every other week
Speaker 2: roundtable discussion podcasts on Meat Eater's new podcast YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: Check it out.
Speaker 1: And I said, why would you be telling me this,
Speaker 1: and a true Appalachian spirit, he just said, you know
Speaker 1: you didn't do anything wrong. It was boys in prison
Speaker 1: are the one that did something wrong. And I can't
Speaker 1: convince some of these members of the community that you've
Speaker 1: done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: My name is Klay 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 lives close to the land,
Speaker 2: presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
Speaker 2: fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 2: places explored.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget it. I was on the passioner's side
Speaker 1: front and it was in a sedan. The agents Drew
Speaker 1: drove Crown Vicks then and they laid the seat back
Speaker 1: and the agent from Georgia got in the back and
Speaker 1: it tore his shirt off.
Speaker 3: It's down to his T shirt and would wrap my head.
Speaker 1: My head was bleeding, and it's funny how your mind
Speaker 1: will drift. And I reached up and I felt this
Speaker 1: real warmth in my ear. This may sound a little crude,
Speaker 1: but it's funny how your mind works. I'm coming and going.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm gonna pass out or not,
Speaker 1: but I'll never forget my thoughts were if I'm bleeding
Speaker 1: out my ear. This is not good. I've seen Daddy
Speaker 1: put down too many dogs, and you know, Son, this
Speaker 1: dog has been hit by car, is bleeding out the here.
Speaker 1: We gotta put it down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you know, you grow up in the
Speaker 3: South and a round dogs.
Speaker 2: I mean, bleeding out the ear is a bad sign.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't mean to make light of that,
Speaker 1: but that's what was going through my mind at that time.
Speaker 2: How fast do you think the truck was going when
Speaker 2: it hit you?
Speaker 1: It probably wasn't going, but I'm gonna say when it
Speaker 1: excel because it slowed down like it's gonna stop, and
Speaker 1: it just immediately turned and gassed it.
Speaker 3: And I can remember hearing the gravels. I can remember seeing, you.
Speaker 1: Know, and it just that that front end and that
Speaker 1: front tire just clipped me and flip me and it
Speaker 1: and it raced off.
Speaker 2: After that truck hit Russ, it would bust through a
Speaker 2: roadblock and lead officers on a high speed chase through
Speaker 2: the smoky mountains of North Carolina, leading into a three
Speaker 2: day man hunt. What twists and turns in a man's
Speaker 2: life would lead him into a scenario like this. I
Speaker 2: think we need to go back to the very beginning.
Speaker 3: My name is Russ Arthur.
Speaker 1: I was born in nineteen fifty nine in Southeast Tennessee.
Speaker 1: My parents raised me and two sisters in the Hickson
Speaker 1: Red Bank area of Tennessee and graduated high school in
Speaker 1: seventy seven. I did a lot of construction work during
Speaker 1: high school and during my few years in college did
Speaker 1: brick block work and always was a passionate turkey hunter.
Speaker 1: My dad was always a passionate turkey hunter. He was
Speaker 1: turkey hunting when turkey hunting wasn't cool, and he would
Speaker 1: always go to the mountains and turkey hunt. And when
Speaker 1: I got about ten eleven years old, he started taking
Speaker 1: me and he always camped in an area up there
Speaker 1: close to where our ancestors were born, which is now
Speaker 1: National Forest. And there's Arthur Cemetery right there next to
Speaker 1: that campground where goes back to five generations of Arthur's
Speaker 1: that's buried there.
Speaker 2: This camp would be the philosophical cradle of Russ's life's work.
Speaker 2: He was enamored with the men that hunted there, their conversations,
Speaker 2: and like the bedrock forming at the bottom of an
Speaker 2: ancient ocean, he developed a foundational appreciation for the land.
Speaker 2: But I want to go even deeper into Russ's foundations.
Speaker 1: My dad was very well respected in the community. He
Speaker 1: respected the law enforcement. He was a philosopher son, always
Speaker 1: do the right thing when nobody's looking. He was all
Speaker 1: about honor, all about integrity. He was a man of
Speaker 1: many talents. He was a beekeeper, he was a housman
Speaker 1: at one time with beagles, and rabbit hunting was his thing.
Speaker 3: He loved the art of shooting.
Speaker 1: And he was a very good father to our family.
Speaker 1: Anybody who was around he would grain their respect. But
Speaker 1: he was a true woodsman. He knew everything there was
Speaker 1: to know about the mountains, not only their history, but
Speaker 1: he knew every plant species.
Speaker 3: He really took.
Speaker 1: In everything in those mountains, and he was a self
Speaker 1: taught naturalist.
Speaker 2: At Russ's core, I think you can perceive a genuine
Speaker 2: and deep appreciation for wild places, stretching a net of
Speaker 2: knowledge that supersedes a veneer of simply knowing about and
Speaker 2: hunting on some land. His appreciation is informed by a
Speaker 2: complex sequence of data points.
Speaker 3: It was real.
Speaker 2: As this story unfolds, you'll see the extent to which
Speaker 2: Russ will go to do his job with the Forest Service,
Speaker 2: and at the heart of it, going back to his father,
Speaker 2: is a sacred respect wild places.
Speaker 1: And I was just infactuated by by their skills, by
Speaker 1: their turkey call making skills, by the types of tactics
Speaker 1: they used, and uh just love the mountains.
Speaker 3: And I always uh would interact.
Speaker 1: With the forest Service as they came through, really admired them,
Speaker 1: really respected them, and I would always ask them, how
Speaker 1: did I get a job with you?
Speaker 3: How did I get a job with you? Even as
Speaker 3: a little kid, And they would just always talk to
Speaker 3: me and be cordial.
Speaker 1: And when I got on up in high school, one
Speaker 1: of them told me, said.
Speaker 3: You need to get in college.
Speaker 2: Son.
Speaker 1: My dad wasn't very high on this, but when I
Speaker 1: told him I wanted to get a degree in forestry,
Speaker 1: he he said, son, if I not told you and
Speaker 1: talk to you enough about trees, so uh, but I'll
Speaker 1: never forget that. I said, well, day, it's a little
Speaker 1: more than that. It's a it's a I think it
Speaker 1: would be a good profession. I just knew I wanted.
Speaker 1: I want to ride around those green trucks, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to be part of managing that land that I cared.
Speaker 3: So much about.
Speaker 2: The things that catch our eyes children, and the decisions
Speaker 2: we make early in life are critical, often determined the
Speaker 2: out comes far beyond the site of the time. When
Speaker 2: I meet people that I respect, I find their formative
Speaker 2: influences interesting and Russ would never turn his gaze from
Speaker 2: these early directions that he was looking. But I don't
Speaker 2: think that it played out the way that he would
Speaker 2: have predicted. Russ would end up graduating from the University
Speaker 2: of Tennessee with a forestry degree in the spring of
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two, and his first job was a volunteer
Speaker 2: position as an intern for the Forest Service, where he
Speaker 2: lived in a camper without electricity. Then they offered him
Speaker 2: some seasonal work.
Speaker 3: For the next two or three years.
Speaker 1: Mark Timber with firefighter held the dumb end of an
Speaker 1: engineer tape on laying out, you know, logging roads, just
Speaker 1: anything that they had at the lowest grade level. I
Speaker 1: took it all the time, not knowing which direction my
Speaker 1: career was going to go. I just enjoyed the diversity
Speaker 1: of the work. I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed the environment.
Speaker 1: It was just a I was articled to death.
Speaker 2: Then one day Russ literally got a knock on the
Speaker 2: door from two Forest Service agents from North Carolina.
Speaker 1: They said, look, we've got a job opening coming into
Speaker 1: North Carolina. We want you to apply. And I said, well, guys,
Speaker 1: what is it? And they said it's a full time
Speaker 1: law enforcement officer job, and for service is just now
Speaker 1: getting into these positions. Most of the positions are you know,
Speaker 1: you'll do ten percent law and ten percent fire and
Speaker 1: twenty percent recreation, and you know, thirty percent temper marking.
Speaker 1: But this one's full time law enforcement, and we think
Speaker 1: you'd be a good fit.
Speaker 2: Prior to this, the Forest Service hadn't heavily dealt in
Speaker 2: law enforcement, but the need was now rising from full
Speaker 2: time officers. He applied for the job and got it.
Speaker 1: I've always wondered who I beat out for that job,
Speaker 1: because man, I didn't have that much experience, And.
Speaker 3: They finally told me I was the only applicant.
Speaker 1: That made you feel good, That made me feel real good.
Speaker 2: Sometimes just showing up is all that it takes. And
Speaker 2: to go back to the guys that told him to apply.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we aren't able to see the potential in ourselves
Speaker 2: and it takes someone else to spot it. That's why
Speaker 2: it's critical to surround yourself with selfless, honest people. In
Speaker 2: July nineteen eighty five, Russ would relocate to the mountains
Speaker 2: of rural western North Carolina, but he had no way
Speaker 2: to predict the direction of his career would go.
Speaker 3: That duty station in North Carolina. It was pretty remote area.
Speaker 3: It is in Robbinsville.
Speaker 1: I think at the time Robinsville was seventy or something
Speaker 1: percent US for service and the rest of it was private.
Speaker 1: So there there was a lot of animosity there against
Speaker 1: the Forest Service, and that goes back to some of
Speaker 1: the things that TVA did with Fontana in the flooding
Speaker 1: of homes and things. But they just weren't a good
Speaker 1: fan of the government back in the eighties.
Speaker 2: This is the perfect entry point to understanding the full
Speaker 2: story and all its twists and turns of Russ with
Speaker 2: the bleeding ear in the crown vic you're gonna want
Speaker 2: to pay attention and don't get too comfortable. Here's the
Speaker 2: whole story.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen eighty six, while working in Robinsville, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: you know, again with a Forest Service law enforcement my
Speaker 1: first position. There was an unusual group came to the
Speaker 1: National Forest and Robinsville was a very quiet, very calm,
Speaker 1: very southern type small town. You know, one red light,
Speaker 1: two places to eat, one small hotel, just good, easy living,
Speaker 1: very proud. People loved their community, loved their National Forest.
Speaker 1: Most everybody there had some type of a tide of
Speaker 1: the National Forest, whether it was hunting or working in
Speaker 1: the logging business. And one day we got notified for
Speaker 1: service did that there was a group going to set
Speaker 1: up a camp in a place called Maple Springs, which
Speaker 1: was one of the most remote areas you could drive
Speaker 1: to in that county, and there was going to be
Speaker 1: a national gathering there called the Rainbow Living of Light,
Speaker 1: and said there's going to be about ten thousand people
Speaker 1: come in here.
Speaker 3: This community.
Speaker 2: This group had become well known in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: traveling across the country gathering in the name of world peace. However,
Speaker 2: every place they went to they'd set up in national forest,
Speaker 2: intending to protest the government through their right to gather
Speaker 2: without a permit. However, the Forest Service required gatherings of
Speaker 2: over seventy five people to have a permit, and thousands
Speaker 2: were coming, so there was some head button with the
Speaker 2: Forest Service. However, it wouldn't be the Rainbow people that
Speaker 2: wanted to kill Russ Arthur.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like a freak show, if you will.
Speaker 1: For the locals. They hear about it, they don't want
Speaker 1: to drive.
Speaker 3: Up and see it.
Speaker 1: Well, one Friday night, we for Service along with the state,
Speaker 1: set up a roadblock just to check for DUI DOI
Speaker 1: checkpoint and one of the curves that went up and
Speaker 1: down there because we were now allowing vehicles to drive
Speaker 1: up and down, but they couldn't take equipment in and
Speaker 1: out now, So we've got a roadblock going on, and
Speaker 1: I'll digress a little bit. The fall before that, I
Speaker 1: had a run in with a young man up there
Speaker 1: that suspected of hunting berry legal.
Speaker 3: And when I got up.
Speaker 1: With him in a remote area up there, he had
Speaker 1: a rifle, but it wasn't a large caliber and he
Speaker 1: claimed he was only squirrel hunting, so I cited him.
Speaker 1: I think it was a forty or fifty dollars collateral
Speaker 1: citation for hunting squirrels out of season on Wildlife Managinary,
Speaker 1: And that type of collateral ticket was the lowest level
Speaker 1: of enforcement action that you can take other than a warning,
Speaker 1: and he can mail it in if it's paid on time,
Speaker 1: it don't even go on your record, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: a big deal to me. Well, time passes were back
Speaker 1: to the national gathering and we're at a road check
Speaker 1: and it's starting to get a little bit dark. And
Speaker 1: this truck comes down down the road and it was
Speaker 1: I'll never forget it was a seventy seven forward one
Speaker 1: because I've got a seventy eight still got it. It's
Speaker 1: trucks coming down the hill. And I recognized the truck
Speaker 1: of being tied to that family of that boy. I
Speaker 1: wrote the ticket to you live in a small community,
Speaker 1: you get to know everybody's vehicle, what they drive.
Speaker 3: And I was what called the point.
Speaker 1: Person, and I turned my flashlight on and stepped out,
Speaker 1: held my hand up to stop the vehicle, and it
Speaker 1: immediately accelerated and turned toward me and ran over me,
Speaker 1: and it caught right side of my leg, flipped me
Speaker 1: over in the ditch, head hit the hit the gravel road,
Speaker 1: and I just I went out for a few few seconds.
Speaker 3: The vehicle's gone.
Speaker 1: The next thing I know, the agent out of Ashville
Speaker 1: and when the agents out of Georgia that was there
Speaker 1: loaded me up in the back their vehicle was taking
Speaker 1: me trying to get me to the hospital. Of course, immediately,
Speaker 1: you know, we had five or six marked units at
Speaker 1: that roadblock, and I can remember in that ditch, laying
Speaker 1: there just seeing them go by, blue lights blazing where
Speaker 1: this happened was probably running wide open more than an
Speaker 1: hour of the closest hospital, and it's back for the
Speaker 1: days of medevac. And I remember the agent getting on
Speaker 1: the radio any radioing to the amulets meet me. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be headed to town where the hospital wasn't
Speaker 1: in the town.
Speaker 3: The hospital was in Bryson City.
Speaker 1: You know, if you know anything about Western Carolina, and
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's a pretty long way from Robbinsville.
Speaker 1: But they did have ammelet service in Robinsville. So he's
Speaker 1: communicating with the ambulets. I'm coming up one twenty nine.
Speaker 1: They almost met each other, and it was almost erected
Speaker 1: meeting each other. And I'm still just in it, just
Speaker 1: can't figure out what's going on. And they're loading me
Speaker 1: on this stretcher to put me in the back of
Speaker 1: the amulets. Only this can happen in a small town now.
Speaker 1: And I looked up and the guy tended me. I'd
Speaker 1: had in federal court before, and I remember looking at
Speaker 1: my boss and I did go out after this is
Speaker 1: I remember grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him
Speaker 1: down and I said, don't leave me. So next thing
Speaker 1: I know, I wake up and I'm in the hospital
Speaker 1: and praise God, I'm good. I had had concussions, I
Speaker 1: had stitches in my knees, I had stitches and half
Speaker 1: to hide off my back of my head, and they
Speaker 1: had to wait awhile for they could give me the
Speaker 1: pain medication cause of the concussions or whatever that process was.
Speaker 1: But when they finally I was able to sleep for
Speaker 1: eight or ten hours. I know what the feeling is
Speaker 1: of bet right over by truck, and I just couldn't hardly.
Speaker 3: Move all over.
Speaker 2: I think the main thing keeping Russ's injuries from being
Speaker 2: much worse was simple. He was six foot two in
Speaker 2: the neighborhood of two hundred and forty pounds in his
Speaker 2: late twenties. He was tough, but he was bleeding out
Speaker 2: his ear, and that's never good. But an even more
Speaker 2: interesting question is what madness would cause someone to think
Speaker 2: that they could get away with this or even want
Speaker 2: to do it. But then the situation escalated even more.
Speaker 1: They came and took statements from me. The State Borough
Speaker 1: Investigation got involved, and that's when I learned that there
Speaker 1: was still.
Speaker 3: A man hunt. There are three people in that truck,
Speaker 3: and if you know anything about that area.
Speaker 1: Highway one twenty nine goes from Maryville all the way
Speaker 1: up through the mountain around by the Smokies, comes around
Speaker 1: the bottom of Fontana Dam and people call it the
Speaker 1: Dragon's Tail. It's a very windy road, but that's where
Speaker 1: they were fleeing to.
Speaker 3: And it was ironic.
Speaker 1: My old boss, the one that first men towards me
Speaker 1: into getting into law enforcement, was the one right behind them.
Speaker 3: And if you knew less, you'd know that they're probably
Speaker 3: not going to get away from him. And I learned
Speaker 3: all this, of course after the fact.
Speaker 1: The truck went around so many of those curves, it
Speaker 1: couldn't hold a curve like a crown vick. Literally he
Speaker 1: was pushing them all accounts that I heard later. So
Speaker 1: these guys knew what they were doing. All three of
Speaker 1: them were locals from that area, very avid.
Speaker 3: Hunters, and it all of.
Speaker 1: A sudden ditched and they all three jumped out and
Speaker 1: ran into the smokies.
Speaker 3: He was able to catch one. It was a juvenile.
Speaker 3: It was just a passenger. So you've got one call
Speaker 3: that's a juvenile that you can't prosecute. And there was
Speaker 3: a huge man hunt.
Speaker 1: Stay of Tennessee got involved because This was closest Tennessee
Speaker 1: state line. State of North Carolina got involved with their
Speaker 1: highway patrols and they set up roadblocks trying to catch
Speaker 1: these guys. So three days hadn't caught them. And let
Speaker 1: me get this straight. It was one of the guys
Speaker 1: who was still in there. Dad came to the authorities
Speaker 1: and said, need to talk.
Speaker 3: I know where they're at.
Speaker 1: I'll get them to come out on their own, if
Speaker 1: you'll get rid of everybody.
Speaker 3: They've got a spot.
Speaker 1: Over there to the illegal hunt camp in the smokies
Speaker 1: that they're holed up in, and only I know where
Speaker 1: it's at. Y'all back out of here. I don't want
Speaker 1: them shot, I don't want them hurt. I'll go get
Speaker 1: them within two days, they'll they'll turn himself in. And
Speaker 1: evidently this man did a good job of convincing the
Speaker 1: authorities that that that would happen, and he held true
Speaker 1: to his word and they brought the guys out, and
Speaker 1: one of.
Speaker 3: Them was the guy that I had written the squirrel
Speaker 3: hunting ticket with m M.
Speaker 2: The squirrel hunter. Why did he do this? They were
Speaker 2: about to find out why in federal court.
Speaker 1: Him and his brother were prosecuted and he got three years.
Speaker 1: He was not the driver, he was the passenger. His
Speaker 1: brother was the driver, and he got three years in
Speaker 1: federal prison.
Speaker 2: And the brother that was the driver or the past the.
Speaker 3: Paler hunter, the squirrel hunter.
Speaker 2: The squirrel hunter got three years.
Speaker 3: He got three years in federal prison.
Speaker 1: We were able to find a person in that encampment
Speaker 1: that actually came to the courts and testified.
Speaker 3: They were on their way up.
Speaker 1: They stopped that truck as that truck was coming down
Speaker 1: to the roadblock, and they told the driver, you all need.
Speaker 3: To be careful.
Speaker 1: The Forest Service has a roadblock set up down there,
Speaker 1: and I don't want anybody get in trouble. The passenger,
Speaker 1: which was the scraw hunter, leaned over the driver and
Speaker 1: looked at the guy and said, do you know Russ
Speaker 1: Arthur And this guy said yeah, said.
Speaker 3: Is he down there?
Speaker 1: And they said he said yeah, And he then got back,
Speaker 1: you know, leaned back in and got in the middle
Speaker 1: of the seat and told his brother said come on,
Speaker 1: it's time for him to die.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: This came out in federal courts.
Speaker 3: This came out in the testimony.
Speaker 1: So both found guilty, they go to prison, and well
Speaker 1: that was a very tough time in my life and
Speaker 1: my career. I mean, it really was, because he just
Speaker 1: didn't know what would happen next. And about six months
Speaker 1: after that, one of the members that family called me
Speaker 1: at one o'clock in the morning, and these guys are
Speaker 1: both in prison. He said, need to talk to you.
Speaker 1: And I knew this guy and I called him my name.
Speaker 1: I said, man, it's one o'clock in the morning. I said,
Speaker 1: are you drunk and he said no. He said, but
Speaker 1: there's some talk down here in this community that you
Speaker 1: need to know about. I said, okay, and I'm thinking
Speaker 1: this a setup. And I said, well listen, I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you, but it's gonna be where I want to
Speaker 1: meet you. And I told him to meet me in
Speaker 1: the parking lot of the Forest Service. Well, I called
Speaker 1: my boss, who was a district ranger then and assistant
Speaker 1: ranger and let them both know what was going on.
Speaker 3: And they didn't like it. They were not law enforcement.
Speaker 1: They were very, very supportive of everything, and I mean
Speaker 1: two of the best guys you've ever ever known, and
Speaker 1: they they had my back anytime. He said, well, just
Speaker 1: be careful and let us know when you clear from there.
Speaker 3: And again this is back before cell phones.
Speaker 1: And you know, so I got there fifteen minutes before
Speaker 1: I told him i'd be there, part my truck a
Speaker 1: different place where I told him my park and walked
Speaker 1: around and did surveillance of that area before he pulled in.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So he pulls in, gets out, we have a conversation
Speaker 1: and it was he was sober. He just said, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of guys down there that's talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: does some harm to you. I just want to warn
Speaker 1: you you need to be careful if you get any
Speaker 1: calls at night. And I said, why would you be
Speaker 1: telling me this, and true Appalachian spirit, he just said,
Speaker 1: you know, you didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 3: These boys in prison are the ones that did something wrong.
Speaker 1: And I can't convince some of these members of the
Speaker 1: community that you've done nothing wrong. So a lot of
Speaker 1: respect up for that gentleman. And we talked for about
Speaker 1: an hour there. Then he went on his way, and
Speaker 1: when he got in the truck and left, my two
Speaker 1: supervisors I heard a rustle in the bushes came out
Speaker 1: and they each had their personal shotguns.
Speaker 3: Said just want to let you know we had you back.
Speaker 2: You didn't know they were there.
Speaker 3: No, Wow.
Speaker 2: No, So those guys weren't the bosses at that time,
Speaker 2: weren't lawn.
Speaker 1: Form No, they were just they were They were professional
Speaker 1: foresters and running running the district.
Speaker 3: They just wanted to make sure that Wow, that I
Speaker 3: was covered. They would lose their job today.
Speaker 2: There's an old saying about true friendship, stating there's no
Speaker 2: greater love than someone who's willing to lay their life
Speaker 2: down for a friend. These guys didn't have to do that,
Speaker 2: but it sure seems like they were willing to defend
Speaker 2: Russ at all costs. Time passes, things settled down, and
Speaker 2: Russ's career moves on. He's actually relocated to another state,
Speaker 2: back to Tennessee. But then one day he gets a
Speaker 2: call from his old boss. And one more thing we
Speaker 2: haven't mentioned about Forest Service law enforcement in the eighties, nineties,
Speaker 2: two thousands, and even today was all the drug work
Speaker 2: that they did with marijuana being illegally grown on the forest.
Speaker 3: The guy was just mean.
Speaker 1: So he goes on to prison and him and his
Speaker 1: brother both Then I fast forward and I moved to Tennessee,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm sitting in Tennessee and I get
Speaker 1: a call from the authorities over there that said they
Speaker 1: need my help. They had not yet hired a new
Speaker 1: officer to fill my place in Robbinsville. Can I come
Speaker 1: over and help them with this huge marijuana operation? You know,
Speaker 1: you know the area and you know the players.
Speaker 3: Can you do this? I said, yeah, that'd be me fun.
Speaker 1: So me and the agent from Carolina went over there
Speaker 1: and we did a recon of.
Speaker 3: The area and we found a huge operation in a clear.
Speaker 2: Cut huge How did you find it?
Speaker 1: One of our timber markers checking some timber inventory had
Speaker 1: had found it and it was in a pretty remote area.
Speaker 1: So we laid a plan to surveil it, and he said,
Speaker 1: you know what we'll do. We can do this with
Speaker 1: four people. He said, if you can get another officer,
Speaker 1: we'll drop you off and off. We found ad vantage
Speaker 1: point where I could watch the side of that hill
Speaker 1: with binoculars and a camera of the zoom lens. You
Speaker 1: take notes as they come in. They've got a park
Speaker 1: a vehicle somewhere, and we're just going to completely clear
Speaker 1: the area. Then once they're in there, we'll send an
Speaker 1: under cover truck in there to try to find their vehicle,
Speaker 1: and we'll arrest them at their vehicle that way, there's
Speaker 1: not a confrontation in a chase in the woods if we.
Speaker 2: Wait till they all go in there and then catch
Speaker 2: them on the way.
Speaker 3: Out, exactly.
Speaker 2: And you just figured you could find the vehicles a
Speaker 2: lot of roads around or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not that many roads. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So me and another officer were sitting there watching and
Speaker 1: three guys come in. I'm looking at them through binoclars
Speaker 1: and I'm watching them and they're picking up plants and
Speaker 1: they're putting it.
Speaker 3: It's like they went to work. You know.
Speaker 1: They had a huge potting area that they had the
Speaker 1: plants and pots, and the plants were eight to ten inches.
Speaker 3: Tall or taller.
Speaker 1: And they would take a plant they had already had
Speaker 1: pre dug holes and they'd put it in there and
Speaker 1: they'd water and they'd go get another on that right,
Speaker 1: and they had I think it's fifteen hundred plants they
Speaker 1: were going to do this way. And I'm watching these
Speaker 1: guys and I don't recognize any of them, and I
Speaker 1: radiod my boss. I said, he said, we found the vehicle,
Speaker 1: and we're going to set a surveillance on their vehicle.
Speaker 1: So when they're leaving, you tell us when they're leaving
Speaker 1: and we'll rest them as soon as they get in
Speaker 1: the vehicle.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So those three have worked about an hour now, and
Speaker 1: three more show up.
Speaker 3: So now we got six.
Speaker 1: Well, I started logging in and we started naming them all.
Speaker 3: You know, number one wearing.
Speaker 1: This type of ball hat, this shirt, these pants, and
Speaker 1: so I gave a good description. Boss, he's writing that
Speaker 1: same description down, so when I'm talking, we can chronologe
Speaker 1: keep up with.
Speaker 3: Okay, number one is going to get water.
Speaker 1: Number seven or number six is now putting fertilizer.
Speaker 3: Number you know.
Speaker 1: So we confirmed what the descriptions of and had them
Speaker 1: all one through six, and I still was so frustrated
Speaker 1: because I didn't know any of them. So they'd been
Speaker 1: working in there about four hours, been there some of
Speaker 1: them since I Right at daylight and I look up
Speaker 1: and here comes another one and I put the binoclars
Speaker 1: up and it was the old boy that ran over me.
Speaker 1: And I thought, I cannot believe two things. Number one,
Speaker 1: he's out of prison.
Speaker 2: You didn't know he was out of prison.
Speaker 3: Well I knew, I hadn't even really thought about it.
Speaker 1: But you know, how long is this after about three
Speaker 1: years and always as recognizable, I mean boom, there he
Speaker 1: is well. In the meantime, the agent out of the
Speaker 1: road had to call in for other help because now
Speaker 1: not only did we have one vehicle to do surveillance
Speaker 1: I want to take down.
Speaker 3: We had two.
Speaker 1: Vehicles and we just had a third, and they all
Speaker 1: parked about a half a mile from each other. So
Speaker 1: they set teams, got teams, got other law enforcement personnel
Speaker 1: around where we could take them down at the vehicle.
Speaker 3: They finished their work.
Speaker 1: And they packed up their stuff and they started down
Speaker 1: this trail back down to the main road, and I
Speaker 1: radio down.
Speaker 3: You know, they're coming out.
Speaker 1: So we're basically following them, but at a distance where
Speaker 1: we can't be obviously heard or seen. And they start
Speaker 1: to hear them on the radio. Hey, we've got two here,
Speaker 1: we got three here. I got two more here. And
Speaker 1: then I'm.
Speaker 3: Waiting to hear the one. And then I hear his name.
Speaker 1: It was a wildlife officer, great friend of mine, still
Speaker 1: friends with him, that actually arrested him at his vehicle.
Speaker 1: And I come out of the woods and my boss
Speaker 1: is there with the other six, and I said, can
Speaker 1: I go up and see this gentleman?
Speaker 3: He looked at me, he said, you sure can't. So
Speaker 3: the Wildlife.
Speaker 1: Officered radio down and said, just to let you know,
Speaker 1: I've read him his rights on the miranda, and he's
Speaker 1: telling me that he was turkey scouting, that he don't
Speaker 1: know why he's being arrested, and he wants.
Speaker 3: To be turned loose. So I walk up to where
Speaker 3: he's at.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, I've got full cameo gear on, face
Speaker 1: paint on, I've got a camera with a thirty five
Speaker 1: millimeters zoom.
Speaker 3: And I walked up there.
Speaker 1: And when I walked up there and looked at him,
Speaker 1: he's handcuffed behind the back and he looked at me,
Speaker 1: and I just just I could kill you look in
Speaker 1: his eye and he grinned, and he says, I was
Speaker 1: turkey hunting and you can't prove anything different for us.
Speaker 1: And I just sat down and I said, well, Bud,
Speaker 1: I said, it's going to be a long day for you.
Speaker 1: I set my pack down and I pulled the camera
Speaker 1: out and I set it down on the hood of
Speaker 1: the car. I said, you're going to be a movie star.
Speaker 1: I said, I've probably got three rolls of film of you.
Speaker 1: And his lips started quivering.
Speaker 2: And so wow.
Speaker 1: And it turns out those other six, he met in
Speaker 1: prison in Florida and e convinced them he had a
Speaker 1: good place to grow marijuana. So he goes to prison again.
Speaker 1: And he had a very very criminal lived life. When
Speaker 1: he got out of prison, he was trying convicted for
Speaker 1: some child molestation, uh murder, and was convicted.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute after he got a prison first time.
Speaker 1: No, the second time from the from the marijuana charge
Speaker 1: he went to.
Speaker 2: He served a prison sentence for this marijuana charge, got out,
Speaker 2: got out, and then.
Speaker 1: Yes, a child molestation. Then he murdered a guy on
Speaker 1: National Forest. It was a controversial case I understand where
Speaker 1: he claimed that it was an argument over a card
Speaker 1: game and they were friends, but basically beat him to
Speaker 1: death with some firewood and a remote campsite. And but
Speaker 1: he since passed on. I got word a few years
Speaker 1: ago that he had had died.
Speaker 2: So wow, how old a guy was he when he died?
Speaker 2: I mean he died early.
Speaker 3: He was probably in his fifties.
Speaker 2: Okay, when he got out of prison the second time,
Speaker 2: I mean you would have been like highly aware of
Speaker 2: the sky.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: But did he come back to the community.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's where he got in all the trouble so,
Speaker 1: but but I wasn't living there anymore. Oh you see,
Speaker 1: I since gone Tennessee, then Tennessee to Arkansas.
Speaker 3: So my career had.
Speaker 2: That's a wild story, man, it was.
Speaker 3: It was a crazy sequence of events.
Speaker 2: It's hard to understand how people could be so warped,
Speaker 2: so dark. I guess when I hear about crazy people.
Speaker 2: First of all, I'm grateful for many of you and
Speaker 2: a bunch of people I'll never know that had upbringings
Speaker 2: of which they had no control over or earned, where
Speaker 2: men and women in their lives taught them right from wrong.
Speaker 2: Our society has a lot more great people than crazy people.
Speaker 2: This guy was missing something.
Speaker 1: The only other thing with that, and there's two or
Speaker 1: three other wildlife officers from that area that I think,
Speaker 1: if we're interviewed, would say the same thing is that
Speaker 1: it's just a mean person. You know, you in law enforcement,
Speaker 1: you try to develop a sixth sense by reading people.
Speaker 3: I mean you have to.
Speaker 1: It's like you would with a I don't mean these
Speaker 1: people are dogs, but it's like you would with a dog.
Speaker 3: How close can I get?
Speaker 1: Or you know, if you're around dogs enough, you know
Speaker 1: you know where its space is and you might not
Speaker 1: ever seen that dog before.
Speaker 3: You can look that eye and see it. See how
Speaker 3: that tale is done, how they acting? Are they sidewaysing
Speaker 3: to you? You know, people are no different, So you
Speaker 3: try to develop that.
Speaker 1: And and I can remember telling the probation officer the
Speaker 1: first time he went to prison, I said, you better
Speaker 1: really take a hold on this one, because he's he's dangerous.
Speaker 2: That first time you met him in the squirrel woods.
Speaker 2: How old was he.
Speaker 3: He was probably early twenties. How old were you late twenties?
Speaker 2: Did that first encounter with him? Could you tell he
Speaker 2: was Yeah, this guy was trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And and something else that I tried to do
Speaker 1: with him. I had all authority to seize his gun
Speaker 1: that day, but I didn't didn't want to.
Speaker 3: It'll be overbearing. I never dealt with him before.
Speaker 1: And I tried to explain to her, look, man, just
Speaker 1: can't be doing it in oner to prove to you that,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not that bad a person.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to take it again.
Speaker 2: Really, So you you even show him a little bit
Speaker 2: of mercy, and he was still that embittered against you
Speaker 2: that he was. He wanted to kill you that day.
Speaker 2: What comes over somebody that that think the answer is
Speaker 2: that these people were just crazy. But to be at
Speaker 2: a roadblock with five wildlife officers with vehicles, to think
Speaker 2: that they could run you over and get away, I
Speaker 2: mean where they where they high, where they on, were
Speaker 2: they on drugs?
Speaker 1: Where they Well that will never know, because you know
Speaker 1: it's three days before they surface.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean what they're just that crazy, I mean
Speaker 2: that impulsive. You'd think if I mean, if you really
Speaker 2: wanted to kill you, there'd have been much easier ways
Speaker 2: to kill you. I guess. I guess crazy people are
Speaker 2: just that's why they're crazy. Bizarre, man, do you think
Speaker 2: particularly wildlife law enforcement, these guys that are embedded in
Speaker 2: these communities and in some ways they're they're not like
Speaker 2: standard police in that there's not as many of them.
Speaker 2: You know, there might be like one, one or two
Speaker 2: wildlife officers in the whole community. Or is there more
Speaker 2: retaliation against guys like that, like just over a career.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I guess it could. It could kind
Speaker 1: of be geographical. I wasn't alive during this era, but
Speaker 1: you can look back in some of the histories and
Speaker 1: it's always intrigued me of the Moonshine days. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there's been a long history in kind of the South,
Speaker 1: if you will.
Speaker 3: Of I don't want to say retaliation, but resentment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as far as you know, conservation officers, I.
Speaker 3: Don't know if there's that many more incidences or.
Speaker 1: Not, but you have to be a lot more aware
Speaker 1: that there could be.
Speaker 2: Because you're working environment, you're by yourself, you're.
Speaker 1: By yourself, You're you're twenty miles down a gravel road.
Speaker 1: You may or may not have radio, sir, And even
Speaker 1: in this day and age, I can take you to
Speaker 1: several places within thirty minutes or right here where you
Speaker 1: won't have Yeah, you know, so you definitely have to
Speaker 1: have that tactical mindset, you know, or something could happen.
Speaker 1: Crazy time in my life, I remember my dad coming
Speaker 1: over to the hospital. He was first one I saw
Speaker 1: when I woke up, and of course he was trying
Speaker 1: to make light of it.
Speaker 3: Tell me he's glad it hit me in the head.
Speaker 3: I should be okay, typical dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that truly was a wild story. On the next episode,
Speaker 2: we'll hear about the last half of Russ's career with
Speaker 2: the Forest Service, which will lead this old Tennessee country
Speaker 2: boy to some far off wild places, including an unbelievable
Speaker 2: story about working undercover and then an illegal elk hunt
Speaker 2: in Yellowstone National Park. From working in the Western US
Speaker 2: to flying across the oceans to train an international wildlife
Speaker 2: task force, this next AP episode is not gonna be
Speaker 2: one that you'll want to miss. I look forward to
Speaker 2: talking with everyone on the Bear Grease for Render next week.
Speaker 2: Can't thank you enough for listening to bear Grease and
Speaker 2: Brent's This Country Life podcast. There are three things that
Speaker 2: you can do to support us. Number One, share our
Speaker 2: podcast with a friend and tell them about these wild
Speaker 2: stories that you're here and here. Secondly, support the advertisers
Speaker 2: of the Bear Grease podcast. Yep, all these silly advertisers. Man,
Speaker 2: they're helping us a lot. And leave us a review
Speaker 2: on iTunes. Have a great week.