Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / ZONE 7: Poisoned Meatballs and Wolf Justice | Special Agent Ed Newcomer

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ZONE 7: Poisoned Meatballs and Wolf Justice | Special Agent Ed Newcomer · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:07
Speaker 1: He's back. Ed Newcomber a special agent with the US
0:12
Speaker 1: Vision Wildlife Service. Y'all know he's been over twenty years there.
0:16
Speaker 1: He's got his own podcast, Nature's Secret Service. Several of
0:21
Speaker 1: y'all know about that. Y'all check that out. It is
0:26
Speaker 1: quite frankly phenomenal. But we have brought him back because
0:32
Speaker 1: he has got a case that you are not gonna believe.
0:36
Speaker 1: And what's important about this case to me, if you
0:40
Speaker 1: can work in this case, you can work any homicide
0:45
Speaker 1: out there. So, Ed Newcomber, thank you so much for
0:50
Speaker 1: coming back.
0:51
Speaker 2: Well, Mac, thanks for having me. I love your show
0:54
Speaker 2: and I love being on your show. It was such
0:56
Speaker 2: a great time last time I had to accept are
1:00
Speaker 2: you kidding?
1:00
Speaker 1: And let me tell y'all, anybody coming to Crime Con,
1:04
Speaker 1: you're gonna be able to see him live and in person.
1:07
Speaker 1: We are going to be on the main stage for
1:09
Speaker 1: the Creator's Row. We are going to be live at
1:13
Speaker 1: Crime Con doing a Zone seven in person, and Ed's
1:18
Speaker 1: going to be right there and you will not believe
1:21
Speaker 1: the case we're going to cover there in person. And
1:24
Speaker 1: it's the first time Wildlife Crimes will be at Crime Con.
1:30
Speaker 1: So comes all, right, Ed, this case involves poison, and
1:38
Speaker 1: I got to tell you those are difficult cases, and
1:42
Speaker 1: they're difficult to me because almost anybody can obtain poison.
1:49
Speaker 1: It's sub level. It's not like a gunshot where people
1:53
Speaker 1: can hear it. It's not like arson where people can
1:56
Speaker 1: smell it. I mean, this is something that the killer
1:59
Speaker 1: they don't even have to be there when the death occurs.
2:04
Speaker 2: You know, you're absolutely right. I never really thought of
2:06
Speaker 2: it that way. But poison is a very sneaky weapon, right.
2:10
Speaker 1: It is so sneaky. I mean, you can be in
2:14
Speaker 1: another state, you can have a solid alibi, theres nowhere
2:17
Speaker 1: near there, you have time to get away, there won't
2:20
Speaker 1: be any eyewitness or ear witness, and it wouldn't matter
2:24
Speaker 1: anyway you're not there exactly.
2:26
Speaker 2: It's kind of the perfect weapon for a criminal to
2:29
Speaker 2: use because you know, like you just said, they can
2:32
Speaker 2: actually take the time to put distance between themselves and
2:35
Speaker 2: the victim and the crime scene, which you know is
2:38
Speaker 2: pretty important if you're trying to evade capture. And unfortunately,
2:43
Speaker 2: mac poisoning is a pretty common method for people to
2:48
Speaker 2: commit wildlife crime. Is particularly if they're trying to kill
2:52
Speaker 2: wild animals for some reason.
2:54
Speaker 1: Well, that's what took y'all to Idaho. So why don't
2:58
Speaker 1: you tell us about February two thousand and four. We're
3:02
Speaker 1: out there trying to reintroduce wolves, so we're trying to
3:06
Speaker 1: build this population back.
3:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, it might be
3:11
Speaker 2: really helpful to you and your listeners if we just
3:14
Speaker 2: kind of back up just a little bit and I
3:15
Speaker 2: tell you a little bit about the situation with wolves
3:19
Speaker 2: in the Western United States, particularly around that time in
3:22
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, going if we go way back,
3:26
Speaker 2: let's go back to nineteen twenty six, that's the year.
3:31
Speaker 2: I know, we're going way back.
3:35
Speaker 1: That is hilarious. I thought you were going to say, like,
3:38
Speaker 1: you know, two thousand and one. No, we're going back,
3:41
Speaker 1: y'all and eight play yeas.
3:43
Speaker 2: Way back, way back. Okay, Yeah, So let's go back
3:47
Speaker 2: to nineteen twenty six in Yellowstone National Park. Remember, Yellowstone
3:51
Speaker 2: was like the first national park in the world. It's
3:55
Speaker 2: often considered America's greatest idea. The last wolf was killed
4:01
Speaker 2: in Yellowstone National Park in nineteen twenty six, and that's
4:05
Speaker 2: what's called extirpating a species, which means they're not necessarily extinct.
4:11
Speaker 2: Wherever around the world, but they no longer exist in
4:15
Speaker 2: the ecosystem where they used to so pretty much by
4:19
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty six, the United States had been well on
4:22
Speaker 2: its way to extirpating or killing all of the wolves
4:26
Speaker 2: that they could in the United States, and by that
4:28
Speaker 2: time there's just a small pocket of wild wolves living
4:32
Speaker 2: in the Great Lakes area. They're gone basically from the
4:34
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountains now. That turned out to be kind of
4:40
Speaker 2: an environmental disaster because it allowed elk and deer populations
4:45
Speaker 2: to explode, which had all these cascading effects on the environment.
4:50
Speaker 2: And as early as nineteen forties, people started to talk
4:53
Speaker 2: about maybe we should bring wolves back to fix kind
4:57
Speaker 2: of this imbalance. That didn't happen until nineteen ninety five,
5:02
Speaker 2: when the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National
5:05
Speaker 2: Park Service finally decided we're going to bring wolves back
5:09
Speaker 2: to Yellowstone and certain parts of Montana. And that effort
5:16
Speaker 2: really started in nineteen ninety five and a number of
5:20
Speaker 2: wolves were brought down from Canada. They were captured, and
5:23
Speaker 2: they were released in the park and they started to
5:25
Speaker 2: do phenomenally well. A lot of deer, a lot of
5:28
Speaker 2: elk were there for them. They were specialists in killing
5:31
Speaker 2: deer and elk, and it started to put the ecosystem
5:35
Speaker 2: back into balance unfortunately, well fortunately for the wolves, but
5:41
Speaker 2: also unfortunately for the wolves. As they prospered, they moved
5:46
Speaker 2: their packs, started to move outside the park and to
5:49
Speaker 2: populate their natural, previous, historical environment. And unfortunately, wolves get
5:56
Speaker 2: a bad rap and it's not warranted, it's not earned,
6:01
Speaker 2: and a lot of hunters and ranchers just hate them
6:06
Speaker 2: and they try to Some of those guys are willing
6:10
Speaker 2: to break the law and they'll try to kill them
6:11
Speaker 2: at every opportunity. Because wolves had been extirpated, when they
6:16
Speaker 2: were re released, they were automatically listed as threatened under
6:20
Speaker 2: the Endangered Species Act, which gave them protection. And as
6:26
Speaker 2: we know from my last appearance on the show, violations
6:31
Speaker 2: of the Endangered Species Act are a criminal violation, and
6:35
Speaker 2: that law is enforced by special agents of the US
6:38
Speaker 2: Fish and Wildlife Service. So there's a little history, Mac,
6:42
Speaker 2: but that kind of brings us up to this case
6:46
Speaker 2: that happened in February of two thousand and four. It
6:50
Speaker 2: turned out to be an amazing, an amazing investigation done
6:55
Speaker 2: by a special agent with the US Fish and Wildlife
6:57
Speaker 2: service named Scott Brigonier. And the reason I know so
7:01
Speaker 2: much about this case is because when I heard about it,
7:04
Speaker 2: I was an agent in Los Angeles. I didn't do
7:06
Speaker 2: wolf cases. You know, we don't have wolves down there.
7:10
Speaker 2: But I was so fascinated by the high quality work
7:13
Speaker 2: that this agent and Idaho State Gay Morton's did. It
7:18
Speaker 2: was an amazing crime scene investigation. It involved forensics, it
7:22
Speaker 2: involved great detective work. And ultimately, as I tell you
7:27
Speaker 2: this story, I think you're just going to be kind
7:29
Speaker 2: of blown away. You want me to just jump in now.
7:35
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I was so captivated. I'm sorry I
7:38
Speaker 1: was listening and not talking.
7:42
Speaker 2: I didn't know if you wanted a chance to like
7:43
Speaker 2: Pepper in questions, yes.
7:45
Speaker 1: Go on. I was just sitting there literally keep it in,
7:48
Speaker 1: because that's honestly what was happening. I was sitting there
7:52
Speaker 1: so captivated. Is like, oh my lord, what is going
7:54
Speaker 1: to happen? Because even though I know the facts of
7:57
Speaker 1: the case. So let's just go right back. Yes, I
8:01
Speaker 1: want you to just jump right in.
8:04
Speaker 2: Okay, So let me set the scene for you. It's
8:06
Speaker 2: now February twentieth, two thousand and four. We're almost ten
8:11
Speaker 2: years into wolfree introduction. They're doing great. They have expanded
8:15
Speaker 2: their territory. They've moved out into Idaho. And there's an
8:21
Speaker 2: area in Idaho known as the Wagonhammer Drainage and it's
8:26
Speaker 2: a popular place for people to go hiking and walk
8:29
Speaker 2: their dogs and things like that. So on February twentieth,
8:33
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, a local resident in Idaho is
8:37
Speaker 2: out walking her dog and the dog finds a meatball.
8:42
Speaker 2: We all know what a dog will do if it
8:44
Speaker 2: finds a meatball, It'll gulp it down before you can
8:46
Speaker 2: do anything about yu. Yeah, well that's what happened, and
8:51
Speaker 2: within a few minutes, the dog goes into convulsions, starts
8:54
Speaker 2: foaming at the mouth, drops over, you know. Panicues, and
9:00
Speaker 2: the woman rushes her dog to the veterinarian, only to
9:03
Speaker 2: learn that the dog's been poisoned. So how now does
9:10
Speaker 2: a US Fish and Wildlife Service agent get involved? Well,
9:14
Speaker 2: it turns out that the Wagonhammer Drainage that area is
9:18
Speaker 2: known to be wolf habitat. There are wolves there, and
9:22
Speaker 2: those wolves are protected by the Endangered Species Act. So true,
9:27
Speaker 2: just people understanding that wild animals are there, including wolves.
9:31
Speaker 2: This poisoning incident gets reported to the Idaho Wildlife Department,
9:37
Speaker 2: so Idaho Fish and Game. Because they know wolves are there,
9:40
Speaker 2: they notify the nearest special agent with US Fish and
9:44
Speaker 2: Wildlife Service, who is Scott Burgonier, and Agent Burgonier and
9:48
Speaker 2: a few game warnings go out to this wagonhammer drainage district,
9:52
Speaker 2: the hiking trail or drainage area, and suddenly they find themselves.
9:57
Speaker 2: Imagine this, mac You Normally, if you're a law enforcement officer,
10:02
Speaker 2: you go into a crime scene. It's that crime scene
10:05
Speaker 2: might consist of a room or two rooms, or a house,
10:09
Speaker 2: maybe a yard. But we're now we're talking about acres
10:14
Speaker 2: and acres of wild land that is potentially your crime scene.
10:19
Speaker 1: And as soon as you said drainage, my heart sank
10:23
Speaker 1: because I thought, how much land are you talking about?
10:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you look at an aerial map of this,
10:29
Speaker 2: just imagine it's basically a valley with a river running
10:32
Speaker 2: through the middle of it, or a creek. And at
10:34
Speaker 2: this time of year, February and Idaho, it's pretty snowy,
10:38
Speaker 2: it's cold, and there's snow on the ground. So if
10:41
Speaker 2: you can imagine that, you have now all these challenges
10:45
Speaker 2: with just a handful of law enforcement investigators and all
10:50
Speaker 2: you know is a dog ate a meatball and the
10:53
Speaker 2: dog was poisoned. So you know, pretty much, I think
10:57
Speaker 2: if you and I were out there starting this, we'd
10:59
Speaker 2: be like, let's see if we can find some more meatballs. Right,
11:03
Speaker 2: So that's exactly what happened Agent Bergoon here and the
11:07
Speaker 2: state game wardens kind of spread out through this hiking trail,
11:11
Speaker 2: looking on either sides, looking for meatballs, and it doesn't
11:17
Speaker 2: take them long before they start to find kind of
11:21
Speaker 2: golf ball sized holes in the snow, kind of on
11:24
Speaker 2: either side of the trail, left and right, and they
11:28
Speaker 2: reached down into these holes, and sure enough they start
11:32
Speaker 2: to find meatballs about the size of a standard spaghetti
11:37
Speaker 2: and meatball meal. And they obviously think they're onto something,
11:43
Speaker 2: so they start to collect these meatballs and photograph them
11:46
Speaker 2: in place and pick them up. Now they also know,
11:51
Speaker 2: of course, that this dog keeled over within minutes of
11:55
Speaker 2: consuming one of these, so there's some officer safety issues
11:59
Speaker 2: here too. They've got to be gloved up. They don't
12:01
Speaker 2: if there are poison meatballs out there, They don't want
12:04
Speaker 2: to touch this stuff. But in the end, they found
12:11
Speaker 2: fifty eight meatballs scattered throughout this drainage area, and each
12:18
Speaker 2: time they found a meat ball, they kind of cracked
12:21
Speaker 2: it open and inside they found what looked like gray
12:25
Speaker 2: granulated powder, kind of like almost like a thick gunpowder. Now,
12:32
Speaker 2: most agents in the US Fishing Wilife Service are very
12:35
Speaker 2: aware that people tend to use poison to kill predators,
12:39
Speaker 2: and one of the most common poisons out there to
12:42
Speaker 2: do that is called temick or also known as aldacarb,
12:46
Speaker 2: and that is exactly what temck and aldacarp look like.
12:49
Speaker 2: It looks like a gray kind of beaded powder. So
12:55
Speaker 2: good job on the crime scene.
12:56
Speaker 1: Right, unbelievable and with the dog plus one, so you know,
13:02
Speaker 1: you're almost at sixty and you just have to imagine
13:04
Speaker 1: how many did they not find, how many had already
13:07
Speaker 1: been consumed.
13:09
Speaker 2: And on that note, another thing that they started to
13:12
Speaker 2: find while they're kind of combing this crime scene are
13:16
Speaker 2: dead animals. They found magpies, which is a federally protected
13:21
Speaker 2: bird looks like a crow, but it has a white wing.
13:24
Speaker 2: They found red fox that were dead, and coyotes, And
13:29
Speaker 2: so if you think about it, these are animals that
13:32
Speaker 2: are just innocent. They're doing nothing, they're just doing their
13:36
Speaker 2: thing in the environment, and within minutes of consuming one
13:40
Speaker 2: of these meatballs, they're dead in place. So it's not
13:44
Speaker 2: like these animals ate a meatball and wandered off and
13:47
Speaker 2: died in seclusion somewhere. The agents and the investigators are
13:51
Speaker 2: finding multiple dead animals across the crime scene.
13:56
Speaker 1: The reality is you're going to have a bayer come
13:59
Speaker 1: along and ate that. You're gonna have maybe other wolves
14:03
Speaker 1: come and try to get a carcass that's been poisoned,
14:08
Speaker 1: and then they're gonna die too.
14:10
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. It's that secondary poisoning. It can go
14:13
Speaker 2: on and on and on in the environment, killing eagles, vultures,
14:20
Speaker 2: you know, small scavengers, big big predators, all the animals indiscriminately.
14:26
Speaker 2: It's really an insidious It's an insidious tool to use
14:30
Speaker 2: to try to kill an animal because there's a lot
14:32
Speaker 2: of things you're gonna kill.
14:38
Speaker 1: And here's what you're really bringing to light for us.
14:41
Speaker 1: Most people would think poachers are single focused. I'm gonna
14:46
Speaker 1: go get that one rhino, I'm gonna go get that
14:48
Speaker 1: one bear. I don't know that people understand if the
14:55
Speaker 1: poachers are trying to get rid of something that if
14:59
Speaker 1: they use poison, not only are they going to maybe
15:02
Speaker 1: wipe out this whole wolf pack, but they're also going
15:06
Speaker 1: to get maybe the animals that you do care about.
15:10
Speaker 2: Exactly. And it's so indiscriminate and it's used around the world.
15:16
Speaker 2: And you know, that's an interesting point you raise, because
15:20
Speaker 2: there's different kinds of poachers out there. You know, like
15:23
Speaker 2: there are the guys who don't have a license to
15:27
Speaker 2: hunt deer, but they go hunt deer anyway. That's one kind. Then,
15:30
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, there are people out there killing animals
15:33
Speaker 2: for profit, like elephants for their ivory or rhinos for
15:37
Speaker 2: their horns. That's a totally different person because they're trying
15:42
Speaker 2: to commercially profit. Then there are these poachers who do
15:46
Speaker 2: things out of spite and anger and ignorance honestly. You know,
15:50
Speaker 2: people who hate wolves because they think wolves are killing
15:54
Speaker 2: too many deer in elk or sometimes wolves do kill cattle,
15:58
Speaker 2: and they're going to take it bond themselves to go
16:02
Speaker 2: back in time one hundred years and make wolves go extinct.
16:08
Speaker 2: That's not there, you know, that's not their place in
16:12
Speaker 2: the world. The American people have been trying to reverse
16:16
Speaker 2: centuries of environmental and habitat destruction. They want wolves back
16:22
Speaker 2: in the Western United States. It's not up to some
16:25
Speaker 2: individual poacher to take it upon him or herself to
16:28
Speaker 2: start killing animals that are of value to the entire
16:32
Speaker 2: American populace. You know, it's frustrating, especially as a law
16:37
Speaker 2: enforcement officer, because you do see all of this. You know,
16:40
Speaker 2: collateral kill and collateral impact that throwing poison out in
16:44
Speaker 2: the environment causes.
16:46
Speaker 1: It's depressing, especially in a drainage way because again you're
16:50
Speaker 1: already talking about one domestic animal that was almost killed,
16:56
Speaker 1: but it gets in that water system. I mean, that's
16:59
Speaker 1: like a bullet. It didn't have anybody's name on It
17:02
Speaker 1: is just out there.
17:03
Speaker 2: To hurt something exactly. And and with this poison in
17:07
Speaker 2: particular temic, as I said, each meatball was kind of
17:11
Speaker 2: filled with these granules. If if you accidentally breathed in
17:17
Speaker 2: just one or two of these particles, or if it
17:21
Speaker 2: absorbed through your skin, you could become extremely sick and
17:26
Speaker 2: possibly die. It's just from a few particles of this
17:29
Speaker 2: getting into your you know ingesting it or breathing it
17:32
Speaker 2: in or having it. It's it's bad. It's not quite
17:37
Speaker 2: as quick as fentanyl, but it will kill you, and
17:40
Speaker 2: it will make you real sick, even small amounts of it.
17:42
Speaker 2: So it's a very dangerous poison. We you know, fish
17:47
Speaker 2: and Wildlife special agents receive a lot of training on
17:49
Speaker 2: how to deal with poisons that they encounter in crime
17:53
Speaker 2: scenes like this, and we take it real seriously. So
17:59
Speaker 2: there's another thing that they found during their crime scene
18:02
Speaker 2: investigation that was very interesting, especially from a forensics point
18:06
Speaker 2: of view. They found bootprints. And what tied these bootprints
18:13
Speaker 2: to the meatballs was that in some instances they would
18:17
Speaker 2: find the hole where the meatball had gone into the snow,
18:21
Speaker 2: and directly on top of it there would be one
18:23
Speaker 2: of these bootprints, as if someone had stepped on it
18:26
Speaker 2: to push the meatball down into.
18:28
Speaker 1: Wow, hey, that's really good investigative or that's a great
18:33
Speaker 1: way to articulate what you saw. That explains it to a.
18:37
Speaker 2: Jury exactly, And it explains why these footprints were zero.
18:42
Speaker 2: You know, obviously there's hikers there, there's other bootprints, but
18:45
Speaker 2: these prints seemed to be very closely related to the meatballs.
18:49
Speaker 1: But I mean, what are the odds the hikers going
18:51
Speaker 1: to stamp on every meatball? You know what I mean?
18:54
Speaker 1: So I'm just saying that's really good because a lot
18:56
Speaker 1: of times that's hard to train people. They may really
19:00
Speaker 1: what they're seeing, but they don't always write it down.
19:03
Speaker 1: So if somebody took the time to say, hey, on
19:05
Speaker 1: every single one of these meat balls, we saw this
19:07
Speaker 1: same bootprint, it looked like it was shoving it down
19:11
Speaker 1: into the snow.
19:12
Speaker 2: Well, that makes sense exactly exactly. And as you know,
19:17
Speaker 2: you know footprints, tire prints can be very important because
19:21
Speaker 2: if later you find a boot it gives you something
19:26
Speaker 2: to compare to the print that you saw out in
19:28
Speaker 2: the field. So very smartly, agent Bergoing, you took very
19:34
Speaker 2: good photographs at right angles of these footprints because it
19:38
Speaker 2: was snow. Of course he couldn't or plaster Paris in
19:42
Speaker 2: there because it would destroy the print, but he did
19:45
Speaker 2: record the footprints, and that became very important later because
19:51
Speaker 2: one of the things that really stands out if you
19:53
Speaker 2: look at a photograph of one of these bootprints, if
19:57
Speaker 2: you know, if you kind of were in the world
20:00
Speaker 2: of wildlife and you know hunters, this bootprint is actually
20:05
Speaker 2: immediately recognizable to you as coming from a boot made
20:09
Speaker 2: by a company name called Danner in Oregon, and this
20:13
Speaker 2: particular soul was primarily made for a boot sold by
20:18
Speaker 2: the Cabella's Outfitting company, so you might you know Cabella's
20:22
Speaker 2: and Bass Pro shops as an outdoor supply company, and
20:26
Speaker 2: they exclusively sold this boot made by Danner that had
20:29
Speaker 2: this very unique tread design which almost it almost looks
20:35
Speaker 2: like instead of the classic chunky boot print, it looks
20:40
Speaker 2: like it has points on it, almost like Cleat's little
20:43
Speaker 2: round indentations make up the footprint. So it's kind of
20:48
Speaker 2: a very wreck There's a lot of those boots out there,
20:50
Speaker 2: but it's a very recognizable hunting boot that anybody who's
20:55
Speaker 2: familiar with Danner boots would know that this is that
20:58
Speaker 2: type of boot. There was one other thing they found
21:02
Speaker 2: at the crime scene which turned out to be sort
21:05
Speaker 2: of a joke among everyone, and that is there was
21:09
Speaker 2: a place in the snow where there were two of
21:11
Speaker 2: these bootprints right next to each other as if the
21:13
Speaker 2: person was standing still, and in front of the toes
21:17
Speaker 2: of the prints where some yellow snow, and most of
21:26
Speaker 2: the senior investigators there were like, oh, yeah, well, somebody
21:30
Speaker 2: took a leak and that's that. But a very new
21:36
Speaker 2: straight out of the Academy Game Warden for the Idaho
21:39
Speaker 2: Department of Fishing Game eagerly collected that yellow snow. Oh yeah,
21:45
Speaker 2: he scooped it up and put it in a bag
21:47
Speaker 2: and preserved it. And everybody kind of teased him because
21:50
Speaker 2: they're like, what are you going to get out of
21:53
Speaker 2: urine that you can't find DNA and a person's urine,
21:56
Speaker 2: So everybody kind of teased him and kind of it
21:59
Speaker 2: became a joke. Nonetheless, this yellow snow got itself booked
22:02
Speaker 2: into evidence. I love it, Okay, As you know, the
22:06
Speaker 2: yellow snow will come back later in this story. So
22:10
Speaker 2: the last thing before the investigators walked off of this
22:13
Speaker 2: crime scene, they found something very very sobering, and that
22:18
Speaker 2: was on top of one of these bootprints, meaning something
22:22
Speaker 2: came through the crime scene after the poison poacher was
22:28
Speaker 2: a wolf print. Right on top of one of these
22:30
Speaker 2: bootprints was a huge wolf print, and they are unmistakable.
22:34
Speaker 2: A wolf print is about the size of your hand.
22:36
Speaker 2: They're big. And so what it meant to Agent Brigonier
22:41
Speaker 2: was that after these meatballs had been placed, at least
22:45
Speaker 2: one wolf had passed through the area. Now, no dead
22:49
Speaker 2: wolf was found, but it's a little scary to think
22:53
Speaker 2: that the very species you're trying to protect did in fact,
22:57
Speaker 2: go through this crime scene after these in fifty eight
23:01
Speaker 2: at least boys and meatballs had been placed in the environment.
23:04
Speaker 2: Pretty sobering way to start this investigation. And now as
23:10
Speaker 2: facing all, you know, investigators, you're done with your crime scene.
23:16
Speaker 2: You've collected fifty eight meatballs, You've taken pictures of bootprints,
23:19
Speaker 2: you've collected other dead animals, as you know, collateral kill,
23:23
Speaker 2: You've got your yellow snow. Now what right?
23:28
Speaker 1: Right?
23:28
Speaker 2: So what now? What do you do? Well? Interestingly, the
23:34
Speaker 2: US Fish and Wildlife Service has its own dedicated criminal
23:38
Speaker 2: forensics lab. It's called the Clark Baven Forensics Lab, and
23:43
Speaker 2: it's located in Ashland, Oregon, and their sole purpose is
23:47
Speaker 2: to support law enforcement investigations involving wildlife crime. So, of course,
23:54
Speaker 2: agent Bergoan, you're sent the meatballs to the lab for
23:59
Speaker 2: two things. One is tell me what this meat is
24:02
Speaker 2: and two what's this powdered granular material inside the meatballs?
24:07
Speaker 2: He already knew, but he needed scientific forensic evidence. And
24:13
Speaker 2: sure enough, the lab results come back indicating that the
24:17
Speaker 2: granular powder was alde carb also known as TEMK, and
24:22
Speaker 2: that the meat was characteristic of the same tissue that
24:26
Speaker 2: would come from a North American elk okay, So that's
24:31
Speaker 2: great information. We know for sure now we got poison
24:34
Speaker 2: and we know this is elk meat.
24:35
Speaker 1: And that tells us something about your suspect.
24:38
Speaker 2: You bet, and it gives you something potentially to compare later.
24:41
Speaker 2: So out of that meat, of course you're going to
24:43
Speaker 2: get the individual DNA from that particular elk and that
24:48
Speaker 2: of course gives you something to compare later, hoping that
24:52
Speaker 2: your investigation goes somewhere. But now we're really in this
24:56
Speaker 2: situation where how does agent Burgoonier develop as suspect? How
25:00
Speaker 2: do we figure out who this was? There's no surveillance
25:03
Speaker 2: cameras at a hiking trail, there's no witnesses, Nobody saw
25:07
Speaker 2: anybody hiking around there throwing something. You know, it's a
25:10
Speaker 2: pretty remote area. And what happens next is, you know,
25:16
Speaker 2: an investigator could basically go back to the office and
25:20
Speaker 2: sit and twiddle their thumbs and hope somebody calls in
25:23
Speaker 2: the tip, or they could really get proactive. And agent
25:28
Speaker 2: burgoon here was never the kind of guy when he
25:30
Speaker 2: was working to sit back and twiddle his thumbs. He
25:34
Speaker 2: was a very proactive agent and he was very well
25:38
Speaker 2: dialed in with the other law enforcement agencies in that
25:43
Speaker 2: area of Idaho. So you know, he knew the Federal
25:48
Speaker 2: for a Service law enforcement, he knew the local police,
25:51
Speaker 2: he knew the tribal police, he knew everybody, and he
25:55
Speaker 2: basically put the word out, Hey, I got this case.
25:58
Speaker 2: There's found some poisoned meat in a wolf area. I'm
26:01
Speaker 2: trying to figure out who might have put these here.
26:04
Speaker 2: Anybody have any idea this? I mean, really, that's what
26:07
Speaker 2: it came down to. And don't you know, it triggered
26:12
Speaker 2: someone's memory. And it turned out that the Nez Perce tribe,
26:18
Speaker 2: which is a Native American tribe in that area, employs
26:24
Speaker 2: their own staff to work on wildlife issues, and they
26:27
Speaker 2: had a biologist who remembered having an encounter get this
26:33
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety eight with an individual known as
26:38
Speaker 2: Tim Sundals, and the encounter was so memorable for this
26:43
Speaker 2: biologist or so unusual that the biologists ended up writing
26:48
Speaker 2: a memo about it. And the memo basically detailed how
26:53
Speaker 2: the biologist was out in the field and was approached
26:56
Speaker 2: by this guy named Tim Sundals, who just started railing
27:00
Speaker 2: about how he wanted to kill wolves. During that conversation,
27:07
Speaker 2: Sundle's mentioned to the biologist, and this is a quote
27:09
Speaker 2: straight from the biologist's memo. He said, quote, do you
27:14
Speaker 2: think it would work if we dropped a couple of
27:16
Speaker 2: elk up there and packed them full of poison? Now?
27:20
Speaker 2: Is this our suspect? Well, we don't know, but he
27:23
Speaker 2: talks about elk, and he talks about poison. So Bragoner
27:27
Speaker 2: is better off than he was before he talked to
27:29
Speaker 2: this biologist.
27:31
Speaker 1: Even though this was nineteen ninety eight, that's pretty close.
27:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's six years, but it's it's something, right,
27:39
Speaker 2: And when you're an investigator, as you know Mac, when
27:43
Speaker 2: you're at a loss, you start pulling at threads and
27:47
Speaker 2: you see whether or not those threads start to unravel.
27:51
Speaker 1: Well, here's the other thing, ed, if this guy's radical,
27:55
Speaker 1: those types of folks write things down. That's how we
27:59
Speaker 1: have matta festos, that's how we have all these things
28:02
Speaker 1: posted on social media. They can't stop themselves.
28:06
Speaker 2: Exactly, and they're proud of what they're doing.
28:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're right, Yeah, exactly.
28:12
Speaker 2: And one of the other scary things that this individual
28:15
Speaker 2: said to the biologist, and this is another quote he
28:18
Speaker 2: said to the biologist. He said, if I see a wolf,
28:21
Speaker 2: I'm going to kill it, and any fed who comes
28:23
Speaker 2: and tries to stop me is going to get a
28:25
Speaker 2: bullet in their back. Now that is.
28:28
Speaker 1: Well, he goes he goes to the number one slot
28:32
Speaker 1: for me.
28:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean for sure wouldn't. As Agent bergun
28:39
Speaker 2: Your thought, Well, hey, this is something I'm gonna I'm
28:42
Speaker 2: gonna start looking into this person. So he starts to
28:45
Speaker 2: kind of just do some basic investigations and he finds
28:49
Speaker 2: out that this Tim Sundles guy was previously invested by
28:54
Speaker 2: investigated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for killing
28:57
Speaker 2: a wolf. But interestingly, under the Endangered Species Act, one
29:03
Speaker 2: of the legitimate reasons you can kill an endangered species
29:06
Speaker 2: is if it's in self defense. Now, wolves do not
29:11
Speaker 2: have a history of attacking human beings, but it's possible there.
29:16
Speaker 2: Average wolf weighs between one hundred and one hundred and
29:18
Speaker 2: thirty pounds, and yeah, if they wanted to, they could
29:22
Speaker 2: hurt you. So it turns out back in two thousand
29:26
Speaker 2: and one, Tim Sundals actually shot and killed a collared wolf,
29:30
Speaker 2: but when it was investigated by a different Fish and
29:32
Speaker 2: Wildlife Service special agent at the time, Sundals claimed that
29:38
Speaker 2: he killed the wolf in self defense and there was
29:40
Speaker 2: just no way to prove otherwise, so there wasn't a case.
29:45
Speaker 2: But he now has a history of talking about elk
29:49
Speaker 2: meat and poison and actually has killed wolves and has
29:53
Speaker 2: talked about it. So he's looking more and more like
29:57
Speaker 2: an interesting suspect. And that leads to a search of
30:05
Speaker 2: the internet. Where As you said, so many suspects will
30:11
Speaker 2: write things down. And one of the things that Tim
30:15
Speaker 2: Sundles had going was a chat room and a bulletin
30:20
Speaker 2: board and a blog, and he loved to post about
30:23
Speaker 2: his hatred of the federal government and his hatred of wolves.
30:29
Speaker 2: And Agent Burgunier started to sift through his very you know,
30:35
Speaker 2: many posts on the Internet, and he saw a lot
30:37
Speaker 2: of specific hostile language about us fish and while they
30:42
Speaker 2: have served as special agents, basically you know, denigrating us
30:47
Speaker 2: as not being very experienced out doorsman and trying to
30:50
Speaker 2: trick people and the usual. But one of the things
30:54
Speaker 2: that Agent Burgoonner came across was this very interesting passage
30:59
Speaker 2: in a blog that Sundals had posted on the internet.
31:02
Speaker 2: And get this, wait till I read this to you.
31:05
Speaker 2: This is a direct quote off of that blog. It's
31:08
Speaker 2: a recipe for how to make poisoned meatballs.
31:11
Speaker 1: Add newcomer, I'm not kidding.
31:16
Speaker 2: He basically lists out how you do it and it includes,
31:20
Speaker 2: from his own words, adding a pinch or two of
31:23
Speaker 2: temick to the center of the beatball patty and roll
31:26
Speaker 2: it into a ball. It should be about the size
31:29
Speaker 2: of a golf ball or a little larger. Sol wolf
31:32
Speaker 2: can swallow it whole without chewing it.
31:37
Speaker 1: Here's what's blowing my mind. First of all, great job agent.
31:42
Speaker 1: Second of all, you don't use chicken, you don't use hamburger,
31:47
Speaker 1: you don't use noodles. I mean you say meatball.
31:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, meatball. And he even suggests you can make the
31:53
Speaker 2: meatball out of beef, elk, or pork. So he's even
31:57
Speaker 2: listed elk as a possible.
32:00
Speaker 1: That's a money tree.
32:01
Speaker 2: It's a money tree. And it gets even slightly better.
32:05
Speaker 2: He even says, place between thirty and forty of these
32:08
Speaker 2: meatballs out in the environment, and that is almost exactly
32:13
Speaker 2: the situation that occurred. Now, does this mean that Tim
32:17
Speaker 2: Sundles is the guy who put the meatballs out there? No,
32:21
Speaker 2: but he's obviously put this a lot of thought into this.
32:26
Speaker 2: He's put it out there on the Internet. Unfortunately, anybody
32:29
Speaker 2: else could have read it and used his modus operande
32:32
Speaker 2: to do this and followed his instructions. But it's still
32:36
Speaker 2: right now. He's agent for Gon, your's best and only suspect.
32:43
Speaker 2: So ultimately there's a little more goes on. There's some
32:47
Speaker 2: surveillance done of Sundals. He's got a car that has
32:51
Speaker 2: some really hostile bumper stickers on it about wolves and Feds.
32:56
Speaker 2: But ultimately all the surveillance and all the Internet searches
33:00
Speaker 2: lead to enough probable cause to obtain a search warrant
33:05
Speaker 2: for Tim Sundle's house. And this is where this is
33:10
Speaker 2: the kind of thing an investigator lives for. You have
33:13
Speaker 2: developed enough probable cause to convince a judge that you
33:17
Speaker 2: should be able to go into someone's home or their
33:19
Speaker 2: car or whatever and search. And that search warrant is
33:23
Speaker 2: always very specific, as you know, it's you're only looking
33:26
Speaker 2: to find evidence of the crimes you're investigating, and you
33:33
Speaker 2: execute those warrants with your fingers crossed, hoping what are
33:37
Speaker 2: you going to find? You know, am I going to
33:38
Speaker 2: find something that ties my suspect to that crime scene?
33:42
Speaker 2: And funny enough, as I think about this case and
33:45
Speaker 2: I used to talk about it when I would do
33:47
Speaker 2: presentations about it while I was an agent myself, I
33:51
Speaker 2: always remembered something. And you're going to know this to
33:53
Speaker 2: your low cards principle, right, absolutely, yeah, kind of like
33:59
Speaker 2: if you're listeners don't know what it is. Low cards
34:01
Speaker 2: principles kind of like the basic fundamental aspect of forensics.
34:07
Speaker 1: And it's true. If you work enough scenes, you will
34:10
Speaker 1: know it's true.
34:12
Speaker 2: It is yes, it is true, and it is amazing
34:14
Speaker 2: how many times you're out there and you're just like, wow,
34:18
Speaker 2: this is low cards principle. And the principle of course
34:21
Speaker 2: is that if any two items come in contact with
34:24
Speaker 2: each other, they will leave traces of themselves on the other.
34:27
Speaker 2: And that's why it's so you know, critical to crime
34:32
Speaker 2: scene investigations because ultimately your goal, right Gerald, is to
34:37
Speaker 2: you're going to tie the suspect to the crime scene
34:40
Speaker 2: and the victim at the same time, you know, or
34:43
Speaker 2: the evidence at the scene, and that's what this search
34:46
Speaker 2: warrant is hopefully going to do for Agent Brigoni're and
34:49
Speaker 2: his team. So a month, a month after the poisoning
34:54
Speaker 2: occurs March twentieth, two thousand and four, they serve a
34:58
Speaker 2: warrant on Timsun house, and the warrant includes the property
35:02
Speaker 2: around his house, such as the garage and workshops. And
35:06
Speaker 2: don't you know they go in the front door, and
35:09
Speaker 2: what do you think they find? Immediately inside the front
35:12
Speaker 2: door Para Danner hunting boots with those round nubby souls.
35:18
Speaker 1: Shut your my mouth. Yeah, that's absolutely beautiful.
35:25
Speaker 2: It gets better. One of the things that agent Brigonner
35:29
Speaker 2: had noticed at the crime scene when he took the
35:31
Speaker 2: photographs was that it appeared and these these round treads
35:35
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the only way I can describe them
35:38
Speaker 2: as nubs. They look like like I said, they look
35:40
Speaker 2: like a cleat or a nub. And what he noticed
35:42
Speaker 2: from the print in the snow was it appeared as
35:45
Speaker 2: if the nubs weren't symmetrical from left to right. And
35:50
Speaker 2: in his mind, what that meant was one of these
35:52
Speaker 2: nubs had come off, had been you know, cut off
35:55
Speaker 2: or scraped off, or you know, just in the process
35:58
Speaker 2: of hiking around. So he turns the boots over and
36:03
Speaker 2: what do you know, one of these boots is missing
36:06
Speaker 2: a nub. So not only do you have a bootprint
36:09
Speaker 2: that matches the bootprint at the scene, in terms of
36:12
Speaker 2: size and tread pattern. But you've got individual characteristic which
36:17
Speaker 2: is ub yep. Pretty good evidence.
36:22
Speaker 1: That is pretty good all day, pretty good.
36:25
Speaker 2: But of course, you know, we're always looking to determine
36:28
Speaker 2: whether or not does our suspect have an ability here
36:31
Speaker 2: to create reasonable doubt? So do we know that those
36:35
Speaker 2: are Tim's boots? Do we know that Tim was wearing
36:37
Speaker 2: those boots at the time? You know, these are questions.
36:40
Speaker 2: It's great evidence, But can we put Tim in those
36:44
Speaker 2: boots on the day of the poisoning? So the search
36:48
Speaker 2: of the house continues. One of the things, of course,
36:51
Speaker 2: that they included in their warrant was because Sundels had
36:55
Speaker 2: been posting on the internet, they grabbed his computer. The
36:59
Speaker 2: other thing they searched was his garage and his workshop,
37:02
Speaker 2: And as soon as they opened the doors, they saw
37:06
Speaker 2: hunting equipment, including saddle bags that had bloodstains on them,
37:11
Speaker 2: a bone saw, and a small bottle white bottle precariously
37:18
Speaker 2: balancing on the top of a metal trash can. And
37:23
Speaker 2: when they opened that white bottle, the first thing they
37:26
Speaker 2: saw were small gray granulated powders.
37:31
Speaker 1: This is an unbelievable search.
37:33
Speaker 2: Unbelievable search. The bottle was in a basically a calcium
37:39
Speaker 2: supplement bottle, so it was used for you know, the
37:42
Speaker 2: vitamins were taken out and Sundals had put temic in
37:45
Speaker 2: this bottle, and the lab later confirmed that the powder
37:49
Speaker 2: inside that bottle was also aldacarb or temic. So now
37:53
Speaker 2: we've got the boots in Sundal's house tied to the
37:57
Speaker 2: crime scene. We've got temic at his house at the
38:00
Speaker 2: crime scene. Next we need to figure out can we
38:04
Speaker 2: tie the elk meat. And the first thing Agent Bergoner
38:07
Speaker 2: did was he zeroed in on these saddlebags that had
38:10
Speaker 2: bloodstains on them and he immediately collected those as evidence
38:15
Speaker 2: and they were sent to the forensics lab. Now, before
38:20
Speaker 2: I tell you what the forensic lab results were, let
38:23
Speaker 2: me say that another thing they found inside his house
38:26
Speaker 2: was a box full of bumper stickers that talked about,
38:31
Speaker 2: you know, save a ranch or kill a wolf. Lots
38:35
Speaker 2: of anti wolf things, But among those bumper stickers was
38:39
Speaker 2: one that said, save the US Constitution, eliminate a FED. Now,
38:45
Speaker 2: when you're a federal agent or a federal employee in general,
38:48
Speaker 2: trying to serve your community and work in an environment
38:52
Speaker 2: where people have bumper stickers basically, you know, calling for
38:57
Speaker 2: you to be eliminated. What what does that mean? Exactly?
39:00
Speaker 2: That's a scary environment to try to be a public servant, right, And.
39:04
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that also goes back to what he
39:06
Speaker 1: said to the biologist. So you're showing a pattern conclusively
39:11
Speaker 1: that he has not only believed this for years, he's
39:15
Speaker 1: elevated what he's doing.
39:18
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, and he's he's intentionally he's everything about him
39:23
Speaker 2: just says he's intentionally violating the law.
39:26
Speaker 1: And can I ask you a question. He doesn't seem
39:30
Speaker 1: like the type of man that would have a roommate.
39:33
Speaker 1: So again, I think putting him in them boots is
39:36
Speaker 1: going to be pretty easy.
39:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, I agree it would be. It's excellent.
39:44
Speaker 2: I mean, it's almost irrefutable evidence. Right, they're well worn
39:48
Speaker 2: in boots. He's you know who else is going to
39:51
Speaker 2: be wearing those boots in his family? He's the hunter
39:53
Speaker 2: of the family.
39:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the imperfection, plus his recipe. Plus he said
39:59
Speaker 1: he was going to do it.
40:00
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. So the couple things happened. Next, they seized computers,
40:08
Speaker 2: So now there's going to be a forensic examination of
40:11
Speaker 2: computers and emails traffic and whatever supposed there also the blood,
40:19
Speaker 2: and they also found in the shed they found a
40:22
Speaker 2: bone saw. So the bone saw and the saddle bags
40:26
Speaker 2: and the temich all go to the FWS Forensics Lab
40:29
Speaker 2: in Ashland, Oregon. So let's talk about a little bit
40:33
Speaker 2: what they found as a result of the forensic analysis
40:36
Speaker 2: of the computers first, and then we'll talk about what
40:39
Speaker 2: they found at the lab. One of the things they
40:42
Speaker 2: found in doing a search warm on the computers was
40:45
Speaker 2: a whole lot of stored emails. And in those emails,
40:50
Speaker 2: he's writing to different people and talking about very specifically
40:54
Speaker 2: about how to poison wolves. I give you an example
40:57
Speaker 2: in one email he sent in two thousand and three.
41:00
Speaker 2: You know, he talks about poisoning is much more effective
41:03
Speaker 2: than shooting, especially in winter when the wolves are confined
41:06
Speaker 2: to their winter grounds, and the best playway to do
41:11
Speaker 2: it is to put a frozen meatball made out of
41:13
Speaker 2: elk because of the last all winter long. Yeah, it's
41:18
Speaker 2: just one one thing after another. Right now, at the
41:24
Speaker 2: Fishingwilife Forensics Lab in Ashland, they start to take scrapings
41:28
Speaker 2: off of these blood stains on these saddle bags, and
41:32
Speaker 2: of course they already have the meatballs that were collected
41:36
Speaker 2: at the crime scene, so they can do a DNA
41:38
Speaker 2: comparison between the blood and the saddle bags and the meatballs.
41:43
Speaker 2: And don't you know, not only is the blood in
41:46
Speaker 2: the saddle bags elk meat, but it came from the
41:49
Speaker 2: same elk that those meatballs were made out of.
41:53
Speaker 1: You have got to be kidding me.
41:55
Speaker 2: I know, it gets better and better. Every turn in
41:57
Speaker 2: this case just got better and better. And some of
42:01
Speaker 2: it's luck and some of it is just downright tenacity
42:04
Speaker 2: by you know, Agent Brigonnier. And you know, with all
42:08
Speaker 2: the support from the lab personnel on the state investments,
42:11
Speaker 2: all of.
42:12
Speaker 1: That, well, that lab is amazing. But I'm gonna tell you,
42:15
Speaker 1: Agent Bogoonier, you handle this thing good night. I mean,
42:21
Speaker 1: because it's one thing, you know, like I've collected things
42:25
Speaker 1: that people have made fun of me for and I
42:28
Speaker 1: always say, well, I don't know how it fits, yes,
42:32
Speaker 1: but I may later. I just know something didn't look right,
42:35
Speaker 1: it didn't belong there to me, so I took it whatever.
42:38
Speaker 1: But frozen yellow snow, come on, they're gonna make fun
42:41
Speaker 1: of you. Just yellow snow period in your report is hilarious.
42:47
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to write that, but look what
42:49
Speaker 1: came from it.
42:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and we haven't even you know, I mean,
42:54
Speaker 2: as of now, we've locked down that the elk meat
42:57
Speaker 2: is connected to the house and the boots are connected
43:01
Speaker 2: to the crime scene.
43:02
Speaker 1: And this is a dangerous person. And I want people
43:05
Speaker 1: to understand. I say it all the time. Anybody that
43:10
Speaker 1: can kick a dog kill a kitten. And I am
43:13
Speaker 1: not talking about legal hunting. I'm not talking about legal
43:17
Speaker 1: hunting a fishing. I'm talking about somebody at a meanness,
43:22
Speaker 1: out of a direct target, is going to kill animals.
43:26
Speaker 1: That person, absolutely, without a doubt, can kill a human.
43:32
Speaker 1: And this man said it over and over and over.
43:36
Speaker 2: You bet. And this is different than hunting. This is
43:38
Speaker 2: not hunting. This is right, yeah right, This is not hunting.
43:42
Speaker 2: And you know, an interesting aside to this is that
43:46
Speaker 2: the US Department of Justice keeps statistics on assaults on
43:50
Speaker 2: law enforcement officers, and consistently every year, the law enforcement
43:58
Speaker 2: profession that has the highest number of physical assaults on
44:02
Speaker 2: them are conservation officers, game mordens, wildlife officers, special agents.
44:07
Speaker 1: I did not know that.
44:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very dangerous profession because a lot of
44:12
Speaker 2: the criminals you're dealing with are armed, and you can't.
44:17
Speaker 2: You know, if you're approaching a hunter to do an
44:19
Speaker 2: enforcement action, of course they're going to have a gun.
44:21
Speaker 2: They always have a gun.
44:22
Speaker 1: You know. I did a training with Native American rangers
44:29
Speaker 1: and that's one of the things they told me. They said, first,
44:32
Speaker 1: they are by themselves for thousands and thousands of acres.
44:36
Speaker 1: I mean, their backup is a long way away. Anyway.
44:40
Speaker 1: That's the first thing that they made me very aware
44:43
Speaker 1: of is that every single person they come in contact
44:47
Speaker 1: with has a gun. Everyone.
44:49
Speaker 2: Yes, So, I mean kind of famously, maybe ten years ago,
44:53
Speaker 2: there was a US Fish and Wildlife Service refuge officer
44:56
Speaker 2: who was involved in a shooting in the Desert National
45:00
Speaker 2: Wildlife Refuge outside of Las Vegas. And this is a
45:03
Speaker 2: guy who was on his own patrolling millions of acres,
45:07
Speaker 2: and it it was kind of you know, we were
45:11
Speaker 2: all reminded that we listened to the radio traffic after
45:14
Speaker 2: the shooting incident where he's requesting backup. It took an hour.
45:18
Speaker 2: It took an hour for the nearest law enforcement officer
45:20
Speaker 2: to reach his location on a shooting call.
45:23
Speaker 1: Yep, that's unbelievable. I mean, I knew the danger. I
45:28
Speaker 1: didn't know that that groove was the number one assaulted.
45:37
Speaker 2: The good news is based on what agent Burgonier was
45:40
Speaker 2: able to obtain from the crime scene and the search warrant,
45:43
Speaker 2: it actually was enough for the United States Attorney's Office
45:46
Speaker 2: to file charges against Sundals. Now, interestingly, the charges were
45:51
Speaker 2: not for killing a wolf because no wolf body was found,
45:55
Speaker 2: but attempt to do it carries the same penalty, So,
46:01
Speaker 2: believe it or not, this is actually the first case
46:03
Speaker 2: in the history of the US Fish and Wilife Service
46:05
Speaker 2: where a person was actually charged with attempting to kill
46:09
Speaker 2: and a threatened or endangered species. So it's kind of
46:11
Speaker 2: a case of first impression, but definitely was enough evidence
46:15
Speaker 2: to file those charges.
46:16
Speaker 1: Brilliant. Well, I hope he got sixty charges because each
46:20
Speaker 1: one should have served as a charge.
46:22
Speaker 2: Hey, exactly fifty eight counts right of throwing those meatballs.
46:26
Speaker 2: So he pleads not guilty and immediately goes on the
46:30
Speaker 2: media offensive about you know, of course, the out of
46:33
Speaker 2: control federal agency, and he said some things that didn't
46:38
Speaker 2: help him. For example, he said, poisoning if pets is
46:41
Speaker 2: simply collateral damage, which doesn't make you very popular. With
46:44
Speaker 2: the public right now. What we have is we have
46:48
Speaker 2: evidence that you know, boots in his possession matched the
46:51
Speaker 2: prints at the scene of the suspect. We got the
46:54
Speaker 2: same type of poison found in the suspect's garage, we
46:57
Speaker 2: got meat from the same elk from the crime scene.
47:01
Speaker 2: That's he matches the blood in his garage. And we know,
47:04
Speaker 2: of course that he's a jerk. But then there's one
47:10
Speaker 2: more thing that Bragonia thinks about, and that is that
47:16
Speaker 2: as he's considering what do we how do we get
47:18
Speaker 2: ready for trial, he's looking at the evidence that's booked
47:21
Speaker 2: into you know, into evidence, and he finds this frozen
47:25
Speaker 2: yellow snow and he says, what what is Well? Could
47:30
Speaker 2: this be important? Why is this important? And you know,
47:35
Speaker 2: I think Mac, you and I have talked about this.
47:37
Speaker 2: You know why. There is one time when a person's
47:41
Speaker 2: DNA will show up in their urine. It's when they're sick.
47:45
Speaker 2: And if you have a cold or you're getting over cold,
47:48
Speaker 2: your body will shed cells and it ends up in
47:50
Speaker 2: your urine and it's you know, there's.
47:52
Speaker 1: Oh, please tell me he was sick, Please tell me. So.
47:57
Speaker 2: In going through all of his emails from the search warrant.
48:01
Speaker 2: Bragonire remembered that the week before the meat balls had
48:05
Speaker 2: been thrown out there, Tim Sundles had been complaining to
48:08
Speaker 2: his friends about having had the flu.
48:13
Speaker 1: Oh the word.
48:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. So now we've got a suspect who's pleading not guilty.
48:20
Speaker 2: He wants to go to trial. He's gone on the
48:22
Speaker 2: public you know, public media, offensive against government. But Brigonia
48:28
Speaker 2: goes in front of a judge in the US District
48:32
Speaker 2: Court and says, I want an order authorizing me to
48:36
Speaker 2: take a DNA sample from Tim Sundles, and the judge
48:40
Speaker 2: grants it. So the judge has now ordered Tim Sundle
48:45
Speaker 2: to turn over a DNA sample so it can be
48:47
Speaker 2: compared against the DNA that's found in the urine, And
48:50
Speaker 2: don't you know that immediately causes him to plead guilty.
48:54
Speaker 1: That is a beautiful thing, that is outstanding. And you know,
48:59
Speaker 1: you can get DNA from urine, but you know, it's
49:02
Speaker 1: it's not as easy as people think. I mean, first
49:06
Speaker 1: of all, it's got to be fresh and all that,
49:07
Speaker 1: and then you've got to keep it at a low temperature.
49:10
Speaker 1: So how fortunate that it was frozen. I mean, everything
49:14
Speaker 1: just worked out beautifully. But I'm going to say something now,
49:18
Speaker 1: it worked out beautifully because of a lot of hard work.
49:22
Speaker 1: I mean when you're talking about I mean just hundreds
49:27
Speaker 1: and hundreds of acres, and those meatballs could have been
49:31
Speaker 1: anywhere for him to find one after the other after
49:36
Speaker 1: the other and then keep searching. I mean, Agent bragone,
49:40
Speaker 1: You're saved possibly hundreds of animals.
49:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he basically he delivered consequences to somebody
49:49
Speaker 2: who desperately needed consequences.
49:51
Speaker 1: His behavior for the safety of animals and humans.
49:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. And it kind of sent a
49:58
Speaker 2: message to anyone else who's thinking about this that and
50:01
Speaker 2: this is something I always told people. You know, US
50:04
Speaker 2: Fish and Wildlife Service agents are among the most tenacious
50:09
Speaker 2: federal investigators I've ever seen in my life. And they
50:13
Speaker 2: you know, if you commit a wildlife crime a US
50:16
Speaker 2: Fish and Wildlife Service agent, they will pursue you, they
50:20
Speaker 2: will catch you, and they will put you in jail.
50:22
Speaker 2: It's just it's not a matter of if, it's a
50:25
Speaker 2: matter of when. And that's exactly what you know happened here,
50:31
Speaker 2: and I think one of the best outcomes from this case. Unfortunately,
50:35
Speaker 2: the Endangered Species Act carries fairly low penalties, so it's
50:40
Speaker 2: not like we can say Tim Sundles went to jail
50:42
Speaker 2: for a long time. But some interesting things occurred in
50:45
Speaker 2: his sentence that were I think very painful for him.
50:49
Speaker 2: One of one is that he was prohibited from from
50:54
Speaker 2: entering federal property for the entire term of his probation,
50:57
Speaker 2: which was two years. And if you live in Idaho,
51:01
Speaker 2: a lot of Idaho is federal property, either a service
51:05
Speaker 2: land or BLM land, so it kind of is impingement
51:09
Speaker 2: on your lifestyle.
51:10
Speaker 1: It was two miles he could go in good exactly.
51:13
Speaker 2: But my favorite part was the Washington Post. Every year
51:17
Speaker 2: they post a Idiot of the Year, and it's a
51:22
Speaker 2: number of people that make the list, but Tim Sundals
51:25
Speaker 2: was the twenty first idiot of the year for that year.
51:29
Speaker 2: And I'll just read you real quick what the Washington
51:32
Speaker 2: Post said. It said, Tim Sundals. Tim Sundals, Who's unabashed
51:35
Speaker 2: hatred of US government efforts to reintroduce gray wolves out
51:41
Speaker 2: West borders on fanatical. In his latest scheme to finish
51:45
Speaker 2: off the endangered species, he planted poison lace meatballs in
51:48
Speaker 2: Idaho's remote Salmon Shayliss National Forests, instead of killing wolves.
51:52
Speaker 2: Though the meatballs ended up poisoning a coyotea fox, and
51:55
Speaker 2: birds and three pet dogs. So he public shaming is
52:01
Speaker 2: it is a valuable tool because whether or not you
52:05
Speaker 2: go to jail, or whether or not you pay a
52:07
Speaker 2: lot of fines, having all your neighbors know what you
52:10
Speaker 2: did and how you did it, and that the government
52:12
Speaker 2: caught you and your guiltiest sin is a valuable deterrent.
52:17
Speaker 1: Amen. It makes it that much harder for him to
52:20
Speaker 1: ever do it again because he's going to be usual suspects.
52:24
Speaker 1: He's always going to be on.
52:25
Speaker 2: Your list exactly one hundred percent. And you know, I
52:28
Speaker 2: mentioned that the Endangered Species Act has, you know, not
52:33
Speaker 2: great penalties necessarily, but where people really start to get
52:36
Speaker 2: into trouble and go to jail is when they commit
52:39
Speaker 2: subsequent offenses. So if he turns up again in committing
52:43
Speaker 2: a wildlife crime, a state or a federal judge is
52:46
Speaker 2: going to look at his record and say, well, this
52:50
Speaker 2: is a prior violator who didn't learn his lesson before.
52:53
Speaker 2: I'm going to send him to jail. So I've seen
52:56
Speaker 2: that before where subsequent violators end up actually doing some
53:00
Speaker 2: pretty good time because they demonstrated that they didn't learn
53:03
Speaker 2: a lesson, so that's always hanging over his head.
53:06
Speaker 1: Ed, I cannot thank you enough, and I'm just gonna again, y'all.
53:11
Speaker 1: If you can work this case, you can work any
53:14
Speaker 1: case out there. This was I mean, you can call
53:17
Speaker 1: some of it luck, but that's not what I see.
53:20
Speaker 1: I see literally boots in the snow working this thing
53:25
Speaker 1: to the very end, collecting things. You don't even know
53:28
Speaker 1: what it's going to result in. You're just going to
53:31
Speaker 1: have it and see what comes from it. That's just
53:35
Speaker 1: unbelievably solid investigative work, one hundred percent. All right, Ed,
53:41
Speaker 1: I will see you in Denver Crime con.
53:43
Speaker 2: Looking forward to it. I can't wait.
53:45
Speaker 1: Well, y'all, I'm going to end Zone seven the way
53:47
Speaker 1: that I always do with a quote. It all starts
53:51
Speaker 1: with the Wolves, Peter Woolen Bear, The Hidden Life of Trees.
53:58
Speaker 1: I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this his own seven
54:09
Speaker 2: H