January 10, 2024 • 60 mins
On this episode, Clay Newcomb interviews Donnie Baker of Dixon, Missouri who was convicted of illegally killing a 204 4/8-inch white-tailed buck on the Fort Leonard Wood Military base in 2009. Donnie opens up about the details of the kill, how he falsified its location, and the unbelievable attention the buck received within the community. He then tells how he was arrested and interrogated by the Missouri Department of Conservation. This episode is a roller coaster that will make you think about how you cast judgment or mercy on people. Clay later interviews Dr. Misty Newcomb to discuss how, as a society, we choose whom to forgive and whom we not to forgive. Also don't forget, "Meateater's American History: The Long Hunters (1761-1775)" is now available for purchase!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
After a ballgame one evening under a street lights. First
time I seen him. The first time I seen him,
I was one hundred percent sure he's two hundred inch deer,
which I'd never seen a while deer with two hundred
inch and still at that time wanted to kill this deer.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Right, we're slipping into the year twenty twenty four behind
the dull thwack of a bow string as a steel
tipped arrow arches into the throat patch of a two
hundred and four and four to eight inch drop time
Missouri whitetail buck. This might sound like a moment of celebration,
(00:39):
but you'd be mistaken if you thought that. For this archer,
it was the beginning of a nightmare. On this episode,
we're going to reveal the details of an egregious wildlife crime.
But we won't be talking to the warden who cracked
the case or the property owner of where the buck
was poached. We're going to talk to the guy who's
(00:59):
squeak the trigger, who devised a plan to falsify the
location of the kill and decided the only thing that
he could do was live. We will meet the man who,
in two thousand and nine illegally killed a Boone and
Crockett class buck on the Fort Leonardwood Military base near Waynesville, Missouri.
It's a rare occurrence when someone is willing to open
(01:22):
up about their failures. But that's exactly why I was
intrigued by this story and this man, this poacher. However,
as the hackles of justice rise on your neck, I
want to raise a question of my own. How is
a society do we judge criminals? How do we decide
if we demand justice or extend mercy? How do we
(01:46):
decide who to forgive? Because it's clear that each situation
is treated differently, we'll learn that it has a lot
to do with how the accused apologize. I'm interested in
the metrics use to evaluate this story. We'll be talking
with an expert to learn more. But the answer of
(02:06):
this should be evident because you likely cast judgment and
forgiveness almost daily, and the answer will shine deeply into
our humanness, our value systems, and sometimes our own hypocrisy.
And hey, if you want to hear all about and
I mean all about how poaching this giant deer went down,
(02:26):
then you're not going to want to miss this one.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
To walk up on him and grab his antlers. You
should feel the most excitement you've ever had in your life,
other than like one of your kids being born or something.
And I kind of have the opposite feeling, and immediately
I thought, there's no way that I'm going to get
away with this.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
My name is Clay Nukem, and this is the Bear
Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.
Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and
(03:15):
fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the
place as we explore. As I travel through central Missouri,
(03:39):
stopping at gas stations, having lunch in a small town
catfish restaurant, I'm struck by how mid American this place is.
The geographic center of America is Lebanon, Kansas, but I'd
be tempted to think that it's Dixon, Missouri, which is
derned near the center of the show me state. And
I really like miss Zuri like the gouy center of
(04:02):
a cinnamon roll. The people are hospitable, genuine and modest.
They seem more trusting than the exterior parts of America.
My trip up here started about a week prior. I'd
been contacted by a guy paying Brent and I a
much appreciated compliment when he slipped in a few sentences
that caught my attention like a mule when a feed
(04:24):
bucket rattles. He wrote, I killed a two hundred and
four inch buck on Fort Leonard Wood in two thousand
and nine. I let greed in the thought that I
had to kill him to be a man get the
best of me. A buddy of mine posted a picture
on a website and it blew up. Two weeks after
I killed him, I was arrested at work and things
(04:47):
got bad. The message continued on with more details, but
he insinuated that his life unraveled after the event in
the bigger way than the confiscations and fines instituted by
a government agency. Something about him and the story caught
my attention. It wasn't just the size of the buck,
(05:08):
but a rare genuineness in him. I caught the whiff
of a man who'd been through the ringer, and I
figured yet a unique angle on life. At first, I
didn't know what his motivation would be for talking, but
I was about to find out. In my next message,
I asked if he'd be willing to tell this story publicly.
(05:28):
To my surprise, he said that he would. I want
you guys to meet Donnie Baker of Dixon, Missouri. He's
forty years old, a widower, a father of two teenage children.
He loves to run beagles and bowhunt, and by trade,
he's a telecommunications technician. But before we meet Donnie, I
(05:49):
would like to strike a deal with you, the listener.
I'll tell you the story if you will keep in mind.
So all I'm asking you keep in mind that he
didn't have to tell us this one. He didn't have
to tell us about one of the worst moments in
his life. He didn't owe that to me or you.
(06:09):
He volunteered it. And in a way, he's putting himself
on public trial again. We're going to hear the case
and make a judgment. These events took place over fourteen
years ago, So our deal is that you just keep
that in mind. Now we're going to dive right into
the story with Donnie. Where do you think a good
(06:34):
place to start would be.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Probably about the first time I seen that, dear yeah,
would have been in two thousand and seven. I was
playing softball in Fort Leonard Wood and the guy that
ran the league on Fort Wood's name is John Clapp.
After a ballgame, he hollered at means and I guess
they call it like a bird's nest or whatever. It's
a tower in between all the fields. He said, come
(06:58):
up here, I want to show you something. When I
got up there, that buck was out there feeding. It
was a big mainframe ten and on its right beam
it had it just looked like a softball. It's a
big knot, and that's what they called it was softball.
The ballplayers that year, everybody had eventually seen it. The
deer was always down there by, and it was after dark,
you know, it was being illuminated by the ballfield lines.
(07:20):
And after I saw it, my wife and I were
dating at the time. We drove around many nights looking
for him and seeing him. Seeing him a few times
that year. He would have probably been closer to a
one hundred and fifty inch deer at that time.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
This story begins with almost biblical vibes to me, like
when King David looked off the balcony and saw Bathsheba
bathing on the rooftop below. She was off limits married,
and David knew it that something took seed in David's
heart and he began to devise a plan to apprehend
the Contraband This isn't exact exactly the sequence of what
(08:01):
happened with Donnie.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
It was a.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Different internal track towards violation, and as it turns out,
there are uncountable circuitous ways that can lead a man
to it. Fort Leonard Wood is a sixty one thousand
acre military base in central Missouri, near the towns of
Waynesville and Saint Roberts. It's about an hour northeast of
(08:23):
Springfield and two hours west of Saint Louis. It's open
to all kinds of hunting for people who have a
permit and take a training course. However, there are areas
where you cannot hunt, and this is important to remember.
Large sections of the base are off limits to hunting,
and everyone knows this. This is common for military bases
(08:43):
where the public is allowed to hunt. But what I
have not told you yet is that Donnie worked on
the base. He started the base's first archery pro shop,
owned by the military, designed to service the soldiers and
their families who wanted to bow hunt. Donnie was an insider,
(09:04):
and if you're like me, you probably just got your
justice and Judgment scorecard out and are keeping track of
the data points. And this tidbit is not favorable. When
you saw this deer, like what what were you thinking?
Were you thinking, I want to.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Kill us deer? Yeah, and at that time it really wasn't.
It moved a couple of times. It was close to
a hunting area. There was a few people hunting him there.
He was coming out of a legit hunting area and
I hunted that area. But honestly, when I went to hunting,
I'd say it was probably the tenth person to see
that deer. So when I went to that area to
(09:41):
hunt it, there was just looked like the Walmart parking lot.
You know, anybody see that deer would hunt it. And
it just took a little That was in the beginning
of season and that was it for him. So I'm
sure the pressure or whatever he went to wherever he hides,
Like what was your mind frame at that time in
your life? Would you have broken the law before? And
you would have thought I'd do whatever it takes to
(10:02):
kill that deer. I'm maybe, but he wasn't. I seen
the deer a couple times after that and probably could
have done something, but at the time, killing it wrong
it wasn't what I was trying to do. I'd like
to kill that deer right. Killing him illegally wasn't even
I really didn't consider it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I'm sitting on a brown cloth couch across from Donnie,
who's in a leather recliner in his comfortable, modest home
outside of Dixon. The room is full of handsome shoulder
mounted bucks killed by he and his son, most of
which are archery kills. I'd shaken this man's hand for
the first time all of thirty minutes before this conversation.
(10:47):
I'm surprised by how comfortable he is telling me this story,
and by how much it seems like he's telling me
the real story. He isn't justifying his actions, he's not defensive,
and for this, on my checklist, he gets some points
for genuineness. I'm mesmerized by every word of this story,
(11:08):
literally on the edge of my seat. But I'm also
looking into his soul, trying to discern if he's telling
me the truth, and I think he is. I ask
him for more details. In eight, i'd heard stories of
people seeing him, but I don't. I don't believe I
ever saw him in O eight. When O nine come
around summer of nine, everybody that hunts out there drives
(11:32):
around of an evening right at dark to see where
the deer are.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I mean, it's just just something you can do. There's
a lot of roads on Fort Wood and you can
find something to hunt like that and not lighting them
or anything, but just a dusk. And it's playing ball
at the time. One evening after ball, I make the
circle in an Army street. It's a street that connects
Nebraska and First Street, and after a ball game, one
evening under a street lights, first time I seen him.
(11:56):
And that'll play into some of this as well, that
that deer had seen a lot of people and it
wasn't as wild as as some deer. I'm sure the
first time I seen him, I was one hundred percent
sure he's two hundred inch deer, which I'd never seen
a wild deer with two hundred inch and still at
that time wanted to kill this deer.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Right, He gets honesty points by telling me the deer
was accustomed to human presence. Often people leave out parts
of stories that are less flattering, adding in parts that
make them seem competent. I think I probably do that
a lot. Donnie didn't have to say that about the deer,
and the stakes also just got a bunch higher in
(12:36):
two thousand and nine, when the deer was now believed
to be over two hundred inches. I've seen pictures of
this buck. He's a mainframe ten point over twenty inches
wide with two dagger like four inch kickers coming off
the right base. He's got a big flyer off the
G two, which is the second time, and the cherry
(12:58):
on top is that he he's got a Grade A
American classic tenants drop time with a black lump on
the end. You know what I'm talking about if you
are a whitetail antler officionado. The left antler is a
typical five point side with a cluster of small drop
times just below the G two. The deer is a
(13:19):
jaw dropper, and for any serious whitetail hunter, the two
hundred inch mark is a pinnacle number that I'd guess
ninety nine percent of hunters will never even see a
deer that big in the woods much less kill one
and as a culture, we've been messing around with giving
cultural value to big antlers for over one hundred and
(13:40):
fifty years, so we know they make people do crazy things.
But here's an analogy for the uninformed to describe the situation.
Everybody sees money all the time that they don't have
permission to take, like when you see cash and a
cash register at the store, and hunters see bucks pretty
often that they don't have permission to take. So here's
(14:01):
an analogy. The difference between seeing a one hundred and
twenty five inch eight point, which would be a handsome
buck anywhere in the country, and seeing a two hundred
inch buck would be akin to seeing one hundred dollars
bill on the table, which would be the eight point,
next to a stack of one hundred thousand dollars cash,
(14:24):
which would be the two hundred incher. It's a big divide,
But Donnie wasn't planning on taking the one hundred k
off the table. He planned to earn it fair and square,
and he had proven that in the previous years. But
so goes the plans of mice and men. And I
have a quick question for you. Just think about this
(14:46):
should the size of a buck matter in a poaching case? Secondly,
a more personal question, would you go easier on a
poacher that killed a basket rack eight point versus a
hundred hundred and fifty inch deer? And if you have
a clear answer, tell me why. Let's get back to
(15:06):
Donnie though. Here's a description of where the buck lived.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Through the rest of the summer getting into the fall. See him,
I think, six times, always in the same place, on
the same street. What that deer done. He lived in
a little little block of brush behind a dining facility.
And this deer's in the place you could legally hunting. No, sir,
I never seen it in a legal hunting area. It
was one hundred percent no. It was a contonement area.
(15:33):
There was a running track there, dining facility, people parked
around there. I mean it was defined. I mean everybody
that hunts their nose, you cannot kill this.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So at that time, where you considering hunting it illegally?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
No? At that time, I set cameras where I would
see deer leave that area going into hunting areas because
I knew, however he winted those hunting areas, he would
come back the same way. He was pretty calm deer.
And I don't know if I never did get a
picture of him, never did get a game camera picture
of you.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
At the time, Donnie was twenty six years old and
he was a solid white tailed bow hunter and an
archery expert. Remember he started the archery shop on the base.
He'd formulated a solid strategy to hunt this buck legally. However,
an early October evening drive would hijack his plan and
(16:21):
his character. And I've got a second question for you.
Does premeditated intent matter if the results are the same
a dead buck or a crime committed, Why does the
intent matter? Just think about it. But we're going to
go back now to the character hijack. Here's Donnie October
(16:43):
fourth of nine. I'd till through the day I was
allowed to shoot my bow. I could help people shoot,
and I go down the range take my bow and
help sight in their bows and stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I'd shot my bone. I mean, I was dressed by
like I am here, in blue jeans and probably I'm
sure it was cool evening. I'd say, probably a camel hoodie.
I'd shot my bow a little bit. I was driving
a white Ford four door truck with a topper on it.
I hit Army Streets soon as work was over, and
when I was going to drive down through their see
if I could see him. And as I'm driving down
Army Street and it's it's not quite dusk yet, there's
(17:15):
quite a bit of light. I looked to my left
and he's standing where I've seen him two or three times.
I thought, good grief.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
This good grief moment combined a new trio of circumstances
that Donnie had yet to confront. He'd seen the buck
multiple times over the last two years and never attempted
to illegally kill it. However, this was the first time
he'd seen it. Number one during the archery season, number
two when he had a bow in the truck, and
(17:46):
number three it was now a two hundred inch deer
that was in striking distance standing in the ditch. It
was a one two three judo kick that knocked him
out cold. Every encounter up until this point had been
buffered by barriers Donnie was unwilling to cross. However, this
one was new. I think Biblical references are fair game
(18:11):
here because of the influence of Judeo Christian ideology and
American culture, whether you realize it or not. Early in
this ancient book, in Genesis chapter four, there's the story
of Cain who killed his brother Abel because of jealousy.
Prior to the murder, he was warned to watch out
for crouching sin. It reads, then the Lord said to Cain,
(18:37):
sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you,
but you must rule over it. This is a really
fundamental and foundational aspect of human life that people have
to deal with whatever they want to call it. If
they want to call it sin evil doing something wrong,
like we all have this kind of code that we
(18:57):
live by in our cultures. The Bible it wasn't the
only book that talked about this, but it really helped
introduce it to civilization. Life is a series of unfolding opportunities,
often out of our control, but we are in control
of how we respond to those opportunities. But the age
old question is how much temptation can a person resist
(19:20):
until they break their declared value system, until they're unable
to rule over the power of the crouching evil. The
ancient philosopher Socrates exhorted people to know thyself, which he
was saying be aware of your limitations, be aware of
your motivations, and make educated adjustments to your life based
(19:40):
on this knowledge. The universal nature of the cane Able
story is profound because its application isn't just in murder, poaching,
or bank robbery. It's in the small decisions in our
lives that no one else sees. Now we're back to
(20:03):
Donnie in the truck with this bow within striking distance
of a crouched lion.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So I drived in Nebraska, turned around, and when I
come back, I'm looking over there. Where he was at
was because he was seventy five to one hundred yards
off the road and he's nowhere to be seen. I thought, well,
he spooked and I turned to my left and he
was right in the road ditch on the north side
of the army, I mean right there. And that's when
I put it all together. There's a huge culvert there.
It's almost a concrete bridge. He wasn't crossing over the highway.
(20:31):
He was walking under it, so as I kind of
hit my brakes and it spooks him a little bit
and he hops down to the timber line. Well, when
he gets to the timberline, in front of him are
two really good bucks. It was a massive, huge eight
point with little bitty brow tines and a really nice ten.
So I pulled down. There's a running track there and
some porta potties. So I pulled down to those porta
(20:52):
potties and I thought, I thought I could kill it
deer right there. And like I said, it was just
just kind of I don't know if you ever when
you was a kid shot at a bird on a
sitting in a tree or something, just kind of and
then when you do kill it, you think, oh man,
that's kind of what I went through there. But I
knew it was a non hunting area, so I grabbed
my bow and and just jeans and boots, and well
(21:15):
behind the porta potties up this little rise and there
was a big old red oak that had died and
fell over. And when I got to that red oak,
I was considering if I should hucker down there or
climb over it. And as I'm as, I'm contemplating that.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
So I mean, at this point, you've made a decision,
You're legally kill this.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, And let me ask you this.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
I mean, I think every human has experienced a moral
dilemma of being given an opportunity that they know is
wrong and then not taking it.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, but then.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
There's like this this suck, this drawl, something happens that
all of a sudden you cross into a red zone
and it's something flips.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, well was at this time, Clay I had I
had I'd had twenty two in my truck multiple times
from squirrel hunting when I'd seen this deer. You know,
if I had set out to poach this deer, I mean,
I could have shot it many times. But when I
saw that deer for the first time, I said, I've
got to kill that deer. I mean, he just felt
(22:16):
like that was almost a rite of passage for people
who think that I was a good quality bow hunters.
I was gonna have to kill this monster deer.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
There's some profoundness in Donnie's honest, simple conclusion of his motivation.
He was a twenty six year old man hungry for
validation from the world around him, and killing a big
deer with his bow was a pathway to gain respect.
I get it. I remember when the picture of the
(22:46):
first decent deer that I killed hung on the wall
at the local bow shop, and I soaked up any
validation that I could get from anywhere. Validation for grand
feats are important in a young man's life or a
young woman's life, but when they're stolen, the system is
cheated and it produces the opposite of what it's supposed to.
(23:07):
It's supposed to create identity and self confidence and a
sense of worth, but what it actually creates is insecurity
when it's stolen. But let's get back to Donnie. Here's
what happened.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
So when I knew where that deer was going to go,
I knew it was illegal, but never really give that
a consideration. Just the only thing I was saying about
is wanting to kill it deer. I needed to kill
that deer some reason. I just thought that that's something
I had to do. And as they get to that
red oak, I'm considered if I need to climb over
(23:42):
to hunker down there, And it's just a few yards
off of it's a high line, and it's kind of
it's pretty clean. There's a little brush there. As I'm
I'm sure, I'm moving around, and I look up in
that big ten is twenty five yards from me, staring
at me. Well, he blows and takes off running, and
I thought gosh, dang. I mean I blew that up,
still not thinking, you know, hope nobody's seen me or whatever.
(24:03):
And as I watched them cross Army Street, I look
back where they were, and probably thirty five yards behind him,
that bucks stand there staring right at me, wide open
between he and I. I really believe if he was
a National Forest wild deer, he'd have been gone to
you know. I shoot a single pin hha side, and
(24:24):
I had had an arrow knock. I knocked narrow forore.
I set my bow on that red oak, trying to
side where I was gonna try to get so I
draw my bow back and he's still just standing there.
I mean, he's looking right at me. I know that
if I can fall it into his front end, high
success rate killing him. And I put that pin right
underneath his nose, just right about the top of his
white patch and turn it blues.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I wonder how long it took at him after sinking
his teeth through the skin of the forbidden apple, to
regret his decision. The bite initiated a sequence of unretractable consequence.
Man's always had a problem with laws, breaking them, that is,
But laws are the guideposts of societal security designed for
(25:10):
the well being of us. All the truth is is
that everybody wants some form of law in their life
to protect them and their interests, even in a time
in America where we're talking about liberty and freedom and
laws take away all this stuff, which I am generally
absolutely in agreement with. However, I'm telling you we all
(25:30):
love laws, but we like to cherry pick. The ones
that we'd like to break are the ones that infringe
upon our personal freedom. And it's kind of bizarre. Human
life is complex, society's complex. As I'm sitting here with
Donnie hearing this story for the first time, I am
(25:50):
struck with a palpable sense of remorse as the arrow
drifts through the air and hits the buck just below
the throat patch. Later we'll learn that as a society
we demand remorse from the people who've cheated the system.
But I'm way ahead of myself. The buck has just
(26:11):
been shot.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
First thing I think is I shot him right in
the front leg. And that was the first sick feeling
I got in bout I thought, oh my gosh, I
just woined that monster, dear, and shouldn't he been doing this?
And that's still running through my mind when I hear
him crash, and then reality starts setting in good grief.
So I set my bow down, ease up to the eye,
look around, make sure there's no cars coming down the highway.
(26:34):
And there's nobody really in that area at that time.
Nobody had to run and track where I was parking
with him, So I, instead of blood trailing him, I
kind of stay out of sight, and I sneak down
there where I thought I heard him crash and he's
laying there dead, and to walk up on him and
grab his antlers. You should feel the most excitement you've
ever had in your life, other than like one of
your kids being born or something. And I kind of
(26:56):
had the opposite feeling. And I immediately I thought, there's
no that I'm going to get away with this.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
There's no way that I'm going to get away with this.
That's an interesting thought to slide across a man's mind
moments after an egregious error. The imminent doom of being
guilty often brings the onset of Shakespeare's Macbeth syndrome, when
he said, quote, I am in blood steeped in so
(27:26):
far that should I weigh no more returning were as
tedious as going over. A modern way to say that
would be I'm so deep in this thing covered in
blood that to turn back now would be as treacherous
as continuing forward. And this thing brings Donnie to another
juncture of decision. What does he do now?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Well, as I'm looking at this deer, it broke one
of its brow tines off, falling there. I can see
where it's antlers that hit the dirt, and I'm kind
of wiping around looking for that antler, expecting it to
be stuck in the dirt. It's probably still there today
if it hasn't right it away. And I hear car
doors slam, and I walk down and look, and there's
a couple of people pulled up to this running track,
which is just one hundred yards from me at the time.
(28:12):
So I get that buck he's right on the right
on the high line edge, and drag him deeper in
the brush and just sit down there. I'm thinking my
truck's blocking most poor to John sitting there with the
keys in it. You know this isn't going to turn out. Well, Well,
these people get out, get on the track, and don't
They're not there for five minutes, it seems like two hours.
(28:32):
But now it's getting pretty dark, so they get in
their cars and leave. I'm sitting there contemplating, do I
take this deer out now? If I leave it, will
it be found before daylight or somebody see it or
kyots get it? You know. I'm a nervous track. I
go back down walk out to, you know, try to
like if somebody over there I just left or whatever.
Nobody around. I reparked my truck in a parking spot
(28:55):
and think what I'll do is I'll drag that deer
back where I went in the woods, which isn't that fart,
but it's a big old here, guts still in it.
I didn't want to get it there because I did
not want to leave any evidence, you know, So I
drag it back down to where my truck was. Nobody
ever came to the running track. I back it up
as close as I can, right beside those port of
potties to try to help hide me in it and all.
(29:16):
And I get that deer loaded in the back of
that truck with its guts in it, which was unreal.
I get it in that truck, get everything closed up,
and I start getting kind of a feeling of peace,
like I'm gonna pull this off. When I pull out
onto Army to turn back to leave Fort Leonard Wood,
I see a car coming. I don't think anything about it.
And as I'm easing up Army, it was an MP
(29:37):
and you know, I mean trembling, shaking, Oh my gosh,
I've they followed me down Nebraska all the way to
Missouri Boulevard, right towards the main gate. And I mean
I went by many places that I would expected the
MP to turn around to go back to patrol, and
he is right behind me, I mean right on me,
follows me right out the north gate. By now I
think I'm thinking, what am I going to say? They're
(29:57):
going to pull me over? You know, I'm just caught.
And as I go by a gas station, they're all
Star Gas. That people pulls into that gas station. That
guy was going to get a pack of cigarettes or
a soda or something, I'm sure. And I go on
up to almost I forty four. There's there's a car
wash parking lot there and I pull in and get
(30:18):
out and look at the truck and there is blood
all over that tailgate, and the thought of that was
where I made the mistakes that I'm gonna make to
get caught, the mistake I made shooting the deer. But
then it gets in my head so bad. All I
can think about is that blood and that mp FA
on me. So I drive home and uh, all the
(30:39):
way home, I'm thinking. What I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna get up early in the morning. There's there's no
more physical checking in, you know, it's all tailcheck. I
can sign into my hunting area by a computer. I've
got tree stands there. I'm gonna take him out there,
drag him out in front of that stand, gut him,
break him all loose, give it about an hour, tail
check him, and go to the house. Like I said, Clay,
(31:02):
I've still not gotten excited with this deer. You know,
the biggest deer I've ever killed my life. I'll probably
never kill or even see a deer that size. I
didn't kill right, which was weighing on me pretty heavy.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
There are a lot of options in the English language
that could be used to describe what Donnie had done.
I think the one he used is interesting. I didn't
kill it right, And here begins the classic cascade of
one live being fixed by mora lies like a fox
and a snare. It's a trap as old as mankind.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So as I'm thinking about this, I get thinking about
that MP and that blood on that tailgate, and will
they be looking for this truck if I drive this
truck through you know, everything's surveillance there. If I drive
this truck through the man gate, will they say, we
need you to come over here check me out and
see why there was blood all over my truck. So
I set up all night thinking about this, and I
advised a plan that I would just just say that
(31:57):
I killed it at my house. So the next morning,
at daylight, I go up behind my house and in
a place I was allowed to hunt, taking back to
one of my old tree stands, just fields in a
road all the way to it, and I unload that deer,
drag him down in the woods and ways gut him,
go back and get my truck. I get thinking that
I've got to have proof that I was here, So
(32:19):
I drive all the way to the next little town
and get gas on a debit cards save my receipt.
You know, I was getting pretty deep by now. Talk
to a few people so I could say that the
people had seen me there, you know, and that's dragging
people into something that they don't even need to, you know,
go back out. I loaded the deer, and a cousin
(32:40):
of mine, a very close cousin mine, messaged me in
and asked if I was hunting and I said yeah.
He said you kill anything, and I said yeah, I've
killed a giant and he said, send me a picture.
So I see him photo of it. Well, he's proud
of me, you know, kill something like that, you know,
and it's kind of his old stomping grounds where this
is at. And he was super proud of me. So
(33:01):
he chilled that picture. Two or three people. Well, Fort
Woods having big buck contest this time, which I ran,
so he got gets to hold me. Went to if
I'm gonna turn this deer in the big buck other
night and I didn't want to do that and I said, no,
I'm not going to do that with and he said
I want to see that deer. And I said, we'll
come by the house and he had something going on.
He said, bring it over here. I want to look
(33:22):
at that deer. And I said, I don't want to
much people messing around it, you know. The whole time.
I'm worried about getting caught at something, and he's proud
of me. I dry, I said, well, I'll be over
a little bit. I don't want to much. He said,
don't worry about it, just bring it over and said
he's an engineer on for larn Would. And when I
pulled up to where he told me to meet hum Att,
sure two hundred people are waiting to see this deer
(33:45):
and they were snapping photos of that thing. I mean
it was it was. I knew right then that there's
no way I'm going to keep this deer head. Knowing
that it was a county record without a.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Doubt, Donnie's world was about to spend out of control,
and the leading edge of the whirlwind was lies. And
I want to take an official time out for a
minute and ask you, if you had done this, would
you be willing to share with the national podcaster the
minute details of one of the biggest mistakes of your life.
(34:20):
This event is now so long in the past that
he did not have to dredge it up. He's weathered
the storm of personal criticism and character attacks over the
last fourteen years. I'm still myself wondering why He's willing
to be so open with me. I'm not sure why,
but I'm grateful for his openness. I think it's pretty rare.
(34:42):
I feel like I'm living through this, though I personally
don't have to pay the consequences. Stories are powerful. Okay,
so time out is over. We're back in the game,
and we've left Donnie in the parking lot of a
gas station with an unbelievable amount of people who've shown
(35:02):
up after he shared a picture with just one person.
And I've also noticed that Casey's gas stations are on
every corner of Central Missouri. I'm sure it's the cases
that they're out back to Donnie.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
While that's going on, some of the people that I
work with call me asking about this deer that I've killed.
These people I ain't talked to. I didn't realize how
fast that news would travel, but it was unbelievable asked
me to bring the deer by. They wanted to look
at it. So so I went over there and there's
just two or three of the people working there, and
I pulled around, kind of hit my truck around back,
(35:36):
and they were out there looking at it, and a
military guy that works in the hospital, which you can
almost see the junction down there from the hospital, comes
walking around the building and points and he said, I
got pictures of that, dear, and he shows me if
this boy, it looks just like it, don't it? And
he said, oh, it's it. So I loaded up go home.
(35:58):
How did you feel when he said that? I knew,
I really knew when that deer hit the ground how
it was going to turn out. I didn't know it
was going to have a snowball effect that it did.
But so here's oh, at least three hundred people out
of the gate that I've liked to. I can't tell
anybody what really happened. You know how that works. And
it's horrible to kill a two hundred inch deer, and
(36:20):
it was a nightmare from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Donnie just said two things worth noting. I didn't know
it was going to have the snowball effect that it did.
Donnie's talking about what would happen after he got caught,
but also foreshadowing the ripples of crushing incidents that would
follow him in the coming decade. Stuff unrelated to wildlife
crime and punishment. You know, there's a very American ideology
(36:48):
that says, good things happen to good people, and bad
things happen to bad people. You get what you deserve.
Later we'll explore this doctrine and why we all better
pray that it's not true. The second thing he said
was that it was a nightmare from the beginning, but
it just keeps getting worse.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Here's Donnie well that Ford drug. I put gas in it.
When I come back home from Fort Wood at eleven thirty,
I finally want to I'd burned a half tank gas.
Sitting out they run with the headlights on, people looking
at the deer, which is just sickening, and uh, not
telling anybody the truth. My dad and my wife knew
what was going on. Really, So you told your dad
and your wife? Yeah, what did they say? Oh? They
(37:34):
What could they say then? You know?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I mean, were they upset with you?
Speaker 1 (37:38):
They were?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
They were they wanted you to Were they worried about
you getting in trouble? What do you think was going on?
They probably they had the same mindset that I did.
I believe like we just got to hide this. Well,
no that that there was no hide in it by then.
I think they knew from the beginning that this wouldn't work.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
What it was? Your dad mad at you? Yeah, he
was upset. He My dad is a huge supporter of mine,
so is my wife, and I think both of them
believe that I'd hunt that deer down and kill it.
I think they both had faith that I could kill
that deer, right. You know. My dad looked at it,
you know, but it wasn't You told him, Dad, I
killed this deer illegally. Yeah. What do he do?
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Did?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I mean? Literally? What did he do? Did he shake
his head? Did he he? He just said, boy, that's
a that's a big old deer to not kill, right.
And like I said, he didn't. He didn't jump all
over me. Of course, I'm you know, I'm of adult age.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
That's a big old deer not to kill, right, His
dad said. We haven't talked about him yet, but Donnie's
dad is an influential player. I met him and shook
his hand and looked him in the eyes. He was
wearing a pair of overalls. He's a humble, earnest man
with a gray beard like a lion's mane. He's retired
now after a noble career in the autobody repair industry.
(38:55):
Donnie revealed to me that he was skeptical of me
wanting to hell the world about his son's story, and
I get it. He felt his son had already paid
enough for his sins. We'll get into it more in
episode two. Yep, this is gonna be a two part series.
But after the death of Donnie's wife, Angela, his dad
(39:17):
stepped up to help raise Donnie and Angela's two boys.
Donnie and his father are extremely close. It's a long story,
but now I have a hard question for Donnie. My
wife wasn't as frustrated at me as I'm sure that
he was. But I know my dad and my dad
thought I could kill it deer. Would your dad have
(39:40):
I mean, how would break in the law have been
viewed inside of your family's world.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
We weren't big lawbreakers? Really, he didn't. I wasn't a poacher.
A hunted, right, That's why all my prize possession Deer
one hundred and thirty and forty engineer, I could.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Really you can you you can honestly say you didn't.
And I'm not saying I think everybody's broken the law before.
I mean, if you've hunted as much as I know
you've hunted, and as much as I've hunted people have
I broke the law before, But I have dedicated my
self for most of my life to not breaking the law. Really,
(40:16):
you didn't go and kill deer illegally before this?
Speaker 1 (40:19):
No, I never killed I've never killed an extra turkey.
I just I can't think of and I'm sure I have,
But like killing deer off the road and stuff, he
just wasn't a hunted hard. When you spend all your
time in a tree stand, you're not driving the roads.
And I know I've broken the law, I'm sure, but
it wasn't something we were used to. Wasn't like I
(40:40):
was just wearing the roads out shooting deer off the roads. Yeah,
never with olid and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I don't have a long history with Donnie to know
fully if he's telling me the truth. But as I
look into his eyes and have witnessed the openness of
which he's already spoken, I believe him. I was able
to look up his criminal record with the Missouri Department
of Conservation, and they've recorded what some would consider, including me,
(41:07):
a few minor violations, like a ticket for not wearing
hunter's orange during firearm season. I've done that, but not
being caught and a few other things. So by the
definition of the law, at this point in our story,
he's not a convicted poacher, but he's about to get
smacked hard, or is he? And by now you're starting
(41:30):
to draw your own conclusions about who Donnie is, because
that's really what we're all trying to do.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
We already know that he's guilty, but what we're really
trying to answer, at the most simple level is is
this a good person? And from that answer we'll make
our judgments about him. We'll decide if we can forgive him.
But is that even fair? Can a man's entire life
be judged by one isolated incident? I think most of
(42:00):
us like the idea of saying no to that, but
in reality, we judge people like that all the time,
or at least I do. The law delivers a much
needed standard in society and a prescription of justice, But
the law is imperfect, and a human, a judge, a jury,
an officer has to decide how justice is delivered. It's
(42:24):
really not straightforward at all, and from this position, all
manner of injustice is delivered. It works out good for
some and bad for others. This injustice is a major
problem on planet Earth and has been for a long
long time. And like I said in the beginning, we're
going to discuss how is a society we demand justice,
(42:47):
extend mercy, and accept or reject apologies. We're constantly subject
to politicians, athletes, movie stars, and religious leaders who've messed
up and are asking for our forgiveness. Some we give
it to and others we withhold it. I think we
can learn a lot about ourselves by who we extend
(43:09):
mercy too. But good gravy, I'm getting way way ahead
of myself. Donnie still got a giant deer in the
back of his truck. Let's get back in the game.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
So I cleaned the deer. We're leaving in five days
or so to Wyoming for a mule deer in aneloe punt.
And I haven't heard anything about this deer for three
or four days. You think you've gotten away with us
in a way, in a way, So I took the
deer to a taxidermists and he said, don't go anywhere.
I'm o cape that I don't want them antlers here.
(43:46):
And to get back there was I don't know how
many all my family come to see it, you know,
and that's probably the worst part. I had a in
church on the Sunday morning. The preacher asked me about it.
That was probably the hardest one. You know, it's rough,
and I'm not I'm not pitiful me at all. I
mean I killed it there and uh went to to
(44:07):
a hunt in Wyoming for about a week. So on
the way back, a guy calls me, calls my cousin
that's with me. He goes, hey, I want to let
you know they're they're planning on coming to getting you
soon as you get back. They've been investigating this deer.
So when I get when I get back to work,
I'm a nervous erect pins and needles all day. The
whole day goes by, close up shop, go home. Not
a word, and I thought, well, maybe he heard false
(44:30):
or teasing me about it or something, because I, like
I said, there was there was a few people, a
handful or more that that knew that that where that
deer came from. So the next day go back to
work and pulled my jeep up to the front door
and was locking up the safe and I don't know,
three or four agents come through and said hey, we
need you to come with us. And I said, I
(44:52):
mean what for? He said, you know what for? Anyway,
they rested me, not forcefully. I knew almost all the
agents in there, you know, and they knew I wouldn't
put up a fight or anything. And we went to
building fifty two to eighty two, which was the game
Warden's game Warden station. When we got there, there was
I believe three fort Leonardwood agents, a couple of Pulaski
(45:14):
County agents, a Shannon County agent, at least five or six,
and one of them was it was a polygraph guy. Anyway,
they opened up their computer and there's that picture that
guy had showed me, and he shows me like five
or six of them. They have you hooked to a
polygraph now. Yet they never hooked me up, just we
were just having conversation. They also had a guy that
(45:35):
had worked for the crimes unit that could tell time
of death on people, and they had brought him into
but they were there to get me understandably anyway, So
I said, I told him I killed it where I
said I killed And we went on for hours.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
At this point, you're still lying, yeah, absolutely, I mean
you're just like a like a animal trapped in a corner.
You got no choice, That's what That's what you're thinking
felt like in your mind.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Well, in my mind, I thought, if they find out
that I killed it out here in federal insalation, not
checked into a hunting area, my job maybe jail hunt,
you know, I mean that's possible. Yeah, And I thought,
there's no way, I mean, I have to stick to
this now. Did you not have any sense of just
coming clean at that point, when you were at that
deepning and you knew they had you that not in
the beginning, No, No, I mean I wanted to, but
(46:23):
I wasn't going to in any way, shape or for him.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Finally, after several hours of conversation, though steeped in blood
and knowing the return trip to honesty will be a
difficult one, Donnie knew that they had him. He had
to turn back. The officers made him an offer, guaranteed
him he wouldn't lose his job, and told him what
the punishment would be if he confessed, and he did.
(46:49):
The twenty six year old confessed to killing the buck
in the restricted hunting area and falsifying where he killed it.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
And I told him the whole story. It was the
biggest relief I had. But I knew I had five
hundred people I was gonna have to tell this too
as well, you know, apologize, and a couple of them
that had figured out what was going on while I
was in Wyoming were pretty aggravated at me. You know,
people that wouldn't have lied to me about it. I
don't think then I liked to. I had two cousins
(47:19):
on my dad's side after this it all went down,
and I'd lighted them too. They spent multiple nights while
I was in Wyoming with a camera driving up and
down that road trying to get a picture of that
deer to prove it was alive. You know, I had
people really going to bat for me over this, and
like I said, I think if I'd have been a poacher,
them guys wouldn't have been doing that. If I'd been
somebody they knew that that was you know, spot liar
(47:42):
and stuff that they would say, well, you probably didiculate her.
But but I lost a lot of respect from some people.
You know, they were pretty aggravated at me, and rightfully
so so when I told them that though Clay I
hadn't hardly slept since I'd killed that deer. It was
one of the big leaves. Even though when you told
(48:03):
the wildlife ofught Y, yeah, it just it was a
big burden. It was a heavy burden, you know, to
lie to everybody about it.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
The heavy burden of carrying a lie lifted when Donnie confessed. However,
it was just the beginning of a string of events
that would change his life. Now that we've heard the story,
I've got some questions on how is the society we
handle people who've done wrong, broken the law, or even
(48:34):
just offended us. I've got a few questions for doctor
Misty Nukem, who's got a PhD in political science and
a master's in human development. I think she's pretty sharp,
and as many of you know, this is my wife,
and as usual, she's got some good insight. Here's Misty.
(48:55):
I'm interested in, how is a society we decide how
we handle people that break the law, and not even
just the written law, but people that break some moral law.
How do we decide who we ostracize, who we forgive?
What goes into that?
Speaker 3 (49:12):
Well, I think that one of the things that goes
into that is thinking about forgiveness and thinking about apologies.
A lot of times forgiveness is given when an apology
is made, and I think inside of social science, a
lot of times when you look at things that are
kind of more common to us, a lot of times
you're surprised by what you find out. The intuitive answer
is not the thing you find. But with an apology,
(49:36):
it's kind of different. It is actually exactly what you
would expect people. If I were to ask you, like,
what makes an apology good, you would probably say the
same thing that social science has realized. A good apology
is when someone takes responsibility and expresses sympathy or remorse
for the impact that that has had on others. That's
like considered a good apology. And if you think back,
(49:57):
the people that you probably find it easiest to forgive
would be people who.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Said they personal responsibility.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Acknowledge that it hurt you. Sometimes, it's interesting to me
inside of forgiveness. It's one of those things that has
a really powerful impact on the person extending forgiveness and
also on the person that's requesting forgiveness. It almost takes
you by surprise when someone is genuinely humble and exercises
humility and says, hey, what I did was wrong.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
How does it work in a situation where like someone
in the public arena that we don't know, we don't
have a personal relationship with, and they may not necessarily
have a podium to stand on and say I would
like to make a formal apology to the world. As
in the case I'm dealing with here is I have
a man who is committed an egregious wildlife crime and
(50:47):
he has to go back into his community. What are
the people looking for?
Speaker 3 (50:52):
I think they're looking for the same thing. Did he
take personal responsibility? Does he exercise or express remorse?
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Well?
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Would other options?
Speaker 3 (50:59):
And do you have some that he won't do it again?
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Well, that's big.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
I think it's really big is that the regret is
significant enough and he recognizes it's wrong enough that he
won't do it again. It makes you think higher of
their moral character.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
As I analyze my own self, which that's what I'm
doing inside the situation, I'm analyzing not what I've been
taught or what I think I think, but actually, what
is it about a situation that makes me think this
is a good guy and he's really sorry, or they
should lock that guy up. I think what I really
want to know is do I think this guy would
(51:35):
do it again? Do I think he's lying to me?
Do I think he is not taking personal responsibility?
Speaker 3 (51:41):
Because that's what lying is, is not taking personal responsibility.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Right, or saying I did it and it was wrong, but.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
That's why you said.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
One of the alternatives, And I think one of the
alternatives is to justify or excuse it. I think it's
really easy to say, here's why did it wrong and
give an explanation. But what it sounds like to the
receiver is justification. It sounds like I'm saying I did wrong,
but here's why, and it's kind of justified. And I'm
not super sorry.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
About it, because we don't like that at all.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
No, we don't like that at all. And if you
look at like public relations and public communication, when people
make apologies like that, people are very slow to forgive.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Social science can be complicated, but it sounds like an
apology is straightforward and intuitive. But why do so many
people struggle with it? Why do people struggle with admitting fault.
I give Donnie a lot of credit for owning up
to what he did and taking personal responsibility. I was
surprised with how upfront and honesty was. But more than
(52:42):
his words, it was his tone. I didn't feel like
he was trying to prove anything to me. He didn't
seem bitter, but he did tell me that the first
few years after it happened, things were very different, but
time has taken out a lot of wrinkles and put
it into perspective. For him, defensiveness justification lying a refusal
(53:04):
to admit guilt as a form of control. An apology
is a release of that control. I think this is
helpful for me to understand, even for everyday life, the
art of authentically apologizing is one of the most powerful
tools a human can have. We could say that again,
(53:25):
so the folks in the back could hear the art
of authentically apologizing as one of the most powerful tools
a human could have. That's some bear gree stuff right there.
Turns out I need to apologize quite a bit. It's
usually for hoots, shame and somebody, or discrediting their claim
for seeing some kind of wildlife that doesn't exist where
they live, or belittling Brent's beloved tricolor coonhound. Occasionally it's
(53:49):
for more serious things. Here's doctor Nukeomb on authenticity.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
This is my misty's personal opinion. I think we're pretty
good at assessing the authenticity of fault because humility is
something that I think is very difficult to face.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
It's almost like a humility is almost like a pheromone
that is released that is not seen in facial express
or you can see through any external thing. You can
see through words that are said. Like two people could
stand and read the same apology and one mean it
and onenot they have the same grin on their face.
(54:26):
They could have the same humble remorse on their face,
but we're like, he was genuine. And I think it
goes right back to our humanness, Like we are more
than just a compilation of biological functions. We have a spirit,
we have a soul. We're connected to something bigger than
this biological thing we live inside of. That's what makes
(54:49):
us human. And we sense really the deep internal mechanisms
of a person's heart when they say they're sorry. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
And I think even like you're describing it as a permal,
I can't back that up with research, but I know
it was just an analogy that I know even if
you're watching on TV and someone comes out and apologizes.
There's this thing in us that's like, hmm, I don't know,
I don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
And everybody has a response immediately immediately. I think the
best way to think about this is what would you
expect from someone who had personally done you wrong? And
you pretty much expect that from everybody at every level. Yeah,
if your brother deeply offended you, how could he make
it right? Like he might actually have to fix what
(55:37):
he did, repair the car that he backed into. He
would also have to genuinely apologize I'm very sorry for
the inconvenience, and not blame the dog that ran out
behind him and say it was my fault.
Speaker 1 (55:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
Ninety nine percent of people would be appeased by that. Yeah,
I mean kind of expect that at all levels, Like
a politician, if you're a governor does something wrong, if
you're president, if your boss at work, you kind of
expect the same thing.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
Yeah, and there's always a little bit of tension until
you get it. I think an apology is so simple,
but it really has such a powerful healing impact.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
This was an interesting story to put together. I realized
that I've not told the whole story. There are many
other avenues we could have explored, but mainly I'm grateful
to Donnie for opening up to us. As I left
Donnie's house after the interview, his champion rabbit beagles were
(56:38):
barking in the background. His father walked around in front
of the garage to arrange the details of who would
pick up Donnie's son from school, but Donnie had to
run back inside to get some sports gear for his
son's ball practice, and I stood alone with his father
for a few minutes. I smiled and shook his hand
again before I left, knowing that that he didn't fully
(57:01):
understand or maybe even trust, why I was there. I
told the old man that I wouldn't purposely do anything
that would hurt Donnie, and that I respected his son's
courage and openness to look this kind of thing in
the face and tell this story when he could have
just let it lie. But mostly I respected Donnie for
(57:21):
being a different man than he was fourteen years ago,
and I think that would be hard to dispute. A
phrase used in our context might be is he a
reformed poacher? A question meaning has he changed his ways?
And at this point I do not have twenty years
of personal history with the man to tell you if
(57:43):
that's fully true, if he's fully reformed. I wish I
could proclaim that, but that seems a bit irresponsible. But
I don't think that's the best question. I mean, what
does it even mean to be reformed? That a fellow
promises to never make a mistake again. Only Donnie knows
if he's really changed and how much. But I'll tell
(58:04):
you that I do believe he's changed, and I do
have decades of history with myself, and I can't proclaim
that I'm fully reformed, though I strive every day. Donnie
telling his story wasn't exactly an apology, but it was
a display of humility taking personal responsibility, and I'm proud
(58:26):
to now call Donnie Baker a friend. I'd hunt with
him any day. About midway in this story, I said,
we better hope that we don't get what we deserve.
It's possible for a statement like that to strike a
person as odd, because it would have struck me as
odd at one time in my life. But I've come
(58:48):
to learn that what I perceive as my own valor,
or the perception of a decent life, is but filthy rags.
I sure hope I'm not coach by my worst day.
On the next episode, we'll learn about Donnie's conviction and punishment,
and the severity of it might surprise you, and things
(59:10):
will get very personal as he tells about the cascade
of incidents in his life in the following decade. I
can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. Happy
(59:32):
New Year to everyone, and as we start this new year,
I hope you'll follow along Brent and I on our
journey through rural America. These stories are meaningful to us
and I just can't thank you enough. Please leave us
a review on iTunes and share our podcast with a
friend this week, and please be sure to check out
our new audio original on Audible. It's available now. It's
(59:57):
called Meat Eater's American History, The Long Hunters seventeen sixty
one to seventeen seventy five. I hope you all have
a great week.
After a ballgame one evening under a street lights. First
time I seen him. The first time I seen him,
I was one hundred percent sure he's two hundred inch deer,
which I'd never seen a while deer with two hundred
inch and still at that time wanted to kill this deer.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Right, we're slipping into the year twenty twenty four behind
the dull thwack of a bow string as a steel
tipped arrow arches into the throat patch of a two
hundred and four and four to eight inch drop time
Missouri whitetail buck. This might sound like a moment of celebration,
(00:39):
but you'd be mistaken if you thought that. For this archer,
it was the beginning of a nightmare. On this episode,
we're going to reveal the details of an egregious wildlife crime.
But we won't be talking to the warden who cracked
the case or the property owner of where the buck
was poached. We're going to talk to the guy who's
(00:59):
squeak the trigger, who devised a plan to falsify the
location of the kill and decided the only thing that
he could do was live. We will meet the man who,
in two thousand and nine illegally killed a Boone and
Crockett class buck on the Fort Leonardwood Military base near Waynesville, Missouri.
It's a rare occurrence when someone is willing to open
(01:22):
up about their failures. But that's exactly why I was
intrigued by this story and this man, this poacher. However,
as the hackles of justice rise on your neck, I
want to raise a question of my own. How is
a society do we judge criminals? How do we decide
if we demand justice or extend mercy? How do we
(01:46):
decide who to forgive? Because it's clear that each situation
is treated differently, we'll learn that it has a lot
to do with how the accused apologize. I'm interested in
the metrics use to evaluate this story. We'll be talking
with an expert to learn more. But the answer of
(02:06):
this should be evident because you likely cast judgment and
forgiveness almost daily, and the answer will shine deeply into
our humanness, our value systems, and sometimes our own hypocrisy.
And hey, if you want to hear all about and
I mean all about how poaching this giant deer went down,
(02:26):
then you're not going to want to miss this one.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
To walk up on him and grab his antlers. You
should feel the most excitement you've ever had in your life,
other than like one of your kids being born or something.
And I kind of have the opposite feeling, and immediately
I thought, there's no way that I'm going to get
away with this.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
My name is Clay Nukem, and this is the Bear
Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.
Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and
(03:15):
fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the
place as we explore. As I travel through central Missouri,
(03:39):
stopping at gas stations, having lunch in a small town
catfish restaurant, I'm struck by how mid American this place is.
The geographic center of America is Lebanon, Kansas, but I'd
be tempted to think that it's Dixon, Missouri, which is
derned near the center of the show me state. And
I really like miss Zuri like the gouy center of
(04:02):
a cinnamon roll. The people are hospitable, genuine and modest.
They seem more trusting than the exterior parts of America.
My trip up here started about a week prior. I'd
been contacted by a guy paying Brent and I a
much appreciated compliment when he slipped in a few sentences
that caught my attention like a mule when a feed
(04:24):
bucket rattles. He wrote, I killed a two hundred and
four inch buck on Fort Leonard Wood in two thousand
and nine. I let greed in the thought that I
had to kill him to be a man get the
best of me. A buddy of mine posted a picture
on a website and it blew up. Two weeks after
I killed him, I was arrested at work and things
(04:47):
got bad. The message continued on with more details, but
he insinuated that his life unraveled after the event in
the bigger way than the confiscations and fines instituted by
a government agency. Something about him and the story caught
my attention. It wasn't just the size of the buck,
(05:08):
but a rare genuineness in him. I caught the whiff
of a man who'd been through the ringer, and I
figured yet a unique angle on life. At first, I
didn't know what his motivation would be for talking, but
I was about to find out. In my next message,
I asked if he'd be willing to tell this story publicly.
(05:28):
To my surprise, he said that he would. I want
you guys to meet Donnie Baker of Dixon, Missouri. He's
forty years old, a widower, a father of two teenage children.
He loves to run beagles and bowhunt, and by trade,
he's a telecommunications technician. But before we meet Donnie, I
(05:49):
would like to strike a deal with you, the listener.
I'll tell you the story if you will keep in mind.
So all I'm asking you keep in mind that he
didn't have to tell us this one. He didn't have
to tell us about one of the worst moments in
his life. He didn't owe that to me or you.
(06:09):
He volunteered it. And in a way, he's putting himself
on public trial again. We're going to hear the case
and make a judgment. These events took place over fourteen
years ago, So our deal is that you just keep
that in mind. Now we're going to dive right into
the story with Donnie. Where do you think a good
(06:34):
place to start would be.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Probably about the first time I seen that, dear yeah,
would have been in two thousand and seven. I was
playing softball in Fort Leonard Wood and the guy that
ran the league on Fort Wood's name is John Clapp.
After a ballgame, he hollered at means and I guess
they call it like a bird's nest or whatever. It's
a tower in between all the fields. He said, come
(06:58):
up here, I want to show you something. When I
got up there, that buck was out there feeding. It
was a big mainframe ten and on its right beam
it had it just looked like a softball. It's a
big knot, and that's what they called it was softball.
The ballplayers that year, everybody had eventually seen it. The
deer was always down there by, and it was after dark,
you know, it was being illuminated by the ballfield lines.
(07:20):
And after I saw it, my wife and I were
dating at the time. We drove around many nights looking
for him and seeing him. Seeing him a few times
that year. He would have probably been closer to a
one hundred and fifty inch deer at that time.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
This story begins with almost biblical vibes to me, like
when King David looked off the balcony and saw Bathsheba
bathing on the rooftop below. She was off limits married,
and David knew it that something took seed in David's
heart and he began to devise a plan to apprehend
the Contraband This isn't exact exactly the sequence of what
(08:01):
happened with Donnie.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
It was a.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Different internal track towards violation, and as it turns out,
there are uncountable circuitous ways that can lead a man
to it. Fort Leonard Wood is a sixty one thousand
acre military base in central Missouri, near the towns of
Waynesville and Saint Roberts. It's about an hour northeast of
(08:23):
Springfield and two hours west of Saint Louis. It's open
to all kinds of hunting for people who have a
permit and take a training course. However, there are areas
where you cannot hunt, and this is important to remember.
Large sections of the base are off limits to hunting,
and everyone knows this. This is common for military bases
(08:43):
where the public is allowed to hunt. But what I
have not told you yet is that Donnie worked on
the base. He started the base's first archery pro shop,
owned by the military, designed to service the soldiers and
their families who wanted to bow hunt. Donnie was an insider,
(09:04):
and if you're like me, you probably just got your
justice and Judgment scorecard out and are keeping track of
the data points. And this tidbit is not favorable. When
you saw this deer, like what what were you thinking?
Were you thinking, I want to.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Kill us deer? Yeah, and at that time it really wasn't.
It moved a couple of times. It was close to
a hunting area. There was a few people hunting him there.
He was coming out of a legit hunting area and
I hunted that area. But honestly, when I went to hunting,
I'd say it was probably the tenth person to see
that deer. So when I went to that area to
(09:41):
hunt it, there was just looked like the Walmart parking lot.
You know, anybody see that deer would hunt it. And
it just took a little That was in the beginning
of season and that was it for him. So I'm
sure the pressure or whatever he went to wherever he hides,
Like what was your mind frame at that time in
your life? Would you have broken the law before? And
you would have thought I'd do whatever it takes to
(10:02):
kill that deer. I'm maybe, but he wasn't. I seen
the deer a couple times after that and probably could
have done something, but at the time, killing it wrong
it wasn't what I was trying to do. I'd like
to kill that deer right. Killing him illegally wasn't even
I really didn't consider it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I'm sitting on a brown cloth couch across from Donnie,
who's in a leather recliner in his comfortable, modest home
outside of Dixon. The room is full of handsome shoulder
mounted bucks killed by he and his son, most of
which are archery kills. I'd shaken this man's hand for
the first time all of thirty minutes before this conversation.
(10:47):
I'm surprised by how comfortable he is telling me this story,
and by how much it seems like he's telling me
the real story. He isn't justifying his actions, he's not defensive,
and for this, on my checklist, he gets some points
for genuineness. I'm mesmerized by every word of this story,
(11:08):
literally on the edge of my seat. But I'm also
looking into his soul, trying to discern if he's telling
me the truth, and I think he is. I ask
him for more details. In eight, i'd heard stories of
people seeing him, but I don't. I don't believe I
ever saw him in O eight. When O nine come
around summer of nine, everybody that hunts out there drives
(11:32):
around of an evening right at dark to see where
the deer are.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I mean, it's just just something you can do. There's
a lot of roads on Fort Wood and you can
find something to hunt like that and not lighting them
or anything, but just a dusk. And it's playing ball
at the time. One evening after ball, I make the
circle in an Army street. It's a street that connects
Nebraska and First Street, and after a ball game, one
evening under a street lights, first time I seen him.
(11:56):
And that'll play into some of this as well, that
that deer had seen a lot of people and it
wasn't as wild as as some deer. I'm sure the
first time I seen him, I was one hundred percent
sure he's two hundred inch deer, which I'd never seen
a wild deer with two hundred inch and still at
that time wanted to kill this deer.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Right, He gets honesty points by telling me the deer
was accustomed to human presence. Often people leave out parts
of stories that are less flattering, adding in parts that
make them seem competent. I think I probably do that
a lot. Donnie didn't have to say that about the deer,
and the stakes also just got a bunch higher in
(12:36):
two thousand and nine, when the deer was now believed
to be over two hundred inches. I've seen pictures of
this buck. He's a mainframe ten point over twenty inches
wide with two dagger like four inch kickers coming off
the right base. He's got a big flyer off the
G two, which is the second time, and the cherry
(12:58):
on top is that he he's got a Grade A
American classic tenants drop time with a black lump on
the end. You know what I'm talking about if you
are a whitetail antler officionado. The left antler is a
typical five point side with a cluster of small drop
times just below the G two. The deer is a
(13:19):
jaw dropper, and for any serious whitetail hunter, the two
hundred inch mark is a pinnacle number that I'd guess
ninety nine percent of hunters will never even see a
deer that big in the woods much less kill one
and as a culture, we've been messing around with giving
cultural value to big antlers for over one hundred and
(13:40):
fifty years, so we know they make people do crazy things.
But here's an analogy for the uninformed to describe the situation.
Everybody sees money all the time that they don't have
permission to take, like when you see cash and a
cash register at the store, and hunters see bucks pretty
often that they don't have permission to take. So here's
(14:01):
an analogy. The difference between seeing a one hundred and
twenty five inch eight point, which would be a handsome
buck anywhere in the country, and seeing a two hundred
inch buck would be akin to seeing one hundred dollars
bill on the table, which would be the eight point,
next to a stack of one hundred thousand dollars cash,
(14:24):
which would be the two hundred incher. It's a big divide,
But Donnie wasn't planning on taking the one hundred k
off the table. He planned to earn it fair and square,
and he had proven that in the previous years. But
so goes the plans of mice and men. And I
have a quick question for you. Just think about this
(14:46):
should the size of a buck matter in a poaching case? Secondly,
a more personal question, would you go easier on a
poacher that killed a basket rack eight point versus a
hundred hundred and fifty inch deer? And if you have
a clear answer, tell me why. Let's get back to
(15:06):
Donnie though. Here's a description of where the buck lived.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Through the rest of the summer getting into the fall. See him,
I think, six times, always in the same place, on
the same street. What that deer done. He lived in
a little little block of brush behind a dining facility.
And this deer's in the place you could legally hunting. No, sir,
I never seen it in a legal hunting area. It
was one hundred percent no. It was a contonement area.
(15:33):
There was a running track there, dining facility, people parked
around there. I mean it was defined. I mean everybody
that hunts their nose, you cannot kill this.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So at that time, where you considering hunting it illegally?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
No? At that time, I set cameras where I would
see deer leave that area going into hunting areas because
I knew, however he winted those hunting areas, he would
come back the same way. He was pretty calm deer.
And I don't know if I never did get a
picture of him, never did get a game camera picture
of you.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
At the time, Donnie was twenty six years old and
he was a solid white tailed bow hunter and an
archery expert. Remember he started the archery shop on the base.
He'd formulated a solid strategy to hunt this buck legally. However,
an early October evening drive would hijack his plan and
(16:21):
his character. And I've got a second question for you.
Does premeditated intent matter if the results are the same
a dead buck or a crime committed, Why does the
intent matter? Just think about it. But we're going to
go back now to the character hijack. Here's Donnie October
(16:43):
fourth of nine. I'd till through the day I was
allowed to shoot my bow. I could help people shoot,
and I go down the range take my bow and
help sight in their bows and stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I'd shot my bone. I mean, I was dressed by
like I am here, in blue jeans and probably I'm
sure it was cool evening. I'd say, probably a camel hoodie.
I'd shot my bow a little bit. I was driving
a white Ford four door truck with a topper on it.
I hit Army Streets soon as work was over, and
when I was going to drive down through their see
if I could see him. And as I'm driving down
Army Street and it's it's not quite dusk yet, there's
(17:15):
quite a bit of light. I looked to my left
and he's standing where I've seen him two or three times.
I thought, good grief.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
This good grief moment combined a new trio of circumstances
that Donnie had yet to confront. He'd seen the buck
multiple times over the last two years and never attempted
to illegally kill it. However, this was the first time
he'd seen it. Number one during the archery season, number
two when he had a bow in the truck, and
(17:46):
number three it was now a two hundred inch deer
that was in striking distance standing in the ditch. It
was a one two three judo kick that knocked him
out cold. Every encounter up until this point had been
buffered by barriers Donnie was unwilling to cross. However, this
one was new. I think Biblical references are fair game
(18:11):
here because of the influence of Judeo Christian ideology and
American culture, whether you realize it or not. Early in
this ancient book, in Genesis chapter four, there's the story
of Cain who killed his brother Abel because of jealousy.
Prior to the murder, he was warned to watch out
for crouching sin. It reads, then the Lord said to Cain,
(18:37):
sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you,
but you must rule over it. This is a really
fundamental and foundational aspect of human life that people have
to deal with whatever they want to call it. If
they want to call it sin evil doing something wrong,
like we all have this kind of code that we
(18:57):
live by in our cultures. The Bible it wasn't the
only book that talked about this, but it really helped
introduce it to civilization. Life is a series of unfolding opportunities,
often out of our control, but we are in control
of how we respond to those opportunities. But the age
old question is how much temptation can a person resist
(19:20):
until they break their declared value system, until they're unable
to rule over the power of the crouching evil. The
ancient philosopher Socrates exhorted people to know thyself, which he
was saying be aware of your limitations, be aware of
your motivations, and make educated adjustments to your life based
(19:40):
on this knowledge. The universal nature of the cane Able
story is profound because its application isn't just in murder, poaching,
or bank robbery. It's in the small decisions in our
lives that no one else sees. Now we're back to
(20:03):
Donnie in the truck with this bow within striking distance
of a crouched lion.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So I drived in Nebraska, turned around, and when I
come back, I'm looking over there. Where he was at
was because he was seventy five to one hundred yards
off the road and he's nowhere to be seen. I thought, well,
he spooked and I turned to my left and he
was right in the road ditch on the north side
of the army, I mean right there. And that's when
I put it all together. There's a huge culvert there.
It's almost a concrete bridge. He wasn't crossing over the highway.
(20:31):
He was walking under it, so as I kind of
hit my brakes and it spooks him a little bit
and he hops down to the timber line. Well, when
he gets to the timberline, in front of him are
two really good bucks. It was a massive, huge eight
point with little bitty brow tines and a really nice ten.
So I pulled down. There's a running track there and
some porta potties. So I pulled down to those porta
(20:52):
potties and I thought, I thought I could kill it
deer right there. And like I said, it was just
just kind of I don't know if you ever when
you was a kid shot at a bird on a
sitting in a tree or something, just kind of and
then when you do kill it, you think, oh man,
that's kind of what I went through there. But I
knew it was a non hunting area, so I grabbed
my bow and and just jeans and boots, and well
(21:15):
behind the porta potties up this little rise and there
was a big old red oak that had died and
fell over. And when I got to that red oak,
I was considering if I should hucker down there or
climb over it. And as I'm as, I'm contemplating that.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
So I mean, at this point, you've made a decision,
You're legally kill this.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, And let me ask you this.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
I mean, I think every human has experienced a moral
dilemma of being given an opportunity that they know is
wrong and then not taking it.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, but then.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
There's like this this suck, this drawl, something happens that
all of a sudden you cross into a red zone
and it's something flips.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, well was at this time, Clay I had I
had I'd had twenty two in my truck multiple times
from squirrel hunting when I'd seen this deer. You know,
if I had set out to poach this deer, I mean,
I could have shot it many times. But when I
saw that deer for the first time, I said, I've
got to kill that deer. I mean, he just felt
(22:16):
like that was almost a rite of passage for people
who think that I was a good quality bow hunters.
I was gonna have to kill this monster deer.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
There's some profoundness in Donnie's honest, simple conclusion of his motivation.
He was a twenty six year old man hungry for
validation from the world around him, and killing a big
deer with his bow was a pathway to gain respect.
I get it. I remember when the picture of the
(22:46):
first decent deer that I killed hung on the wall
at the local bow shop, and I soaked up any
validation that I could get from anywhere. Validation for grand
feats are important in a young man's life or a
young woman's life, but when they're stolen, the system is
cheated and it produces the opposite of what it's supposed to.
(23:07):
It's supposed to create identity and self confidence and a
sense of worth, but what it actually creates is insecurity
when it's stolen. But let's get back to Donnie. Here's
what happened.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
So when I knew where that deer was going to go,
I knew it was illegal, but never really give that
a consideration. Just the only thing I was saying about
is wanting to kill it deer. I needed to kill
that deer some reason. I just thought that that's something
I had to do. And as they get to that
red oak, I'm considered if I need to climb over
(23:42):
to hunker down there, And it's just a few yards
off of it's a high line, and it's kind of
it's pretty clean. There's a little brush there. As I'm
I'm sure, I'm moving around, and I look up in
that big ten is twenty five yards from me, staring
at me. Well, he blows and takes off running, and
I thought gosh, dang. I mean I blew that up,
still not thinking, you know, hope nobody's seen me or whatever.
(24:03):
And as I watched them cross Army Street, I look
back where they were, and probably thirty five yards behind him,
that bucks stand there staring right at me, wide open
between he and I. I really believe if he was
a National Forest wild deer, he'd have been gone to
you know. I shoot a single pin hha side, and
(24:24):
I had had an arrow knock. I knocked narrow forore.
I set my bow on that red oak, trying to
side where I was gonna try to get so I
draw my bow back and he's still just standing there.
I mean, he's looking right at me. I know that
if I can fall it into his front end, high
success rate killing him. And I put that pin right
underneath his nose, just right about the top of his
white patch and turn it blues.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I wonder how long it took at him after sinking
his teeth through the skin of the forbidden apple, to
regret his decision. The bite initiated a sequence of unretractable consequence.
Man's always had a problem with laws, breaking them, that is,
But laws are the guideposts of societal security designed for
(25:10):
the well being of us. All the truth is is
that everybody wants some form of law in their life
to protect them and their interests, even in a time
in America where we're talking about liberty and freedom and
laws take away all this stuff, which I am generally
absolutely in agreement with. However, I'm telling you we all
(25:30):
love laws, but we like to cherry pick. The ones
that we'd like to break are the ones that infringe
upon our personal freedom. And it's kind of bizarre. Human
life is complex, society's complex. As I'm sitting here with
Donnie hearing this story for the first time, I am
(25:50):
struck with a palpable sense of remorse as the arrow
drifts through the air and hits the buck just below
the throat patch. Later we'll learn that as a society
we demand remorse from the people who've cheated the system.
But I'm way ahead of myself. The buck has just
(26:11):
been shot.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
First thing I think is I shot him right in
the front leg. And that was the first sick feeling
I got in bout I thought, oh my gosh, I
just woined that monster, dear, and shouldn't he been doing this?
And that's still running through my mind when I hear
him crash, and then reality starts setting in good grief.
So I set my bow down, ease up to the eye,
look around, make sure there's no cars coming down the highway.
(26:34):
And there's nobody really in that area at that time.
Nobody had to run and track where I was parking
with him, So I, instead of blood trailing him, I
kind of stay out of sight, and I sneak down
there where I thought I heard him crash and he's
laying there dead, and to walk up on him and
grab his antlers. You should feel the most excitement you've
ever had in your life, other than like one of
your kids being born or something. And I kind of
(26:56):
had the opposite feeling. And I immediately I thought, there's
no that I'm going to get away with this.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
There's no way that I'm going to get away with this.
That's an interesting thought to slide across a man's mind
moments after an egregious error. The imminent doom of being
guilty often brings the onset of Shakespeare's Macbeth syndrome, when
he said, quote, I am in blood steeped in so
(27:26):
far that should I weigh no more returning were as
tedious as going over. A modern way to say that
would be I'm so deep in this thing covered in
blood that to turn back now would be as treacherous
as continuing forward. And this thing brings Donnie to another
juncture of decision. What does he do now?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Well, as I'm looking at this deer, it broke one
of its brow tines off, falling there. I can see
where it's antlers that hit the dirt, and I'm kind
of wiping around looking for that antler, expecting it to
be stuck in the dirt. It's probably still there today
if it hasn't right it away. And I hear car
doors slam, and I walk down and look, and there's
a couple of people pulled up to this running track,
which is just one hundred yards from me at the time.
(28:12):
So I get that buck he's right on the right
on the high line edge, and drag him deeper in
the brush and just sit down there. I'm thinking my
truck's blocking most poor to John sitting there with the
keys in it. You know this isn't going to turn out. Well, Well,
these people get out, get on the track, and don't
They're not there for five minutes, it seems like two hours.
(28:32):
But now it's getting pretty dark, so they get in
their cars and leave. I'm sitting there contemplating, do I
take this deer out now? If I leave it, will
it be found before daylight or somebody see it or
kyots get it? You know. I'm a nervous track. I
go back down walk out to, you know, try to
like if somebody over there I just left or whatever.
Nobody around. I reparked my truck in a parking spot
(28:55):
and think what I'll do is I'll drag that deer
back where I went in the woods, which isn't that fart,
but it's a big old here, guts still in it.
I didn't want to get it there because I did
not want to leave any evidence, you know, So I
drag it back down to where my truck was. Nobody
ever came to the running track. I back it up
as close as I can, right beside those port of
potties to try to help hide me in it and all.
(29:16):
And I get that deer loaded in the back of
that truck with its guts in it, which was unreal.
I get it in that truck, get everything closed up,
and I start getting kind of a feeling of peace,
like I'm gonna pull this off. When I pull out
onto Army to turn back to leave Fort Leonard Wood,
I see a car coming. I don't think anything about it.
And as I'm easing up Army, it was an MP
(29:37):
and you know, I mean trembling, shaking, Oh my gosh,
I've they followed me down Nebraska all the way to
Missouri Boulevard, right towards the main gate. And I mean
I went by many places that I would expected the
MP to turn around to go back to patrol, and
he is right behind me, I mean right on me,
follows me right out the north gate. By now I
think I'm thinking, what am I going to say? They're
(29:57):
going to pull me over? You know, I'm just caught.
And as I go by a gas station, they're all
Star Gas. That people pulls into that gas station. That
guy was going to get a pack of cigarettes or
a soda or something, I'm sure. And I go on
up to almost I forty four. There's there's a car
wash parking lot there and I pull in and get
(30:18):
out and look at the truck and there is blood
all over that tailgate, and the thought of that was
where I made the mistakes that I'm gonna make to
get caught, the mistake I made shooting the deer. But
then it gets in my head so bad. All I
can think about is that blood and that mp FA
on me. So I drive home and uh, all the
(30:39):
way home, I'm thinking. What I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna get up early in the morning. There's there's no
more physical checking in, you know, it's all tailcheck. I
can sign into my hunting area by a computer. I've
got tree stands there. I'm gonna take him out there,
drag him out in front of that stand, gut him,
break him all loose, give it about an hour, tail
check him, and go to the house. Like I said, Clay,
(31:02):
I've still not gotten excited with this deer. You know,
the biggest deer I've ever killed my life. I'll probably
never kill or even see a deer that size. I
didn't kill right, which was weighing on me pretty heavy.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
There are a lot of options in the English language
that could be used to describe what Donnie had done.
I think the one he used is interesting. I didn't
kill it right, And here begins the classic cascade of
one live being fixed by mora lies like a fox
and a snare. It's a trap as old as mankind.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So as I'm thinking about this, I get thinking about
that MP and that blood on that tailgate, and will
they be looking for this truck if I drive this
truck through you know, everything's surveillance there. If I drive
this truck through the man gate, will they say, we
need you to come over here check me out and
see why there was blood all over my truck. So
I set up all night thinking about this, and I
advised a plan that I would just just say that
(31:57):
I killed it at my house. So the next morning,
at daylight, I go up behind my house and in
a place I was allowed to hunt, taking back to
one of my old tree stands, just fields in a
road all the way to it, and I unload that deer,
drag him down in the woods and ways gut him,
go back and get my truck. I get thinking that
I've got to have proof that I was here, So
(32:19):
I drive all the way to the next little town
and get gas on a debit cards save my receipt.
You know, I was getting pretty deep by now. Talk
to a few people so I could say that the
people had seen me there, you know, and that's dragging
people into something that they don't even need to, you know,
go back out. I loaded the deer, and a cousin
(32:40):
of mine, a very close cousin mine, messaged me in
and asked if I was hunting and I said yeah.
He said you kill anything, and I said yeah, I've
killed a giant and he said, send me a picture.
So I see him photo of it. Well, he's proud
of me, you know, kill something like that, you know,
and it's kind of his old stomping grounds where this
is at. And he was super proud of me. So
(33:01):
he chilled that picture. Two or three people. Well, Fort
Woods having big buck contest this time, which I ran,
so he got gets to hold me. Went to if
I'm gonna turn this deer in the big buck other
night and I didn't want to do that and I said, no,
I'm not going to do that with and he said
I want to see that deer. And I said, we'll
come by the house and he had something going on.
He said, bring it over here. I want to look
(33:22):
at that deer. And I said, I don't want to
much people messing around it, you know. The whole time.
I'm worried about getting caught at something, and he's proud
of me. I dry, I said, well, I'll be over
a little bit. I don't want to much. He said,
don't worry about it, just bring it over and said
he's an engineer on for larn Would. And when I
pulled up to where he told me to meet hum Att,
sure two hundred people are waiting to see this deer
(33:45):
and they were snapping photos of that thing. I mean
it was it was. I knew right then that there's
no way I'm going to keep this deer head. Knowing
that it was a county record without a.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Doubt, Donnie's world was about to spend out of control,
and the leading edge of the whirlwind was lies. And
I want to take an official time out for a
minute and ask you, if you had done this, would
you be willing to share with the national podcaster the
minute details of one of the biggest mistakes of your life.
(34:20):
This event is now so long in the past that
he did not have to dredge it up. He's weathered
the storm of personal criticism and character attacks over the
last fourteen years. I'm still myself wondering why He's willing
to be so open with me. I'm not sure why,
but I'm grateful for his openness. I think it's pretty rare.
(34:42):
I feel like I'm living through this, though I personally
don't have to pay the consequences. Stories are powerful. Okay,
so time out is over. We're back in the game,
and we've left Donnie in the parking lot of a
gas station with an unbelievable amount of people who've shown
(35:02):
up after he shared a picture with just one person.
And I've also noticed that Casey's gas stations are on
every corner of Central Missouri. I'm sure it's the cases
that they're out back to Donnie.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
While that's going on, some of the people that I
work with call me asking about this deer that I've killed.
These people I ain't talked to. I didn't realize how
fast that news would travel, but it was unbelievable asked
me to bring the deer by. They wanted to look
at it. So so I went over there and there's
just two or three of the people working there, and
I pulled around, kind of hit my truck around back,
(35:36):
and they were out there looking at it, and a
military guy that works in the hospital, which you can
almost see the junction down there from the hospital, comes
walking around the building and points and he said, I
got pictures of that, dear, and he shows me if
this boy, it looks just like it, don't it? And
he said, oh, it's it. So I loaded up go home.
(35:58):
How did you feel when he said that? I knew,
I really knew when that deer hit the ground how
it was going to turn out. I didn't know it
was going to have a snowball effect that it did.
But so here's oh, at least three hundred people out
of the gate that I've liked to. I can't tell
anybody what really happened. You know how that works. And
it's horrible to kill a two hundred inch deer, and
(36:20):
it was a nightmare from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Donnie just said two things worth noting. I didn't know
it was going to have the snowball effect that it did.
Donnie's talking about what would happen after he got caught,
but also foreshadowing the ripples of crushing incidents that would
follow him in the coming decade. Stuff unrelated to wildlife
crime and punishment. You know, there's a very American ideology
(36:48):
that says, good things happen to good people, and bad
things happen to bad people. You get what you deserve.
Later we'll explore this doctrine and why we all better
pray that it's not true. The second thing he said
was that it was a nightmare from the beginning, but
it just keeps getting worse.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Here's Donnie well that Ford drug. I put gas in it.
When I come back home from Fort Wood at eleven thirty,
I finally want to I'd burned a half tank gas.
Sitting out they run with the headlights on, people looking
at the deer, which is just sickening, and uh, not
telling anybody the truth. My dad and my wife knew
what was going on. Really, So you told your dad
and your wife? Yeah, what did they say? Oh? They
(37:34):
What could they say then? You know?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I mean, were they upset with you?
Speaker 1 (37:38):
They were?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
They were they wanted you to Were they worried about
you getting in trouble? What do you think was going on?
They probably they had the same mindset that I did.
I believe like we just got to hide this. Well,
no that that there was no hide in it by then.
I think they knew from the beginning that this wouldn't work.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
What it was? Your dad mad at you? Yeah, he
was upset. He My dad is a huge supporter of mine,
so is my wife, and I think both of them
believe that I'd hunt that deer down and kill it.
I think they both had faith that I could kill
that deer, right. You know. My dad looked at it,
you know, but it wasn't You told him, Dad, I
killed this deer illegally. Yeah. What do he do?
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Did?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I mean? Literally? What did he do? Did he shake
his head? Did he he? He just said, boy, that's
a that's a big old deer to not kill, right.
And like I said, he didn't. He didn't jump all
over me. Of course, I'm you know, I'm of adult age.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
That's a big old deer not to kill, right, His
dad said. We haven't talked about him yet, but Donnie's
dad is an influential player. I met him and shook
his hand and looked him in the eyes. He was
wearing a pair of overalls. He's a humble, earnest man
with a gray beard like a lion's mane. He's retired
now after a noble career in the autobody repair industry.
(38:55):
Donnie revealed to me that he was skeptical of me
wanting to hell the world about his son's story, and
I get it. He felt his son had already paid
enough for his sins. We'll get into it more in
episode two. Yep, this is gonna be a two part series.
But after the death of Donnie's wife, Angela, his dad
(39:17):
stepped up to help raise Donnie and Angela's two boys.
Donnie and his father are extremely close. It's a long story,
but now I have a hard question for Donnie. My
wife wasn't as frustrated at me as I'm sure that
he was. But I know my dad and my dad
thought I could kill it deer. Would your dad have
(39:40):
I mean, how would break in the law have been
viewed inside of your family's world.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
We weren't big lawbreakers? Really, he didn't. I wasn't a poacher.
A hunted, right, That's why all my prize possession Deer
one hundred and thirty and forty engineer, I could.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Really you can you you can honestly say you didn't.
And I'm not saying I think everybody's broken the law before.
I mean, if you've hunted as much as I know
you've hunted, and as much as I've hunted people have
I broke the law before, But I have dedicated my
self for most of my life to not breaking the law. Really,
(40:16):
you didn't go and kill deer illegally before this?
Speaker 1 (40:19):
No, I never killed I've never killed an extra turkey.
I just I can't think of and I'm sure I have,
But like killing deer off the road and stuff, he
just wasn't a hunted hard. When you spend all your
time in a tree stand, you're not driving the roads.
And I know I've broken the law, I'm sure, but
it wasn't something we were used to. Wasn't like I
(40:40):
was just wearing the roads out shooting deer off the roads. Yeah,
never with olid and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I don't have a long history with Donnie to know
fully if he's telling me the truth. But as I
look into his eyes and have witnessed the openness of
which he's already spoken, I believe him. I was able
to look up his criminal record with the Missouri Department
of Conservation, and they've recorded what some would consider, including me,
(41:07):
a few minor violations, like a ticket for not wearing
hunter's orange during firearm season. I've done that, but not
being caught and a few other things. So by the
definition of the law, at this point in our story,
he's not a convicted poacher, but he's about to get
smacked hard, or is he? And by now you're starting
(41:30):
to draw your own conclusions about who Donnie is, because
that's really what we're all trying to do.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
We already know that he's guilty, but what we're really
trying to answer, at the most simple level is is
this a good person? And from that answer we'll make
our judgments about him. We'll decide if we can forgive him.
But is that even fair? Can a man's entire life
be judged by one isolated incident? I think most of
(42:00):
us like the idea of saying no to that, but
in reality, we judge people like that all the time,
or at least I do. The law delivers a much
needed standard in society and a prescription of justice, But
the law is imperfect, and a human, a judge, a jury,
an officer has to decide how justice is delivered. It's
(42:24):
really not straightforward at all, and from this position, all
manner of injustice is delivered. It works out good for
some and bad for others. This injustice is a major
problem on planet Earth and has been for a long
long time. And like I said in the beginning, we're
going to discuss how is a society we demand justice,
(42:47):
extend mercy, and accept or reject apologies. We're constantly subject
to politicians, athletes, movie stars, and religious leaders who've messed
up and are asking for our forgiveness. Some we give
it to and others we withhold it. I think we
can learn a lot about ourselves by who we extend
(43:09):
mercy too. But good gravy, I'm getting way way ahead
of myself. Donnie still got a giant deer in the
back of his truck. Let's get back in the game.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
So I cleaned the deer. We're leaving in five days
or so to Wyoming for a mule deer in aneloe punt.
And I haven't heard anything about this deer for three
or four days. You think you've gotten away with us
in a way, in a way, So I took the
deer to a taxidermists and he said, don't go anywhere.
I'm o cape that I don't want them antlers here.
(43:46):
And to get back there was I don't know how
many all my family come to see it, you know,
and that's probably the worst part. I had a in
church on the Sunday morning. The preacher asked me about it.
That was probably the hardest one. You know, it's rough,
and I'm not I'm not pitiful me at all. I
mean I killed it there and uh went to to
(44:07):
a hunt in Wyoming for about a week. So on
the way back, a guy calls me, calls my cousin
that's with me. He goes, hey, I want to let
you know they're they're planning on coming to getting you
soon as you get back. They've been investigating this deer.
So when I get when I get back to work,
I'm a nervous erect pins and needles all day. The
whole day goes by, close up shop, go home. Not
a word, and I thought, well, maybe he heard false
(44:30):
or teasing me about it or something, because I, like
I said, there was there was a few people, a
handful or more that that knew that that where that
deer came from. So the next day go back to
work and pulled my jeep up to the front door
and was locking up the safe and I don't know,
three or four agents come through and said hey, we
need you to come with us. And I said, I
(44:52):
mean what for? He said, you know what for? Anyway,
they rested me, not forcefully. I knew almost all the
agents in there, you know, and they knew I wouldn't
put up a fight or anything. And we went to
building fifty two to eighty two, which was the game
Warden's game Warden station. When we got there, there was
I believe three fort Leonardwood agents, a couple of Pulaski
(45:14):
County agents, a Shannon County agent, at least five or six,
and one of them was it was a polygraph guy. Anyway,
they opened up their computer and there's that picture that
guy had showed me, and he shows me like five
or six of them. They have you hooked to a
polygraph now. Yet they never hooked me up, just we
were just having conversation. They also had a guy that
(45:35):
had worked for the crimes unit that could tell time
of death on people, and they had brought him into
but they were there to get me understandably anyway, So
I said, I told him I killed it where I
said I killed And we went on for hours.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
At this point, you're still lying, yeah, absolutely, I mean
you're just like a like a animal trapped in a corner.
You got no choice, That's what That's what you're thinking
felt like in your mind.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Well, in my mind, I thought, if they find out
that I killed it out here in federal insalation, not
checked into a hunting area, my job maybe jail hunt,
you know, I mean that's possible. Yeah, And I thought,
there's no way, I mean, I have to stick to
this now. Did you not have any sense of just
coming clean at that point, when you were at that
deepning and you knew they had you that not in
the beginning, No, No, I mean I wanted to, but
(46:23):
I wasn't going to in any way, shape or for him.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Finally, after several hours of conversation, though steeped in blood
and knowing the return trip to honesty will be a
difficult one, Donnie knew that they had him. He had
to turn back. The officers made him an offer, guaranteed
him he wouldn't lose his job, and told him what
the punishment would be if he confessed, and he did.
(46:49):
The twenty six year old confessed to killing the buck
in the restricted hunting area and falsifying where he killed it.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
And I told him the whole story. It was the
biggest relief I had. But I knew I had five
hundred people I was gonna have to tell this too
as well, you know, apologize, and a couple of them
that had figured out what was going on while I
was in Wyoming were pretty aggravated at me. You know,
people that wouldn't have lied to me about it. I
don't think then I liked to. I had two cousins
(47:19):
on my dad's side after this it all went down,
and I'd lighted them too. They spent multiple nights while
I was in Wyoming with a camera driving up and
down that road trying to get a picture of that
deer to prove it was alive. You know, I had
people really going to bat for me over this, and
like I said, I think if I'd have been a poacher,
them guys wouldn't have been doing that. If I'd been
somebody they knew that that was you know, spot liar
(47:42):
and stuff that they would say, well, you probably didiculate her.
But but I lost a lot of respect from some people.
You know, they were pretty aggravated at me, and rightfully
so so when I told them that though Clay I
hadn't hardly slept since I'd killed that deer. It was
one of the big leaves. Even though when you told
(48:03):
the wildlife ofught Y, yeah, it just it was a
big burden. It was a heavy burden, you know, to
lie to everybody about it.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
The heavy burden of carrying a lie lifted when Donnie confessed. However,
it was just the beginning of a string of events
that would change his life. Now that we've heard the story,
I've got some questions on how is the society we
handle people who've done wrong, broken the law, or even
(48:34):
just offended us. I've got a few questions for doctor
Misty Nukem, who's got a PhD in political science and
a master's in human development. I think she's pretty sharp,
and as many of you know, this is my wife,
and as usual, she's got some good insight. Here's Misty.
(48:55):
I'm interested in, how is a society we decide how
we handle people that break the law, and not even
just the written law, but people that break some moral law.
How do we decide who we ostracize, who we forgive?
What goes into that?
Speaker 3 (49:12):
Well, I think that one of the things that goes
into that is thinking about forgiveness and thinking about apologies.
A lot of times forgiveness is given when an apology
is made, and I think inside of social science, a
lot of times when you look at things that are
kind of more common to us, a lot of times
you're surprised by what you find out. The intuitive answer
is not the thing you find. But with an apology,
(49:36):
it's kind of different. It is actually exactly what you
would expect people. If I were to ask you, like,
what makes an apology good, you would probably say the
same thing that social science has realized. A good apology
is when someone takes responsibility and expresses sympathy or remorse
for the impact that that has had on others. That's
like considered a good apology. And if you think back,
(49:57):
the people that you probably find it easiest to forgive
would be people who.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Said they personal responsibility.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Acknowledge that it hurt you. Sometimes, it's interesting to me
inside of forgiveness. It's one of those things that has
a really powerful impact on the person extending forgiveness and
also on the person that's requesting forgiveness. It almost takes
you by surprise when someone is genuinely humble and exercises
humility and says, hey, what I did was wrong.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
How does it work in a situation where like someone
in the public arena that we don't know, we don't
have a personal relationship with, and they may not necessarily
have a podium to stand on and say I would
like to make a formal apology to the world. As
in the case I'm dealing with here is I have
a man who is committed an egregious wildlife crime and
(50:47):
he has to go back into his community. What are
the people looking for?
Speaker 3 (50:52):
I think they're looking for the same thing. Did he
take personal responsibility? Does he exercise or express remorse?
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Well?
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Would other options?
Speaker 3 (50:59):
And do you have some that he won't do it again?
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Well, that's big.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
I think it's really big is that the regret is
significant enough and he recognizes it's wrong enough that he
won't do it again. It makes you think higher of
their moral character.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
As I analyze my own self, which that's what I'm
doing inside the situation, I'm analyzing not what I've been
taught or what I think I think, but actually, what
is it about a situation that makes me think this
is a good guy and he's really sorry, or they
should lock that guy up. I think what I really
want to know is do I think this guy would
(51:35):
do it again? Do I think he's lying to me?
Do I think he is not taking personal responsibility?
Speaker 3 (51:41):
Because that's what lying is, is not taking personal responsibility.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Right, or saying I did it and it was wrong, but.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
That's why you said.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
One of the alternatives, And I think one of the
alternatives is to justify or excuse it. I think it's
really easy to say, here's why did it wrong and
give an explanation. But what it sounds like to the
receiver is justification. It sounds like I'm saying I did wrong,
but here's why, and it's kind of justified. And I'm
not super sorry.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
About it, because we don't like that at all.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
No, we don't like that at all. And if you
look at like public relations and public communication, when people
make apologies like that, people are very slow to forgive.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Social science can be complicated, but it sounds like an
apology is straightforward and intuitive. But why do so many
people struggle with it? Why do people struggle with admitting fault.
I give Donnie a lot of credit for owning up
to what he did and taking personal responsibility. I was
surprised with how upfront and honesty was. But more than
(52:42):
his words, it was his tone. I didn't feel like
he was trying to prove anything to me. He didn't
seem bitter, but he did tell me that the first
few years after it happened, things were very different, but
time has taken out a lot of wrinkles and put
it into perspective. For him, defensiveness justification lying a refusal
(53:04):
to admit guilt as a form of control. An apology
is a release of that control. I think this is
helpful for me to understand, even for everyday life, the
art of authentically apologizing is one of the most powerful
tools a human can have. We could say that again,
(53:25):
so the folks in the back could hear the art
of authentically apologizing as one of the most powerful tools
a human could have. That's some bear gree stuff right there.
Turns out I need to apologize quite a bit. It's
usually for hoots, shame and somebody, or discrediting their claim
for seeing some kind of wildlife that doesn't exist where
they live, or belittling Brent's beloved tricolor coonhound. Occasionally it's
(53:49):
for more serious things. Here's doctor Nukeomb on authenticity.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
This is my misty's personal opinion. I think we're pretty
good at assessing the authenticity of fault because humility is
something that I think is very difficult to face.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
It's almost like a humility is almost like a pheromone
that is released that is not seen in facial express
or you can see through any external thing. You can
see through words that are said. Like two people could
stand and read the same apology and one mean it
and onenot they have the same grin on their face.
(54:26):
They could have the same humble remorse on their face,
but we're like, he was genuine. And I think it
goes right back to our humanness, Like we are more
than just a compilation of biological functions. We have a spirit,
we have a soul. We're connected to something bigger than
this biological thing we live inside of. That's what makes
(54:49):
us human. And we sense really the deep internal mechanisms
of a person's heart when they say they're sorry. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
And I think even like you're describing it as a permal,
I can't back that up with research, but I know
it was just an analogy that I know even if
you're watching on TV and someone comes out and apologizes.
There's this thing in us that's like, hmm, I don't know,
I don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
And everybody has a response immediately immediately. I think the
best way to think about this is what would you
expect from someone who had personally done you wrong? And
you pretty much expect that from everybody at every level. Yeah,
if your brother deeply offended you, how could he make
it right? Like he might actually have to fix what
(55:37):
he did, repair the car that he backed into. He
would also have to genuinely apologize I'm very sorry for
the inconvenience, and not blame the dog that ran out
behind him and say it was my fault.
Speaker 1 (55:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
Ninety nine percent of people would be appeased by that. Yeah,
I mean kind of expect that at all levels, Like
a politician, if you're a governor does something wrong, if
you're president, if your boss at work, you kind of
expect the same thing.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
Yeah, and there's always a little bit of tension until
you get it. I think an apology is so simple,
but it really has such a powerful healing impact.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
This was an interesting story to put together. I realized
that I've not told the whole story. There are many
other avenues we could have explored, but mainly I'm grateful
to Donnie for opening up to us. As I left
Donnie's house after the interview, his champion rabbit beagles were
(56:38):
barking in the background. His father walked around in front
of the garage to arrange the details of who would
pick up Donnie's son from school, but Donnie had to
run back inside to get some sports gear for his
son's ball practice, and I stood alone with his father
for a few minutes. I smiled and shook his hand
again before I left, knowing that that he didn't fully
(57:01):
understand or maybe even trust, why I was there. I
told the old man that I wouldn't purposely do anything
that would hurt Donnie, and that I respected his son's
courage and openness to look this kind of thing in
the face and tell this story when he could have
just let it lie. But mostly I respected Donnie for
(57:21):
being a different man than he was fourteen years ago,
and I think that would be hard to dispute. A
phrase used in our context might be is he a
reformed poacher? A question meaning has he changed his ways?
And at this point I do not have twenty years
of personal history with the man to tell you if
(57:43):
that's fully true, if he's fully reformed. I wish I
could proclaim that, but that seems a bit irresponsible. But
I don't think that's the best question. I mean, what
does it even mean to be reformed? That a fellow
promises to never make a mistake again. Only Donnie knows
if he's really changed and how much. But I'll tell
(58:04):
you that I do believe he's changed, and I do
have decades of history with myself, and I can't proclaim
that I'm fully reformed, though I strive every day. Donnie
telling his story wasn't exactly an apology, but it was
a display of humility taking personal responsibility, and I'm proud
(58:26):
to now call Donnie Baker a friend. I'd hunt with
him any day. About midway in this story, I said,
we better hope that we don't get what we deserve.
It's possible for a statement like that to strike a
person as odd, because it would have struck me as
odd at one time in my life. But I've come
(58:48):
to learn that what I perceive as my own valor,
or the perception of a decent life, is but filthy rags.
I sure hope I'm not coach by my worst day.
On the next episode, we'll learn about Donnie's conviction and punishment,
and the severity of it might surprise you, and things
(59:10):
will get very personal as he tells about the cascade
of incidents in his life in the following decade. I
can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. Happy
(59:32):
New Year to everyone, and as we start this new year,
I hope you'll follow along Brent and I on our
journey through rural America. These stories are meaningful to us
and I just can't thank you enough. Please leave us
a review on iTunes and share our podcast with a
friend this week, and please be sure to check out
our new audio original on Audible. It's available now. It's
(59:57):
called Meat Eater's American History, The Long Hunters seventeen sixty
one to seventeen seventy five. I hope you all have
a great week.
Host
Clay Newcomb
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