August 13, 2025 • 54 mins
A Special Agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for over 20 years, Ed Newcomer worked in Los Angeles in a variety of international posts before retiring in 2022. During his career, he conducted numerous high-profile international wildlife trafficking investigations involving every continent, including Antarctica, and is known for bringing down some of our planet's most notorious wildlife criminals. He is a recipient of the Humane Law Enforcement Award from the Humane Society of the United States and holds a record six Law Enforcement Awards from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.
Listeners can learn more about Ed Newcomer on his podcast - Nature’s Secret Service, and on LinkedIn @EdNewcomer
In February 2004, an Idaho hiking trail became a deadly crime scene when 58 elk-meat “meatballs” laced with a lethal pesticide were scattered in a known wolf habitat. The suspect’s goal? Kill endangered gray wolves. What followed was an extraordinary, boots-in-the-snow investigation involving forensics, environmental science, and sheer tenacity.
In this episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, and Ed Newcomer, a retired special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, walk us through the forensic lab breakthroughs that tied the poison, the elk meat, and even a suspect’s boots directly to the scene. Along the way, you'll hear how a rookie game warden’s decision to bag “yellow snow” ended up sealing the case.
If you’re heading to CrimeCon, don't miss Sheryl and Ed on the main stage for Creator’s Row. They’ll be covering another unbelievable wildlife crime case live and in person. Y’all are gonna want a front-row seat!
Highlights:
- (0:00) Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum welcomes Ed back to Zone 7
- (1:30) Poison: sneaky deadly, and a nightmare to investigate
- (3:00) Yellowstone wolves: hunted down, written off, and finally restored and protected
- (6:45) A dog finds a meatball... and the day goes downhill from there
- (12:00) 58 meatballs, one drainage area, a hiking trail, and a whole lot of collateral damage
- (18:00) A hunting boot with a missing nub becomes a critical lead
- (21:15) Rookie collects “yellow snow” (and yes, it matters later)
- (24:00) Forensics lab confirms the type of meat and poison
- (25:45) “If I see a wolf, I’m gonna kill it.” A memorable encounter from years prior helps hone in on a suspect
- (32:45) Search warrant yields boots, poison, elk blood, and hostile bumper stickers
- (40:00) DNA results confirm the elk in the poisoned meatballs came from the suspect’s home
- (43:00) Why being a wildlife officer is one of the most dangerous law enforcement jobs
- (45:45) Influenza, frozen urine, and a guilty plea
- (53:45) “It all starts with the wolves.” —Peter Wohlleben
If you’re enjoying Zone 7, please consider leaving a rating and review —it helps others discover the show and supports our mission to share these stories.
---
Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnline, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a collaboration between universities and colleges that brings researchers, practitioners, students, and the criminal justice community together to advance techniques in solving cold cases and assist families and law enforcement with solvability factors for unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnapping cases.
Social Links:
- Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
- Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
- Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
- Instagram: @officialzone7podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
He's back. Ed Newcomber a special agent with the US
Vision Wildlife Service. Y'all know he's been over twenty years there.
He's got his own podcast, Nature's Secret Service. Several of
y'all know about that. Y'all check that out. It is
quite frankly phenomenal. But we have brought him back because
(00:32):
he has got a case that you are not gonna believe.
And what's important about this case to me, if you
can work in this case, you can work any homicide
out there. So, Ed Newcomber, thank you so much for
coming back.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Well, Mac, thanks for having me. I love your show
and I love being on your show. It was such
a great time last time I had to accept are
you kidding?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And let me tell y'all, anybody coming to Crime Con,
you're gonna be able to see him live and in person.
We are going to be on the main stage for
the Creator's Row. We are going to be live at
Crime Con doing a Zone seven in person, and Ed's
going to be right there and you will not believe
(01:21):
the case we're going to cover there in person. And
it's the first time Wildlife Crimes will be at Crime Con.
So comes all, right, Ed, this case involves poison, and
I got to tell you those are difficult cases, and
(01:42):
they're difficult to me because almost anybody can obtain poison.
It's sub level. It's not like a gunshot where people
can hear it. It's not like arson where people can
smell it. I mean, this is something that the killer
they don't even have to be there when the death occurs.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
You know, you're absolutely right. I never really thought of
it that way. But poison is a very sneaky weapon, right.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
It is so sneaky. I mean, you can be in
another state, you can have a solid alibi, theres nowhere
near there, you have time to get away, there won't
be any eyewitness or ear witness, and it wouldn't matter anyway.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You're not there exactly. It's kind of the perfect weapon
for a criminal to use because you know, like you
just said, they can actually take the time to put
distance between themselves and the victim and the crime scene,
which you know is pretty important if you're trying to
evade capture. And unfortunately, mac poisoning is a pretty common
(02:47):
method for people to commit wildlife crime. Is particularly if
they're trying to kill wild animals for some reason.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Well, that's what took y'all to Idaho. So why don't
you tell us about February two thousand and four. We're
out there trying to reintroduce wolves, so we're trying to
build this population back.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, it might be
really helpful to you and your listeners if we just
kind of back up just a little bit and I
tell you a little bit about the situation with wolves
in the Western United States, particularly around that time in
two thousand and four. Going if we go way back,
let's go back to nineteen twenty six, that's the year.
(03:31):
I know, we're going way back.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
That is hilarious. I thought you were going to say, like,
you know, two thousand and one. No, we're going back,
y'all at eight, play yeas, way back, way back?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Okay, Yeah, So let's go back to nineteen twenty six
in Yellowstone National Park. Remember, Yellowstone was like the first
national park in the world. It's often considered America's greatest idea.
The last wolf was killed in Yellowstone National Park in
nineteen twenty six, and that's what's called extirpating a species,
(04:08):
which means they're not necessarily extinct. Wherever around the world,
but they no longer exist in the ecosystem where they
used to so pretty much by nineteen twenty six, the
United States had been well on its way to extirpating
or killing all of the wolves that they could in
the United States, and by that time there's just a
(04:29):
small pocket of wild wolves living in the Great Lakes area.
They're gone basically from the Rocky Mountains now. That turned
out to be kind of an environmental disaster because it
allowed elk and deer populations to explode, which had all
these cascading effects on the environment. And as early as
(04:51):
nineteen forties, people started to talk about maybe we should
bring wolves back to fix kind of this imbalance. That
didn't happen until nineteen ninety five, when the US Fish
and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service finally decided
we're going to bring wolves back to Yellowstone and certain
parts of Montana. And that effort really started in nineteen
(05:17):
ninety five and a number of wolves were brought down
from Canada. They were captured, and they were released in
the park and they started to do phenomenally well. A
lot of deer, a lot of elk were there for them.
They were specialists in killing deer and elk, and it
started to put the ecosystem back into balance unfortunately, well
(05:39):
fortunately for the wolves, but also unfortunately for the wolves.
As they prospered, they moved their packs, started to move
outside the park and to populate their natural, previous, historical environment.
And unfortunately, wolves get a bad rap and it's not warranted,
(06:00):
it's not earned, and a lot of hunters and ranchers
just hate them and they try to Some of those
guys are willing to break the law and they'll try
to kill them at every opportunity. Because wolves had been extirpated,
when they were re released, they were automatically listed as
threatened under the Endangered Species Act, which gave them protection.
(06:24):
And as we know from my last appearance on the show,
violations of the Endangered Species Act are a criminal violation,
and that law is enforced by special agents of the
US Fish and Wildlife Service. So there's a little history, Mac,
but that kind of brings us up to this case
(06:46):
that happened in February of two thousand and four. It
turned out to be an amazing, an amazing investigation done
by a special agent with the US Fish and Wildlife
service named Scott Brigonier. And the reason I know so
much about this case is because when I heard about it,
I was an agent in Los Angeles. I didn't do
(07:06):
wolf cases. You know, we don't have wolves down there.
But I was so fascinated by the high quality work
that this agent and Idaho State Gay Morton's did. It
was an amazing crime scene investigation. It involved forensics, it
involved great detective work. And ultimately, as I tell you
(07:27):
this story, I think you're just going to be kind
of blown away. You want me to just jump in now.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I'm so sorry. I was so captivated. I'm sorry I
was listening and not talking.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I didn't know if you wanted a chance to like
Pepper in questions, yes.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Go on. I was just sitting there literally keep it in,
because that's honestly what was happening. I was sitting there
so captivated. Is like, oh my lord, what is going
to happen? Because even though I know the facts of
the case. So let's just go right back. Yes, I
want you to just jump right in.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Okay, So let me set the scene for you. It's
now February twentieth, two thousand and four. We're almost ten
years into wolfree introduction. They're doing great. They have expanded
their territory. They've moved out into Idaho. And there's an
area in Idaho known as the Wagonhammer Drainage and it's
(08:26):
a popular place for people to go hiking and walk
their dogs and things like that. So on February twentieth,
two thousand and four, a local resident in Idaho is
out walking her dog and the dog finds a meatball.
We all know what a dog will do if it
finds a meatball, It'll gulp it down before you can
(08:46):
do anything about yu. Yeah, well that's what happened, and
within a few minutes, the dog goes into convulsions, starts
foaming at the mouth, drops over, you know. Panicues, and
the woman rushes her dog to the veterinarian, only to
learn that the dog's been poisoned. So how now does
(09:10):
the US Fish and Wildlife Service agent get involved? Well,
it turns out that the Wagonhammer Drainage that area is
known to be wolf habitat. There are wolves there, and
those wolves are protected by the Endangered Species Act. So true,
just people understanding that wild animals are there, including wolves.
(09:31):
This poisoning incident gets reported to the Idaho Wildlife Department,
so Idaho Fish and Game. Because they know wolves are there,
they notify the nearest special agent with US Fish and
Wildlife Service, who is Scott Burgonier, and Agent Burgonier and
a few game warnings go out to this wagonhammer drainage district,
(09:52):
the hiking trail or drainage area, and suddenly they find themselves.
Imagine this, mac You Normally, if you're a law enforcement officer,
you go into a crime scene. It's that crime scene
might consist of a room or two rooms, or a house,
maybe a yard. But we're now we're talking about acres
(10:14):
and acres of wild land that is potentially your crime scene.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
And as soon as you said drainage, my heart sank
because I thought, how much land are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah, if you look at an aerial map of this,
just imagine it's basically a valley with a river running
through the middle of it, or a creek. And at
this time of year, February and Idaho, it's pretty snowy,
it's cold, and there's snow on the ground. So if
you can imagine that, you have now all these challenges
with just a handful of law enforcement investigators and all
(10:50):
you know is a dog ate a meatball and the
dog was poisoned. So you know, pretty much, I think
if you and I were out there starting this, we'd
be like, let's see if we can find some more meatballs. Right,
So that's exactly what happened Agent Bergoon here and the
state game wardens kind of spread out through this hiking trail,
(11:11):
looking on either sides, looking for meatballs, and it doesn't
take them long before they start to find kind of
golf ball sized holes in the snow, kind of on
either side of the trail, left and right, and they
reached down into these holes, and sure enough they start
(11:32):
to find meatballs about the size of a standard spaghetti
and meatball meal. And they obviously think they're onto something,
so they start to collect these meatballs and photograph them
in place and pick them up. Now they also know,
of course, that this dog keeled over within minutes of
(11:55):
consuming one of these, so there's some officer safety issues
here too. They've got to be gloved up. They don't
if there are poisoned meatballs out there, They don't want
to touch this stuff. But in the end, they found
fifty eight meatballs scattered throughout this drainage area, and each
(12:18):
time they found a meat ball, they kind of cracked
it open and inside they found what looked like gray
granulated powder, kind of like almost like a thick gunpowder. Now,
most agents in the US Fishing Wilife Service are very
aware that people tend to use poison to kill predators,
(12:39):
and one of the most common poisons out there to
do that is called temick or also known as aldacarb,
and that is exactly what temck and aldacarp look like.
It looks like a gray kind of beaded powder. So
good job on the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Right, unbelievable and with the dogs plus one, so you know,
you're almost at sixty and you just have to imagine
how many did they not find, how many had already
been consumed.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And on that note, another thing that they started to
find while they're kind of combing this crime scene are
dead animals. They found magpies, which is a federally protected
bird looks like a crow, but it has a white wing.
They found red fox that were dead, and coyotes, And
(13:29):
so if you think about it, these are animals that
are just innocent. They're doing nothing, they're just doing their
thing in the environment, and within minutes of consuming one
of these meatballs, they're dead in place. So it's not
like these animals ate a meatball and wandered off and
died in seclusion somewhere. The agents and the investigators are
(13:51):
finding multiple dead animals across the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
The reality is you're going to have a bayer come
along and ate that. You're gonna have maybe other wolves
come and try to get a carcass that's been poisoned,
and then they're gonna die too.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
One hundred percent. It's that secondary poisoning. It can go
on and on and on in the environment, killing eagles, vultures,
you know, small scavengers, big big predators, all the animals indiscriminately.
It's really an insidious It's an insidious tool to use
(14:30):
to try to kill an animal because there's a lot
of things you're gonna kill.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
And here's what you're really bringing to light for us.
Most people would think poachers are single focused. I'm gonna
go get that one rhino, I'm gonna go get that
one bear. I don't know that people understand if the
poachers are trying to get rid of something that if
(14:59):
they use poison, not only are they going to maybe
wipe out this whole wolf pack, but they're also going
to get maybe the animals that you do care about.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Exactly. And it's so indiscriminate and it's used around the world.
And you know, that's an interesting point you raise, because
there's different kinds of poachers out there. You know, like
there are the guys who don't have a license to
hunt deer, but they go hunt deer anyway. That's one kind. Then,
(15:30):
as you mentioned, there are people out there killing animals
for profit, like elephants for their ivory or rhinos for
their horns. That's a totally different person because they're trying
to commercially profit. Then there are these poachers who do
things out of spite and anger and ignorance honestly. You know,
(15:50):
people who hate wolves because they think wolves are killing
too many deer in elk or sometimes wolves do kill cattle,
and they're going to take it bond themselves to go
back in time one hundred years and make wolves go extinct.
That's not there, you know, that's not their place in
(16:12):
the world. The American people have been trying to reverse
centuries of environmental and habitat destruction. They want wolves back
in the Western United States. It's not up to some
individual poacher to take it upon him or herself to
start killing animals that are of value to the entire
(16:32):
American populace. You know, it's frustrating, especially as a law
enforcement officer, because you do see all of this. You know,
collateral kill and collateral impact that throwing poison out in
the environment causes.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
It's depressing, especially in a drainage way because again you're
already talking about one domestic animal that was almost killed,
but it gets in that water system. I mean, that's
like a bullet. It didn't have anybody's name on It
is just out there.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
To hurt something exactly. And and with this poison in
particular temic, as I said, each meatball was kind of
filled with these granules. If if you accidentally breathed in
just one or two of these particles, or if it
absorbed through your skin, you could become extremely sick and
(17:26):
possibly die. It's just from a few particles of this
getting into your you know ingesting it or breathing it
in or having it. It's it's bad. It's not quite
as quick as fentanyl, but it will kill you, and
it will make you real sick, even small amounts of it.
So it's a very dangerous poison. We you know, fish
(17:47):
and Wildlife special agents receive a lot of training on
how to deal with poisons that they encounter in crime
scenes like this, and we take it real seriously. So
there's another thing that they found during their crime scene
investigation that was very interesting, especially from a forensics point
of view. They found bootprints. And what tied these bootprints
(18:13):
to the meatballs was that in some instances they would
find the hole where the meatball had gone into the snow,
and directly on top of it there would be one
of these bootprints, as if someone had stepped on it
to push the meatball down into.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Wow, hey, that's really good investigative or that's a great
way to articulate what you saw. That explains it to a.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Jury exactly, And it explains why these footprints were zero.
You know, obviously there's hikers there, there's other bootprints, but
these prints seemed to be very closely related to the meatballs.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
But I mean, what are the odds the hiker's going
to stamp on every meatball? You know what I mean?
So I'm just saying that's really good because a lot
of times that's hard to train people. They may really
what they're seeing, but they don't always write it down.
So if somebody took the time to say, hey, on
every single one of these meat balls, we saw this
same bootprint, it looked like it was shoving it down
(19:11):
into the snow, Well, that makes sense exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And as you know, you know, footprints, tire prints can
be very important because if later you find a boot
it gives you something to compare to the print that
you saw out in the field. So very smartly, agent
Bergo and You took very good photographs at right angles
(19:36):
of these footprints because it was snow. Of course, he
couldn't or plaster Paris in there because it would destroy
the print, but he did record the footprints, and that
became very important later because one of the things that
really stands out if you look at a photograph of
one of these bootprints, if you know, if you kind
(19:59):
of were in the world of wildlife and you know hunters,
this bootprint is actually immediately recognizable to you as coming
from a boot made by a company name called Danner
in Oregon, and this particular soul was primarily made for
a boot sold by the Cabella's Outfitting company, so you
(20:20):
might you know Cabella's and Bass Pro shops as an
outdoor supply company, and they exclusively sold this boot made
by Danner that had this very unique tread design which
almost it almost looks like instead of the classic chunky
boot print, it looks like it has points on it,
(20:41):
almost like cleat's little round indentations make up the footprint.
So it's kind of a very wreck There's a lot
of those boots out there, but it's a very recognizable
hunting boot that anybody who's familiar with Danner boots would
know that this is that type of boot. There was
one other thing they found at the crime scene which
(21:03):
turned out to be sort of a joke among everyone,
and that is there was a place in the snow
where there were two of these bootprints right next to
each other, as if the person was standing still, and
in front of the toes of the prints where some
yellow snow, and most of the senior investigators there were like, oh, yeah, well,
(21:29):
somebody took a leak and that's that. But a very
new straight out of the Academy game warden for the
Idaho Department of Fishing game eagerly collected that yellow snow.
Oh yeah, he scooped it up and put it in
a bag and preserved it. And everybody kind of teased
(21:49):
him because they're like, what are you going to get
out of urine that you can't find DNA and a
person's urine, So everybody kind of teased him and kind
of it became a joke. Nonetheless, this yellow snow got
itself booked into evidence. I love it, Okay, As you know,
the yellow snow will come back later in this story.
So the last thing before the investigators walked off of
(22:13):
this crime scene, they found something very very sobering, and
that was on top of one of these bootprints, meaning
something came through the crime scene after the the poison
poacher was a wolf print. Right on top of one
of these bootprints was a huge wolf print, and they
(22:33):
are unmistakable. A wolf print is about the size of
your hand. They're big. And so what it meant to
Agent Brigonier was that after these meatballs had been placed,
at least one wolf had passed through the area. Now,
no dead wolf was found, but it's a little scary
to think that the very species you're trying to protect
(22:56):
did in fact go through this crime scene after these
in fifty eight at least boys and meatballs had been
placed in the environment. Pretty sobering way to start this investigation.
And now as facing all, you know, investigators, you're done
with your crime scene. You've collected fifty eight meatballs, you've
(23:17):
taken pictures of bootprints, you've collected other dead animals, as
you know, collateral kill, you've got your yellow Snow. Now
what right?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So what now? What do you do? Well? Interestingly, the
US Fish and Wildlife Service has its own dedicated criminal
forensics lab. It's called the Clark Baven Forensics Lab, and
it's located in Ashland, Oregon, and their sole purpose is
to support law enforcement investigations involving wildlife crime. So, of course,
(23:54):
agent Bergoan, you're sent the meatballs to the lab for
two things. One is tell me what this meat is
and two what's this powdered granular material inside the meatballs?
He already knew, but he needed scientific forensic evidence. And
sure enough, the lab results come back indicating that the
(24:17):
granular powder was alde carb also known as TEMK, and
that the meat was characteristic of the same tissue that
would come from a North American elk okay, So that's
great information. We know for sure now we got poison
and we know this is elk meat.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And that tells us something about your suspect, you.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Bet, and it gives you something potentially to compare later.
So out of that meat, of course you're going to
get the individual DNA from that particular elk, and that
of course gives you something to compare later, hoping that
your investigation goes somewhere. But now we're really in this
situation where how does agent Burgoonier develop as suspect? How
(25:00):
do we figure out who this was? There's no surveillance
cameras at a hiking trail, there's no witnesses. Nobody saw
anybody hiking around there throwing something. You know, it's a
pretty remote area. And what happens next is, you know,
an investigator could basically go back to the office and
sit and twiddle their thumbs and hope somebody calls in
(25:23):
the tip, or they could really get proactive. And agent
burgoon here was never the kind of guy when he
was working to sit back and twiddle his thumbs. He
was a very proactive agent and he was very well
dialed in with the other law enforcement agencies in that
area of Idaho, So you know, he knew the Federal
(25:48):
for a Service law enforcement, he knew the local police,
he knew the tribal police, he knew everybody, and he
basically put the word out, Hey, I got this case.
There's found some poisoned meat in a wolf area. I'm
trying to figure out who might have put these here.
Anybody have any idea this? I mean, really, that's what
it came down to. And don't you know, it triggered
(26:12):
someone's memory. And it turned out that the Nez Perce tribe,
which is a Native American tribe in that area, employs
their own staff to work on wildlife issues, and they
had a biologist who remembered having an encounter get this
(26:33):
back in nineteen ninety eight with an individual known as
Tim Sundals, and the encounter was so memorable for this
biologist or so unusual that the biologists ended up writing
a memo about it. And the memo basically detailed how
(26:53):
the biologist was out in the field and was approached
by this guy named Tim Sundals, who just started railing
about how he wanted to kill wolves. During that conversation.
Sundle's mentioned to the biologist, and this is a quote
straight from the biologist's memo. He said, quote, do you
(27:14):
think it would work if we dropped a couple of
elk up there and packed them full of poison? Now?
Is this our suspect? Well, we don't know, but he
talks about elk, and he talks about poison. So Bragoner
is better off than he was before he talked to
this biologist.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Even though this was nineteen ninety eight, that's pretty close.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, I mean it's six years, but it's it's something right.
And when you're an investigator, as you know, Mac, when
you're at a loss, you start pulling at threads and
you see whether or not those threads start to unravel.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Well, here's the other thing, ed, if this guy's radical,
those types of folks write things down. That's how we
have Metta festos, that's how we have all these things
posted on social media. They can't stop themselves.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Exactly, and they're proud of what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, because they're right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And one of the other scary things that this individual
said to the biologist, and this is another quote he
said to the biologist, he said, if I see a wolf,
I'm going to kill it, and any fed who comes
and tries to stop me is going to get a
bullet in their back. Now that is.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Well, he goes he goes to the number one slot
for me.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, yeah, I mean for sure wouldn't. As Agent Bergunn,
You're thought, well, hey, this is something I'm gonna I'm
gonna start looking into this person. So he starts to
kind of just do some basic investigations and he finds
out that this Tim Sundles guy was previously invested by
(28:54):
investigated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for killing
a wolf. But interestingly, under the Endangered Species Act, one
of the legitimate reasons you can kill an endangered species
is if it's in self defense. Now, wolves do not
have a history of attacking human beings, but it's possible there.
(29:16):
Average wolf weighs between one hundred and one hundred and
thirty pounds, and yeah, if they wanted to, they could
hurt you. So it turns out back in two thousand
and one, Tim Sundals actually shot and killed a collared wolf,
but when it was investigated by a different Fish and
Wildlife Service special agent at the time, Sundals claimed that
(29:38):
he killed the wolf in self defense and there was
just no way to prove otherwise, so there wasn't a case.
But he now has a history of talking about elk
meat and poison and actually has killed wolves and has
talked about it. So he's looking more and more like
an interesting suspect. And that leads to a search of
(30:05):
the internet. Where As you said, so many suspects will
write things down. And one of the things that Tim
Sundles had going was a chat room and a bulletin
board and a blog, and he loved to post about
his hatred of the federal government and his hatred of wolves.
(30:29):
And Agent Burgunier started to sift through his very you know,
many posts on the Internet, and he saw a lot
of specific hostile language about us fish and while they
have served as special agents, basically you know, denigrating us
as not being very experienced out doorsman and trying to
(30:50):
trick people and the usual. But one of the things
that Agent Burgoonner came across was this very interesting passage
in a blog that Sundals had posted on the internet.
And get this, wait till I read this to you.
This is a direct quote off of that blog. It's
a recipe for how to make poisoned meatballs, add newcomer.
(31:14):
I'm not kidding. He basically lists out how you do it,
and it includes, from his own words, adding a pinch
or two of temick to the center of the beatball
patty and roll it into a ball. It should be
about the size of a golf ball or a little larger.
Sol wolf can swallow it whole without chewing it.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Here's what's blowing my mind. First of all, great job agent.
Second of all, you don't use chicken, you don't use hamburger,
you don't use noodles. I mean you say meatball, Yeah, meatball.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
And he even suggests you can make the meatball out
of beef, elk, or pork. So he's even listed elk
as a possible.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
That's a money tree.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
It's a money tree. And it gets even slightly better.
He even says, place between thirty and forty of these
meatballs out in the environment, and that is almost exactly
the situation that occurred. Now, does this mean that Tim
Sundles is the guy who put the meatballs out there? No,
(32:21):
but he's obviously put this a lot of thought into this.
He's put it out there on the Internet. Unfortunately, anybody
else could have read it and used his modus operande
to do this and followed his instructions. But it's still
right now. He's agent for Gon, your's best and only suspect.
(32:43):
So ultimately there's a little more goes on. There's some
surveillance done of Sundals. He's got a car that has
some really hostile bumper stickers on it about wolves and Feds.
But ultimately all the surveillance and all the Internet searches
lead to enough probable cause to obtain a search warrant
(33:05):
for Tim Sundle's house. And this is where this is
the kind of thing an investigator lives for. You have
developed enough probable cause to convince a judge that you
should be able to go into someone's home or their
car or whatever and search. And that search warrant is
always very specific, as you know, it's you're only looking
(33:26):
to find evidence of the crimes you're investigating, and you
execute those warrants with your fingers crossed, hoping what are
you going to find? You know, am I going to
find something that ties my suspect to that crime scene?
And funny enough, as I think about this case, and
I used to talk about it when I would do
(33:47):
presentations about it while I was an agent myself. I
always remembered something. And you're going to know this to
your low cards principle, right, absolutely, yeah, kind of like
if you're listeners don't know what it is. Low cards
principles kind of like the basic fundamental aspect of forensics.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
And it's true. If you work enough scenes, you will
know it's true.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
It is yes, it is true, and it is amazing
how many times you're out there and you're just like, wow,
this is low cards principle. And the principle, of course,
is that if any two items come in contact with
each other, they will leave traces of themselves on the other.
And that's why it's so, you know, critical to crime
(34:32):
scene investigations because ultimately your goal, right Gerald, is to
you're going to tie the suspect to the crime scene
and the victim at the same time, you know, or
the evidence at the scene, and that's what this search
warrant is hopefully going to do for Agent Brigoni're and
his team. So a month, a month after the poisoning
(34:54):
occurs March twentieth, two thousand and four. They serve a
warrant on Timsun house and the warrant includes the property
around his house, such as the garage and workshops. And
don't you know they go in the front door, and
what do you think they find? Immediately inside the front
door Para Danner hunting boots with those round nubby souls.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Shut your my mouth. Yeah, that's absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
It gets better. One of the things that agent Brigonner
had noticed at the crime scene when he took the
photographs was that it appeared and these these round treads
I'm talking about the only way I can describe them
as nubs. They look like like I said, they look
like a cleat or a nub. And what he noticed
from the print in the snow was it appeared as
if the nubs weren't symmetrical from left to right. And
(35:50):
in his mind, what that meant was one of these
nubs had come off, had been you know, cut off
or scraped off, or you know, just in the process
of hiking around. So he turns the boots over and
what do you know, one of these boots is missing
a nub. So not only do you have a bootprint
that matches the bootprint at the scene in terms of
(36:12):
size and tread pattern. But you've got individual characteristic which
is ub yep. Pretty good evidence.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
That is pretty good all day, pretty good.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
But of course, you know, we're always looking to determine
whether or not does our suspect have an ability here
to create reasonable doubt? So do we know that those
are Tim's boots? Do we know that Tim was wearing
those boots at the time? You know, these are questions.
It's great evidence, but can we put Tim in those
boots on the day of the poisoning? So the search
(36:48):
of the house continues. One of the things, of course,
that they included in their warrant was because Sundels had
been posting on the internet, they grabbed his computer. The
other thing they searched was his garage and his workshop,
And as soon as they opened the doors, they saw
hunting equipment, including saddle bags that had bloodstains on them,
(37:11):
a bone saw, and a small bottle white bottle precariously
balancing on the top of a metal trash can. And
when they opened that white bottle, the first thing they
saw were small gray granulated powders.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
This is an unbelievable search.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Unbelievable search. The bottle was in a basically a calcium
supplement bottle, so it was used for you know, the
vitamins were taken out and Sundals had put temic in
this bottle, and the lab later confirmed that the powder
inside that bottle was also aldacarb or temic. So now
(37:53):
we've got the boots in Sundal's house tied to the
crime scene. We've got temic at his house at the
crime scene. Next we need to figure out can we
tie the elk meat. And the first thing Agent Bergoner
did was he zeroed in on these saddlebags that had
bloodstains on them and he immediately collected those as evidence
(38:15):
and they were sent to the forensics lab. Now, before
I tell you what the forensic lab results were, let
me say that another thing they found inside his house
was a box full of bumper stickers that talked about,
you know, save a ranch or kill a wolf. Lots
(38:35):
of anti wolf things, But among those bumper stickers was
one that said save the US Constitution, eliminate a FED. Now,
when you're a federal agent or a federal employee in general,
trying to serve your community and work in an environment
where people have bumper stickers. Basically, you know, calling for
(38:57):
you to be eliminated. What what does that end?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (39:00):
That's a scary environment to try to be a public servant, right.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
And I'll tell you that also goes back to what
he said to the biologist. So you're showing a pattern
conclusively that he has not only believed this for years,
he's elevated what he's doing.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yes, Yes, and he's he's intentionally He's everything about him
just says he's intentionally violating the law.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
And can I ask you a question. He doesn't seem
like the type of man that would have a roommate.
So again, I think putting him in them boots is
going to be pretty easy.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, I agree, I agree it would be. It's excellent.
I mean, it's almost irrefutable evidence. Right, they're well worn
in boots. He's you know who else is going to
be wearing those boots in his family? He's the hunter
of the family.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, in the imperfection plus his recipe, plus he said
he was going to do it.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yes, exactly. So the couple things happened. Next, they seized computers,
So now there's going to be a forensic examination of computers.
And emails, traffic and whatever supposed there also the blood,
and they also found in the shed they found a
(40:22):
bone saw. So the bone saw and the saddle bags
and the temich all go to the FWS Forensics Lab
in Ashland, Oregon. So let's talk about a little bit
what they found as a result of the forensic analysis
of the computers first, and then we'll talk about what
they found at the lab. One of the things they
found in doing a search warm on the computers was
(40:45):
a whole lot of stored emails. And in those emails,
he's writing to different people and talking about very specifically
about how to poison wolves. I give you an example
in one email he sent in two thousand and three.
You know, he talks about poisoning is much more effective
than shooting, especially in winter when the wolves are confined
(41:06):
to their winter grounds, and the best playway to do
it is to put a frozen meatball made out of
elk because of the last all winter long. Yeah, it's
just one one thing after another. Right now, at the
Fishingwilife Forensics Lab in Ashland, they start to take scrapings
(41:28):
off of these blood stains on these saddle bags, and
of course they already have the meatballs that were collected
at the crime scene, so they can do a DNA
comparison between the blood and the saddle bags and the meatballs.
And don't you know, not only is the blood in
the saddle bags elk meat, but it came from the
(41:49):
same elk that those meatballs were made out of.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
You have got to be kidding me.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
I know, it gets better and better. Every turn in
this case just got better and better. And some of
it's luck and some of it is just downright tenacity
by you know, agent Brigonnier. And you know, with all
the support from the lab personnel on the state investments,
all of.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
That, well, that lab is amazing. But I'm gonna tell you,
Agent Bogoonier, you handle this thing good night. I mean,
because it's one thing. You know, like I've collected things
that people have made fun of me for and I
always say, well, I don't know how it fits, yes,
(42:32):
but I may later. I just know something didn't look right,
it didn't belong there to me, so I took it whatever.
But frozen yellow snow, come on, they're gonna make fun
of you. Just yellow snow. Period in your report is hilarious.
I mean, you have to write that, but look what
came from it.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah. Yeah, and we haven't even you know, I mean,
as of now, we've locked down that the elk meat
is connected to the house and the boots are connected
to the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
And this is a dangerous person. And I want people
to understand. I say it all the time. Anybody that
can kick a dog kill a kitten. And I am
not talking about legal hunting. I'm not talking about legal
hunting a fishing. I'm talking about somebody at a meanness,
out of a direct target, is going to kill animals.
(43:26):
That person, absolutely, without a doubt, can kill a human.
And this man said it over and over and over.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
You bet. And this is different than hunting. This is
not hunting. This is right, yeah right, This is not hunting.
And you know, an interesting aside to this is that
the US Department of Justice keeps statistics on assaults on
law enforcement officers, and consistently every year, the law enforcement
(43:58):
profession that has the highest number of physical assaults on
them are conservation officers, game mordens, wildnife officers, special agents.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah, it's a very dangerous profession because a lot of
the criminals you're dealing with are armed, and you can't
you know, if you're approaching a hunter to do an
enforcement action, of course they're going to have a gun.
They always have a gun, you know.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
I did a training with Native American rangers and that's
one of the things they told me. They said, first,
they are by themselves for thousands and thousands of acres.
I mean, their backup is a long way away. Anyway.
That's the first thing that they made me very aware
(44:43):
of is that every single person they come in contact
with has a gun. Everyone.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yes, So, I mean kind of famously, maybe ten years ago,
there was a US Fish and Wildlife Service refuge officer
who was involved in a shooting in the Desert National
Wildlife Refuge outside of Las Vegas. And this is a
guy who was on his own patrolling millions of acres,
and it it was kind of you know, we were
(45:11):
all reminded that we listened to the radio traffic after
the shooting incident where he's requesting backup. It took an hour.
It took an hour for the nearest law enforcement officer
to reach his location on a shooting call.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Yep, that's unbelievable. I mean, I knew the danger, I
didn't know that that groove was the number one assaulted.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
The good news is based on what agent Burgonier was
able to obtain from the crime scene and the search warrant,
it actually was enough for the United States Attorney's Office
to file charges against Sundals. Now, interestingly, the charges were
not for killing a wolf because no wolf body was found,
but attempt to do it carries the same penalty, So,
(46:01):
believe it or not, this is actually the first case
in the history of the US Fish and Wilife Service
where a person was actually charged with attempting to kill
and a threatened or endangered species. So it's kind of
a case of first impression, but definitely was enough evidence
to file those charges.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Brilliant. Well, I hope he got sixty charges because each
one should have served as a charge.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Hey, exactly fifty eight counts right of throwing those meatballs.
So he pleads not guilty and immediately goes on the
media offensive about you know, of course, the out of
control federal agency, and he said some things that didn't
help him. For example, he said, poisoning if pets is
simply collateral damage which doesn't make you very popular with
(46:44):
the public. Right now, what we have is we have
evidence that you know, boots in his possession matched the
prints at the scene of the suspect. We got the
same type of poison found in the suspect's garage, we
got meat from the same elk from the crime scene.
That's he matches the blood in his garage. And we know,
of course that he's a jerk. But then there's one
(47:10):
more thing that Bragonia thinks about, and that is that
as he's considering what do we how do we get
ready for trial, he's looking at the evidence that's booked
into you know, into evidence, and he finds this frozen
yellow snow and he says, what what is Well? Could
(47:30):
this be important? Why is this important? And you know,
I think Mac, you and I have talked about this.
You know why. There is one time when a person's
DNA will show up in their urine. It's when they're sick.
And if you have a cold or you're getting over cold,
your body will shed cells and it ends up in
(47:50):
your urine and it's you know, there's.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Oh, please tell me he was sick, Please tell me.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
So in going through all of his emails from the
search warrant, Bragonier remembered that the week before the meat
balls had been thrown out there, Tim Sundles had been
complaining to his friends about having had the flu.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Oh the word. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
So now we've got a suspect who's pleading not guilty.
He wants to go to trial. He's gone on the
public you know, public media offensive against government. But Brigonia
goes in front of a judge in the US District
Court and says, I want an order authorizing me to
take a DNA sample from Tim Sundles, and the judge
(48:40):
grants it. So the judge has now ordered Tim Sundle
to turn over a DNA sample so it can be
compared against the DNA that's found in the urine. And
don't you know that immediately causes him to plead guilty.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
That is a beautiful thing, that is outstanding. And you know,
you can get DNA from urine, but you know, it's
it's not as easy as people think. I mean, first
of all, it's got to be fresh and all that,
and then you've got to keep it at a low temperature.
So how fortunate that it was frozen. I mean, everything
just worked out beautifully. But I'm going to say something now,
(49:18):
it worked out beautifully because of a lot of hard work.
I mean when you're talking about I mean just hundreds
and hundreds of acres, and those meatballs could have been
anywhere for him to find one after the other after
the other and then keep searching. I mean, agent bragone,
(49:40):
You're saved possibly hundreds of animals.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah, I mean he basically he delivered consequences to somebody
who desperately needed consequences his.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Behavior for the safety of animals and humans.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And it kind of sent a
message to anyone else who's thinking about this that And
this is something I always told people. You know, US
Fish and Wildlife Service agents are among the most tenacious
federal investigators I've ever seen in my life. And they
you know, if you commit a wildlife crime a US
(50:16):
Fish and Wildlife Service agent, they will pursue you. They
will catch you, and they will put you in jail.
It's just it's not a matter of if, it's a
matter of when. And that's exactly what you know happened here.
And I think one of the best outcomes from this case. Unfortunately,
the endangered Species Act carries fairly low penalties, so it's
(50:40):
not like we can say Tim Sundles went to jail
for a long time. But some interesting things occurred in
his sentence that were I think very painful for him.
One of one is that he was prohibited from from
entering federal property for the entire term of his probation,
which was two years. And if you live in Idaho,
(51:01):
a lot of Idaho is federal property, either a service
land or BLM land, so it kind of is impingement
on your lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
It was two miles he could go in good exactly.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
But my favorite part was the Washington Post. Every year
they post a Idiot of the Year, and it's a
number of people that make the list, but Tim Sundals
was the twenty first idiot of the year for that year.
And I'll just read you real quick what the Washington
Post said. It said, Tim Sundals. Tim Sundals, Who's unabashed
(51:35):
hatred of US government efforts to reintroduce gray wolves out
West borders on fanatical. In his latest scheme to finish
off the endangered species, he planted poison lace meatballs in
Idaho's remote salmon Shayliss National Forests instead of killing wolves.
Though the meatballs ended up poisoning a coyotea fox, and
birds and three pet dogs. So he public shaming is
(52:01):
it is a valuable tool because whether or not you
go to jail, or whether or not you pay a
lot of fines, having all your neighbors know what you
did and how you did it, and that the government
caught you and your guiltiest sin is a valuable deterrent.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
Amen. It makes it that much harder for him to
ever do it again because he's going to be usual suspects.
He's always going to be on your list.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Exactly one hundred percent. And you know, I mentioned that
the Endangered Species Act has, you know, not great penalties necessarily,
but where people really start to get into trouble and
go to jail is when they commit subsequent offenses. So
if he turns up again in committing a wildlife crime,
a state or a federal judge is going to look
(52:48):
at his record and say, well, this is a prior
violator who didn't learn his lesson before. I'm going to
send him to jail. So I've seen that before, where
subsequent violators end up actually doing some pretty good time
because they demonstrated that they didn't learn a lesson, So
that's always hanging over his head.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Ed, I cannot thank you enough, and I'm just gonna again, y'all.
If you can work this case, you can work any
case out there. This was I mean, you can call
some of it luck, but that's not what I see.
I see literally boots in the snow working this thing
to the very end, collecting things. You don't even know
(53:28):
what it's going to result in. You're just going to
have it and see what comes from it. That's just
unbelievably solid investigative work, one hundred percent. All right, Ed,
I will see you in Denver Crime.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Con looking forward to it. I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Well, y'all, I'm going to end Zone seven the way
that I always do with a quote. It all starts
with the Wolves, Peter Woolen Bear, The Hidden Life of Trees.
I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this his own seven h
He's back. Ed Newcomber a special agent with the US
Vision Wildlife Service. Y'all know he's been over twenty years there.
He's got his own podcast, Nature's Secret Service. Several of
y'all know about that. Y'all check that out. It is
quite frankly phenomenal. But we have brought him back because
(00:32):
he has got a case that you are not gonna believe.
And what's important about this case to me, if you
can work in this case, you can work any homicide
out there. So, Ed Newcomber, thank you so much for
coming back.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Well, Mac, thanks for having me. I love your show
and I love being on your show. It was such
a great time last time I had to accept are
you kidding?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And let me tell y'all, anybody coming to Crime Con,
you're gonna be able to see him live and in person.
We are going to be on the main stage for
the Creator's Row. We are going to be live at
Crime Con doing a Zone seven in person, and Ed's
going to be right there and you will not believe
(01:21):
the case we're going to cover there in person. And
it's the first time Wildlife Crimes will be at Crime Con.
So comes all, right, Ed, this case involves poison, and
I got to tell you those are difficult cases, and
(01:42):
they're difficult to me because almost anybody can obtain poison.
It's sub level. It's not like a gunshot where people
can hear it. It's not like arson where people can
smell it. I mean, this is something that the killer
they don't even have to be there when the death occurs.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
You know, you're absolutely right. I never really thought of
it that way. But poison is a very sneaky weapon, right.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
It is so sneaky. I mean, you can be in
another state, you can have a solid alibi, theres nowhere
near there, you have time to get away, there won't
be any eyewitness or ear witness, and it wouldn't matter anyway.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You're not there exactly. It's kind of the perfect weapon
for a criminal to use because you know, like you
just said, they can actually take the time to put
distance between themselves and the victim and the crime scene,
which you know is pretty important if you're trying to
evade capture. And unfortunately, mac poisoning is a pretty common
(02:47):
method for people to commit wildlife crime. Is particularly if
they're trying to kill wild animals for some reason.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Well, that's what took y'all to Idaho. So why don't
you tell us about February two thousand and four. We're
out there trying to reintroduce wolves, so we're trying to
build this population back.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, it might be
really helpful to you and your listeners if we just
kind of back up just a little bit and I
tell you a little bit about the situation with wolves
in the Western United States, particularly around that time in
two thousand and four. Going if we go way back,
let's go back to nineteen twenty six, that's the year.
(03:31):
I know, we're going way back.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
That is hilarious. I thought you were going to say, like,
you know, two thousand and one. No, we're going back,
y'all at eight, play yeas, way back, way back?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Okay, Yeah, So let's go back to nineteen twenty six
in Yellowstone National Park. Remember, Yellowstone was like the first
national park in the world. It's often considered America's greatest idea.
The last wolf was killed in Yellowstone National Park in
nineteen twenty six, and that's what's called extirpating a species,
(04:08):
which means they're not necessarily extinct. Wherever around the world,
but they no longer exist in the ecosystem where they
used to so pretty much by nineteen twenty six, the
United States had been well on its way to extirpating
or killing all of the wolves that they could in
the United States, and by that time there's just a
(04:29):
small pocket of wild wolves living in the Great Lakes area.
They're gone basically from the Rocky Mountains now. That turned
out to be kind of an environmental disaster because it
allowed elk and deer populations to explode, which had all
these cascading effects on the environment. And as early as
(04:51):
nineteen forties, people started to talk about maybe we should
bring wolves back to fix kind of this imbalance. That
didn't happen until nineteen ninety five, when the US Fish
and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service finally decided
we're going to bring wolves back to Yellowstone and certain
parts of Montana. And that effort really started in nineteen
(05:17):
ninety five and a number of wolves were brought down
from Canada. They were captured, and they were released in
the park and they started to do phenomenally well. A
lot of deer, a lot of elk were there for them.
They were specialists in killing deer and elk, and it
started to put the ecosystem back into balance unfortunately, well
(05:39):
fortunately for the wolves, but also unfortunately for the wolves.
As they prospered, they moved their packs, started to move
outside the park and to populate their natural, previous, historical environment.
And unfortunately, wolves get a bad rap and it's not warranted,
(06:00):
it's not earned, and a lot of hunters and ranchers
just hate them and they try to Some of those
guys are willing to break the law and they'll try
to kill them at every opportunity. Because wolves had been extirpated,
when they were re released, they were automatically listed as
threatened under the Endangered Species Act, which gave them protection.
(06:24):
And as we know from my last appearance on the show,
violations of the Endangered Species Act are a criminal violation,
and that law is enforced by special agents of the
US Fish and Wildlife Service. So there's a little history, Mac,
but that kind of brings us up to this case
(06:46):
that happened in February of two thousand and four. It
turned out to be an amazing, an amazing investigation done
by a special agent with the US Fish and Wildlife
service named Scott Brigonier. And the reason I know so
much about this case is because when I heard about it,
I was an agent in Los Angeles. I didn't do
(07:06):
wolf cases. You know, we don't have wolves down there.
But I was so fascinated by the high quality work
that this agent and Idaho State Gay Morton's did. It
was an amazing crime scene investigation. It involved forensics, it
involved great detective work. And ultimately, as I tell you
(07:27):
this story, I think you're just going to be kind
of blown away. You want me to just jump in now.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I'm so sorry. I was so captivated. I'm sorry I
was listening and not talking.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I didn't know if you wanted a chance to like
Pepper in questions, yes.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Go on. I was just sitting there literally keep it in,
because that's honestly what was happening. I was sitting there
so captivated. Is like, oh my lord, what is going
to happen? Because even though I know the facts of
the case. So let's just go right back. Yes, I
want you to just jump right in.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Okay, So let me set the scene for you. It's
now February twentieth, two thousand and four. We're almost ten
years into wolfree introduction. They're doing great. They have expanded
their territory. They've moved out into Idaho. And there's an
area in Idaho known as the Wagonhammer Drainage and it's
(08:26):
a popular place for people to go hiking and walk
their dogs and things like that. So on February twentieth,
two thousand and four, a local resident in Idaho is
out walking her dog and the dog finds a meatball.
We all know what a dog will do if it
finds a meatball, It'll gulp it down before you can
(08:46):
do anything about yu. Yeah, well that's what happened, and
within a few minutes, the dog goes into convulsions, starts
foaming at the mouth, drops over, you know. Panicues, and
the woman rushes her dog to the veterinarian, only to
learn that the dog's been poisoned. So how now does
(09:10):
the US Fish and Wildlife Service agent get involved? Well,
it turns out that the Wagonhammer Drainage that area is
known to be wolf habitat. There are wolves there, and
those wolves are protected by the Endangered Species Act. So true,
just people understanding that wild animals are there, including wolves.
(09:31):
This poisoning incident gets reported to the Idaho Wildlife Department,
so Idaho Fish and Game. Because they know wolves are there,
they notify the nearest special agent with US Fish and
Wildlife Service, who is Scott Burgonier, and Agent Burgonier and
a few game warnings go out to this wagonhammer drainage district,
(09:52):
the hiking trail or drainage area, and suddenly they find themselves.
Imagine this, mac You Normally, if you're a law enforcement officer,
you go into a crime scene. It's that crime scene
might consist of a room or two rooms, or a house,
maybe a yard. But we're now we're talking about acres
(10:14):
and acres of wild land that is potentially your crime scene.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
And as soon as you said drainage, my heart sank
because I thought, how much land are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah, if you look at an aerial map of this,
just imagine it's basically a valley with a river running
through the middle of it, or a creek. And at
this time of year, February and Idaho, it's pretty snowy,
it's cold, and there's snow on the ground. So if
you can imagine that, you have now all these challenges
with just a handful of law enforcement investigators and all
(10:50):
you know is a dog ate a meatball and the
dog was poisoned. So you know, pretty much, I think
if you and I were out there starting this, we'd
be like, let's see if we can find some more meatballs. Right,
So that's exactly what happened Agent Bergoon here and the
state game wardens kind of spread out through this hiking trail,
(11:11):
looking on either sides, looking for meatballs, and it doesn't
take them long before they start to find kind of
golf ball sized holes in the snow, kind of on
either side of the trail, left and right, and they
reached down into these holes, and sure enough they start
(11:32):
to find meatballs about the size of a standard spaghetti
and meatball meal. And they obviously think they're onto something,
so they start to collect these meatballs and photograph them
in place and pick them up. Now they also know,
of course, that this dog keeled over within minutes of
(11:55):
consuming one of these, so there's some officer safety issues
here too. They've got to be gloved up. They don't
if there are poisoned meatballs out there, They don't want
to touch this stuff. But in the end, they found
fifty eight meatballs scattered throughout this drainage area, and each
(12:18):
time they found a meat ball, they kind of cracked
it open and inside they found what looked like gray
granulated powder, kind of like almost like a thick gunpowder. Now,
most agents in the US Fishing Wilife Service are very
aware that people tend to use poison to kill predators,
(12:39):
and one of the most common poisons out there to
do that is called temick or also known as aldacarb,
and that is exactly what temck and aldacarp look like.
It looks like a gray kind of beaded powder. So
good job on the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Right, unbelievable and with the dogs plus one, so you know,
you're almost at sixty and you just have to imagine
how many did they not find, how many had already
been consumed.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And on that note, another thing that they started to
find while they're kind of combing this crime scene are
dead animals. They found magpies, which is a federally protected
bird looks like a crow, but it has a white wing.
They found red fox that were dead, and coyotes, And
(13:29):
so if you think about it, these are animals that
are just innocent. They're doing nothing, they're just doing their
thing in the environment, and within minutes of consuming one
of these meatballs, they're dead in place. So it's not
like these animals ate a meatball and wandered off and
died in seclusion somewhere. The agents and the investigators are
(13:51):
finding multiple dead animals across the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
The reality is you're going to have a bayer come
along and ate that. You're gonna have maybe other wolves
come and try to get a carcass that's been poisoned,
and then they're gonna die too.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
One hundred percent. It's that secondary poisoning. It can go
on and on and on in the environment, killing eagles, vultures,
you know, small scavengers, big big predators, all the animals indiscriminately.
It's really an insidious It's an insidious tool to use
(14:30):
to try to kill an animal because there's a lot
of things you're gonna kill.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
And here's what you're really bringing to light for us.
Most people would think poachers are single focused. I'm gonna
go get that one rhino, I'm gonna go get that
one bear. I don't know that people understand if the
poachers are trying to get rid of something that if
(14:59):
they use poison, not only are they going to maybe
wipe out this whole wolf pack, but they're also going
to get maybe the animals that you do care about.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Exactly. And it's so indiscriminate and it's used around the world.
And you know, that's an interesting point you raise, because
there's different kinds of poachers out there. You know, like
there are the guys who don't have a license to
hunt deer, but they go hunt deer anyway. That's one kind. Then,
(15:30):
as you mentioned, there are people out there killing animals
for profit, like elephants for their ivory or rhinos for
their horns. That's a totally different person because they're trying
to commercially profit. Then there are these poachers who do
things out of spite and anger and ignorance honestly. You know,
(15:50):
people who hate wolves because they think wolves are killing
too many deer in elk or sometimes wolves do kill cattle,
and they're going to take it bond themselves to go
back in time one hundred years and make wolves go extinct.
That's not there, you know, that's not their place in
(16:12):
the world. The American people have been trying to reverse
centuries of environmental and habitat destruction. They want wolves back
in the Western United States. It's not up to some
individual poacher to take it upon him or herself to
start killing animals that are of value to the entire
(16:32):
American populace. You know, it's frustrating, especially as a law
enforcement officer, because you do see all of this. You know,
collateral kill and collateral impact that throwing poison out in
the environment causes.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
It's depressing, especially in a drainage way because again you're
already talking about one domestic animal that was almost killed,
but it gets in that water system. I mean, that's
like a bullet. It didn't have anybody's name on It
is just out there.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
To hurt something exactly. And and with this poison in
particular temic, as I said, each meatball was kind of
filled with these granules. If if you accidentally breathed in
just one or two of these particles, or if it
absorbed through your skin, you could become extremely sick and
(17:26):
possibly die. It's just from a few particles of this
getting into your you know ingesting it or breathing it
in or having it. It's it's bad. It's not quite
as quick as fentanyl, but it will kill you, and
it will make you real sick, even small amounts of it.
So it's a very dangerous poison. We you know, fish
(17:47):
and Wildlife special agents receive a lot of training on
how to deal with poisons that they encounter in crime
scenes like this, and we take it real seriously. So
there's another thing that they found during their crime scene
investigation that was very interesting, especially from a forensics point
of view. They found bootprints. And what tied these bootprints
(18:13):
to the meatballs was that in some instances they would
find the hole where the meatball had gone into the snow,
and directly on top of it there would be one
of these bootprints, as if someone had stepped on it
to push the meatball down into.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Wow, hey, that's really good investigative or that's a great
way to articulate what you saw. That explains it to a.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Jury exactly, And it explains why these footprints were zero.
You know, obviously there's hikers there, there's other bootprints, but
these prints seemed to be very closely related to the meatballs.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
But I mean, what are the odds the hiker's going
to stamp on every meatball? You know what I mean?
So I'm just saying that's really good because a lot
of times that's hard to train people. They may really
what they're seeing, but they don't always write it down.
So if somebody took the time to say, hey, on
every single one of these meat balls, we saw this
same bootprint, it looked like it was shoving it down
(19:11):
into the snow, Well, that makes sense exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And as you know, you know, footprints, tire prints can
be very important because if later you find a boot
it gives you something to compare to the print that
you saw out in the field. So very smartly, agent
Bergo and You took very good photographs at right angles
(19:36):
of these footprints because it was snow. Of course, he
couldn't or plaster Paris in there because it would destroy
the print, but he did record the footprints, and that
became very important later because one of the things that
really stands out if you look at a photograph of
one of these bootprints, if you know, if you kind
(19:59):
of were in the world of wildlife and you know hunters,
this bootprint is actually immediately recognizable to you as coming
from a boot made by a company name called Danner
in Oregon, and this particular soul was primarily made for
a boot sold by the Cabella's Outfitting company, so you
(20:20):
might you know Cabella's and Bass Pro shops as an
outdoor supply company, and they exclusively sold this boot made
by Danner that had this very unique tread design which
almost it almost looks like instead of the classic chunky
boot print, it looks like it has points on it,
(20:41):
almost like cleat's little round indentations make up the footprint.
So it's kind of a very wreck There's a lot
of those boots out there, but it's a very recognizable
hunting boot that anybody who's familiar with Danner boots would
know that this is that type of boot. There was
one other thing they found at the crime scene which
(21:03):
turned out to be sort of a joke among everyone,
and that is there was a place in the snow
where there were two of these bootprints right next to
each other, as if the person was standing still, and
in front of the toes of the prints where some
yellow snow, and most of the senior investigators there were like, oh, yeah, well,
(21:29):
somebody took a leak and that's that. But a very
new straight out of the Academy game warden for the
Idaho Department of Fishing game eagerly collected that yellow snow.
Oh yeah, he scooped it up and put it in
a bag and preserved it. And everybody kind of teased
(21:49):
him because they're like, what are you going to get
out of urine that you can't find DNA and a
person's urine, So everybody kind of teased him and kind
of it became a joke. Nonetheless, this yellow snow got
itself booked into evidence. I love it, Okay, As you know,
the yellow snow will come back later in this story.
So the last thing before the investigators walked off of
(22:13):
this crime scene, they found something very very sobering, and
that was on top of one of these bootprints, meaning
something came through the crime scene after the the poison
poacher was a wolf print. Right on top of one
of these bootprints was a huge wolf print, and they
(22:33):
are unmistakable. A wolf print is about the size of
your hand. They're big. And so what it meant to
Agent Brigonier was that after these meatballs had been placed,
at least one wolf had passed through the area. Now,
no dead wolf was found, but it's a little scary
to think that the very species you're trying to protect
(22:56):
did in fact go through this crime scene after these
in fifty eight at least boys and meatballs had been
placed in the environment. Pretty sobering way to start this investigation.
And now as facing all, you know, investigators, you're done
with your crime scene. You've collected fifty eight meatballs, you've
(23:17):
taken pictures of bootprints, you've collected other dead animals, as
you know, collateral kill, you've got your yellow Snow. Now
what right?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So what now? What do you do? Well? Interestingly, the
US Fish and Wildlife Service has its own dedicated criminal
forensics lab. It's called the Clark Baven Forensics Lab, and
it's located in Ashland, Oregon, and their sole purpose is
to support law enforcement investigations involving wildlife crime. So, of course,
(23:54):
agent Bergoan, you're sent the meatballs to the lab for
two things. One is tell me what this meat is
and two what's this powdered granular material inside the meatballs?
He already knew, but he needed scientific forensic evidence. And
sure enough, the lab results come back indicating that the
(24:17):
granular powder was alde carb also known as TEMK, and
that the meat was characteristic of the same tissue that
would come from a North American elk okay, So that's
great information. We know for sure now we got poison
and we know this is elk meat.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And that tells us something about your suspect, you.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Bet, and it gives you something potentially to compare later.
So out of that meat, of course you're going to
get the individual DNA from that particular elk, and that
of course gives you something to compare later, hoping that
your investigation goes somewhere. But now we're really in this
situation where how does agent Burgoonier develop as suspect? How
(25:00):
do we figure out who this was? There's no surveillance
cameras at a hiking trail, there's no witnesses. Nobody saw
anybody hiking around there throwing something. You know, it's a
pretty remote area. And what happens next is, you know,
an investigator could basically go back to the office and
sit and twiddle their thumbs and hope somebody calls in
(25:23):
the tip, or they could really get proactive. And agent
burgoon here was never the kind of guy when he
was working to sit back and twiddle his thumbs. He
was a very proactive agent and he was very well
dialed in with the other law enforcement agencies in that
area of Idaho, So you know, he knew the Federal
(25:48):
for a Service law enforcement, he knew the local police,
he knew the tribal police, he knew everybody, and he
basically put the word out, Hey, I got this case.
There's found some poisoned meat in a wolf area. I'm
trying to figure out who might have put these here.
Anybody have any idea this? I mean, really, that's what
it came down to. And don't you know, it triggered
(26:12):
someone's memory. And it turned out that the Nez Perce tribe,
which is a Native American tribe in that area, employs
their own staff to work on wildlife issues, and they
had a biologist who remembered having an encounter get this
(26:33):
back in nineteen ninety eight with an individual known as
Tim Sundals, and the encounter was so memorable for this
biologist or so unusual that the biologists ended up writing
a memo about it. And the memo basically detailed how
(26:53):
the biologist was out in the field and was approached
by this guy named Tim Sundals, who just started railing
about how he wanted to kill wolves. During that conversation.
Sundle's mentioned to the biologist, and this is a quote
straight from the biologist's memo. He said, quote, do you
(27:14):
think it would work if we dropped a couple of
elk up there and packed them full of poison? Now?
Is this our suspect? Well, we don't know, but he
talks about elk, and he talks about poison. So Bragoner
is better off than he was before he talked to
this biologist.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Even though this was nineteen ninety eight, that's pretty close.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, I mean it's six years, but it's it's something right.
And when you're an investigator, as you know, Mac, when
you're at a loss, you start pulling at threads and
you see whether or not those threads start to unravel.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Well, here's the other thing, ed, if this guy's radical,
those types of folks write things down. That's how we
have Metta festos, that's how we have all these things
posted on social media. They can't stop themselves.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Exactly, and they're proud of what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, because they're right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And one of the other scary things that this individual
said to the biologist, and this is another quote he
said to the biologist, he said, if I see a wolf,
I'm going to kill it, and any fed who comes
and tries to stop me is going to get a
bullet in their back. Now that is.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Well, he goes he goes to the number one slot
for me.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, yeah, I mean for sure wouldn't. As Agent Bergunn,
You're thought, well, hey, this is something I'm gonna I'm
gonna start looking into this person. So he starts to
kind of just do some basic investigations and he finds
out that this Tim Sundles guy was previously invested by
(28:54):
investigated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for killing
a wolf. But interestingly, under the Endangered Species Act, one
of the legitimate reasons you can kill an endangered species
is if it's in self defense. Now, wolves do not
have a history of attacking human beings, but it's possible there.
(29:16):
Average wolf weighs between one hundred and one hundred and
thirty pounds, and yeah, if they wanted to, they could
hurt you. So it turns out back in two thousand
and one, Tim Sundals actually shot and killed a collared wolf,
but when it was investigated by a different Fish and
Wildlife Service special agent at the time, Sundals claimed that
(29:38):
he killed the wolf in self defense and there was
just no way to prove otherwise, so there wasn't a case.
But he now has a history of talking about elk
meat and poison and actually has killed wolves and has
talked about it. So he's looking more and more like
an interesting suspect. And that leads to a search of
(30:05):
the internet. Where As you said, so many suspects will
write things down. And one of the things that Tim
Sundles had going was a chat room and a bulletin
board and a blog, and he loved to post about
his hatred of the federal government and his hatred of wolves.
(30:29):
And Agent Burgunier started to sift through his very you know,
many posts on the Internet, and he saw a lot
of specific hostile language about us fish and while they
have served as special agents, basically you know, denigrating us
as not being very experienced out doorsman and trying to
(30:50):
trick people and the usual. But one of the things
that Agent Burgoonner came across was this very interesting passage
in a blog that Sundals had posted on the internet.
And get this, wait till I read this to you.
This is a direct quote off of that blog. It's
a recipe for how to make poisoned meatballs, add newcomer.
(31:14):
I'm not kidding. He basically lists out how you do it,
and it includes, from his own words, adding a pinch
or two of temick to the center of the beatball
patty and roll it into a ball. It should be
about the size of a golf ball or a little larger.
Sol wolf can swallow it whole without chewing it.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Here's what's blowing my mind. First of all, great job agent.
Second of all, you don't use chicken, you don't use hamburger,
you don't use noodles. I mean you say meatball, Yeah, meatball.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
And he even suggests you can make the meatball out
of beef, elk, or pork. So he's even listed elk
as a possible.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
That's a money tree.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
It's a money tree. And it gets even slightly better.
He even says, place between thirty and forty of these
meatballs out in the environment, and that is almost exactly
the situation that occurred. Now, does this mean that Tim
Sundles is the guy who put the meatballs out there? No,
(32:21):
but he's obviously put this a lot of thought into this.
He's put it out there on the Internet. Unfortunately, anybody
else could have read it and used his modus operande
to do this and followed his instructions. But it's still
right now. He's agent for Gon, your's best and only suspect.
(32:43):
So ultimately there's a little more goes on. There's some
surveillance done of Sundals. He's got a car that has
some really hostile bumper stickers on it about wolves and Feds.
But ultimately all the surveillance and all the Internet searches
lead to enough probable cause to obtain a search warrant
(33:05):
for Tim Sundle's house. And this is where this is
the kind of thing an investigator lives for. You have
developed enough probable cause to convince a judge that you
should be able to go into someone's home or their
car or whatever and search. And that search warrant is
always very specific, as you know, it's you're only looking
(33:26):
to find evidence of the crimes you're investigating, and you
execute those warrants with your fingers crossed, hoping what are
you going to find? You know, am I going to
find something that ties my suspect to that crime scene?
And funny enough, as I think about this case, and
I used to talk about it when I would do
(33:47):
presentations about it while I was an agent myself. I
always remembered something. And you're going to know this to
your low cards principle, right, absolutely, yeah, kind of like
if you're listeners don't know what it is. Low cards
principles kind of like the basic fundamental aspect of forensics.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
And it's true. If you work enough scenes, you will
know it's true.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
It is yes, it is true, and it is amazing
how many times you're out there and you're just like, wow,
this is low cards principle. And the principle, of course,
is that if any two items come in contact with
each other, they will leave traces of themselves on the other.
And that's why it's so, you know, critical to crime
(34:32):
scene investigations because ultimately your goal, right Gerald, is to
you're going to tie the suspect to the crime scene
and the victim at the same time, you know, or
the evidence at the scene, and that's what this search
warrant is hopefully going to do for Agent Brigoni're and
his team. So a month, a month after the poisoning
(34:54):
occurs March twentieth, two thousand and four. They serve a
warrant on Timsun house and the warrant includes the property
around his house, such as the garage and workshops. And
don't you know they go in the front door, and
what do you think they find? Immediately inside the front
door Para Danner hunting boots with those round nubby souls.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Shut your my mouth. Yeah, that's absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
It gets better. One of the things that agent Brigonner
had noticed at the crime scene when he took the
photographs was that it appeared and these these round treads
I'm talking about the only way I can describe them
as nubs. They look like like I said, they look
like a cleat or a nub. And what he noticed
from the print in the snow was it appeared as
if the nubs weren't symmetrical from left to right. And
(35:50):
in his mind, what that meant was one of these
nubs had come off, had been you know, cut off
or scraped off, or you know, just in the process
of hiking around. So he turns the boots over and
what do you know, one of these boots is missing
a nub. So not only do you have a bootprint
that matches the bootprint at the scene in terms of
(36:12):
size and tread pattern. But you've got individual characteristic which
is ub yep. Pretty good evidence.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
That is pretty good all day, pretty good.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
But of course, you know, we're always looking to determine
whether or not does our suspect have an ability here
to create reasonable doubt? So do we know that those
are Tim's boots? Do we know that Tim was wearing
those boots at the time? You know, these are questions.
It's great evidence, but can we put Tim in those
boots on the day of the poisoning? So the search
(36:48):
of the house continues. One of the things, of course,
that they included in their warrant was because Sundels had
been posting on the internet, they grabbed his computer. The
other thing they searched was his garage and his workshop,
And as soon as they opened the doors, they saw
hunting equipment, including saddle bags that had bloodstains on them,
(37:11):
a bone saw, and a small bottle white bottle precariously
balancing on the top of a metal trash can. And
when they opened that white bottle, the first thing they
saw were small gray granulated powders.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
This is an unbelievable search.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Unbelievable search. The bottle was in a basically a calcium
supplement bottle, so it was used for you know, the
vitamins were taken out and Sundals had put temic in
this bottle, and the lab later confirmed that the powder
inside that bottle was also aldacarb or temic. So now
(37:53):
we've got the boots in Sundal's house tied to the
crime scene. We've got temic at his house at the
crime scene. Next we need to figure out can we
tie the elk meat. And the first thing Agent Bergoner
did was he zeroed in on these saddlebags that had
bloodstains on them and he immediately collected those as evidence
(38:15):
and they were sent to the forensics lab. Now, before
I tell you what the forensic lab results were, let
me say that another thing they found inside his house
was a box full of bumper stickers that talked about,
you know, save a ranch or kill a wolf. Lots
(38:35):
of anti wolf things, But among those bumper stickers was
one that said save the US Constitution, eliminate a FED. Now,
when you're a federal agent or a federal employee in general,
trying to serve your community and work in an environment
where people have bumper stickers. Basically, you know, calling for
(38:57):
you to be eliminated. What what does that end?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (39:00):
That's a scary environment to try to be a public servant, right.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
And I'll tell you that also goes back to what
he said to the biologist. So you're showing a pattern
conclusively that he has not only believed this for years,
he's elevated what he's doing.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yes, Yes, and he's he's intentionally He's everything about him
just says he's intentionally violating the law.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
And can I ask you a question. He doesn't seem
like the type of man that would have a roommate.
So again, I think putting him in them boots is
going to be pretty easy.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, I agree, I agree it would be. It's excellent.
I mean, it's almost irrefutable evidence. Right, they're well worn
in boots. He's you know who else is going to
be wearing those boots in his family? He's the hunter
of the family.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, in the imperfection plus his recipe, plus he said
he was going to do it.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yes, exactly. So the couple things happened. Next, they seized computers,
So now there's going to be a forensic examination of computers.
And emails, traffic and whatever supposed there also the blood,
and they also found in the shed they found a
(40:22):
bone saw. So the bone saw and the saddle bags
and the temich all go to the FWS Forensics Lab
in Ashland, Oregon. So let's talk about a little bit
what they found as a result of the forensic analysis
of the computers first, and then we'll talk about what
they found at the lab. One of the things they
found in doing a search warm on the computers was
(40:45):
a whole lot of stored emails. And in those emails,
he's writing to different people and talking about very specifically
about how to poison wolves. I give you an example
in one email he sent in two thousand and three.
You know, he talks about poisoning is much more effective
than shooting, especially in winter when the wolves are confined
(41:06):
to their winter grounds, and the best playway to do
it is to put a frozen meatball made out of
elk because of the last all winter long. Yeah, it's
just one one thing after another. Right now, at the
Fishingwilife Forensics Lab in Ashland, they start to take scrapings
(41:28):
off of these blood stains on these saddle bags, and
of course they already have the meatballs that were collected
at the crime scene, so they can do a DNA
comparison between the blood and the saddle bags and the meatballs.
And don't you know, not only is the blood in
the saddle bags elk meat, but it came from the
(41:49):
same elk that those meatballs were made out of.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
You have got to be kidding me.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
I know, it gets better and better. Every turn in
this case just got better and better. And some of
it's luck and some of it is just downright tenacity
by you know, agent Brigonnier. And you know, with all
the support from the lab personnel on the state investments,
all of.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
That, well, that lab is amazing. But I'm gonna tell you,
Agent Bogoonier, you handle this thing good night. I mean,
because it's one thing. You know, like I've collected things
that people have made fun of me for and I
always say, well, I don't know how it fits, yes,
(42:32):
but I may later. I just know something didn't look right,
it didn't belong there to me, so I took it whatever.
But frozen yellow snow, come on, they're gonna make fun
of you. Just yellow snow. Period in your report is hilarious.
I mean, you have to write that, but look what
came from it.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah. Yeah, and we haven't even you know, I mean,
as of now, we've locked down that the elk meat
is connected to the house and the boots are connected
to the crime scene.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
And this is a dangerous person. And I want people
to understand. I say it all the time. Anybody that
can kick a dog kill a kitten. And I am
not talking about legal hunting. I'm not talking about legal
hunting a fishing. I'm talking about somebody at a meanness,
out of a direct target, is going to kill animals.
(43:26):
That person, absolutely, without a doubt, can kill a human.
And this man said it over and over and over.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
You bet. And this is different than hunting. This is
not hunting. This is right, yeah right, This is not hunting.
And you know, an interesting aside to this is that
the US Department of Justice keeps statistics on assaults on
law enforcement officers, and consistently every year, the law enforcement
(43:58):
profession that has the highest number of physical assaults on
them are conservation officers, game mordens, wildnife officers, special agents.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah, it's a very dangerous profession because a lot of
the criminals you're dealing with are armed, and you can't
you know, if you're approaching a hunter to do an
enforcement action, of course they're going to have a gun.
They always have a gun, you know.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
I did a training with Native American rangers and that's
one of the things they told me. They said, first,
they are by themselves for thousands and thousands of acres.
I mean, their backup is a long way away. Anyway.
That's the first thing that they made me very aware
(44:43):
of is that every single person they come in contact
with has a gun. Everyone.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yes, So, I mean kind of famously, maybe ten years ago,
there was a US Fish and Wildlife Service refuge officer
who was involved in a shooting in the Desert National
Wildlife Refuge outside of Las Vegas. And this is a
guy who was on his own patrolling millions of acres,
and it it was kind of you know, we were
(45:11):
all reminded that we listened to the radio traffic after
the shooting incident where he's requesting backup. It took an hour.
It took an hour for the nearest law enforcement officer
to reach his location on a shooting call.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Yep, that's unbelievable. I mean, I knew the danger, I
didn't know that that groove was the number one assaulted.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
The good news is based on what agent Burgonier was
able to obtain from the crime scene and the search warrant,
it actually was enough for the United States Attorney's Office
to file charges against Sundals. Now, interestingly, the charges were
not for killing a wolf because no wolf body was found,
but attempt to do it carries the same penalty, So,
(46:01):
believe it or not, this is actually the first case
in the history of the US Fish and Wilife Service
where a person was actually charged with attempting to kill
and a threatened or endangered species. So it's kind of
a case of first impression, but definitely was enough evidence
to file those charges.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Brilliant. Well, I hope he got sixty charges because each
one should have served as a charge.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Hey, exactly fifty eight counts right of throwing those meatballs.
So he pleads not guilty and immediately goes on the
media offensive about you know, of course, the out of
control federal agency, and he said some things that didn't
help him. For example, he said, poisoning if pets is
simply collateral damage which doesn't make you very popular with
(46:44):
the public. Right now, what we have is we have
evidence that you know, boots in his possession matched the
prints at the scene of the suspect. We got the
same type of poison found in the suspect's garage, we
got meat from the same elk from the crime scene.
That's he matches the blood in his garage. And we know,
of course that he's a jerk. But then there's one
(47:10):
more thing that Bragonia thinks about, and that is that
as he's considering what do we how do we get
ready for trial, he's looking at the evidence that's booked
into you know, into evidence, and he finds this frozen
yellow snow and he says, what what is Well? Could
(47:30):
this be important? Why is this important? And you know,
I think Mac, you and I have talked about this.
You know why. There is one time when a person's
DNA will show up in their urine. It's when they're sick.
And if you have a cold or you're getting over cold,
your body will shed cells and it ends up in
(47:50):
your urine and it's you know, there's.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Oh, please tell me he was sick, Please tell me.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
So in going through all of his emails from the
search warrant, Bragonier remembered that the week before the meat
balls had been thrown out there, Tim Sundles had been
complaining to his friends about having had the flu.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Oh the word. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
So now we've got a suspect who's pleading not guilty.
He wants to go to trial. He's gone on the
public you know, public media offensive against government. But Brigonia
goes in front of a judge in the US District
Court and says, I want an order authorizing me to
take a DNA sample from Tim Sundles, and the judge
(48:40):
grants it. So the judge has now ordered Tim Sundle
to turn over a DNA sample so it can be
compared against the DNA that's found in the urine. And
don't you know that immediately causes him to plead guilty.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
That is a beautiful thing, that is outstanding. And you know,
you can get DNA from urine, but you know, it's
it's not as easy as people think. I mean, first
of all, it's got to be fresh and all that,
and then you've got to keep it at a low temperature.
So how fortunate that it was frozen. I mean, everything
just worked out beautifully. But I'm going to say something now,
(49:18):
it worked out beautifully because of a lot of hard work.
I mean when you're talking about I mean just hundreds
and hundreds of acres, and those meatballs could have been
anywhere for him to find one after the other after
the other and then keep searching. I mean, agent bragone,
(49:40):
You're saved possibly hundreds of animals.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah, I mean he basically he delivered consequences to somebody
who desperately needed consequences his.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Behavior for the safety of animals and humans.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And it kind of sent a
message to anyone else who's thinking about this that And
this is something I always told people. You know, US
Fish and Wildlife Service agents are among the most tenacious
federal investigators I've ever seen in my life. And they
you know, if you commit a wildlife crime a US
(50:16):
Fish and Wildlife Service agent, they will pursue you. They
will catch you, and they will put you in jail.
It's just it's not a matter of if, it's a
matter of when. And that's exactly what you know happened here.
And I think one of the best outcomes from this case. Unfortunately,
the endangered Species Act carries fairly low penalties, so it's
(50:40):
not like we can say Tim Sundles went to jail
for a long time. But some interesting things occurred in
his sentence that were I think very painful for him.
One of one is that he was prohibited from from
entering federal property for the entire term of his probation,
which was two years. And if you live in Idaho,
(51:01):
a lot of Idaho is federal property, either a service
land or BLM land, so it kind of is impingement
on your lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
It was two miles he could go in good exactly.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
But my favorite part was the Washington Post. Every year
they post a Idiot of the Year, and it's a
number of people that make the list, but Tim Sundals
was the twenty first idiot of the year for that year.
And I'll just read you real quick what the Washington
Post said. It said, Tim Sundals. Tim Sundals, Who's unabashed
(51:35):
hatred of US government efforts to reintroduce gray wolves out
West borders on fanatical. In his latest scheme to finish
off the endangered species, he planted poison lace meatballs in
Idaho's remote salmon Shayliss National Forests instead of killing wolves.
Though the meatballs ended up poisoning a coyotea fox, and
birds and three pet dogs. So he public shaming is
(52:01):
it is a valuable tool because whether or not you
go to jail, or whether or not you pay a
lot of fines, having all your neighbors know what you
did and how you did it, and that the government
caught you and your guiltiest sin is a valuable deterrent.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
Amen. It makes it that much harder for him to
ever do it again because he's going to be usual suspects.
He's always going to be on your list.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Exactly one hundred percent. And you know, I mentioned that
the Endangered Species Act has, you know, not great penalties necessarily,
but where people really start to get into trouble and
go to jail is when they commit subsequent offenses. So
if he turns up again in committing a wildlife crime,
a state or a federal judge is going to look
(52:48):
at his record and say, well, this is a prior
violator who didn't learn his lesson before. I'm going to
send him to jail. So I've seen that before, where
subsequent violators end up actually doing some pretty good time
because they demonstrated that they didn't learn a lesson, So
that's always hanging over his head.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Ed, I cannot thank you enough, and I'm just gonna again, y'all.
If you can work this case, you can work any
case out there. This was I mean, you can call
some of it luck, but that's not what I see.
I see literally boots in the snow working this thing
to the very end, collecting things. You don't even know
(53:28):
what it's going to result in. You're just going to
have it and see what comes from it. That's just
unbelievably solid investigative work, one hundred percent. All right, Ed,
I will see you in Denver Crime.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Con looking forward to it. I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Well, y'all, I'm going to end Zone seven the way
that I always do with a quote. It all starts
with the Wolves, Peter Woolen Bear, The Hidden Life of Trees.
I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this his own seven h
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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