Badges, Bears, and Eagles Page 4

  I was taken aback by Woodhall’s extremely negative attitude, considering the fact that he had been a wildlife protection officer for thirty years.

  “This guy, Stillwell, is as bad as they come,” I explained. “He killed a bald eagle and threatened the life of one of our wardens. I just talked to a man who said Stillwell shoots hawks and deer all the time, just for the fun of it.”

  My attempt to shame Woodhall into changing his mind fell on deaf ears. It was clear that he and Marshall had already made up their minds and were only concerned about the money they had invested in their fish hatchery. Although Woodhall had a reputation for being able to talk the hump off a camel, he had only this to offer: “You guys will get them again for something else.” Szody and I were insulted by Woodhall’s statement and refused to dignify it with any kind of response. While Woodhall tried to justify his case with a barrage of self-serving BS, I wondered, How could this guy take an oath to enforce the law, then retire and turn his back on the whole thing? Our silence spoke volumes.

  After thanking Woodhall and Marshall for the meeting, Szody and I left the restaurant.

  Nearly two months passed. Dave and I continued to look for anything we could use to break open the case. We went by and talked to Al Hollis two or three more times, but got the same response. I was about ready to cut our losses and file charges against Stillwell and Davis for the prosecutable offences when we finally got the break we needed.

  One afternoon, at the end of April, Al Hollis walked into the Redding Fish and Game office. I happened to be there at the time and led Hollis into the squad room.

  “Have a seat, Al. What’s on your mind?” I asked.

  Hollis sat there for a minute or two before responding. I could tell he wanted to tell me something, but was hesitant to get it out. “I have decided to testify if you still need me,” said Hollis. “I might end up losing my job if those guys wreck the hatchery, but I have to do the right thing. I guess in my heart I’m still a game warden.”

  My mind immediately began processing Al Hollis’s surprising statement. “I can’t tell you how much I respect you for your decision,” I said. “You know, with all the evidence we are going to throw at these guys, they may well plead guilty and you won’t have to testify anyway.”

  I thanked Al Hollis several more times before the courageous former warden left the office. I wondered what had motivated him to change his mind. Too many years had passed for him to have any chance of getting back on the job. Hollis knew that. He hadn’t even brought it up. This guy may have had a drinking problem, but he still had the heart and the guts of a real game warden.

  The remainder of my work day was spent typing up formal criminal complaints against Jake William Stillwell and Mitchell Wayne Davis. Most of the narrative had already been written up in case we got lucky.

  My original complaint, submitted May 1, 1985, charged Stillwell and Davis with the following crimes:

  1. Threatening a public officer—felony.

  2. Take and possess endangered bald eagle— misdemeanor.

  3. Take and possess mountain lion—misdemeanor.

  4. Possess fully protected ring-tailed cat— misdemeanor.

  5. Possess protected furbearing mammal (fisher) or parts thereof—misdemeanor.

  6. Take or possess fully protected bird (golden eagle) or parts thereof —misdemeanor.

  7. Maintain steel leg-hold traps within thirty feet of exposed bait—misdemeanor.

  8. Trap furbearing or nongame mammals without a trapping license—misdemeanor.

  9. Sale of raw furs of furbearing or nongame mammals without a trapping license (seven counts)—misdemeanor.

  Once the criminal complaints had been approved by the district attorney’s office, warrants were issued for the arrests of Stillwell and Davis. Arrangements were made for them to turn themselves in to Fish and Game on May 25, 1985.

  Prior to Stillwell and Davis arriving at the Fish and Game office, I telephoned one of the deputy district attorneys I had been working with on the case. I asked if there was any legal problem with secretly recording the two arrestees while they were in custody and sitting in the back of a marked enforcement vehicle. As expected, the deputy district attorney confirmed that there was no legal expectation of privacy under those circumstances. Always looking for ways to strengthen the case against Stillwell and Davis, I figured a conversation between the two wildlife outlaws might produce an admission of guilt or additional evidence. Just before their arrival, I placed an active tape recorder under the front seat of the marked patrol car that would be used to transport them to the county jail.

  Stillwell and Davis arrived just before noon, as expected. They were immediately handcuffed and placed in the backseat of a green, Department of Fish and Game patrol car, marked with the standard DFG logo and equipped with red light and siren. I was just about to sit down in the driver’s seat when Warden Szody popped his head out the back door of the Fish and Game office.

  “You have a phone call,” he said.

  “You guys sit tight, I’ll be right back,” I said, as I stepped out of the vehicle and walked back into the office. Of course there was no phone call. Szody and I watched from a nearby window while Stillwell and Davis carried on a five minute tape-recorded conversation. We then returned to the patrol vehicle and transported the two outlaws to the county jail, where they were promptly booked.

  III

  Stillwell and Davis would not be scheduled for trial before July or August. During the weeks that followed, I set out to build an even stronger case against them. I contacted a handwriting expert with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and received instructions on how to conduct handwriting exemplars. Stillwell and Davis were ordered by the court to submit to the exemplars, which I administered on July 10, 1985.

  As the FBI expert had advised, I instructed Stillwell and Davis to use a black felt-tip pen. Davis’s exemplar was of no consequence, as expected. Jake Stillwell, on the other hand, left no doubt that he had written the threatening note to Warden Hatcher. The completed exemplars and several other handwriting samples were submitted to the FBI on July 11, 1985. Results were received on July 22, 1985. Jake Stillwell was identified, by the FBI, as the person who had written the threatening note.

  All eight times, Stillwell spelled Hatcher’s name, “Hather,” just like in the note. Davis, on the other hand, spelled it correctly every time. Regardless of how slowly I dictated the text, Stillwell wrote in a fast, scribbling manner. Davis printed slowly and deliberately. Stillwell consistently left words out of the text. He continued to use cursive form and run letters together, in spite of being repeatedly instructed to print. Davis took his time, printed neatly and did not leave words out. Stillwell avoided the use of any punctuation. Davis placed punctuation marks in obvious places. Stillwell refused to print the alphabet in lower case, claiming he did not know how.

  Early in the investigation, I had asked a Redding veterinarian to X-ray the bald eagle carcass at the center of our investigation. Although a bullet had passed completely through the bird, the vet determined from the size of the hole that it had come from a .22 or slightly larger caliber firearm. Now that we had filed criminal complaints against Stillwell and Davis, I decided to call my friend, Jim Banks, at the Sacramento Fish and Game Forensics Lab, to see if they had come up with anything further.

  Banks had transported the bald eagle to San Francisco’s Chief Medical Examiner’s Necropsy Department. These skilled professionals were accustomed to solving human murders, but welcomed some variety in their normal routine. The fact that someone had killed our national bird and threatened a peace officer was also a motivating factor. According to the medical examiner’s necropsy report, conducted on July 19 and 20, 1985:

  Multiple fragments of lead were present about the bald eagle’s body. A through-and-through gunshot wound passed through the eagle’s liver. The eagle appears to be an immature female. Based on the trajectory of the bullet through the body and the posit
ion necessary to align the wing wound to the body, the eagle was most likely shot while on the ground. The point of fire appears to be slightly higher than that of the eagle. Finding fresh food in the crop supports a recent feeding. The meat and hair found in the crop suggested deer.

  The medical examiner’s report left no doubt as to how the bald eagle had been killed. I telephoned Dave Szody to run my theory by him. “Here’s what I think happened,” I said. “Jake Stillwell killed a deer to bait in the eagle. The eagle was feeding on the deer carcass when Stillwell shot it from his car window.”

  “Without a doubt,” said Szody. “He shot the deer out there off Platina Road, away from the pavement. They let the deer lie, knowing that eagles historically winter out there around Cottonwood Creek. All they had to do was keep an eye on the carcass until an eagle started feeding on it. Bang! They have their bird.”

  I remembered what Fred Hoffman had said earlier in the investigation: “Jake Stillwell was always shooting hawks and the further away the better.” At the time of this investigation, Dave Szody and I each had about eleven years on the job. We had come across a lot of serious poachers but we both agreed Jake Stillwell was by far the worst.

  Back in July, I had told Al Hollis he would probably never have to testify—Stillwell and Davis would be faced with a mountain of evidence and their attorneys would try to make some kind of a plea bargain. As worried as Hollis was about possible retaliation and the prospect of losing his job, he stuck to his word and was ready to testify when the original trial date arrived. I was duly impressed when the former Fish and Game warden walked into the courthouse wearing a suit and tie. As it turned out, Stillwell and Davis had no interest in facing a jury of decent, reasonable citizens. Their attorneys must have convinced them of how badly they would look, because sometime in November, 1985, they both finally entered pleas of guilty.

  A sentencing hearing was held for Mitch Davis on December 4, 1985. He brought his attorney, his whole family, several friends of the family and nine letters, all testifying to his outstanding character. According to Davis’s character witnesses, this fine, upstanding, Sunday school-teaching young man was as pure as the wind-driven snow. They blew so much smoke at the judge, it’s a wonder the courthouse didn’t catch on fire.

  Then it was our turn. The assistant district attorney made the following statement: “Your honor, we have a tape recording that was made on the day Mr. Davis and his partner, Jake Stillwell, were booked into Shasta County Jail. It is a recording of the conversation that these two men had while they were handcuffed and sitting in the backseat of a marked patrol car.”

  With the judge’s permission, I placed a tape recorder in front of the bench and turned it on. The voices on the tape were clearly those of Mitch Davis and Jake Stillwell. Instead of sounding concerned about their impending incarceration, the two men spent most of the five minute recording laughing and making fun of the situation they found themselves in. Although there were no clear admissions of guilt, nearly every other word out of Davis and Stillwell’s mouths was of the four-letter variety.

  “I’ve heard enough,” announced the judge. After listening to the recording, the judge gave little or no credence to anything else that Davis or his character witnesses had to say. Since Jake Stillwell had already pled guilty to killing the bald eagle and writing the threatening note, Mitch Davis was stuck with all of the trapping and protected species-related crimes. He was sentenced to serve 266 days in Shasta County Jail and ordered to pay a fine of $5,950. Davis was placed on three year’s summary probation; during such time he was to obey all laws, submit his person, property and vehicle to warrantless search and not hunt, trap or be in the field with anyone else who was hunting or trapping.

  Jake Stillwell was finally sentenced on January 31, 1986. He was found guilty of threatening a public officer—a felony—and killing an endangered bald eagle—a misdemeanor. Stillwell was sentenced to serve 365 days (one year) in the Shasta County Jail, fined a total of $6,120 and placed on five years’ formal probation. During the period of probation, Stillwell was to have no contact, in any manner, with Mitch Davis. Subject to warrantless search, he was not allowed to hunt, trap or accompany any other hunters or trappers. As a convicted felon, Jake Stillwell could never again legally possess a firearm in the state of California.

  Chapter Two

  Desert Rats

  I

  I first met my longtime friend and working partner, Dave Szody, in 1973. I was pursuing a master’s degree at Sacramento State University and had signed up for an upper division zoology class that turned out to be half classroom work and half field experience.

  One day the professor sent us all out to the Yolo Bypass, where we spent several hours seining fish in one of the irrigation canals. Two of us were on one end of the seine and two others on the opposite end. Carefully, we maneuvered the seine into the shallows, where we discovered what had to be a pretty good sample of every freshwater fish species in the Central Valley. Over half the captured fish were thread-fin shad, but there were also bullhead catfish, channel catfish, hardhead minnows, carp, bluegill, sunfish, smallmouth bass and even a few fingerling salmon and steelhead.

  After documenting our catch, we released the fish and I struck up a conversation with the student on my end of the net. It turned out we were both about the same age and had similar career goals—Fish and Game warden if at all possible, park ranger if that didn’t work out. At the end of the semester we went our separate ways, not expecting to cross paths again. Little did we know that our careers would progress in virtual lockstep. I became a park ranger for Sacramento County, and he became a park ranger for Monterey County. A year and a half later, I was appointed the rookie Fish and Game warden for the Earp Patrol District. Six months after that, he was named the rookie Fish and Game warden for the adjoining Blythe/Palo Verde Patrol District.

  II

  One of the high points of my life happened in September of 1974, when I finally got the news I had been waiting for. An old Fish and Game inspector named Ellis Berry telephoned me from the California Department of Fish and Game headquarters in Sacramento: “Your number has come up on the hiring list. If you want the job, we have one for you in Earp.” I had no idea where Earp was and didn’t care. Being a Fish and Game warden was my career goal and I would go wherever they sent me.

  Berry made the position sound pretty good by saying that the current deputy director of the Department of Fish and Game had begun his career in Earp. It turned out that Earp was nothing more than a post office and a gas station on the west edge of the Sonoran Desert, just across the Colorado River from a small Arizona town called Parker. This isolated spot had been home to the legendary Wyatt Earp, back in the early 1900s. The famous lawman did some mining in the nearby Whipple Mountains and apparently stuck around long enough to have a post office and a gas station named after him.

  It would be a few months before I could begin my new adventure on the Colorado River. First, as required by law, I would have to complete my peace officers training (POST) at the Riverside Sheriff’s Academy. When I entered the academy I was twenty-six years old, stood six feet tall and weighed a hundred and eighty pounds—eventually filling out to my career weight of two hundred and twenty pounds.

  Just out of the academy and rarin’ to go, I arrived in Earp just before Thanksgiving. The first order of business was meeting my new supervisor, Captain James A. Reynolds. Captain Reynolds lived in Blythe, which bordered the Colorado River and was located about fifty miles downstream from my new patrol district in Earp. Reynolds’s entire Fish and Game career had been spent in the desert, with the exception of a short stint in Ventura. Jim immediately revealed his passion for his beloved desert: “Years from now,” Reynolds said, “after you’ve transferred to some place up north, you’ll look back on the time you spent here in the desert as the best years of your career.” He went on to describe the Colorado River as a jewel in the desert, teeming with fish and wildlife.

  At the t
ime of our first meeting, Captain Reynolds was approaching sixty and had worked almost forty years for the Department of Fish and Game. His work day usually began at 5:00 a.m. with a two-mile run at the nearby park. Jim was fairly thin, standing about five feet ten and weighing approximately one hundred and sixty pounds. His skin had been prematurely aged by decades in the desert sun. After his workout, Captain Reynolds would tend to the day’s business in his home office—listening to the Fish and Game radio, performing necessary paperwork and monitoring his squad of wardens: Dave Fry (Needles), Jim Worthington (Blythe North), Paul Menard (Winterhaven) and me (Earp). This self-described desert rat had a reputation for being hard-headed, fair and unfailingly supportive of his men. You never had any doubt about what was on Jim Reynolds’s mind; he would tell you in no uncertain terms.

  My indoctrination to Fish and Game law enforcement was actually pretty simple: Captain Reynolds handed me a stack of citation books and told me to go get ’em. Fortunately, I already knew a little bit about the job. Being the son of a Fish and Game warden, I had ridden on patrol several hundred times during my childhood. While at the sheriff’s academy, I had studied the Fish and Game Code and all the relevant Colorado River hunting and fishing regulations, so I felt confident and well prepared for what was to be the first day of my life’s work—protecting California’s fish and wildlife resources.

  The warden that I replaced had transferred north almost a year earlier and there had been no fish and game enforcement in the Earp Patrol District since he left. It didn’t take me long to figure out that my new district had become what Fish and Game wardens refer to as a “cherry patch”: Every place I looked there were violations—fishing without a license, multiple fishing lines, over-limits, limb lining, quail hunting during closed season, waterfowl hunting during closed season, killing of protected nongame birds and an incredible amount of littering.