No Sanity Required

The Sheriff Who Caught Eric Rudolph | Part 1

• Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters

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Former Sheriff Keith Lovin — the man who helped capture Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph — joins No Sanity Required for Part 1 of a powerful two-part series. From growing up in western North Carolina to surviving deadly shootouts, high-risk manhunts, and split-second decisions under fire, Keith a.k.a. Bumper shares the real stories behind a lifetime in law enforcement. This episode offers a firsthand look at the realities of police work, the pressure of leadership, and the moments that stayed with him long after the sirens faded.

Rudolf, Beethoven, and The Chainsaw Man

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Welcome And Two-Parter Setup

SPEAKER_05

Hey everybody, welcome back to this week's episode of No Sanity Required. Brody and I have been looking forward to posting this episode for a couple weeks now. We're super, super excited. We had former sheriff Keith Lovin on the podcast. And if you guys aren't aware who that is, some of you guys may know him as Bumper or heard Brody tell stories of Bumper. But Sheriff Keith Loven is the sheriff who arrested Eric Rudolph. And I'll link the episode down below. But about a year or two ago, Brody and I did an in-depth episode about Eric Rudolph who bombed a bunch of abortion clinics. Anyways, he hid out in Andrews. He's hid out in the Murphy Andrews area for about like five years and was on FBI's Most Wanted. Crazy, crazy, crazy. But even crazier, we had the sheriff who arrested him on the podcast. So this will be a two-parter episode. This first episode is just stories from his time being sheriff, from his time being a state trooper. He is such a phenomenal storyteller. We just sat there and listened to him. So I really hope you guys enjoy this episode. And then the next episode with him will be more in detail about his time with Eric Rudolph, his arresting of Eric Rudolph, all that good stuff. So I hope you guys enjoy, and I'm so, so grateful for Keith Levin for coming on here and just sharing a lot of his stories. It was so cool to hear. But yeah, thanks for tuning in and welcome to No Sanity Required.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe.

SPEAKER_05

So have you lived in Andrews your whole life?

SPEAKER_02

Most of it.

SPEAKER_07

That's where I'm from. I grew up in Bethel.

SPEAKER_02

Bethel. I know.

SPEAKER_07

Did they work at the Champion at the paper mill?

SPEAKER_02

My father did. And my grandfather did too. He was a security officer. Broke my heart. They closed two years ago. I know. 108 years. I can remember my grandfather come home from work and uh he he worked a lot of night shift and and and his his hobby was he was a rock hound and he made jewelry and stuff like that. And I played a little bit of that grow growing up. But I I can still remember the employees there at Christmas time would get uh they'd make wrapping paper. The champion paper would make it not for sale, just for their employees. And they came in a roll about that big and you know like four feet wide. And uh I can still remember that particular paper. Wow. And uh of course, I also probably my fondest memory there is my grandmother would uh make shirts for us, sew them, and and she'd she'd make them out of uh the bags that flour would come in.

SPEAKER_05

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02

Because back then you could buy bulk flour and it came in a in a cotton sack with printed patterns on it. So make it, yeah.

SPEAKER_07

Did you have any family members that worked at Daco? No. So I had family at Champion, which was in Canton, but my granddad worked at Daco and one of my aunts, which was in Waynesville. Champion made paper. So like when you were growing up, when probably when you were young, young, the notebook paper you were writing on probably came from a champion. Paper mill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And then And it wasn't just one champion, they were other champions and competitors. My father left our Blood and Fire divorced, and he went to uh Rock Hill, South Carolina, went to work for Bow Waters.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

College, Faith, And Becoming A Cop

SPEAKER_02

Which is another big paper company. He was uh uh welder, so that by profession, that's that's what he did. Well so there was gap there, and and they were separated, and then we moved to South Carolina, stayed there until I was about uh, I don't know, two-thirds of the way through the third grade. Okay. Then they split again and end up divorcing, and you know, things got kind of really rough for a while. And next thing I know, two uncles and my grandfather showed up in a big yellow station wagon and we loaded up what little stuff we had. We came to North Carolina, kind of like the Beverly Hill buildings. And and and uh from that point forward I was here most of the time. Not when I worked for the Highway Patrol, you know, I started in Avery County when I came out of well, let me back up. I actually started after college, went to uh work at for the city of Hickory.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Worked there for about about a year.

SPEAKER_07

Did you when you you went to Western Carolina University, and did you get a degree in criminal justice?

SPEAKER_02

I had a double degree in uh business administration and criminal justice. Uh and when I was there, the criminal justice program was in the school of business. So you kind of had to have a business degree. Since then they moved out and it's in the school technology now. I don't know the reasoning behind that, but yeah, I hadn't that to work at Hicker Police Department even then in 1979, uh, before you could apply, you had to have a a four-year degree. Really? Correct.

SPEAKER_07

That was probably one of the a lot of departments didn't require that. Yeah, it was one of the first.

SPEAKER_02

Uh Greensboro and and Charlotte followed suit with that at some point. So I I actually, you know, I applied with uh with two guys I started with, one uh uh had a business degree, I don't remember who from, and then uh turned out being a a lifetime friend, had a master's degree from Florida State University. He worked there all the way and retired as a captain, then went on to be the police chief in Boone for uh until we retired there.

SPEAKER_07

So you went to work at Hickory as a patrol officer, did that a year, and then you applied to Highway Patrol School. Correct.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I actually applied right out of college and didn't and didn't get hired by the Highway Patrol. And then I'm you know I was a carpenter's helper for a little while, uh another educational experience. And uh I learned uh how valuable it was to not underestimate people. First day, boss takes them out there to his 75-year-old man landing rock. He says, Your job is simple. You know, they've got this trough here, you keep mortar mixed up for him, and if he wants you to put rocks up on the scaffold, you do that. And I thought to myself, oh, this is gonna be easy. That old man worked me to death. So I, you know, I went from that to uh uh worked in the marble quarries here for a few months, you know, cutting marble and uh working for Columbia Marble Company, and then I went to Hickory College placement, uh you know, Hickory contact colleges, of course, looking for people college degrees, and somebody got my name and then they ended up there. Started on July the 2nd, 1979.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Actually drew drove down on the first. I had nowhere to stay. I spent my first night in Hickory sleeping on the couch in the stairs at the police department.

SPEAKER_05

No way.

SPEAKER_02

That's what you call acting on faith.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_07

Were you a did you grow up as a Christian? Like were you following the Lord at that point? Yes. Did how did uh back up just when y'all, when your folks split up and y'all came back to Western North Carolina, did you come back to Cannes or is that when you came to Andrews? Coming to Andrews. Well, actually to Marble, but yeah. Was that connected to somebody's work or no?

SPEAKER_02

I d that's where my my mother's family was. I see. Okay. So uh did we come back and stayed with them for a short period of time, and my grandfather helped my mother find a little small trailer and they set it up there and field, and that's where I So when you were when your early childhood when you were in Canton, when you're in Haywood County, your grandparents you had grandparents over here.

SPEAKER_07

Correct. Which for our for our listeners that are in other parts of the world, um we're talking about a couple county difference, you know. It's all in West North Carolina, so Canton is about a little over an hour from here. Um we had my brother and a cousin on here not long ago just telling early camp day stories because they'd both worked here in the early days and they both live in Haywood County. Um yeah, we had a good time. So you were so you get to Hickory. Where'd you sleep the second night?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That friend of mine I told you out about uh from FSU, he had a he had found an apartment and I slept on the floor in his apartment for a period of time until and it turned out uh there was another apartment that same as a house divided into three apartments, and I was able to get an apartment there and then move forward. Wow. Which by the way, was to go to church there, I walked out the front door right across the street into the Highland Baptist Church. Right there. Yeah, and that's probably some kind of circumstance working there too. Yeah. Keep it close. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

So a year and you go to Highway Patrol School. Go to Highway Patrol School. Get stationed in Avery County.

SPEAKER_02

Get stationed in Avery County and stayed there for about three years and then come back. I wanted to I wanted to get by that time I had my first two children. And I thought it was, you know, family's always been important to me. So I wanted them to be back closer to family here. So uh we made a decision to try to get a bit closer. It ended up in Robinsville. I actually tried to get a position in Hazelville, and two of us were trying to get at the same time, didn't work out. And then after staying there about five years, I had an opportunity to come back to Cherokee County, and then I came back.

SPEAKER_05

Nice. And you've been here ever since?

SPEAKER_02

Been here pretty much ever since. I I lived in Knoxville for about four years. Okay. But I've been back about four years. That was right after recently after retirement.

The Hendersonville Manhunt Begins

SPEAKER_07

Oh, yeah, it was after uh I quit being a sheriff. Um yeah, let's get into some of your law enforcement career. There was I was telling, I was trying to tell JB a couple stories that I and I don't remember if I ever got your take. One was a guy that shot your windshield out or something. Was that uh was that around here? Is that over near Hendersonville? Yeah. You told me that story one time.

Dead-End Road Gunfight

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it was it was in Hendersonville. How'd that go down? Uh well uh you know, as in most times of my life, I mind my own business. You're on patrol. Yeah, I'm on I'm on high work from living in Robinsville. I I get a call from Oh, you're living over here. Yeah, I'm I'm in Robinsville during this period of time. This would have been oh gosh, eighty eight, eighty nine nine somewhere in that neighborhood. And and get a call from Sergeant and you know, said that you've been hearing about the you know the the futures of that they're looking for in Henderson County. And then I said, no, not really. I said, well, you you need to report to the Edinville Fire Department at 7 o'clock in the morning, you know. We're standing up some people to go over there looking for this guy, and and his name was uh John Schernock. And uh he kind of fancied himself as being like a Rambo personality and and he liked to rob banks and uh and then escaped from retardes if he they got in a chase. And a few days before this, he had uh uh robbed a bank down on the coast and and the uh um the officer, police officer got to chase him, and he shot that police officer's car up and grazed his head with with the round, you know, jumped in this canal down there somewhere and swim and escaped. Well, a few da a few days later, uh him and a friend of his, uh, his friend had people in Hensonville, they they come up to visit them, and they're having a big party up in the mountain home section of Henderson County. And so that they go up there, there's an altercation that starts, and uh him and his buddy kind of you know beat this guy up pretty good. So he does what often happens in the mountains here. That guy gets beats up, goes and rounds up a few of his cousins and uncles, a few other people, and come back and they're gonna settle the score. Well, uh I don't remember how many people the determined was at that particular party in a trailer, of course. And uh a fight ensues, and and over the next few minutes there there's uh somewhere in the neighborhood about 168 rounds fired from about five different weapons inside that trailer in the front yard. So so um That's crazy. It was crazy. Well, the the the the his friend and gets this other guy because he knows the one of the guys that took that two people ended up getting killed, and uh they they load one up and rush into the hospital with him, and uh a deputy tried to stop him for speeding down on 64 to get closer to the hospital. And uh um his friend who's in the car, uh you know, when the deputy tried to start him, leads out the car or uh AR-15 and shoots up a deputy's car and disables it. Okay, well later on that you know, they're going through a roadblock and they they get stopped again. And and uh, you know, they had hid the gun at that point, but they had a guy in in a back seat who was deceased. I I mean that the guy was probably deceased before he ever left the address of where the the gunfight took place. So that started this whole manhunt thing rolling, and we we got up there and and you know that they told us said we're gonna post you. We think we got a perimeter, but we're gonna post you out here uh on a perimeter to try to keep this, you know, this person contained her trying to find because they had the one guy, Rambo's friend, and they were trying to get him. And so we had a pretty wide perimeter, and we stayed all day and it was miserable. It snowed, it rained, the sun came out, you know. Uh I had a I had the best pair of gloves I ever had. And I I would lose them that day. But but and it's interesting how I got them, but but I, you know, uh later, and they told us that you know he'll probably try, you know, to assault one of you all and maybe get your car tried or try to escape the perimeter or or get your vehicle and leave. So, you know, we were pretty You're tuned up for this game. Yeah, well, we we were we didn't let our guard down a whole lot. Yeah. Well, look late later in the day they shift the perimeter where I I moved down two positions because it had it where you pretty much see everybody around the and it was a w wide perimeter. And uh later at day they move us down, and then uh two Earth troopers say they see him, which is on kind of on our side of this perimeter. So they shift us back up, and uh after just a little bit they uh uh come on and tell us that they've got a call from inside somebody somebody inside the perimeter that he had broken their home and he stole the vehicle, and it became that such sush road. Well, that road is like right here. And uh so the the two troopers below me, Trooper Cook and Gladden, uh, and Trooper Miller was was above me, and we come down, we said, well, we're gonna we'll set up him right here, and there's an old man and his son come by and say, Hey, listen, said right top of that hill's another road. He'll end up out there somewhere, you'll miss him. So we drive up to the top of the road, and and you get top of the road, and there's a church here. Another church in the in the equation, and a big cemetery, and the road kind of winds down for about like here the earth's earth to the four lane to a cemetery. And he's coming, this vehicle's coming up the road. Do y'all have weapons, long guns out, or you Well, at that time the long guns that we were issued consisted of a shotgun. Okay. And I had an Ithaca shotgun, which was, you know, probably Ithaca 36. Yeah, probably about as old as me. I, you know, and I still got it. Oh wow. And and but but you could take it and hit it on the ground with the buttstock and it'll go off. Oh wow. But but they bought these things primarily back in the in the late 60s when they had the riots, and you know, had a lot of rights back in that period of time because of the Vietnam War. So that's that's kind of shotgun that that they went to. And so I had that, of course, had a side arms. Well, w we pull up and stop and and he's a good bit away and he slows down. And w we know we suspect that he has we were told he had a course maybe an AR-15, maybe a car bean. So uh we pull up and we stop and he stops, and then he slows down, stops, turns, fires a shot. And uh I didn't fire a shot that time, but we fired a couple shots, and he takes off and we take off after him. Well, the road he's on is a dead end road. And we catch up to him, and uh I was in the car with David Miller, I was a passenger, and Gary Cook and and uh David Gladden were behind us, and uh we're chasing this guy, and he's in uh a jeep renegade, that's what he's told. Uh so when we catch up to him, but if he if he was in a left-hand curve, he was slow down to stop it on his door and shoot at us. And of course, being in the first car, we was he was shooting mostly at us. And he he was doing he was doing pretty good. And you know, I shot at it shot at him out the window, shot the back of the renegade out, and we went for a while and he finally got away away from us. You're taking those shots with your Ithaca with your 12 gauge, or yeah, I leaned out the window and shot it with the ithacut. So w once we lost him, we stopped. And uh because I mean he when he would shoot, we'd slow down, he'd get far enough ahead of us, we'd lose sight, and we'd catch back up pretty much waiting on us. You know, and we said we stopped, we knew it was dead inroad, so they they called a cavalry in, and um one of the shots came through the windshield and luckily turned down, and it put glass in my eyes, and and a little piece of one little piece of lead just kind of scratched me on my cheek. And uh and at that at that point I couldn't say, didn't try to say because every time I blinked my eyes because the light, the glass was just kind of grinding, so I kept my eyes shut. So, you know, the lieutenant got there and he asked, Well, how many times hit your car? And David said, Well, I think he hit it twice. I said, No, he hit it four times. That I'm aware of. He he hit the the bumper, hit the front windshield, uh, and two on the the left side. And they found out they didn't find the one in the bumper till they uh examined it for you knew.

SPEAKER_07

Oh, I I could I remember You knew every shot that hit the every shot. And you're sitting there at this point with your eyes squid shut.

SPEAKER_02

Uh well I I couldn't see.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Did were you afraid? Like in your mind, did you think I'm blind, I'm gonna be blind?

SPEAKER_02

Uh yeah, I I thought that was a possibility. Wow. But uh you know, so they stuffed me in a car with with a trooper and first sergeant. And uh the first first sergeant kept telling the the trooper all the way to the hospital, you know, said he's gonna be okay, slow down a little bit because it was Garrett Sorrells who was stationed in in Waynesville later, always a lifetime good friend. So they they rushed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

I went to school with his boys.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah? Yeah. Good, good people. Just solid earth good people.

SPEAKER_07

So did you know uh Petey Steins? Yeah, I knew Petey very well. Yeah, I grew up with Petey. Yeah, I'd love Petey. Of course, Anthony Cogdall was my brother-in-law. Really? Anthony was married to my sister. I didn't know he got killed. They were going through a divorce, but yeah. The day he got killed was the day Rudolph came to town.

SPEAKER_05

No way.

SPEAKER_07

I didn't reali I don't remember connecting those dots. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Sure was. Yeah, Anthony's my brother-in-law.

SPEAKER_05

Dang.

SPEAKER_02

I'd had a pretty long day that day, and then I heard about actually where he's killed, and uh I had actually worked with uh Dr. Riggson with Highway Patrol, uh, because we started bringing uh bringing up a cricket incident team. Uh we started looking at it from officer survival standpoint in instruction in about 85 because you know, you have people that are exposed to to trauma and stuff like that. This is early on before they I mean this is before the military started looking at it. But you you know, you'd have these things and you would lose people because these traumatic events that were never were never addressed. So we we started looking at that, and another good friend of mine. Bill Gardner. You probably heard about Bill Gardner. We call him Superman. He gets no, he's still alive. Okay. Big old trooper in Hayward County? Oh, really big dude. Really big dude. Yeah. We went on our own.

SPEAKER_07

I'm convinced he wore his shirts a half a size small. That dude was big dude.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I mean, he was Bill Bill's soft-spoken guy. Um, but he has uh black belts and two different martial arts. Don't mess with Bill. Don't mess with Bill. He was uh one of my DIs in patrol school, then came back out. His his wife, Sue,'s paramedic. But but we'd we went down in um the hallway patrol told more we wanted to do because uh you know, 85 we had three troopers killed in 1985.

SPEAKER_07

Was that the year the guy down in Harmon's Den got killed?

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_07

Okay. And I'd like to tell that story because I really think there's a lot of similarities to that in the in the Rudolph story as far as the way y'all chased that guy.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, Giles, Giles Harmon.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, yeah. But go ahead, go ahead and keep going.

SPEAKER_02

Uh so one of the things sticks out in my mind at that point is uh when when we get back up to the road where all this started, just the church and the road there, uh I've never in my life before since seen many blue lights. Because they were just briefing the next bunch to relieve us because we'd been on post for about 12 hours. So the the next bunch of highway patrolmen were getting ready to replace us out, which it was just an absolute sea of blue lights. I could open them definitely see that, so they take me to the hospital, uh, get my eyes cleaned out and bandage them up and you know, all that stuff. And then uh they relay me home, you know, from trooper to trooper and take me home, take me to the front door and knock knock on the door. Of course, there I am going home. I've got two small children, three small children at that time, actually. And that's the day that I find out that I'm gonna have a fourth child.

SPEAKER_07

Oh wow, which would be your Jason Jason. And I did I had the privilege of doing Jason's wedding.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

So uh So are you uh they have your eyes covered? They did.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

Tracking, Ambush, And The Final Shot

SPEAKER_02

So uh and you know, but by the next day I I could I could see a little bit. So uh and what happens after our shooting, they bring two assault teams in and fall it down, find a Jeep that's abandoned, and you know, they set up uh uh ambush positions in case he tries to get back out. So then our our perimeter is a little bit, you know, fragmented. But he's out on foot somewhere. He's out on foot. Wow. And did he have the other guy with him, Stu? No, the other guy was in custody at that point. Okay, so he's by himself. Okay. Well, the the next morning those two assault teams start tracking him, you know, because most law enforcement has has man trackers now, which is uh a discipline all to its own. So that they track him into a field, uh, the track goes into a a good sized field, and one team's on the side and one team starts across, and about the time about the time they get to the middle, they realize that he's backtracked. And so, but they're in the middle of a wide open field, which is no place to have that realization. And about the time they do that, a shot rings out, and and and it's the candy's hit and actually enters on one side of his face, about the job and comes out inside about his ear. He goes down. Killed him. No. He didn't die from it. He he lives. It's just through his jaws. Yeah. It's a 30 caliber round. Wow. Through and through. So they all fall down, and then a gunfire, you know, erupts, and there's, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of several hundred rounds fired in the next few minutes. But because um the one one of the it was another deputy and two troopers. The other deputy was shooting the AR uh the uh one trooper had a Mini 14 of his own. And the other trooper had an Uzi because there was one of those at every every post or whatever. Every troop headquarters had one of those for executive prediction.

SPEAKER_05

What's that? What's an Uzi?

SPEAKER_02

It's a nine millimeter small, compact, fully automatic, essentially.

SPEAKER_07

Okay, I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah. So like uh Uzi's when like in the eighties, an Uzi was like the ultimate, like, street gangster commando, you name it. It was like the the cool, but like I mean, I've only ever seen one. Yeah. I mean, that's a pretty big deal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So uh they're the they're there and they shootout back and forth. And uh, you know, they're they're trying to keep fire on this guy. Uh Randy Campbell, that one of the the troopers that's there, when the initial shot went off, happened to see the muzzle flash. So he had an idea of where he was at on the tree line.

SPEAKER_07

So he's he's in the trees at this point. He's not in the middle of an open field, he's made it into the trees.

SPEAKER_02

Went around, got behind cover, okay. And and he's ambushed us at that point.

SPEAKER_07

He's pretty pretty savvy dude.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, he he he thought the well it most people that we deal with who are bad people who we hunt tried to get away, or like most other animals. He wanted to fight. This guy didn't want to get away, he wanted to fight. He wanted to bring That's dangerous. Yeah, that's what that's what made him unique. But Randy said, you know, and months later we're all trans, half a bit transit at the same time, and we're telling this story because we were all involved in it. And Randy says that you know, I saw I saw where that flash was, and I stuck out of these up and I went and said that was it. Two and a half seconds he'd fired 30 rounds. Dumped the mic, so he brings it down, puts the nerve bike in, and he said, five or six seconds. I'm out of bullets. But but that was enough fire to to kind of suppress him a little bit. And, you know, the deputy's firing at him, uh David Matt Murray, uh, another good friend of mine, uh, is fire that many 14, and he says, he's he's taking his time. He was off survival and armster, he's very, very good. So he's, you know, he's he's lickety-splitting, you know. And instead of shooting him, and all of a sudden there's a weed in front of him, and it goes, and then the thought goes through his mind and said, that was a round and went somewhere. Well, he gets hit around when the bad guy hits a magazine in his pocket and explodes it in his pocket. Wow. During this initial gunfight. So when he fires that, he dumps his first 30, he pulls the clip out and pulls this other thing out, and all the bullets just fall out. So he has to lay that down, and he's taken the magazine he's just emptied, and he's having he's having the visual look at the bullet to make sure not damaged and loaded them up some more to stay in the gunfight.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

And this goes on to finally, you know, he leaves, they pull back and reassess and get more people and and more tactical teams in. And so uh what they do most of the rest of that day, they bring more people in to evacuate people inside their perimeter. They're going home to home and they're pulling those people out to get them out of harm's way. And then the next day, they have an abundance of tactical teams, and they will go in and tactically go to every building on every property in there and check it, secure it, and backfill it with regular officers.

SPEAKER_07

And as it's all steel in that Edneyville or mountain home area. Correct.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_07

How how'd they finally get him? How'd y'all get him?

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's uh on the third day. And uh this guy for three days is just so it's on the run shooting out, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

How did he have that much like ammunition left?

SPEAKER_02

He had it with him.

unknown

Dang.

SPEAKER_02

He was all he was always ready because that was his thing. Wow. And engaging that's a good question.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Like to just keep shooting. Well, uh we never filmed at the round he had the 30 caliber when he was finally killed. And that was a mini 30? What do you ARs? No, it it was uh like a just 30 caliber carbine. Oh, a carbine. Yeah. An old carbine. Okay. Oh, carbine. So the next day they're clearing houses, and there's uh some SBI agents, and this happens a lot. You know, things are kind of slow, and they say, hey, they're over here doing this clearing here. They were on a break, and they said, Let's go down and clear this barn, you know. Just kind of took the initiative on themselves to up, and they went down there and the barn had four um stalls in it as a horse barn. And so they went to the first stall and yanked it open, nothing there, second stall, nothing open, third stall, nothing open, and yanked open the the fourth stall, and there he was aiming at them. And shoots the first SBI officer and it hits him right above the belt line. The other one knocks him out of the way, uh, second agent knocks him out of his way and he fires again. I I think he grazes that uh thing and runs out of the barn, and now he's running out of this barn, and the Henderson County deputy sees him and starts chasing him. And as he's running, he he'll he'll run, he'll turn, shoot at the deputy chasing him, and the deputy would fall down, jump up and return fire. Now they're they're shooting each other to go out the barn out the barn out toward the woods. And uh my good friend David Matbury, who had had the round explode in his pockets two days earlier, you know, the doctor said you can keep uh you can go back to work, but you gotta keep your leg elevated. So he's in the helicopter. He said, Wow. That's about as elevated as I can get my leg.

SPEAKER_06

He didn't want to not be in the fight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So they're flying up there and and he's got his his mini 14 and he sees this. So uh he's in the helicopter under doctor's orders, and he's got his rifle. That's right. And he sees all this going on under him, and uh, you know, he's he's ready to get into the, you know, to fight too. And then it dawns on him, I I gotta make sure of who I'm shooting at on the ground. So the helicopter pilot Thompson is is uh circling and and he sees him and he's and he's Matt Murray calls, you know, the ground and says, I got two men coming out of the barn. Is a front man a bad guy? You know, and he and he's got home and he goes he goes under him and he goes outside and he ain't got that response back. And he tells Thompson, uh, he says, now if they give me the green lights, if you be ready, I'm gonna fill a cockpit full of brace. He says, 10-4. So when he when he comes back around again, uh sure knock deceased at that point. He's been shot by that point. That deputy shot him. No, no. No. There there's a a group of Aisha police officers who up on the road and they see all this happening and see him come out of there. Uh an Israel City Police officer sees this gunfight where he's shooting his hair scan deputy, fires a round, a rifle, 12-gauge round, at 98 yards. Open sights with a slug out of a shotgun. Out of a shotgun. As Rudolph was doing his thing, did this, he didn't get the gun back, he gets his head back, and it and it takes him right through the air.

SPEAKER_07

He got pumpkin balled.

SPEAKER_02

Punkin ball. Game of the game was over. You know, it the chances of that shot being successful are I don't think you can compute them. You would it was that was That's divine intervention.

SPEAKER_07

Divine intervention. The Lord steered that pumpkin bike slug.

SPEAKER_05

Dang, and that lost it for three days. Dot Chase.

SPEAKER_07

Yes.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_07

I told JBS today, I was like, okay, we gotta start this thing off. We gotta get Bumper to tell this story. Yeah. And I've never heard it in that much detail. Yeah. You had given me, we talked one time and you and I was like, hey, what happened that time you got shot in the face with the glass? Yeah. You kind of we were in a just passing conversation. That's that's a good story.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's and actually uh deer hunting would would have started that money, and I was planned on going deer hunting back when I was hunting, but that kind of kind of ruined ruined my plans. Yeah. But I mean, uh again, we talked beforehand about surrounding yourself with good people. They were a lot of good people I worked with at that time. Hmm.

How Training And Tactics Evolve

SPEAKER_07

Man, that's a good story. That's wild. That's a bad guy. That I mean, it also seems like tactics in the 80s, you still had a little bit more of the wild wild west. With we didn't have technology we've got now. I mean, it's like just old-fashioned chase the bad guy down and let's go get him.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it it it it that it you know, you you go through periods like in in the 60s and early 70s, most of the law enforcement officer population were Vietnam veterans. Which was which a which was a different mindset. Yep. And uh you you know that that was attacks just to go after, but then again, people started understanding how important training was. You had to to figure out the psychology of people and who you were hunting and or who you're looking for. Somebody gets lost, and you know, that was long before you you did assessments. I mean, the first thing you do now, if if you're looking for a child or an adult's lost, first thing you do is give it to family and do an assessment to understand what kind of health they're in, you know, how much training exposure had to, you know. And then when you were hunting when you're hunting people, you you've got to understand their motivation, you've got to understand their background. And and we had just started doing, I mean, we had just went after shooting the the next day. We had a major show up and say, well, we'll just we'll get shoulder to shoulder and we'll just go through the woods and we'll push them out. And uh had a a first sergeant at that time, Overcash, you probably remember Sergeant Overcash from Haywood County, District 5. He said some very cho choice words and said, uh we're not we're not gonna do that. You've lost your every love of mine. If you want to do that, you lead the pack, Major. That's the reason he was one of the reasons he was always kind of considered, you know, a hero among the troopers. Yeah. Because he said, No, we're not gonna do anything crash like it. You're not gonna say somebody would have got killed. Somebody would have got killed. You're reacting. Well, he he had already proved it his propensity not to run but to actually shoot.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

Where was he f was he from? You said he was from right there because all his cousins and the Well hit his friend was from there.

SPEAKER_02

He was actually from down uh way down on the coast, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_03

Dang.

SPEAKER_02

Man. But anyway, we kind of got off on the the Rudolph thing.

Topton Domestic Call Turns Violent

SPEAKER_07

No, I wanted to I wanted to hear that story, and there was one other story I was gonna ask you about, and then it was a shooting a guy like was in in the road up in Granny Squirrel. Or or was it in Topton? It was Topton, David Nelson. Were you a trooper then or you were sheriff? I I shot him. Yeah. Are you good telling that story? Yeah, I can tell if you were. You were a trooper, that was before you were sheriff. I that's what I couldn't remember.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that that was not that was uh 2002. 2002, about the same year I became sheriff, actually. You mind telling that story? No, I can we can do that.

SPEAKER_07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

No, I'm I'm way past. I mean, there's some interesting stuff on that too.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, I'd love to hear that story. I mean, while we got you here. That's fine. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Uh that story is, you know, uh I'm working one Saturday. It's uh Memorial Day weekend, Memorial Day Saturday in a third in the morning. Uh working their trooper Scott Fletcher. We're actually planning to go take a coffee break. Fletch. Fletch. Uh one of our favorite things to do was take a coffee break and eat donuts. You know what? Fatbacks don't have donuts. Didn't have donuts that time. So so we're on the way there, and then here at the county called out they got a domestic with a gun involved at Toppdon at the uh Nelson residence, which we're kind of familiar with because he had on-again, off again stuff there. So, you know, I tell Scott, let's let's go up there and, you know, back them up. So he's farther out than I am. I get up there and I I hold the deputies up because I'm waiting on Scott to get there. Call guns involved, so I call the staging ambulance somewhere close, right there at Mason's store. And for those people who don't know, it's not far from the Bacon County line. So uh keep in mind that in this story I've got a much better shotgun.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, but uh Benelli or what'd you have?

SPEAKER_02

Uh yeah, I had a Benelli. Uh there were only 20 of them. We were testing only 20 of them in the state.

SPEAKER_07

That's my dream shotgun. We got any listeners that want to bless a man.

SPEAKER_02

It had a pistol grip on it.

SPEAKER_07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Uh so we're there. A deputy comes up, uh, Derek Palmer, and uh Sport Teesdale is there also. Another deputy, and he has a ride-along with him who's an intern going to App State, uh, Alan Denny, who would later be a deputy too, and then a magistrate. He's teaching in Wyoming now. He got his doctor's degree and moved to Wyoming and teaches out there somewhere. Huh. So uh I said, let's wait here until we get these other things in place. Well, Derek said, I just want to drive by and look because from Mason's store, you go up the road a little bit and there's a little side road that goes up and pops up right at the driveway where we go down to the house.

SPEAKER_07

And you got across the railroad tracks right there.

SPEAKER_02

Correct.

SPEAKER_07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. And and uh so he said, I want to drive by and look and see if I can see anything. I said, Well, you know, don't stop. We don't have the things in place that we need before we start this adventure. Which may or may not have turned out to be an adventure. So he drives by, don't see anything in the yard, goes up trend, come back and stop, and there's old old fruit stand there, and he said, I'm gonna I'll get seven binoculars and I'll see if I can see anything. He's right there at the driveway. He leans over and get binoculars and looks back up, and it's the guy's standing in front of his car with a shotgun pointed at him. Of course he screams on the radio, and we go run up there. I'm I'm first, and I get there and uh I'm hollering at him, trying to distract him uh from and I'm I had got out of my car and went around to the right side, which gave me a little bit more cover. And trying to distract him. Not long after that Fletch gets there, Scott Fletcher, and he comes out and gets in the in the door jam. And uh and this person's very empired. I think his blood alcohol turned out to be about 0.28 or something like that. And the whole domestic situation arose over that a home health care nurse had come to visit his grandmother there where he was at the house and poured some moonshine down the drain and got him upset. So uh we were hauling back and forth, uh, was able to distract him enough. Uh Derek had got out of the car and he chased him around a car with a shotgun. Gun strike enough, Derek got in, backed up out of the way, and then he starts coming down the road. It's Saturday Memorial Day, so we got traffic backed up out of sight in both ways. So the road going toward the gorge, and it shut off.

SPEAKER_05

Two lanes.

SPEAKER_02

US 19.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

The only major highway through the county into the county. Yeah, that'd be a long detour. Yeah. So uh we're going back and forth with him, and you know, he's using pref profanity at us, and you know, we're probably using profanity right back at him, you know, trying to get him to stop and lay down the shotgun. Well, uh, he comes down the road toward us. And and I I'm cognizant of how much traffic I got in front of him because from there you can see all the way to where 129 cuts off at the gap, and cars were stopped all the way up to there.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

I forgot how many people they actually eventually interviewed in the I've got that report at home too, that the highway patrol did. So we uh He keeps coming. Well, he he he walks by his driveway. And, you know, uh I know when he walks by his avenue of escape, the likelihood that this is gonna be a gunfight goes to almost a hundred percent. But I also I had my rifle, I had a rifle down because I had bought my own rifle after going through what I went through in Harrisonville. I said, I'm gonna have my own rifle, you know, and if I have to use it at some point, then you know we'll deal with that when we get there. And so um he comes by that driveway and I said, well, you know, and I had the rifle up front, but I also knew that it would be harder for me to use rifles as many people that was around not to have, you know, have a clear background to do what I need to do. So he keeps coming, keeps coming, keeps coming, and he got the shot, I guess, a single shot shotgun, 16 gauge, and uh it turns out it was loaded with you know like number six shots. Yeah. But I don't want to get shot with birdshot either. No, especially not in the eyes. So what he's walking around and he gets it about 68 feet and he swings it up at us. Scott and I fired at the same time essentially, simultaneously. And we're firing buckshot, double out butt shot. And you know, for people who are not gun enthusiasts, that's nine.

SPEAKER_07

Nine thirty-eight caliber pellets lead pellets. It's basically a nine millimeter, it's like you're shooting nine bullets at one.

SPEAKER_05

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02

And but they weren't lead, it was copper. We were we had started switched over to using a uh low recall low recop cool copper around that time. Why? I I don't know. And as it turned out, both our shotguns malfunctioned when we shot.

SPEAKER_07

Each got one round off in it malfunctioned. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

His stowpipe, which is those know it don't inject it completely, it hangs up in the injection port. You have to cycle it back to make it functional, and mine didn't reseat altogether because of the low recall. Well, probably because I had a pistol grill. Yeah. So we shoot, and I can see mine didn't recycle. We both clear and we're good. But it wasn't necessary. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. Uh Scott shot low. Two of his uh nine pellets hit him, and uh five of my pellets hit him. Seven pellets went to the phone. Seven pellets. One of my pellets gave him a sucking chest wound. Uh one went to his heart.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Uh one hit him in the diaphragm and turned down and cut his diaphragm in two and would come out somewhere south of the equator. Wow. And uh Scott hit him in the this artery in his right wrist, so he immediately dropped shotgun. And the other one hit him in his uh femoral artery in his groin, but self- but self-sealed. I I mean it when they were working on me, had a big blood clock right down there where it was at. And of course, fortunate for him, we had called, had Amos was there at Mason's, so they were on scene in probably 90 seconds, which is good because he couldn't breathe. His diaphragm was cutting too. For those who don't know, if you don't have a diaphragm, you can't breathe.

SPEAKER_05

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02

So they intubated him and and uh put a tourniquet on his arm, you know, took him out and flew him out. He spent it, you know, and of course, we went up and secured the weapon. I put the weapon in my trunk, told Scott, we're gonna put our weapons in my trunk. He said, That person's dead. I said, Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's no longer with us. And uh, had it not been for DMS been there, he he would not have been there. But they flew him out, and he eventually survived. He didn't die.

SPEAKER_05

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it technically he might have died, but but they they they brought him back. Suscitated him or that they actually interbame started breeding for him. Wow took him to Andrews, they flew him to Chattanooga, uh, and they had to, man, they had to go inside because of the the many shogun rounds and go through and fix every little thing that those pellets had had done. Wow. And he actually survived. Uh and uh an an interesting another side story, uh course he came back and ended up uh him pled guilty, something spent a few years in prison for that adventure. And later on, uh uh they later told him that the pellet that I put through his heart would kill him again because of the scar tissue on his heart would venture him. And it did, you know, some years later. But anyway, late later on when I was sheriff, he showed up in my jail, and and I I didn't know he'd been arrested. And at that time I had uh Gary Coffin have him on medical program in jail. I had a PA that worked with the inmates, really helped on cost, better level of care, and Gary's just on good people. Just good dude. I mean, yep, salt of the earth. Again, good people around you make you look good. So I didn't know who's in office. This was the old jail. And and I would I wanted at that time I'd teach my people to work for me to challenge me if I walked into jail with my sidearm, which I would do occasionally, probably not the smartest thing, but I would do it wanting them to say, hey, sheriff, you know, you need to secure your weapon. Okay. And uh so in old jail, if you come through the front front door, you know, kind of the office part was here and it was a long high wall hallway. Well, the the first door on the left was a little room that we made into geomedical. Unbeknownst to me, Mr. Nelson, who I'd shot a couple years early, was in there being assessed by Dr. Kaufman. I walk into jail, my jailer says, Sheriff, you need to secure your gun. And I walk on by and she yells, Sheriff's got a gun. Well, I walk by that door and I see somebody's feet sticking abundant table, you know. And I stop and look, and Gary's getting back in front of me, get this guy out, and it's David Nelson, who I'd shot years earlier. He started tweaking and he says, He said, Listen, last time Sheriff had a gun, I got shot. So, you know, we get him up and talk a little bit. And I say, David, how much of this do you remember? And uh he says, not a lot. I was I was very, very drunk. Not a lot. Wow. I said, would you like to know the story? He's he said, Oh, I'd love to. So if I get him out of jail, take him to my office, and say him down and tell him the whole story.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

And he he thanks me. He he says, all I know is I was out in the road screaming and shouting, and said, I hear, you know, like a big bang, and so I feel this warmth feeling come over and said, a couple months later I'll wake up in the hospital in Chattanooga.

unknown

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Man. And and he's he's crying and apologizing to him and making me do that. And I say, you know, hey, it's okay. I'm glad you're all right. And of course, he was never in trouble. We dealt with him after that. But um, he passed away a few years ago, just like that. They told him it happened.

Meeting The Man He Shot

SPEAKER_05

That is wild. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna ask, how long have y'all two known each other?

SPEAKER_02

Since they came.

SPEAKER_05

Really?

SPEAKER_07

We met early.

SPEAKER_05

I'm sure you had to deal with that. I tried to hire him, I couldn't get him. Really?

SPEAKER_07

Is that not the truth? That's the truth. And if I hadn't have been because I had originally wanted to go into law enforcement. I know that. And that's what I went to school for. And uh we became we became friends really early.

SPEAKER_05

Wow. He tells a story a couple years ago, months ago, about how you got him out of a ticket with that one girl driving a camp van that wasn't registered. Yeah, that's the first time I ever heard of bumper. The infamous bumper.

SPEAKER_07

Yep. And that what it was, I don't know if you remember, but you know, Andrews has struggled to keep officers. Yeah. And there was a guy, I don't remember who would have been chief at this time. But like I can't remember who was chief before Josh Litchfield became chief. I cannot remember. Because they they just turned over so fast. But there was a guy that had come here, he was a town officer for I don't even think a year. He was a retired guy from New York. Cruzo. Yeah. That's a guy that he stopped one of our girls. She's driving a little minivan that had been donated to camp. She didn't, she just what it's sitting in the parking lot. We hadn't insured it, no tags yet. It had just been given to camp. Somebody sent her on an errand, go down to Dollar General, pick up cleaning supplies or something. She jumped in that van. Well, he stopped her in town, you know. Well, she she she was not acting, but the water works turned on.

SPEAKER_06

She started squalling. She'd never been stopped before, you know. She's squalling.

SPEAKER_07

And so I don't remember if he I think he they called me and said, You gotta this vehicle can't be, you know, you can't you gotta get this vehicle towed or whatever. So I drove down there. He wrote me a ticket for allowing. Yeah, for allowing it.

SPEAKER_02

Or or or either, aid uh aiding a betting.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, because that was my name, I'm CEO of the you know of the corporation or whatever. And and I said, seriously? He said, Yeah, man, I gotta get and I thought I'm just gonna call Bumper. But then, but then, so here's what this is the Lord's divine intervention. My pride wouldn't let me call it. I was like, I'm not gonna call it, I'm just gonna own it. I'm just gonna eat it, you know. I don't want to be that guy. I was like, sheriff's got enough stuff on his plate. Everybody calls him with every little thing. I'll just deal with it. Because I had already called you, uh, I'd call you won't remember this, but I'd called a favor in. I had been misidentified down in Goldsboro. I had gotten a ticket in the mail. Well, I hadn't been to Goldsboro. And it was one number was off on my driver's license to this drive. Oh, wow. And it came back somehow. Anyway, I get a a ticket, I got summons or whatever, and I don't remember how it went down. But anyway, I'd come, I'd already come and seen you about that. And you'd called the sheriff out there in Pittsburghia, whatever county that is, and you'd called the sheriff, straightened it out for me. So I was like, I'm not gonna, I don't want to do this. I'll just go to court and explain myself to the judge. Yeah. So I went and explained myself to the judge, and he didn't care. He was gonna hit me, and you came walking in with three guys in orange suits. I guess they had an arraignment or something. I don't know, they're gonna go in front of the judge, and you you double took, you walked over there and said, Brody, what are you doing? I'm standing in front of I'm about to take my medicine, you know. And you walked up there and talked to the judge on my behalf. I don't remember who that judge was, but you were buddies with me.

Community Partnerships And Tactical Readiness

SPEAKER_02

I don't remember who a judge was either. But no, I for me being a sheriff, that was that was the the best part of being a sheriff with was actually helping people unwind these problems that they encounter. It's a reason one of my first pro my first prayers personally was to have a victims advocate program uh to track cases and it helped you with officers and keeping the victims up and stuff like that. But also to to because many times uh the the court system don't know about circumstances like that, and people just kind of fall through the cracks. So, you know, if the judge or the district attorney understands, you know, the finer details, they say, Oh, I I didn't know that, or you know.

SPEAKER_07

We've always from the time you became sheriff, because I didn't I didn't know your predecessor, but I and I didn't know Sheriff Thompson, who I'm sure we'll talk about when we get in this Rudolph stuff, but I didn't know him guys. So when you came in, Snowbird was starting to come at speed, I already knew you. I was like, oh, this is gonna be this is just great to have local relationships. And to this day, we've always tried to maintain that, even if it's a sheriff I didn't vote for, or if it's you know, whatever, we go in, we try to build a relationship.

SPEAKER_02

Oh man, one of the priorities I went in with was it was eventually to be able to handle tactical stuff. And you know, most of law enforcement in need organizations pretty much, you know, mundane run-the-mill stuff, but you you can eventually get up to where you you need more training to deal with it or more tactical, different equipment, different ways of approaching it. And I I wanted to build a a tactical team to deal with it because at that time, if we had a situation that called for that, we had to stop and wait and call Macon County or you know, Hey, we can some county that had trained at that level, or even the State Bureau of Investigation, which would take, you know, how half a day. And so to be able to, because I was hoping that eventually we could get into dealing with some of the the bigger issues that involved, you know, like drugs and stuff, where you had to have that higher level of of training and attainment, which is hard to do in a small department because you have to train, you know, and I come from a trained background in highway patrol, come with an ed college education, and I was in training with highway patrol for about 10 or 12 years, so I understood the importance, and and so I wanted to get to to that point, but it it took a a lot of effort to eventually backdoor.

SPEAKER_07

And we'll we eventually got there, had a tactical team that yeah, and little known fact, a little trivia here for our team. Y'all trained on our paintball field, we were the bad guys. Correct. Came out, did sit like Sim's training, we were the bad guys.

SPEAKER_02

And that's where I was going to that we just telling about that partnership, you know, from early on. Our relationship, I I knew what you had at the camp and what you did and was able to work together and pull those components together, which worked out for both of us. Yes. And I, you know, you talk about this podcast having a community basis. I think that's absolutely critical. I think it's been critical to the success of Snowbird, actually.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, I agree. I'll tell you this, I have voted for one Democrat in my life. And who's that? He's sitting across the table from me right now.

SPEAKER_06

And I voted for you three or four, how many times? I mean, multiple times, yeah.

SPEAKER_07

Well, I'm I'm Richard Republican now, so if you're you're old school and uh a lot of younger people don't don't know, but we don't understand. Yeah, too. Southern blue dog democrat was a conservative.

SPEAKER_02

Well, was there was at one time a very conservative element to the Democratic Party. Yeah. Yeah. Well you're it you're the only Democrat I ever voted for.

SPEAKER_06

I consider myself lucky. Honored, honored. Yeah, and and and we all did. Everybody voted for you.

SPEAKER_07

That was pretty much um so you if I remember, you became sheriff in 02. Correct. And the root so let's back up.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

So could you talk a little bit? Wait, before we get into Rudolph, will you hit on the Harman's Den thing? There what happened at Harman's Den? Because we mentioned it earlier. It was it's one of my most impressionable teenage memories.

Harman’s Den Trooper Killing And Manhunt

SPEAKER_02

I can see that. Yeah. Line back to April of 85. And uh uh again, um we had a a a special assignment going on I-40 at that time because it had a rock slide and they had to detour traffic around the tunnels. It's a four mile marker on um I-40. And uh they uh so they would have two troopers assigned all the time just to that area to patrol, make sure people got through, had no act of course you have an accident, you're already constricting I-40. As we know now from Helene, you know, we're down to one lane now, and uh now we've got trucks everywhere on coming up to 9-49. It's tough. So that they're down there, and uh Giles uh that particular night uh when this happened, uh there were two troopers work, Kurt Casey. You know Kurt, he was stationed in five. Kurt and I went to patrol school together. Uh we were boxing partners, actually. Wow. Another funny story. Uh remind me we can get to it at the end. So anyway, and Giles Harmon, Giles Giles was assigned to Bunkham County. That was to do station, but he's done his special assignment. And uh Giles normally wore his bulletproof fist all the time, but he had earlier that day he took his vest off to wash his car before he went and never put it back on. And uh he stops his car uh that's going uh the ceastbound because the tag's kind of rolled up on it. It's got two people in it. And uh he uh approaches a car and uh it as it turns out uh Billy Ray McQueen was a driver who was wanted you know for some questioner stuff out of I think from Kentucky.

SPEAKER_07

Kentucky, okay. I couldn't remember if it's Tennessee, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_02

I think it's Kentucky. So he as Giles makes his approach now Giles don't know. Giles don't know. And Giles is a high uh DUI risk kind of person. Of course, Bunk County leads itself down, you know, they make a lot of those types of rest of impaired drivers. So he walks up and and he kind of has a habit of leaning a little bit forward to see if he can smell alcohol coming from inside a car. And he walks up and leans up a little bit. McQueen has a pistol, shoots him, and it's it's a uh 22. And uh that shot actually goes through his heart.

SPEAKER_03

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02

So he he recoils back and spins and he leans out again. It's a single action weapon. For those of you don't know, you can't pull a trigger in a cycle if you've actually got to cock it and shoot it. Every shot. He cocks and shoots again and it hits him in the spine right above the belt line.

SPEAKER_05

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02

And Giles is probably ceased before he hits the interstate. Car takes off. And of course, and and as it takes off, and and he's not familiar with the interstate, he he sideswipes the truck and you know, uh goes up the road. I'm I'm working. And and I'd actually worked a split that day. I'd went to court in the morning, come home checked off, and worked in the garden for a while and checked back on work remainder of my eight hours that evening. Of course, I was had all calls that particular day, which means you know, I was on call for 24 hours for two counties. So they send me, you know, uh they say, you know, re report to uh uh what's the intersection there at uh May Valley where you go down to 40. Jonathan Valley? Yeah. At that exit 21. Yeah, back up on the Omega Valley side, they send me they sent me across Soko. Oh. Uh and and they're trying to Yeah, they're trying to pull resources in to get to 40 this area from different angles. So I go there and they report tell me to go on down, and I'll I'll never forget the picture of you know Giles laying there in the middle of the interstate. And his hat was still on. I mean, when he fell, his hat didn't come on. Of course, we start working that and and we don't know where this guy is, and when that happens, you know, they hit the button and we've got troopers assisting. Everybody's coming. We've got troopers coming from the whole western half of North Carolina, other law enforcement agencies.

SPEAKER_07

Did Tennessee troopers come? Because you're right there on the line.

SPEAKER_02

They they they sealed, they sealed their site. Okay. But we knew he was eastbound. Okay. We knew he couldn't get back westbound because of the the way the I-40 was closed. So we get there, we go up to the rest area, have kind of a rough idea, you know, that we're kind of what we're looking for. And uh when you go down into Pidge River Gorge, when you pass the 20-mile marker, there's nothing. Nothing. There's literally nothing. There's literally nothing. And there's nothing on the other side of the line for and you can't get off the interstate. That the only place you can get off the interstate is harm.

SPEAKER_07

It's dent. And you can't get back on going back that way.

SPEAKER_05

I think I've been caught up there. There was like an accident.

SPEAKER_07

She went to school in at Carson Newman. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05

I think I've been there and there was an accident or something, and like you couldn't, there were no exits, there was nothing.

SPEAKER_02

You were just stuck right there on the scary space I've ever worked in my life. Really? Because I fooled in. Yeah. And that's where that's where Anthony, my brother in law, got killed. Got killed.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

He was at 22, my marker, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

So uh we get there. I'm paired with Doris Stevens, who's at our ALE officer who I went to patrol school with too. And so our job was it it you can you can go just down in you can get on the backside of the river in that area and go down through Del Rio, Tennessee. And Del Rio, Tennessee in Cock County at that time was probably one of the roughest places.

SPEAKER_05

It's still not great, I don't think.

Officer Safety, Respect, And Closing

SPEAKER_02

Cork County's still not great. So and they got a lot of honky tonks and bars and stuff like that. So Doris and I went and questioned the people in those places for the the initial part of it. And as they as they kept pulling people in, again we do what we try to do, try to set up a a perimeter and you know uh so I'd been up pretty sure it's on Monday. I've been up since Monday morning. Wow. I go through the next day and still on post and then uh my first sergeant is in Tennessee flying out somewhere to question people and hears them talking to us still on post hey listen they've been on post about 36 hours can you give them a break? Yeah so I get to run home get a new uniform turn come right back by the time we get back we find the passenger who was with him who's who says he's kidnapped probably not really true. And McQueen's on his way back to kill his estranged wife down states well. Wow and so he was he had violence in mind when he gets there. So now we have an idea of of where we're at so we we tighten the perimeter in and layer it again and that's some rough country down in there. So rough harm Harman Den is you know it's a people who hunt bears and and I I've worked there before that we had to stop traffic to let bears cross the road. No way but because mother bears will try to come across the road and that center divide's about six feet high and you have to stop traffic till she gets them over. It's about like the the Nanahala Gorge you know the steep well it it's like I said that we work the federal government different times would pay us to work extra people down there because of the accidents. And and I've been down there like at three o'clock in the morning and and about the only time it ever gets quiet because of truck traffic's like between about two and four and and you can one we've had several patrol cars run over by trucks down there. Wow luckily no one we have with Anthony's a prime example for the I was a lot more apprehensive about being run over than I was ever getting shot. Is that how Calvin got killed? Uh yeah Calvin was in a marked unmarked car and stopped two cars at the same time approached the back car approached the front car and uh was walking back to his car got their license and they were both speeding and the truck driver topped that little no right there and was just not paying attention was looking because people were crowding and he drifted over too far hit the back car killed that person and Calvin's outside his car killed Calvin injured the people in front of him. So I mean still dangerous area. Yeah oh yeah I I mean anytime you're on the road again you you worry about a fatal assault but you always worry about getting and I I've almost got hit. Wow I had a drunk driver come so close to me it it brushed my trousers no way so I I mean just that close but but in anyway we we knew about where McQueen was so we we we tightened up the perimeter and so And he had he ditched the car and gone on foot at this point he'd got off Harmer's Den and was going back up if you follow Harmer's end all the way up it because I'm in the Mac patch in Max patch in Madison County. You've been there yeah yeah very rural so they'd went up there and and found a forest road wells back in that time sometimes they just put big posts uh cut tree and stick them in the thing they'd loosen up one pull it out and pulled a car in there and put it back and he had left this guy so you know forest service found him you know they're questioning him getting information and you know he's on the run and at night we actually go out and and uh we know where he went we had a group of and again we set up teams in case he so we can't double back you know when you know about where he's at you want to try to contain him and and can't do it at that time you couldn't do a lot at night you technology allows you to do more if you have a helicopter or flee, you know do infrared I mean you can do so much more with that so next night I for the first part of night I was on one of those teams and I got with Joe Mars who would later be my jail administrator and we sat down there for a while and and then the next day we we were just coming back on post again and somebody sees my queen run across the interstate and he actually runs across and runs down into the Pigeon River Gorge. Down there below Waterville. Correct above Waterville. Yeah and you can actually stand at the rest there where that was our command post and at that time we probably had somewhere in excess of 200 officers working that particular manhunt. It was it was a big manhunt and of course they get him down there and eventually capture him and bring him out. Is he in prison today? Correct what was he originally like wanted for he wasn't wanted for anything before he did the shooting on his way to go he was on his he he he he was on his way to more likely would have committed murder which you know again you never knew who you were dealing with what they what they were dealing with and sometimes you found out on the backside. Wow you know we had the the the manhunt of uh the two guys in uh uh that shot Lewis rector down in Burke County and uh they were on they bought a lemon car from a guy in actual and they were on their way back to kill him because they bought a bad car deal. There's a used car salesman you know sell uh motive there and then uh you had the two people uh is that that's not the I'm gonna get sidetracked I don't want to derail you that's not the Crusoe shooting the guy in the Corvette from Canton.

SPEAKER_07

You remember that? No car salesman No that's a different one.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. And then you had Bobby Lee Coggins who was a trooper from Bryson City who was murdered in Mason County by the two people up there. And interestingly one of those people that committed that murder brother was a Georgia highway patrolman. And that was on a also on a stop he pulled them correct and well he pulled them over and and they were wanted out of Arkansas and communications at that time couldn't couldn't find a way to let him know of course he he had brought back had one sitting beside him in a car dealing with him and the other was out walking around his fiancee drove by and saw him while he was dealing with him. And and of course uh one of them produced a 32 and shot him and then took his gun and shot him for a second time. And uh that was all in 85. It was 85. Three troopers killed Ray Whirley was the next one who was killed he's down in the eastern part of the state Ray and I did did a little bit of teaching together super good guy and uh he stopped a a bunch of people uh van old some people who had been into breaking innards and stuff and kind of had a ring going on.

SPEAKER_07

You were still sheriff here when Sean Blanton got killed weren't you? Correct in Hayward County that was assembly he he was basically assaulted he pulled the guy got into physical altercation.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah the guy got into physical altercation was a big guy.

SPEAKER_07

Six eight yeah he's six eight three hundred pounds about three hundred pounds.

SPEAKER_02

Blanton's five nine five ten just overpowered and they got in a struggle fighting and they didn't know how serious he was wounded until he got to the hospital. And his wife was there giving birth no way in the hospital that guy executed him executed him then because he had overpowered Blanton if I remember yeah they got in a big tussle on the side of the road there and and uh Wong was his name and uh he was a career criminal and you know I I never was naive I I knew that some of the people that I dealt with could be very bad people uh and some of them had all this stuff going on where would make them bad or you know might be unstable and and I dealt with sometimes with good people who I knew were deadly people you know I it it I it always make the hair on the back of your neck go up when you deal with somebody and you know just by how they're positioning themselves and how they're handling themselves that this person had a lot of training and you know it it puts you the the uncomfort level goes way up in a hurry. Fortunately most of those people that I dealt with uh were not that white had a a good fence trooper in McDowell County I mean big he makes you look small I mean he he he's a monster just as easy nature as long as you get along with you can be uh uh and he's working and one day the FBI shows up we talked to you a little bit said yeah sure he said we're gonna ask you about this person you know that you stopped him and gave me a ticket on Fort Mountain you know like four or five days ago he said yeah told him about to stop himself like he said why are you asking so what he killed the ours on a highway from Troman Wow and uh they asked that guy why he didn't kill the North Carolina trooper he said two reasons one reason most important he didn't disrespect me wow and the second reason is he didn't give me the opportunity he was he was tuned up he was dialed in yes and you you were the one to give him the ticket no no this big guy he said this fellow fellow trooper okay okay that's so crazy so you you know uh again it was always it's always been important for me to approach that kind of job from a perspective of respect as much as you could thanks for listening to No Sanity Required please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating it really helps.

SPEAKER_00

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Brody Holloway

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