July 10, 2024 • 40 mins
Russ Arthur entered his post with the US Forestry Service in 1985 with a dedication to protecting the lands he was taught to cherish and appreciate back when he was a young child, but little did he know the twists and turns it would take him down. In this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, Clay Newcomb interviews this Bear Grease veteran as he recalls some wild stories of attempted murder, high-speed chases, and illegal drug rings. His storied career and commitment to law enforcement will amaze you!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
And leard loading me on the stretcher to put me
in the back of the amulets. And I looked up
and the guy attended me. I'd had in federal court before,
and I remember looking at my boss. I remember grabbing
him by the shirt and pulling him down, and I said,
don't leave me.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
On this episode, we'll be peeking behind the veil of
the same world as we hear a wild story of
attempted murder, a high speed chase, illegal drugs, and steaming
hot irony, all on America's public lands. The host of
our story is an old Bear Grease friend who spent
his career as a special agent with the United States
(00:46):
Forest Service. He spent time under cover, and in a
past life, he was a bricklayer from Southeast Tennessee. His
name is Russ Arthur. We first heard snippets from his
career in our Genuine Outlaws series on Bear Grease, which
started at episode fifty two. In this Russ described his
memorable covert interactions with Louis Dale Edwards in Polk County,
(01:09):
Arkansas in the nineteen nineties. But in Russ's real life,
he's a real turkey hunter and a good one and
he told two gobbler chasing stories on our Spring twenty
twenty four Turkey Story series. You might remember him finding
his father's journal on the day of his dad's funeral.
Russ has lived an adventurous, interesting and rich life embedded
(01:34):
in the hunting community of Appalachia, bringing law and order
to public lands, but he's also worked all across America
and in the latter years even into the far reaches
of Southeast Asia. We'll learn where that passion came from
on this podcast, and hear the story of attempted murder
(01:55):
on his life. I really doubt that you're gonna want
to miss this one. And hey, folks, remember that you
can watch The Bear Grease Render, our every other week
roundtable discussion podcasts on Meat Eater's new podcast YouTube channel.
Check it out.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And I said, why would you be telling me this,
and a true Appalachian spirit, he just said, you know
you didn't do anything wrong. It was boys in prison
are the one that did something wrong. And I can't
convince some of these members of the community that you've
done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
My name is Klay Nukem and this is the Bear
Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant search
for insight and unlikely places and where we'll tell the
story of Americans who live their lives close to the land,
presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
(02:55):
fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
places explored.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I'll never forget it. I was on the passioner's side
front and it was in a sedan. The agents Drew
drove Crown Vicks then and they laid the seat back
and the agent from Georgia got in the back and
it tore his shirt off.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's down to his T shirt and would wrap my head.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
My head was bleeding, and it's funny how your mind
will drift. And I reached up and I felt this
real warmth in my ear. This may sound a little crude,
but it's funny how your mind works. I'm coming and going.
I don't know if I'm gonna pass out or not,
(03:47):
but I'll never forget my thoughts were if I'm bleeding
out my ear. This is not good. I've seen Daddy
put down too many dogs, and you know, Son, this
dog has been hit by car, is bleeding out the here.
We gotta put it down.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, I mean you know, you grow up in the
South and a round dogs.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I mean, bleeding out the ear is a bad sign.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I mean, I don't mean to make light of that,
but that's what was going through my mind at that time.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
How fast do you think the truck was going when
it hit you?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It probably wasn't going, but I'm gonna say when it
excel because it slowed down like it's gonna stop, and
it just immediately turned and gassed it.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And I can remember hearing the gravels. I can remember seeing, you.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Know, and it just that that front end and that
front tire just clipped me and flip me and it
and it raced off.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
After that truck hit Russ, it would bust through a
roadblock and lead officers on a high speed chase through
the smoky mountains of North Carolina, leading into a three
day man hunt. What twists and turns in a man's
life would lead him into a scenario like this. I
think we need to go back to the very beginning.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
My name is Russ Arthur.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I was born in nineteen fifty nine in Southeast Tennessee.
My parents raised me and two sisters in the Hickson
Red Bank area of Tennessee and graduated high school in
seventy seven. I did a lot of construction work during
high school and during my few years in college did
(05:30):
brick block work and always was a passionate turkey hunter.
My dad was always a passionate turkey hunter. He was
turkey hunting when turkey hunting wasn't cool, and he would
always go to the mountains and turkey hunt. And when
I got about ten eleven years old, he started taking
me and he always camped in an area up there
(05:53):
close to where our ancestors were born, which is now
National Forest. And there's Arthur Cemetery right there next to
that campground where goes back to five generations of Arthur's
that's buried there.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
This camp would be the philosophical cradle of Russ's life's work.
He was enamored with the men that hunted there, their conversations,
and like the bedrock forming at the bottom of an
ancient ocean, he developed a foundational appreciation for the land.
But I want to go even deeper into Russ's foundations.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
My dad was very well respected in the community. He
respected the law enforcement. He was a philosopher son, always
do the right thing when nobody's looking. He was all
about honor, all about integrity. He was a man of
many talents. He was a beekeeper, he was a housman
(06:55):
at one time with beagles, and rabbit hunting was his thing.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
He loved the art of shooting.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And he was a very good father to our family.
Anybody who was around he would grain their respect. But
he was a true woodsman. He knew everything there was
to know about the mountains, not only their history, but
he knew every plant species.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
He really took.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
In everything in those mountains, and he was a self
taught naturalist.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
At Russ's core, I think you can perceive a genuine
and deep appreciation for wild places, stretching a net of
knowledge that supersedes a veneer of simply knowing about and
hunting on some land. His appreciation is informed by a
complex sequence of data points.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
It was real.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
As this story unfolds, you'll see the extent to which
Russ will go to do his job with the Forest Service,
and at the heart of it, going back to his father,
is a sacred respect wild places.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And I was just infactuated by by their skills, by
their turkey call making skills, by the types of tactics
they used, and uh just love the mountains.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And I always uh would interact.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
With the forest Service as they came through, really admired them,
really respected them, and I would always ask them, how
did I get a job with you?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
How did I get a job with you? Even as
a little kid, And they would just always talk to
me and be cordial.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And when I got on up in high school, one
of them told me, said.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
You need to get in college.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Son.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
My dad wasn't very high on this, but when I
told him I wanted to get a degree in forestry,
he he said, son, if I not told you and
talk to you enough about trees, so uh, but I'll
never forget that. I said, well, day, it's a little
more than that. It's a it's a I think it
would be a good profession. I just knew I wanted.
I want to ride around those green trucks, and I
(09:00):
wanted to be part of managing that land that I cared.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So much about.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
The things that catch our eyes children, and the decisions
we make early in life are critical, often determined the
out comes far beyond the site of the time. When
I meet people that I respect, I find their formative
influences interesting and Russ would never turn his gaze from
these early directions that he was looking. But I don't
(09:28):
think that it played out the way that he would
have predicted. Russ would end up graduating from the University
of Tennessee with a forestry degree in the spring of
nineteen eighty two, and his first job was a volunteer
position as an intern for the Forest Service, where he
lived in a camper without electricity. Then they offered him
some seasonal work.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
For the next two or three years.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Mark Timber with firefighter held the dumb end of an
engineer tape on laying out, you know, logging roads, just
anything that they had at the lowest grade level. I
took it all the time, not knowing which direction my
career was going to go. I just enjoyed the diversity
of the work. I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed the environment.
(10:14):
It was just a I was articled to death.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Then one day Russ literally got a knock on the
door from two Forest Service agents from North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
They said, look, we've got a job opening coming into
North Carolina. We want you to apply. And I said, well, guys,
what is it? And they said it's a full time
law enforcement officer job, and for service is just now
getting into these positions. Most of the positions are you know,
you'll do ten percent law and ten percent fire and
twenty percent recreation, and you know, thirty percent temper marking.
(10:50):
But this one's full time law enforcement, and we think
you'd be a good fit.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Prior to this, the Forest Service hadn't heavily dealt in
law enforcement, but the need was now rising from full
time officers. He applied for the job and got it.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I've always wondered who I beat out for that job,
because man, I didn't have that much experience, And.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
They finally told me I was the only applicant.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
That made you feel good, That made me feel real good.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Sometimes just showing up is all that it takes. And
to go back to the guys that told him to apply.
Sometimes we aren't able to see the potential in ourselves
and it takes someone else to spot it. That's why
it's critical to surround yourself with selfless, honest people. In
July nineteen eighty five, Russ would relocate to the mountains
(11:47):
of rural western North Carolina, but he had no way
to predict the direction of his career would go.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
That duty station in North Carolina. It was pretty remote area.
It is in Robbinsville.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
I think at the time Robinsville was seventy or something
percent US for service and the rest of it was private.
So there there was a lot of animosity there against
the Forest Service, and that goes back to some of
the things that TVA did with Fontana in the flooding
of homes and things. But they just weren't a good
(12:23):
fan of the government back in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
This is the perfect entry point to understanding the full
story and all its twists and turns of Russ with
the bleeding ear in the crown vic you're gonna want
to pay attention and don't get too comfortable. Here's the
whole story.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Back in nineteen eighty six, while working in Robinsville, North Carolina,
you know, again with a Forest Service law enforcement my
first position. There was an unusual group came to the
National Forest and Robinsville was a very quiet, very calm,
(13:07):
very southern type small town. You know, one red light,
two places to eat, one small hotel, just good, easy living,
very proud. People loved their community, loved their National Forest.
Most everybody there had some type of a tide of
the National Forest, whether it was hunting or working in
the logging business. And one day we got notified for
(13:32):
service did that there was a group going to set
up a camp in a place called Maple Springs, which
was one of the most remote areas you could drive
to in that county, and there was going to be
a national gathering there called the Rainbow Living of Light,
and said there's going to be about ten thousand people
(13:53):
come in here.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
This community.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
This group had become well known in the nineteen seventies,
traveling across the country gathering in the name of world peace. However,
every place they went to they'd set up in national forest,
intending to protest the government through their right to gather
without a permit. However, the Forest Service required gatherings of
over seventy five people to have a permit, and thousands
(14:19):
were coming, so there was some head button with the
Forest Service. However, it wouldn't be the Rainbow people that
wanted to kill Russ Arthur.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
It was kind of like a freak show, if you will.
For the locals. They hear about it, they don't want
to drive.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Up and see it.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Well, one Friday night, we for Service along with the state,
set up a roadblock just to check for DUI DOI
checkpoint and one of the curves that went up and
down there because we were now allowing vehicles to drive
up and down, but they couldn't take equipment in and
out now, So we've got a roadblock going on, and
(15:01):
I'll digress a little bit. The fall before that, I
had a run in with a young man up there
that suspected of hunting berry legal.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And when I got up.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
With him in a remote area up there, he had
a rifle, but it wasn't a large caliber and he
claimed he was only squirrel hunting, so I cited him.
I think it was a forty or fifty dollars collateral
citation for hunting squirrels out of season on Wildlife Managinary,
And that type of collateral ticket was the lowest level
(15:39):
of enforcement action that you can take other than a warning,
and he can mail it in if it's paid on time,
it don't even go on your record, so it wasn't
a big deal to me. Well, time passes were back
to the national gathering and we're at a road check
and it's starting to get a little bit dark. And
this truck comes down down the road and it was
(16:02):
I'll never forget it was a seventy seven forward one
because I've got a seventy eight still got it. It's
trucks coming down the hill. And I recognized the truck
of being tied to that family of that boy. I
wrote the ticket to you live in a small community,
you get to know everybody's vehicle, what they drive.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
And I was what called the point.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Person, and I turned my flashlight on and stepped out,
held my hand up to stop the vehicle, and it
immediately accelerated and turned toward me and ran over me,
and it caught right side of my leg, flipped me
over in the ditch, head hit the hit the gravel road,
(16:45):
and I just I went out for a few few seconds.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
The vehicle's gone.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
The next thing I know, the agent out of Ashville
and when the agents out of Georgia that was there
loaded me up in the back their vehicle was taking
me trying to get me to the hospital. Of course, immediately,
you know, we had five or six marked units at
that roadblock, and I can remember in that ditch, laying
(17:15):
there just seeing them go by, blue lights blazing where
this happened was probably running wide open more than an
hour of the closest hospital, and it's back for the
days of medevac. And I remember the agent getting on
the radio any radioing to the amulets meet me. I'm
(17:38):
going to be headed to town where the hospital wasn't
in the town.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
The hospital was in Bryson City.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You know, if you know anything about Western Carolina, and
that's you know, that's a pretty long way from Robbinsville.
But they did have ammelet service in Robinsville. So he's
communicating with the ambulets. I'm coming up one twenty nine.
They almost met each other, and it was almost erected
meeting each other. And I'm still just in it, just
can't figure out what's going on. And they're loading me
(18:07):
on this stretcher to put me in the back of
the amulets. Only this can happen in a small town now.
And I looked up and the guy tended me. I'd
had in federal court before, and I remember looking at
my boss and I did go out after this is
I remember grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him
(18:29):
down and I said, don't leave me. So next thing
I know, I wake up and I'm in the hospital
and praise God, I'm good. I had had concussions, I
had stitches in my knees, I had stitches and half
to hide off my back of my head, and they
(18:50):
had to wait awhile for they could give me the
pain medication cause of the concussions or whatever that process was.
But when they finally I was able to sleep for
eight or ten hours. I know what the feeling is
of bet right over by truck, and I just couldn't hardly.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Move all over.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
I think the main thing keeping Russ's injuries from being
much worse was simple. He was six foot two in
the neighborhood of two hundred and forty pounds in his
late twenties. He was tough, but he was bleeding out
his ear, and that's never good. But an even more
interesting question is what madness would cause someone to think
(19:34):
that they could get away with this or even want
to do it. But then the situation escalated even more.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
They came and took statements from me. The State Borough
Investigation got involved, and that's when I learned that there
was still.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
A man hunt. There are three people in that truck,
and if you know anything about that area.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Highway one twenty nine goes from Maryville all the way
up through the mountain around by the Smokies, comes around
the bottom of Fontana Dam and people call it the
Dragon's Tail. It's a very windy road, but that's where
they were fleeing to.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
And it was ironic.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
My old boss, the one that first men towards me
into getting into law enforcement, was the one right behind them.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And if you knew less, you'd know that they're probably
not going to get away from him. And I learned
all this, of course after the fact.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
The truck went around so many of those curves, it
couldn't hold a curve like a crown vick. Literally he
was pushing them all accounts that I heard later. So
these guys knew what they were doing. All three of
them were locals from that area, very avid.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Hunters, and it all of.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
A sudden ditched and they all three jumped out and
ran into the smokies.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
He was able to catch one. It was a juvenile.
It was just a passenger. So you've got one call
that's a juvenile that you can't prosecute. And there was
a huge man hunt.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Stay of Tennessee got involved because This was closest Tennessee
state line. State of North Carolina got involved with their
highway patrols and they set up roadblocks trying to catch
these guys. So three days hadn't caught them. And let
me get this straight. It was one of the guys
who was still in there. Dad came to the authorities
(21:34):
and said, need to talk.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
I know where they're at.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
I'll get them to come out on their own, if
you'll get rid of everybody.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
They've got a spot.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Over there to the illegal hunt camp in the smokies
that they're holed up in, and only I know where
it's at. Y'all back out of here. I don't want
them shot, I don't want them hurt. I'll go get
them within two days, they'll they'll turn himself in. And
evidently this man did a good job of convincing the
(22:06):
authorities that that that would happen, and he held true
to his word and they brought the guys out, and
one of.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Them was the guy that I had written the squirrel
hunting ticket with m M.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
The squirrel hunter. Why did he do this? They were
about to find out why in federal court.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Him and his brother were prosecuted and he got three years.
He was not the driver, he was the passenger. His
brother was the driver, and he got three years in
federal prison.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And the brother that was the driver or the past the.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Paler hunter, the squirrel hunter.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
The squirrel hunter got three years.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
He got three years in federal prison.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
We were able to find a person in that encampment
that actually came to the courts and testified.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
They were on their way up.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
They stopped that truck as that truck was coming down
to the roadblock, and they told the driver, you all need.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
To be careful.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
The Forest Service has a roadblock set up down there,
and I don't want anybody get in trouble. The passenger,
which was the scraw hunter, leaned over the driver and
looked at the guy and said, do you know Russ
Arthur And this guy said yeah, said.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Is he down there?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
And they said he said yeah, And he then got back,
you know, leaned back in and got in the middle
of the seat and told his brother said come on,
it's time for him to die.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
This came out in federal courts.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
This came out in the testimony.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So both found guilty, they go to prison, and well
that was a very tough time in my life and
my career. I mean, it really was, because he just
didn't know what would happen next. And about six months
after that, one of the members that family called me
(23:57):
at one o'clock in the morning, and these guys are
both in prison. He said, need to talk to you.
And I knew this guy and I called him my name.
I said, man, it's one o'clock in the morning. I said,
are you drunk and he said no. He said, but
there's some talk down here in this community that you
need to know about. I said, okay, and I'm thinking
(24:17):
this a setup. And I said, well listen, I'll talk
to you, but it's gonna be where I want to
meet you. And I told him to meet me in
the parking lot of the Forest Service. Well, I called
my boss, who was a district ranger then and assistant
ranger and let them both know what was going on.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
And they didn't like it. They were not law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
They were very, very supportive of everything, and I mean
two of the best guys you've ever ever known, and
they they had my back anytime. He said, well, just
be careful and let us know when you clear from there.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
And again this is back before cell phones.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
And you know, so I got there fifteen minutes before
I told him i'd be there, part my truck a
different place where I told him my park and walked
around and did surveillance of that area before he pulled in.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
So he pulls in, gets out, we have a conversation
and it was he was sober. He just said, there's
a couple of guys down there that's talking about, you know,
does some harm to you. I just want to warn
you you need to be careful if you get any
calls at night. And I said, why would you be
telling me this, and true Appalachian spirit, he just said,
(25:28):
you know, you didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
These boys in prison are the ones that did something wrong.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And I can't convince some of these members of the
community that you've done nothing wrong. So a lot of
respect up for that gentleman. And we talked for about
an hour there. Then he went on his way, and
when he got in the truck and left, my two
supervisors I heard a rustle in the bushes came out
(25:54):
and they each had their personal shotguns.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Said just want to let you know we had you back.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
You didn't know they were there.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
No, Wow.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
No, So those guys weren't the bosses at that time,
weren't lawn.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Form No, they were just they were They were professional
foresters and running running the district.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
They just wanted to make sure that Wow, that I
was covered. They would lose their job today.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
There's an old saying about true friendship, stating there's no
greater love than someone who's willing to lay their life
down for a friend. These guys didn't have to do that,
but it sure seems like they were willing to defend
Russ at all costs. Time passes, things settled down, and
(26:43):
Russ's career moves on. He's actually relocated to another state,
back to Tennessee. But then one day he gets a
call from his old boss. And one more thing we
haven't mentioned about Forest Service law enforcement in the eighties, nineties,
two thousands, and even today was all the drug work
that they did with marijuana being illegally grown on the forest.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
The guy was just mean.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
So he goes on to prison and him and his
brother both Then I fast forward and I moved to Tennessee,
and you know, I'm sitting in Tennessee and I get
a call from the authorities over there that said they
need my help. They had not yet hired a new
officer to fill my place in Robbinsville. Can I come
over and help them with this huge marijuana operation? You know,
(27:32):
you know the area and you know the players.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Can you do this? I said, yeah, that'd be me fun.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
So me and the agent from Carolina went over there
and we did a recon of.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
The area and we found a huge operation in a clear.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Cut huge How did you find it?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
One of our timber markers checking some timber inventory had
had found it and it was in a pretty remote area.
So we laid a plan to surveil it, and he said,
you know what we'll do. We can do this with
four people. He said, if you can get another officer,
we'll drop you off and off. We found ad vantage
(28:11):
point where I could watch the side of that hill
with binoculars and a camera of the zoom lens. You
take notes as they come in. They've got a park
a vehicle somewhere, and we're just going to completely clear
the area. Then once they're in there, we'll send an
under cover truck in there to try to find their vehicle,
and we'll arrest them at their vehicle that way, there's
(28:34):
not a confrontation in a chase in the woods if we.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Wait till they all go in there and then catch
them on the way.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Out, exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And you just figured you could find the vehicles a
lot of roads around or something.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah, not that many roads. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So me and another officer were sitting there watching and
three guys come in. I'm looking at them through binoclars
and I'm watching them and they're picking up plants and
they're putting it.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
It's like they went to work. You know.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
They had a huge potting area that they had the
plants and pots, and the plants were eight to ten inches.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Tall or taller.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And they would take a plant they had already had
pre dug holes and they'd put it in there and
they'd water and they'd go get another on that right,
and they had I think it's fifteen hundred plants they
were going to do this way. And I'm watching these
guys and I don't recognize any of them, and I
radiod my boss. I said, he said, we found the vehicle,
and we're going to set a surveillance on their vehicle.
(29:30):
So when they're leaving, you tell us when they're leaving
and we'll rest them as soon as they get in
the vehicle.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
So those three have worked about an hour now, and
three more show up.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
So now we got six.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Well, I started logging in and we started naming them all.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
You know, number one wearing.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
This type of ball hat, this shirt, these pants, and
so I gave a good description. Boss, he's writing that
same description down, so when I'm talking, we can chronologe
keep up with.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Okay, number one is going to get water.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Number seven or number six is now putting fertilizer.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Number you know.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
So we confirmed what the descriptions of and had them
all one through six, and I still was so frustrated
because I didn't know any of them. So they'd been
working in there about four hours, been there some of
them since I Right at daylight and I look up
and here comes another one and I put the binoclars
(30:29):
up and it was the old boy that ran over me.
And I thought, I cannot believe two things. Number one,
he's out of prison.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
You didn't know he was out of prison.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Well I knew, I hadn't even really thought about it.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
But you know, how long is this after about three
years and always as recognizable, I mean boom, there he
is well. In the meantime, the agent out of the
road had to call in for other help because now
not only did we have one vehicle to do surveillance
I want to take down.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
We had two.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Vehicles and we just had a third, and they all
parked about a half a mile from each other. So
they set teams, got teams, got other law enforcement personnel
around where we could take them down at the vehicle.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
They finished their work.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
And they packed up their stuff and they started down
this trail back down to the main road, and I
radio down.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
You know, they're coming out.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So we're basically following them, but at a distance where
we can't be obviously heard or seen. And they start
to hear them on the radio. Hey, we've got two here,
we got three here. I got two more here. And
then I'm.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Waiting to hear the one. And then I hear his name.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It was a wildlife officer, great friend of mine, still
friends with him, that actually arrested him at his vehicle.
And I come out of the woods and my boss
is there with the other six, and I said, can
I go up and see this gentleman?
Speaker 3 (32:03):
He looked at me, he said, you sure can't. So
the Wildlife.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Officered radio down and said, just to let you know,
I've read him his rights on the miranda, and he's
telling me that he was turkey scouting, that he don't
know why he's being arrested, and he wants.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
To be turned loose. So I walk up to where
he's at.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Keep in mind, I've got full cameo gear on, face
paint on, I've got a camera with a thirty five
millimeters zoom.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
And I walked up there.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And when I walked up there and looked at him,
he's handcuffed behind the back and he looked at me,
and I just just I could kill you look in
his eye and he grinned, and he says, I was
turkey hunting and you can't prove anything different for us.
And I just sat down and I said, well, Bud,
I said, it's going to be a long day for you.
(32:55):
I set my pack down and I pulled the camera
out and I set it down on the hood of
the car. I said, you're going to be a movie star.
I said, I've probably got three rolls of film of you.
And his lips started quivering.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And so wow.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
And it turns out those other six, he met in
prison in Florida and e convinced them he had a
good place to grow marijuana. So he goes to prison again.
And he had a very very criminal lived life. When
he got out of prison, he was trying convicted for
(33:34):
some child molestation, uh murder, and was convicted.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Wait a minute after he got a prison first time.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
No, the second time from the from the marijuana charge
he went to.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
He served a prison sentence for this marijuana charge, got out,
got out, and then.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yes, a child molestation. Then he murdered a guy on
National Forest. It was a controversial case I understand where
he claimed that it was an argument over a card
game and they were friends, but basically beat him to
death with some firewood and a remote campsite. And but
(34:15):
he since passed on. I got word a few years
ago that he had had died.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
So wow, how old a guy was he when he died?
I mean he died early.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
He was probably in his fifties.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Okay, when he got out of prison the second time,
I mean you would have been like highly aware of
the sky.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
But did he come back to the community.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Oh yeah, that's where he got in all the trouble so,
but but I wasn't living there anymore. Oh you see,
I since gone Tennessee, then Tennessee to Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
So my career had.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
That's a wild story, man, it was.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
It was a crazy sequence of events.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
It's hard to understand how people could be so warped,
so dark. I guess when I hear about crazy people.
First of all, I'm grateful for many of you and
a bunch of people I'll never know that had upbringings
of which they had no control over or earned, where
men and women in their lives taught them right from wrong.
(35:19):
Our society has a lot more great people than crazy people.
This guy was missing something.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
The only other thing with that, and there's two or
three other wildlife officers from that area that I think,
if we're interviewed, would say the same thing is that
it's just a mean person. You know, you in law enforcement,
you try to develop a sixth sense by reading people.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I mean you have to.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
It's like you would with a I don't mean these
people are dogs, but it's like you would with a dog.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
How close can I get?
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Or you know, if you're around dogs enough, you know
you know where its space is and you might not
ever seen that dog before.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
You can look that eye and see it. See how
that tale is done, how they acting? Are they sidewaysing
to you? You know, people are no different, So you
try to develop that.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
And and I can remember telling the probation officer the
first time he went to prison, I said, you better
really take a hold on this one, because he's he's dangerous.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That first time you met him in the squirrel woods.
How old was he.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
He was probably early twenties. How old were you late twenties?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Did that first encounter with him? Could you tell he
was Yeah, this guy was trouble.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah, And and something else that I tried to do
with him. I had all authority to seize his gun
that day, but I didn't didn't want to.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
It'll be overbearing. I never dealt with him before.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And I tried to explain to her, look, man, just
can't be doing it in oner to prove to you that,
you know, I'm not that bad a person.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I'm not going to take it again.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Really, So you you even show him a little bit
of mercy, and he was still that embittered against you
that he was. He wanted to kill you that day.
What comes over somebody that that think the answer is
that these people were just crazy. But to be at
a roadblock with five wildlife officers with vehicles, to think
(37:21):
that they could run you over and get away, I
mean where they where they high, where they on, were
they on drugs?
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Where they Well that will never know, because you know
it's three days before they surface.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah, I mean what they're just that crazy, I mean
that impulsive. You'd think if I mean, if you really
wanted to kill you, there'd have been much easier ways
to kill you. I guess. I guess crazy people are
just that's why they're crazy. Bizarre, man, do you think
particularly wildlife law enforcement, these guys that are embedded in
(37:53):
these communities and in some ways they're they're not like
standard police in that there's not as many of them.
You know, there might be like one, one or two
wildlife officers in the whole community. Or is there more
retaliation against guys like that, like just over a career.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Well, you know, I guess it could. It could kind
of be geographical. I wasn't alive during this era, but
you can look back in some of the histories and
it's always intrigued me of the Moonshine days. Yeah, so
there's been a long history in kind of the South,
if you will.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Of I don't want to say retaliation, but resentment.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah, and as far as you know, conservation officers, I.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Don't know if there's that many more incidences or.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Not, but you have to be a lot more aware
that there could be.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Because you're working environment, you're by yourself, you're.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
By yourself, You're you're twenty miles down a gravel road.
You may or may not have radio, sir, And even
in this day and age, I can take you to
several places within thirty minutes or right here where you
won't have Yeah, you know, so you definitely have to
have that tactical mindset, you know, or something could happen.
(39:09):
Crazy time in my life, I remember my dad coming
over to the hospital. He was first one I saw
when I woke up, and of course he was trying
to make light of it.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Tell me he's glad it hit me in the head.
I should be okay, typical dad.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, that truly was a wild story. On the next episode,
we'll hear about the last half of Russ's career with
the Forest Service, which will lead this old Tennessee country
boy to some far off wild places, including an unbelievable
story about working undercover and then an illegal elk hunt
(39:49):
in Yellowstone National Park. From working in the Western US
to flying across the oceans to train an international wildlife
task force, this next AP episode is not gonna be
one that you'll want to miss. I look forward to
talking with everyone on the Bear Grease for Render next week.
Can't thank you enough for listening to bear Grease and
(40:10):
Brent's This Country Life podcast. There are three things that
you can do to support us. Number One, share our
podcast with a friend and tell them about these wild
stories that you're here and here. Secondly, support the advertisers
of the Bear Grease podcast. Yep, all these silly advertisers. Man,
they're helping us a lot. And leave us a review
(40:34):
on iTunes. Have a great week.
And leard loading me on the stretcher to put me
in the back of the amulets. And I looked up
and the guy attended me. I'd had in federal court before,
and I remember looking at my boss. I remember grabbing
him by the shirt and pulling him down, and I said,
don't leave me.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
On this episode, we'll be peeking behind the veil of
the same world as we hear a wild story of
attempted murder, a high speed chase, illegal drugs, and steaming
hot irony, all on America's public lands. The host of
our story is an old Bear Grease friend who spent
his career as a special agent with the United States
(00:46):
Forest Service. He spent time under cover, and in a
past life, he was a bricklayer from Southeast Tennessee. His
name is Russ Arthur. We first heard snippets from his
career in our Genuine Outlaws series on Bear Grease, which
started at episode fifty two. In this Russ described his
memorable covert interactions with Louis Dale Edwards in Polk County,
(01:09):
Arkansas in the nineteen nineties. But in Russ's real life,
he's a real turkey hunter and a good one and
he told two gobbler chasing stories on our Spring twenty
twenty four Turkey Story series. You might remember him finding
his father's journal on the day of his dad's funeral.
Russ has lived an adventurous, interesting and rich life embedded
(01:34):
in the hunting community of Appalachia, bringing law and order
to public lands, but he's also worked all across America
and in the latter years even into the far reaches
of Southeast Asia. We'll learn where that passion came from
on this podcast, and hear the story of attempted murder
(01:55):
on his life. I really doubt that you're gonna want
to miss this one. And hey, folks, remember that you
can watch The Bear Grease Render, our every other week
roundtable discussion podcasts on Meat Eater's new podcast YouTube channel.
Check it out.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And I said, why would you be telling me this,
and a true Appalachian spirit, he just said, you know
you didn't do anything wrong. It was boys in prison
are the one that did something wrong. And I can't
convince some of these members of the community that you've
done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
My name is Klay Nukem and this is the Bear
Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant search
for insight and unlikely places and where we'll tell the
story of Americans who live their lives close to the land,
presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
(02:55):
fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
places explored.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I'll never forget it. I was on the passioner's side
front and it was in a sedan. The agents Drew
drove Crown Vicks then and they laid the seat back
and the agent from Georgia got in the back and
it tore his shirt off.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's down to his T shirt and would wrap my head.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
My head was bleeding, and it's funny how your mind
will drift. And I reached up and I felt this
real warmth in my ear. This may sound a little crude,
but it's funny how your mind works. I'm coming and going.
I don't know if I'm gonna pass out or not,
(03:47):
but I'll never forget my thoughts were if I'm bleeding
out my ear. This is not good. I've seen Daddy
put down too many dogs, and you know, Son, this
dog has been hit by car, is bleeding out the here.
We gotta put it down.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, I mean you know, you grow up in the
South and a round dogs.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I mean, bleeding out the ear is a bad sign.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I mean, I don't mean to make light of that,
but that's what was going through my mind at that time.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
How fast do you think the truck was going when
it hit you?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It probably wasn't going, but I'm gonna say when it
excel because it slowed down like it's gonna stop, and
it just immediately turned and gassed it.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And I can remember hearing the gravels. I can remember seeing, you.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Know, and it just that that front end and that
front tire just clipped me and flip me and it
and it raced off.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
After that truck hit Russ, it would bust through a
roadblock and lead officers on a high speed chase through
the smoky mountains of North Carolina, leading into a three
day man hunt. What twists and turns in a man's
life would lead him into a scenario like this. I
think we need to go back to the very beginning.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
My name is Russ Arthur.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I was born in nineteen fifty nine in Southeast Tennessee.
My parents raised me and two sisters in the Hickson
Red Bank area of Tennessee and graduated high school in
seventy seven. I did a lot of construction work during
high school and during my few years in college did
(05:30):
brick block work and always was a passionate turkey hunter.
My dad was always a passionate turkey hunter. He was
turkey hunting when turkey hunting wasn't cool, and he would
always go to the mountains and turkey hunt. And when
I got about ten eleven years old, he started taking
me and he always camped in an area up there
(05:53):
close to where our ancestors were born, which is now
National Forest. And there's Arthur Cemetery right there next to
that campground where goes back to five generations of Arthur's
that's buried there.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
This camp would be the philosophical cradle of Russ's life's work.
He was enamored with the men that hunted there, their conversations,
and like the bedrock forming at the bottom of an
ancient ocean, he developed a foundational appreciation for the land.
But I want to go even deeper into Russ's foundations.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
My dad was very well respected in the community. He
respected the law enforcement. He was a philosopher son, always
do the right thing when nobody's looking. He was all
about honor, all about integrity. He was a man of
many talents. He was a beekeeper, he was a housman
(06:55):
at one time with beagles, and rabbit hunting was his thing.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
He loved the art of shooting.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And he was a very good father to our family.
Anybody who was around he would grain their respect. But
he was a true woodsman. He knew everything there was
to know about the mountains, not only their history, but
he knew every plant species.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
He really took.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
In everything in those mountains, and he was a self
taught naturalist.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
At Russ's core, I think you can perceive a genuine
and deep appreciation for wild places, stretching a net of
knowledge that supersedes a veneer of simply knowing about and
hunting on some land. His appreciation is informed by a
complex sequence of data points.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
It was real.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
As this story unfolds, you'll see the extent to which
Russ will go to do his job with the Forest Service,
and at the heart of it, going back to his father,
is a sacred respect wild places.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And I was just infactuated by by their skills, by
their turkey call making skills, by the types of tactics
they used, and uh just love the mountains.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And I always uh would interact.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
With the forest Service as they came through, really admired them,
really respected them, and I would always ask them, how
did I get a job with you?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
How did I get a job with you? Even as
a little kid, And they would just always talk to
me and be cordial.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And when I got on up in high school, one
of them told me, said.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
You need to get in college.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Son.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
My dad wasn't very high on this, but when I
told him I wanted to get a degree in forestry,
he he said, son, if I not told you and
talk to you enough about trees, so uh, but I'll
never forget that. I said, well, day, it's a little
more than that. It's a it's a I think it
would be a good profession. I just knew I wanted.
I want to ride around those green trucks, and I
(09:00):
wanted to be part of managing that land that I cared.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So much about.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
The things that catch our eyes children, and the decisions
we make early in life are critical, often determined the
out comes far beyond the site of the time. When
I meet people that I respect, I find their formative
influences interesting and Russ would never turn his gaze from
these early directions that he was looking. But I don't
(09:28):
think that it played out the way that he would
have predicted. Russ would end up graduating from the University
of Tennessee with a forestry degree in the spring of
nineteen eighty two, and his first job was a volunteer
position as an intern for the Forest Service, where he
lived in a camper without electricity. Then they offered him
some seasonal work.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
For the next two or three years.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Mark Timber with firefighter held the dumb end of an
engineer tape on laying out, you know, logging roads, just
anything that they had at the lowest grade level. I
took it all the time, not knowing which direction my
career was going to go. I just enjoyed the diversity
of the work. I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed the environment.
(10:14):
It was just a I was articled to death.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Then one day Russ literally got a knock on the
door from two Forest Service agents from North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
They said, look, we've got a job opening coming into
North Carolina. We want you to apply. And I said, well, guys,
what is it? And they said it's a full time
law enforcement officer job, and for service is just now
getting into these positions. Most of the positions are you know,
you'll do ten percent law and ten percent fire and
twenty percent recreation, and you know, thirty percent temper marking.
(10:50):
But this one's full time law enforcement, and we think
you'd be a good fit.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Prior to this, the Forest Service hadn't heavily dealt in
law enforcement, but the need was now rising from full
time officers. He applied for the job and got it.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I've always wondered who I beat out for that job,
because man, I didn't have that much experience, And.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
They finally told me I was the only applicant.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
That made you feel good, That made me feel real good.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Sometimes just showing up is all that it takes. And
to go back to the guys that told him to apply.
Sometimes we aren't able to see the potential in ourselves
and it takes someone else to spot it. That's why
it's critical to surround yourself with selfless, honest people. In
July nineteen eighty five, Russ would relocate to the mountains
(11:47):
of rural western North Carolina, but he had no way
to predict the direction of his career would go.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
That duty station in North Carolina. It was pretty remote area.
It is in Robbinsville.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
I think at the time Robinsville was seventy or something
percent US for service and the rest of it was private.
So there there was a lot of animosity there against
the Forest Service, and that goes back to some of
the things that TVA did with Fontana in the flooding
of homes and things. But they just weren't a good
(12:23):
fan of the government back in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
This is the perfect entry point to understanding the full
story and all its twists and turns of Russ with
the bleeding ear in the crown vic you're gonna want
to pay attention and don't get too comfortable. Here's the
whole story.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Back in nineteen eighty six, while working in Robinsville, North Carolina,
you know, again with a Forest Service law enforcement my
first position. There was an unusual group came to the
National Forest and Robinsville was a very quiet, very calm,
(13:07):
very southern type small town. You know, one red light,
two places to eat, one small hotel, just good, easy living,
very proud. People loved their community, loved their National Forest.
Most everybody there had some type of a tide of
the National Forest, whether it was hunting or working in
the logging business. And one day we got notified for
(13:32):
service did that there was a group going to set
up a camp in a place called Maple Springs, which
was one of the most remote areas you could drive
to in that county, and there was going to be
a national gathering there called the Rainbow Living of Light,
and said there's going to be about ten thousand people
(13:53):
come in here.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
This community.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
This group had become well known in the nineteen seventies,
traveling across the country gathering in the name of world peace. However,
every place they went to they'd set up in national forest,
intending to protest the government through their right to gather
without a permit. However, the Forest Service required gatherings of
over seventy five people to have a permit, and thousands
(14:19):
were coming, so there was some head button with the
Forest Service. However, it wouldn't be the Rainbow people that
wanted to kill Russ Arthur.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
It was kind of like a freak show, if you will.
For the locals. They hear about it, they don't want
to drive.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Up and see it.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Well, one Friday night, we for Service along with the state,
set up a roadblock just to check for DUI DOI
checkpoint and one of the curves that went up and
down there because we were now allowing vehicles to drive
up and down, but they couldn't take equipment in and
out now, So we've got a roadblock going on, and
(15:01):
I'll digress a little bit. The fall before that, I
had a run in with a young man up there
that suspected of hunting berry legal.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And when I got up.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
With him in a remote area up there, he had
a rifle, but it wasn't a large caliber and he
claimed he was only squirrel hunting, so I cited him.
I think it was a forty or fifty dollars collateral
citation for hunting squirrels out of season on Wildlife Managinary,
And that type of collateral ticket was the lowest level
(15:39):
of enforcement action that you can take other than a warning,
and he can mail it in if it's paid on time,
it don't even go on your record, so it wasn't
a big deal to me. Well, time passes were back
to the national gathering and we're at a road check
and it's starting to get a little bit dark. And
this truck comes down down the road and it was
(16:02):
I'll never forget it was a seventy seven forward one
because I've got a seventy eight still got it. It's
trucks coming down the hill. And I recognized the truck
of being tied to that family of that boy. I
wrote the ticket to you live in a small community,
you get to know everybody's vehicle, what they drive.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
And I was what called the point.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Person, and I turned my flashlight on and stepped out,
held my hand up to stop the vehicle, and it
immediately accelerated and turned toward me and ran over me,
and it caught right side of my leg, flipped me
over in the ditch, head hit the hit the gravel road,
(16:45):
and I just I went out for a few few seconds.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
The vehicle's gone.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
The next thing I know, the agent out of Ashville
and when the agents out of Georgia that was there
loaded me up in the back their vehicle was taking
me trying to get me to the hospital. Of course, immediately,
you know, we had five or six marked units at
that roadblock, and I can remember in that ditch, laying
(17:15):
there just seeing them go by, blue lights blazing where
this happened was probably running wide open more than an
hour of the closest hospital, and it's back for the
days of medevac. And I remember the agent getting on
the radio any radioing to the amulets meet me. I'm
(17:38):
going to be headed to town where the hospital wasn't
in the town.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
The hospital was in Bryson City.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You know, if you know anything about Western Carolina, and
that's you know, that's a pretty long way from Robbinsville.
But they did have ammelet service in Robinsville. So he's
communicating with the ambulets. I'm coming up one twenty nine.
They almost met each other, and it was almost erected
meeting each other. And I'm still just in it, just
can't figure out what's going on. And they're loading me
(18:07):
on this stretcher to put me in the back of
the amulets. Only this can happen in a small town now.
And I looked up and the guy tended me. I'd
had in federal court before, and I remember looking at
my boss and I did go out after this is
I remember grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him
(18:29):
down and I said, don't leave me. So next thing
I know, I wake up and I'm in the hospital
and praise God, I'm good. I had had concussions, I
had stitches in my knees, I had stitches and half
to hide off my back of my head, and they
(18:50):
had to wait awhile for they could give me the
pain medication cause of the concussions or whatever that process was.
But when they finally I was able to sleep for
eight or ten hours. I know what the feeling is
of bet right over by truck, and I just couldn't hardly.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Move all over.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
I think the main thing keeping Russ's injuries from being
much worse was simple. He was six foot two in
the neighborhood of two hundred and forty pounds in his
late twenties. He was tough, but he was bleeding out
his ear, and that's never good. But an even more
interesting question is what madness would cause someone to think
(19:34):
that they could get away with this or even want
to do it. But then the situation escalated even more.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
They came and took statements from me. The State Borough
Investigation got involved, and that's when I learned that there
was still.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
A man hunt. There are three people in that truck,
and if you know anything about that area.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Highway one twenty nine goes from Maryville all the way
up through the mountain around by the Smokies, comes around
the bottom of Fontana Dam and people call it the
Dragon's Tail. It's a very windy road, but that's where
they were fleeing to.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
And it was ironic.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
My old boss, the one that first men towards me
into getting into law enforcement, was the one right behind them.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And if you knew less, you'd know that they're probably
not going to get away from him. And I learned
all this, of course after the fact.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
The truck went around so many of those curves, it
couldn't hold a curve like a crown vick. Literally he
was pushing them all accounts that I heard later. So
these guys knew what they were doing. All three of
them were locals from that area, very avid.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Hunters, and it all of.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
A sudden ditched and they all three jumped out and
ran into the smokies.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
He was able to catch one. It was a juvenile.
It was just a passenger. So you've got one call
that's a juvenile that you can't prosecute. And there was
a huge man hunt.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Stay of Tennessee got involved because This was closest Tennessee
state line. State of North Carolina got involved with their
highway patrols and they set up roadblocks trying to catch
these guys. So three days hadn't caught them. And let
me get this straight. It was one of the guys
who was still in there. Dad came to the authorities
(21:34):
and said, need to talk.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
I know where they're at.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
I'll get them to come out on their own, if
you'll get rid of everybody.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
They've got a spot.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Over there to the illegal hunt camp in the smokies
that they're holed up in, and only I know where
it's at. Y'all back out of here. I don't want
them shot, I don't want them hurt. I'll go get
them within two days, they'll they'll turn himself in. And
evidently this man did a good job of convincing the
(22:06):
authorities that that that would happen, and he held true
to his word and they brought the guys out, and
one of.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Them was the guy that I had written the squirrel
hunting ticket with m M.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
The squirrel hunter. Why did he do this? They were
about to find out why in federal court.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Him and his brother were prosecuted and he got three years.
He was not the driver, he was the passenger. His
brother was the driver, and he got three years in
federal prison.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And the brother that was the driver or the past the.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Paler hunter, the squirrel hunter.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
The squirrel hunter got three years.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
He got three years in federal prison.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
We were able to find a person in that encampment
that actually came to the courts and testified.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
They were on their way up.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
They stopped that truck as that truck was coming down
to the roadblock, and they told the driver, you all need.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
To be careful.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
The Forest Service has a roadblock set up down there,
and I don't want anybody get in trouble. The passenger,
which was the scraw hunter, leaned over the driver and
looked at the guy and said, do you know Russ
Arthur And this guy said yeah, said.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Is he down there?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
And they said he said yeah, And he then got back,
you know, leaned back in and got in the middle
of the seat and told his brother said come on,
it's time for him to die.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
This came out in federal courts.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
This came out in the testimony.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So both found guilty, they go to prison, and well
that was a very tough time in my life and
my career. I mean, it really was, because he just
didn't know what would happen next. And about six months
after that, one of the members that family called me
(23:57):
at one o'clock in the morning, and these guys are
both in prison. He said, need to talk to you.
And I knew this guy and I called him my name.
I said, man, it's one o'clock in the morning. I said,
are you drunk and he said no. He said, but
there's some talk down here in this community that you
need to know about. I said, okay, and I'm thinking
(24:17):
this a setup. And I said, well listen, I'll talk
to you, but it's gonna be where I want to
meet you. And I told him to meet me in
the parking lot of the Forest Service. Well, I called
my boss, who was a district ranger then and assistant
ranger and let them both know what was going on.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
And they didn't like it. They were not law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
They were very, very supportive of everything, and I mean
two of the best guys you've ever ever known, and
they they had my back anytime. He said, well, just
be careful and let us know when you clear from there.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
And again this is back before cell phones.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
And you know, so I got there fifteen minutes before
I told him i'd be there, part my truck a
different place where I told him my park and walked
around and did surveillance of that area before he pulled in.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
So he pulls in, gets out, we have a conversation
and it was he was sober. He just said, there's
a couple of guys down there that's talking about, you know,
does some harm to you. I just want to warn
you you need to be careful if you get any
calls at night. And I said, why would you be
telling me this, and true Appalachian spirit, he just said,
(25:28):
you know, you didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
These boys in prison are the ones that did something wrong.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And I can't convince some of these members of the
community that you've done nothing wrong. So a lot of
respect up for that gentleman. And we talked for about
an hour there. Then he went on his way, and
when he got in the truck and left, my two
supervisors I heard a rustle in the bushes came out
(25:54):
and they each had their personal shotguns.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Said just want to let you know we had you back.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
You didn't know they were there.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
No, Wow.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
No, So those guys weren't the bosses at that time,
weren't lawn.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Form No, they were just they were They were professional
foresters and running running the district.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
They just wanted to make sure that Wow, that I
was covered. They would lose their job today.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
There's an old saying about true friendship, stating there's no
greater love than someone who's willing to lay their life
down for a friend. These guys didn't have to do that,
but it sure seems like they were willing to defend
Russ at all costs. Time passes, things settled down, and
(26:43):
Russ's career moves on. He's actually relocated to another state,
back to Tennessee. But then one day he gets a
call from his old boss. And one more thing we
haven't mentioned about Forest Service law enforcement in the eighties, nineties,
two thousands, and even today was all the drug work
that they did with marijuana being illegally grown on the forest.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
The guy was just mean.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
So he goes on to prison and him and his
brother both Then I fast forward and I moved to Tennessee,
and you know, I'm sitting in Tennessee and I get
a call from the authorities over there that said they
need my help. They had not yet hired a new
officer to fill my place in Robbinsville. Can I come
over and help them with this huge marijuana operation? You know,
(27:32):
you know the area and you know the players.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Can you do this? I said, yeah, that'd be me fun.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
So me and the agent from Carolina went over there
and we did a recon of.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
The area and we found a huge operation in a clear.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Cut huge How did you find it?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
One of our timber markers checking some timber inventory had
had found it and it was in a pretty remote area.
So we laid a plan to surveil it, and he said,
you know what we'll do. We can do this with
four people. He said, if you can get another officer,
we'll drop you off and off. We found ad vantage
(28:11):
point where I could watch the side of that hill
with binoculars and a camera of the zoom lens. You
take notes as they come in. They've got a park
a vehicle somewhere, and we're just going to completely clear
the area. Then once they're in there, we'll send an
under cover truck in there to try to find their vehicle,
and we'll arrest them at their vehicle that way, there's
(28:34):
not a confrontation in a chase in the woods if we.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Wait till they all go in there and then catch
them on the way.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Out, exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And you just figured you could find the vehicles a
lot of roads around or something.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah, not that many roads. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So me and another officer were sitting there watching and
three guys come in. I'm looking at them through binoclars
and I'm watching them and they're picking up plants and
they're putting it.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
It's like they went to work. You know.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
They had a huge potting area that they had the
plants and pots, and the plants were eight to ten inches.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Tall or taller.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And they would take a plant they had already had
pre dug holes and they'd put it in there and
they'd water and they'd go get another on that right,
and they had I think it's fifteen hundred plants they
were going to do this way. And I'm watching these
guys and I don't recognize any of them, and I
radiod my boss. I said, he said, we found the vehicle,
and we're going to set a surveillance on their vehicle.
(29:30):
So when they're leaving, you tell us when they're leaving
and we'll rest them as soon as they get in
the vehicle.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
So those three have worked about an hour now, and
three more show up.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
So now we got six.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Well, I started logging in and we started naming them all.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
You know, number one wearing.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
This type of ball hat, this shirt, these pants, and
so I gave a good description. Boss, he's writing that
same description down, so when I'm talking, we can chronologe
keep up with.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Okay, number one is going to get water.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Number seven or number six is now putting fertilizer.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Number you know.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
So we confirmed what the descriptions of and had them
all one through six, and I still was so frustrated
because I didn't know any of them. So they'd been
working in there about four hours, been there some of
them since I Right at daylight and I look up
and here comes another one and I put the binoclars
(30:29):
up and it was the old boy that ran over me.
And I thought, I cannot believe two things. Number one,
he's out of prison.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
You didn't know he was out of prison.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Well I knew, I hadn't even really thought about it.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
But you know, how long is this after about three
years and always as recognizable, I mean boom, there he
is well. In the meantime, the agent out of the
road had to call in for other help because now
not only did we have one vehicle to do surveillance
I want to take down.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
We had two.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Vehicles and we just had a third, and they all
parked about a half a mile from each other. So
they set teams, got teams, got other law enforcement personnel
around where we could take them down at the vehicle.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
They finished their work.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
And they packed up their stuff and they started down
this trail back down to the main road, and I
radio down.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
You know, they're coming out.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So we're basically following them, but at a distance where
we can't be obviously heard or seen. And they start
to hear them on the radio. Hey, we've got two here,
we got three here. I got two more here. And
then I'm.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Waiting to hear the one. And then I hear his name.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It was a wildlife officer, great friend of mine, still
friends with him, that actually arrested him at his vehicle.
And I come out of the woods and my boss
is there with the other six, and I said, can
I go up and see this gentleman?
Speaker 3 (32:03):
He looked at me, he said, you sure can't. So
the Wildlife.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Officered radio down and said, just to let you know,
I've read him his rights on the miranda, and he's
telling me that he was turkey scouting, that he don't
know why he's being arrested, and he wants.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
To be turned loose. So I walk up to where
he's at.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Keep in mind, I've got full cameo gear on, face
paint on, I've got a camera with a thirty five
millimeters zoom.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
And I walked up there.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And when I walked up there and looked at him,
he's handcuffed behind the back and he looked at me,
and I just just I could kill you look in
his eye and he grinned, and he says, I was
turkey hunting and you can't prove anything different for us.
And I just sat down and I said, well, Bud,
I said, it's going to be a long day for you.
(32:55):
I set my pack down and I pulled the camera
out and I set it down on the hood of
the car. I said, you're going to be a movie star.
I said, I've probably got three rolls of film of you.
And his lips started quivering.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And so wow.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
And it turns out those other six, he met in
prison in Florida and e convinced them he had a
good place to grow marijuana. So he goes to prison again.
And he had a very very criminal lived life. When
he got out of prison, he was trying convicted for
(33:34):
some child molestation, uh murder, and was convicted.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Wait a minute after he got a prison first time.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
No, the second time from the from the marijuana charge
he went to.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
He served a prison sentence for this marijuana charge, got out,
got out, and then.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yes, a child molestation. Then he murdered a guy on
National Forest. It was a controversial case I understand where
he claimed that it was an argument over a card
game and they were friends, but basically beat him to
death with some firewood and a remote campsite. And but
(34:15):
he since passed on. I got word a few years
ago that he had had died.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
So wow, how old a guy was he when he died?
I mean he died early.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
He was probably in his fifties.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Okay, when he got out of prison the second time,
I mean you would have been like highly aware of
the sky.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
But did he come back to the community.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Oh yeah, that's where he got in all the trouble so,
but but I wasn't living there anymore. Oh you see,
I since gone Tennessee, then Tennessee to Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
So my career had.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
That's a wild story, man, it was.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
It was a crazy sequence of events.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
It's hard to understand how people could be so warped,
so dark. I guess when I hear about crazy people.
First of all, I'm grateful for many of you and
a bunch of people I'll never know that had upbringings
of which they had no control over or earned, where
men and women in their lives taught them right from wrong.
(35:19):
Our society has a lot more great people than crazy people.
This guy was missing something.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
The only other thing with that, and there's two or
three other wildlife officers from that area that I think,
if we're interviewed, would say the same thing is that
it's just a mean person. You know, you in law enforcement,
you try to develop a sixth sense by reading people.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I mean you have to.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
It's like you would with a I don't mean these
people are dogs, but it's like you would with a dog.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
How close can I get?
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Or you know, if you're around dogs enough, you know
you know where its space is and you might not
ever seen that dog before.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
You can look that eye and see it. See how
that tale is done, how they acting? Are they sidewaysing
to you? You know, people are no different, So you
try to develop that.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
And and I can remember telling the probation officer the
first time he went to prison, I said, you better
really take a hold on this one, because he's he's dangerous.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That first time you met him in the squirrel woods.
How old was he.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
He was probably early twenties. How old were you late twenties?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Did that first encounter with him? Could you tell he
was Yeah, this guy was trouble.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah, And and something else that I tried to do
with him. I had all authority to seize his gun
that day, but I didn't didn't want to.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
It'll be overbearing. I never dealt with him before.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And I tried to explain to her, look, man, just
can't be doing it in oner to prove to you that,
you know, I'm not that bad a person.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I'm not going to take it again.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Really, So you you even show him a little bit
of mercy, and he was still that embittered against you
that he was. He wanted to kill you that day.
What comes over somebody that that think the answer is
that these people were just crazy. But to be at
a roadblock with five wildlife officers with vehicles, to think
(37:21):
that they could run you over and get away, I
mean where they where they high, where they on, were
they on drugs?
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Where they Well that will never know, because you know
it's three days before they surface.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah, I mean what they're just that crazy, I mean
that impulsive. You'd think if I mean, if you really
wanted to kill you, there'd have been much easier ways
to kill you. I guess. I guess crazy people are
just that's why they're crazy. Bizarre, man, do you think
particularly wildlife law enforcement, these guys that are embedded in
(37:53):
these communities and in some ways they're they're not like
standard police in that there's not as many of them.
You know, there might be like one, one or two
wildlife officers in the whole community. Or is there more
retaliation against guys like that, like just over a career.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Well, you know, I guess it could. It could kind
of be geographical. I wasn't alive during this era, but
you can look back in some of the histories and
it's always intrigued me of the Moonshine days. Yeah, so
there's been a long history in kind of the South,
if you will.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Of I don't want to say retaliation, but resentment.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah, and as far as you know, conservation officers, I.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Don't know if there's that many more incidences or.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Not, but you have to be a lot more aware
that there could be.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Because you're working environment, you're by yourself, you're.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
By yourself, You're you're twenty miles down a gravel road.
You may or may not have radio, sir, And even
in this day and age, I can take you to
several places within thirty minutes or right here where you
won't have Yeah, you know, so you definitely have to
have that tactical mindset, you know, or something could happen.
(39:09):
Crazy time in my life, I remember my dad coming
over to the hospital. He was first one I saw
when I woke up, and of course he was trying
to make light of it.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Tell me he's glad it hit me in the head.
I should be okay, typical dad.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, that truly was a wild story. On the next episode,
we'll hear about the last half of Russ's career with
the Forest Service, which will lead this old Tennessee country
boy to some far off wild places, including an unbelievable
story about working undercover and then an illegal elk hunt
(39:49):
in Yellowstone National Park. From working in the Western US
to flying across the oceans to train an international wildlife
task force, this next AP episode is not gonna be
one that you'll want to miss. I look forward to
talking with everyone on the Bear Grease for Render next week.
Can't thank you enough for listening to bear Grease and
(40:10):
Brent's This Country Life podcast. There are three things that
you can do to support us. Number One, share our
podcast with a friend and tell them about these wild
stories that you're here and here. Secondly, support the advertisers
of the Bear Grease podcast. Yep, all these silly advertisers. Man,
they're helping us a lot. And leave us a review
(40:34):
on iTunes. Have a great week.
Host
Clay Newcomb
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