January 26, 2026 • 46 mins
As Detective Brandenburg follows leads in the Aujay case, he finds himself with an unlikely ally. A young buck narcotics detective named Darren Hager, who’s trying to dismantle a meth syndicate run by a local biker gang. Hager discovers that his bikers have a disturbing connection to Aujay’s disappearance — and to some of his own LASD colleagues. So he brings in the big guns, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and they launch a covert task force.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
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(00:41):
your support.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
This series includes content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Previously on Valley of Shadows.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
At the time, the Yellow Valley was a sesspool, it
was a desert. It was known for manufacturing methamphetamine. So
people were getting busted left and right.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
It was a little bit like the Old West in
a way.
Speaker 6 (01:07):
I mean, this is a very unusual, strange place.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Rick Ingalls was a resident deputy what sorry the area
he lived in. He knew this area probably better than anybody.
Speaker 7 (01:20):
Taknkle brings it up to my boyfriend, tell them R
Jay was on a job, ran across some pace, his
ship and ran across and he had to be taken
care of.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Maybe he was killed.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
There's a musical road in the Antelope Valley that plays
the Lone Ranger theme song every time a car drives
across it, and we're headed there to hear it for ourselves.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
So it looks like the Musical Road was the first
of its kind in the United States. There's like a
rumble strip and the grooves are spaced out in a
series of pitches.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You gotta hit them Musical Road just right. A steady
fifty five miles an hour?
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Are you comfortable like going a full fifty five?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I mean, am I comfortable only going fifty five as
tich Yes, But in the spirit of Antelope Valley speed Demons,
I crank it up to sixty five miles an hour.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Okay, we're out in the desert.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
We are surrounded by scrubland, the sun is on the horizon.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
We're on our horse galloping into the distance.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And the Lone Ranger rides again.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Exhilarating.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
The end of that really does slap like super complish.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
That party legit for the Lone Ranger was first dreamed
up in the nineteen thirties for old timey radio listeners.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
A moment later, a thunder of Boop time, a filver
with a Lone Ranger in the battle read into the night.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The masked cowboy restores order in an otherwise lawless place,
the wild West.
Speaker 8 (03:33):
This is a raw frontier.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
It must take a realistic attitude.
Speaker 9 (03:37):
This is a place where mayhem, the theft, and murder
or the commonplace instead.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Of the unusual.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
But this lawless frontier isn't just a trope in fictionalized westerns.
It's also the backdrop of John Aujay's disappearance in the
Antelope Valley, where cowboys and outlaws haven't given it up.
Speaker 9 (03:58):
A car would race down the road shooting guns out
the window.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Retired Captain Mike Bauer.
Speaker 9 (04:04):
And we didn't think anything of it, because we said,
Anelo Valley's kind of the Old West.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But the gunslingers riding roughshod over these desert towns ride
iron horses. Outlaw bikers travel in packs across the valley.
Their vests are emblazoned with names like the Hell's Angels,
the Mongols, and the Vogos. They wear patches to showcase
their feets, from using various drugs to acts of violence,
(04:34):
and even for killing a cop.
Speaker 9 (04:37):
The Vogos chase the Hell's Angels out of that valley,
and the Vogos took over and almost every suspect who
is named in the disappearance of this deputy has some
connections to the Vogos motorcycle group.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Was John Auj one of their trophy kills? That's what
Brandenburg wants to know when he hears about some local
bikers who've been bragging about Auj's murder.
Speaker 10 (05:06):
Why would the outlaw biker gain these big ass crooks
take credit for killing a cop if they didn't, because
then when it's found out, then there's nothing but a
bunch of lion punks that are taking credit for shit
they don't do.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
But witnesses run for the hills when Brandenburg approaches them.
No one is willing to talk. The bikers tend to
have that effect on people.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
They're scared for their life and rightfully sold. These people
were killers. They're real killers. They'll kill you in a
minute if they think it's going to say now.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
The outlaw biker world is hard to break into, and
without access, Brandenburg's investigation hits a roadblock until he hears
about a hot shot young narcotics detective who's been trying
to put the squeeze on the math trade in the
Antelope Valley, but enforcing the law in these parts is
(06:02):
a dangerous undertaking. I'm Haley Fox.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I'm Betsy Shephard, and this is Valley of Shadows, Episode four,
Outlaw Country.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
No trespassing, no hunting, no motorcycles.
Speaker 11 (06:30):
Check check check.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
We're on our way to meet Darren Hagar, former narcotics
detective for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
He sees this, We've been granted intrigue.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Haley and I passed through a security fence and make
our way down a dirt road to Hagar's house, and
we have mister Hager in his full cowboy regilia, hat,
boots and bustle. Hagar's six feet tall, He's got a
horseshoe mustache and a barrel shaped chest. It's very easy
(07:10):
to picture him as a sheriff's deputy, but these days
he's cattle rancher. Can we start off by nope?
Speaker 5 (07:20):
No, all right.
Speaker 8 (07:21):
Let's go back to.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Hagar likes to mess with us, but he agrees to
a sit down interview. He leads us into a dark
wood paneled room covered in old Neon signs and shows
us his home bar, which is a purely a requirement for.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
All retired share of deputies.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Hacker's bar is stocked with every kind of whiskey you
could possibly want and no other type of liquor.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
I built the bar just try to make it his
rustic and western.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
As that kid, you really do feel like you're in
an old saloon or something.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
That's the whole purpose.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
And just when we thought the vibes couldn't get any
more Yellowstone, we noticed a big ass taxidermied buffalo head
mounted to the wall.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
But one on the wall was our herd bull.
Speaker 6 (08:13):
He got pneumonia, so we smounted his head.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
What made you.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Want to farm buffalo? Like, that's a.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Real choice, Larry Brandenberg's idea a humuicide detective.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
That's right. Deren Hager and Larry Brandenburg ran a buffalo
farm together. They became friends in two thousand and then
business partners in two thousand and three. And the thing
that first brought them together was the John A. J.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Case.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's a long story. So we pull up stools at
Hager's bar. He pours himself a glass of whiskey and
starts from the beginning, like the very beginning.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
As a little kid, I always wanted to become police officer,
just like any normal kid, either a cowboy or a
police officer.
Speaker 10 (08:57):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I like to think of myself as a pretty normal kid.
But I can't say I ever wanted to be a
cowboy or a cop. Hagar's cut from a different cloth, though.
He went to the Sheriffs Academy pretty much right out
of high school, and by his early twenties he was
working patrol in the Annala Valley.
Speaker 6 (09:16):
They put me into a patrol carbon. I was just
a hooking booking machine. That's just what I like.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Hagar was a hooking booking machine, as in, he made
a lot of arrests.
Speaker 6 (09:28):
I was a number either number one or number two
in stats for felling the arrests out of the entire station.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
Every time we ask if.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
He acquired any nicknames at the LASD, you know, like
the enforcer, the hammer, something tough. Hager's reluctant to answer,
but we keep prodding.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Nobody likes you too.
Speaker 6 (09:50):
They called me Peewee because I looked like peewee.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Armin.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
Are you happy? Good? I'm glad she guys are happy.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
These days, Hager's more of a John Wayne type, but
back when he was still Peewee, he slowly worked his
way from patrol deputy to narcotics in the Animal Valley
where he was assigned. Was the mother load.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You know, I think a lot of people picture breaking
bad whatever you're talking about making meth in the desert.
Can you give us a reality check?
Speaker 6 (10:21):
If you change the names, it's the same exact thing.
The myth we were receiving was like super crystal clear myth,
but it was ninety seven percent pure myth.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
It was top by the line, breaking bad myth.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Hagar's not just picking people up for meth, though, because
the drug trade is driving up all kinds of violent crime.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
We were number one in homicides in Los Angeles County,
so yeah, crime was huge.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Over time, Hagar makes detective, but even in his new role,
he can't seem to hook any of the big fish,
the traffickers who were flooding the streets with meth.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
These are guys we could never touch, even if we
arrested them. All the cases got kicked out, and that's
how we came up with the name Touchables.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
But then in late nineteen ninety nine, Hagar lands a
case that will change the course of his career. It
starts with a domestic abuse call that escalates when the
suspect barricades himself inside his home.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
I was able to serve a search warrant on him
and found a bunch of stolen property methanphetamine and was
able to tie it back to one of the individuals
that I knew was big in the processing of meth
and fetamine.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
With the charges combined, the suspect is looking at major prison.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Time and he finally came to me. He goes, I
don't want to go to jail for twelve years. What
will it take to get you off my ass?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And that's when this suspect offers to become a police informant.
We're gonna call him.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Keith go what do you got?
Speaker 6 (12:02):
He goes, I will give you dealers in the methamphetamine
world out here that you never touched before, and that
started the ball rolling.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Keith is willing to name names to help Hager bust
the area's meth giants, but first Keith need some assurance
no one will ever find out. He claims there's a
lot of powerful people involved, dangerous people like the bikers
who do not fuck around.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
The outlaw bikers were big out there. If you cross
them there was a guaranteed death that was going to
be murder.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Hager realizes he's in over his head, so he kicks
the info up to his supervisor.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
They got there.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
This is like above my pay scale. This is huge.
This is way huge, and it got even bigger.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
His supervisor calls a meeting with a few other detectives.
Hager tells them everything discussed must stay in the room.
But less than twenty four hours later, Hager gets a
call from Keith, his informant.
Speaker 6 (13:10):
And he goes, who did you tell that's already on
the street that I'm talking to you.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Keith manages to convince people he's no snitch, but the
problem remains the dealers have a direct line to someone
in the sheriff's department. Keith says he knows a number
of dirty deputies.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
He said, look, if you go forward with this, deputy X, Y,
and Z are going to know exactly what's going on.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
So you got to protect me.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Hagar doesn't know what to think, but it's his job
to reassure Keith.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
I had no information confirmation that deputies were dirty, but
for the safety of my informant, I don't want them injured.
That's your main goal is you'd never want an informant hurt, and.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
That's why we're using aliases for Keith and other informants
to protect their identities. Hager sends Keith's concerns up the
flagpole to the second in command at the NARCO Bureau.
Speaker 6 (14:08):
He goes, don't talk to anybody else. Take it to
the FEDS. Take it straight to DEA. He goes, he
can't trust anybody in here.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
That's what Hager does. He meets with the Drug Enforcement Administration,
tells him about the meth trade in the Antelope Valley,
the untouchables, the leaks in the department, and the FEDS
agree to help under one condition.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Will work your bakcase. Well, we're not going to work
any deputy personnel that you have.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
So the DEA and the Sheriff's Department come to an agreement.
It'll be a joint effort. The DEA will lead the
charge on the meth trafficking investigation, and the LASD will
handle claims of police misconduct and crimes outside of narcotics.
The FEDS ask Hagar to be their local guide because
this is an unusual place and he knows it well.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
I can tell you how many police pursuits and chases
we had through the desert because it's pitch black out
there and you're running over out of snakes and jack
rabbits trying to get the bad guy, and they just
feel they're going to get away. So I got sworn
in as a federal agent for them, even though I
was still a La County deputy sheriff.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
From the start, there's a huge emphasis on discretion to
protect against leaks. The task force will operate in a
vacuum without the knowledge or help of local deputies.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
We got to keep this quiet, not just that I
was going undercover, but quiet internally, like nobody needs to know.
That's where the name Operation Silent Thunder came up.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Operation Silent Thunder. Almost overnight, Hegre's life is turned upside down.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
I was taken completely out of the station. I wasn't
allowed at the station. I couldn't try my vehicle to
the station. I couldn't talk to any more deputies at
the station.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He grows a beard to disguise his appearance, and he's
relocated to an abandoned fire station, where he and five
DEA agents set up offices. It's one of many safe
houses used by the task Force.
Speaker 6 (16:19):
They were just old, abandoned houses that we had keys
to at several of those so we could swap different
houses so people aren't tailing us and seeing what we were doing.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Despite all Silent Thunder's efforts to keep the lowest of profiles,
word of Hagar's star informant reaches homicide detective Larry Brandenburg.
Speaker 6 (16:41):
He knew that my informant was involved in this meth trade,
so he wanted to ask him if he knew certain
things about what's going on in the Antelope Valley.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Hagar bristles at first, he's mad that word of his
informant is making the rounds, but he softens when Brandenburg
says he's chasing a lead related to the disappearance of
John Auj. Because Hagar knew Auj. He worked with him
in Bosco a number of times. So here's Brandenburg out and.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
He told me what he was learning. I got you're
the homicide detective, but I sure don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Up until now, Hagar had heard little about Aujay's case,
just that he vanished in the punch bowl, so he's
surprised by the murder allegations, but he agrees to let
Brandenburg talk to Keith at a clandestine location.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
You get out there in the middle of the desert.
He makes sure no one's around. You're constantly looking out
the windows.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
They meet in a remote part of the Mojave Desert
and pile into an unmarked police van Hagar makes the
introduction and the informant starts talking.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
He said he had been hearing things from drug dealers
that all Ja was off duty and he came across
a meth lab.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Brandenburg has heard this before, but this has added confirmation.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And the drug dealers killed him because he came across
his lab and they didn't want it exposed. He can
go to jail, and that they dropped him in a hole.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
It's the same story with the same names.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
He brought up Tom Hankel said they called him God
and that he was a coal hearted killer. And he
said that he heard that Richard Carrolyn may also be involved.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
That's the guy who owned the meth lab right next
to the punch bowl. Prior to this, Brandenburg had just
suspected Carroll's involvement, So.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
That kind of got our attention that he's putting out
the right place, the right.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Names, Hagar gets some new names for the task force.
Brandenburg lands some witness corroboration. But the biggest outcome of
this meeting is that Hagar and Brandenburg have entered into
a kind of unofficial partnership. Hager knows he's got to
maintain the ConA silence, but the department tells him anything
(19:00):
beyond narcotics should be passed along to the appropriate law
enforcement division. So that's what Hagar does. He hands off
au Jay leads to Larry Brandenburg, and over time the
men develop a type of ali operpoort.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
We would get the door open through our informants to
where Larry wanted us to go, and then pass that
information onto Larry, and then Hut try to put the
homicide investigation together, you know.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
And it worked out, worked.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Great, and in the process they take a liking to
each other.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
And then we started hanging around each other, and then
we started talking off duty, and there might have been
a couple of glasses of chocolate milk here and there
after wead.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Whatever. We became good friends.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Over well, Brandenburg works the homicide angle. Hagar follows up
on the names Keith has given him.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
We talked to probably thousands of people on the street,
and you got to put that link chart together. Who
knows who are they really worth looking into a little
more or talking to a little more. And every time
you talk to one person, that person's going to give
you a whole dozen other.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Names, and sometimes one of these names pays off. It's
a new eyewitness who allegedly saw Auja in the punch
bowl area at sunset, right before he disappeared, and the
witness tells Hager that auj had company.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Narco Detective Darren Hager, here's about a guy named Rodney Katzif.
He's fresh out of jail and finds work with a
local lawyer digging up dirt on people.
Speaker 6 (20:57):
So Rodney Castiff was out shaking trees and bushes and
interviewing people and doing his own thing.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Katsiff is tied into the local drug world, including a
godlike Tom Hinkle, so all sorts of characters opened up
to him, and it turns out katz If has a lead.
He tells Hager about an interview he did with a
man who claims that he saw John Ajay in the
punch bowl at dusk, right before he disappeared. This is
(21:28):
a huge development because up until this point, all reported
auj sightings had been earlier in the day, so this witness,
who we're gonna call Matt, might have insight into Aujay's
last moments. Katz offf tells Hager that Matt was confronted
by two armed bikers in the punch Bowl and that
Matt saw John Aujay headed in the direction of those bikers.
(21:50):
So Hager tracks down Matt to hear the story firsthand.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
At first, he says, they were yelling by a rock,
and your deputy went over ag him and he wouldn't
talk any more than that.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Later, Matt starts to walk back. This version of events
changes the biker details, says he just saw some hippies.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
The next time we talked to him, he goes, well,
I think the guys on the rocks were like jumping
and they were just yelling. Having thought, you know, it
wasn't like yelling like something was going wrong, like an argument.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Hagar says. Matt even seemed to be lying about what
he was doing in the punch Bowl that day. He
claimed to be up there mountain biking, but Hagar learns
that Matt is pretty tapped in with Tom Hankle and
Richard Carroll.
Speaker 6 (22:37):
He knew every player in that punch Bowl area. You know,
if I want to ride a bike in the mountains,
I'm not going to know everybody there. So this guy
was in their twine somehow, some way.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
But the lead fizzles out when Matt recants his story.
Hager guesses it's because Matt was scared of the bikers
and what would happen to him if the bikers found
out he placed them in the punch Bowl at the
time of Aujay's disappearance. And then something happens that strengthens
Hagar's hunch. He circles back with kats If, that guy
(23:12):
out there shaking those trees, to see if he has
any more details about Matt's original account. But before Hagar
can talk to him, Katsif disappears.
Speaker 6 (23:25):
This car was found burned up in the wash in
Para Blossom, and he's never been found again. And that's
at the same time we were starting to get information
from him on what we needed for our case.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
In September two thousand and one, Katz's car is found
burned out near the Angelus National Forest, not far from
where auj had been jogging three years earlier. And just
like the deputy Katsiff vanishes into thin air. Hagar can't
help but think the two disappearances are related, that the
men were taken out because they got too close to something,
(24:02):
and there's a common thread between the disappearances. The outlaw bikers.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
If you didn't pay your debt, or if you're at it,
or they thought you were gonna rat or you got
involved in their business, there wasn't hey, don't do that
ever again, you're done. They got rid of you. They
didn't take a chance. So that's where the murders came in.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Annelobally has a large presence about law bikers who were
constantly making the nightly news.
Speaker 8 (24:31):
Witnesses describe a chaotic scene of gunfire and stabbing between
the Hells Angels and one of the most violent motorcycle
gangs in the country, the Mongols. Prosecutors say Voggos are
being charged with murder, attempted murder, drug and firearms deally.
Speaker 9 (24:47):
I know they don't like me to call them our
local terrorists, but I'll put that name on them too.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
These groups also went by another name, the one percenters.
It's a term coined back in the nineteen forties to
distinguish the majority of bikers who are law abiding citizens
from a small number of bad apples, the one percent.
Some biker game have turned that into a point of pride,
embracing the one percenter label, and that's often reflected in
(25:16):
their names, The Devil's Disciples, the Grim Reapers, and the Diablos.
The official term law enforcement uses to refer to one
percenter groups as outlaw motorcycle gangs or omgs. The bikers
got the OMG acronym well before texting emerged, just fyi,
(25:37):
and many of these omgs are native to southern California.
Speaker 12 (25:41):
Hell's Angels originated in San Bernardino, the Vogos originated in
San Bernardino. The Mongols originated in Montabello, California. So I
mean this is a lot of the mother chapters of
these clubs started here.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
This is John Carr, a retired agent from the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or ATF. He's an
expert in the omgs, and back in the day he
even infl traded some of them while working undercover, and
he still looks the part intimidating an all muscle. Carr
(26:17):
says that the biker gangs claim their turf and the
Antelope Valley belongs to the Vogos.
Speaker 11 (26:24):
Vogos are still that old school kind of down and dirty.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
OMG Car lays out two denim vests that he confiscated
from the Vagos during prior investigations. The centerpiece of the
vest is the club's emblem.
Speaker 12 (26:39):
Their center patch. You can see this red devil. It's
supposed to be the red Loki, the Norse god of mischief.
He's on a wing wheel and he's holding basically Voglo's
banner up in his hands.
Speaker 11 (26:50):
And then the MC is for Motorcycle Club.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Bikers are given the back patch when they're officially selected
as a member. They can earn others for different contributions
to the club. In front of us, there's a swastika patch,
which tracks because a lot of the biker gangs have
deep roots in Neo Nazias them. Other patches are slightly
more subtle, like the one that says mf.
Speaker 12 (27:16):
If you ask Evago what it means, they'll say it
means a motorcycle family. But as law enforcement we know
it's what they call their motherfucker patch. It's a patch
you earn for doing some form of violence.
Speaker 11 (27:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I know that the Voggos will not like this comparison,
but so it is a little bit like girl Scout
and that you get patches.
Speaker 13 (27:37):
For doing certain as tluely there's patches you earn and
without a doubt, you know. I mean, in this culture,
their cuts, their vests are one of the most important
things to them. It's a very sacred thing to these guys.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It's not just that the patches are sacred. There's a
quasi religious aspect to biker culture in general. The gangs
hold weekly meetings they call church, and there's even a
group mentality when it comes to acts of violence.
Speaker 11 (28:08):
You know, they use a term called a boot.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Party, right, a boot party, or you know.
Speaker 11 (28:14):
You basically stomped the shit out of somebody car.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Saw evidence of this firsthand, a bloody corpse that the
Vogos had dumped in the desert, you.
Speaker 11 (28:25):
Know, And that's part of the way this individual got murdered.
Speaker 12 (28:29):
He got stomped to death just having that motorcycle boot
imprint on his face.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
In the Mojave Desert. Detective Darren Hager says the Vogos
were involved in all types of criminal activity.
Speaker 7 (28:43):
Laced from five counties carry out a massive early morning
raid on the outlaw motorcycle gang called Vagos. They seize guns, drugs, money,
and arrest twenty five bikers, charging them with murder, attempted murder,
and drug dealing.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
One of the agencies targeting the bikers was the DEA
with the Operation Silent Thunder Task Force.
Speaker 6 (29:04):
I'm not saying all the dope and animal valley came
from the one percent, but it was a big percent
of the animalot bank. I mean they did a lot
of the meth dealing and they were huge. I mean
we took down a fifty seven pound a veteran lab.
We took down one hundred pound meth and fetamine lab,
and lots of caizuars in between.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
As Hagar and his DEA counterparts start mapping out the
meth trade, they identify six cells in the area. One
was run by a Mexican cartel. The other five were
associated with outlaw biker gangs, which checks because bikers and
meth are a duo as old as time. Crank, one
(29:47):
of meth's early nicknames, came from motorcycle gangs because they
used to hide their drugs in their engine block also
known as a crank case. The bikers would cook meth
nearly anywhere, in shipping containers and trailers, and the Vagos
were known to use Rick Carroll's underground lab near the
(30:07):
punch Bowl. It was also bikers who started making crystal,
the type of meth sold in rock form, and that
led to skyrocketing Matthews because crystal was easy to make
an extremely potent that ninety seven percent pure breaking bad myth.
Motorcycle culture is so ubiquitous in the Analog Valley in
(30:30):
the nineties and two thousands that the local cops went
in on the action. Sheriff deputies even formed their own
biker club called the Outlaw Pigs with jackets, patches the
whole nine yards. What's the image on the back of
It's a pig with horns. A pig with horns.
Speaker 8 (30:50):
Yeah, it's a pig with horns. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
I recently hopped on the phone with Vince Burton. He's
retired from the LSD now, but when a Jay disappeared,
he was a sergeant at the Palmdale station and he
helped lead the AUJ search. He also founded the Outlaw Pigs.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
We didn't you know violate well?
Speaker 8 (31:10):
We might have sped now and then on motorcycles, but
that's probably about it.
Speaker 14 (31:13):
You know, we weren't We weren't dougs.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Burton says the Alla Pigs was just a fraternal club
with cops who happened to ride Harley's. But Burton also
worked in the area, so he got to know the vogos,
including the club's president, a guy named thirty seven.
Speaker 8 (31:33):
I still have the phone number for thirty seven. Who
was That's his nickname, the street names. He is like
the godfather of the chapter.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Burton says that when possible, he'd let the vogos sort
out their own affairs, and when members god on his radar,
he goes straight to thirty seven and pressure him to
get his troops in line.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
I would say, go take care of your brother right now.
We're going to go in there and arrest him and
his old lady for being stupid or for doing this
or doing that. Okay, Sergeant Burton and his guys would
go and if they had to physically handle whatever, and
he would take their guy away and the problem was solved.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Telling the vagos to discipline its members seems like a
bad idea because their form of discipline often involves violence,
sometimes extreme violence. But there's a larger issue at play here.
It's this chummy relationship between law enforcement and outlaw bikers.
There was even a deputy rumor to be a patched member.
(32:36):
He had all the Vagos. Garrett Home would park his
patrol vehicle outside their church meetings, and he even served
as a lookout for the gang while on duty and
in uniform. He posted up outside a house while the
Vagos robbed a couple inside. Burton says that law enforcement's
relationship with the bikers was all strategic, a way to
(32:57):
gather intel and maintain order. This dynamic seems problematic, like
it could be used as a cover for criminal behavior,
like for example, when Burton hell's a local member of
the Health Angels that he and his deputies have got
his back, and.
Speaker 14 (33:16):
I said, hey, this is members of my team.
Speaker 8 (33:18):
They have already been told that at any.
Speaker 14 (33:21):
Time you can call them and that they will respond
to you even when I'm gone, as if it was me.
And you can trust them because if they violate my
trust or the trust with you, then they'll deal with me.
And they don't want to do that because I will
forever haunt them, and I have forever friends on the
(33:44):
department who will make their lives miserable if they ruin
that trust in me.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Burton had a similar arrangement with members of the Vogos,
and as soon.
Speaker 8 (33:54):
As they would see who I would was, they knew
I wasn't going to screw with them, and I would
just say, hey, desert Rick, what's up. What's going on?
Everything cool? You guys behaving and it's funny and a
lot of these things. They would always say, well, you know,
Sergeant Burton, we don't get in our own backyard.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
But sometimes they do shit in their own backyard, and
aw Ja's disappearance might be one of those times, because,
according to witnesses, the Voggos know exactly what happened to
the deputy.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
The relationship between the bikers and local deputies creates major
hurdles for Hagar and Brandenburg. Even when witnesses are brave
enough to come forward, they often change their minds before
giving the detectives the information they need.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
They didn't know who to trust. Didn't that make sense?
So they say, I ain't saying shit. I just want
to stay alive and I'm gonna go hid. Well, that's
what happened.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It happened with the witness we'll call Tina. Hagar and
Brandenburg get a call from a lawyer with big news.
He says his client knows the location of Aujay's remains.
Up until now, people have said Aujay was dropped in
a hole, but this is the first person claiming specific
knowledge of where he was buried. It's a hot tip
(35:28):
and could unlock the whole mystery of what happened on
June eleventh.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
Nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
So Hager meets with the lawyer and sets up a
time to meet with his client Tina, But she never shows,
not the first time, not the second time. So Brandenburg
takes a crack at it and finds out where Tina's staying.
When he gets there, she refuses to open the door,
saying she can't trust him because quote, there are dirty
(35:55):
cops out there. Brandenburg reassures Tina he's no dirty cop,
and eventually she agrees to talk.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
She said that there was a guy in the bottle
of motorcycle game and his name was Big Rick, and
she said he was involved in this burder of the deputy,
and that she had been shown where he was buried,
which we went wow, okay, by who? And she says
Big Rick Shiller.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
A name, a supposed confession, and the possibility of forensic evidence.
It's a stunning revelation. Brandenburgh does his homework and finds
out Big Rick isn't just a member of the Voggos.
He's the sergeant at arms, the muscle, the enforcer.
Speaker 8 (36:42):
And as soon as they would seen who I was,
they knew I wasn't going to screw with them.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And it seems he went by multiple names.
Speaker 8 (36:50):
I would just think, hey, Desert Rick, what's up? What's
going on?
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Big Rick is also a big time meths supplier, and
according to court records, he was known for using extreme
force to collect on drug debts and he's got the
look to match a prison yard hulk Hogan. So yeah,
Tina's scared to cross him, which is why she shuts
the conversation down before Brandenburg can find out the location
(37:17):
of Aujy's alleged grave.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
It was, you know, it's like search up for a
Neil Haystack house there in that desert, that mountain.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
And so you couldn't convince her to show you.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
No, she wasn't going with us on a little field trip.
She did not want to do that. She wasn't going
that far. It was hard a gear ago this far.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Tina's story wouldn't be the only time big Rick's name
came up in connection to the auj case. Big Rick
was identified by Hagar and Operation Silent Thunder as a
lynchpin in the meth production process. He was in a
fedroan supplier, which means he obtained and distributed one of
the key ingredients for making meth. A fedron is found
in decongestins like pseudafed and was legal to buy at
(38:03):
the time, but only unlimited quantities. Big Rick had a
work around, though he used a connection had the next
county over where Hager says Rick would buy a vedron
in bulk and then distribute it to meth cooks in
the Greater Pear Blossom area, to people like Beard and
Methaclause Tom hinkle.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
All the myth was coming to Tom Hinkles so he
could sell the meth out of his house.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
And that's why Hager takes note when a tip comes
in that puts big Rick in the Devil's punch bowl.
On the day of Aujay's disappearance, according to a new witness.
Big Rick said he was making it a Fedron deal
in the punch bowl when he was approached by a cop,
and so he shot and killed him, adding that the
(38:49):
cop was stupid thinking he could make the bust by himself.
So in July two thousand and one, when Big Rick
is arrested during Operation Silent Thunder, Hager sees an opportunity
to gather more intel on him.
Speaker 6 (39:06):
So we take big Rick to jail down federal custody.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Where his phone calls are recorded. So when big Rick
calls home, Hager says he got a chance to hear it.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
Listen to the phone call.
Speaker 6 (39:19):
He calls the house, talks to his son, said did
they find the gun?
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Law enforcement had recently served a search warrant at big
Rick's house.
Speaker 6 (39:29):
And his son said, no, they missed it. They didn't
find because he had a false compartment under the floor
of his closet.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Big Rick is still worried about that gun, though.
Speaker 6 (39:41):
And he goes, you know what would happen if they
found that gun. I'd be looking at the death penalty.
Make sure that gun disappears. He goes, Dad, I got
it taken care of.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Hagar's hackles go up because a guy like big Rick
would not be stressing over just any illegal firearm. Bikers
like big Rick run guns in their sleep, so this
gun must have some history to it, and Hagar wonders
if it might be connected to Auj.
Speaker 6 (40:13):
That statement was just in my book, is huge. Why
are you concern about a death penalty over a fire.
You can go out and kill anybody you want. You're
not going to get the death penalty in California. But
if you killed a cop, that was the death penalty,
and that was the only missing cop that I know
(40:33):
in that time period.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
California rarely executes people, the last one was in two
thousand and six, but one of the special circumstances used
to invoke capital punishment here is the murder of a
law enforcement officer. In fact, a California man was recently
sentenced to death for killing a cop. So Hagar's right,
(40:58):
big Rick's statement is suspicious, especially in light of everything
else Hagar and Brandenburg have heard, like big Rick taking
Tina to Auj's alleged gravesite until another witness he killed
a cop, and the eyewitness who says he saw Auj
in the punch bowl with two bikers he here thinks
(41:18):
he's onto something.
Speaker 6 (41:20):
We just need that one person to say I was there,
this is what happened. It wasn't a suicide. AJ's not
in Alaska, he's not working for the government. He was
murdered at the punch bowl.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Brandenburg thinks he's got a line on that person. When
a woman comes forward saying that her longtime friend is
dating a Vogos member and has insider knowledge of what
happened to Auj.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
She had told her the story that she was in
this Bogo party in the garage and she overheard the
statement that aujiy had this deputy, not Auj didn't know
his name, I don't think, but he came across a
meth lab, but that was the Bogos were involved with,
and he was going to be a hero and he.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Was taking care of It's the same story that Brandenburg's
been hearing over and over again. There's one detail that
makes this tip stand out though. The Vogelas were reportedly
telling this story within a few days of au Jay's disappearance,
and Brandenburg thinks they're not going to brag about killing
a cop unless they're sure he's dead.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Because then you're gonna look like fools on the street.
We're taking credit for big bad bikers taking care of
his deputy sheriff. And now they find them alive up
there in the mountains or in Alaska or wherever. You
look pretty stupid. So that's why I thought people don't
make up shit like that.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
So he sets out to find the woman who is
at the biker party, who we're gonna call Jen, but
she keeps dodging Brandenburg, which he takes to mean he's
on the right track.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
If the informants somebody's in jail, for instance, and they
call you and they say, hey, I got some real
good info on something, come talk to me. You're always skeptical. Okay,
what do you want return? But when you get it,
like this girl didn't raise her hands. She wasn't calling us, hey,
come talk to me. No, she was hiding from us.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Jen had only told a close friend or two, had
never reached out to the cops directly, and when Brandenburg
does eventually find her, she still won't talk. Not at
first anyway.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And
then we pressed her and she finally said, you guys,
you're all connected. Cops, dirty, good and bad. You're all
the same, and she said she didn't trust any of us.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
This is emerging as a pattern for brandon Burg and
Hager witnesses and informants who are scared of the cops.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Miss went on to say that she heard from a
friend who she refused to name, that Deputy Alogy was
jogging near the punch bowl when he came across Deputy
Ingle's meth lab and was killed.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Deputy Angle's meth lab.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
The word on the street among the close circle of
drug dealers has been a deputy has been involved with
drugs for a very long time.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
As in La County Sheriff's Deputy Rick Angles.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, that's pretty pretty frightening.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
If this alleged dirty deputy was involved in the local
myth trade, what else could he be involved in? That's
next time on Valley of Shadows.
Speaker 9 (44:37):
There was an inappropriate relationship between Rick Angles and at
least one drug dealer in the area.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Then I started interviewing other people and Rick Engle's name
starts coming up more and more and more.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Joey, I believe Angles is a dirty cop. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
If you have any information or tips related to the disappearance,
of John Aujay. Please call two one three, two six,
two nine eight eight nine or email Shadows at pushkin
dot FM. Valley of Shadows is reported, written and produced
by us Betsy Shepherd and Haley Fox. Our editor is
(45:34):
Diane Hodson. Our executive producers are Jacob Smith and Alexandra Garaton.
Original music by Jake Gorsky, Ray Lynch, Mike Jersich, and
Hayden Gardner. Sound design by Jake Gorsky, fact checking by
Anaica Robbins, additional production support by Sonya Gerwitt and our
(45:57):
show art was designed by Sean Carney and Betsy Shepherd.
Special thanks to Nick White for the show art. Photo.
Value of Shadows is a production of Pushkin Industries. To
find more Pushkin podcast listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts from type to Fun.
(46:17):
We're Betsy and Hayley. See you next week.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Subscribe to Pushkin Plus to hear the entire season of
Valley of Shadows ad free starting January twelfth. You'll also
get bonus episodes, full audiobooks, and early ad free listening
from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Find Pushkin Plus
on the Valley of Shadows show page on Apple podcast,
or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus, and thanks for
(00:41):
your support.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
This series includes content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Previously on Valley of Shadows.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
At the time, the Yellow Valley was a sesspool, it
was a desert. It was known for manufacturing methamphetamine. So
people were getting busted left and right.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
It was a little bit like the Old West in
a way.
Speaker 6 (01:07):
I mean, this is a very unusual, strange place.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Rick Ingalls was a resident deputy what sorry the area
he lived in. He knew this area probably better than anybody.
Speaker 7 (01:20):
Taknkle brings it up to my boyfriend, tell them R
Jay was on a job, ran across some pace, his
ship and ran across and he had to be taken
care of.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Maybe he was killed.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
There's a musical road in the Antelope Valley that plays
the Lone Ranger theme song every time a car drives
across it, and we're headed there to hear it for ourselves.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
So it looks like the Musical Road was the first
of its kind in the United States. There's like a
rumble strip and the grooves are spaced out in a
series of pitches.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You gotta hit them Musical Road just right. A steady
fifty five miles an hour?
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Are you comfortable like going a full fifty five?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I mean, am I comfortable only going fifty five as
tich Yes, But in the spirit of Antelope Valley speed Demons,
I crank it up to sixty five miles an hour.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Okay, we're out in the desert.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
We are surrounded by scrubland, the sun is on the horizon.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
We're on our horse galloping into the distance.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And the Lone Ranger rides again.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Exhilarating.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
The end of that really does slap like super complish.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
That party legit for the Lone Ranger was first dreamed
up in the nineteen thirties for old timey radio listeners.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
A moment later, a thunder of Boop time, a filver
with a Lone Ranger in the battle read into the night.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The masked cowboy restores order in an otherwise lawless place,
the wild West.
Speaker 8 (03:33):
This is a raw frontier.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
It must take a realistic attitude.
Speaker 9 (03:37):
This is a place where mayhem, the theft, and murder
or the commonplace instead.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Of the unusual.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
But this lawless frontier isn't just a trope in fictionalized westerns.
It's also the backdrop of John Aujay's disappearance in the
Antelope Valley, where cowboys and outlaws haven't given it up.
Speaker 9 (03:58):
A car would race down the road shooting guns out
the window.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Retired Captain Mike Bauer.
Speaker 9 (04:04):
And we didn't think anything of it, because we said,
Anelo Valley's kind of the Old West.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But the gunslingers riding roughshod over these desert towns ride
iron horses. Outlaw bikers travel in packs across the valley.
Their vests are emblazoned with names like the Hell's Angels,
the Mongols, and the Vogos. They wear patches to showcase
their feets, from using various drugs to acts of violence,
(04:34):
and even for killing a cop.
Speaker 9 (04:37):
The Vogos chase the Hell's Angels out of that valley,
and the Vogos took over and almost every suspect who
is named in the disappearance of this deputy has some
connections to the Vogos motorcycle group.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Was John Auj one of their trophy kills? That's what
Brandenburg wants to know when he hears about some local
bikers who've been bragging about Auj's murder.
Speaker 10 (05:06):
Why would the outlaw biker gain these big ass crooks
take credit for killing a cop if they didn't, because
then when it's found out, then there's nothing but a
bunch of lion punks that are taking credit for shit
they don't do.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
But witnesses run for the hills when Brandenburg approaches them.
No one is willing to talk. The bikers tend to
have that effect on people.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
They're scared for their life and rightfully sold. These people
were killers. They're real killers. They'll kill you in a
minute if they think it's going to say now.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
The outlaw biker world is hard to break into, and
without access, Brandenburg's investigation hits a roadblock until he hears
about a hot shot young narcotics detective who's been trying
to put the squeeze on the math trade in the
Antelope Valley, but enforcing the law in these parts is
(06:02):
a dangerous undertaking. I'm Haley Fox.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I'm Betsy Shephard, and this is Valley of Shadows, Episode four,
Outlaw Country.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
No trespassing, no hunting, no motorcycles.
Speaker 11 (06:30):
Check check check.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
We're on our way to meet Darren Hagar, former narcotics
detective for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
He sees this, We've been granted intrigue.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Haley and I passed through a security fence and make
our way down a dirt road to Hagar's house, and
we have mister Hager in his full cowboy regilia, hat,
boots and bustle. Hagar's six feet tall, He's got a
horseshoe mustache and a barrel shaped chest. It's very easy
(07:10):
to picture him as a sheriff's deputy, but these days
he's cattle rancher. Can we start off by nope?
Speaker 5 (07:20):
No, all right.
Speaker 8 (07:21):
Let's go back to.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Hagar likes to mess with us, but he agrees to
a sit down interview. He leads us into a dark
wood paneled room covered in old Neon signs and shows
us his home bar, which is a purely a requirement for.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
All retired share of deputies.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Hacker's bar is stocked with every kind of whiskey you
could possibly want and no other type of liquor.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
I built the bar just try to make it his
rustic and western.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
As that kid, you really do feel like you're in
an old saloon or something.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
That's the whole purpose.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
And just when we thought the vibes couldn't get any
more Yellowstone, we noticed a big ass taxidermied buffalo head
mounted to the wall.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
But one on the wall was our herd bull.
Speaker 6 (08:13):
He got pneumonia, so we smounted his head.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
What made you.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Want to farm buffalo? Like, that's a.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Real choice, Larry Brandenberg's idea a humuicide detective.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
That's right. Deren Hager and Larry Brandenburg ran a buffalo
farm together. They became friends in two thousand and then
business partners in two thousand and three. And the thing
that first brought them together was the John A. J.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Case.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's a long story. So we pull up stools at
Hager's bar. He pours himself a glass of whiskey and
starts from the beginning, like the very beginning.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
As a little kid, I always wanted to become police officer,
just like any normal kid, either a cowboy or a
police officer.
Speaker 10 (08:57):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I like to think of myself as a pretty normal kid.
But I can't say I ever wanted to be a
cowboy or a cop. Hagar's cut from a different cloth, though.
He went to the Sheriffs Academy pretty much right out
of high school, and by his early twenties he was
working patrol in the Annala Valley.
Speaker 6 (09:16):
They put me into a patrol carbon. I was just
a hooking booking machine. That's just what I like.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Hagar was a hooking booking machine, as in, he made
a lot of arrests.
Speaker 6 (09:28):
I was a number either number one or number two
in stats for felling the arrests out of the entire station.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
Every time we ask if.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
He acquired any nicknames at the LASD, you know, like
the enforcer, the hammer, something tough. Hager's reluctant to answer,
but we keep prodding.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Nobody likes you too.
Speaker 6 (09:50):
They called me Peewee because I looked like peewee.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Armin.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
Are you happy? Good? I'm glad she guys are happy.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
These days, Hager's more of a John Wayne type, but
back when he was still Peewee, he slowly worked his
way from patrol deputy to narcotics in the Animal Valley
where he was assigned. Was the mother load.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You know, I think a lot of people picture breaking
bad whatever you're talking about making meth in the desert.
Can you give us a reality check?
Speaker 6 (10:21):
If you change the names, it's the same exact thing.
The myth we were receiving was like super crystal clear myth,
but it was ninety seven percent pure myth.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
It was top by the line, breaking bad myth.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Hagar's not just picking people up for meth, though, because
the drug trade is driving up all kinds of violent crime.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
We were number one in homicides in Los Angeles County,
so yeah, crime was huge.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Over time, Hagar makes detective, but even in his new role,
he can't seem to hook any of the big fish,
the traffickers who were flooding the streets with meth.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
These are guys we could never touch, even if we
arrested them. All the cases got kicked out, and that's
how we came up with the name Touchables.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
But then in late nineteen ninety nine, Hagar lands a
case that will change the course of his career. It
starts with a domestic abuse call that escalates when the
suspect barricades himself inside his home.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
I was able to serve a search warrant on him
and found a bunch of stolen property methanphetamine and was
able to tie it back to one of the individuals
that I knew was big in the processing of meth
and fetamine.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
With the charges combined, the suspect is looking at major prison.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Time and he finally came to me. He goes, I
don't want to go to jail for twelve years. What
will it take to get you off my ass?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And that's when this suspect offers to become a police informant.
We're gonna call him.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Keith go what do you got?
Speaker 6 (12:02):
He goes, I will give you dealers in the methamphetamine
world out here that you never touched before, and that
started the ball rolling.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Keith is willing to name names to help Hager bust
the area's meth giants, but first Keith need some assurance
no one will ever find out. He claims there's a
lot of powerful people involved, dangerous people like the bikers
who do not fuck around.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
The outlaw bikers were big out there. If you cross
them there was a guaranteed death that was going to
be murder.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Hager realizes he's in over his head, so he kicks
the info up to his supervisor.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
They got there.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
This is like above my pay scale. This is huge.
This is way huge, and it got even bigger.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
His supervisor calls a meeting with a few other detectives.
Hager tells them everything discussed must stay in the room.
But less than twenty four hours later, Hager gets a
call from Keith, his informant.
Speaker 6 (13:10):
And he goes, who did you tell that's already on
the street that I'm talking to you.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Keith manages to convince people he's no snitch, but the
problem remains the dealers have a direct line to someone
in the sheriff's department. Keith says he knows a number
of dirty deputies.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
He said, look, if you go forward with this, deputy X, Y,
and Z are going to know exactly what's going on.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
So you got to protect me.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Hagar doesn't know what to think, but it's his job
to reassure Keith.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
I had no information confirmation that deputies were dirty, but
for the safety of my informant, I don't want them injured.
That's your main goal is you'd never want an informant hurt, and.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
That's why we're using aliases for Keith and other informants
to protect their identities. Hager sends Keith's concerns up the
flagpole to the second in command at the NARCO Bureau.
Speaker 6 (14:08):
He goes, don't talk to anybody else. Take it to
the FEDS. Take it straight to DEA. He goes, he
can't trust anybody in here.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
That's what Hager does. He meets with the Drug Enforcement Administration,
tells him about the meth trade in the Antelope Valley,
the untouchables, the leaks in the department, and the FEDS
agree to help under one condition.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Will work your bakcase. Well, we're not going to work
any deputy personnel that you have.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
So the DEA and the Sheriff's Department come to an agreement.
It'll be a joint effort. The DEA will lead the
charge on the meth trafficking investigation, and the LASD will
handle claims of police misconduct and crimes outside of narcotics.
The FEDS ask Hagar to be their local guide because
this is an unusual place and he knows it well.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
I can tell you how many police pursuits and chases
we had through the desert because it's pitch black out
there and you're running over out of snakes and jack
rabbits trying to get the bad guy, and they just
feel they're going to get away. So I got sworn
in as a federal agent for them, even though I
was still a La County deputy sheriff.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
From the start, there's a huge emphasis on discretion to
protect against leaks. The task force will operate in a
vacuum without the knowledge or help of local deputies.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
We got to keep this quiet, not just that I
was going undercover, but quiet internally, like nobody needs to know.
That's where the name Operation Silent Thunder came up.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Operation Silent Thunder. Almost overnight, Hegre's life is turned upside down.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
I was taken completely out of the station. I wasn't
allowed at the station. I couldn't try my vehicle to
the station. I couldn't talk to any more deputies at
the station.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He grows a beard to disguise his appearance, and he's
relocated to an abandoned fire station, where he and five
DEA agents set up offices. It's one of many safe
houses used by the task Force.
Speaker 6 (16:19):
They were just old, abandoned houses that we had keys
to at several of those so we could swap different
houses so people aren't tailing us and seeing what we were doing.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Despite all Silent Thunder's efforts to keep the lowest of profiles,
word of Hagar's star informant reaches homicide detective Larry Brandenburg.
Speaker 6 (16:41):
He knew that my informant was involved in this meth trade,
so he wanted to ask him if he knew certain
things about what's going on in the Antelope Valley.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Hagar bristles at first, he's mad that word of his
informant is making the rounds, but he softens when Brandenburg
says he's chasing a lead related to the disappearance of
John Auj. Because Hagar knew Auj. He worked with him
in Bosco a number of times. So here's Brandenburg out and.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
He told me what he was learning. I got you're
the homicide detective, but I sure don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Up until now, Hagar had heard little about Aujay's case,
just that he vanished in the punch bowl, so he's
surprised by the murder allegations, but he agrees to let
Brandenburg talk to Keith at a clandestine location.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
You get out there in the middle of the desert.
He makes sure no one's around. You're constantly looking out
the windows.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
They meet in a remote part of the Mojave Desert
and pile into an unmarked police van Hagar makes the
introduction and the informant starts talking.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
He said he had been hearing things from drug dealers
that all Ja was off duty and he came across
a meth lab.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Brandenburg has heard this before, but this has added confirmation.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And the drug dealers killed him because he came across
his lab and they didn't want it exposed. He can
go to jail, and that they dropped him in a hole.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
It's the same story with the same names.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
He brought up Tom Hankel said they called him God
and that he was a coal hearted killer. And he
said that he heard that Richard Carrolyn may also be involved.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
That's the guy who owned the meth lab right next
to the punch bowl. Prior to this, Brandenburg had just
suspected Carroll's involvement, So.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
That kind of got our attention that he's putting out
the right place, the right.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Names, Hagar gets some new names for the task force.
Brandenburg lands some witness corroboration. But the biggest outcome of
this meeting is that Hagar and Brandenburg have entered into
a kind of unofficial partnership. Hager knows he's got to
maintain the ConA silence, but the department tells him anything
(19:00):
beyond narcotics should be passed along to the appropriate law
enforcement division. So that's what Hagar does. He hands off
au Jay leads to Larry Brandenburg, and over time the
men develop a type of ali operpoort.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
We would get the door open through our informants to
where Larry wanted us to go, and then pass that
information onto Larry, and then Hut try to put the
homicide investigation together, you know.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
And it worked out, worked.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Great, and in the process they take a liking to
each other.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
And then we started hanging around each other, and then
we started talking off duty, and there might have been
a couple of glasses of chocolate milk here and there
after wead.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Whatever. We became good friends.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Over well, Brandenburg works the homicide angle. Hagar follows up
on the names Keith has given him.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
We talked to probably thousands of people on the street,
and you got to put that link chart together. Who
knows who are they really worth looking into a little
more or talking to a little more. And every time
you talk to one person, that person's going to give
you a whole dozen other.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Names, and sometimes one of these names pays off. It's
a new eyewitness who allegedly saw Auja in the punch
bowl area at sunset, right before he disappeared, and the
witness tells Hager that auj had company.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Narco Detective Darren Hager, here's about a guy named Rodney Katzif.
He's fresh out of jail and finds work with a
local lawyer digging up dirt on people.
Speaker 6 (20:57):
So Rodney Castiff was out shaking trees and bushes and
interviewing people and doing his own thing.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Katsiff is tied into the local drug world, including a
godlike Tom Hinkle, so all sorts of characters opened up
to him, and it turns out katz If has a lead.
He tells Hager about an interview he did with a
man who claims that he saw John Ajay in the
punch bowl at dusk, right before he disappeared. This is
(21:28):
a huge development because up until this point, all reported
auj sightings had been earlier in the day, so this witness,
who we're gonna call Matt, might have insight into Aujay's
last moments. Katz offf tells Hager that Matt was confronted
by two armed bikers in the punch Bowl and that
Matt saw John Aujay headed in the direction of those bikers.
(21:50):
So Hager tracks down Matt to hear the story firsthand.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
At first, he says, they were yelling by a rock,
and your deputy went over ag him and he wouldn't
talk any more than that.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Later, Matt starts to walk back. This version of events
changes the biker details, says he just saw some hippies.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
The next time we talked to him, he goes, well,
I think the guys on the rocks were like jumping
and they were just yelling. Having thought, you know, it
wasn't like yelling like something was going wrong, like an argument.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Hagar says. Matt even seemed to be lying about what
he was doing in the punch Bowl that day. He
claimed to be up there mountain biking, but Hagar learns
that Matt is pretty tapped in with Tom Hankle and
Richard Carroll.
Speaker 6 (22:37):
He knew every player in that punch Bowl area. You know,
if I want to ride a bike in the mountains,
I'm not going to know everybody there. So this guy
was in their twine somehow, some way.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
But the lead fizzles out when Matt recants his story.
Hager guesses it's because Matt was scared of the bikers
and what would happen to him if the bikers found
out he placed them in the punch Bowl at the
time of Aujay's disappearance. And then something happens that strengthens
Hagar's hunch. He circles back with kats If, that guy
(23:12):
out there shaking those trees, to see if he has
any more details about Matt's original account. But before Hagar
can talk to him, Katsif disappears.
Speaker 6 (23:25):
This car was found burned up in the wash in
Para Blossom, and he's never been found again. And that's
at the same time we were starting to get information
from him on what we needed for our case.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
In September two thousand and one, Katz's car is found
burned out near the Angelus National Forest, not far from
where auj had been jogging three years earlier. And just
like the deputy Katsiff vanishes into thin air. Hagar can't
help but think the two disappearances are related, that the
men were taken out because they got too close to something,
(24:02):
and there's a common thread between the disappearances. The outlaw bikers.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
If you didn't pay your debt, or if you're at it,
or they thought you were gonna rat or you got
involved in their business, there wasn't hey, don't do that
ever again, you're done. They got rid of you. They
didn't take a chance. So that's where the murders came in.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Annelobally has a large presence about law bikers who were
constantly making the nightly news.
Speaker 8 (24:31):
Witnesses describe a chaotic scene of gunfire and stabbing between
the Hells Angels and one of the most violent motorcycle
gangs in the country, the Mongols. Prosecutors say Voggos are
being charged with murder, attempted murder, drug and firearms deally.
Speaker 9 (24:47):
I know they don't like me to call them our
local terrorists, but I'll put that name on them too.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
These groups also went by another name, the one percenters.
It's a term coined back in the nineteen forties to
distinguish the majority of bikers who are law abiding citizens
from a small number of bad apples, the one percent.
Some biker game have turned that into a point of pride,
embracing the one percenter label, and that's often reflected in
(25:16):
their names, The Devil's Disciples, the Grim Reapers, and the Diablos.
The official term law enforcement uses to refer to one
percenter groups as outlaw motorcycle gangs or omgs. The bikers
got the OMG acronym well before texting emerged, just fyi,
(25:37):
and many of these omgs are native to southern California.
Speaker 12 (25:41):
Hell's Angels originated in San Bernardino, the Vogos originated in
San Bernardino. The Mongols originated in Montabello, California. So I
mean this is a lot of the mother chapters of
these clubs started here.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
This is John Carr, a retired agent from the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or ATF. He's an
expert in the omgs, and back in the day he
even infl traded some of them while working undercover, and
he still looks the part intimidating an all muscle. Carr
(26:17):
says that the biker gangs claim their turf and the
Antelope Valley belongs to the Vogos.
Speaker 11 (26:24):
Vogos are still that old school kind of down and dirty.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
OMG Car lays out two denim vests that he confiscated
from the Vagos during prior investigations. The centerpiece of the
vest is the club's emblem.
Speaker 12 (26:39):
Their center patch. You can see this red devil. It's
supposed to be the red Loki, the Norse god of mischief.
He's on a wing wheel and he's holding basically Voglo's
banner up in his hands.
Speaker 11 (26:50):
And then the MC is for Motorcycle Club.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Bikers are given the back patch when they're officially selected
as a member. They can earn others for different contributions
to the club. In front of us, there's a swastika patch,
which tracks because a lot of the biker gangs have
deep roots in Neo Nazias them. Other patches are slightly
more subtle, like the one that says mf.
Speaker 12 (27:16):
If you ask Evago what it means, they'll say it
means a motorcycle family. But as law enforcement we know
it's what they call their motherfucker patch. It's a patch
you earn for doing some form of violence.
Speaker 11 (27:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I know that the Voggos will not like this comparison,
but so it is a little bit like girl Scout
and that you get patches.
Speaker 13 (27:37):
For doing certain as tluely there's patches you earn and
without a doubt, you know. I mean, in this culture,
their cuts, their vests are one of the most important
things to them. It's a very sacred thing to these guys.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It's not just that the patches are sacred. There's a
quasi religious aspect to biker culture in general. The gangs
hold weekly meetings they call church, and there's even a
group mentality when it comes to acts of violence.
Speaker 11 (28:08):
You know, they use a term called a boot.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Party, right, a boot party, or you know.
Speaker 11 (28:14):
You basically stomped the shit out of somebody car.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Saw evidence of this firsthand, a bloody corpse that the
Vogos had dumped in the desert, you.
Speaker 11 (28:25):
Know, And that's part of the way this individual got murdered.
Speaker 12 (28:29):
He got stomped to death just having that motorcycle boot
imprint on his face.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
In the Mojave Desert. Detective Darren Hager says the Vogos
were involved in all types of criminal activity.
Speaker 7 (28:43):
Laced from five counties carry out a massive early morning
raid on the outlaw motorcycle gang called Vagos. They seize guns, drugs, money,
and arrest twenty five bikers, charging them with murder, attempted murder,
and drug dealing.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
One of the agencies targeting the bikers was the DEA
with the Operation Silent Thunder Task Force.
Speaker 6 (29:04):
I'm not saying all the dope and animal valley came
from the one percent, but it was a big percent
of the animalot bank. I mean they did a lot
of the meth dealing and they were huge. I mean
we took down a fifty seven pound a veteran lab.
We took down one hundred pound meth and fetamine lab,
and lots of caizuars in between.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
As Hagar and his DEA counterparts start mapping out the
meth trade, they identify six cells in the area. One
was run by a Mexican cartel. The other five were
associated with outlaw biker gangs, which checks because bikers and
meth are a duo as old as time. Crank, one
(29:47):
of meth's early nicknames, came from motorcycle gangs because they
used to hide their drugs in their engine block also
known as a crank case. The bikers would cook meth
nearly anywhere, in shipping containers and trailers, and the Vagos
were known to use Rick Carroll's underground lab near the
(30:07):
punch Bowl. It was also bikers who started making crystal,
the type of meth sold in rock form, and that
led to skyrocketing Matthews because crystal was easy to make
an extremely potent that ninety seven percent pure breaking bad myth.
Motorcycle culture is so ubiquitous in the Analog Valley in
(30:30):
the nineties and two thousands that the local cops went
in on the action. Sheriff deputies even formed their own
biker club called the Outlaw Pigs with jackets, patches the
whole nine yards. What's the image on the back of
It's a pig with horns. A pig with horns.
Speaker 8 (30:50):
Yeah, it's a pig with horns. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
I recently hopped on the phone with Vince Burton. He's
retired from the LSD now, but when a Jay disappeared,
he was a sergeant at the Palmdale station and he
helped lead the AUJ search. He also founded the Outlaw Pigs.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
We didn't you know violate well?
Speaker 8 (31:10):
We might have sped now and then on motorcycles, but
that's probably about it.
Speaker 14 (31:13):
You know, we weren't We weren't dougs.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Burton says the Alla Pigs was just a fraternal club
with cops who happened to ride Harley's. But Burton also
worked in the area, so he got to know the vogos,
including the club's president, a guy named thirty seven.
Speaker 8 (31:33):
I still have the phone number for thirty seven. Who
was That's his nickname, the street names. He is like
the godfather of the chapter.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Burton says that when possible, he'd let the vogos sort
out their own affairs, and when members god on his radar,
he goes straight to thirty seven and pressure him to
get his troops in line.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
I would say, go take care of your brother right now.
We're going to go in there and arrest him and
his old lady for being stupid or for doing this
or doing that. Okay, Sergeant Burton and his guys would
go and if they had to physically handle whatever, and
he would take their guy away and the problem was solved.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Telling the vagos to discipline its members seems like a
bad idea because their form of discipline often involves violence,
sometimes extreme violence. But there's a larger issue at play here.
It's this chummy relationship between law enforcement and outlaw bikers.
There was even a deputy rumor to be a patched member.
(32:36):
He had all the Vagos. Garrett Home would park his
patrol vehicle outside their church meetings, and he even served
as a lookout for the gang while on duty and
in uniform. He posted up outside a house while the
Vagos robbed a couple inside. Burton says that law enforcement's
relationship with the bikers was all strategic, a way to
(32:57):
gather intel and maintain order. This dynamic seems problematic, like
it could be used as a cover for criminal behavior,
like for example, when Burton hell's a local member of
the Health Angels that he and his deputies have got
his back, and.
Speaker 14 (33:16):
I said, hey, this is members of my team.
Speaker 8 (33:18):
They have already been told that at any.
Speaker 14 (33:21):
Time you can call them and that they will respond
to you even when I'm gone, as if it was me.
And you can trust them because if they violate my
trust or the trust with you, then they'll deal with me.
And they don't want to do that because I will
forever haunt them, and I have forever friends on the
(33:44):
department who will make their lives miserable if they ruin
that trust in me.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Burton had a similar arrangement with members of the Vogos,
and as soon.
Speaker 8 (33:54):
As they would see who I would was, they knew
I wasn't going to screw with them, and I would
just say, hey, desert Rick, what's up. What's going on?
Everything cool? You guys behaving and it's funny and a
lot of these things. They would always say, well, you know,
Sergeant Burton, we don't get in our own backyard.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
But sometimes they do shit in their own backyard, and
aw Ja's disappearance might be one of those times, because,
according to witnesses, the Voggos know exactly what happened to
the deputy.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
The relationship between the bikers and local deputies creates major
hurdles for Hagar and Brandenburg. Even when witnesses are brave
enough to come forward, they often change their minds before
giving the detectives the information they need.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
They didn't know who to trust. Didn't that make sense?
So they say, I ain't saying shit. I just want
to stay alive and I'm gonna go hid. Well, that's
what happened.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It happened with the witness we'll call Tina. Hagar and
Brandenburg get a call from a lawyer with big news.
He says his client knows the location of Aujay's remains.
Up until now, people have said Aujay was dropped in
a hole, but this is the first person claiming specific
knowledge of where he was buried. It's a hot tip
(35:28):
and could unlock the whole mystery of what happened on
June eleventh.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
Nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
So Hager meets with the lawyer and sets up a
time to meet with his client Tina, But she never shows,
not the first time, not the second time. So Brandenburg
takes a crack at it and finds out where Tina's staying.
When he gets there, she refuses to open the door,
saying she can't trust him because quote, there are dirty
(35:55):
cops out there. Brandenburg reassures Tina he's no dirty cop,
and eventually she agrees to talk.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
She said that there was a guy in the bottle
of motorcycle game and his name was Big Rick, and
she said he was involved in this burder of the deputy,
and that she had been shown where he was buried,
which we went wow, okay, by who? And she says
Big Rick Shiller.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
A name, a supposed confession, and the possibility of forensic evidence.
It's a stunning revelation. Brandenburgh does his homework and finds
out Big Rick isn't just a member of the Voggos.
He's the sergeant at arms, the muscle, the enforcer.
Speaker 8 (36:42):
And as soon as they would seen who I was,
they knew I wasn't going to screw with them.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And it seems he went by multiple names.
Speaker 8 (36:50):
I would just think, hey, Desert Rick, what's up? What's
going on?
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Big Rick is also a big time meths supplier, and
according to court records, he was known for using extreme
force to collect on drug debts and he's got the
look to match a prison yard hulk Hogan. So yeah,
Tina's scared to cross him, which is why she shuts
the conversation down before Brandenburg can find out the location
(37:17):
of Aujy's alleged grave.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
It was, you know, it's like search up for a
Neil Haystack house there in that desert, that mountain.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
And so you couldn't convince her to show you.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
No, she wasn't going with us on a little field trip.
She did not want to do that. She wasn't going
that far. It was hard a gear ago this far.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Tina's story wouldn't be the only time big Rick's name
came up in connection to the auj case. Big Rick
was identified by Hagar and Operation Silent Thunder as a
lynchpin in the meth production process. He was in a
fedroan supplier, which means he obtained and distributed one of
the key ingredients for making meth. A fedron is found
in decongestins like pseudafed and was legal to buy at
(38:03):
the time, but only unlimited quantities. Big Rick had a
work around, though he used a connection had the next
county over where Hager says Rick would buy a vedron
in bulk and then distribute it to meth cooks in
the Greater Pear Blossom area, to people like Beard and
Methaclause Tom hinkle.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
All the myth was coming to Tom Hinkles so he
could sell the meth out of his house.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
And that's why Hager takes note when a tip comes
in that puts big Rick in the Devil's punch bowl.
On the day of Aujay's disappearance, according to a new witness.
Big Rick said he was making it a Fedron deal
in the punch bowl when he was approached by a cop,
and so he shot and killed him, adding that the
(38:49):
cop was stupid thinking he could make the bust by himself.
So in July two thousand and one, when Big Rick
is arrested during Operation Silent Thunder, Hager sees an opportunity
to gather more intel on him.
Speaker 6 (39:06):
So we take big Rick to jail down federal custody.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Where his phone calls are recorded. So when big Rick
calls home, Hager says he got a chance to hear it.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
Listen to the phone call.
Speaker 6 (39:19):
He calls the house, talks to his son, said did
they find the gun?
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Law enforcement had recently served a search warrant at big
Rick's house.
Speaker 6 (39:29):
And his son said, no, they missed it. They didn't
find because he had a false compartment under the floor
of his closet.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Big Rick is still worried about that gun, though.
Speaker 6 (39:41):
And he goes, you know what would happen if they
found that gun. I'd be looking at the death penalty.
Make sure that gun disappears. He goes, Dad, I got
it taken care of.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Hagar's hackles go up because a guy like big Rick
would not be stressing over just any illegal firearm. Bikers
like big Rick run guns in their sleep, so this
gun must have some history to it, and Hagar wonders
if it might be connected to Auj.
Speaker 6 (40:13):
That statement was just in my book, is huge. Why
are you concern about a death penalty over a fire.
You can go out and kill anybody you want. You're
not going to get the death penalty in California. But
if you killed a cop, that was the death penalty,
and that was the only missing cop that I know
(40:33):
in that time period.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
California rarely executes people, the last one was in two
thousand and six, but one of the special circumstances used
to invoke capital punishment here is the murder of a
law enforcement officer. In fact, a California man was recently
sentenced to death for killing a cop. So Hagar's right,
(40:58):
big Rick's statement is suspicious, especially in light of everything
else Hagar and Brandenburg have heard, like big Rick taking
Tina to Auj's alleged gravesite until another witness he killed
a cop, and the eyewitness who says he saw Auj
in the punch bowl with two bikers he here thinks
(41:18):
he's onto something.
Speaker 6 (41:20):
We just need that one person to say I was there,
this is what happened. It wasn't a suicide. AJ's not
in Alaska, he's not working for the government. He was
murdered at the punch bowl.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Brandenburg thinks he's got a line on that person. When
a woman comes forward saying that her longtime friend is
dating a Vogos member and has insider knowledge of what
happened to Auj.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
She had told her the story that she was in
this Bogo party in the garage and she overheard the
statement that aujiy had this deputy, not Auj didn't know
his name, I don't think, but he came across a
meth lab, but that was the Bogos were involved with,
and he was going to be a hero and he.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Was taking care of It's the same story that Brandenburg's
been hearing over and over again. There's one detail that
makes this tip stand out though. The Vogelas were reportedly
telling this story within a few days of au Jay's disappearance,
and Brandenburg thinks they're not going to brag about killing
a cop unless they're sure he's dead.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Because then you're gonna look like fools on the street.
We're taking credit for big bad bikers taking care of
his deputy sheriff. And now they find them alive up
there in the mountains or in Alaska or wherever. You
look pretty stupid. So that's why I thought people don't
make up shit like that.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
So he sets out to find the woman who is
at the biker party, who we're gonna call Jen, but
she keeps dodging Brandenburg, which he takes to mean he's
on the right track.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
If the informants somebody's in jail, for instance, and they
call you and they say, hey, I got some real
good info on something, come talk to me. You're always skeptical. Okay,
what do you want return? But when you get it,
like this girl didn't raise her hands. She wasn't calling us, hey,
come talk to me. No, she was hiding from us.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Jen had only told a close friend or two, had
never reached out to the cops directly, and when Brandenburg
does eventually find her, she still won't talk. Not at
first anyway.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And
then we pressed her and she finally said, you guys,
you're all connected. Cops, dirty, good and bad. You're all
the same, and she said she didn't trust any of us.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
This is emerging as a pattern for brandon Burg and
Hager witnesses and informants who are scared of the cops.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Miss went on to say that she heard from a
friend who she refused to name, that Deputy Alogy was
jogging near the punch bowl when he came across Deputy
Ingle's meth lab and was killed.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Deputy Angle's meth lab.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
The word on the street among the close circle of
drug dealers has been a deputy has been involved with
drugs for a very long time.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
As in La County Sheriff's Deputy Rick Angles.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, that's pretty pretty frightening.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
If this alleged dirty deputy was involved in the local
myth trade, what else could he be involved in? That's
next time on Valley of Shadows.
Speaker 9 (44:37):
There was an inappropriate relationship between Rick Angles and at
least one drug dealer in the area.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Then I started interviewing other people and Rick Engle's name
starts coming up more and more and more.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Joey, I believe Angles is a dirty cop. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
If you have any information or tips related to the disappearance,
of John Aujay. Please call two one three, two six,
two nine eight eight nine or email Shadows at pushkin
dot FM. Valley of Shadows is reported, written and produced
by us Betsy Shepherd and Haley Fox. Our editor is
(45:34):
Diane Hodson. Our executive producers are Jacob Smith and Alexandra Garaton.
Original music by Jake Gorsky, Ray Lynch, Mike Jersich, and
Hayden Gardner. Sound design by Jake Gorsky, fact checking by
Anaica Robbins, additional production support by Sonya Gerwitt and our
(45:57):
show art was designed by Sean Carney and Betsy Shepherd.
Special thanks to Nick White for the show art. Photo.
Value of Shadows is a production of Pushkin Industries. To
find more Pushkin podcast listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts from type to Fun.
(46:17):
We're Betsy and Hayley. See you next week.
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