February 9, 2026 • 42 mins
Brandenburg is taken off the Aujay case, but the LASD can’t stop Hager and the federal task force. With the help of wiretaps, informants, and 18 months of investigation, the team pulls off one of the largest drug stings in Antelope Valley history and nets a key witness in the Aujay case.
Hear the full Valley of Shadows soundtrack here.
Binge the entire season of Valley of Shadows, ad-free, by subscribing to Pushkin+. Sign up on the Valley of Shadows show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin.fm/plus.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This series includes content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Listener and discretion is advised. Previously on Valley of.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Shadows, major players were never touched by Deputy Ingles. Nothing
ever happened to them that raised a red flag to me.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I went up the guy talking Tom Hinkle the purchase
of metaphetamines.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
When I went to the.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Other room, I've heard how they're going, Ingles talk said,
and Ingles goes, thanks for the bag of ride.
Speaker 6 (00:57):
You're asking to believes a Deputy Ingles another unidentified individual's
murdered deputy ology to prevent him from arresting him or
exposing their crewal activity.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
A homicide captain saying, detective, do not find out if
this guy's guilty or innocent. Who does that?
Speaker 6 (01:14):
When they said, hey, Larry, we're ordered to go out
here and get everything and get in the case.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
He can't beat a morning like this. Just sit here
and watch that some come up between the canyon right there.
It is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Retired narcotics detective Darren Hager works sun up to sundown
at his ranch in rural California. Every morning, he fuels
up on black coffee, puts on his spurs and heads
out to his pastures. He tends his herd of angus
cows and then drives around servicing other cattle ranches in
the area. His days are fairly routine, except when we
(01:59):
show up. I will straight up hug a cow if
it gets lisn't it?
Speaker 7 (02:04):
Oh, there's stepping back.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
They're sizing us up.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I thought when five years of being a vegetarian would
earn me some love with the cows, but apparently not.
Hagar lets us tag along with him anyway.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
So this alfalf has supposedly sweeter than the grass and stuff.
That's why they like it. I mean, they got plenty
of grass, but they dislike this stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You're giving them a special treat.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, they're a little spoiled.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
The cows keep their distance, hogling us with their big
glassy eyes. So Hagar teaches us cattle calling one oh one.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Like talk cow?
Speaker 7 (02:45):
Okay, how do you talk cow?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I got a buddy. He's a stumpman in the movies.
On his herd, he sings, Mama, don't let your babies
grow up to do cawoys. Okay his animals count.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
No, I don't mother, don't a babies grow up to
be cowboys.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
His herd comes running when he sings that, and he's
a goofball. Anyways, God, that didn't work on them.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
They're all a good try.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So then mine I just.
Speaker 8 (03:11):
Knew, like.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Hi, budess, we got a taker.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Hagar always wanted to be a cop or a cowboy,
so when his career in law enforcement ended in two
thousand and three, he pivoted.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
We met some cowboys here and they got me started
in cowboy and got a job at the home ranch.
Worked there for a year, learned a lot. Now I
raised my own cattle and horses.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
It was a steep learning curve with plenty of setbacks.
But when Hagar gets knocked down, he gets back up
on that horse. It's something he had to do a lot.
While working at the La County Sheriff's Department, Hagar says
they tried to hamstring the DEA's narcotic sting aka Operation
Silent Thunder, and they set up all kinds of roadblocks
(04:05):
in their Aujay investigation.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
We knew from day want that department was fighting us
on everything on this. They didn't want us opening the
right door to get this case solved.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Early on, the DEA asked the Sheriff's Department to assign
a homicide detective to their task force to help field
all the AUJ tips they were getting. When the LASD
said no, Hagar found a workaround. He unofficially teamed up
with homicide Detective Larry Brandenburg. They had a good thing
going until Brandenburg told his captain that he was looking
(04:42):
into Deputy Rick Engles as a potential suspect in Auj's murder.
In Brandenburg's investigation got shut down, Hager wasn't too surprised
when it happened.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
It just fit hand in hand with everything we knew.
Everything we did with the department regarding AUJ was getting shut.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Down Without Brandenburg, Hagar finds himself at a crossroads.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I just said, I gotta get out. This is this
is stupid. You know what am I doing? But I've
never quit anything in my life, and I felt I
was quitting AUDJ if I left the case. Because when
you sit there and you think about a fellow deputy,
who's your family, who has a little child, that's the
(05:29):
hardest part about the whole thing. Or Chloe, she didn't
have a dad anymore, and why was that? Well, that's
my job as a cop to help people like that.
That's why we all take the oath. We're not out
there just taking bad guys to jail. We're taking bad
guys to jail to help an innocent person out. That's
the whole objective of this. I had a choice career survival,
(05:54):
walk away, or do I put myself aside and I
do it for John? When I went with John.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So, Hagar gets back in the saddle and helps Operation
Silent Thunder level up with wire taps, federal search warrants,
and the biggest drug raid the Antelope Valley had ever seen.
I'm Haley Fox.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I'm Bessy Shepherd, and this is Valley of Shadows, episode six,
the big takedown. Up until this point, we've mostly talked
about Operation Silent Thunder as it relates to the Auja case,
(06:45):
but the task force went far beyond that. Its aim
was to take down six major drug trafficking organizations in
the Anaelote Valley.
Speaker 9 (06:55):
I really had no idea what was going on in
Anelope Valley. Hadn't really heard of Anelote Valley.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
This is DEA Special Agent Kent Bailey talking on the
phone with Haley.
Speaker 9 (07:06):
I've never been up to Anelote Valley. Never had a
desire to go up to Anlo Valley?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
What were your first impressions like once you start going
out there?
Speaker 9 (07:15):
What a shit hole?
Speaker 7 (07:18):
What a shithole?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Can't Bailey's opinion of the Anlo Valley did not improve
with time, and he'd get his fill of it thanks
to Darren Hager, who roped him into all of this
when he requested dea assistance.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Can't we go? You need a fuel air explosion over
the whole Analote Valley and this problem would be solved
because it was that bad.
Speaker 7 (07:42):
Sure enough.
Speaker 9 (07:43):
What's your answer to the anel belly? I said, a
fuel air explosion.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It sounds callous, but Bailey is referencing an apocalyptic nineties movie.
Speaker 9 (07:53):
There's a movie Outbreak, What dusta Hoffin is it?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Outbreak is about a deadly virus and the US government's
plan to contain it by bombing the site of the
outbreak from.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
The heart of a small California town.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Damn it, Sam, I want to say, these people saying
with you to the dinner Circle of power, the greatest
medical crisis of all time.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
We can't stop them.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Begins Malee is being hyperbolic to convey how bad things
were in the Anilo Valley with its high speed biker math,
crime and corruption. But when Operation Silent Thunder gets going,
Hagar and Bailey try to clean up the place with
a more targeted approach.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
We would go out on surveillance, driving around, taking pictures
of locations, calling up aero burero, doing fly buys, doing
aerial photos. A lot of it was just groundwork. It
was building the information up for arrest.
Speaker 9 (08:52):
So we did a lot of intel gathering sort of
speak to try to find out a suspect list of
who we could go to find out the weakest linking
that chain, and then start targeting to work back up
to the top.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
They work their way up the food chain of the
area's narcotic cells, from dealers to cooks, go betweens, and
eventually the top dogs. Over time, their suspect list grows
into the triple digits. Bailey says Operation Silent Thunder was
one of the biggest projects he ever worked on, and
he was known in the LA Field office for getting
(09:24):
things done. His boss at the DEA even had a
nickname for him.
Speaker 9 (09:29):
She used to call me her terminator, so that was
one of her casemakers.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And what does she mean by casemaker?
Speaker 9 (09:37):
Well guy who was able to put complex cases together.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So Hager has found a good match in Bailey. Given
how complex the case is and all the pushback he's
getting from the Sheriff's department.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
It was very nerve wracking because the department was so
anti solving this case or looking into this case. It
took a big toll on me.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Hagar starts to piece together why it is. He thinks
the department is giving them so much shit. It happens
while he's surveilling key players in the drug scene.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
We put traces on the numbers, the telephone numbers, and
see what numbers were calling them. Half of the numbers,
probably more than that. There is a lot. Well came
back to share stations off of bad Guy's telephones.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Hagar says that multiple Sheriff's deputies were calling multiple targets
of their narcotics investigation. He has a hard time making
sense of what's going on.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
In my mind. These are all my buddies. They're not dirty.
I worked with them, we had barbecues together. These are
good people. There's no way any of this is true.
So at the start, I was a non believer until
he got knee deep into what was going on, and
then you get the true information about it.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
When they get knee deep into it, they figure out
that the local cops are leaking information to friends on
the other side of the law and alerting them to
impending raids.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
We'd go to kick down a door, and the suspects
were already waiting for us. They were on the phone
with the sheriff's department being notified we were going to
kick the door. As we kicked the door. I mean,
that's how dangerous it got.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Hager is rattled. He worries that during the next raid
he might walk into a shootout, because the more word
spreads about the task Force, the more enemies he racks up.
And then this threat of violence shows up at his doorstep.
He wakes up in the middle of the night to
the sound of a car pulling up. He gets up,
(11:55):
looks out the window and sees a guy approaching his house.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
And the guy put a mask on, and he knocked
on the door and ran back behind the pillar and
stood there. And I was watching the whole thing from upstairs,
and he did this like three or four times, and
something told me don't open the door and don't contront him.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
It's an unnerving experience, especially given the violence of the
local drug trade and what Hagar's been uncovering in Operation
Silent Thunder, with the.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Things that we already knew and the bodies that had
disappeared in the case that's going on, I just figured
somebody didn't want me in the picture anymore to investigate
whatever I was investigating.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
After the masked man incident, Hagar moves out of his
house and decants to the Dea safehouse, where he begins
living full time. He isn't scared off the case, but
he is feeling it strained. The task force has consumed
his whole life. He's exhausted, he's constantly having to look
over his shoulder, and still he can't stop thinking about
(13:02):
John Aujay.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I sat there numerous times alone in the middle of
the night on surveillance. I shouldn't have been out there
or did it on my own. Everyone else is in bed,
but I want to solve the case, and I just said, John,
just talk to me, where the hell are you? What happened?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Auj never talked back. But the case does take a
turn when Operations Silent thunder wire taps go live.
Speaker 10 (13:33):
They are not easy to get.
Speaker 9 (13:36):
You have to show that there was no other investigative
means that would enable you to achieve your goals, and
then you have to show that that guy's using this
telephone number for criminal activity.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Agent Bailey and Deputy Hagar have collected mounds of evidence
on key players in the meds scene, including the godlike
Tom Hinkle. The task force uses it to establish probable
cause to apply for federal wire taps. When the team
gets the green light, information pours out onto the wires.
(14:10):
Bailey describes one of these taps as their Jerry Springer
wire because there was so much action on it and
the information proves valuable. When they raid a storage unit
containing explosives, firearms, and some stolen sheriff's gear, we.
Speaker 9 (14:26):
Found their weapons stash. You know, they get there to
be on one of the largest weapon seizers that ATF
made at the time, certainly one of the largest ones
up at animal value.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Hagar says that wire taps can be a case making
law enforcement tool.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I can go out and interview a suspect or an
informan victim or whatever, and a lot of times they
tell you what a cop wants to hear, you know,
trying to get you to go away. But when you're
on a wire tap, you're hearing a conversation between two
people that don't think cops are involved. So you're getting
the truth.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
But first Hagar and company have to crack the code
because when it comes to drugs, there's a lot of
side ways talk.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
It was like are the enchiladas ready? That was your
grandma myth? Or it was a burrito for an ounce
of myth, or like dude's hungry, like constantly. These are
things we had to learn, you know. And tweakers and
I don't know if you've ever met a tweaker. There
are literally one hundred miles an hour. So their phone
(15:33):
is ringing off the hook, phone called phone call, phone
called phone call.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And one of the names that keeps sort of sing
on these phone calls is Rick Engles aka Deputy Bigfoot.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The Silent Thunder Task Force is lying in wait, listening
in on their phone taps. When a familiar name comes
back on their radar, Deputy Rick Angles.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
They call him Rick. You Rick is doing this or
Angles is going to be pissed, And I mean it's
just more of a like you're talking about another friend
in the group or another business partner type of thing.
It really pushed me to the edge where I was
saying it's not on the up and up.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So Hager's dea counterpart Agent Ken Bailey goes back to
the Sheriff's department and asks a second time for a
homicide detective to work directly with the task force, someone
to follow up in real time with all their au
JA leads and look into Rick Angles.
Speaker 9 (17:05):
I beg for the homicide guys to work side by side.
We'll be doing the dope kke she do the homicide stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
The department relents and appoints Detective Joe Holmes for the job.
Speaker 9 (17:16):
He looked like the fucking guy from drag Nut.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Bailey says. Holmes had a crew cut and a buy
the books kind of vibe, just like Joe Friday, the
lead detective on the fifties TV show Dragnet.
Speaker 9 (17:34):
Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Detective Holmes is the guy who shows up at Brandenburg's
doorstep to retrieve the AUJKSE file. He then meets with
Hagar and Bailey to get up to speed on their investigation.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
We sat in the safe house and said, this is
what we have. We don't know where to go with it.
You guys took Larry off of it. We want you
to come full lower. Yeah. It to Joe Holmes and
he says, you guys got a homicide in your hands.
Speaker 9 (18:01):
Yeah, that was the first thing.
Speaker 10 (18:02):
He said, Well, it looks like you do a murder here.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
He goes there for Ingles is dirty. I don't care
if he's wearing a badge or not. I'll take him jail.
I'm like, it's beautiful. That's all we ask for.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Holmes has been at the LASD for twenty five years
at this point, and his colleagues describe him as the
gold standard of homicide cops. Almost as soon as he's
assigned to the homicide case, holmes name surfaces on the wires.
Well Hagar's listening in on Tom Hinkle's phone calls. He
hears met the clause talking with a guy named Jeff Sherry,
(18:38):
a lifelong criminal in the Pear Blossom area. The two
are discussing the new homicide detective assigned to the AUJ case.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Jeff says Holmes is a nice guy, and then Pinkel says, YEA,
I already put a handle on him. I named him
Joe Friday.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Joe Friday from Dragnet, and they're.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Laughing about it stuff like that. So to me, there's
some type of cordial relationship between the two of them
that hinks not worried about anything from Joe Holmes.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Hager says that on the wired taps, Hinkle didn't sound
concerned about Detective homes. Hager's listening to recordings of the
wired taps as a reference. He won't let us hear
the tapes given the privacy restrictions around them, but he
offers to describe the conversations in broad strokes.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Jeff Sherry wants to know how long they're going to
leave this thing open, referring to the investigation, and Tom's
response as well, it's more than that. And Jeff is
amazed that something made it all the way to the
District Attorney's office, and Tom agrees, and they're both admitting
(19:47):
that something got very close when it made it to
the disc Attorney's office regarding the investigation.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Could it be the Brandenburg affidavit.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
That's what my feeling is, because Larry Brandenburg did take
it to a DA for authorization that there is enough
evidence to go forward with it.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Remember, Larry Brandenberg wrote up a search warrant asking to
track Deputy Rick Engles vehicle and review his phone and
financial records. Then he took it to a district attorney.
Hager thinks that's what Jeff Sherry is talking about, that
the Auj investigation was getting close, and he feels pretty
certain that Sherry knows what happened to John Auj because
(20:32):
Shecherry's closely tied in with Hinkle, his sister's Hinkle's longtime girlfriend,
and for a while they all lived under the same roof. Plus,
Sherry's a known entity in the area.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
If something happened in the Parablastom area, Jeff Sherry's name
was in it. His name always came up.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Jeff Sherry's rap sheet is truly one of the longest
I've ever seen, like the criminal version of one of
those never ending CVS receipts. There's numerous felonies, mostly drug crimes,
and one of the arrests on his record was made
by Darren Hager back when he was still a rookie deputy.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
That was my first narcotic arrest, and I didn't deal
with him ever again until the Aujay case, and he
popped backed up into My life.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Sherry's voice pops up on the wires talking to Tom
Hinkle about the AUJ case, and during this conversation, Hinkle
brings up another murder.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
He goes, yeah, look at that Standish case.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Lynn Standish was the woman who died from a bomb
explosion in Pair Blossom. There were tire tracks leading from
the murder scene directly to Hinkle's home. Deputy Bigfoot Angles
arrived at the scene and spoke to Hinkle alone just
before the homicide detective questioned him, and that homicide detective
was none other than Done Done Done Joe Friday aka
(21:59):
Joe Holmes. So the AUJ case is the second murder
case in which Holmes crosses paths with Rick Engels and
Tom Hinkle, and the phone call between Hinkle and Sherry
discusses Holmes in the context of these two cases.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Jeff Sherry said, Yeah, they're trying to create something. And
for some reason, Tom goes, that's not even dead and
stinking yet, which is a very odd statement. I mean
dead and stinking and here we are in a homicide investigation.
Sounds like they know that there's a dead body somewhere
or someone hasn't found it.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Hagar is convinced Sherry knows something about au Jay's murder,
and he thinks Sherry's a weak link in Hinkle's operation,
someone he might be able to flip into an informant because.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
He's got such a lengthy history that you might be
able to turn him. Because he doesn't want to go
you know, with the third strike that was back then,
he doesn't want to go to prison for the rest
of his life, so he was important to talk to.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So Hagar keeps surveilling the phone lines unnoticed, trying to
decode the coms, record a confession, or at least collect
as much dirt as possible before his cover's blown. But
then another call comes into Hinkles and Hager overhears some
information he can't just sit on because it seems Jeff
(23:25):
Sherry's life is in danger. It starts when Hinkle gets
a call from a friend who tells him that Jeff
Sherry is snitching.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
They're worried that Jeff Sherry wrote an affidavid of some
sort about rick Ingdall's involvement with Tom Hinkll.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
The caller had heard a rumor that Sherry was giving
up Angles and Hinkle.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Now we're here in this conversation, how Tom's worried about?
Speaker 10 (23:50):
Well?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Can you get that? I need to know what it? Says?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Hinkle wants to see this AFFI, David, Hager, and Bailey
know of no such document. Nonetheless, the rumor causes quite
the star. According to a summary of the conversation, Hinkle
asks what's wrong with you, Sherry, to which his friend replies,
I don't know. Doesn't he know what Angles will do?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Immediately after we heard it on the phone call, I
got a call from parole saying that Rick Ingalls is
looking for Jeff Sherry with a couple other deputies.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Shortly after Sherry is accused of ratting, Angles allegedly call
Sherry's parole officer asking for his whereabouts. Then he and
a posse of deputies start searching for him. So when
Hagar hears that Angles and company are out hunting for Sherry,
he assumes the worst that the deputy is trying to
put an end to Sherry's snitching Permanently, Hager springs into
(24:52):
action to make sure Jeff Sherry doesn't disappear.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
So I get a hold of Bailey. I go, we
got to get him. We got to get him now
or else.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So Hager guns it to Sherry's home. What comes next
is uncorroborated.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Park the car, I get out, I walk by the
apartment and there's Jeff Sherry right on the porch, right
in front of his door.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Hagar's first on scene, but he needs backup, so he
calls into the nearest sheriff station.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
I go, look, this guy's a runner, he's a fighter,
and then he's probably armed, and I need someone good.
He goes, all right, I'll send you some deputies. I
got thanks.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
One of the deputies that shows up is a friend
of angles.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
He goes, go back to your car, we'll handle this.
I said, no, you're going to obey my orders and
I'm going to tell you how to handle this because
I'm an on scene commander right now, because we're not
doing anything until you leave. This is going to get ugly.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's a tense standoff, and there's a lot of subtexts
buried within this interaction. By this point, Hagar is persona
non grata in these parts because, over the course of
operations Silent Thunder, the task Force has documented questionable behavior
from a number of deputies, including Rick Angles. As word
(26:16):
leaks out about what Hagar and the Feds have discovered,
the local cops turn on him.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I didn't have a single friend anymore. Not a single
deputy would talk to me, nobody, because they all thought
I was a rat. Everyone's heard of the code of silence.
It does exist. It's not written down, no one could
ever prove it. But this case right here just shows
one hundred percent that there is a code of science.
There's certain deputies or law enforcement that say, hey, you're
(26:43):
guilty of especially murder and drug dealing and stuff like that,
you shouldn't be carrying the badge. So you're fair game,
just like every other bad guy that's doing it. So
that's the way I feel, And some cops feel that way,
and some cops turn the blind eye because they don't
want to be a snitch.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Hagar and Sherry have little in common, but at this
particular moment in time, they find themselves in a similar situation.
They're both in hot water because of what they know.
In an escalating battle of wills, Hager wins the standoff
and he takes Jeff Sherry into custody.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
My eyes we saved his life because I really think
Japees are going to kill him. You know, It's just
I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
And Hager finally gets his chance to question Sherry about
the Aujay case.
Speaker 8 (27:37):
Just tell me, what do you know about comedy and
who he's associated without their loss with things like there they.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Call God, they call him God, Sherry says.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Once Jeff Sherry's in custody, Detective Hagar interviews him. He
asks him about Tom Hinkle.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
And there's your hours that who he's associated with a right.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's a young Hagar. His voice was less seasoned back
in two thousand and one.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Ten people who hangle Rick Hald Where is Kingles?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Jereff Cherry says, Tom Hinkle associates with Rick Engles. The
Sheriff Angles was actually the resident deputy of the area,
but given his power over the region, many view him
as the sheriff. Cherry says that Tom Hinkle and Deputy
Angles were spotted all over Pair Blossom, hanging with known
(28:52):
meth manufacturers, and that they would steal chemicals from rival
meth gangs and then use it to cook their dope.
Speaker 8 (29:01):
And about this, missy, Deputy Tom holding a Peter Mrick
story about it, or it was the first story toldy
be sure led investigation because he get kicked fetish.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
He said, he was under investigation because they think that
him and angles theft.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
He was out jogging running, you know, down under rafts,
and don't think you don't.
Speaker 9 (29:27):
Kill the depty.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
The deputy was out jogging running and found one of
their labs, and they you know, killed the deputy.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
He should a little smile and a ship.
Speaker 7 (29:38):
He said.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
It was a little smile on his face and shit
like that her and he goes, I wouldn't do anything
like that, would I. That's as far as Sherry is
willing to go. But he may have known a lot
more about what happened to auj because years later a
(29:59):
woman will call Jane came forward to report a disturbing
interaction she had with a neighbor in the Pear Blossom area.
Speaker 7 (30:07):
Used to call him scary Jeff Sherry.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Jane says they used to hang out occasionally, and one
night they were in her garage, went out of nowhere.
Cherry starts in on the missing deputy.
Speaker 11 (30:20):
He started carrying on about how he knew about this
cop that disappeared. As soon as he told me the story,
my whole body turned into chills.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Then, she says, Scherry described where the missing cop was buried.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
He described with his hands in the air, you know,
making a big triangle.
Speaker 11 (30:38):
You know that the cop was buried on this guy's
property with the biggest a frame house there is.
Speaker 7 (30:45):
That this cop was buried under this a frame house.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
And it just so happens that a big a frame
house is the kind of house Tom Hinkle lived in.
Speaker 7 (30:55):
And after he left, I was in tears because I
believed him, and I still do.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Jane immediately wrote down what she heard and it submitted
a tip to the FBI. We don't know if they
investigated the lead, because again they can either confirm nor
deny the existence of an investigation. But in her message,
Jane begs the FBI for some reassurance that her fears
are misplaced. She says, please tell me this guy is
(31:23):
full of crap. It's not a real story. I'm hoping
your reply will be when Jeff Sherry's in custody. He
stops short of giving Hagar proof of Hinkle and Angle's
involvement in Aujay's disappearance. So the task force sits tight
and continues to listen in on Tom Hinkle's wire, which
is a springboard for Hager and Bailey's wider NARCO investigation.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Our case was building stronger and stronger. Every single day.
We were making arrests, we were getting our seizures. Our
case was one hundred percent on.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Operation Silent Thunder spans eighteen months, involves long days of
building probable cause, monitoring wire taps, and serving search warrants.
The task force is making sporadic arrests doing surveillance, but
it's all culminating in a massive takedown that will cause
ripple effects across.
Speaker 7 (32:16):
The Antelope Valley.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
The takedown starts in the early morning hours of August
twenty first, two thousand and one. More than two hundred
law enforcement officers from at least six different agencies are
fanning out across the Antelope Valley and beyond. They're about
to raid twenty three locations with known associations to the
meth trade. The targets include labs and dealers' houses. The
(32:43):
plan is to hit them all at once, so the
targets don't have time to tip each other off.
Speaker 9 (32:48):
So we rolled out with twenty three different search.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Board teams Bailey, the terminator.
Speaker 10 (32:54):
Thea FBI swat, you know, and then simultaneously hit these
doors across the valley.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Hagar and Bailey were posted up at the command center,
coordinating efforts from a central location and getting updates from
agents in the field.
Speaker 10 (33:09):
Were done at the crack of dawn and you know,
we've finished some Tewy collapsed in the bed that night
and got back up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
There were mass arrests, many with ties to biker gangs
like the Vagos and white supremacist groups like Supreme White Power,
who reportedly funded their organization through their aggressive narcotics trade.
These meth operations had tentacles that crossed state lines. Many
were flying below the radar, operating under the guise of
(33:40):
legitimate businesses. One dealer was shipping meth inside custom made
car parts that he manufactured himself. The task force had
no idea how the dealer was moving his math. But
after they see some metal rods during the big bust,
Hager makes the discovery.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
It just looks like a solid piece of aluminum. I go,
there's something with this. Took him to the hospital, had
a mex rate and they go, this looks kind of hollow.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
The hollow raw is part of a drive shaft, so
Hagar takes it to a mechanic to give.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It a look.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
So they took pliers and grabbed on stuff and they're twisting.
All of a sudden where those two rings are moved.
Pried it off full of ziplock freezer bags with thee
We only took two of those and the house was
filled with them. Who knows what we missed.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
The cells were sophisticated and good at covering their tracks.
At a press conference, Sheriff Lee Baka, who was head
of the LASD at the time, referred to those arrested
in the Operation Silent Thunderstaing as the godfathers of Meth.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
We put a big hurt into what we called the untouchables.
We put a big scare into them. We took a
lot of them in the custody. We dismantled that organization
for a long time.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And one of the godfathers of meth is God himself,
Tom Hinkle. After the task force extracted what they could
from Hinkle's phone line, they decided it was time to
raid his compound. The a frame the house on the hill.
There's a lot of prep that needs to be done
for a raid of this kind. The Task Force assigns
(35:25):
a surveillance team to track Rick Angles. They want to
keep an eye on him make sure he doesn't interfere
when they're serving this high risk search warrant. The task
Force is on edge because Tom Hinkle had said that
if law enforcement came for him, he'd go down shooting.
The unit in charge of surveilling and securing Hinkle's home
(35:47):
during the raid was the Special Enforcement Bureau, the unit
AUJ belonged to.
Speaker 10 (35:54):
They obviously wanted to do that because Hinkle was one
of the number one mains being thrown around with adj's disappearance.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
So one morning, nearly three years after AJ disappeared, the
Task Force puts their plans into motion. They post up
around Hinkle's home and wait until he gets into his
car to head down his long dirt driveway. Then the
team moves in to arrest him. Camouflage shooters emerge from
the brush, a helicopter sweeps in. Deputy Bigfoot Angles even
(36:27):
races onto the scene as soon as he hears about
the raid, but he doesn't get out of his car.
He just lurks on the perimeter of the property before
driving down the road to his house. Officers on the
scene uncover all sorts of things tucked away and unlikely places.
There's nearly two thousand dollars in cash hidden inside a
(36:47):
stereo speaker, there's a police scanner, a pager, sandwich bagg
is full of what appears to be marijuana, and there's
a rifle and ammunition stashed inside an ice cream truck
parked on the property. The task force only finds one
small baggie of mes, though maybe Hinkle's stock was low
because the task force had already busted his main supplier.
(37:09):
But Hager thinks that law enforcement just missed Hinkle's stash.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
When we took down Hinkle's house, we knew there was
on a ground bunker, but we never found it. Could
not find that bunker, but I know exactly where it is.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
At least Taker thinks he does. Just like those meth
filled car parts. He thinks Hinkl's bunker was hiding in
plain sight, and theorizes Hinkle found a low tech way
to conceal his stash.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
There was a bunch of broken toilets around the whole thing.
So when you do an air surveillance with heat infrared,
the reflection off the ceramic you don't get any heat
out of it. Because we had NASA and the Air
Force base giving us things like that. You know where
they can fly over and see voids in the ground
with their technology, but with the ceramic toilets, you don't
(38:01):
get to see that.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So they don't find much meth. But the task Force
gets what they've come for. Tom The task Force arrests them,
along with nearly three hundred others involved in the area's
meth trade. It shuts down sixteen labs and confiscates weapons
and explosives. It seizes more than two million dollars worth
of drugs, the equivalent of nearly four million dollars today,
(38:27):
and enough chemicals to make three hundred and seventy pounds
of finished methamphetamine.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
We took down five out of six cells that nobody
else could. These are names that I knew for fifteen
years that nobody could get to jail, and we took
them all to jail. Federally.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
A local news outlet called Operation Silent Thunder the biggest
sting in the history of the valley. But one of
the things Hager's most proud of is his role in
building cases against people he believes were involved in John
Aujy's disappearance. After the Task Force takes Tom Hinkle into custody,
(39:07):
DEA agent Kent Bailey asks point blank, what do you
know about the missing Deputy John Ajay? Hinkle replies, quote,
I'll have to take that one with me to the
grave end quote. The law enforcement has ways of getting
people to open up, especially when they're in custody and
(39:29):
steering down federal jail time.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
Mister Hinkle, you want to give me your full name,
Thomas Stein and your birthday or four reserve so nkel.
Before we got on tape, I told you that anything
you say to me will not be used in a
quarter law against you.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
Okay, thanks, stat you have to speak of the tape.
They understand.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
No investigators finally get a chance to hear what Tom
Hinkle has to say.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Yeah, Cherry made a statement to the police.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Myself and Ray King both knew something about that.
Speaker 6 (40:04):
That paid their good mess.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
That's next time on Alley of shadows.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
I looked him straight in the eyes and I said, Tom,
you got anything to say?
Speaker 5 (40:15):
We asked him what he knows.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
About Deputy Singles is the knowledge of the difference of
the deputy the whole nine.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
Yards we're talking with Deputy Rick Ingeles.
Speaker 8 (40:26):
Silent Thunder was also the Prince begave me for Philip
John object based upon some rumors that tweakers and spread around.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
We were in competition to see who could be more
corrupt than the other.
Speaker 9 (40:41):
I mean, I'd like to say LAPD one, but when
I look back on it now, I think we bested him.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
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 Sheppard and Haley Fox. Our editor
(41:33):
is 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 Anaka Robbins. Additional production support by Sonya Gerwit and
(41:56):
Our show art was designed by Sean Carney and Betsy Sheppard.
Special thanks to Nick White for the show art photo.
Valley of Shadows is a production of Pushkin Industries, define
more Pushkin podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts from Type to Fun.
(42:17):
We're Betsy and Hayley.
Speaker 7 (42:18):
See you next week.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Subscribe to Pushkin Plus to hear the entire season of
Valley of Shadows ad free starting January twelve. 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 Podcasts.
We're at pushkin dot fm, slash plus. Thanks for your support.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This series includes content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Listener and discretion is advised. Previously on Valley of.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Shadows, major players were never touched by Deputy Ingles. Nothing
ever happened to them that raised a red flag to me.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I went up the guy talking Tom Hinkle the purchase
of metaphetamines.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
When I went to the.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Other room, I've heard how they're going, Ingles talk said,
and Ingles goes, thanks for the bag of ride.
Speaker 6 (00:57):
You're asking to believes a Deputy Ingles another unidentified individual's
murdered deputy ology to prevent him from arresting him or
exposing their crewal activity.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
A homicide captain saying, detective, do not find out if
this guy's guilty or innocent. Who does that?
Speaker 6 (01:14):
When they said, hey, Larry, we're ordered to go out
here and get everything and get in the case.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
He can't beat a morning like this. Just sit here
and watch that some come up between the canyon right there.
It is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Retired narcotics detective Darren Hager works sun up to sundown
at his ranch in rural California. Every morning, he fuels
up on black coffee, puts on his spurs and heads
out to his pastures. He tends his herd of angus
cows and then drives around servicing other cattle ranches in
the area. His days are fairly routine, except when we
(01:59):
show up. I will straight up hug a cow if
it gets lisn't it?
Speaker 7 (02:04):
Oh, there's stepping back.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
They're sizing us up.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I thought when five years of being a vegetarian would
earn me some love with the cows, but apparently not.
Hagar lets us tag along with him anyway.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
So this alfalf has supposedly sweeter than the grass and stuff.
That's why they like it. I mean, they got plenty
of grass, but they dislike this stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You're giving them a special treat.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, they're a little spoiled.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
The cows keep their distance, hogling us with their big
glassy eyes. So Hagar teaches us cattle calling one oh one.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Like talk cow?
Speaker 7 (02:45):
Okay, how do you talk cow?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I got a buddy. He's a stumpman in the movies.
On his herd, he sings, Mama, don't let your babies
grow up to do cawoys. Okay his animals count.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
No, I don't mother, don't a babies grow up to
be cowboys.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
His herd comes running when he sings that, and he's
a goofball. Anyways, God, that didn't work on them.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
They're all a good try.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So then mine I just.
Speaker 8 (03:11):
Knew, like.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Hi, budess, we got a taker.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Hagar always wanted to be a cop or a cowboy,
so when his career in law enforcement ended in two
thousand and three, he pivoted.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
We met some cowboys here and they got me started
in cowboy and got a job at the home ranch.
Worked there for a year, learned a lot. Now I
raised my own cattle and horses.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
It was a steep learning curve with plenty of setbacks.
But when Hagar gets knocked down, he gets back up
on that horse. It's something he had to do a lot.
While working at the La County Sheriff's Department, Hagar says
they tried to hamstring the DEA's narcotic sting aka Operation
Silent Thunder, and they set up all kinds of roadblocks
(04:05):
in their Aujay investigation.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
We knew from day want that department was fighting us
on everything on this. They didn't want us opening the
right door to get this case solved.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Early on, the DEA asked the Sheriff's Department to assign
a homicide detective to their task force to help field
all the AUJ tips they were getting. When the LASD
said no, Hagar found a workaround. He unofficially teamed up
with homicide Detective Larry Brandenburg. They had a good thing
going until Brandenburg told his captain that he was looking
(04:42):
into Deputy Rick Engles as a potential suspect in Auj's murder.
In Brandenburg's investigation got shut down, Hager wasn't too surprised
when it happened.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
It just fit hand in hand with everything we knew.
Everything we did with the department regarding AUJ was getting shut.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Down Without Brandenburg, Hagar finds himself at a crossroads.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I just said, I gotta get out. This is this
is stupid. You know what am I doing? But I've
never quit anything in my life, and I felt I
was quitting AUDJ if I left the case. Because when
you sit there and you think about a fellow deputy,
who's your family, who has a little child, that's the
(05:29):
hardest part about the whole thing. Or Chloe, she didn't
have a dad anymore, and why was that? Well, that's
my job as a cop to help people like that.
That's why we all take the oath. We're not out
there just taking bad guys to jail. We're taking bad
guys to jail to help an innocent person out. That's
the whole objective of this. I had a choice career survival,
(05:54):
walk away, or do I put myself aside and I
do it for John? When I went with John.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So, Hagar gets back in the saddle and helps Operation
Silent Thunder level up with wire taps, federal search warrants,
and the biggest drug raid the Antelope Valley had ever seen.
I'm Haley Fox.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I'm Bessy Shepherd, and this is Valley of Shadows, episode six,
the big takedown. Up until this point, we've mostly talked
about Operation Silent Thunder as it relates to the Auja case,
(06:45):
but the task force went far beyond that. Its aim
was to take down six major drug trafficking organizations in
the Anaelote Valley.
Speaker 9 (06:55):
I really had no idea what was going on in
Anelope Valley. Hadn't really heard of Anelote Valley.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
This is DEA Special Agent Kent Bailey talking on the
phone with Haley.
Speaker 9 (07:06):
I've never been up to Anelote Valley. Never had a
desire to go up to Anlo Valley?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
What were your first impressions like once you start going
out there?
Speaker 9 (07:15):
What a shit hole?
Speaker 7 (07:18):
What a shithole?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Can't Bailey's opinion of the Anlo Valley did not improve
with time, and he'd get his fill of it thanks
to Darren Hager, who roped him into all of this
when he requested dea assistance.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Can't we go? You need a fuel air explosion over
the whole Analote Valley and this problem would be solved
because it was that bad.
Speaker 7 (07:42):
Sure enough.
Speaker 9 (07:43):
What's your answer to the anel belly? I said, a
fuel air explosion.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It sounds callous, but Bailey is referencing an apocalyptic nineties movie.
Speaker 9 (07:53):
There's a movie Outbreak, What dusta Hoffin is it?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Outbreak is about a deadly virus and the US government's
plan to contain it by bombing the site of the
outbreak from.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
The heart of a small California town.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Damn it, Sam, I want to say, these people saying
with you to the dinner Circle of power, the greatest
medical crisis of all time.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
We can't stop them.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Begins Malee is being hyperbolic to convey how bad things
were in the Anilo Valley with its high speed biker math,
crime and corruption. But when Operation Silent Thunder gets going,
Hagar and Bailey try to clean up the place with
a more targeted approach.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
We would go out on surveillance, driving around, taking pictures
of locations, calling up aero burero, doing fly buys, doing
aerial photos. A lot of it was just groundwork. It
was building the information up for arrest.
Speaker 9 (08:52):
So we did a lot of intel gathering sort of
speak to try to find out a suspect list of
who we could go to find out the weakest linking
that chain, and then start targeting to work back up
to the top.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
They work their way up the food chain of the
area's narcotic cells, from dealers to cooks, go betweens, and
eventually the top dogs. Over time, their suspect list grows
into the triple digits. Bailey says Operation Silent Thunder was
one of the biggest projects he ever worked on, and
he was known in the LA Field office for getting
(09:24):
things done. His boss at the DEA even had a
nickname for him.
Speaker 9 (09:29):
She used to call me her terminator, so that was
one of her casemakers.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And what does she mean by casemaker?
Speaker 9 (09:37):
Well guy who was able to put complex cases together.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So Hager has found a good match in Bailey. Given
how complex the case is and all the pushback he's
getting from the Sheriff's department.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
It was very nerve wracking because the department was so
anti solving this case or looking into this case. It
took a big toll on me.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Hagar starts to piece together why it is. He thinks
the department is giving them so much shit. It happens
while he's surveilling key players in the drug scene.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
We put traces on the numbers, the telephone numbers, and
see what numbers were calling them. Half of the numbers,
probably more than that. There is a lot. Well came
back to share stations off of bad Guy's telephones.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Hagar says that multiple Sheriff's deputies were calling multiple targets
of their narcotics investigation. He has a hard time making
sense of what's going on.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
In my mind. These are all my buddies. They're not dirty.
I worked with them, we had barbecues together. These are
good people. There's no way any of this is true.
So at the start, I was a non believer until
he got knee deep into what was going on, and
then you get the true information about it.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
When they get knee deep into it, they figure out
that the local cops are leaking information to friends on
the other side of the law and alerting them to
impending raids.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
We'd go to kick down a door, and the suspects
were already waiting for us. They were on the phone
with the sheriff's department being notified we were going to
kick the door. As we kicked the door. I mean,
that's how dangerous it got.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Hager is rattled. He worries that during the next raid
he might walk into a shootout, because the more word
spreads about the task Force, the more enemies he racks up.
And then this threat of violence shows up at his doorstep.
He wakes up in the middle of the night to
the sound of a car pulling up. He gets up,
(11:55):
looks out the window and sees a guy approaching his house.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
And the guy put a mask on, and he knocked
on the door and ran back behind the pillar and
stood there. And I was watching the whole thing from upstairs,
and he did this like three or four times, and
something told me don't open the door and don't contront him.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
It's an unnerving experience, especially given the violence of the
local drug trade and what Hagar's been uncovering in Operation
Silent Thunder, with the.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Things that we already knew and the bodies that had
disappeared in the case that's going on, I just figured
somebody didn't want me in the picture anymore to investigate
whatever I was investigating.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
After the masked man incident, Hagar moves out of his
house and decants to the Dea safehouse, where he begins
living full time. He isn't scared off the case, but
he is feeling it strained. The task force has consumed
his whole life. He's exhausted, he's constantly having to look
over his shoulder, and still he can't stop thinking about
(13:02):
John Aujay.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I sat there numerous times alone in the middle of
the night on surveillance. I shouldn't have been out there
or did it on my own. Everyone else is in bed,
but I want to solve the case, and I just said, John,
just talk to me, where the hell are you? What happened?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Auj never talked back. But the case does take a
turn when Operations Silent thunder wire taps go live.
Speaker 10 (13:33):
They are not easy to get.
Speaker 9 (13:36):
You have to show that there was no other investigative
means that would enable you to achieve your goals, and
then you have to show that that guy's using this
telephone number for criminal activity.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Agent Bailey and Deputy Hagar have collected mounds of evidence
on key players in the meds scene, including the godlike
Tom Hinkle. The task force uses it to establish probable
cause to apply for federal wire taps. When the team
gets the green light, information pours out onto the wires.
(14:10):
Bailey describes one of these taps as their Jerry Springer
wire because there was so much action on it and
the information proves valuable. When they raid a storage unit
containing explosives, firearms, and some stolen sheriff's gear, we.
Speaker 9 (14:26):
Found their weapons stash. You know, they get there to
be on one of the largest weapon seizers that ATF
made at the time, certainly one of the largest ones
up at animal value.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Hagar says that wire taps can be a case making
law enforcement tool.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I can go out and interview a suspect or an
informan victim or whatever, and a lot of times they
tell you what a cop wants to hear, you know,
trying to get you to go away. But when you're
on a wire tap, you're hearing a conversation between two
people that don't think cops are involved. So you're getting
the truth.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
But first Hagar and company have to crack the code
because when it comes to drugs, there's a lot of
side ways talk.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
It was like are the enchiladas ready? That was your
grandma myth? Or it was a burrito for an ounce
of myth, or like dude's hungry, like constantly. These are
things we had to learn, you know. And tweakers and
I don't know if you've ever met a tweaker. There
are literally one hundred miles an hour. So their phone
(15:33):
is ringing off the hook, phone called phone call, phone
called phone call.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And one of the names that keeps sort of sing
on these phone calls is Rick Engles aka Deputy Bigfoot.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The Silent Thunder Task Force is lying in wait, listening
in on their phone taps. When a familiar name comes
back on their radar, Deputy Rick Angles.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
They call him Rick. You Rick is doing this or
Angles is going to be pissed, And I mean it's
just more of a like you're talking about another friend
in the group or another business partner type of thing.
It really pushed me to the edge where I was
saying it's not on the up and up.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So Hager's dea counterpart Agent Ken Bailey goes back to
the Sheriff's department and asks a second time for a
homicide detective to work directly with the task force, someone
to follow up in real time with all their au
JA leads and look into Rick Angles.
Speaker 9 (17:05):
I beg for the homicide guys to work side by side.
We'll be doing the dope kke she do the homicide stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
The department relents and appoints Detective Joe Holmes for the job.
Speaker 9 (17:16):
He looked like the fucking guy from drag Nut.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Bailey says. Holmes had a crew cut and a buy
the books kind of vibe, just like Joe Friday, the
lead detective on the fifties TV show Dragnet.
Speaker 9 (17:34):
Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Detective Holmes is the guy who shows up at Brandenburg's
doorstep to retrieve the AUJKSE file. He then meets with
Hagar and Bailey to get up to speed on their investigation.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
We sat in the safe house and said, this is
what we have. We don't know where to go with it.
You guys took Larry off of it. We want you
to come full lower. Yeah. It to Joe Holmes and
he says, you guys got a homicide in your hands.
Speaker 9 (18:01):
Yeah, that was the first thing.
Speaker 10 (18:02):
He said, Well, it looks like you do a murder here.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
He goes there for Ingles is dirty. I don't care
if he's wearing a badge or not. I'll take him jail.
I'm like, it's beautiful. That's all we ask for.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Holmes has been at the LASD for twenty five years
at this point, and his colleagues describe him as the
gold standard of homicide cops. Almost as soon as he's
assigned to the homicide case, holmes name surfaces on the wires.
Well Hagar's listening in on Tom Hinkle's phone calls. He
hears met the clause talking with a guy named Jeff Sherry,
(18:38):
a lifelong criminal in the Pear Blossom area. The two
are discussing the new homicide detective assigned to the AUJ case.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Jeff says Holmes is a nice guy, and then Pinkel says, YEA,
I already put a handle on him. I named him
Joe Friday.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Joe Friday from Dragnet, and they're.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Laughing about it stuff like that. So to me, there's
some type of cordial relationship between the two of them
that hinks not worried about anything from Joe Holmes.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Hager says that on the wired taps, Hinkle didn't sound
concerned about Detective homes. Hager's listening to recordings of the
wired taps as a reference. He won't let us hear
the tapes given the privacy restrictions around them, but he
offers to describe the conversations in broad strokes.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Jeff Sherry wants to know how long they're going to
leave this thing open, referring to the investigation, and Tom's
response as well, it's more than that. And Jeff is
amazed that something made it all the way to the
District Attorney's office, and Tom agrees, and they're both admitting
(19:47):
that something got very close when it made it to
the disc Attorney's office regarding the investigation.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Could it be the Brandenburg affidavit.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
That's what my feeling is, because Larry Brandenburg did take
it to a DA for authorization that there is enough
evidence to go forward with it.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Remember, Larry Brandenberg wrote up a search warrant asking to
track Deputy Rick Engles vehicle and review his phone and
financial records. Then he took it to a district attorney.
Hager thinks that's what Jeff Sherry is talking about, that
the Auj investigation was getting close, and he feels pretty
certain that Sherry knows what happened to John Auj because
(20:32):
Shecherry's closely tied in with Hinkle, his sister's Hinkle's longtime girlfriend,
and for a while they all lived under the same roof. Plus,
Sherry's a known entity in the area.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
If something happened in the Parablastom area, Jeff Sherry's name
was in it. His name always came up.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Jeff Sherry's rap sheet is truly one of the longest
I've ever seen, like the criminal version of one of
those never ending CVS receipts. There's numerous felonies, mostly drug crimes,
and one of the arrests on his record was made
by Darren Hager back when he was still a rookie deputy.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
That was my first narcotic arrest, and I didn't deal
with him ever again until the Aujay case, and he
popped backed up into My life.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Sherry's voice pops up on the wires talking to Tom
Hinkle about the AUJ case, and during this conversation, Hinkle
brings up another murder.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
He goes, yeah, look at that Standish case.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Lynn Standish was the woman who died from a bomb
explosion in Pair Blossom. There were tire tracks leading from
the murder scene directly to Hinkle's home. Deputy Bigfoot Angles
arrived at the scene and spoke to Hinkle alone just
before the homicide detective questioned him, and that homicide detective
was none other than Done Done Done Joe Friday aka
(21:59):
Joe Holmes. So the AUJ case is the second murder
case in which Holmes crosses paths with Rick Engels and
Tom Hinkle, and the phone call between Hinkle and Sherry
discusses Holmes in the context of these two cases.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Jeff Sherry said, Yeah, they're trying to create something. And
for some reason, Tom goes, that's not even dead and
stinking yet, which is a very odd statement. I mean
dead and stinking and here we are in a homicide investigation.
Sounds like they know that there's a dead body somewhere
or someone hasn't found it.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Hagar is convinced Sherry knows something about au Jay's murder,
and he thinks Sherry's a weak link in Hinkle's operation,
someone he might be able to flip into an informant because.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
He's got such a lengthy history that you might be
able to turn him. Because he doesn't want to go
you know, with the third strike that was back then,
he doesn't want to go to prison for the rest
of his life, so he was important to talk to.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So Hagar keeps surveilling the phone lines unnoticed, trying to
decode the coms, record a confession, or at least collect
as much dirt as possible before his cover's blown. But
then another call comes into Hinkles and Hager overhears some
information he can't just sit on because it seems Jeff
(23:25):
Sherry's life is in danger. It starts when Hinkle gets
a call from a friend who tells him that Jeff
Sherry is snitching.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
They're worried that Jeff Sherry wrote an affidavid of some
sort about rick Ingdall's involvement with Tom Hinkll.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
The caller had heard a rumor that Sherry was giving
up Angles and Hinkle.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Now we're here in this conversation, how Tom's worried about?
Speaker 10 (23:50):
Well?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Can you get that? I need to know what it? Says?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Hinkle wants to see this AFFI, David, Hager, and Bailey
know of no such document. Nonetheless, the rumor causes quite
the star. According to a summary of the conversation, Hinkle
asks what's wrong with you, Sherry, to which his friend replies,
I don't know. Doesn't he know what Angles will do?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Immediately after we heard it on the phone call, I
got a call from parole saying that Rick Ingalls is
looking for Jeff Sherry with a couple other deputies.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Shortly after Sherry is accused of ratting, Angles allegedly call
Sherry's parole officer asking for his whereabouts. Then he and
a posse of deputies start searching for him. So when
Hagar hears that Angles and company are out hunting for Sherry,
he assumes the worst that the deputy is trying to
put an end to Sherry's snitching Permanently, Hager springs into
(24:52):
action to make sure Jeff Sherry doesn't disappear.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
So I get a hold of Bailey. I go, we
got to get him. We got to get him now
or else.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So Hager guns it to Sherry's home. What comes next
is uncorroborated.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Park the car, I get out, I walk by the
apartment and there's Jeff Sherry right on the porch, right
in front of his door.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Hagar's first on scene, but he needs backup, so he
calls into the nearest sheriff station.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
I go, look, this guy's a runner, he's a fighter,
and then he's probably armed, and I need someone good.
He goes, all right, I'll send you some deputies. I
got thanks.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
One of the deputies that shows up is a friend
of angles.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
He goes, go back to your car, we'll handle this.
I said, no, you're going to obey my orders and
I'm going to tell you how to handle this because
I'm an on scene commander right now, because we're not
doing anything until you leave. This is going to get ugly.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's a tense standoff, and there's a lot of subtexts
buried within this interaction. By this point, Hagar is persona
non grata in these parts because, over the course of
operations Silent Thunder, the task Force has documented questionable behavior
from a number of deputies, including Rick Angles. As word
(26:16):
leaks out about what Hagar and the Feds have discovered,
the local cops turn on him.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I didn't have a single friend anymore. Not a single
deputy would talk to me, nobody, because they all thought
I was a rat. Everyone's heard of the code of silence.
It does exist. It's not written down, no one could
ever prove it. But this case right here just shows
one hundred percent that there is a code of science.
There's certain deputies or law enforcement that say, hey, you're
(26:43):
guilty of especially murder and drug dealing and stuff like that,
you shouldn't be carrying the badge. So you're fair game,
just like every other bad guy that's doing it. So
that's the way I feel, And some cops feel that way,
and some cops turn the blind eye because they don't
want to be a snitch.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Hagar and Sherry have little in common, but at this
particular moment in time, they find themselves in a similar situation.
They're both in hot water because of what they know.
In an escalating battle of wills, Hager wins the standoff
and he takes Jeff Sherry into custody.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
My eyes we saved his life because I really think
Japees are going to kill him. You know, It's just
I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
And Hager finally gets his chance to question Sherry about
the Aujay case.
Speaker 8 (27:37):
Just tell me, what do you know about comedy and
who he's associated without their loss with things like there they.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Call God, they call him God, Sherry says.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Once Jeff Sherry's in custody, Detective Hagar interviews him. He
asks him about Tom Hinkle.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
And there's your hours that who he's associated with a right.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's a young Hagar. His voice was less seasoned back
in two thousand and one.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Ten people who hangle Rick Hald Where is Kingles?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Jereff Cherry says, Tom Hinkle associates with Rick Engles. The
Sheriff Angles was actually the resident deputy of the area,
but given his power over the region, many view him
as the sheriff. Cherry says that Tom Hinkle and Deputy
Angles were spotted all over Pair Blossom, hanging with known
(28:52):
meth manufacturers, and that they would steal chemicals from rival
meth gangs and then use it to cook their dope.
Speaker 8 (29:01):
And about this, missy, Deputy Tom holding a Peter Mrick
story about it, or it was the first story toldy
be sure led investigation because he get kicked fetish.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
He said, he was under investigation because they think that
him and angles theft.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
He was out jogging running, you know, down under rafts,
and don't think you don't.
Speaker 9 (29:27):
Kill the depty.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
The deputy was out jogging running and found one of
their labs, and they you know, killed the deputy.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
He should a little smile and a ship.
Speaker 7 (29:38):
He said.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
It was a little smile on his face and shit
like that her and he goes, I wouldn't do anything
like that, would I. That's as far as Sherry is
willing to go. But he may have known a lot
more about what happened to auj because years later a
(29:59):
woman will call Jane came forward to report a disturbing
interaction she had with a neighbor in the Pear Blossom area.
Speaker 7 (30:07):
Used to call him scary Jeff Sherry.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Jane says they used to hang out occasionally, and one
night they were in her garage, went out of nowhere.
Cherry starts in on the missing deputy.
Speaker 11 (30:20):
He started carrying on about how he knew about this
cop that disappeared. As soon as he told me the story,
my whole body turned into chills.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Then, she says, Scherry described where the missing cop was buried.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
He described with his hands in the air, you know,
making a big triangle.
Speaker 11 (30:38):
You know that the cop was buried on this guy's
property with the biggest a frame house there is.
Speaker 7 (30:45):
That this cop was buried under this a frame house.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
And it just so happens that a big a frame
house is the kind of house Tom Hinkle lived in.
Speaker 7 (30:55):
And after he left, I was in tears because I
believed him, and I still do.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Jane immediately wrote down what she heard and it submitted
a tip to the FBI. We don't know if they
investigated the lead, because again they can either confirm nor
deny the existence of an investigation. But in her message,
Jane begs the FBI for some reassurance that her fears
are misplaced. She says, please tell me this guy is
(31:23):
full of crap. It's not a real story. I'm hoping
your reply will be when Jeff Sherry's in custody. He
stops short of giving Hagar proof of Hinkle and Angle's
involvement in Aujay's disappearance. So the task force sits tight
and continues to listen in on Tom Hinkle's wire, which
is a springboard for Hager and Bailey's wider NARCO investigation.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Our case was building stronger and stronger. Every single day.
We were making arrests, we were getting our seizures. Our
case was one hundred percent on.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Operation Silent Thunder spans eighteen months, involves long days of
building probable cause, monitoring wire taps, and serving search warrants.
The task force is making sporadic arrests doing surveillance, but
it's all culminating in a massive takedown that will cause
ripple effects across.
Speaker 7 (32:16):
The Antelope Valley.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
The takedown starts in the early morning hours of August
twenty first, two thousand and one. More than two hundred
law enforcement officers from at least six different agencies are
fanning out across the Antelope Valley and beyond. They're about
to raid twenty three locations with known associations to the
meth trade. The targets include labs and dealers' houses. The
(32:43):
plan is to hit them all at once, so the
targets don't have time to tip each other off.
Speaker 9 (32:48):
So we rolled out with twenty three different search.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Board teams Bailey, the terminator.
Speaker 10 (32:54):
Thea FBI swat, you know, and then simultaneously hit these
doors across the valley.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Hagar and Bailey were posted up at the command center,
coordinating efforts from a central location and getting updates from
agents in the field.
Speaker 10 (33:09):
Were done at the crack of dawn and you know,
we've finished some Tewy collapsed in the bed that night
and got back up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
There were mass arrests, many with ties to biker gangs
like the Vagos and white supremacist groups like Supreme White Power,
who reportedly funded their organization through their aggressive narcotics trade.
These meth operations had tentacles that crossed state lines. Many
were flying below the radar, operating under the guise of
(33:40):
legitimate businesses. One dealer was shipping meth inside custom made
car parts that he manufactured himself. The task force had
no idea how the dealer was moving his math. But
after they see some metal rods during the big bust,
Hager makes the discovery.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
It just looks like a solid piece of aluminum. I go,
there's something with this. Took him to the hospital, had
a mex rate and they go, this looks kind of hollow.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
The hollow raw is part of a drive shaft, so
Hagar takes it to a mechanic to give.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It a look.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
So they took pliers and grabbed on stuff and they're twisting.
All of a sudden where those two rings are moved.
Pried it off full of ziplock freezer bags with thee
We only took two of those and the house was
filled with them. Who knows what we missed.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
The cells were sophisticated and good at covering their tracks.
At a press conference, Sheriff Lee Baka, who was head
of the LASD at the time, referred to those arrested
in the Operation Silent Thunderstaing as the godfathers of Meth.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
We put a big hurt into what we called the untouchables.
We put a big scare into them. We took a
lot of them in the custody. We dismantled that organization
for a long time.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And one of the godfathers of meth is God himself,
Tom Hinkle. After the task force extracted what they could
from Hinkle's phone line, they decided it was time to
raid his compound. The a frame the house on the hill.
There's a lot of prep that needs to be done
for a raid of this kind. The Task Force assigns
(35:25):
a surveillance team to track Rick Angles. They want to
keep an eye on him make sure he doesn't interfere
when they're serving this high risk search warrant. The task
Force is on edge because Tom Hinkle had said that
if law enforcement came for him, he'd go down shooting.
The unit in charge of surveilling and securing Hinkle's home
(35:47):
during the raid was the Special Enforcement Bureau, the unit
AUJ belonged to.
Speaker 10 (35:54):
They obviously wanted to do that because Hinkle was one
of the number one mains being thrown around with adj's disappearance.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
So one morning, nearly three years after AJ disappeared, the
Task Force puts their plans into motion. They post up
around Hinkle's home and wait until he gets into his
car to head down his long dirt driveway. Then the
team moves in to arrest him. Camouflage shooters emerge from
the brush, a helicopter sweeps in. Deputy Bigfoot Angles even
(36:27):
races onto the scene as soon as he hears about
the raid, but he doesn't get out of his car.
He just lurks on the perimeter of the property before
driving down the road to his house. Officers on the
scene uncover all sorts of things tucked away and unlikely places.
There's nearly two thousand dollars in cash hidden inside a
(36:47):
stereo speaker, there's a police scanner, a pager, sandwich bagg
is full of what appears to be marijuana, and there's
a rifle and ammunition stashed inside an ice cream truck
parked on the property. The task force only finds one
small baggie of mes, though maybe Hinkle's stock was low
because the task force had already busted his main supplier.
(37:09):
But Hager thinks that law enforcement just missed Hinkle's stash.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
When we took down Hinkle's house, we knew there was
on a ground bunker, but we never found it. Could
not find that bunker, but I know exactly where it is.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
At least Taker thinks he does. Just like those meth
filled car parts. He thinks Hinkl's bunker was hiding in
plain sight, and theorizes Hinkle found a low tech way
to conceal his stash.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
There was a bunch of broken toilets around the whole thing.
So when you do an air surveillance with heat infrared,
the reflection off the ceramic you don't get any heat
out of it. Because we had NASA and the Air
Force base giving us things like that. You know where
they can fly over and see voids in the ground
with their technology, but with the ceramic toilets, you don't
(38:01):
get to see that.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So they don't find much meth. But the task Force
gets what they've come for. Tom The task Force arrests them,
along with nearly three hundred others involved in the area's
meth trade. It shuts down sixteen labs and confiscates weapons
and explosives. It seizes more than two million dollars worth
of drugs, the equivalent of nearly four million dollars today,
(38:27):
and enough chemicals to make three hundred and seventy pounds
of finished methamphetamine.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
We took down five out of six cells that nobody
else could. These are names that I knew for fifteen
years that nobody could get to jail, and we took
them all to jail. Federally.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
A local news outlet called Operation Silent Thunder the biggest
sting in the history of the valley. But one of
the things Hager's most proud of is his role in
building cases against people he believes were involved in John
Aujy's disappearance. After the Task Force takes Tom Hinkle into custody,
(39:07):
DEA agent Kent Bailey asks point blank, what do you
know about the missing Deputy John Ajay? Hinkle replies, quote,
I'll have to take that one with me to the
grave end quote. The law enforcement has ways of getting
people to open up, especially when they're in custody and
(39:29):
steering down federal jail time.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
Mister Hinkle, you want to give me your full name,
Thomas Stein and your birthday or four reserve so nkel.
Before we got on tape, I told you that anything
you say to me will not be used in a
quarter law against you.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
Okay, thanks, stat you have to speak of the tape.
They understand.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
No investigators finally get a chance to hear what Tom
Hinkle has to say.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Yeah, Cherry made a statement to the police.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Myself and Ray King both knew something about that.
Speaker 6 (40:04):
That paid their good mess.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
That's next time on Alley of shadows.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
I looked him straight in the eyes and I said, Tom,
you got anything to say?
Speaker 5 (40:15):
We asked him what he knows.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
About Deputy Singles is the knowledge of the difference of
the deputy the whole nine.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
Yards we're talking with Deputy Rick Ingeles.
Speaker 8 (40:26):
Silent Thunder was also the Prince begave me for Philip
John object based upon some rumors that tweakers and spread around.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
We were in competition to see who could be more
corrupt than the other.
Speaker 9 (40:41):
I mean, I'd like to say LAPD one, but when
I look back on it now, I think we bested him.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
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 Sheppard and Haley Fox. Our editor
(41:33):
is 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 Anaka Robbins. Additional production support by Sonya Gerwit and
(41:56):
Our show art was designed by Sean Carney and Betsy Sheppard.
Special thanks to Nick White for the show art photo.
Valley of Shadows is a production of Pushkin Industries, define
more Pushkin podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts from Type to Fun.
(42:17):
We're Betsy and Hayley.
Speaker 7 (42:18):
See you next week.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Subscribe to Pushkin Plus to hear the entire season of
Valley of Shadows ad free starting January twelve. 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 Podcasts.
We're at pushkin dot fm, slash plus. Thanks for your support.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.