The Unseen Side of Law Enforcement: A Deep Dive into Undercover Operations and Family Legacy

In this episode, Jeff Pike, a veteran undercover officer and son of a legendary Wythe County sheriff, shares gripping stories from his upbringing in a law enforcement family and his own career. He recounts intense childhood experiences, dramatic cases, and the realities of undercover work. Jeff also discusses systemic failures in police hiring, the importance of maintaining high standards, and his current work exposing corruption. The conversation blends humor, tragedy, and insight, offering a rare, candid look at the challenges and culture of law enforcement in Virginia.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
All right, I'm happy to have a guest with me
that I would consider the og of undercover work, especially
in the Lynchburg area. Jeff Pike, I'm glad to have
you on. Just talk a little bit about yourself, kind
of where you grew up. Your dad's a legend, and
then talking to you, I feel like you're right behind
him as far as having that status.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
So talk a little bit.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
About how you grew up, you and your brother in
law enforcement and having a dad that was the sheriff
of wythe County.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, I appreciate the enjoy it again. My name is
Jeff Pike. Yeah, I mean myself and my brother. And
my brother's only thirteen months younger than me, so we're
basically almost like twins. Right. So I was born on
Keesler Air Force Base when my father was cycling out
of Vietnam, and within a few months he became a
police officer, and so from I always say, have been

(00:58):
in law enforcement since basically I was six months old.
Early on. Oddly enough, myself and my brother would be
exposed to things that you couldn't replicate today. We were
in jails, we were here and at the range, we
were allowed to shoot guns and whatnot. And when we

(01:22):
were super young, it was a little bit more laid back.
But then when my father became sheriff of Wick County
and we were early twelve thirteen, fourteen year old kids,
it accelerated to a crazy level of we begged our
father to go out with him. So we were on
as teenagers. We were on traffic stops. We were doing

(01:45):
shakedowns or searches of the jail. We were on undercover stuff.
We were at crime scenes. You know. I remember as
a young man going with our father to where a
gentleman had accidentally cut his head off almost with a chainsaw.
And back then you called the funeral home and Garland

(02:07):
Grosclose was the funeral home director, and they got finished
taking photos of everything, and the funeral home director said,
you pike boys, grab a foot. My brother grabbed a foot.
I grabbed a foot. He grabbed a head in the
body and we put him in the body bag. Never
thought a thing about it. And how old were you then,

(02:28):
probably thirteen or fourteen years old. It didn't think anything.
It went home, watched cartoons. We were happy to go
out with her daddy and do things. In high school,
you know, my dad was involved in a shootout with
a gentleman. Set in high school, they had the big
speaker box on the wall and mister Carney, who's passed,

(02:52):
was our principal, and the speaker went off and said,
miss such and such sin cheff pike to the office.
So I get there, there's since my brother. He goes,
what would you do? I didn't do anything? Would you do? So?
Mister Carney's smoking a pipe typical different air, right you
pipe boys, sit your asses down. Okay, your daddy's done

(03:13):
shot and killed a guy off the road here. I
know how rumors are. I just want to let y'all
know your daddy's fine. He's done shot and killed a
man right out the road. Now everything be fine. We
were like, can we leave school? We want to go
down to the jail. Y'all gonna get your asses back
to class. Your day's don't kill the man and that
man almost killed a couple other people. Now, just because
your daddy killed a man, don't mean y'all gonna get

(03:35):
out of school. I don't want the rumors going around
this school that your dad doesn't kill the man. He
kept saying it, your daddy's done kill the man. How
old were you then, Oh, god, thirteen, fourteen years old.
Your daddy's doesn't kill the man. Yeah, And if you
did that today, you'd have to have counseling. No counseling

(03:55):
that you just went back to your next week, went
to the class. By the end of the day, there've
been twenty deputies. The rumors had went all over the place.
And what happened was the gentleman actually he was from
Baltimore and had shot a police officer up there, stole
his thirty eight and I don't remember if it was
a cold or Smith and Wesson, but they rotate the cylinder.

(04:18):
The cylinder rotates opposite, so he had lined the gun
up thinking it was going to land on the live round,
when in fact it was going to cycle the opposite
way than he thought. So it was a traffic stop.
This elderly lady had been abducted and he was on pills,
so he was taking her into town to the drug
store to get some medication that she had prescriptions for.

(04:41):
Random thing. He had shot and killed the police officer
in Baltimore. And when my dad started walking up, so
your dad stops him. Well, another deputy had stopped him
and standing there talking to him. My dad believed this
or not. A guy had showed up and my dad
was thinking about hiring him. He'd never been a police officer, uh,

(05:02):
and he was thinking by hiring him. They got the call,
and my dad was such a hands on sheriff he
didn't He told this new guy who'd never been anything,
come on jumping the call with me. We're gonna go
out on this traffic stop. The guy, the new guy,
is setting in the front seat as my dad walks up.
The guy pulls the gun out and points it to
the guy's head and says, die you, son of a bitch.

(05:24):
Clicked on an empty cylinder, and that's when my daddy
shot him. And again in a different error, on the
front page of the paper, they had a picture of
the guy's body in the street, nothing blurred out, and
the caption was die you son of a and they
bleeped out, bitch, you can't make it up. And that's
in with Phil, that's in with one. So again, you

(05:46):
know me, I could tell you a million stories of
things that we experienced. We would go into dispatch, and
of course it was small dispatch dispatcher need to go
to the bathroom. Hey, Jeff, can you dispatch for a while. Kid?
Your brother anentered telephone and trying to give information. Now, yeah,
I gotta go to the bathroom. Yeah we could. We
could do it. We go to the jail. Excuse me,

(06:09):
we're going to do a shakedown or search. Can we
do it? Dad? Please throw me and my brother in
the in the pod and lock the door with twenty
twenty five inmates. And the inmates would say, these Pike
boys know all the hide and play. We was reaching
in the commode, We knew all the string tricks. We
knew it all. So you're like, this is that was

(06:30):
like the great Adventure. Yeah, Pike's Great Adventure. Yeah, we
begged for it. And if anybody, even as little bitty
kids would come up, and my dad, I think, got
a kick out of it. He would go ask him
what they want to be when they grow up? We
want to be policemen. And it was such a naive time.
I think too. As I went through my career and
you see the you know, corruption and different things and

(06:53):
different experiences. You know, in my mind, then you know
the policeman was there and still should be there to
help people. And I was like, you know, you could
help lost people get directions to the highway, or you know,
their cars broke down and you can help them. You know,
that was the naivety of but we were kids. But

(07:14):
you still I think though, with as many stories as
you have of those, I can imagine you have very
similar stories of your dad stepping up in the community
that he served. Absolutely, you know, we got to realize
our first sheriff was and I want to say his
name out of respect, Bufort. It had been handed down
from his father in law and that guy's daddy before him.

(07:37):
So my father was the first truly modernistic sheriff in
that he wore uniform, he was in shape, he worked out,
he carried automatic, he didn't sit behind the desk. He
patrolled around, He pulled people over, and if it was

(07:58):
a serious crime, he was there. He was the one
that would kick in the door or punch somebody out,
or do whatever needed. You know, I was telling somebody
the story the other day. We had a community where
this gentleman had some mental issues and the people were
complaining about the stench from the house. So we go

(08:19):
down to this house, me and my brother, piling in
with my daddy again, And so we go in this
house and this gentleman's laying in the bed. He'd pooped
all himself all over the house. There were dead dogs,
dead riots, dead cats. You couldn't stand it. You were
almost ready to throw up. And he's laying in the bed,
obviously out of his mind. They were going to commit him.

(08:42):
They had some relative. We got to get him out
of here. And it was so bad, I mean literally,
the floor was just covered in feces, and my dad
would come outside. He said to one deputy, go get
a can of gas and call the fire department. The
power line was hooked to the side of the house
with the old insulators. My daddy took a shotgun and

(09:05):
blew the power lines off the side of the house.
I'm not making any of this up. The fire chief comes,
it's like, we can't burn this house down. My Dad's like,
there's a code. I can declare this immediate public health hazard.
He threw some gas in there, threw a flare in
and burned it to the ground and the whole and
E would think it would be outrage and shock. The

(09:27):
community was cheering because they had been dealing with him
for years. They were. They were cheering. They were like,
oh my god, Sheriff Pake just saved us from this nightmare. Yes, uh,
And you you know, over the years, I would get
stories like that of even if it was simple things.
One day I saw this elderly gentleman and he's like,
how's your dad? He really helped me out one time,

(09:48):
and I said, what happened? Well, I hired a pest
control company. I won't say their name because they're a
national one, and I felt like they ripped me off.
And I just saw your dad mentioned it to him
and then ask him for help. Didn't say nothing, just
told just told him the story. Next day, this company
rolls in with a guy in a suit and tying
about six workers. He's like, I was stunned, and I said, guy,

(10:11):
it's like, what's up with this? And he goes Rieff
called us said if you're going to do business in
our county, you better treat people fair or you'll never
work here again. And he said they got it fixed.
So it was little things like that. And my dad
knew everybody. You know, my family seven generations in that county,
and he has a tremendous memory and just knew the history,

(10:34):
the family histories. He knew. If he taught to you, Jewett,
he would go, how's your dad doing? Your mom? Now
your brother, and he could tell you these details. Now
Jewett's brother he got maybe killing a car wreck, or
they work here, or his daddy. He knew all that
saw and it wasn't because he was fake. It was
just that was the thing important to Yeah, he spoke

(10:57):
at every high school graduation, for all three high schools.
He married people. The judge said, sheriff, you're here at
the courthouse all the time. I can fix it where
you can marry people. Thinking apparently people going from Ohio
to Myrtle Beach decide in whist Full they want to
get married. So he's marrying like twenty people a week.

(11:17):
Then the horse people get wind of it. The sheriff
can marry you. So he got like an old West
sheriff's outfit and he did all these Western weddings. Oh
that's awesome. So he would do I'd say silly, but
you know what I'm saying. But it was that he
was relatable.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, I mean, he's gonna kick your ass if you
need it, but he's also there.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, he's not It's hard to describe some of the
things that he did because you're going to sound like
he's an asshole, right, But he was only that only
came out if it had exactly he would rather swing
on you or somebody was doing something mean, or you know,
it was a super bad criminal. You know. It wasn't

(11:57):
like he was billy badass. And he was a good
looking man. Women loved him. Women would come up, It's
the best looking sheriff we've had ever in the history
of this county. I was like, Dad, you get more
votes from that. He would just kind of eat it
up and laugh and whatnot. Right. It was just kind
of weird. And then my mom, you know, prior to
right when they got married, she worked for the CIA,

(12:19):
which is another weird aspect in my family. Okay, so so.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Talk about just briefly, just talk about like what it's
like to sheriff of a county and somebody that works
for the agency.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
What is that like as a kid. Uh, My mom
was very quietive about it. She never really discussed it much.
She did clerical stuff and what they would do. They
would come to rule Appalastia Counties to recruit workers because
they didn't think they would be corrupt by the Russians
or some foreign entity. So that's how she got in
that position. So she was able to work from with

(12:51):
her or she had no she worked in DC. But
then when they got married, then you know, she she
left the CIA. Growing up with your dad, his sheriff,
it was, you know, it was odd at some points
in that I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that
I gained any advantage from it because my dad didn't

(13:15):
tree you that. Yeah, the only ticket I ever got
my life, my dad gave it to me that shit
ain't gonna happen today. Gave you a ticket. Gave me
a ticket for driving a Mocac with all license. He
told me not to be on this motorcycle. My buddy
had one, and uh, he gave me a ticket, and
I only think there's a law. He gave my buddy
a ticket for let me ride it. Uh. And you know,

(13:36):
but he told me, you're no better than anybody else
just because you're my son and I'm the sheriff. H
As far as the community goes, you were always well known.
Everybody knew who you were. You know, getting later in teens,
if you went to a party or something. You know,
it was still fairly naive that that was drinking. But

(13:56):
you didn't see a lot of drug activity. You know.
The people that did that in that era, that were
just people that I didn't hang out with. So what
was with it? So did you live in with Ville
or you lived just outside in the campy? What was
it like growing up in with phil with Field? The
town's and population about ten thousand people, the county's thirty
thousand people, four hundred square miles. As you got two interstates.

(14:20):
Role that's I was getting ready to say. The weird
thing is we have sixty miles of two major interstates.
So traffic wise, thirty thousand cars go through per hour
in our county on a normal day. It's not counting holidays.
So you had more population driving through than you actually

(14:40):
had living there. And it was, you know, just a
normal Appalachia, you know. But the interstates really I think
changed the dynamic. And my father, you know, he started
traffic units, motorcycle units, drug interdiction, things that were totally
unheard of that all the sheriff's offices do now. They
all do it now.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, I remember in Bedford County when Kent Roby was there,
he would come down. He came down there and your
guys actually came to Bedford County zactly to run an
addiction to teach him how to do it, and started
the canine program here.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Sure, I remember when that happened. You had we had
an interdiction, which was one of my favorite things to
do is to do interdiction on interstate. To me, that
was the funnest. That was the best job ever. That
was the most challenging, like not a cat and mouse game,
but just a challenge to figure things out because you know,
you know, my biggest load iver got was one hundred

(15:34):
and thirty seven kiloads from a grandma white grandma, uh
not to see seven kilos of what marijuana? Three hundred
and thirty pounds. I've got several key two key loads
of coke, but it's not the stereotypical what you would
think you're looking for. So it was this kind of

(15:55):
you had to know your stuff and.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Talk about that for a second, because I think a
lot a lot of people want to look at cops
and they're like they're profiling. Sure, but it's profiling behavior.
It's not profiling the color or anything.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
No what it is. And there was like Robbie Bishop
that was killed down in Georgia came up and trained
and we would do things like setting in the median
and very visible and you would watch the cars after
they passed you, and then they would be if typically
if somebody's you know, got a big load of dope,

(16:30):
they're looking in the rearview mirror and then that's when
they cross the line and gives you the piece. Bigger,
the bigger the reaction exactly so, and you're pull them
over and it's a regular person, you know, you have hey,
you cross the line, are you okay? And you cut
them loose with a warning. You know. Sometimes it's just
the amount of numbers. You're pulling over lots of vehicles and

(16:52):
you eventually and then sometimes it's stupid. You know. I
had some guys from Kentucky came through it ninety five
miles an hour on the interstate, the suspended license and
they had I don't know how many ounces of coke
and like twenty pounds of weed in the truck. So
not the brightest criminal. So it's a lot of it's
just the amount of numbers, right, you know, you're out

(17:13):
there pulling over people and not only are you doing traffic,
but you know the little science to look for and
how to deal with people. And the majority of the
big loads I've gotten were consent searches. So talk about that.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
I think people a lot of times think you know
that you try to like I don't want to say
get your way into a car or anything else, but realistically,
law enforcement, good law enforcement, is communication exactly, And so
talk about what communication does in a traffic stop to
get you to the point where you get the consensor.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Well, I think you know from the start is to
be professional and you're not a jerk about things, because
that's not gonna get you anywhere. And I'm not saying
kiss people's butt, but you know, yes, sir, how you
doing today? You know, then you get them to a
point where you know, you step out for Met's talking,
we're doing the ticket or whatever wanting I'm giving you

(18:09):
a warning. Hey, look, we got a lot of trouble.
And I've interviewed these people after the fact and they
feel like if they give you consent that you're not
gonna look. And I've taken a lot of people to
jail that said. I've given consent before and the cop
just went, I appreciate it, and they think in their mind,
if you give them consent over there, yeah, So you know,

(18:32):
it's this kind of a psychological thing of uh. You know,
I just I never had any problems with it. I
have had just a handful of people hang up and go, no,
I'm not giving you a consent. But if I had enough,
then you could get a canon. The problem is back
in the day you didn't have any canons, and if

(18:53):
the wait was too long, you couldn't justify keeping them there.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
So so the thing I think about with with what
you're talking about, and with with UH searches and talking
to people on the side of the road, I think
what I think is really cool about it is you
talk about your traffic stop with all that weight in marijuana.
It was it was a grandma yea, and so like
it's not your traditional traffic stop, And so what you're

(19:20):
keying off of is their reaction to your questions and
how how they interact.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Well, she was fairly easy other than her appearance. And
here was the easy part. Vehicles are rental. It's rented
in somebody else's name. I'm holding the rental agreement. She
can't tell me who that person is. There's luggage with
airline stickers on the back in the back seat. And
then again in that conversation, and I remember her first

(19:47):
name is Laura uh, and I don't remember what her
last name is in bush? Was that okay? So I said, wow,
you uh you got airline tickets? She said, yeah. I
flew from Boston to San Diego and I ran in
a car and driving back. That makes no sense. And

(20:08):
the car wasn't squat a much. I said, And a
lot of people don't think beyond their initial lie, so
you gotta be quick with that to figure that out.
So I said, what do you got in the trunk?
She said, antiques. What she didn't know is that I
truly love antiques. Oh, and I am super informed on
antiques and collect different stuff. And I went, Laura, dad gone, girl,

(20:32):
I love antiques. What kind do you have? And she
went and she put her hand to her face. And
then I pulled the trick that I always pulled, which
it's no secret. I don't think it's secrets. I don't
really care. And I pulled it many a time. I said, Laura, honey,
you look like a very nice woman. Do you think

(20:53):
I was just sitting there waiting on anybody. I know
what's in that trunk, and I've been watching and waiting
on you to come by me. And right now is
your chance. You have this one chance, this one opportunity
where I can still help you out. Dear God, they
led it the trunk. I'm not supposed to mess with it.
Am I gonna go to jail? Please? I was like,

(21:16):
what is it? It's some kind of drugs. I don't
know what it is. I don't know what it was. Well,
what happened was she got paid thirty thousand a trip.
They flew her from Boston to San Diego. She would
tell them what room she was in. They would bring
a rental car, tour, drop the keys. She would drive

(21:38):
across country, stopping in Vegas, Branson, whatever she wanted to do,
make it to Boston, let them know she had made
it to her house. Somebody would come, she'd give them
the keys, they'd drop her thirty grand. And she did
four trips a year, four trips a year, cat tax free.

(22:00):
So we called the DEA. They came down and did
a delivery, busted the head guy up there and his
main operators were all elderly. When I say elderly, i'm
sixty one, sixty five to seventy five year olds retirement age.
You would never never take a second look at He

(22:21):
wasn't going to deal with the guy from the streets
or the hood or whatever you want to call it,
the or the dumb one from Kentucky. Yeah, them from Kentucky,
long hair with the marijuana t shirt on. And these
were clean cut like your grandma.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
So talk a little bit about So you transition from
growing up in a law enforcement family, your next step
was the game game warding, correct, correct?

Speaker 2 (22:47):
So back then there were semi applicants for different jobs
and you would put in and there would be thousands
of people apply for a job. My brother at the
time he had he had came out service and within
months he was hired as a game warder, which he
worked his way up to major and then later became
the longest serving chief of the Capitol Police in Virginia

(23:09):
and then he retired after thirty some years. My dad
worked from sheriff, then became US marshall and he was
the US Marshal for the Western District until he was seventy.
He worked two terms Bush, one term Obama, then he
retired from that. So I was putting in for jobs.
I was doing investigative work for insurance companies and that

(23:31):
was my main way of making money. Plus I was
working part time for the Sheriff's office, but I didn't
get paid because my dad didn't believe in nepotism and so,
but he liked to work work. Yeah, I worked about
twenty hours a week uniform whatever, but had I was
paid like fifteen dollars every two weeks to keep me
on the liability insurance. But I donated it back to

(23:54):
the DARE program or the Flower Fund at the Sheriff's office.
But I made my money insurance. So my first job
in law enforcement tech full time. I left a very
good job and insurance industry paid very well and there
were four thousand applicants for twelve openings, and I got
hired with the Game Commission. Where was your initial assignment Fairfax,

(24:18):
Haullington and was Alexandria, So it was a little culture shop. Yeah,
and so was born there up that way now, huh.
I was always raised and was born in Biloxi, Mississippi.
When my dad was in the military, but we were
primarily from with so they sent me to Fairfax, which
they didn't ever see a game warden. They didn't even

(24:39):
know what it was. The first week I was there,
I called armed robbers that robbed a seven to eleven.
I pulled up in front of a seven eleven. These
two guys run out and they were like, they just
robbed a store, and I took off and I snatched
one of them. I was doing more criminal stuff up
there than I was anything, but I took it as
an opportunity. Like they had four helicopters, Jeff Pike. I'd

(25:01):
ride down to the Fairfax air station, Hey, can I
go up with you guys? They take me up this
and that. I'd kind of figure out the lay of
the land, how it worked. Dispatch center monstrous. Uh. State
police They're like, we'd never seen a game warring up here. Uh. So,
you know, I was just this kind of proactive. It

(25:23):
was weird, and I didn't have radio. Back then, the
game warding dispatch shut off at five o'clock. I didn't
have a radio. I was just doing stuff by myself,
to the point that the captain up there at the
Fairfax brought me in one day. You had just they
had big radios. Jeff, you're killed up here, dude. I
ain't supposed to do this. Sign here, we're going to

(25:44):
give you a radio, and here's you a number if
you need something that you've got something to call somebody with.
Of course, we didn't have cell phones. So that was
the captain for the police for state please say police, uh,
then Fairfax County, but they got three or four thousand cops.
I had an incident where I went to this Lake

(26:07):
Lake Actigue and there was this Hispanic guy rolling a
keg of beer down the street and there was a
distribution center right up the road, and so I pull in.
He's drunk. Obviously he's probably stole it from up the road.
He fought me a little bit. I handcuffed him, put

(26:27):
him on the ground, and we're there with a keg.
Didn't have a radio or anything. And so the park
people come by on a golf cart and I said, hey,
go down to the office, call the county, tell him
I'm down here in the park, and send somebody to
help me with this guy. And it's probably been a
break in. Well they go and call up and go, hey,

(26:49):
there's a game warden down in the parking lot. He
said he needs some help. Can you send somebody out.
That's what they said, down down in the parking lot
and hung up. Oh I'm standing there with the guy.
I hear, I hear the I was like, that's a
lot of what's that? And all of a sudden that
the helicopter dudes I've been going and flying with just

(27:11):
to kind of do something different, this bell chopper, tree
top level, something straight out of Rambow nose down dumb,
asked Jeff Fike. I'm like, Oh, they just going out here. Hey,
what are y'all doing? And they called it. There was
this code that Fairfax used. It was like Code one

(27:32):
or something. They had a name for it. It meant bad,
and I'll never forget. The first cop came and this
guy was like six. I'm six five. He's like six
six and totally jacked right. He gets out with it.
What's going on? What's going I mean he's like, this
dude is like he's ready for a war. I was like,
what's going on? They called a Code one on you.

(27:53):
I was like, Nick, I didn't call anything. I didn't
have a radio. They roll in and then a couple
hours later, they're like the captain and they had little
district offices and stuff go down. So I tell him
the story and he's just like, are you kidding me?
I was like, dude, I'm not. I swear you can't
make up what happens in my life. Right, I guess

(28:15):
you go to Fairfax County radio installed in my car.
So what year was that? This would have been like
ninety three, ninety four, ye, right in there early on. Yeah,
And so how long did the game commission like that?
I mean, it's huge now compared to what it was
back then. I don't remember how many game wards. I

(28:37):
was like, it was just a weird dynamic that the
game commission, and it was this sentiment that you were
more like animal control up there. So for me, I
wouldn't say I caught in crap over it, but they
were more laid back supervisors that weren't very They were

(28:58):
not proactive. They did not like Jeff Pike getting drugs.
And then when boating season came in, you know, I
would just destroy the boat DUI's and the car DU's
and everywhere I went. I was always and that's why
my expert witness in DUI's is just sheer numbers. It's

(29:19):
sheer numbers and variety. So you get up.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
There, you're proactive, you get all that stuff done. How
did you end up in Lynchburg, Virginia undercover?

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Okay, So I was trying to work my way cause
I'm driving that. I'm driving three hundred miles to my
farm and with my days off, this and that eighty
five toy to pick up truck, no AC some change. Yeah,
So they sent me to Henry County. So I worked Henry, Pennsylvania, Patrick, Martinsville, Damville,

(29:51):
and I was wearing stuff out down there. That place
is a different Martinsville. Damvill is a rough place that's
down in Anvils, the closest I ever came to shooting somebody.
And so I'm still driving that. That's still like an
hour to get back to my place. And so the

(30:14):
chief in Pulaski got some kind of task force grant
and they wanted me to do undercover work. So I
went there. Uh, and then my dad left. I went
to to with I went there right before he was
getting ready to leave, and he went to retired as
sheriff and yeah, and he went to us Marshall. So

(30:37):
I like a dumbass. A sheriff then was not very
He never probably arrested anybody in his whole life. Uh.
And so I decided, well, I'm going to run for
the nomination for sheriff. Came close, didn't win. It paid
a heavy price for that, like anybody that knows politics does.

(30:58):
And so I had a friend that ran the regional jail.
He said, Jeff, I know you're going to get a
job somewhere else. We just opened the jail up. We
come down here work. I went there for like three
or four months. And then in Lynchburg, apparently they had
had an individual that they tried to do Chuck Bennett.
The chief was from Richmond. He had a background in

(31:20):
narcotics and they were wanting to do a kind of
a high level undercover operation. They had someone they tried
to do it with. But apparently, you know, it's not
for everybody, and it can be scary. You know. For me,
I was never scared. I mean, you get adrenaline. But
to some people, and you know, I've run across it
over the years, the scaredy cops, and it's more prevalent

(31:43):
than you think. The last guy to get to the
bad call, or the guy that's busy when the bad
call's there, or you know it sounds good. I want
to work undercover till you got to walk into a
crack house and they push a slide across it and
you're in there. You're in there. So they hired me.

(32:03):
It was Chief Bennett, the clerk he's probably I don't
know if he's live or dead now, older guy, and
Russell Davison at s ATF and we went to some
bus shop in the middle of the night and I
was sworn in there. They hooked me up with the apartment.
They hooked me up with a phone that nobody knew
that went through their billing and whatnot, which is a

(32:25):
story and of itself that I got into with one
of the captains because he was trying to figure out
where this phone bill was coming from. And so not
everybody at the PD with nobody knew, just initially just
the chief is chief Clerk David Davison Stokes, who was
Lieutenant over vice. There might have been some a couple

(32:48):
of fringe people that had an inkling that I was
out there. Nobody saw me, nobody knew what I looked
like nobody. You know, they might be somebody out there,
but we really don't know who or what it is.
And so, because like we talked earlier, you know, I
didn't work informance, initially, they would give me tips of

(33:09):
we're having trouble with this, we're having trouble with this,
and then I would figure out how am I gonna
wiggle my way into the spot. So I think that's
what's unique about what you did, as opposed to a
lot of people like me that work narcotics and work
cases like that where we have to find somebody to
infiltrate to go in. You actually did it yourself. So
you were given a problem and you were given the

(33:31):
freedom to find a solution. Sure, I mean, and some
of it was easier than the others. You know, they'd
go Pierce Street or Cable Street or whatever, here's where
to go. So but I knew if you showed up
even then, even though there were open air markets, there's
still like a little level to kind of maybe make

(33:52):
it a little easier. So I just kind of thought
about how what would be what's believable makes sense? Look,
what do you come up with your own cover on
what you were going to Yeah, Well what it did
was and it sounds it's a time nobody ever done it,
and it's not. Really. It was fairly simple. So I

(34:12):
would go down to the comfort end. I didn't even
rent a room, and I'd call up the cab company
and the cabby would show up, and sometimes I wore
like bibs or I was like the construction guy. I
get in the cab and they had told me the
cab companies were dirty, and I was like, I'm in

(34:32):
town working, Can you take me to the liquor store?
And they take me to liquor store and I get
back in the cab. I crack it. They would allow
you to drink like a couple of beer whatever, but
I didn't really Usually I take a swig and maybe
spill some on me and he smelled like that yeah,
And I was like, dude, I'm really looking to party
down here. Is there any way you can hook me up.

(34:54):
I'll take care of you. They would take me right
to the corner. They would take me right to the street,
and you roll in with a cab. It was like
a feeding frenzy, like you hit throw chum in the water.
So you can pick who you want and so then
then I would buy. Uh. It was hard because it

(35:14):
would happen quick, and they had a vehicle set up
with me for cameras. So what I was trying to
do is set the stage. I would do that a
few times with the cabs. Not only am I getting,
I'm definitely getting the cabs in trouble and the cab
company in trouble. The street guys are harder because it's
so quick, and they would make me do photo lineups
to pick the people out, even though we had on

(35:36):
video and there was like a set of twins. It
was like a mongrela or aingrela that there was some
twins I couldn't pick out. Uh, there was some times
that I couldn't pick them out from a photo lineup
after I'd made the deal, even though it was on video.
So after doing a couple three buys out of the cabs,
I got my truck and there's videos I have. You

(35:59):
go in and they're like studying me, and I was like, dude,
I was down here in the cab the other day
and they go, oh, yeah, I remember him. Sell And
once they would sell to me in the vehicle, it
was then it was it was smooth sell and long
as you paid. As long as you paid and everything
else you paid, then they would get to the point

(36:21):
where they let me come in houses. Uh. And then
we did some things later on where I actually took
a tag team and we would in the back of
a delivery vehicle. Uh. Again it's not rocket science. They're like,
how are we going to get a tag team? And
everybody's I was like, let me rent a U haul.
I'll go down, make some buyers and the U haul

(36:41):
leave the back end open, and then when you're ready
to hit it, throw the team. So that's what it did.
I did like buyers in a U haul truck, but
that was at the very end. So I was doing
the street buys and I was like, dude, this is easy.
I'm making all kinds of cases. Uh. And then you're
directed to a certain area and you start rolling making buyers.

(37:02):
And then it's when I started experiencing what I experienced
in other places. This is too much. This is Comans
Attorney's office. Because I would do the reports and that
didn't sign my name. But they're starting to see this
stuff get generated and they're still they're probably still in
the dark at how you're doing it. They're like, holy smokes, Yeah,

(37:23):
we've got a cop out there that's making buyers yeah,
and hand buys. And so the first excuse was that
I was targeting to many black people. Okay, fine, Jeff
will take care of that. Just slip my hair back
and be the cool dude. And I start going to
the bars, and I start targeting the country bars and
the whatever bars you want me to change demographics, no problem,

(37:47):
problems in every demograph. Started doing it there. Then I
was like, there's a lot of trouble with uh, these bars.
They're doing all kinds of crazy stuff, the actual bars themselves,
the management, the owners. So they had Stephanie Gorman was
the ABC chick, and she got hold of me on
the phone to kind of educate me. You know, I

(38:09):
need the loss, but there's these some administrative or not administrutive,
but there's some technical things regulation yeah, that they're violating.
So she educated me on that. So not only would
I go in restaurants and then buy drugs. Uh, then
I was like monitoring the alcohol stuff, which shut down

(38:30):
the biggest catialanies that used to be. I guess I
can say the names and they're no longer here. The
Dahlia bootles time out. Some of them never recovered because
they they got massive fire oh, massive fines. They would
have to close. They would always make up stories were
refinishing the floors or whatever. I think Calain it never

(38:51):
said Jeff was here. There was never a drug problem.
You know, it's just we got to fix the floor
and pay the fine and go on. So you know,
I started doing that, and you know I could tailor it.
I would just start thinking about the story I could tell.
And of course another thing is most undercover stuff or

(39:14):
cops will go to the bar. The one time, right,
I was going in a bar every night, and not
to get drunk or whatever. I could drink two beers.
I took it in the bathroom and poured them out. Also,
I had been in the issues where I'd seen where
people go, oh, he's doing drugs too, so his testimony
is not. I got drug tested all the time, which
they got. People were starting to say, so you're being

(39:37):
you're successful, and they're like, well there's got to be
a reason he's using something. Yeah, So I would get
I see anything to sideline something. Yeah, I was like
a drug test me and then too By that point
I had worked it, and I knew that there were
certain cops that didn't want you to be successful, either
from jealousy or they were involved in it too. You know,

(39:57):
I've done undercover and narcotic stuff for people ended up
in jail. I had one dumb ass. I had a
vehicle and we had county stickers. So I had a
friend in Northern Virginia send me a county sticker, and
the guy who was over me raised tail, what's that
county sticker doing on that car? Well, you look like
a narc if you don't have a County sticker, because

(40:18):
you're gonna get pulled over and getting so well, I
didn't know he's banging informants and doing stuff with drugs.
That was his tail to his his people. You see
the car with no county sticker, that's gonna be the
man stay away from it. So you start getting those
kind of things happened to you and you learn really

(40:38):
really quick. But going back to the bars and stuff,
you know, I saint karaoke, I played pool, I was
there every night, so you were a known Yeah cop,
cop wouldn't be in here. And the bar culture is
a really weird thing. It's almost like cheers. Once you
go a week or two. Jeff, brother, what are you doing?
Another thing? Working undercover? I always use your real first

(40:59):
name cause you'll forget and slip up. So were you
Jeff Foxworth? Now I was Jeff Willard because the operation
was Willard the right, Okay, and that's how we come
up with Willard. Something that's easy to remember. Yeah, and uh,
but your first name. I always kept the first name.
And I had different stories about what I did where
I was from. Again, if you pick, you're saying somebody, Hey,
I'm from wherever, you better know something about that place.

(41:21):
That place. I mean, that's just common sense. So where'd
you say you were from? I said I was down
towards Bristol, and just say Bristol was big enough to
where you went. And I knew enough about Bristol. And
then I have a heavy accent. Makes sense some people.
I did construction. Then if I wanted to step it
up where it would make sense, I had money. It

(41:42):
was the time they were putting in cell phone towers,
so I worked for a cell phone company that puts
in towers, and I do cell phone tower signal testing.
Something nobody knows what the hell is that, So you
talk about it, nobody can ask what question are you're
gonna ask me? I don't know what. You don't do
like Seinfeld and say you're a doctor or something like that.

(42:03):
You better come up with a good story. So that
was a story that fit me. It made sense. But
nobody knew technically enough about it to ask you a
legitimate question. If I'd run across a cell phone tower, guy,
they're probably not gonna be dealing dope.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
So what I hear and what you were doing is
number one, it was proactive, But number two, it was
it took time. It took time and effort, and you
had to have a certain level of commitment to deal
with the problem. Sure, and you were and you had
a solution, It just took time to get there. Talk
about we talked about this earlier, and I think most

(42:38):
cops are like, hey, I'm not going anywhere without a gun.
You ran into an issue when you first started undercover.
Talk about that where you weren't even carrying a firearm.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah. I mean most of my buys and I'm kind
of hardheaded in some ways, especially if somebody even in business. Now,
if somebody says I can't or whatever. I'll figure out
a way to do it, and you're not going to
stopped me. And I had run across situations where people
were obstacles so to qualify, and I can't remember if

(43:09):
it's a clock, a barretta whatever. To me, it was
a cop gun. I shoot a ninety ninety four. I'm
not the marksman, but I can easily pass. I've been
shooting it arranged since I was a teenager, doing the
standard shooting course. And I was like, I can't carry
that gun. It looks like a cop. It's like gun
I got on now, little snubnose thirty eight. It's a beater.

(43:32):
I can throw it around whatever. It makes sense. It
makes sense. Well, you're gonna have to qualify with that.
And I was like a five shot revolver. I mean
my died. And then back in I didn't have speed
loaders and you had to shoot over an eighty and
during the daytime shooting, I think I shot at eighty

(43:53):
two and I was like, with the bullets in my
pocket and I'm trying to throw out the CA I
was like, I'm never gonna do this at night. I
don't have nights I don't have anything that you so
and it's basically looked like a flash bulb going off
in my face. I'm doing the best I can. I
think I shot like a seventy three or whatever. You
can't carry that you didn't qualify. So I was like,

(44:15):
fuck it, I just won't carry again. Okay, sorry to
say it that way, but I'll be hard.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
So so, if you were ever in the situation where
you got stopped or anything else, you you would have
been sitting in jail until your handler was noted.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yeah, oh yeah, because the first few times they actually
went out and then they realized how time consuming it was.
Then We're gonna put somebody out there listening to a
wire with the music or the whatever going and I'm
in a place for three, four or five hours. And
so they were like, and I guess, you know, to

(44:51):
my credit, they kind of give me a little leeway.
And they're like, Jeff will be fine. Do what you
need to do. Jeff will be fine. And if you
need something, you less know. But but you didn't have credentials.
I mean you had you didn't. You didn't have anything.
I had a fake wallet. I didn't care. No, And
on me nothing, no gun. I had a fake wallet,
I had a social Security card, fake names, driver's license.

(45:14):
I'd pick up like your intelligence, got some litter, you know,
if I stopped at whatever, got a membership at the
Blockbuster whatever, that would it looked like a legit, you know.
And depending on what part I was playing, you know,
I wore certain the nasty boots, or I dressed up

(45:35):
a little bit more for this or that. You know,
I would alter things. And then of course what helped
me too has done it before. I knew the tails
that they would look for, because they would tell me.
I would ask them. Shoes are a big thing. But
you know I was the weirdo that didn't look like
a cop. You know. It was tall and lanky and

(45:58):
long hair and a goof so you fit in.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
You just look like anybody normal, everybody at Hardy. So
talk about tell and we're going to transition into a different,
darker side. But talk about one of your funniest stories
that you can think of. I'll give you a second
or two, but funniest story that you had working undercover
that you're like, man, you cannot make this up. The prostitution,

(46:21):
whichever one you want to talk about I would say
that it's very common to meet women cops that have
played prostitutes. It's very uncommon to meet men that have
played male prostitutes.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
So you're deuced, Bigelow. Yeah, don't know what I was.
I didn't even know. And bless his heart Stuart Mack
who's passed work vice. And this is later on. This
is after because you have to realize I did the
super undercover. Then I started doing more top end stuff,
but it's still a little bit different level than working

(46:52):
see eyes. You know, I was the prop guy that
you could do things with that, you know, Jeff looks
like crap, he could do this, or we've got this issue,
and my super secretness was not It was still there
a little bit, but it wasn't the level. So they
had a park down in Lynchburg and there was Little

(47:13):
League fields there and this where the gay community, dudes
or whatever we're going to. And so they had two
ten or twelve year old boys from the Little League
team walked in on two guys having sex, and of
course they called the chief and then they go, hey,
y'all need to go down there and take care of this.

(47:34):
So you were the multi tool and you fixed that.
Jeff can be maybe he can be gay. I don't
have anything about gay people, so don't nobody jump my
shit for it. Don't care what you do, but it's
not appropriate whether you're gay or straight. You don't need
to be doing it in the bathroom and letting some
kids walk in on you. Right, Sorry, that's just the
way it is. So me and Stuart mac I was like,

(47:56):
you know, my mind gay gay. So I went to
Walmart and I bought a pink shirt Stuart. We had
Barbara that worked there that was much smaller, and Stuart
had the typical big black guy's butt and put on
the booty pop pants and he had a shirt with
a smiley face as tongue sticking out. And then we

(48:19):
were quite the couple. Yeah. Then we went and got
some Jurgons lotion and let's just say Stuart, who God rests,
saw me and him got along great. He was a
very he checked on me sometimes. I mean, he was
a good guy. And we got some lotion and Stewart
was very black complexed, so I would put lotion on Stewart.
We'd rub lotion on each other and we went down
to the park and so it was relatively easy compared

(48:45):
to the women prostitutes, and these guys were like want
and bad and so, as you know, you have to
have a discussion of a sex acts and a furtherance,
and a furtherances exchange of money or driving down street
or showing a body part. So and again, no offense

(49:07):
to gay people. It's just not my thing. So I
wasn't going to do whatever. So what I would do
if they didn't do a money exchange or didn't want
to go somewhere, I would have them show me their penises.
And so I had one guy who was and for whatever,
they called me homewreckerd for a while because a lot

(49:29):
of the guys I was getting were all married. Stuart, ye,
Jeff the homewrecker. Yeah, Stuart did much better than me
because I think they preferred black guys, and so Stuart
had I had to drop my prices a little bit
compared to Stuart. And so I had this guy hanging
up on me and I was in the passenger's side.
Of course, all this is recorded. There's a takedown team

(49:51):
and all that, and the guy sitting in the driver's
seat and I'm standing and the cops here called my
daddy after this happened, and my dad calls me, what
the hell is going on down there? So he wouldn't
show me his penis, and I was like, you know,
you have to be invented. And then he goes, show

(50:11):
me yours, and I'll show you mine, all right, Hey,
I'm securing my manhood. So I pull it out and
he goes, unlike any woman in my life that I've
ever heard say anything, and I've never heard this, he went,
that is the most beautiful penis other than he didn't
say it that way that I've ever seen in my life,

(50:34):
and I will do this and this to it. And
I said, well, I need to see yours, okay, And
he showed me his, and we said, did you have
anything nice to say about him? Other than it was
much small? It was very small, and like a friend
of mine used to say an older guy, it looked
like a mouse buried up in a haybale. I'm not

(50:57):
And that's the real Appalachian saying uh. And I might
have had some girls say that to me as far
as descriptions, but I never heard one say it was beautiful.
And so we said the words, and I know he
made this or not. He's still around, Dan Black, I'll
never forget. You know, he retired. Was he a lieutenant
or something? And sorry, Dan, if I don't remember your rank,

(51:20):
pulls up with the most disgusting look in his face
and he is, y'all are sick. You're sick. And then
my guy who was married and he was a produce
manager at a major grocery store that I won't say
major grocery store proceeds to have a heart attack or
he said he was. We had to call the rest

(51:41):
of you squad and they transported him in long story
short and of course you know it's a misdemeanor, and
that it would be more appropriate if he worked in
the meat department. Now he worked in the produce plot,
I know, but he should be in the meat department. Yeah, no,
that I would say, You know, I had. You know,

(52:01):
there's dozens of stories of silliness. You know, after you
would be exposed. You know, most everybody says I knew
you were a cop or I don't know him, never
seen in my life. I knew the whole time, even
though you were doing what you were doing, you knew it.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
You knew it so well that like after I come
out and tell you exactly what the answer is.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
You have the answer, but then you know again later on.
Then that's when they would use me. Okay, we're going
to bust a house. You know, Jeff's the prop he
looks like, you know, take the U haul down there.
And in that particular case, it was a tremendous operation,
and they had a helicopter and everything, and at the

(52:44):
end of the day it wasn't cool, Jeff, you did
this or that. There was two things. I had slung
the tag team around too bad in the back of
the U haul, so they were all pissed at me.
And then one of the captains who I won't name
their names for confidentiality, had thrown up up in the
state police helicopter and everybody was sworn to secrecy that

(53:05):
that if it got out, you were gonna have hell
to pay. And I was like, what about me, I've
been doing and they're worried about full disclosure.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
I had to fly one time. You know, it's five
to eleven jacket that had the inside pocket. I puked
in my pocket and I drove the whole thing and
nobody complained about the smell.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
But it was a little hot on my chest for well,
I'll never forget. One time I had a friend and
he worked art and we were doing an aerial interdiction
in far Southwest and I had flown a lot. I'd
flown in Hughey's, I've flown in uh M D five hundreds.
I went up two years ago with the power line
crew that was trimming. I paid them to take me

(53:45):
on the ride. We were trimming the power they had
to land in my field. So I've done a lot
of that. And so a friend of mine, Jim, had
went up in the helicopter State Police helicopter. I was
in a Huey and H. When we came back to land,
he was he didn't have a shirt on. It's like,
there's this guy with no bear chest it. I was like,

(54:07):
where's your shirt? I threw up in it. I was like,
where's it at? I threw it out the window somebody's
house of vombit laden shirt lands in your yard. But
I just never forget because Jim was like this barrel
chested harry guy. He cops off that. I was like, what, Jim,
was your shirt at? Anyway?

Speaker 1 (54:30):
So the last thing I want to cover is I
think in law enforcement. We've had a lot of people
on as guests and they've talked about law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Where we are in law enforcement. I think one of
the things.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
That you investigated that was probably one of the more
difficult things is, and I'll let you tell the story,
is what was it a double or triple homicide?

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Triple homicide in California? Yeah, talk about that a little
bit and what that was like having to work that
as a cop and seeing somebody that has a badge,
just like we have badges, you know, involving himself in
something so horrible. Well, I would say this that initially
I had seen the post on social media of the
crime and his connection to law enforcement very early on,

(55:13):
and a lot of people's I don't know if they
say I'm psychic. So that's why I could get loads
of dust. You know. I think you just when you
grow up in it, you develop this sense of the dawn. Right.
And I had been involved in law enforcement. I've seen
all the corruption, every level of nonsense and stupidity and
criminal activity on the particles. So when I see a

(55:37):
trooper slash deputy commit a triple homicide and catfish a girl,
I was.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Like been talking about the girl. How old was this fifteen?
Fifteen year old child?

Speaker 2 (55:47):
This ain't the first time. You don't just snap and
do that. So I reposted the story before I knew
anything about it, and my comment was, I bet the
state police in the Washington County Sheriff's Office HR is
working overtime, and of course, within a few hours they
release a statement, no problems know this, nothing's happened, We've

(56:09):
never this kid is never going to arrive. I was like,
it's bullshit, there's no way. So what he did was
he was posing as he's twenty nine, thirty years old.
He's posing as a seventeen year old online talking to
We later found multiple underage girls, and this particular girl
was fifteen and lived in Riverside, California. So he drives

(56:32):
across country, shows up at her grandparents house where this
girl lived with her mother. He produces a badge and
a gun, slits the mother's throat, goes in, ties up,
the grandparents puts plastic bags over their head. We know
that they smothered to death because he later sets the
house on fire. There's no smoke in their lungs. The

(56:56):
dogs are killed in the fire, takes the fifteen year old.
The neighbor, thank god saw it. They getting a police chase.
He's shooting at the cops with his service revolver, shot
at the police helicopter and as they're closing in, thank god,
he didn't kill the little girl or the fifteen year old.
He killed himself. But still the trauma for that point,

(57:18):
Oh yeah, Well there's a multi million dollar lawsuit about
it over what she's endured, and plus you know these
people getting killed again. The narrative, no trouble. He was excellent.
We're as shocked as everybody is there. No. I was like,
there's no way. So he because he had just left

(57:38):
the state Police and went to Washington County. The Los
Angeles Times got hold of me and said, Jee, if
we understand your private investigating areas in your area, do
you mind logistically helping us with some stuff or do
you know this and that or whatever? And I said sure,
And they call me within a few days and they

(57:59):
said there's rumors that he failed his or there's a
polygraph examination and this guy had been committed in a
mental institution. I was like, are you kidd meet and
they said, can you figure it out? So yeah, let
me made one phone call and apparently on the state
police portal when applicant or somebody's in there, anybody in

(58:22):
the agency can go look at your file if you're
in the process of getting hired and all that, and
look up your just see what stats is what you've done,
so you know who you work with. Yeah, that's not
that's the theory. That's not available anymore. That got x
Nate over this. Made one phone call. I said, hey,
is it true? There's a polygraph? And this guy admitted

(58:43):
that he was committed to a mental institution that it's true.
How do you know? Are you one hundred percent? Oh?
I got a copy of it. You want it, absolutely,
give me five minutes and I'll send it to you.
And then as this progressed later on, instead of fixing
the problem, then became the main questions of how I
got this information. So they were going after the person

(59:06):
that gave that and and I, you know, I never
would divulge divulge that, I mean, that would be such retaliation.
So and I've got a copy here, uh, and I
brought it. He admitted that he went in a mental
institution for threatening him to kill himself. And his daddy.
How old was he when that appen? I've got the
dates on the teenage? Teenage? Or was he? No, no,

(59:28):
he was an adult. He was It wasn't like something
that happened. No, No, he was an adult within the
period of time where Yeah, So, not only has he
been committed to a mental institution. Uh, he admitted to
drug use. He admitted to cheating on testing college, all
of which would have disqualified back in my day. He

(59:51):
admitted to not there was a commoners things, not giving
notice and leaving a job. He could say, you know whatever,
and I'm like, you're committed to a mental institution. Of course,
I call the LA Times. It's like, I got the
are you sure? I was like, I got a copy,
I got the whole. I got the polygraph, who did it,

(01:00:12):
when it was done, where it was done, and all
the answers. It's clear and there he admits to it.
And then I'm like, you're committed. Your gun rights are revoked.
I wonder about that. So I knew that it had happened.
And the weird thing is that all that had happened
in Washington County where he ended up working at. So

(01:00:35):
it what I didn't know is Washington County does their
committal stuff through the city of Bristol, which is but
still a deputy. Wouldn't a deputy be the one that
the guy doing the polygraph? Once you've seen that, you
would say that tell the background check guy, right, and
this is a problem, right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
But I'm just saying, before he got hired in Washington County,
somebody from that Sheriff's office would have been the one
to serve thee.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, So I wrote, I was like,
wonder how you get that. There's a form you fill out,
and I just put my explanation for wanting it is
the guy's dead and it's for the greater good of
the community to figure this out. He'd had his gun
rights revoked and he was hired by the state Police

(01:01:21):
and then the Washington County Sheriff's off who were the
ones that do the background texts for people. So the
narrative then changed to Washington case says, well, he was
a trooper. State police says it was human error. Somebody
hit F two instead of F three on the thing.
I'm like, no, that might have happened, But what about

(01:01:41):
this polygraph? You have two you have two humans that
knew better, and this whole group is class. Is my
understanding was the special class that the command's staff reviewed.
Everybody nobody reviewed anything. Nobody reviewed this guy's background check.
But the stud good thing is the polygraph guy could

(01:02:03):
have went whoa, whoa, Wait a minute, hey, Fred, you're
doing the background check. Uh, this kid's a pro. This
is an issue. I mean it's it's beyond ridiculous the
failures here, and then he goes on to utilize training
and equipment to perpetrate a triple homicide of kidnapping. He

(01:02:25):
could have killed some cops and the whole thing was
nothing was wrong. Ah, it was just human error. Look
the other way. And then what I learned is, you
know some departments now are they will work short and
keep quality and others will lower the quality just to
fill seats, warm body in a seat exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
So, So from your experience with that, how does that
relate to law enforcement now?

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Is? Is?

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
So what you are saying is let's not drop the sting,
let's hold the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Standard and do quality over quantity. Absolutely I agree with
that and the message it sends too, And I said
this on some major news outlets is that the public
perception of police is destroyed. It's destroyed. And in the academy,
you know, I would teach you know, most people only
deal with the cop one time in their life and

(01:03:24):
how that cop treats them, their perception of the police
in alle of the rest of their life. But when
you do something that horrendous, and for me, if I'd
been in charge, I would go, look, this is a
terrible failure. We have corrected. The polygraph guys fired or
demote it. The background check guy ain't gonna do backgrounds anymore.

(01:03:45):
That would be some substantial and you put that information
out there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Yeah, so it is. We are this we are this agency. Sure,
but we made a mistake.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
If I had been the governor, if I had been
the governor, superintendent, you're done. I'm not putting up with this.
But they're not going to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
So but guess I'm guessing from my standpoint that there
was never even to this day, there obviously, if there
was a lawsuit, there was an admission of wrongdoing or
just a settlement, but there's never been an official statement
from either agency corrected the record saying hey, we made
a mistake.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
The only mistake the State Police. They make it sound
like some clerk in a room touched the wrong key
on a keyboard. That's not how backgrounds were not at all.
So you know that was and the people were very shocked.
But you know, I've been in business as a private
investigator for twenty three years, so you know there's people

(01:04:47):
that don't like me, there's people that do. In this instance,
it was kind of not shocking. But there's a lot
of old school troopers that were so mad about this
that they were willing to help. But there was no
Jeff Pike is not going to catch any repercussions like
they would, you know. And the sad thing is if

(01:05:08):
one of these people had stood up and said, hey,
you would have you would have faced heavy consequences. They wouldn't.
They wouldn't have kept their job. No, you would have
been run run out of town on a rail or
transferred to some place. And they can sit there and go, oh, no,
we wouldn't. Our agency would never do that. But Juey,
you've been around long enough as I have that you

(01:05:30):
rock the boat and you try to stand up for
the right thing. Uh, you know you can pay a
heavy price for it. Well, I tell you. I think
it's a good way to end it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
And what I would like to think is, and I
know we discussed this before, but I would like to
think that maybe together we could put out there and say, hey,
if you have something that you think might be public corruption,
somebody that hasn't done something right, contact us sure, and
would you be willing to help.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Us investigate things like that? Absolutely, because I think like
with your experience and your level of expertise and the
level that you work at, and be awesome to be
able to go out there and hold some public officials account.
And you know, I've done stolen valor, I've done all
kinds of corruption cases. Again, you know, this is my

(01:06:23):
twenty thirty year in business. You know, I typically do
between one hundred and seventy five and two hundred cases
a year everything. You know, I'm an expert witness in
multiple categories in three states, all the way up to
the federal level in homicide, police procedure, evidence collection, DUI,
car crash, narcotics. That's declared expert in court by the

(01:06:46):
judge after a debate about my background. Yeah, it's not
like they don't just like whatever one size says, I'm
good as gold, and the other side says, I don't know, and.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
They have to the side that says you're an expert
has to win that art exactly, and then the judge
agree with and then I can offer opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Uh, you know, I testify it's a fact. I had
a court last week and they just stipulated to the evidence.
Both sides like, well, it's Jeff. The judge is fine,
We're fine. Both sides are fine because of me. Uh.
But then in those cases I can offer opinion. Uh.
In stays based on everything experience, experience that you had

(01:07:26):
to get and it's not nitpicking. A lot of people say,
well he's nitpicking this or body can vid. No, I'm
not nitpicking anything. Some of these mistakes are just beyond
it's not it's it's an obvious.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
It's somebody getting up and saying one thing and the
end result that you have got.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
And I can talk about this briefly. You know, we
got one and with full it's all public records. It's
been in the paper and the news. You know, a
guy that blows the zero and has zero on his narcotics, Uh,
does a fender bender crash? Uh, they're convinced these do
you I still arrest him, put him in jail for
thirty hours when he's blowed zeros and tested zero and

(01:08:06):
he had a stroke and he's permanently disabled. And the
backstory to that is he run into the mayor of
the town and his family's the one that suffers from that. Yeah,
I mean, this guy needs twenty four to seven care now.
And you know, but again the backstory.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
I think it's crazy that some it seems like the
higher some people get in government, the more they think
they're untouchable.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
Absolutely, And I think about people like us that are
like at the bottom rung and we're held accountable. And
the standard for us is so much higher than every sure.
You know, when I got hired, you know, you had
to have a certain visions. You know, back in the day,
you had to be so tall. Yeah, you could be obese.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
You know. I talked about all the time. A lot
of people don't want to mention it. You know. One
of the biggest trouble in law enforcement is obesity. I
see these guys, they're not capable of doing their job.
I mean physics, we oh, yeah, they can sit behind
a desk or ride around in the car, but when
push comes to sub or they got to chase somebody,
then am I gonna be able to do it? That's
why I have a doll. There'll be the first body

(01:09:12):
you step over when you get to the scene. I
hate to say it that way, no, but you're right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Well, buddy, I really appreciate you coming on and look
forward to working on some projects with you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
I appreciate it very much. You are think