Bad Things

By Terry Hodges, author of the Warden Force series of books. Find more at his website, https://www.gamewarden.net/.

January, 2012.

In a shallow cavern beneath the roots of a fallen pine, a mother bear, barely awakened from hibernation, gave birth to two tiny cubs, blind and hairless.  While the mother bear was by species a California black bear, she was in fact brownish blonde in color.  Others of her species were dark brown, like Hershey bars, and yet others were true to their name and were a glossy black. 

Two months later, when spring had arrived, the two cubs had opened their eyes, tripled in size and grown coats of jet-black fur.  Soon they were out with their mother as she foraged for food, playful, bumbling creatures.  One night, their travels led them to a campground.  They found food there and became frequent visitors.  At the end of the camping season, the camp host fully expected to see the bears again when the camp reopened the following April.  But it was not to be.

______

April 22, 2013.

Fish and Wildlife Warden Darrell Stevenson was a predator on the prowl as he eased his patrol rig down the mountain road.  Not only did his eyes sweep the forest ahead, but he studied the road itself and its edges for subtle signs that spoke volumes to those who could read them.  Patches of snow still lingered in the shadowed areas, spring having not yet come to the Western Sierras.  Riding shotgun with him on this morning was Warden Liz Gregory, also alert for anything and longing for action.  It was the last day of turkey season, a good day to encounter bad guys doing bad things.

When the road descended into a blind hairpin curve, they encountered a vehicle coming their way.  Upon seeing them, the driver quickly pulled over and stopped.  It was a small, Toyota pickup, tan in color, with half its hood covered with gray carpet.

“Hound rig,” said Stevenson.

A driver and one passenger peered unhappily through their windshield as the patrol rig approached.  Stevenson stopped window to window with the driver and recognized him from past encounters.

“State game wardens, sir.  Are you guys hunting?” said Stevenson.

“No, we’re just out for a ride,” the driver replied.

“Do you have any dogs with you?”

“I have three dogs with me in the boxes,” said the driver.

Both wardens then stepped from the patrol rig and Stevenson spoke again to the driver.  “So, you say you’re not hunting?”

“No, but I had one of the dogs riding on the hood for a while this morning.”  This was in reference to the practice of houndsmen tying a “strike dog,” their dog with the best nose, to a ring-bolt on the carpeted hood of their vehicle.  From there, the dog could easily catch the scent of a bear or other animals that had crossed the road or were nearby.

Stevenson asked the driver if they had any firearms with them.  The man answered no.  Stevenson then asked him for ID, and he dug out an Idaho driver’s license bearing the name George Anton Rossi.  

“I’m in the process of moving to Idaho,” Rossi explained.  Stevenson asked him to exit the vehicle.  Rossi climbed out, a rangy hillbilly type, of the breed who could hike up and down mountains all day.  He wore a grimy, sleeveless red T-shirt and filthy denim pants that appeared to have dried blood on them.  He appeared paled and very worried.

Warden Gregory had by then walked to the passenger side of the hound rig and directed the passenger to exit the vehicle.  Too large for the little hound rig, he had to struggle to get out.  He stood six-feet-four, was of heavier build than Rossi, and looked and smelled like he had been sleeping in a landfill.  Upon Gregory’s request, he identified himself by means of a California driver’s license in the name of Clayton Ray Barnes.  At that time, she directed him to move to the front of the hound rig where she carefully positioned herself so that she could cover Stevenson and question Barnes at the same time.

Stevenson asked Rossi again if he had any firearms in the vehicle or any game animals.  Again, Rossi answered no.

“Do you mind if we take a look?” said Stevenson.

Certain that the wardens would search his vehicle with or without his consent, he answered “Go ahead.”  Following a brief search of the hound rig’s interior, Stevenson moved with Rossi toward the rear of the vehicle.  He first examined the contents of two ice chests in a tool box behind the cab, finding only food and beer in both.  He noted the presence of a radio telemetry receiver with a directional antenna.  He then turned his attention to the dog boxes, expecting to find the dogs wearing signal-transmitting collars.

Like most hound rigs, the Toyota was equipped with built-in dog boxes that took up most of the pickup bed.   About four inches of the dog boxes were visible above the pickup bed and had ventilation ports cut into them.  Stevenson approached the left-rear of the pickup and looked through one of the ports and could see a sad-eyed walker hound peering up at him looking hard-used and worn out.

Meanwhile, Gregory was gaining information from Barnes, who provided a constantly changing, obviously fictional story as to his part in the morning’s activities.  When she asked him if there were any firearms in the vehicle, he answered, “Maybe.”  When she pressed him further about guns, he finally admitted that there were two handguns in the rear of the vehicle, one belonging to him and the other belonging to Rossi.

Upon taking a more careful look inside the dog boxes, Stevenson spotted something behind the walker hound that didn’t belong there.  As Rossi, looking agitated and worried, looked on, Stevenson dropped the tailgate, opened the door of the driver’s side dog box and reached inside.  Gregory was on full alert now, hand on the butt of her Glock sidearm, ready for anything.  But Stevenson met with no resistance and withdrew his hand bearing a brown plastic grocery bag.  He opened the bag and found a .22 Magnum revolver in a nylon holster.  

“I thought you didn’t have any guns,” said Stevenson, turning to face Rossi.

Rossi, looking trapped, replied, “That’s Clayton’s gun.”  Stevenson pulled the revolver from its holster, opened the cylinder and found it to be unloaded.  “I’m gonna need you to get your dogs out of the boxes,” said Stevenson.  Rossi, now looking stricken, removed each dog from the boxes, attached a five-foot dog lead to each and secured the leads to a small tree beside the road.  All three dogs were wearing signal-transmitting collars with eight-inch antennae.

Stevenson then looked inside the passenger side of the dog boxes and something caught his eye.  It was another holstered .22 Magnum revolver attached by a bungee cord to the inside top of the box.  Like the other one, it too was not loaded. 

Looking again inside the dog boxes, Stevenson spotted something else.  He reached in again, this time bringing out a grey and black backpack that felt heavy.  Upon opening the pack, he blinked in astonishment, for it contained a collection of bagged and bloody animal parts on top of which were several hunting-related items.  There was a Cabela’s camo-colored flashlight with blood on it, three hunting knives, one of which had dried blood and what looked like bear hair on it, and a pair of bloodstained leather gloves.  As he was removing these items, Rossi began talking.

“That’s my flashlight,” he said, “And one of those knives belongs to Clayton.” Both of these statements were puzzling in view of what the man said next.

“But that’s not my backpack,” he said.  “I found it in the middle of the road.”  

Stevenson just shook his head at this ridiculous statement and removed a large zip lock bag of animal organs which he held it up for Gregory to see.  Gregory nodded her head in acknowledgement, then turned to Barnes and asked, “What’s in the bag?”

“Bear parts,” he answered.  With this, Gregory ordered Barnes to turn around and put his hands on the hood of the pickup.  She then conducted a careful pat-down search of the man who was nearly twice her size and found no firearms, but in his pants pockets she found a folding knife and six live .22 Magnum cartridges. 

Meanwhile, Stevenson was examining the contents of the bag.  It contained a large, bloody liver with the green-tinged gallbladder still attached.  The presence of the gallbladder suggested that the organs were likely those a large bear.  He next pulled out another zip lock bag containing 20 adult bear claws, fresh and bloody, confirming his suspicions.  A third zip lock bag contained another mass of gore.  He opened the bag on the lowered tailgate and sorted through its contents.  He gave a low whistle as he realized that the bag contained two more bear livers, smaller ones, each with an attached gallbladder.

The discovery of three bear gallbladders in the vehicle changed everything.  In California, hunters could possess no more than one bear gallbladder.  To possess more than one was considered “possession for sale,” and the sale, or possession for sale, of bear gallbladders was a felony.  So, what had begun for the wardens as a misdemeanor “hunting out of season” case had now suddenly become much more serious.

“Mr. Rossi, I’m placing you under arrest,” said Stevenson.  “Turn around, please, and place your hands behind your back.”  Rossi, his face now drained of color, complied, and Stevenson reached for his handcuffs.  To Rossi, the metallic ratcheting sound of the cuffs capturing his wrists was the sound of impending doom.

Gregory, following Stevenson’s lead, handcuffed Barnes.  She then radioed dispatch for a backup warden, but none was available.  Ultimately, a deputized U.S. Forest Service agent heard the radio traffic on his scanner and responded.  He would later transport the two suspects to El Dorado County Jail.  Gregory also requested that a tow truck and animal control unit be dispatched to the scene.  

The wardens then began photographing and cataloging evidence.  At one point, Stevenson remembered the blood on Rossi’s pants.

“I’m gonna need your pants, Mr. Rossi,” Stevenson announced.  “There’s blood evidence on them.”  Rossi’s eyes widened in disbelief, and he glanced briefly at Gregory. 

“I can’t give you my pants,” cried Rossi, again glancing at Gregory.  “I ain’t wearin’ no underwear.”  Stevenson looked at Gregory and was amazed to see that she had somehow maintained a poker face.

“I guess we can pick up your pants at the jail,” said Stevenson, who then resumed his work.  

The day ended with the two suspects booked into county jail, the three hounds booked into the county dog jail, and the Toyota hound rig towed to an impound yard.  But for the wardens, their work had just begun.

In the days that followed, the wardens had to write their reports, send evidence samples to the lab for analysis, tie up loose ends in the case, and file charges against the two violators through the D.A’s office.  The wardens also conducted an exhaustive search of the area believed to be near the scene of the bear killings, a search for the poacher-killed bear carcasses.  They found nothing.

About two months following the crimes, to tie up one of the loose ends, Stevenson contacted the camp host at the Middle Fork Consumes Campground, the campground closest to the area where he believed the bears had been killed.  Stevenson made no mention of the case he was working, but simply asked the man if he had seen any bears around. 

“There was a blond-colored sow with two black cubs causing problems here last year,” the man said, “but they haven’t been back yet this year.”  Stevenson left the camp more certain than ever that Rossi and Barnes had murdered a mother bear and her two cubs and abandoned their bodies to rot in the forest.

When findings from the crime lab people came in, all blood and DNA evidence found on the flashlight, the knives, the gloves and Rossi’s bloodstained pants, had been determined to be from bears and supported the case. But Stevenson was surprised to learn that it was not just from three bears, but from at least seven or eight.  His disgust for Rossi multiplied.

 When the El Dorado County D.A’s Office brought charges against the two violators, charges which also included the felony charge of possession of bear gallbladders for sale, the slow and unpredictable gears of the legal system began to turn.  Weeks turned into months, and months into years, and Stevenson would be present at every event.

Rossi had hired an attorney who vigorously attacked the charges, and he ultimately reached a plea bargain with the prosecution.  The felony charges were dropped in exchange for guilty pleas to a single misdemeanor charge.  A judge promptly sentenced both men to 60 days in jail and heavy fines.  Barnes, the far lessor of the two suspects, was fined $5,000 but Rossi got hammered $12,500.  True, it was but a single charge they pleaded to, but that plea would open the door for the Fish and Wildlife legal people to seek a lifetime revocation of Rossi’s hunting privileges. This is what Stevenson had hoped for, for it was the thing that would hurt Rossi the most.  When Rossi learned of this, he was horrified, and his attorney wrote a lengthy statement arguing that a lifetime revocation was too harsh for the crime.

At a Fish and Wildlife Commission hearing concerning the revocation, this statement was read for consideration, and Rossi’s wife was there in support of it.  She stated that her husband was a fine fellow and lifelong honest hunter, and she bemoaned the unhappy coincidence that wardens happened to encounter him the only day he had ever broken the law.  Stevenson, in the audience, almost choked.  She further stated that her husband was very remorseful over his single transgression.

Unfortunately for Rossi, who had by then taken up residency in Idaho, Officer Eric Crawford, a senior Idaho Fish and Game warden, was there at the hearing to settle the question of Rossi’s “remorse.”  It seems that Rossi had already run afoul of Idaho wardens who had caught him trespassing behind locked gates and hunting with dogs for mountain lions and bobcats, all out of season.  Crawford played a taped interview of Rossi in which Rossi spoke, with anything but remorse, of his arrest in California and stating “What I got busted for there is a really pitiful and awful thing.  It’s totally legal here.”

The commission was unimpressed with Rossi’s arguments, and they promptly confirmed the revocation of his hunting privileges in California for life.  When Rossi departed the hearing chambers, he was unhappy, but he was glad, at least, that he could still hunt in Idaho.  He was soon, however, to learn otherwise.

Years earlier, most states in the U.S. had entered into what is known as the Wildlife Violator Compact.  This agreement ensured that serious abusers of wildlife permanently banned from hunting in one state would be banned forever from hunting in all other participating states, of which Idaho is one.  So, Rossi was now banned for life from hunting in Idaho and most other states as well.

There came a day, near the end of 2015, when the case against Rossi was totally concluded, and Stevenson could look back on it and see it for what it really was--the most disgusting and totally disturbing wildlife crime he had ever heard of.  Perhaps it was the mental image of the two little cubs, shot while helpless up a tree and tumbling, wounded and dying, through the branches to the ground.  And for what?  Because two low-life outlaws wanted to make a few bucks selling their gallbladders.

Years would pass, and Steveson would remember the Rossi case as the most important arrest of his career.  And yet that satisfying memory would always fade to a less pleasant one.  For he would always be troubled by what had happened in the forest on that January day and would remain forever haunted by the sad memory of that terrible crime.