True Wildlife Crime: One Investigation, 180 Charges

追加: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]We have a juvenile and an adult who [music] would go, get intoxicated, drive around, shooting animals and or committing some sort of cruelty.

[00:00:09]>> If you were to open the game book, close your eyes, and point at a page, chances are they've violated our rule.

[00:00:15]Whether it was a deer, whether it was a possum, bobcat, waterfowl, it didn't matter. If they came across them, they were going to shoot it.

[00:00:23]>> Like what [music] sits with you at night? Because I've I've seen some of the footage. It can get It's a little bit haunting.

[00:00:32]>> Disclaimer, this program features real, fully adjudicated cases investigated by Virginia Conservation Police. For privacy, individuals are referred to as suspects and certain details have been obscured. The content reflects the officer's personal account for outreach and educational purposes and is not a legal record or official statement of the Department of Wildlife Resources.

[00:00:56]Viewer discretion is advised.

[00:01:01]>> [music] >> Hello and welcome to another episode of Virginia True Wildlife Crime. Thanks so much for joining us. This is the show where we talk with the CPOs who are investigating the crimes and get a behind-the-scenes look at how the investigation goes and the outcomes.

[00:01:27]Today with us is Senior Conservation Police Officer Dan Smith. How are you today?

[00:01:32]>> Doing well, about yourself?

[00:01:33]>> I'm doing good. So today we're going to talk about a case that you investigated out of Dinwiddie County from a few years back. But first, I want to know a little bit more about you. How long have you been with the Department of Wildlife [clears throat] Resources?

[00:01:44]>> I've been with the department since 2014. So coming up on 12 years now.

[00:01:49]Been assigned to Sussex County the entire time. It's part of our district 14 down in the southern part of the state.

[00:01:56]>> All right. Have you Did you always want to be a conservation officer? Were you an active kid out in the woods? Was this something that came naturally or did it kind of stumble on you?

[00:02:05]>> Always been active. Grew up in Norfolk and did a lot [clears throat] of a lot of fishing and some hunting.

[00:02:12]After school, worked in sales for a while. And decided that being cooped up inside all day wasn't for me. And took the advantage and applied to work with what was then Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

[00:02:24]>> Yeah, it's definitely nice to not be in an office all the time. For a lot of us, that that's not the funnest aspect of the job. So, you get to get out every day, do something different every day.

[00:02:35]>> Yeah. Yeah, the job changes up every day, every month, every season.

[00:02:40]So, you always have something different going on and keeps you on your toes.

[00:02:45]>> Excellent. So, and that kind of leads us right into the case because you started your day doing one thing and ended your day doing something completely different. Tell us how the case started.

[00:02:56]>> [clears throat] >> This case started based off a completely unrelated case.

[00:03:00]Been working in Dinwiddie investigating a deer baiting complaint. And was monitoring a bait site when got to be after sunset and was hearing a large number of shotgun shots.

[00:03:14]Which would be more consistent with duck hunting than deer hunting. And those shots started around sunset and went all the way to pitch black dark.

[00:03:24]Which tells you someone's probably hunting wood ducks coming to roost.

[00:03:29]And [snorts] of course after hours at that point.

[00:03:32]>> So, for folks who maybe are watching the show and aren't avid hunters or don't necessarily know what the rules are here in Virginia, if you're hunting waterfowl, what's the hours?

[00:03:43]>> So, hunting waterfowl starts at half an hour before sunrise, same as deer.

[00:03:48]Then it ends at sunset instead of going to 30 minutes beyond sunset the way the deer would.

[00:03:53]>> Okay.

[00:03:53]>> That lets the birds go to roost without uh getting shot the entire time.

[00:03:57]>> Understandable. Got to give them at least a fair shot, right?

[00:04:00]>> But it they went all the way until you know, pretty much pitch black dark. So, I knew there were some waterfowl violations going on in the area. And uh you know, once I wrapped up with that bait investigation, reached out to some hunters I knew in the area, and uh asked who might have been hunting some of the swamps in that general area.

[00:04:20]Um that point, I got a couple of names to keep an eye on, and the investigation went from there.

[00:04:26]>> Okay. So, you're out, you talk to a few friends, a few folks in the know, got a couple of tips.

[00:04:36]It's the next day, you know, you're obviously not going to catch them in the act that night. What's your What's your next steps?

[00:04:43]>> Of course, at this point, we didn't didn't know for sure who this was. We just now had a couple names. But uh as we're you know, monitoring social media and seeing what these guys are up to, start seeing pictures of you know, ducks getting posted online, of deer, and uh several big deer that we ended up looking into. There were pictures of two individuals uh posing with a couple of large deer uh you know, mid-November, and looked into it. Found that at that time, they didn't have hunting licenses, didn't have uh muzzleloader license, and those deer hadn't even been checked. So, that point, that that gave us something to really look into.

[00:05:23]>> So, do you often find things posted online? I mean, I know we've had a couple of cases that we've showcased on this episode, namely the Hollywood Buck from Richmond, uh where folks posted online. Is that um I mean, obviously, a lot of folks that hunt and fish, folks that work here at the department, they want to show off that that big harvest, that that trophy buck or that citation bass uh so they post it online. Is is that some place that you often find stuff like this?

[00:05:53]>> Yeah, we find fish deer, turkey, bear, you name it. It gets posted online. It's just a question of was it legally harvested? Has it been checked in?

[00:06:05]Um and you do find that some folks just can't help themselves whether they was killed legally or not that they're going to tell the world about it. Um such as a Hollywood buck and such as these bucks.

[00:06:17]>> So you saw it online. Um what was your next step? You obviously investigated it to a point where you knew that they didn't have a license and they hadn't checked it in yet. So is this [clears throat] where you do go and knock on the door and see if somebody will chat?

[00:06:29]>> We worked up to that point. Um we kept an eye on them through the remainder of the year. We were getting a lot of complaints in the area regarding spotlighting. Um a lot of consistent reports you know 12:00 on loud truck pulls up. Someone hears gunshots, truck speeds off.

[00:06:49]Um a lot of the reports didn't really have any details that you could really go on their license plates, no suspect descriptions, anything along those lines.

[00:06:56]>> People hear see [snorts] something in the dark and >> Right.

[00:06:59]>> Yeah, they heard it in the dark or hey my in-laws said someone shot in their front yard last week. Something along those lines.

[00:07:07]Um so we've been working a lot of patrols trying to catch these people in the act.

[00:07:12]Um but ended up not having success doing that.

[00:07:16]Um so as the year progressed we as the year progressed the information we had from social media um from reports in the area we ended up having enough to obtain search warrants for the phones for our suspects. Um that's based on social media posting uh pictures verifying that they had the phones with them at the time that they used the phones to take pictures and the phones may may have additional evidence on them.

[00:07:46]>> So, you've got two potential suspects at this point.

[00:07:48]>> Yes. Yeah, at this point got two suspects, both Dinwiddie residents, uh identified who both of them were identified their phone numbers, obtained search warrants. At that point we went to make uh contact with them, uh conduct initial investigations, initial interviews, and to serve the search warrants for the phones.

[00:08:07]>> Okay. So, how did that How did that go?

[00:08:10]Knock on the door. I can't imagine that they were uh super wanting to give you their phones.

[00:08:16]>> Yeah, they were uh they were hesitant.

[00:08:18]Uh the first warrant was served on the juvenile.

[00:08:21]Um he attempted to flee back into his house initially with his phone. Uh we informed him that we had a warrant for the phone and took it from him.

[00:08:30]Uh had his dad there and conducted conducted the initial uh interview.

[00:08:36]Um >> Especially since this suspect you said was a juvenile.

[00:08:40]>> Juvenile.

[00:08:41]>> present.

[00:08:42]>> Yeah. Yeah, we whenever we can want to have the parent present there.

[00:08:45]Um He His dad was insistent that uh his son wouldn't spotlight. Um the son quickly admitted to spotlighting several deer.

[00:08:57]Um He uh he come up with a story for the picture of the initial deer that we had and claimed they'd been legally killed on a friend's land.

[00:09:06]Um but he admitted to several other deer being spotlighted. Uh That point we went and immediately interviewed the other suspect who gave conflicting stories as to some of those deer, but then admitted to other deer being spotlighted.

[00:09:22]>> So, when you say immediately, you went from one house directly to the other?

[00:09:25]>> one house to the other. We wanted to minimize any ability for them to talk to each other or try to get their stories straight. Um so, each each one of them told some truths and some lies and neither of their lies matched up with the other ones. So, that told us we had a little bit more to look into rather than what we just immediately thought we did.

[00:09:43]>> Yeah, so if if the juvenile element was a one or two spotlighted, so sorry.

[00:09:49]We were in the wrong, but then when you got the >> Yeah, this went from something potentially being a learning experience for a juvenile to hey, this isn't the first time you've done this. It looks like a pattern and we're going to keep digging into it.

[00:10:03]>> And when you dig into it, now you've got two phones.

[00:10:06]>> Right, now we have two phones and uh I think we had it with a little over 3.5 files between those two phones just looking at uh the previous hunting season. Um and as soon as we started looking into them, it became apparent that there was a lot more than just a couple of deer that had been been spotlighted.

[00:10:25]>> So, you say just the last season, so I'm assuming that that has to do with um uh uh time of which you were able to prosecute somebody for.

[00:10:35]>> Right, staying within the statute of limitations.

[00:10:37]>> Okay.

[00:10:38]Could you have gone further back?

[00:10:40]>> Oh, I'm sure. The scope of the search warrant that we had was just for that last season, um but just based on what we did find, there's no doubt that this was not the first year uh that they had had done something like this.

[00:10:55]>> Okay. So, what did you find? What are those pictures specifically? When we chatted beforehand, I I was a little disturbed by what you told me. So, tell me about what specific actions you saw, species, lay it out there for me.

[00:11:12]>> You name it, it showed it. Um going through the pictures and videos on this, uh they had violations going back to turkey hunting, deer hunting, uh they were spotlighting uh in August shooting bucks in velvet all the way through duck season, shooting after hours, over limit, without licenses, uh >> [snorts] >> hunting over bait, uh conversations back and forth about bait piles need to get need needing to get refreshed. There were several animal cruelty issues um involving spotlighting and possums um on repeat occasions. There were videos of them kicking possums across cross fields, running them down, slamming them on pavement. Um they even had bobcat tagging violations and uh if you were to open the game book, close your eyes, and point at a page, chances are they've violated that rule.

[00:12:10]>> All right, so obviously brazen. Um Did they just So, they took some photos with game animals, deer, etc. Um but with the amount of photos that you say and the amount of files you say, um I can't imagine that they picked up all of them.

[00:12:29]Was there any just one waste?

[00:12:32]>> Yes, they uh they would pick up the bigger bucks. Um if uh their their MO was that the driver of the vehicle, the shooter, would shoot a deer um more often than not, he'd circle around and drop off the second person.

[00:12:49]Uh second suspect would run out to the field, take a picture, send it back to the first person, and if the first suspect thought it was big enough, they'd then drag it out and take it home.

[00:12:58]Um but quite a few deer they left out.

[00:13:01]Um a lot of the spotlighting complaints that we had, there'd be three or four dead deer out in the field that were just got left there.

[00:13:08]Um other ones which involved the bigger bucks, now they'd come back and pick them up, but it wasn't uncommon for them to shoot small bucks and does and just leave them out in the field. Um there's even one video where they shot a fawn that was still alive. They went out, grabbed it, threw it in the truck, took it and showed off to their friends before disposing of it later in the night.

[00:13:28]>> You just said it was still alive. So they So they wounded it, >> Yep.

[00:13:32]>> captured it, showed it off to their friends, and then dispatched it later.

[00:13:37]>> Went around the corner and came back without it.

[00:13:42]>> All right. So, now you have all this evidence, piles of evidence.

[00:13:51]Where do you go from here? Do you go back to the to the suspects? Do you go to try to find corroborating witnesses?

[00:13:57]Um where did that evidence lead you?

[00:14:00]>> Yeah. [snorts] So, at that point we went back to one of our suspects and conducted a follow-up interview in a more formal setting. Uh brought him to the sheriff's office in their interview room. Uh had him and his father sit down and uh I confronted him with some of the evidence that we had. Um at point he was willing to be a bit more upfront about what happened. Um admitting to some of the things that it was blatantly obvious that that they had done. Um and also talked to us about who else was out with them. Um as going through the phones and talking to the suspects, uh they would go to a party, drink until about midnight, uh which point they'd load the truck up and go drive around until dawn looking for um deer anything to shoot. Um so, there'd usually be several other people with them. So, at point we started identifying who else who were we seeing in the vehicle? Um is there if they're taking pictures and videos all the time?

[00:14:59]So, we're starting to try to put names to some of the faces that we're seeing over and over again, establish who else who else was there, who saw this happen, who else can we talk to.

[00:15:07]>> So, the other witnesses um that were in the vehicle on these at least one underage partygoer uh imbibing alcohol, driving, now operating a firearm, shooting animals.

[00:15:25]Uh I assume that the other witness in the vehicle did not operate a firearm or did not participate, or did they?

[00:15:33]>> We had We identified another juvenile that was seen with a firearm in some of the pictures, but talking to everyone there, sounds like they probably didn't shoot any deer.

[00:15:44]We also identified a female that was in the vast majority of the pictures and videos, who I who we identified as one of the suspects now ex-girlfriends.

[00:15:54]And given that she was there quite often, we made it a priority to make contact with her and to get statements from her.

[00:16:01]So we ended up interviewing her on two different occasions served her with a search warrant for her phone too, since she was seen taking pictures and videos. That provided us with additional evidence.

[00:16:13]>> Okay. So we have a juvenile and an adult who would go most nights to a party something get intoxicated drive around shooting animals and or committing some sort of cruelty.

[00:16:34]>> Mhm.

[00:16:35]>> Uh was there any I assume there there was probably other violations. So we've established that they've shot from a vehicle.

[00:16:42]>> Yeah, shot [snorts] from a vehicle, shot from a road.

[00:16:45]Of course, they had dozens of tagging violations, license violations, contributing to delinquency of a minor since one of them was a juvenile.

[00:16:54]Also several reckless handling charges.

[00:16:56]Based on the videos we obtained from them, it was not uncommon for them to just be driving down the road and start shooting a handgun out the window endlessly.

[00:17:06]Whether it was at an intersection with houses or out in the middle of a field somewhere.

[00:17:11]>> So this could have easily turned from shooting game animals and other animals um to possibly killing a human.

[00:17:23]>> Uh it's it wouldn't be unreasonable. Um just frankly based on the amount of driving, drinking, the hours involved, the farms involved, it it's amazing that they did not hurt themselves or someone else in the process.

[00:17:37]>> This is this is exceedingly brazen.

[00:17:40]>> It is.

[00:17:41]>> You said it earlier, you've been a conservation police officer for 12 years.

[00:17:45]Would you say that this is one of the most brazen cases you've had?

[00:17:51]>> Yeah. Uh certainly the most brazen spotlighting activity we've had. Just based on the frequency, the duration, um not really making any attempts to hide it. Um it's not like they were using night vision or suppressed weapons or anything like that. They were shooting at will, whether it was in someone's front yard or out on out in the country field. Um and they had videos at dawn of them driving essentially through a neighborhood and shooting rabbits out of someone's front yard.

[00:18:22]>> I'm having a hard time articulating myself just because I I can't even fathom what is going through somebody's mind to do these crimes. To to to say, "Hey, let's let's go out tonight. Let's get drunk and shoot something."

[00:18:37]>> Right.

[00:18:37]>> Or or shoot an animal or just shoot out the window for for giggles, essentially, for fun. This is They're not They're not going out and harvesting an animal to take home to put in the freezer.

[00:18:51]They're not having, you know, fellowship with with other hunters, fishermen, being good sportsmen. This is just >> It was it seemed like a just a desire to go out and shoot something.

[00:19:05]But even even more so than a desire. I mean, the these guys I mean, said they're doing it multiple nights a week um to the point that the the they weren't showing up for work. They thought it wasn't showing up for work in the mornings.

[00:19:18]He's having to beg his mom for gas money.

[00:19:21]I was looking at it through all the text messages and all.

[00:19:25]It's It was something that he was going to continue to do whether it affected him negatively or not.

[00:19:32]>> All right. So, we have two suspects, juvenile and adult.

[00:19:37]You bring charges how many How many violations? How many charges were you able to put forth before we head to court?

[00:19:45]>> Charges between the adult and the juvenile were right around 180 charges.

[00:19:50]The adult had right around 122.

[00:19:54]The juvenile had somewhere in the range of 56.

[00:19:58]Those were just the charges we went forward with. I mean, there were quite a few warnings on top of that. And just what we what we could prove was a fraction of what they allegedly did.

[00:20:09]And talking with witnesses, the ex-girlfriend, other people in the vehicles, the people he talked to, they said the the two of them killed between 70 and 100 deer at night that year.

[00:20:21]That's not including the the daytime hunting.

[00:20:25]They still did quite a bit of otherwise legal hunting where they still killed over limit and over bait and pretty much every other violation you can commit. But, yeah, the the charges that were made were a fraction of what they allegedly did.

[00:20:40]>> And and I think that's good to point out because a lot of times when we talk about cases on this show, we we know certain things, but there's a difference between what we know and what we can prove in court. So, making that distinction I think is important. So, when you get when you get to court, so you're you're at juvenile family court for one of them.

[00:21:00]How does that proceed? What is the judge Like, how do they react?

[00:21:06]>> Well, we started with the arraignment for the adult suspect.

[00:21:10]And with the 122 charges, the judge began reading every charge and asking how the defendant wanted to proceed. Um this was the first time I've been in a courtroom where the judge got less than halfway through reading the charges out. And at that point stopped, said it's been 30 minutes.

[00:21:33]Son, do you understand what you've been charged with? Okay, I'm going to stop reading these and not take up the rest of the court's time.

[00:21:39]>> They'd be there for the rest of today.

[00:21:41]>> would have taken well over an hour to read them all.

[00:21:44]>> All right. So, obviously it has impacted the judge just by the amount of charges that we have.

[00:21:50]>> We had to have special court sessions just due to the volume of charges and the size of the case.

[00:21:57]>> So, in the end, after all of this, um numerous violations, like you said, you could open up our regulation book and just like point and they probably violated it.

[00:22:13]How did it go in court?

[00:22:15]>> In court, the adult suspect took a plea agreement.

[00:22:20]That plea agreement essentially resulted in guilty pleas to to all the charges.

[00:22:26]Um he ended up with a sentence of 12 years jail time.

[00:22:32]That 12 years, 11 and a half of it was suspended and he ended up serving a 45-day active sentence.

[00:22:39]>> All right. [snorts] >> Um he also between Dinwiddie and Colonial Heights had his hunting rights revoked for 21 years.

[00:22:47]>> That's something.

[00:22:48]>> Yeah, so it's going to be quite a while be before he'll be legally hunting again.

[00:22:52]Um he also ended up with replacement costs, fines, restitutions, that were in the ballpark of 4,500 $5,000, somewhere around there.

[00:23:02]Um as well as some community service on top of it.

[00:23:05]>> All right. Now, switching over to our juvenile suspect, a little bit different court system, court case. How is that How does that play out?

[00:23:13]>> So, that one actually ended up going to trial. He was offered a plea agreement, but ended up turning it down.

[00:23:19]As a result of the trial, he was found guilty of a a majority of the charges.

[00:23:24]As a result of that, he ended up getting his hunting rights revoked for a 7-year period.

[00:23:32]Additionally, had almost $2,300 in fines and replacement costs.

[00:23:37]Was mandated to attend VASAP classes, alcohol safety classes in Virginia, as well as receive some court-mandated counseling.

[00:23:46]>> So, that's encouraging that the judge kind of acknowledged the need for that counseling, both regular court-mandated counseling as well as the VASAP, which typically is anything related to alcohol, whether it's a DUI or something to that offense. Since he was underage, >> Right.

[00:24:04]>> intoxicated, firing a firearm, >> making a plethora of poor decisions while under the influence.

[00:24:11]>> Absolutely. So, so both that that counseling as well as the VASAP, that that's very encouraging that the judge did that. Hopefully, with some counseling, this this young man will turn his life around.

[00:24:25]>> Right.

[00:24:25]>> Find a Find a different path.

[00:24:27]>> Right. Take Take the opportunity to learn a lesson and move move forward with it.

[00:24:31]>> Absolutely. As as a veteran of this department, what do you take away from this case as far as just like what sits with you at night?

[00:24:40]Because I've I've seen some of the footage that you've you've shown me, and and it's it can get It's a little bit haunting.

[00:24:49]>> So, what what stood out to me was just how brazen it was and how reckless it was.

[00:24:55]These guys weren't going out hunting for meat. They weren't even just going out hunting looking for >> a deer with big rack.

[00:25:02]>> Trophy deer.

[00:25:03]>> Yeah. It wasn't even trophy deer hunting. I mean, they were just out there looking to shoot something.

[00:25:08]Um, whether it was a deer, whether it was a possum, bobcat, waterfowl, it didn't matter. If they came across them, they were going to shoot it.

[00:25:16]>> Well, so speaking of that, you you've listed a handful of things. Tell me each animal. So, deer, waterfowl, um, any other birds?

[00:25:27]>> Uh, wood ducks.

[00:25:29]Um, circling back to how the whole case started, um, now they they had killed they had posted the a picture with 17 wood ducks. Uh, turns out they had killed 11 wood ducks that afternoon, uh, which is double the limit between the two of them.

[00:25:44]Um, and they had combined some wood ducks killed on a previous day to make their picture look better.

[00:25:50]Um, so now, a lot of it is now posted social media, uh, whether it's now on Facebook, Snapchat, etc. Um, they wanted to be able to brag about it.

[00:26:00]So, it was it was just reckless behavior. They wanted to do all they could to to brag about.

[00:26:05]Um, now [snorts] whether they're posting pictures of them, drinking while driving down the interstate, or shooting out the window, or posing with whatever they killed.

[00:26:14]They they just wanted to be able to brag about it.

[00:26:16]>> And when you say shooting out the window, I I remember seeing video of literally just holding a handgun.

[00:26:23]>> Oh, yeah. Just driving down the road, you know, discharging a handgun out of the window, just now for lack of better terms, mag dumping while they're driving down the road.

[00:26:32]>> All right. So, obviously this is probably a case that's going to stick with you for a while. Um, glad to see that the justice system took it seriously. There were serious charges.

[00:26:43]There were serious consequences, both with revoke revocation of the hunting license, as well as as uh, counseling, um, restitution.

[00:26:53]So, there was some justice there. So, that's that's encouraging to see in this case.

[00:26:58]>> was Yeah, encouraging results. Good to see that the judge took it seriously, the Commonwealth attorneys took it seriously. Uh, they were more than willing to help us out with the case and ended up going through a pro- prosecution and some some punishments that hopefully will stick with the suspects and discourage them from continuing that behavior.

[00:27:15]>> And that's always the goal, right? So, after the punishment not to do it again. And hopefully when they do get their hunting rights back, if that is an activity that they enjoy and that they do legally, that they can go back to that and >> Yeah, hopefully they can return to it in a lawful manner.

[00:27:35]>> manner. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you Officer Smith. I really appreciate you being with us today. Um, even if it's to talk about something as as just honestly really disturbing.

[00:27:47]Uh, but I appreciate you joining us, sharing the case with us, sharing the case with our audience, uh, and uh >> Thank you for having me.

[00:27:54]>> Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:27:56]Uh, [snorts] and thank you for watching another episode of Virginia True Wildlife Crimes. Remember, if you are out in the woods, if you see something, say something. Give us a call on our tip line. As you obviously heard from Officer Smith, we had a lot of folks calling in about spotlighting cases in Dinwiddie and that helped to narrow the search down a little bit. So, your calls do matter.

[00:28:16]Uh, if you like this episode or you like what you've seen so far, make sure to like and subscribe. And if you want to see certain topics talked about on this episode or this show, make sure to drop us a comment below and we will see you next time. Thanks so much for watching.