GREEDY, GREEDY, GREEDY

By Sgt. John J. Barker

At approximately 8:30 p.m., on the night of January 2, 2003, I was taking it easy with my family at home, when Sr. Agent James Parish contacted me with some interesting information. Several shots had allegedly just been fired in a soybean field off the end of Beasley Road near Manifest in Catahoula Parish. Agent Parish was in route to check out another complaint and therefore unable to respond. I quickly got dressed and rushed to the area, armed with the above information and a vehicle description.

When I arrived in the area I observed a pickup truck, matching the suspect vehicle description, exiting Beasley Road. I executed a stop on the vehicle and found it to be occupied by two male subjects. No firearms, spotlights or anything else interesting were found in the truck. However, both subjects acted somewhat suspicious, and one of them stated he had shot a .22 caliber rifle out his back door of this house at the end of Beasley Road just for fun. Both vehemently denied having shined or shot any deer that night.

By that time, Agent Parish had finished up his detail and was able to come assist me with my situation. Once Agent Parish arrived, I was freed up to do a little digging and investigating. I traveled to the subject’s house at the end of Beasley Road and asked his wife if he had shot a firearm out their back door. She stated he had not, and that if he had, she would have known. Through further investigation, I learned the subjects had traveled by pickup truck into the soybean field at the end of the road. A spotlight was being shined from the vehicle, several shots were fired, and a deer was heard bleating, turned around. I made a couple of loops on foot but found no spent ammunition, blood, hair, or deer. I did notice several fresh deer heads with nice sets of antlers in the subject’s yard.

I then traveled back to the scene where Agent Parish was detaining the subjects. Upon further questioning both subjects admitted they had shot a deer in the soybean field around the time we had received the complaint. One of the subjects took me directly to the dead yearling button buck deer, which was still lying In the field not far from where I had found the vehicle turn-around tracks. When searching earlier, I had not circled quite far enough out to find the deer.

The two-hour investigation case, led to both subjects providing written statements and being issued a pile of citations.
It was an interesting investigative case. Most interesting though were the circumstances that led the subjects to do their dirty deed.
I could not understand why someone, who had recently killed the type deer I saw lying in his yard, would want to shoot a yearling deer at night, so I asked him why. He stated he had legally hunted a particular “MONSTER” buck all year long to no avail. He knew several other people in the area were heavily hunting the same deer. He stated some of those people had ragged him about not being able to kill the deer. The subject had seen the big buck at night in that field several times that year, and finally greed got the best of him.

The first thing he saw when he entered the field that night was the monster buck. The only problem was that the big dude was with several other deer. Once they were within range in the truck, he held the spotlight on the big boy and squeezed the trigger on the .270 caliber rifle. Big boy ran off. The Yearling buck fell to the ground. Both subjects then walked out to the deer when they finished it off with a .22 caliber rifle.
So, not only did he not get the monster buck, he also got caught by the game wardens. Now that is bad luck! He should not have been quite so greedy! By the way, both rifles and the spotlight were located at his residence and seized along with the yearling deer.