Bear Grease - Ep. 56: Genuine Outlaws - Covert Operations, Part 3

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

On this episode we’re going to the world of the covert operations of the government. Clay was able to get an interview with the undercover National Forest Service law enforcement agent that worked a sting operation on Louie Dale Edwards in Arkansas in the 1990s. We go into the details of the operation, how it went down and what caused it to fail. Secondly, Clay talks with Dr. Daniel Rupp about the anthropological reasons why western culture loves outlaws. It all stems back a general mistrust of power and a desire for the common man to stick it to the system. Clay finally gets his questions answered in his personal exploration of why we’re endeared to outlaws. This may be the coolest Bear Grease Podcast yet. Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. Start talking to people, told them that I was a bricklayer from Tennessee that recently moved here. My wife got a job in Hot Springs, and I like to do a little turkey hunting. And I actually ask a guy, hey, if you had the best turkey hunter around here, who would it be? I'd like to talk to somebody about turkey hunting.

He said, you need to talk to Louisdale. On this third part of our genuine outlaw series, we're going behind the veil into the realm of the covert operation. of the government. In a strange twist, we were able to get an interview with the federal undercover officer who worked a sting operation on Louisdale Edwards in the 1990s. The Edwards brothers, Charlie and Louis Dell, were notorious turkey hunting violators, moonshiner's, and could be straight up rough men, but were also beloved, respected men known for their honesty, genuine nature, and generosity. Some even described them as pure. I grew up knowing these men and am in a process of personal exploration of why I am endeared to them. We'll spend half of our time with this secret

agent and the second half with Dr. Daniel Rup as he lays out for us the anthropological foundations of why Western culture is enamored without laws. This whole series I've been trying to make sense of why we're often endeared to these guys who don't play by the rules, and its origins will surprise you. Of all the DadGub Bear Grease podcast we've ever made, this one I doubt you're going to want to miss. And hey, if you haven't listened to the first two parts of this series, which were bio-sketches of the Edwards brothers,

you might be lost with some of these characters, so be sure to listen to part one. and two. Ego is a very bad thing in the world of hunting and this particular group obviously the information I heard about them is they were very ego driven in their in their taking of animals they wanted to be the the ones that couldn't be caught. My name is Clay Newcomb and this is the Bear Grease podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant search for insight and unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.

Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Ludeau told story, and I heard this one strictly from Llew's mouth, he was at the house one day and a guy shows up at his house. And Ludel said, a big old tall, he said, a nice looking guy, strong built. and he said, he knocked on his door, and he went to the door, and Louie Dell said, hey, man, what can do for you? He said, I heard you're a turkey hunter. He said, I'm from Tennessee, and he said, I stopped down by the Big Fork store and asked around, and they said, you're the guy that would take me turkey hunting. This is two or three weeks for season. And Louadale says, well, you know, it's not. He said, I don't care. He said, if you'll take me here. He said,

can you take me? He said, sure, I'll take you turkey hunting. And he said, well, you'd be over here at 430 in the morning. And he said, next morning, old boy, was there at 4. And Louisdale said, he gives a boy some credit because they talk and everything. He said he was the best he ever heard on a turkey call with a mouth call. He said he was the best he ever heard. The best he ever heard. I'd like to introduce you to a man named Russ Arthur. That's his real name, but he hasn't always used it.

Russ is now 63 years old. and in the 1990s he was in his early 30s. Oddly, he fits the description to the tea that Louis Dale gave of this Tennessee turkey hunter. Russ is about 6'2 and kind of built like a retired 1980s WWF wrestler. And by my best estimation, and at least by one other hillbilly,

he's a nice-looking feller. When you meet him, you're struck by his genuine nature and he can't hide that he's as country as cornbread. Turns out he's an incredible voice mouth caller. No doubt, one of the best I've ever heard. It's kind of spooky. So you can, you mouth call, like with your physical voice? Sometimes if, yeah.

I want to hear your barred owl hoop. You got a yelp? That's just with his mouth. That's not a call. It's slightly unnerving sitting here. here talking to Russ after hearing Louis Dale's description of this strange man oddly appearing at his house in Arkansas. The Russ I'm talking to is a real man, clearly a real turkey hunter. He's a real bricklayer and he's really from Tennessee. Louis Dale and I talked to the same guy. But back

then he wasn't Russ. He was someone else. You see, Russ worked his entire career for the United States Forest Service law. enforcement division. And in the 1990s, he worked a stint of that time in Arkansas. He said it was one of the most memorable parts of his career, but he's been retired for almost a decade. After I did the first episode in this series, I had someone privately contact me and say, nobody in the community knows this, but I know the undercover agent who worked the case on Louisdale. I was giddy. I was able to contact Russ, drive eight hours to where he lived, and he agreed to talk to me as long as we didn't speak negatively about the Edwards family because he respected them as people. There were at least two undercover operations with the Edwards brothers, but none of it fully revealed until now.

Here's Andy with more of what Louis Dale told him about the incident. But he said, got ready to go. Oh, well, Lodil said, get your gun. And old boy said, well, where's your gun? He said, well, don't you worry about it, turkey goblin this morning? He said, I'll find a gun. But he loads him up and dropped him off and picked him up back east down there that morning. But they'd sent that old boy in there trying to get me to mess up.

Did he know the whole time that he was entertaining the undercover guy? He, suspicioned it the whole time. He suspicioned it the whole time, Andy recalled, but he may not have come up with this completely on his own, and some details will point to that he didn't suspicion it the whole time at all. Turns out Louisdale had some help from the community, but you'll have to wait to find out how. You remember retired Arkansas Game and Fish Game Warden Jimmy Martin from part one of the series. Here he is giving us some broader context into the undercover operations. on the Edwards brothers.

There were several operations over several years where we would have, like I say, people from the Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, different undercover agents would come in and... How would they get their name? I mean, would it be like... How would they get Louie Dell's name?

Yeah. My supervisor, and we communicated with Fish and Wildlife and Forest Service all the time. We used undercover agents all the time, just on Louisdale or they'd be used all over the state on different things like striper fishermen. We used them on when the whites were running up the river for netting, people that were netting fish, illegal bear hunting. The big one from my supervisor was Louisdale and Charlie. He wanted those people caught.

He wanted, you know, to be the one that look at me. I caught Louis Dale. Well, look at me, we never didn't make it. The most interesting part of all these interviews is hearing the different angles into the same story. We might be surprised to learn that they could have busted Louisdale. This next 20-minute interview with undercover agent Russ Arthur is one of the most unique I've been a part of. It was like talking to a ghost, to a man that didn't really exist. It was so interesting because I heard multiple stories of the brothers suspecting they'd entertained undercover agents,

but none of the agents ever surfaced, as they say in the business, until now. Here's retired Forest Service Law Enforcement Agent Russ Arthur. What years were you in Arkansas? I was in Arkansas 90 to 95. So I would have been 11 years old when you were over there. I think I remember seeing you. You're riding the Mew. He was riding the Mew.

I think he's actually riding it backwards. 90 to 95. How would people get selected to have a job done? on them. They would just have notoriety inside the communities, then the local guys couldn't catch them. I mean, is that how it would work? Well, that's part of it.

But, you know, when I moved to Arkansas, you know, keep in mind my number one job was not undercover work. Okay. It was just a probably 15, 20% of my work that I did when I was in Arkansas was undercover. A lot of it was just, you know, overt investigations of crimes on federal land. on Forest Service land, whether it be in the drug world or the timber theft world or the wildfire arson world.

So, you know, I was a criminal investigator that investigated all crimes out there. And occasionally, information would come in that we've got a need for an undercover operation. And there's several things that you have to look at. And I had a supervisor that was very familiar with that state. But information would come up through the field level, either. through other agencies or through our own agency of a need for potential undercover. And then there were a litmus test. He would go through to see and sit down and would say, hey, do we need to do this?

Is it worthwhile spending time on this? How egregious is it? Yeah. You know, all those things you have to go in. Is it dangerous? Is it something that's going to take a week? Is it something that's going to take it two years? So you have to look at that.

But a lot of that is word of mouth through communities, yes. So the local game ordens probably would, it just would have gone up to chain and the gaming fish that these brothers were killing more turkeys than they should have. Oh, yeah. I heard about these particular individuals for a year or two when I was out there. Okay. From the game wardens and from the local Forest Service officer. Okay.

Do you remember what they said? Did they give numbers to how many birds they were killing or anything? No, the only thing that I remember is these guys are killers and, you know, they need to be stopped and nobody can catch them. and it became a very apparent to me, and I'll still stand by this, that ego is a very bad thing in the world of hunting. I mean, I truly, truly believe that.

And this particular group, obviously, the information I heard about them is they were very ego-driven in their taking of animals. They wanted to be the ones that couldn't be caught. They wanted to be the ones that couldn't be caught. This lines up perfectly with what we've heard everywhere else. To the Edwards brothers evading the law was a game. To me, I don't want to say it's comical, but I want to ask you something.

If you're an officer, and let's say you and Joe are the only two officers in a 200,000 acre county, and 150,000 acres of that's federal land, 50,000 of that's private land, that's got cattle, ranches, farmland. your phone's ringing off the wall I've got a hawk that's dead over here I've got this that's going over here and you've got all this vast area over there is it really

an achievement that you can allude to people that are that busy you are obviously a good hunter when you go in the woods your senses go up you know how to read them out and say you're a pretty good navigator you've got a good sense of bearing

good sense of weather coming and going good sense of animal movement, you know where to go in and go out. Would it be that hard taking what these officers are up against to allude them? So I find it kind of comical

because I don't think that the common people in the community realize what officers are up against. Yeah. That's a mic-drop comment from Russ. Game wardens can't work 24 hours a day. They have days off. They have limitations.

and most of the time they have to be reactionary and not proactive in enforcing the law. As a little context, the United States Forest Service Law Enforcement Division is commissioned to enforce the law on the federal lands on which they have jurisdiction. Much of the Edwards Brothers hunting was done on forest service land. I asked Russ why the Forest Service was tasked to try to catch them, and he said the state game agencies and federal law enforcement often worked together on these type of project. and they just felt like he'd be a good fit on this case. It was that simple. Here's Russ describing how the sting went down. Do you remember, how did you engage the Edwards brothers?

Okay. It was very well known when I was in Arkansas, within my workforce, if you will, that I was an avid turkey hunter. So they obviously said, man, I think you... You're the guy to go do this turkey deal. Yeah, I mean, you know, you like turkey. You understand turkey hunters. And I was like, well, you know, is he charging people to hunt on national forests? Well, no, I don't think he is.

Him and his brother, they just kill everything they see. Well, why can't you catch him? Just can't catch him. Well, is he baiting? Well, I'm not sure if he's baiting turkeys or not. But rumor has it, he does walkthroughs. He'll get dropped off one place, picked up another, and he hides, guns, and stump holes. So you hear all these rumors.

I think it would have probably been 92, probably maybe 93. And my supervisor came to me and he said, do you want to give a shot? You know? And I said, yeah, we'll give a shot. And he said, well, let's lay a plan out. And you know how the government is. You have to have a plan for everything. So I drafted up a pretty generic plan.

And he approved it. and it consisted of, you know, playing on their ego. What I know about turkey hunters, there were very territorial over their hunting area. Probably more so than any other group that I know. So I had an undercover truck. I had a Tennessee tag on it. About a month before that turkey season, I started going out scouting in areas that I knew Louis Dale frequented hunting, knowing that he would probably see my truck.

just as a seed, if you will. I never ran into him in the woods, but I parked it at two or three different places predominantly that I knew that he would have to come by. Really? What would you do when you went? Would you actually walk out in the woods? Oh, yeah. I'd walk out in the woods, but I'd normally just turn around and watch my truck and see what

vehicles came by, see if anybody slowed down and looked at it. And I had vehicles slow down and look at it. And you'd park it with the license plate to the road. Oh, yeah, where you could see it. Yeah. And word would get out. There's somebody from Tennessee around here. Yeah.

What's the name of the little store down there? Well, the big fork mall is what they call it. Right. I ended up, I stopped in there two or three times and just to get a Coke and a pack of crackers and start talking to people, told them that I was a bricklayer from Tennessee that recently moved here. My wife got a job in Hot Springs,

and I like to do a little turkey hunting. And I actually ask a guy, hey, if you had the best turkey hunter around here, who would it be? I'd like to talk to somebody about turkey hunting. He said, you need to talk to Louisdale. and I said, who's that? You knew what he's going to say.

Yep. And I said, who, you know, I said, well, who's that? And would he, oh, yeah, he'll talk to you about turkey. He loves turkey hunting. Did this guy give you any intel that Louis Dale was a... Bye later? No, no. He just said, he's a turkey hunter.

Good turkey hunter. And I said, well, how'd I get in Dutch with him? He said, well, here, I'll call him. And he called him. He picked up the phone, and he called him. And he got him on the phone and put me on the phone with him. And he says, well, why don't you come up to the house? and he told me how to get to his house.

So he was real open to a guy from Tennessee. Yeah, yes, he was. Was that surprising? Well, I was hoping by then that his curiosity that he had already known there was somebody poking around. Because back then, everybody knew where everybody hunted. Yeah. And everybody knew what everybody drove.

Just a Tennessee tag back in there would have been super unusual. Exactly. And I knew that it was probably circulating around that community. and eventually it turned out that it was. That was the first thing he said when I pulled up in the front yard. He says, I wondered who that was. And so we just started having an exchange about turkey hunting. And I wasn't asking him where to hunt.

I told him I was just an avid turkey hunter, and I'd like to hunt some of the areas. I understood he was one of the best in the area. You know, by far didn't want to get into any areas that he hunted, but could he just give me some general. advice on hunting turkeys in Arkansas. And he ate that up. I told him, I said, man, I loved him.

I had some good friends I'd probably never get to hunt with again. And I know you're probably playing folks to hunt with it, but if you ever get time, I like to hunt with you. And we exchanged phone numbers. And you were a lot younger than him? Yeah, I was probably about 10 years younger than him, I thought. You know, we immediately had a connection there and everything. And that's how it got started.

The story that Andy and Russ both tell are incredibly similar, which is pretty wild considering the 30-year gap in Andy's story being second-hand. As Brent Reeves always says, if you want to get two different stories, ask two eyewitnesses to the same thing what happened. I'm amazed at how easily the details of stories can get messed up, but not so here. And hey, stick around until the second half of this podcast. when Dr. Daniel Rupp tells us why we love outlaws. Russ continues. And so you exchange phone numbers and then what happened? Exchange phone numbers.

I didn't want to be too pushy. I waited a week or two. The season was getting ready. It was about probably a week or two away. And I called him up and said, look, I'm going to come out scouting and do some listening. Do you want to go with me? He said, man, I ain't got, let's see that. First time he told me he didn't have time.

and then he called me back. And he said, yes. He said, if you can do it, it was either like a Tuesday or a Wednesday. One of the, it was in the middle of the week. I can do it the other day. So he actually called me back and reschedule the day. So I went over there before daylight, picked him up, and we went out. And he said, I'll tell you what.

He said, he told me where to let him out. He said, I'm going to walk this ridge out, show me on the map where you come out. He said, I'll walk this ridge out. And he told me where to go listen. and he said, then you can pick me up. And that's when I knew that he was beginning to trust me. He said, now look, when you pick me up, I don't want anybody to see me on the road. And when you pick me up, we drove the section of the road, I was picking him up.

He said, when you pick me up, there'll be a limb laying in the edge of the road, and you stop right there where that limb is, and I'll jump in the truck from there. He said, we don't need to let anybody see where we're getting in and out. I said, I understand that. So I didn't ask any questions, but that was just a scouting trip. That was our first trip. He had heard a couple of birds. I didn't hear anything.

And I told him. So you really went where you were supposed to go? Oh, yes. So you came back, gave him a report. Yep, come back, gave him a report. I didn't hear anything. Pretty country. What about you?

And he was excited. He had heard a couple of birds. And I said, well, I said, do you think anybody be hunting them opening day? He said, they may be hunting them opening day, but they may be dead before opening day. I said, okay. I said, I can understand that. And I just said, if you need any help, let me know. If you need any help, let me know.

It's hard to imagine the dynamics of what's going on here. Russ is trying to dupe a man that's extremely suspicious of the law and known for not getting caught. He's got to come across as genuine as he invites himself on an illegal preseason turkey hunt, which deep down he disdains the activity. It's an interesting mental space. You see, Russ is from a real deal turkey hunting family from Tennessee.

Let's step outside of this story, outside of this truck for just a second. I have a personal question for Russ about his motivation for doing what he's doing. I want to understand what he's feeling at that moment because it's not what he's letting on. What would you say your primary motivation inside of this? Because it's clear to me that you're a hunter yourself. You're deeply connected to where you grew up hunting. Is it a love for wildlife? Is it a love for justice?

What would you say would be a primary motivator for you inside of this? I guess you would have to say it's all wrapped up. And what I mean by that was I was very fortunate to have a mentor, my dad, who was very law-abiding, very structured in any and everything that he did. From growing up very little, we would hear about people that did other things. And I was taught, hey, respect this. And I was taught that it's the hunt, it's not the kill. And I just always, I've always lived that.

And in my opinion, when the kill becomes a more important thing, you're losing as a hunter. because there's a lot more things out there than the kill. And to go in and seize the total disregard for that, to me, it was despicable. I mean, it truly was. Very interesting. Now let's get back in the truck. Russ has just invited himself on a pre-season turkey hunt, and things escalate quickly. For you as an undercover guy, this must have been like,

this is music to your ears. Oh, yeah. But, you know, there was a lot of talk. You know, we spent five minutes here talking about it, but, you know, we had talked on the phone. We had talked in his yard. We had talked the first time. So, you know, then the second time, he took a gun. And the best I...

Before season. Yes. And the best I can remember, I'm wanting to think it was an old single barrel, but I really don't remember the gun. I tried not to pay a lot of attention to it. I didn't want to draw attention to it. of me looking at it, staring at it because it was four daylight. But I dropped him off and I picked him up. Did he say much about it?

He just got in a truck and he had a gun. Right. I said, hey, I hope this is okay with you. Hope we're not going to get in trouble. You won't get me in trouble. I said, look, I ain't going to get you in trouble. You know, I'm just out here from Tennessee, you know. So he was all good with it.

And I picked him up within 100 yards where I picked him up the first time. And I knew he hunted that same ridge. He didn't kill a bird. We talked about it. He said they wouldn't work and took him home. And that was that was that. Louis Dell left with the shotgun, but when he returned, he didn't have it. He told Russ he'd left it up on the point of the ridge.

This confirmed the brother's strategy of hiding shotguns in the woods, and if you remember, Stony Edwards told us that's how they evaded the law. Well, this time, the law was there. I honestly wished I had asked Russ if he ever felt any internal confliction working under cover, or perhaps remorse in playing someone in a good guy hustle. Working undercover is basically living a lie for a period of time for the greater good of the resource and justice. I know it's a dumb question,

but in that truck, Russ fabricated a story to gain the authentic rapport from this man. I'm not saying it was wrong. It's just a genuine question. I'm pretty sure he would have said, absolutely not. And there are ethics involved in undercover work. Like you can't entice someone to break the law when they maybe wouldn't have if you weren't there.

It's called entrapment. Like modern gay mordons can't put a boot and crocket-sized deer rack on a dummy deer on the side of the road. In that situation, your own dear sweet mama might even take a crack at that thing. Russ is now going to tell us how this thing finalized and fell apart. And it all went back to the community. community support that Louisdale had. Then, this is when things got interesting. One other time, we basically did the same thing in another area.

Now, you'll hear people say that he knew who I was. That second time makes me know that I know he didn't know who I was. Because he took a gun. The second time, yeah. You know, the first time, most people are under the misconception that, hey, if he was a law enforcement officer, already busted me. Right. So I, here I am the second time.

So to me, that kind of solidified that, you know, everything was good. Yeah. Now, same thing, didn't kill a turkey. I actually went back into the same areas that he hunted on by myself to look for corn, never did find any corn. And now's when the law enforcement structure of the Forest Service that bit me. There was a person in the community that was close to Louisdale that got wind of my actions out there.

Word got back from the community that this person within the Forest Service had been talking to Louisdale. And Louis Dale himself told me. He said, you know, I was told I better watch out for you. Okay. And I said, well, man, I don't know why. You know, I don't know why.

When he approached me about it, it was kind of like, I've been told to look out for you. You're just, you're just, something, something just ain't ride with you. I don't remember exact words. I've been told to watch out for you. And he just kind of slapped me on the shoulder like, I ain't worried about it. You're okay, you know. So I felt pretty confident that the cover was still there.

But do you want to continue and take the chance, you know? And no, we weren't scared of him. I wasn't scared for my life. He wasn't that type of people. The family was not that type of people, in my opinion. The danger would be that you're in a truck and he gets mad at you. your cover gets blown and he fights you or pulls a gun. I mean, like physical or something.

Right. Right. We had at least four or five different charges we could tag on him. And there were very few people at that time that knew about the operation. And I still have not pinpointed exactly who it was, but I've got my suspicions. And we tracked it down. And that's pretty much what the person told him. He says, you know, just be careful with that guy.

That's surprising. Because that's this particular person. was ingrained in the community, and there's still this mystique about protecting the outlaws in that community, you know? Incredible. Russ got ratted out from the inside. There was a mystique about protecting the outlaws in that community. We're about to talk with Dr. Daniel Rupp about why someone would do that. It's layered like an onion and fascinating. I thought it was very interesting that Russ never felt endangered considering the rough and tough past that we learned about these guys on part two. Here's Russ on what they could have prosecuted these guys on, but what they chose to do. My supervisor and I sat down and we did a review of the evidence that we had.

How long would this whole thing have taken a month? Probably a month. So you'd taken the truck over, you've done your seated. the idea, a guy from Tennessee, gone to the gas station. Yep. This is probably five or six trips over in that country. Exactly. And I wrote a report up on it, and my boss says, you know, we can take this forward. He said, but is it worth it?

You know, there's no commercialization. Nothing was killed. Is it worth surfacing, you know, who you are and what we did on such a minor infraction? You know, so that was, that is the. very and the only reason that we did not charge him federally. It just wouldn't have gone very far. Well, we would have prosecuted him. But for that level of violation, did you want to surface your identity as an undercover officer?

Yeah. And so you just kind of drifted out of his world. That's it. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. and there was a full of blood.

Oh my God, he doesn't have a head. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper,

from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness, and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest.

Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This young mouth call and turkey heel. Hunter from Tennessee just drifted out of Louis Dale's world. Apparently the tip and probably other stuff that happened gave Louisdale confidence to know that the guy was undercover. We know that from Andy's story. Here's Russ with a wild summary of small communities in the southern United

States. I also want to state that Russ intentionally had not listened to either part one or part two of the series before this interview. His conclusions are striking. Every small community, whether it's Western Carolina, Southeast Tennessee, North Georgia, Ozarks, Washington, you take small county USA where there is a prevalent big game that's being hunted, and you will find that family. Whether it's bear, whether it's big deer, whether it's turkey, you'll find that family that everybody loves that nobody wants to tell on. So you think this is a common scenario? It is. It truly is. Why do people love outlaws?

I don't know. Like I said, to me, I think it's funny because just what type of person does it take to allude a game warden that's got 200,000 acres to patrol, just beyond me. And you'll hear stories of, they kill a lot of them, they never let anything waste, and they would feed other people. This is not the Depression time. Yeah. I don't buy that. You know, just sit in times where you have to hunt for your food. And here's the thing.

I could give you family names right now of the Louis Del Edwards in about six different states. Boom, boom, boom. What are the characteristics of those people? Normally hardworking, God-fearing, you'll see them in church, active in their community, very family-oriented, just down-to-earth good people. What is amazing. You haven't listened to the podcast. No, no. And you just wrote the script for who Lou Dell and Charlie were.

But that's a... Minus maybe a few of those components, but for the most part. Want to get along with everybody? Well, do anything for anybody. Very compassionate. I mean, that's very common. They're compelling people a lot of times. Yep.

And the thing about it is, if you're a non-hunter, or even a part-time hunter, not as passionate as Edwards, and you look at somebody in your community with those characteristics, you don't want to get them in trouble. You know, if you're just looking at those characteristics without having the background and of a resource management perspective, you don't see it be a big deal if you're just a general Joe citizen. Because those are good characteristics for people to have in today's world, especially in today's world.

So it would be very easy to be, you know, compassionate toward them. I'll never forget interviewing Russ Arthur. after hearing his description from Louisdale, I'll be at secondhand through Andy. This is a good time for us to all get caught up on what's been going on if for some reason you're just getting here. Our first two episodes were bio sketches of the Edwards brothers who lived in the community that I grew up in in the western Washington, Wachita Mountains of Arkansas. Louisdale and Charlie were extremely colorful characters, beloved in the community by most, and I've been exploring why I like them.

They were known as notorious turkey outlaws. When I heard the sting operation was ratted out by someone on the inside, I felt a tinge of guilt. Because I've already declared my endearment to these guys. But I don't think that endearment would have made me compromise my value system. I've told this story from an honest perspective. I've been in search of how I could be so full of irony, paradoxes, and maybe straight up hypocrisy. You may recognize this clip. It's from the opening scene of the acclaimed 1970 movie The Godfather.

We'll see a pattern here that is very relevant. I went to the police like a good American. These two boys were brought to trial. The judge sentenced them to three years in prison and suspend the sentence. suspended sentence. They went free that very day. I stood in the courtroom like a fool. And those two bastards, they smiled at me.

Then I said to my wife for justice, we must go to Don Corleone. Why didn't you go to the police? Why didn't you come to me first? What do you want to me? Tell me anything. What do you want to me? for justice i must go to don corleone in this film the common man an immigrant to the united states went through the courts for justice the highest power in the land but he couldn't find justice

he couldn't trust the powers on top he had to turn to the mafia to the outlaws who lived outside the systems of power here's dr daniel Rup, an anthropologist and long-time hero of the Bear Grease podcast to help me sort all this out. Dr. Daniel Rup, man, you know that inside of this series I have been in an exploration of something inside of me that I know is inside of a lot of people. That is this magnetic draw in some situations to be drawn towards people who push the envelope, break the law. I mean, you can't turn on television or Netflix without seeing these, like, rebels that we love. I don't know if that's an American thing fully or if that's a humankind thing, but why do we love outlaws? They don't write movies about people who follow the rules.

You know, we're not captivated by stories of folks who do. There's only one guy who ever did that. They made a movie, Mr. Rogers. So why do we love the bad guys? Yeah. Because in the West and specifically in the modern or the postmodern West, deep down, the bad guys are actually the people who are on top in power making the rules. We just, we don't trust them. We're not sure we like them.

We really hope to get somebody in there that's kind of like us if we could. But we don't have a lot of hope and ever changing who's on top. So the bad guys, kind of the common man, the rebel doing as good as he can. You know, it's kind of like the Dukes of Hazard, which you brought it up in one of the, that's really appealing to us because they're not really the bad guys. The real bad guys are the folks who are on top. And this kind of- Boss hog, boss-og, that guy, the ones that are in control of the resources

who are making the rules, who are kind of laying the playing field out, we're forced to play their game. And the folks who refuse to play that game are inherently our heroes. People who refuse to play the game or live by the laws instituted by those on top are often our heroes. This is getting interesting. And it's going to get more interesting when you hear the foundations of where this comes from in Western society. And this whole line of thinking is actually in the scope. of human history is actually relatively recent and has a little bit of...

Really? Yeah. So it has a little bit of a surprising source. Even though today, the kind of the political and governmental structures that followed Karl Marx's thinking have in mass been basically objectively proved as irrevocably a failure, communism, the vast majority of us view the people on top, the people in power. the people in power, the people who have the resources and set the rules, we view them through a Marxist lens, that the way forward, the way for change is for a revolt and for an overthrow.

And Marx, when he was writing in the middle of like 1800s, almost immediately you saw in several European nation, revolutions, all of which failed. And so part of the thinking back then was if, you know, if the common man could just gain power in mass and redistribute everything, communism, then would all be great. And who knew that didn't go very well. Yeah. But nonetheless, that seed. That same seed of if the common man could have power. If the common man could get into that place of power, he would know what to do. He would know. And, and, things would be made right. And really the way forward is the common man gaining power. So the way forward or progress or hope or, you know, you might say salvation for any given individual is to

revolt against whatever powers that be. If the common man could gain power, this is fundamental to the understanding we're building about why we love outlaws because they are the common man, that is fed up with the systems of power, just like the guy that went to Don Corleone, the godfather. So you drove over here and you didn't, you probably don't remember deciding to put on your blinker. You probably don't remember deciding to go a little bit over the speed limit, but not too much. But in every, every single day, you're engaged with law and you're thankful that it's

there. But yet, every single day, you, like all the rest of them. of us feel injustice and oppression and disproportionately distributed, Marx would say, economic capital. You feel social and cultural capital and the pull on it and the tension for it and the competition for it. And so having a power up top that is evil and bad makes sense. And if we're honest with ourselves, of course, and we look at history, a lot of times the power up top is evil and bad. But then sometimes when you've got this bad game warden,

he's not even a bad guy. And if you probably sit down to lunch with him, you'd probably actually really like him. So then it's not him personally, but it's the system that he works for. So that's how these gentlemen, like Louis Dell and Charlie, they can relate with this one game warden who genuinely, clearly, you can

tell he cared for them. And he did. But he kind of represents this system of law and he's doing his job. And they're representing another thing that society needs, which is individuals who make things a lot more simple and a lot more black and white. My life is super complicated. I've got rules to follow. I've got multiple bosses. I've got different social pressures and relational kind of strains. And all of a sudden, when I can look somewhat from afar, I'm not too closely associated with this particular outlaw. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So I'm looking somewhat from afar, and I see, here's a person who sees it like it should be seen. And they stand up against the man. Yeah. And they may not follow every law, but there's a law there. Their own kind of law, you know, and they're going to follow after that. We're just drawn to that. We kind of want to do that, too.

Of course. And, but we can't because we live in the real world, a lot more complicated. Just like the further you went on the biographical sketches of these gentlemen, they lived in a real world. And we would kind of like to think of them as the wonderful things that they did to the people around them and how they kind of gave it to the law and stuck it to the man. But they're also real people with messy lives. Just like you would like to, you know, I thought it was kind of funny when you're like,

wait a minute, he wore tennis shoes. Yeah. So we like to project on individuals what we really really. wish we were. And every single one of us, because we're enlightenment thinkers, and for us, postmodern, enlightened, quote-unquote thinkers, we want to give it to the man. And Karl Marx articulated that. And that's an American thing or Western thing?

It's a Western thing. It is a Western modern thinking. So if we did this story in a Chinese version, what would they think? Well, the Chinese version would want a very. a very powerful ruler on top that was far away. So there's a Chung Yu or a Chinese saying that translated English means the emperor is high above and far away. Wow.

So the emperor, he's there. He's high above. He's way above us. But thankfully, he's far away. So him being there provides stability. It provides security. But he's far away. So we don't really have to interact with him a lot.

but we won him there. Hmm. So this is why... So they wouldn't like an outlaw. They wouldn't like an outlaw, and the idea of a revolution would be entirely unsettling. Whereas most of our

stories and songs, when you were talking about a little bit earlier in American history, think about like the 50s, the 60s, and 70s. I mean, everything's a revolution. Yeah. And even now, today, we have society puts forth

these causes or these movements that are revolutionizing in nature. Yeah. Everything's a revolution. Everything's. And if you don't align yourself with one of them, who are you? Why?

How could you not do that? How could you not join that movement? How could you not? Because deep down people see revolution as the way forward. There's a power in place that's corrupt and it needs to be brought down. There is a power in place that needs to be brought down. You may be asking yourself if you fit. this description, and it's certainly a generalization that generally applies to Western culture.

It would be stronger in some, but it pops up in some areas and not in others. You may not have a problem with slow traffic lights, but despise referees and basketball games. And if we're being honest in hunting culture, game wardens are typically seen as the bad guy or the adversary, even though we all know this isn't true. They're the good guys. I am interested in the things that drive us and make us see life that we're completely unaware of. Yes. And that's why when I am intrigued and just love and kind of make heroes, Louis-Dell and Charlie Edwards.

Oh, yeah. At the time I was a kid, yet I also knew that I was not permitted to be like them in a lot of ways. And that's bizarre. So now that I'm adult, it's like, wait, how does this work? Yeah. Hey, Dad, hey Gary, tell me how this works again? So, Juju would never have been okay with you behaving like them. But you and Juju both look and recognize that the system is fallen.

The system is broken. The system is injustice and to some degree corrupt and needs to be overthrown. And then you look across the other side of your hometown and you see these two guys who in their way are living outside the system. Outside the system that we're being controlled. We're being controlled by. And you and I either don't have the guts or the means or life is actually more complicated than that. And I look at these people and because I want someone who's outside the system, I see that. And in reality, they're probably still in the system.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. But my mind makes an outlaw because I've lost faith in the law to begin with. Yeah. And so all of a sudden, these guys are my heroes, even if I would never act like them. Or even, yeah, even if we would reject what they did. I mean, like, we were never okay with somebody killing a bunch of turkeys in our home county. No, or just even the idea of, it seemed like every time there was the least little altercation or kind of argument with somebody, everybody armed themselves immediately with a gun.

I was like, oh my gosh, you know, I hope we're a rough men. You know, no kidding. You know, we would never do that, you know, just sheer firearm safety. We carry concealed. We have permits now for that. But that kind of mindset. Listen to this. So Juju, bringing up Juju on the Barry's podcast.

I didn't mean to bring up your mom. No, for real. The other day, she texted me and said, hey, we just found out that your great, great uncle, something on the Newcomb side went to prison for moonshine. It was like a new discovery in the Newcomb family. Scandal. They kind of started looking.

And now her dad. Dad went to juvenile jail when he was young for being a part of a moonshine operation. I remember. When he was like 16 or 17. Yeah. But on the Newcomb side, in anyway, she literally wrote back, why are we proud of this? I mean, we're not into hard liquor. I mean, like, I'm never going to make moonshine.

I'm never going to live a lifestyle of moonshine drinking. But yet, for some reason, oddly, I like want to tell people that. My great-great-uncle, Thomas Newcomb, went to prison for moonshine. That's bizarre. Hey, Dr. D. Why'd you have to bring up my sweet mother, Juju, in the Outlaw episode? How about we talk about your mom? Sorry, Juju.

The thing that makes us love outlaws is fundamentally a suspicion of power and people making the rules. Outlaws live outside the boundaries of the law and revolt against the system. Deep in our cultural DNA is something that screams that this is good. It's stronger in some than in others. Dr. Dan is about to talk about suspicion of power in politics, and it's relevant because that mechanism is the exact same one that makes us love and outlaw. Basically, every political party in the United States that has gained power is basically saying the folks before did it awful, and we're going to.

do it better. We're going to drain the swamp or we're going to we're going to make it better or we're going to undo what they did. This is the song every single time. This is the song and dance of every political candidate forever. And now our suspicions are growing even worse and we're subsequent generations are going to most likely be even more suspicious of politics from both sides. It's wild that we just keep biting the same hook. And that's the irony of the quote unquote enlightenment and progress is in a way we make these leaves and bounds forward but in another way as humanity it seems like we've just developed more intricate ways to not trust one another and then we're left with heroes that live in kind of a gray area if you look at our stories like the

kind of the stories and the songs that we sing as a culture our heroes are broken whether we like it or not, because we can identify with that. The irony of modernity and progress is that we may have cars, nice houses, and fancy clothes, but continue to be utterly lost in finding ways to unite for the common good. Now, that's an interesting thought. I had another question for Dr. Dan. I should have asked him about his mama, but I didn't. So is there anything redemptive and valuable inside of revering an outlaw?

Definitely. So you've at least got two things that are very valuable inside revering an outlaw. One is the systems that we are all a part of are imperfect. And so we don't want to accept those or live within those without stepping outside of them and looking at them. So revering an outlaw. He's the guy that's on the outside that's looking back that has the gall to really call out the system. Yeah. So in a sense, you're gaining objectivity.

You know, you're gaining a... Even though it's a far pendulum swing. Sure. Like, I'm not going to go kill a bunch of turkeys. Someone that calls us, there's a way to live that's outside the system helps people that are within. Society is made of systems. So the problem isn't that we have systems. The problem is that we have systems that we're in that we're not aware of.

Is this a healthy thing inside of a democracy where the idea is that the people rule, the people make law? And so you would have these periphery of people and there would be some people outside of that circle that would be constantly challenging the system. So in a sense, a democracy would be a conglomeration of outlaws. So they, they, these this conglomeration, this mob of people get together. and together they decide on a set of rules, usually the least limiting rules possible to maintain a certain amount of social order on which, at a day-to-day basis,

they can go about and do whatever they want. So they want the least amount of interference from the state as possible. Yeah. But they want enough interference that is not total chaos. If you just pop out of the box and your whole, you're going to obey the rules like without question,

And this is a gray area, man. Big time gray area because we're supposed to obey the rules. The rules are what makes it safe. I believe that. That's the way I live. But there comes a point when the rules, in many times throughout history, where the rules were bad, and it took breaking laws to get the thing back on track. And that's the, I said there are two things that are valuable. That's the second thing.

The system most often, in some way, shape, or form needs to be pushed. I want to put this discussion into context. We're now looking out far beyond the boundaries of wildlife violators back to my original big question of why we revere outlaws. We're not saying that people need to violate game laws so that agencies will make game laws more just. Nope. We're now talking about outlaws as an archetype and their general function inside of a democracy. Now that we got that cleared up, let's take the discussion back to the Edwards brothers for one final analysis. I think this sums it up for me.

In a sense, it's almost as if these two men full on went after whatever they were doing. And they thought those mountains were their home and what was in those mountains belonged to them. and who's this foreigner coming from outside or this person that I might know personally in respect, but enacting foreign laws like from a different spot to come in and tell me what I can do with these turkeys or what I can do at this particular time of year. I'm not going to stand for that. And so I'm going to do what I think is right. And what I also think is right is loving my family and loving my neighbors. And by the way, what I also think is right when that person prank calls me,

me, I'm not going to stand for that. And I'm going to go full on. I think another thing that's very appealing about these outlaws like this and these two gentlemen maybe in particular is just they're kind of, they're full on nature. Every single thing that they did, they seem to go all the way at. Man, that I keep going back. And they threw themselves into it. And I think one of the big, that's one of the things that probably makes them the most

human. When we look at them, we see them outside the system. They're not just outside the game and fish laws. They're outside normality in that most people we know don't full tilt, throw themselves into everything. We're not doing that. And I think one of the realities of the industrial revolution is that we become a cog in the wheel and we kind of accept our fate and we just go about life and we do our, and we pay our mortgage, and we, and deep down, we know that life is supposed to be more than that. And so one of the things that we see when we look at an outlaw is not just somebody who's outside the system or above the law or going against corrupt power. We see a person that gives everything they got. That's going for it. And we love that. And that is,

we all want to be that. We all want to be that because as an artifact, that's what we were made to be. We were made for more than just to cog in the law. the wheel. The way I described it was that their sense of identity was very strong. I'm very interested in identity, very interested in people that live out the functionality of their identity in accurate ways. Not to say that their version of who they were was accurate. I look at those guys and I admire their certainty and I admire their, how they functionalize their identity. And I think that the genuine nature in which they functionalized their identity was powerful. And I took some heat for it, but it's like a template for like, I want to be, I want to be that certain.

Well, it's revolutionary to not let society or the world define you. Now, everybody in our day and age is, you know, define yourself and become your authentic self. The problem with the vast majority of people is if you lay that question before me and say, hey, well, you can go ahead and define yourself deep down that's super disconcerting because I have no idea who I'm supposed to be or who I am. But when you look at people like Louisdale and Charlie, they appear to, now it may have been imperfect, but they appear to have known who they were. And they would not allow the system to define themselves. And whatever aspect of who they were in whatever realm, they would go full on after. That's why people loved them. And that's why people love them.

Man, what a discussion. This one really summed it up for me. We've been on a wild ride as we got behind the veil with undercover agent Russ Arthur, who I am forever grateful to as we learned about the sting operation by the Forest Service. We learned how Louis Dale's strong community alliances helped him evade the law, and we finally answered the question I've been after this whole time. We love outlaws because of an innate distrust of power, that's deep inside the Western worldview.

And that spurs a desire for the common man to stick at two systems of power that we deem unjust. This outlaw archetype can play itself out in the big picture or the small picture and in any part of our life. As we come to a close, I'm perplexed and enamored by human nature. I love guys like Russ Arthur, who have dedicated their lives to enforce just laws and protecting wildlife so that all of us have an opportunity to have great experiences

in wild places. Law and order are what have made this country what it is, and these are admirable folks. And in the exact same breath, an artifact of my past makes me somewhat hat-tip to the outlaw archetype, not wildlife violators, not poaching, those actions we outright reject. But the hat tip is because of the role the outlaw has played in human history. Most of our heroes are in some way outlaws that stood against a prevailing system of unjust power. Most of these people would have been considered criminals at their time, but they're now heroes. Many stories of men recorded in the Bible were textbook outlaws. Now this is some metaphorical stuff, but metaphors are powerful medicine when used correctly. But in my best

image of myself. I'm an outlaw against the negative trends of the age. In every generation, there are things that push society, and I think quite intentionally, to be something that is ultimately detrimental to society, whether it's patterns that degrade family structures, degrade our collective work ethic, our integrity, or push us to distrust people different than us. The trend of the age has told us that spirituality is primitive and outdated. as an example, which I outright reject. I'm always interested in pulling something positive from the stories we tell on this podcast, and I think these real stories of our past are important for our future.

My, oh my, I can't thank you enough for listening to the Bear Grues podcast. I truly thank the Edwards family and their friends for so generously opening up the stories of their family to us and trusting us. I truly hope that this produces good stuff for all involved because these stories are meaningful and valuable to me personally, as these men influence my life and continue to do so. We look forward to meeting with you again next week on the Bear Grease Render. Please leave us a review on iTunes and share some of this stuff on social media

and share the Bear Grease podcast with one of your Hill Breast. Billy or yuppie friends this week. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors,

where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together.

He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.