Chasing Evil: Pursuing Dangerous Criminals with the U.S. Marshals

By William J. Sorukas Jr.

Chasing Evil tells the story of the evolution of modern fugitive investigations within the United States Marshals Service and the pursuit of notorious criminals Andrew Phillip Cunanan, Rafael Resendez-Ramirez (The Railway Killer), the Texas Seven, and John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, better known as the Beltway Snipers. It describes outstanding investigative effort, new technologies, camaraderie, partnerships, tragic and brutal murders, and the enthusiasm, emotion, and passion during these intense investigations.
Chasing Evil takes you through high-profile investigations for a serial killer, spree killers, escaped inmates, domestic terrorists, cop killers, and desperate criminals. It describes the progression of America’s oldest federal law enforcement agency into the most successful and respected fugitive investigative organization in the world.
Recognized historically as part of the lore of the Old West, the U. S. Marshals Service has played a critical role in the outcome of some of the most important investigations in the past forty years. Since 1979, the U. S. Marshals Service has partnered with local, state, federal, and international agencies to bring the most violent and dangerous fugitives to justice.
The cases intersect with communities from San Diego, where spree killer Andrew Cunanan was raised, to our nation’s capital, where the Beltway Snipers created fear and chaos during a three-week period in October of 2002. The murderous path of the Railway Killer across six states and into Mexico, over 13 years, is examined and detailed. After escaping from a Texas prison, the Texas Seven killed Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins on Christmas Eve before leading law enforcement on a month-long chase which ended in the mountains of Colorado.
Although separate investigations, these men had several traits in common. Each one of them was dangerous, violent, and evil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665530941

William J. Sorukas Jr.

William J. Sorukas, Jr. served in law enforcement for 31 years, retiring as a Chief in the Investigative Operations Division with the United States Marshals Service. He has been assigned to numerous high-profile investigations and assignments, earning notable awards and honors. He was presented with the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award in 2007 and a Top Cop Award by the National Association of Police Organizations for his investigative effort in the “Beltway Sniper” case. He received the Award for Heroism from the San Diego Federal Executive Association. During his career, he was recognized by Attorneys General Edwin Meese, Richard Thornburgh, Janet Reno, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, Michael Mukasey, and Eric Holder. From 1986 to 1998 he served in the San Diego office, rising to the position of Supervisor and Coordinator for the Fugitive Group of the San Diego Violent Crime Task Force. From 2006 to January 2014, he served as the Chief for both Domestic and International Investigations. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Criminology from Indiana State University in 1982. He is a graduate of the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, U. S. Marshals Service Basic Training, and USMS Special Operations Group Basic Training. He graduated from the DoD Technical Surveillance Counter Measures Course and the 40th Session of the Senior Management Institute for Police with the Police Executive Research Forum. In 2010, he served as a Senior Fellow to the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He is a member of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, National Sheriffs’ Association, International Association of Chiefs of Police, U.S. Marshals Service Association, and serves on the Board of Directors for the U.S. Marshals Survivors Benefit Fund.

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Copyright © 2021 William J. Sorukas, Jr. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

The views and opinions expressed in this book are my own and do not necessarily reflect the view, official policy, or position of the United States Marshals Service or the Department of Justice.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/08/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3087-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3086-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3094-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021913485

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1: The Evolution of Modern Fugitive Investigations in the United States Marshals Service

Part 2: Johnaton Sampson George: Murder and Escape

"Units on all Frequencies on a Rebroadcast…

Johnaton George is in Custody"

Part 3: Andrew Phillip Cunanan: Murder

Apres moi, le deluge

Part 4: Rafael Resendez-Ramirez: Murder

Something Evil Dropped In

Part 5: The Texas Seven: Escape, Murder and Robbery

You haven’t heard the last of us yet

Part 6: John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo: Murder

Code: Call Me God

Part 7: Conclusion

Acknowledgements

References

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the 5,299 officers

whose lives were lost in the line

of duty during my 31 years in law enforcement.

On January 11, 1794, United States Marshal

Robert Forsyth was killed

as he attempted to serve civil process to a man in

Augusta, Georgia, becoming the first federal law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty.

Special recognition is made to the more than 300 U.S. Marshals, Deputy United States Marshals,

Special Deputy U.S. Marshals, and administrative

employees who have made the ultimate sacrifice since the

creation of the United States Marshals Service in 1789.

"Certainly, there is no hunting, like the hunting of man,

and those who have hunted armed men long

enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."

-Ernest Hemingway

Foreword

F OLLOWING THE KIDNAPPING AND MURDER of my precious son Adam on July 27, 1981, I became frustrated with the lack of law enforcement protocol and legislation for investigating missing children. The tragedy experienced by Reve and I had been a reality for many other victim families, and we decided to do something about it, forming the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center. Our work resulted in the passage of the Missing Children Act of 1982. In 1983, the Missing Children’s Assistance Act amended the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 and provided assistance to locate missing children. In 1984, we merged our organization with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children but continued to encounter legal and bureaucratic barriers.

As part of our effort to represent victims of missing children and other crimes, I became the Host of America’s Most Wanted in February of 1988. We saw very early in the development of the show that relationships with law enforcement agencies would be critical in apprehending dangerous criminals and recovering missing children. One of those agencies that I would develop a lasting partnership with was the United States Marshals Service. As I met investigators from the Marshals Service in the early days of the show such as Bob Leschorn, Art Roderick, Tom Figmik, Jim Sullivan, and Ed Stubbs, I quickly understood the importance of their connection to AMW, and the enormous success of the program. I learned that regardless of the day of the week, or time of day, the U. S. Marshals were always prepared to saddle up and respond to information from our viewers. They had fugitive task forces across the United States and partnerships with thousands of state and local law enforcement agencies. The relationship between America’s Most Wanted and the U. S. Marshals established a partnership that lasted 25 seasons and 1,093 episodes until the final show in 2011, resulting in the apprehension of nearly 1,200 fugitives and the recovery of 63 missing children.

As the show continued to grow in popularity, I supported the U. S. Marshals by lobbying with members of Congress to enact legislation that would provide formal authority for fugitive task forces and in 2006, the passage of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. This provided the authority for the Marshals Service to apprehend non-compliant sexual offenders and conduct investigations for missing children. After the passage of this legislation, congressional funding followed, and the United States Marshals Service further established itself as the law enforcement leader for locating and apprehending dangerous fugitives. I was thrilled to be recognized as an Honorary United States Marshal, an honor bestowed upon a small number of others which include President Ronald Reagan, actor James Arness, and Astronaut James Reilly.

One of the U. S. Marshals who understood the important contributions of America’s Most Wanted and a weekly attendee for the airing of the show for many years was Billy Sorukas, who authored this book, Chasing Evil: Pursuing Dangerous Criminals with the U. S. Marshals. Although the motivation differed, Billy and I shared a common objective of locating dangerous fugitives and recovering missing children. In Chasing Evil, he captures the important work of the Marshals Service and their law enforcement partnerships, the dedicated work of America’s Most Wanted, and the critical contributions of the public in locating some of the most notorious, violent, and dangerous criminals in the modern age of America’s oldest federal law enforcement agency. He tells the stories of the intense and determined investigations of the Texas Seven, the Beltway Snipers, the Railroad Killer, Andrew Cunanan, Johnaton George, and the deadly and violent acts committed by these evil criminals. He describes the investigative process, vision, innovation, and utilization of technology by the Marshals Service beginning in October of 1979 and the evolution of fugitive investigations.

My relationship with the U. S. Marshals Service continued after America’s Most Wanted as I ventured into new television projects pursuing criminals and seeking missing children, with programs such as The Hunt with John Walsh and In Pursuit with John Walsh. I thank the United States Marshals Service and Billy Sorukas for their dedication, persistence, and tireless effort to apprehend the most dangerous criminals, locate missing children, and partnering with America’s Most Wanted, The Hunt, and In Pursuit, and for their willingness to always saddle up.

- John Walsh

Abbreviations

Introduction

I WAS BORN AND GREW UP in South Bend, Indiana, in the morning shadow of the Golden Dome and the University of Notre Dame. In 1960, South Bend had a population of about 135,000 and was known for the St. Joseph River, Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing, Singer Sewing Company, Bendix Corporation, and notable people such as Schuyler Colfax, Reverend Edward Sorin, and coaches John Wooden and Knute Rockne.

Our neighborhood was typical for the 1960s, and many of my friends were gifted athletes including David Magley, who was selected as Indiana’s Mr. Basketball in 1978. I can still hear his father yelling at him each evening as David honed his ball handling and shooting skills at the West Haven Park basketball court until well after the sun went down. He went on to play at the University of Kansas and was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round of the 1982 NBA draft. Growing up, I primarily played baseball and of course basketball, which is a requirement and state law for any child raised in Indiana. I attended St. John the Baptist grade school and St. Joseph High School before venturing off to Terrible (Terre) Haute and Indiana State University where I earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminology. Comedian Steve Martin once called Terre Haute, Nowhere USA. The best thing about attending Indiana State University in the Fall of 1978 was that it was the senior year for Larry Joe Bird, who would take the Sycamores and a 33-0 record into the national championship game against Magic Johnson and Michigan State University. Michigan State won 75 – 64 and Bird scored 19 points in the loss to the Spartans.

At an early age, I was diagnosed with a mild form of epilepsy where the seizures would occur as trance-like episodes lasting short periods of time. There was no advance indication as to when they might happen or how long they would last. Many of my friends observed the seizures at some point, which resulted in some ridicule and joking. From their perspective, I would suddenly stare off into space, losing the ability to understand what was taking place around me, momentarily. I was treated by a local physician in South Bend for several years and although the seizures were controlled by medication, I was fearful for a long time that an episode may occur at a most inopportune time such as while I was driving on the Indiana Toll Road or staring at a 90-mph fastball coming at my left temple from sixty feet, six inches away. As I began my law enforcement career, the fear and possibility of the seizures recurring was always present and continues to this day.

My father entered the United States Navy at the age of 17 after graduating from South Bend Central High School and was assigned to several bases and ships during a three-year tour. We briefly lived in California before returning to South Bend where he went to work for a local tool and die company. In October 1961 he experienced a taste of his future when he and a friend suspected that someone was peering into windows in their Beacon Heights neighborhood. He and his friend watched from a distance one evening when they spotted a man looking into one of the apartment windows. As they shouted to the man, he fled. They chased the man, catching him a short distance away. The South Bend Police Department was called and arrested the man. As it turned out, the man was an executive at the nearby Bendix Corporation and was ultimately convicted and served time in jail. In September 1965, my father became a Trooper when he entered the Indiana State Police Academy at Indiana University in Bloomington, with his first assignment to the post at Dunes Park in northwest Indiana. The other kids in the neighborhood were in awe of his uniform, firearm, and especially his large Chevrolet Impala with the huge gumball type red light on the roof of the car. Years later, some of our neighbors who were influenced by my father became Indiana State Troopers. He retired from the state police in 1992 as a First Sergeant Detective, at which time he became an Agent for the Indiana Department of Revenue. As a side job, and to earn extra money in the early 1960s, he began to officiate, umpire, and referee local football, basketball, and baseball games and continues to be involved in youth sports activities in the South Bend area 60 years later. He has been a member of the Indiana High School Athletic Association and the St. Joe Valley Athletic Officials Association since 1961 and was inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame in 2005. He has been part of game day operations for Notre Dame football since 1966, as well as Notre Dame Men’s and Women’s basketball games since 2013.

My mother grew up in Mishawaka, Indiana, and is the unequivocal matriarch of the family, raising three children, four grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. She graduated from South Bend Central High School, where she was a prom queen, cheerleader, and class treasurer. She and my father were married shortly after she graduated from high school in 1959. They celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in June 2019. She is an avid fan of Notre Dame sports and of course, the 2016 World Series Champion Chicago Cubs.

My brother was a good athlete, Cub Scout, Webelo, and Pinewood Derby champion. In 1981, he enlisted in the United States Navy, retiring as a First Lieutenant twenty years later. He then established a company and became a contractor for the Department of Defense, serving as a co-owner of HiPK, LLC., which delivers improved war fighting system interoperability and effectiveness through technical and tactical combat systems. He is married with two children and resides in Louisiana.

My sister also graduated from St. Joseph High School, where she was a cheerleader. She is a graduate of Ball State University and has been a schoolteacher since 1988. She is married with two children and resides in Indiana.

Beginning at an early age and aside from the indoctrination by my father, several tragic events of crime and death established a foundation for my career in law enforcement. On the morning of November 22, 1963, my parents were finalizing paperwork for the purchase of our new house on the west side of South Bend. A short time later, at 2:00 p.m., White House Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff informed the nation that the 35th President of the United States was dead as the result of being shot in the head. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the numerous conspiracy theories became a personal research project for me for many years. I read every book about the assassination that I could get my hands on, including the Warren Report and purchasing a copy of the homemade movie recorded by Abraham Zapruder on his 8mm Bell and Howell camera. Immediately after the assassination of President Kennedy, Dallas investigators recovered an Italian-made, 6.5mm, Model 91/38, bolt action, Mannlicher Carcano rifle from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. The purchase of this rifle, serial number C2766, was traced back to Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald acquired the rifle from a Chicago mail order company for $19.95, using the alias of A. Hidell. The rifle was formally identified within the Warren Report as Commission Exhibit 139.

Nine months following the assassination of President Kennedy on August 14, 1964, I was at our new home on Sussex Drive with my younger brother and a babysitter when the home immediately to the north of ours became the grisly scene of a double murder and suicide. The headline in the South Bend Tribune declared "Three Dead in Shooting." Just before 12:00 noon, Lillian Schachenman returned from picking up her husband Walter at the Bendix Corporation where he was employed as a manufacturing engineer. At the same time, my friends Kevin Yost and Scott Shroyer were playing catch in the backyard of the property to the west of the Schachenman residence, on Canterbury Drive. They heard several muffled explosions followed by a flurry of activity at the house on Sussex Drive. Police reports indicated that Mrs. Schachenman may have telephoned her husband earlier that morning to tell him of problems with their son, Warren. Detectives from the South Bend Police Department determined that on the morning of the killings Warren Schachenman traveled to nearby Mishawaka, Indiana, where he purchased a 12-gauge shotgun from a sporting goods store for $61.00. As Lillian and Walter Schachenman sat down at their kitchen table for lunch, Warren shot his mother twice and his father once, killing both. After killing his parents, Warren Schachenman sat down on the sofa in their living room, loaded additional rounds into the shotgun, placed the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. Within the first year at our new house, three of my neighbors were dead, two having been murdered and a third committing suicide.

At a collective cost of less than $81.00, a rifle and shotgun were purchased and used to kill four people including the President of the United States of America.

The next tragedy that I experienced occurred eight months later on April 30, 1965, at around 4:00 p.m. William Patrick Rigney, Jr., was six years old and lived in the house immediately to the south of ours. On this Spring day he ran from between two houses, down a driveway, into the street, and was struck by a northbound automobile. When the vehicle struck Billy Rigney, it knocked him about 20 feet and completely out of his shoes. The violent collision broke his neck, and he was pronounced deceased at the scene. My mom heard the accident, saw the result, and rushed over to cover him up with a blanket as a small crowd began to assemble and the police arrived. An article in the South Bend Tribune on May 1, 1965, was accompanied by a staff photograph of Lieutenant Gerald Knepper of the South Bend Police Department taking measurements and noting the position and location where Billy Rigney died, his shoes along the curb, and a group of children in the background. The driver of the car lived in the area and never saw Billy Rigney cross into the path of the car. Appropriately, the driver was never charged with a criminal offense or traffic violation. Having one of your friends struck and killed by a car was as frightening at it can get for young children and as we got older, all of us from the neighborhood understood that it could have happened to any one of us. There were dozens of children in our neighborhood and with a park across the street, we were always going back and forth. Following the death of Billy Rigney, a yellow caution sign was erected on our property informing southbound drivers that children were playing. The sign remained at that location for more than 50 years and was a constant reminder of what happened on that April day in 1965. The Rigney family was the epitome of a 1960s middle class family and some of my family’s closest friends.

When I was in the first grade, one of our assignments was to draw a picture of how we envisioned our future. The title of my masterpiece was When I Grow Up, with a picture of a police officer and more specifically, an Indiana State Trooper. It certainly cannot be compared to a Norman Rockwell, Picasso, or Rembrandt, but maybe someday it will be on display at an art gallery or the National Law Enforcement Officers Museum. And then again, maybe not. When I look at the drawing today, the detail of the uniform buttons, belt buckle, badge, stripes down each pantleg, and the firearm, are extraordinary. The officer does not have a neck, one leg is much thinner than the other, and the placement of his arms leaves doubt as to whether he would be able to reach his handgun. Although it was 1966, it looks very similar to an advertising air dancer that we see today outside of fast-food restaurants, a pizza place in a strip mall, or a cellular phone business. Or, if you really use your imagination, you can see a resemblance to a Saguaro cactus. In any event, it was an early indication of my mindset and a subliminal prognostication for my future.

On September 26, 1979, at around 11:30 p.m., the LaPorte County, Indiana Sheriff’s Department received a call regarding a man lying on the ground at a small park or rest area on US 20 at Oak Knoll Road. A sign at the park indicates that this was part of the Fort Wayne – Fort Dearborn Trail used by indians who were traveling between Rock Island, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan, and used as a cross country trading route. As the sheriff deputies arrived at the rest area, they observed a man lying in the parking lot and in front of an automobile, which was registered to the deceased person. The two newspapers for the area, the LaPorte Herald-Argus, and the News-Dispatch both reported that the deceased man, John D. Nash, had died of natural causes. However, the determination of the LaPorte County Coroner, Edwin Mueller, was that the man died as the result of bleeding from a membrane lining the skull and a fracture at the base of his head. John D. Nash was a resident of South Bend, Indiana and lived directly across the street from our house on Sussex Drive. He worked for the American Motors Company and previously co-owned the Nash Standard Service Station in South Bend. His death was ultimately ruled a homicide from a skull fracture caused when he was struck with a heavy limb of a tree. The case remains open, and no person has been charged with the murder of my neighbor, John Nash. Like the Rigney family, we have always been close to the Nashes since the early 1960s. John Nash left a wife and three sons.

With the murders of Lillian Schachenman, Walter Schachenman, and John Nash, the suicide of Warren Schachenman, and the death of Billy Rigney after being hit by a car, I had lost five of my immediate neighbors to a series of tragedies, the odds of which are mind boggling. Years later as I thought of our house as the epicenter of these horrible events, I envisioned Rod Serling appearing from the darkness behind our garage and stating his familiar opening monologue, "You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. Your next stop, The Twilight Zone."

As I was growing up, my grandmother repeatedly told an interesting story from her childhood. The same story was told for decades and with the same precise details, time after time, after time, after time. As she told the story, my grandmother and a friend had been at a Lake Michigan beach on June 29, 1934 and hitchhiked back to the South Bend area. A man gave them a ride into South Bend and asked if they knew of a local hotel and a nearby bank, because he had financial business to attend to the next day. The following day, June 30, 1934, at around 11:30 a.m., the Merchants National Bank on South Michigan Street in South Bend was robbed by five men of $29,890. During the robbery, South Bend Police Officer Howard Wagner was shot and killed near the northeast corner of Wayne and South Michigan Streets as he responded to the robbery.

Following the robbery, the front-page headline in the Evening Edition of the South Bend Tribune declared "Dillinger Gang Kills Officer." The following day, the robbery and murder were again the lead story in the South Bend Tribune with the headline "Bank Slayers’ Auto Found," and contained a pictorial on page 7, which included a five-photo collage of John Dillinger. After seeing the photographs of John Dillinger in the South Bend Tribune, my grandmother and her friend knew instantly that the person that had given them a ride the previous day was the man who was designated by the Chicago Crime Commission and Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover, as Public Enemy Number One. Accounts of the robbery vary as to the identity of two members of the gang, but what is clear is that Dillinger, Homer Van Meter, and Lester Gillis, more famously known as Baby Face Nelson held up the bank. Depending on which account you believe, other possible participants included Charles Arthur Pretty Boy Floyd, Jack Perkins, or Fatso Negri. Jack Perkins was the only person ever charged with the bank robbery and murder of Officer Wagner, but he was acquitted at trial. Homer Van Meter most likely killed Officer Wagner and was responsible for casing the bank in the days prior to the robbery. During the 10-minute armed robbery and shootout, six South Bend residents were wounded in addition to the murder of Officer Wagner. A local jeweler, Harry Berg, confronted the bank robbers by firing several shots of his own, hitting Baby Face Nelson in his bullet proof vest, and Van Meter across his hair line, causing entry and exit wounds across six inches of his skull. The car used by the Dillinger gang, a tan Hudson, was found later the same day in Goodland, Indiana, not far from Chicago. The car was riddled with bullet holes and stained with the blood from Van Meter’s head wound. This was the last bank robbery committed by John Dillinger, as he was shot and killed outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago three weeks later on July 22, 1934. One month after the death of Dillinger, on August 23, 1934, Homer Van Meter was shot and killed by police in St. Paul, Minnesota. And three months later on November 27, 1934, Baby Face Nelson was shot and killed in the Battle of Barrington by agents with the Bureau of Investigation. During the shootout, Nelson killed two agents, Sam Cowley, and Herman Hollis.

I began my law enforcement career in 1983, shortly after graduating from Indiana State University. In January of 1983, at the urging of my father, I met with detectives Geoff Welliver and Gene Samuelson of the LaPorte, Indiana Police Department. At the time, my father was a Detective Sergeant with the Indiana State Police and part of his duties included working with the LaPorte County Narcotics Task Force. We met at a small restaurant near the intersection of State Road 2 and US 20, where they offered an opportunity to start my law enforcement career as an undercover officer, posing as a student at LaPorte High School. Within a few days, I was in Indianapolis obtaining an undercover Indiana driver’s license in the name of Samuel Scott Miller and beginning the process of establishing a new identity. I was sworn in, commissioned, and appointed as a Deputy Sheriff with the LaPorte County Police Department by Sheriff Jan Rose and Chief Kenneth E. Layton. The LaPorte Police Department provided me with a 1979 green Plymouth which had a small hole in the hood area and appeared as if it had been painted with a roller and brush. The color was not a typical forest or metallic green, but rather the color of a pool table or Kermit the Frog. I was later informed that the vehicle was previously driven by A. J. Rumley, who had been the Mayor of LaPorte and murdered in May of 1982. The assignment at LaPorte High School was unique because the administration at the school was not immediately aware of my presence. Returning to high school after four years at Indiana State University was not something that I had anticipated, but an opportunity that I could not pass up. My class schedule included Government, Earth Science, Woodshop, Geography, U. S. History, and my personal favorite, Study Hall. I studied each night as if my grade point average depended on my effort and I was trying to get into Harvard. On one occasion while I was with another undercover operative and investigators at a remote safe site outside of the city limits, I was studying for an upcoming test. A detective from the LaPorte County Sheriff’s Department asked why I was studying so diligently. When I told him that I had a test the next day, he took my books and tossed them into a nearby barrel where trash was burning. He explained that the identity which I had assumed was that of an average student, and I had to continue at the same mediocre level. He encouraged me to skip classes and be a bit defiant toward the teachers and school staff. As if I was not terrified enough when someone scrawled NARC on my locker, the son of a friend of my mother attended the school and was familiar with me. I did everything that I could to avoid contact with him, but it became necessary to contact and advise him of the operation. Detectives Welliver and Samuelson advised me to get comfortable with the school, kids, teachers, and not to buy anything immediately. All of that changed on February 10, 1983, when a classmate in my woodshop class sold me three pink hearts in the paint room. He referred to them as speed, but I knew they were most likely caffeine tablets. The assignment ended in May 1983 with the arrest of numerous individuals from three high schools in the LaPorte County area, and a few individuals who were older and no longer in high school. At the conclusion of the detail, I wrote a letter to the student body to explain that although they knew me as Sam Miller, this was not my true name and my undercover role at the school was an attempt to curtail the narcotics problem. I never testified at a single hearing as the cases progressed through the criminal justice system over the next year or so. The television show 21 Jump Street aired several years later, and many of my friends and family quickly made the comparison, but my assignment was nothing like the show and I looked nothing like Johnny Depp.

In early May of 1986, I was offered a position with the United States Marshals Service and reported to the South Bend office in the Northern District of Indiana on May 27, 1986. I was sworn in by U. S. Marshal J. Jerome Perkins and departed two days later for Glynco, Georgia, and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). The Oath of Office is the most important document declaring a commitment to the U. S. Government and the United States Marshals Service but often overlooked as a formality. The oath that I took in May of 1986 was as follows: "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will take this obligation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." I took the oath again at the time of our graduation on August 29, 1986 and reviewed the words and meaning numerous times over the ensuing 28 years. Following our graduation ceremony, I drove from Georgia to South Bend, Indiana for a day, and then departed on a three-day, cross country journey to my assigned duty station, San Diego. On my first day in San Diego, I met U. S. Marshal James R. Laffoon, a law enforcement icon in the San Diego area, and Chief Deputy Robert E. Dighera, also a legendary figure within the Marshals Service.

Within a short time after arriving in San Diego, I was provided opportunities conducting criminal investigations and apprehending fugitives. I was fortunate to join a small group of deputies who routinely worked cases each day after the courts concluded and the prisoners were returned to the Metropolitan Correctional Center and the San Diego County Jail.

In November 1987, Thomas Hercules Pipinos had been wanted in San Diego for more than three years for failing to appear in Federal Court on a variety of charges related to firearms and narcotics. He was a member of the Axemen Motorcycle Gang, an associate of the Hells Angels, and also wanted in Nevada and Nebraska. Pipinos, who was born in Bremerton, Washington as Marvin John Piche, was added to the U. S. Marshals Services’ 15 Most Wanted Fugitive list on March 4, 1987. A small task force was formed and although still new to the agency, this was the most significant investigation to which I had been assigned at this point in my career. I was honored and excited to have been placed on this team of investigators which included Enforcement Specialist Budd H. Johnson, Supervisory Deputy U. S. Marshal Jim Sullivan, Deputy U. S. Marshals Patrick Hattaway, Bobby Lloyd, and several other deputies who were involved in the three-year investigation. Budd Johnson was an expert on outlaw biker gangs and along with SDUSM Jim Sullivan, served as our district leadership for investigations. On one occasion while showing me around Southern California, Budd Johnson pulled his gray government van into an east San Diego driveway and gave the siren three short blasts. Two guys came out of the front door, and two others came around from the back of the house, all of them wearing leather, heavily tattooed, and armed with some variation of a deadly weapon. They acknowledged Budd by waiving and giving the We’re Number One hand gesture, as we departed. As we drove away, Budd told me that the house was associated with a biker gang, and he stops by every now and then to remind them that he is around. Pat Hattaway is an extremely intelligent, methodical, and diligent investigator with great attention to the details of a case. Together, Pat and Budd taught me a great deal about criminal investigations, but they were also the most diabolical practical jokers in the office. On one occasion, Pat Hattaway suspended a desk from the ceiling using prisoner leg irons. The desk was perfectly level, and not a piece of paper or item was out of place. The only problem was that the desk was seven feet in the air, so grabbing a writing implement from the pencil cup or using the stapler was a bit of a challenge. While reviewing the expansive Pipinos investigative file that had been amassed during the previous three years, I came across an alias of Thomas Peter Dusell. Nothing in the file indicated where this name originated, or the basis for believing that this was a name that Pipinos had used or was using. I was able to locate a California driver’s license in this name with a Riverside, California address and an indication that the person holding this document had been stopped by law enforcement for a traffic violation. I requested the photograph and right thumbprint from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and received the information a few days later. When I initially looked at the photograph, the facial recognition side of my brain told me that this was our fugitive, Thomas Pipinos. However, other investigators disagreed with my opinion and a comparison of the thumbprint would be the definitive evidence that Dusell was not our wanted person. Because I was not familiar with fingerprint examination, I accepted their conclusion, but continued to believe that the person on the license was Pipinos. I went to the San Diego FBI Office and asked an agent to teach me about fingerprints and after he knew that I was serious and stopped laughing, he gave me an FBI publication entitled The Science of Fingerprints. As I familiarized myself with the world of whorls, arches, and loops, I began to understand enough to take a more detailed look at the thumbprint on the Dusell license. It took me a few days, but I found that the person providing the print had rotated his thumb 180 degrees when obtaining the license, thus giving the print a different look. I was now convinced that the photograph and thumbprint on the California driver’s license in the name of Thomas Peter Dusell was in fact, Tom Pipinos. I enlarged copies of the driver’s license thumbprint and the right thumbprint from a known fingerprint card of Pipinos and showed my analysis to members of the task force. The initial reaction was that I was looking at the suspect print, upside down. As we continued to look at the information, they quickly saw that the two prints matched, upside down, sideways, or whichever way you chose to compare them. We now had a new photograph of Pipinos, a new address to investigate, and a vehicle license plate that was recorded during a contact with law enforcement. We found that the license plate on the vehicle Dusell was operating when he was stopped a year and a half earlier, belonged to another person unknown to the investigation, and who was incarcerated in Oregon. Things were moving quickly when we contacted the Enforcement Specialist in Oregon, Ben Mahoney, who interviewed the person that the vehicle was registered to, to determine his relationship to Pipinos. Within a short period of time, information was developed in Oregon that Pipinos and his girlfriend, Stacy Schroeder, were in Arizona. Budd Johnson, Jim Sullivan, Pat Hattaway, and Bobby Lloyd departed for Bullhead City, Arizona and began to coordinate with deputy marshals from our office in Phoenix. I remained in San Diego, working the case of a woman wanted in Little Rock, Arkansas for a double murder, who surrendered to Deputy U. S. Marsal Jim Schield and me at the United States Courthouse on Saturday, November 21, 1987. I wanted to be in Arizona looking for Pipinos but understood that I was the new guy and others had put in much more time on the case. Later the same day, we received word that Fifteen Most Wanted Fugitive Thomas Hercules Pipinos and Schroeder were in custody in Arizona, as was a third individual, Raymond Mosely, who was wanted within the same indictment. After Pipinos, Schroeder, and Mosely were ordered by a federal judge to be moved to San Diego, I traveled with a cadre of deputy marshals on a U. S. Coast Guard aircraft to Phoenix to transport the three former fugitives to the Southern District of California.

A few weeks after the arrest of Pipinos, Pat Hattaway gave several of us who had worked on the case, a framed picture memorializing the apprehension of a most wanted fugitive. It showed Tom Pipinos bent over the hood of a government car, held at gunpoint by Budd Johnson, who is directing a short shotgun at the fugitive, as Deputy U. S. Marshal Gary Grotewald applies leg irons. In 2019, after more than 30 years, I learned from retired Deputy U. S. Marshal David Dains, who participated in the arrest of Pipinos, that this photograph was entirely staged. Someday, when a movie is made about the life, criminal lifestyle, and capture of fugitive Thomas Hercules Pipinos, I will suggest using actors Ned Beatty or Richard Riehle to portray Budd H. Johnson, Jr.

In January 1988, several of us involved in the Pipinos investigation were recognized with a Special