Johnson County Sheriff’s Detective Steve Shaw was instrumental in solving this case. Photo by Tammy Roberts.
short — 5 cows and 5 calves. He assumed they’d simply gotten out. All of his
exterior gates were locked — nothing was amiss. A check with his neighbors turned up nothing, so Jones spent the next few days walking the surrounding area and searching for them. When Jones didn’t fi nd his cattle, he did the only
thing he knew — he called the sheriff. He reported the 10 head stolen: 5 horned Hereford cows branded “J T H” and 5 unbranded calves. Johnson County Sheriff’s Detective Steve Shaw got to work on the case and called in TSCRA Special Ranger H.D. Brittain. “That night the TSCRA was having a ranch gath-
ering in the area, so Keith came by and we sat down and talked about it. The next day, I went out to the pasture to take a look and contacted Detective Shaw,” Brittain says. “A lot of people in this area were always going south
to sell cattle, so I also called Marvin Wills, the special ranger assigned south of Johnson County,” Shaw says. On the other end of the line, Wills felt sure he knew where the 5 calves sold by Shawn Linville originated. They matched the description of the missing calves perfectly.
tscra.org
“Linville’s name has come up numerous times in
connection with all types of criminal activity, includ- ing cattle theft. We fi gured they were Jones’ cattle,” Wills says.
A needle in a haystack By this time, a week passed since the cattle went
missing. Hubbard Livestock Auction records showed that 3 order buyers bought those 5 calves and they were scattered in all directions. Most cattle order buyers purchase hundreds of head
per week. One of the buyers, Logan Ranch in Valley Mills, purchased 2 of the unbranded calves Shawn Linville sold. Wills thought there might be a slight chance of fi nding the missing calves, so he gave Joe Ivy, the Logan Ranch manager, a call. “He laughed and told me he probably still had them,
but he had about a thousand head turned out and they’d already been worked. After I told him they were black with white faces, he said, ‘Funny you say that, I prob- ably know which ones they are. I have two that hang together and they’re like pets,’” Wills recounts. “I never heard Shawn Linville’s name until Detec- tive Shaw called and told me they thought they had
June 2014 The Cattleman 95
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124