he wasn’t the bad guy — we were,” Hurley explained. Mast and Hurley spent a lot of time coming up with
a good strategy to get Boyd — whom they suspected had a long criminal past — to confess and to trust them. “We can devote the time for cases like this. We don’t have murders and sexual assaults to work, like a lot of us did when we worked at other agencies,” Hurley says. Mast agrees. “It’s different when you’re on patrol and you’re going from one call to the next; you don’t have hours to fi gure out what approach you need to take like we did in this case,” he says. “And we have a network of people — not only in
Texas, but throughout other states — that we work with. That’s how important it is to be a member of the TSCRA,” Hurley adds. In the end, Mast established a level of trust with
Boyd, who agreed to cooperate fully. “We had a talk with him, let him go see his baby, see his girlfriend, and smoke a cigarette. Then he was ready to confess to everything,” Mast says. Boyd was so forthcoming that on their way back to
Texas, he even showed Mast and Hurley other places in Arkansas where he had planned to steal cattle. Over the following few days, Special Ranger Mast
drove Boyd everywhere in Texas that they had taken Guthrey. Boyd cooperated as well, and explained how and where they committed the thefts. Both suspects admitted to targeting unbranded
cattle, on rural roads, with no homes nearby and with a corral to use for loading. “That’s why they still had those 14 head from Robertson County in Camden, Ark., and hadn’t sold them — because they were branded,” Mast explains. Hurley agrees. “And if those cattle hadn’t been
branded, we couldn’t have gone up there to positively identify them. Branding helps deter them from being stolen to begin with, and it helps tremendously in their recovery,” Hurley adds.
Kudos to the guys at the drive-in line at Panola Livestock for getting a license plate and calling when they saw something strange.
tscra.org
Camaraderie
Besides the TSCRA special rangers, multiple sheriffs’ offi ces, multiple rural city police, Tatum Police Department and Hallsville Police
Department, Panola Constables Bryan Murff and Mitch Norton, the Texas Department of Public
Safety, and the Ouichita County Sheriff’s offi ce in Arkansas all played large roles in the case.
A special thank you goes to Panola Sheriff Kevin Lake for the assistance of his deputies and
all divisions of his department for housing the prisoners and the use of their facilities.
A group effort With so many details to iron out, special rang-
ers worked long hours for many days to unravel this complicated case. “What stood out to me was how we divided up the tasks. We all knew what needed to be done, and we got it done. It was a huge team effort. Everyone had connections,” Hand says. “What really helped us to make all those cases was
Hurley’s skill as a negotiator in getting Guthrey to sur- render. The rapport Hand and Hurley initially developed with Guthrey was key to getting his confession, and the relationship we developed with Boyd on the way back from Arkansas allowed us to really solidify all the cases,” Mast explains. “We found out about cattle that the victims hadn’t
even realized were stolen,” Special Ranger Dumas says. This was the case with the cattle dropped off at Panola Livestock. “Dumas got to tell the victim he had their cattle before they even knew they were gone,” Hand says. And Special Ranger Wills returned the trailer Guthrey left at Panola Livestock to the victim in Falls County. The situation began with a lot of tense moments,
and ended with 2 cattle thieves out of business and some of the cattle being returned to victims. But more importantly, it ended peacefully and without anyone getting hurt. The investigation continues, but for now, the suspects
are in jail and should face some substantial penalties. “Kudos to the guys at the drive-in line at Panola Live- stock for getting a license plate and calling when they saw something strange,” Hand says.
June 2015 The Cattleman 87
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