Pennsylvania Game News - October 2013 - 20

of the vehicle at a remote location
conducting a deer poaching investigation. I would be on my own, or so I
thought. Almost immediately, Ofﬁcer
Barbour contacted me and said that
he was on his way to lend a hand.
We were to investigate a case where
an individual was out for a walk near
his home when he saw a nice buck
run through a power line clearing
and into a woodlot. He then heard
a gunshot from that same direction.
The problem was that it was archery
deer season during the overlap with
fall turkey season. The only way to
shoot a buck legally was with a bow
or crossbow.
Not all investigations ultimately
reveal what the ofﬁcer initially thinks
happened, but there usually is some
type of foul play with a scenario like
this. On our way to the scene, an informant called me on my cell phone
to say he witnessed a guy walking
back toward a nearby cabin carrying a
gun, and he wasn’t wearing any ﬂuorescent orange clothing. We certainly
had something to talk about with
this hunter, because he was required
to display a minimum of 250 square
inches of ﬂuorescent orange material
during fall turkey season.
The investigation began in earnest. It was just after 9 a.m. when
Rob and I parked along a dirt road
near the power line and decided to
investigate the area where the deer
ran. The cabin where the hunter
was seen heading toward was a few
hundred yards away and out of sight.
Rob and I soon located a tree stand
near the power line that looked
like it hadn’t been used in a while.
Not ﬁnding any evidence there, we
observed the cabin from a distance.
20

Two men could be seen milling about
inside. I kept an eye on the individuals and Rob continued to look in the
woods for evidence.
After a short time, Rob said he
found something that might shed
some light on the situation. Rob
located another tree stand and this
one had been used as recently as that
morning. Within 20 yards of the
stand was a deer gut pile, bloody drag
marks and deer hair. There also was
bait in the area. Two mineral blocks,
apples, sunﬂower seeds and corn were
found in the immediate area. The gut
pile was lying on top of the bait, indicating the deer had been shot after
the bait was placed there. We were
a bit confused, however, because the
gut pile appeared to be a few days old,
and nobody was observed dragging a
deer to the cabin. Rob then put the
pieces together. There were some
turkey feathers lying just beyond the
baited area.
“Today is Monday,” Rob began;
“maybe the deer had been killed this
past Saturday and the gunshot heard
today was from someone shooting
at a turkey. Could it have just been
a coincidence that the deer had run
into the woods at the time of the
shot? It looks like these feathers are
fresh. The frost is on everything
except these turkey feathers. This
turkey was shot right here this morning.”
Rob is not only an excellent crime
scene investigator, but an avid turkey
hunter. He talks frequently about
turkey hunting, and it is obvious that
turkey hunting is a true passion.
I told Rob that we needed to ﬁnd
this turkey and talk to these guys, but
that we had to make sure there wasn’t
WWW.PENNGAMENEWS.COM
http://WWW.PENNGAMENEWS.COM
Pennsylvania Game News - October 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - October 2013
