man in the truck now. He stops and says he needs to use the phone because there is a lady that flagged them down and said her husband has been shot. His brother is with her back at the camp. I tell him I have the sheriff’s office on the line and that I am going to meet the deputy on the Divide Road and bring him up. I ask if they will stay with her until I get back with the deputy.
The female’s purse is in the Bronco and I ask the man if he will take it to her, as I don’t want to be responsible for it if she has any medications in it she may need. He agrees and I give it to him. I tell the operator the license plate number of the Bronco and its color and where I will meet the deputy. I hang up and go to the intersection of Divide Road and Dominguez Trail.
After about ten to fifteen minutes a forest ranger comes by. He stops and asks if I am the one waiting for the sheriff’s officer. I tell him yes and he radios responding officers confirming the location. He says the sheriff’s officer is on the way and will be there in about forty-five minutes. The deputy comes along shortly and follows me back to the camp. I park the Bronco next to the camper. Not exactly where it had been before. The two men in the maroon truck had parked next to where the body lay. When I go up with the deputy, Kevin Patrick, I can see the woman sitting on the ground holding the man’s head in her lap. The man is now on his back, covered up with a blue quilted cover and a blue plaid cover.
The deputy tries to get her away from the body, but she refuses. Then he asks me to help get her away. She finally goes with me back to where we have a utility trailer parked. I get her a chair and some water and get her to sit down. She wants to know why it has taken me so long to get back. I tell her it was a long way to get help there in the mountains. I try to engage her in conversation to keep her from going back down to the body. She tells me she and her husband were in the medical field. I ask what they do. She tells me Bruce is a lab technician and she is a nurse in the psych ward. She tells me today is their three-month wedding anniversary and they are supposed to have a date tonight. She looks toward where the deputy is working and says, “You did tell them I threw the gun there didn’t you?” I tell her yes.
She tells me she is cold so I get out a plaid insulated shirt and give it to her to put on. She then asks me if I have any children. I tell her I have two. She says she has a daughter and a son. She tells me she taught her children to shoot by using a .22 rifle on chipmunks. She also says she reloads all her own ammo for her guns. She says she and her ex-husband had run hunting camps in this area for years. She found out he had a girlfriend where he was working and when she found this out she divorced him.
Vehicles begin arriving. With every one which passes she asks if it is the paramedics or when is the helicopter going to get here. The woman tells me what a great relationship she and Bruce had. That he was so loving and punctual. She talks about his mother and how she often sent money to Bruce, $10,000 usually. Bruce’s dad had been an executive with R. J. Reynolds and had bought stock in the company all along. When he died he left it all to Bruce’s mom. Also, she tells me that his mother had taken the life insurance and stocks and invested the money and done well with it. She talks about how she and Bruce improved Bruce’s home and how it doubled the value. She talks about what guns to hunt with there. She says she broke her back and doctors told her not to be shooting so she has a light rifle; a .270 I think. She tells me she hasn’t missed a hunting season and was going to come regardless. Bruce had asked if she was going whether or not he came along. She told him she was. She says Bruce wanted to use a shotgun, but she had borrowed a rifle for him. She says this was his first time to hunt deer. She says she would get up first and warm the camper and make coffee for him while he lay in bed. She would then leave first to get a head start to go low on the mountain and push the draws up trying to run deer to him. She says she had gotten into a bog and got her clothes muddy and had to come back to change. A little while later the deputy comes over and asks me to give him a statement. The two men who had stayed with her while waiting for the deputy sit with her again. I provide the deputy with I.D. and give an account of events.
Other law enforcement officers arrive along with the coroner. A female crisis intervention counselor arrives and is brought to the camp to talk to the victim’s wife. From this point I sit on the front bumper of one of the sheriff’s office vehicles. Every so often one of the men comes and asks me a question then talks to the victim’s wife. One investigator asks about the gun she put in the Bronco. They get permission to look and open the tailgate. They remove the brown case and ask if this was the one I saw her put in the vehicle. I tell them it is. He unzips the case and removes a synthetic-stocked, stainless bolt-action rifle. I cannot I.D. the gun as I never saw it clearly until then. They tell the lady they are going to take the gun in for testing and write her a receipt. At this point she begins to faint. One of the officers is an EMT. He produces a medical kit and checks her. The officer decides she is going into shock. A helicopter is called for and she is airlifted out. It is about dark when the helicopter clears. The deputies ask if the woman’s vehicles will be okay there as they will be back the next day to investigate further. I tell them I am not going to mess with them and will keep an eye out.
Ryan makes it into camp after being checked on the ridge by a deputy. He had to wait for the helicopter to take off before he could come down the slope. I tell him what happened and ask why he hadn’t come down for lunch. He says he walked a ways and just wanted to stay out. We go ahead and go to town anyway. I need to get away for a while. We drive to Grand Junction and eat at a fast food restaurant. It is about midnight when we got back to camp. We go to bed after caring for the deer meat.
Monday, October 16, 1995: I stay in camp while Ryan goes hunting. Deputies return around noon and use Search & Rescue team to check the area.
As soon as Branchwater’s report was brought to me, I read it with rising interest, paying special attention to Branchwater’s description of Janice’s reactions at the death scene. Something in my gut told me there was more to this grieving widow’s story than she told.
= chapter 4 =
An Accident, A Suicide or Murder?
Since it was uncertain whether Bruce Dodson’s death could be a homicide, the Sheriff’s Department assigned two crime scene technicians to respond to the scene to assist with the investigation on the day of Dodson’s death. It had been a bit unclear who was in charge of the whole situation with the presence of so many officers.
One of those who became involved was Captain Warren Smith, a tall, dark, handsome, smooth-talking, western-dressing, well-meaning man in his mid-forties who had been the sheriff down in La Plata County a few years back before losing an election by getting crosswise with the NRA crowd. During the last election in Mesa County, Investigator Armand found himself supporting the losing side of an internal battle that had half of the department backing the eventual loser and the other half backing the eventual winner. By the time of the Dodson case, most of those who had supported the loser were gone from the department, voluntarily or otherwise. Armand was still there. Hired as a captain, Warren Smith had been brought into the department to restore order. Technically, Captain Smith now was the incident commander on the Uncompahgre, but the lack of a clear chain of command created some problems.
The two crime scene technicians were Carl Todd and Victor Poste. Carl is a forty-something, pleasant-looking, average-sized man with a peaceful demeanor, close cropped brown hair and above average intelligence. He is the kind of person who can do just about anything that needs to be done, from building a house to applying CPR to save someone’s life. Victor is about the same age but taller and also had his blond hair cut military-style. He usually carries a worried look on his face. Carl and Victor arrived at the hunting camp around 4:15 P.M. When they arrived, Deputy Patrick briefed them.
As the investigators proceeded with the case, they sent me reports as to what they
