Trooper Down!

by Marie Bartlett

  Bobby’s superiors saw him as an able, conscientious trooper, but somewhat naive about potential danger from the public.

  “I noticed that sometimes he engaged in too much conversation when he stopped people,” said a line sergeant. “I also warned him about keeping his hands free. He’d hold his flashlight in one hand and his ticket book in the other. If he needed to get to his weapon, he’d have to drop something. Young troopers are taught those things in school but they have a tendency to forget.”

  James and Frances came to visit often, as did Barry, and were impressed by how quickly Bobby had endeared himself to the community.

  “One day he wanted me to ride with him to the post office before he went on patrol,” said James. “When we got there, we saw a group of boys sitting on a big wooden spool, drinking beer. Bobby ran around the patrol car, cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled, ‘Hey, boys! You better hide that beer! The law is right up the road!’ They just laughed and waved at him.”

  At night, after getting off duty, he’d drive to the center of town and park on the bridge so he could shoot the breeze with the locals. One was a mentally handicapped man who took a shine to Bobby’s hat. A few days later, Bobby brought him a U.S. Forest Service hat and told him that now he could help him “patrol.”

  Mid-September in the Appalachian mountains marks the beginning of a natural wonder that peaks when all the leaves have turned to shades of yellows, reds, and golds. It is a season of change, a last full burst of living color before the bitter gray bleakness of winter settles in.

  Along the stark, high ridges surrounding Hot Springs, Bobby often cruised the very places where tourists stopped to catch a bird’s-eye view of the fall foliage.

  Saturday, September 14, 1985, was one of those days.

  Shortly before 4:00 P.M., Linda Jo decided to leave work early. There was little activity at the grocery store in Hot Springs and she wanted to go shopping with her mother in Newport, Tennessee. But she had to go home first to change. On the way, she expected to see Bobby. The couple had become engaged in May, and Bobby was renting a room at her parents’ home in Spring Creek.

  She spotted him at an overlook, the cruiser parked behind a truck, its blue light spinning. Standing outside the patrol car, he turned to wave as she passed.

  Bobby had checked on duty at 4:00 P.M. and was heading up the winding, narrow Highway N.C. 209, which runs through Pisgah National Forest into Hot Springs, when he noticed a ’76 orange and white Chevrolet truck with a South Carolina license plate. Watching it closely, he looked for signs of the weaving, irregular pattern drunk drivers exhibit. Suspicious, he turned on the blue light, signaling the driver to stop.

  Jimmy Dean Rios, twenty-four, was driving. Seated beside him was William Bray, twenty-three.

  The pair had stolen the truck after escaping with three other inmates from the Franklin County jail in Arkansas. Rios had been arrested for theft of property and forgery. Bray had been charged with reckless driving, fleeing from a police officer, having a concealed weapon, and possessing a controlled substance. Classified by one doctor as borderline mentally retarded, Bray carried a .25-caIiber pistol Rios had pitched to him as soon as he saw the patrol car. Bray later testified that an hour or so earlier he had smoked marijuana, swallowed four codeine tablets, and consumed six or eight beers.

  Of the two, Rios, a former exotic dancer, construction worker, and father of an illegitimate child named Rebel, was the more complex. Psychologists had diagnosed him as a “mixed personality,” a confused individual easily led by others. Those who disagreed said that while he might present such a facade, he was in fact sly and cunning, “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

  Both Rios and Bray had fled to Asheville after escaping from prison, where they spent two weeks posing as freelance photographers, visiting local nightclubs, and trying—not very successfully—to keep a low profile. On the Saturday morning before coming to Hot Springs, Rios was accused of stealing $186 from a pet store. When the police were called, he admitted the theft, but gave the money back. As a result, the manager did not press charges and the fugitives drove off. A few hours later, they were on N.C. 209, looking for a campground where they could spend the night.

  Now the trooper was behind them and they’d have to stop.

  Bobby got out of his patrol car and walked towards the truck. After greeting the driver he asked for a license.

  Rios slapped at his pockets and looked at the officer.

  “I don’t have none,” he said.

  “Well, keep looking to see if you can find it. And I’ll need to see some registration on the truck too.”

  In the course of Bobby’s questioning, Rios gave his name as “Eric Clark.”

  “Let’s go back to the patrol car and we’ll get this straightened out,” Bobby finally told him.

  Rios got out of the truck and walked ahead of the trooper.

  “There’s something I need to do before you get in the car,” said Bobby.

  Rios stopped and spread-eagled himself against the cruiser, ready to be searched. But Bobby, halfway laughing, said, “No, that’s not what I meant. I want to give you a sobriety test.”

  For the next few minutes, he had Rios stand with his feet together, arms out, head tilted backwards, while Bobby instructed him to follow the tip of a moving pen with his eyes.

  “Okay,” said Bobby, slipping the pen back into his shirt pocket, “you can get in the car now.”

  With Rios settled in the front seat beside him, he picked up the radio.

  “G-151,” he said, giving his call number to the Asheville Communications Center, sixty miles away.

  “Need 10-28 (ownership information) on a pickup truck out of South Carolina, ’85 tag.”

  “Go ahead, G-151,” said the telecommunicator.

  Bobby then asked for license and permit information on an Eric Clark.

  “It’s common spelling C-L-A-R-K,” he said, “first name Eric, no middle name, date of birth 6-21-62. If you would, check 10-29 [records].”

  While they waited, Rios noticed Bobby’s photo equipment in the back of the patrol car, asked if he liked photography, and struck up a conversation about his own experience with a camera. He also wanted to know if the pretty young woman who had driven past earlier was Bobby’s girlfriend.

  In the meantime, Asheville Communications was striking out on its attempt to locate information on an Eric Clark. What they had discovered was that the vehicle was stolen, and that its occupants were wanted fugitives who were armed and dangerous.

  Bray wandered over to the patrol car and stood at the passenger window next to Rios.

  “What’s the color of that truck?” the Asheville telecommunicator asked.

  “It’s a two-tone burnt orange and white,” Bobby replied.

  “Ten-twenty-nines [records check], state of Arkansas, Ozark, Arkansas. Ten-seventy-twos [prisoners in custody], ten-seventy-twos from Franklin County, Arkansas. Go ahead.”

  Momentarily puzzled, Bobby requested the communications center stand by. Something was amiss but he wasn’t sure what.

  Almost immediately, the telecommunicator came back on the line.

  “G-151,” he said, “are you familiar with the old 10-32, 10-32 signal?”

  Unaware that 10-32 (an outdated signal that many of the younger troopers did not recognize) meant “armed and dangerous,” Bobby responded, “Negative.” As yet, a new signal had not replaced the old, and the oversight left the telecommunicator with only one recourse.

  “Armed,” he stated plainly.

  “Ten-four,” said Bobby. “Stand by. Everything’s ten-four right now.” His voice betrayed no fear.

  It was 4:38 P.M., just a little over half an hour since Bobby had checked on duty.

  Rios and Bray exchanged glances. Both had heard the word “armed” and both knew that once more they’d been caught.

  “Shoot him! Shoot him!” yelled Rios. As though on command, Bray reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the .25-c
aliber pistol and aimed it past Rios, at the trooper. He fired twice, striking Bobby point blank in the temple.

  Instinctively, Bobby’s right hand went towards the radio, his left hand towards his gun.

  “You can’t do this,” he said.

  Those were his last words.

  No one knows what happened next. Rios and Bray later accused each other of grabbing Bobby’s .357 Magnum and firing the final, fatal shot.

  Rios jumped out of the patrol car, shouting “Let’s get out of here!” Turning away from Hot Springs, they sped off in the truck, heading deep into the rugged, colorful mountains, carrying Bobby’s .357 with them.

  Telecommunicators at Asheville headquarters called repeatedly, trying to raise the trooper. Seven long minutes had passed with no contact.

  Suddenly an unfamiliar voice came over the airwaves.

  “Hello, can anybody hear me out there?”

  “Go ahead, person calling,” said Asheville headquarters.

  “Uh, this is Lee Phillips. I’m up here on, I don’t know what road it is, but there’s a cop been shot in the head.”

  “Okay, Lee Phillips, Lee Phillips, this is the Asheville Highway Patrol. Advise what road you are on.”

  “Don’t know. We were just going towards . . . we cut off Asheville highway and cut up towards a national-like park and it’s a real curvy road to the top of the mountain, and I’m sitting here with the cop’s radio and he’s been shot in the head bad. He’s bleeding real bad.”

  “All cars and stations working Asheville, stand by,” said the telecommunicator. “Ten-thirty-three (need help quick), ten-thirty-three!”

  “Okay, Lee Phillips,” the telecommunicator continued. “Give us the name of the road or where you turned off. And give us the number in the rear left window of the patrol car.”

  “Rear left window is G-151,” said Phillips.

  “Okay, what road are you on, Lee?”

  “I’m from Newport, Tennessee, and I have no idea. Me and my friend just came up this road ’cause I knowed somebody that lived on it a long time ago. We was just riding in the mountains.”

  “Okay. Where did you turn off? Were you going towards Marshall?”

  “Yes, sir. We were going towards Marshall from Newport and we turned the curve. There’s a little brown store and they got a three-way turn. We turned off that curve and went up the mountain.”

  Phillips had passed the trooper’s car at the overlook and thought he saw blood on the officer sitting inside. He found a place to turn around, and came back. Unsure of what to do, he picked up the radio, making an automatic connection with Asheville headquarters.

  Trooper Rick Terry was sitting at the Mars Hill Police Department, twenty-five miles from Hot Springs, waiting on Bobby and another officer to come to work. His shift, which had started at eight that morning, was about to end. As usual, the radio scanner was on and Terry, with nothing to do but sit, was listening to the Asheville transmission.

  “When the information started coming through about the stolen vehicle, I felt I should go down there. So I got in the car and started out, not really in any big hurry. Then I heard them ask over the radio if Bobby was familiar with the old 10-32 code. They waited about ten seconds and said, ‘Armed.’ At that point, I turned on my blue light and took off.”

  Two miles out of Hot Springs, Terry, along with dozens of troopers elsewhere, heard the order for all personnel to don their bulletproof vests.

  “I knew then Bobby had been shot,” he said.

  Arriving at the overlook, Terry realized he was the first law enforcement officer there.

  “I hurried to Bobby and felt his pulse. There was none. The patrol car was still running and the blue light was on. His hat was on the dash near the steering wheel and I picked it up and laid it on top of the car. But it didn’t hit me right away that he was dead. I used his radio to call in, told the communications center I was at the scene and would keep them informed.”

  A few moments later, Asheville headquarters released a description of the 1976 truck Rios and Bray were driving.

  A crowd of people, mostly local residents, were standing near the ambulance when Trooper David Gladden arrived. Terry was still the only patrolman there. Gladden thought the young officer appeared totally stunned by what had happened.

  Gladden walked over to Bobby’s patrol car, looked in, and turned away. The body had already been removed (prematurely by Terry, as it turned out, for the crime lab had not yet arrived to gather evidence). All that remained of Bobby’s last, violent moments were a blood-soaked seat and a half-completed ticket, written in Bobby’s neat, concise print.

  Unware that anything unusual had happened, James and Frances Coggins were returning from South Carolina, where James had made a series of business-related stops. Reaching Asheville, they went by Barry’s apartment. But he was gone. He had left several hours earlier, looking for them so he could break the terrible news before someone else did.

  The day before, Barry had called Bobby because he was thinking of buying a new car, and that was something the two brothers always did together.

  A little after 5:00 P.M. on Saturday, Barry went into the living room and turned on the TV. He was sitting back, relaxed, when a news announcement flashed across the screen. “It said something about a trooper getting shot in the Spring Creek community of Madison County,” he said, “and I knew it was Bobby. He was the only trooper working there that day.”

  Barry rushed from the apartment and drove to the highway patrol station, less than a mile from his home. When he pulled in, he saw a sergeant standing out front next to a cruiser. The car door was open and the volume turned up on the radio.

  “Could you tell me what’s happening in Madison County?” Barry asked.

  “No, son,” the officer said politely. “The best thing for you to do is get back in your car and leave.”

  “But I have a brother over there,” explained Barry, “and I think it could be him!”

  He could hear snatches of conversation coming from the police radio, with the words “Trooper Coggins, G-151,” repeated frequently. At that moment, it seemed to Barry the patrol was stonewalling, withholding information he had a right to know.

  Anger stirred within him.

  “I wanna know what’s going on!” he said.

  “Wait a minute,” said the sergeant. He closed the door on the patrol car and went inside.

  A short time later, Barry was led to the communications center where Lieutenant D. W. Reavis, a compassionate man held in high regard by the troopers, gently broke the news that Bobby had, indeed, been killed.

  Overcome with grief, Barry left, unsure of where to go or what to do.

  “Bobby had told me something about Madison County, the way its politics operated, and I thought, ‘It’s just a damn place for hoodlums,’” he said. “And it made me mad. I was mad at the people who did it, and mad at the highway patrol for putting him there.”

  Concerned about his parents, he started out for Bryson City, then changed his mind. He had more questions, and he wanted some answers. So he turned off the interstate and drove towards Spring Creek, Madison County.

  “When I got there, the patrol car was still parked and the blue light still going. Someone grabbed me and told me to stay back. They had already taken Bobby to the hospital. I kept asking what happened and they kept telling me Bobby ‘got hurt.’ That confused me because I’d been told he was killed. So I went into Hot Springs and stopped by the ambulance service where they said, yes, Bobby was dead. All I wanted to know was the truth.”

  As soon as the Cogginses, who had left Asheville when they couldn’t find Barry, pulled into the driveway of their home in Bryson City, a woman ran out to the car. Frances can’t remember who it was.

  The only thing she recalls are the awful words she heard next: “Bobby’s been shot and killed!”

  In Spring Creek, highway patrol officers had roped off the murder scene and were busy setting up a perimeter and command
post.

  Sergeant Mike Overcash recalls his dismay upon learning Bobby had been removed from the patrol car before any evidence could be gathered about the shooting.

  “Had everything been left alone, the holster could have provided fingerprints and the position of the body may have helped determine which direction the bullets came from. As it was, there were questions left unanswered.”

  The error was due partly to a mix-up in communication, and partly to human nature.

  Trooper Rick Terry, the first officer at the scene and the one who had helped move Bobby from the patrol car, had not forgotten what had happened to Giles Harmon after Harmon had been killed in Haywood County months earlier.

  “At the time, all I could think of was that when Giles was shot, they left the body in the road for more than seven hours. To this day, I regret putting Bobby in the ambulance instead of waiting for the crime lab. But I was thinking of my friend. I did what I thought was best for him.”

  The order to remove the body had come by radio from Sergeant Zeb Phillips, who at the time was ninety miles away and thought Bobby was only wounded, not dead.

  It had been just two weeks since Phillips had worked with Bobby. The Spring Creek fire department had sponsored a fall festival at which Bobby and Sergeant Phillips had worked traffic detail together. It was the type of assignment Phillips enjoyed because it meant mingling with citizens, establishing the kind of rapport that strengthened the ties between law enforcement and the people it served. Phillips had been pleased to see how easily Bobby fit into his role as the area’s sole trooper.

  Now the Spring Creek fire department was serving another, more somber purpose. For the next few days, it would become the highway patrol command post for the intense, exhausting manhunt about to begin.

  It was apparent from the tire tracks leading away from the scene that Rios and Bray had headed away from Hot Springs and into the remote surrounding mountains. The truck had pulled out, backed up, then turned towards sparsely populated Spring Creek, the tiny community where Linda Justice and, until now, Bobby Coggins lived.