Trooper Down!

by Marie Bartlett

  The area was one which E. Y. Ponder, the seventy-five-year-old sheriff of Madison County, knew well. Born and reared in nearby Marshall, he’d been “the law” in the region since 1950. According to Ponder, all an officer needed to keep the peace in Madison County was “a light pair of shoes and a pocketful of rocks.” He never carried a gun; to catch criminals, he relied on his thorough knowledge of the land and his bloodhound instincts. His four trusty deputies did the rest.

  A small, wiry man who speaks and moves rapidly, Ponder had wasted no time in getting to the scene of the shooting. He arrived with his deputy, Frank Ogle, after the sheriff’s department picked up information on the scanner that a trooper had been shot in Spring Creek.

  Ponder knew Bobby as “a nice, personable young man,” and considered troopers “a good bunch of boys.” He recognized the shooting and the ensuing manhunt as highway patrol business, but this was, after all, his territory. And there was no way in hell he was going to sit back and do nothing.

  In fact, his help would prove invaluable to the troopers.

  About an hour after Rios and Bray sped off in the truck, Etta Moore Payne was driving down N.C. 63 towards Spring Creek when she saw two men cross the road, running. One of them dropped an object which struck her wheel, then retrieved it after she had passed. She thought it was a gun, but wasn’t sure. Continuing on, she saw several police cars and knew something was wrong. So she called the Madison County sheriff’s department to report the incident.

  When Sheriff Ponder received word of the sighting, he left the shooting scene and started towards Doggett Mountain, just off N.C. 63, accompanied by Deputy Frank Ogle and two patrolmen. None of the officers knew exactly where the search would lead them.

  “We pulled up to this little dirt logging road,” said Trooper David Gladden, “and Ponder looked at it and said, ‘There’s been a car here. But it hasn’t come out.’ You could see where the tires had spun in the dirt.”

  A short distance into the woods, the men saw a burnt-orange truck with an Arkansas license plate, parked on the side of the road. Ponder, Ogle, and Gladden approached it (the other trooper had stayed behind in the patrol car to man the radio) and began looking for signs of the fugitives.

  “You could see footprints where they had gotten out and walked down the road,” said Gladden.“About fifty feet from the truck, they had dropped potato-chip crumbs and an empty bag. We did a cursory search of the truck but didn’t find much.”

  Yet it was an excellent beginning.

  Deputy Ogle radioed the truck’s license number to the highway patrol and received verification that it was the same vehicle Trooper Coggins had stopped earlier.

  Names and decriptions of Rios and Bray were then released and the perimeter around Spring Creek tightened.

  During the night, no one spotted signs of Rios or Bray. Nor did anything break the next day. Bloodhounds had picked up a scent around 2:00 P.M. on Sunday and a warm campfire was found, but neither was positively linked to the fugitives.

  More officers and tracking dogs were brought in, along with helicopters—including one with an infrared heat-sensing device.

  In Bryson City, Bobby’s parents secluded themselves, trying hard to comprehend their loss. Both refused to listen to news reports surrounding the manhunt. Barry, however, stayed glued to the radio, intent on learning if and when the men who had killed his brother would be captured and punished.

  Linda Jo, who sobbed uncontrollably when she learned that Bobby was dead, told reporters, “When they killed Bobby, they killed me.”

  There was concern that Rios and Bray would break into someone’s home to steal what they needed. Though the pair had guns and a coat (Bray was wearing a jacket when he shot Bobby) neither had eaten for more than forty-eight hours.

  Officers knew that sooner or later, hunger would drive them to do something extreme.

  They were right.

  The house belonged to Rachel Gillespie, a seventy-five-year-old widow who was frightened at reports of fugitives on the loose and had decided to spend Tuesday evening with a friend. Rios and Bray, hidden in the barn next to the house, watched her leave.

  They got in through a window and ransacked the kitchen first. Then they went through the house, room by room, looking for anything that might prove useful to them. They took clothes, blankets, quilts, and an old .25/.20-caliber rifle that had hung on the wall for forty years. At one point during the night, they lay down to rest. Before daylight broke, they took their bounty and left, heading northwest onto a ridge where they made a pallet and settled down to sleep some more.

  Within an hour after Rachel Gillespie reported the break-in, Highway N.C. 209 leading to the house was lined with troopers, SBI agents, wildlife officers, deputies, and other law enforcement personnel.

  In the woods above the house, Rios and Bray had awakened and realized that officers were moving in on them. They could see and hear the highway patrol helicopter scanning the ridge. It had been sent into the air as soon as the break-in was confirmed. What they didn’t know was that the heavy fall foliage was working in their behalf, for the chopper pilot and his spotter could hardly see through the colorful trees.

  Then a dog handler on the ground caught a glimpse of two men running through the woods. One of the fugitives (no one could determine who was doing what) turned and blindly aimed the stolen rifle at the trackers. The forty-year-old gun misfired and was thrown to the ground, where officers soon found it.

  But the net was closing in on Rios and Bray, for on the opposite side of a ridge they were approaching was a team of dog handlers and SBI agents ready to ensnare them.

  Rios had Bobby’s .357 Magnum, but dropped it onto the ground when he saw the officers. Then he eased it into a hole with his foot. Bray still carried the .25-caliber handgun he had used to fire at Bobby. They were arrested, handcuffed, and taken to the Madison County Courthouse for questioning.

  Under interrogation by SBI investigators, Bray admitted shooting the trooper.

  On September 19, 1985, twenty-seven-year-old Bobby Lee Coggins’s coffin was lowered under a warm autumn sky in Bryson City. More than 600 people attended the service, many of whom had participated in the three-day manhunt just ended.

  After a five-day trial held the following May, William Bray was found guilty of first degree murder. Though the state sought the death penalty, he received a life sentence, plus an additional ninety-three years for breaking, entering, and larceny, larceny of a firearm, and firing into an occupied vehicle. On the witness stand, he cried and said he had not meant to kill the highway patrolman.

  Two months later, Jimmy Dean Rios was tried and found guilty of first degree murder, armed robbery, felonious breaking and entering, and felonious larceny.

  As in Bray’s case, prosecutors sought the death penalty.

  But he received a life sentence for his part in the murder, plus an additional sixty years for the other convictions. The judge ordered that the sentences be served consecutively, making Rios ineligible for parole for more than thirty years.

  His family wept when they heard the verdict. Rios, who was calm, even cocky at times during the proceedings, showed no reaction.

  Today, both men are serving time in North Carolina’s central prison. Their cases are currently on appeal.

  Frances and James Coggins attended both trials every day.

  “It was horrible,” said Frances. “But we felt like we needed to be there.

  “If you’ve ever had a child that’s been killed,” she added softly, “you come to believe that the punishment should fit the crime.”

  Barry felt as though his entire family was “on trial” during the courtroom proceedings. He believes that the criminal justice system leans too heavily in favor of the accused,

  “The system is set up to protect us,” he explained, “but it seems the criminal has all the rights. I mean, two guys can sit up there on the stand and admit they did it, but through technicalities, they don’t get the death penalt
y.”

  For the troopers who knew and admired Bobby, the loss is different, but just as great. And the bitterness is just as real.

  “Rios and Bray got more than what Bobby got,” said one officer, speaking on behalf of his colleagues. “They got life.”

  Frances Coggins remembers Bobby standing in the kitchen a week before he was killed, his arms crossed at the chest as he leaned against the counter.

  “I’ve had everything, and have everything I ever wanted,” he told her, smiling. He had a new Porsche and his girl, and he’d just found out he’d been accepted into the SBI, He looked as happy and content as she had ever seen him.

  “I think of that,” she said, “and it makes me feel good. At least it helps.”

  After these three North Carolina troopers—Harmon, Worley, and Coggins—were murdered while on routine patrol during 1985, much was said about increasing the number of patrolmen on the road. Equipment was improved and an officer survival course was initiated as part of every trooper’s training. There was even talk of putting two troopers in every patrol car, or removing some patrolmen from the main highways and onto more isolated areas for backup support. Neither idea proved feasible because too much funding was required.

  What happened instead was that troopers became more self-protective. Many changed the way they perceived their work and began, for the first time, to take its hazards seriously.

  “I was scared after the shootings,” admitted one trooper. “And I’ve become more demanding on the road. When I stop somebody, they may feel I’m depriving them of their constitutional rights, and for some, that’s reason enough to kill me. I get complaints about my attitude. Some people even say I’ve turned mean. But I think it’s helped keep me alive.”

  One officer who’s been on the highway patrol for twenty-one years predicts even more dangerous years ahead for anyone involved in a law enforcement career.

  “Our whole society is changing,” he said. “There’s generally less respect for the law and less discipline among our young people. Family values have shifted and drug and alcohol problems have worsened. It seems criminals have more rights now too, which means that our officers must be more intelligent, more alert, and better trained to deal with a more sophisticated level of crime.”

  Lack of proper equipment and technical problems in the communications system played a role in all three shootings, too, but some patrolmen believe that the troopers who were killed in 1985 contributed to their own fates, either through inexperience or lack of forethought.

  “Complacency and carelessness are the biggest killers we have,” said one officer. “People get aggravated when we say that, or feel that it’s an embarrassment to admit these guys may have done something wrong. But if we don’t profit from our mistakes, we’re backing up. And if it takes a little embarrassment to save someone else from getting hurt or killed, then so be it. Let’s not let these men die in vain.”

  For Barry Coggins, words won’t ease the pain, or explain away his brother’s death.

  “Sometimes I’ll be talking to my folks and I’ll catch myself saying, ‘Be sure to tell Bobby so-and-so.’ It’s like I can’t seem to accept that it ever really happened. And it makes it hard to go on.

  “I worry about my parents. About something happening to them. And I worry about being alone. Without Bobby, our family is not the same. And it never will be.”

  10. Passages

  “At first, it’s instilled in you that this is the only job there is. Then after about fifteen years, you realize there’s more to life than the highway patrol. You begin to look around and see people making a lot more money than you do, and doing a whole lot less.” —A twenty-one-year patrol veteran

  Every seasoned trooper knows that, sooner or later, the thrill goes away. No longer is it quite so exciting to don the uniform, drive the shiny car, wear the badge, carry the gun. Sometimes it takes the death of a fellow officer to dim the glow. Sometimes it takes nothing more than the wear and tear of daily routine. In a few cases, the patrol was only a job to begin with, rather than the calling it is perceived to be by most.

  Many officers maintain there are clear-cut “stages” in every trooper’s career.

  “It takes about five years for the idealism to burn out,” said one trooper. “Till then, you’re ‘gung ho.’ You live, breathe, sleep, and eat the highway patrol. Then rebellion sets in—especially if the promotion you were expecting doesn’t happen. The next stage is apathy, followed by a mellowing out where you’re just doing your time. After that, you retire, and talk about how much you miss the guys, the work, and being on the road.”

  Officers are eligible to apply for a promotion after four years on the patrol. But moving up the ranks generally takes much longer because of a complex process that involves both internal and external politics.

  “No one will admit it,” said a trooper, ten years on the patrol, “but to get promoted you have to know somebody inside and outside the patrol who will drop a good word for you. We get directives saying we’ll be dismissed if we’re caught politicking. But the truth is, someone has to like you and recommend you before you’ll get a promotion. It’s all in the timing. It’s always been like that and it always will be, though the highway patrol will deny it to the bitter end.”

  Political maneuvering isn’t the only obstacle to a trooper’s advancement. Getting a promotion also means an automatic transfer—something many troopers do not want.

  The reasoning behind such a policy, according to the highway patrol, is that an officer who stays in the same location and supervises people he knows is not as effective as one who is sent to new, unfamiliar territory.

  But that’s not the way troopers see it.

  “The patrol’s arbitrary rule that you move whenever you’re promoted penalizes us,” maintained an officer with fifteen years’ experience. “It would destroy me economically to take my family and change locations. The 10 percent increase in my salary wouldn’t begin to offset the loss of my wife’s income if she couldn’t find another job. I’d have to sell my home, uproot my children. It just isn’t worth it. So I’m not interested in a promotion.”

  This same trooper says the patrol is losing a lot of officers with excellent potential as supervisors because of its internal political makeup and its unrealistic transfer system. In fact, he added, some of the organization’s best people are never promoted: by choice, because they do not have the “right” politics, or because they refuse to relocate.

  “What often happens,” the trooper continues, “is that troopers get promoted because they want to move, or they’ve screwed up and need to be sent out of the county, or because they’re the ‘fair-haired child,’ not because they have the best qualifications or would do the best job. I’d like to see more credit given to an officer’s educational background, psychological profile, and overall abilities—instead of having so much emphasis placed on whether or not he’s a misfit, popular with his sergeant, or willing and eager to change his address.”

  “I’m satisfied being a trooper,” said an officer who has refused a promotion on three occasions. “I like this county. It’s home. I love the people and I get along well with them. They know me, trust me, and I feel a responsibility to help protect them. It’s not worth a promotion if I have to leave.”

  “Being promoted is not what a lot of these boys think it is,” said another trooper. “It’s a lot of responsibility. My wife makes good money. I make good money [top pay for a master trooper in North Carolina was $31,620 in 1987]. Why would I want to worry about whether this trooper is running around or that one is doing his job? I’m almost forty-four years old. I don’t have the headaches I’d have if I took a promotion and had to move. I’m happy here. Being a trooper is what I want to be.”

  Not every officer is so resigned. A large number of troopers have a natural inclination to move ahead, strive for better pay, more responsibility, and a higher position on the management ladder. In that respect, they are no different
from other ambitious professionals.

  Whether rookie or veteran, each trooper has a story to tell and an opinion to express about his work, his goals, and the passages he encounters along the way. Some officers say that despite its hazards and problems, being a highway patrolman gives them a deep, ongoing sense of satisfaction. Others speak of disillusionment, frustration, misconceptions about who and what they are, and their everyday troubles with the public.

  All remember what it was like in the beginning, when they were young, eager to please, and raring to go:

  There was an unwritten law when I joined the patrol that a rookie kept his mouth shut for the first five years. That’s because nobody would listen to him. That’s not true anymore. Today, we’re getting people with a higher degree of intelligence, more education, folks who don’t take a back seat to anyone. We’ve got a lot of smart individuals on the patrol—people who could make a lot more money doing something else. I think that speaks well of the organization and the caliber of people who join it.

  *

  I was stationed in a small county when I first joined the patrol. I was fresh out of school and “gung ho,” writing fifteen to twenty tickets a week, while the normal amount was four or five.

  One day the sergeant told me I needed to keep a low profile. It seems the mayor and aldermen had gotten together and made some phone calls wanting me transferred because I was arresting too many people. Then one night I caught the county recreation director for speeding. He’d been drinking some too.

  When it got to court, the chief of police was sitting there and knew the guy, so they let him off. I had done what I thought I was supposed to do—whether they did their job or not.

  Anyway, it turned into a big mess. Newspaper articles were written about people wanting me to leave the county. So I decided it might be a good time to transfer to a larger town. That’s what I did. Through it all, I thought I was doing a wonderful job. It just seems I was arresting the “wrong” people.