State DNA lab is on poachers' trail
By MELODY McDONALD
TARRANT COUNTY -- Andrew Pritchett felt like he had been robbed.
For two years, the avid outdoorsman had been hunting the same buck on his family's ranch near Whiskey Flats. It was the biggest white-tailed deer he had ever seen on the property and, just days earlier, Pritchett had spotted the big buck again but didn't have a shot.
Now, Pritchett stared at a large, headless deer lying in the dirt and his adrenaline surged. Nearby was the smaller carcass of an 8-point buck.
Poachers, Pritchett thought. Again.
He took out his cellphone and called Ronald Mathis, a game warden.
Two deer seasons have passed since Pritchett found those decomposing carcasses on his family's Murrin Ranch, just off U.S. 377 southwest of Fort Worth.
Pritchett, the nephew of Stockyards business owner Steve Murrin, acknowledges that he never really expected anyone to be arrested in the case.
He figured game wardens either caught poachers red-handed or not at all.
But Pritchett didn't figure on game wardens using DNA.
Late last year, DNA tests revealed that a femur bone taken from the big deer carcass matched an 11-point deer head seized from the Parker County ranch of renowned quarter horse jockey Jacky Martin. Martin, 53, was arrested and indicted; he is free on $10,000 bond while awaiting trial.
"I was kind of shocked," Pritchett said recently, as he walked the field where he found the dead deer. "It was a million-to-one shot to find the carcass and then go to a house and find the matching head."
Officials say the case against Martin is indicative of similar investigations across the state and country. While DNA is commonly used to catch murderers and rapists, game wardens are now using it to link poachers to ill-gotten game.
"I would say most people are not aware we have these tools," said Major Butch Shoop, the Fort Worth-based head of the Region 2 office of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Law Enforcement Division. "When it becomes painfully aware, it is too late for them. Once they realize we have a lab that matches stuff up, well, the party is over."
Martin is charged with one count of taking wildlife without landowner consent and one count of making a false entry on a hunting license tag. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. At the time he was indicted, Martin was already on probation for illegally killing a deer on the Moncrief Ranch in Parker County.
"He needs to go to jail," said Randall Hayes, a game warden stationed in Parker County who has dealt with Martin in the past.
In a recent phone conversation, Martin -- whose racing license has been suspended -- referred questions to his agent, Tracey Porter.
Porter said Martin intends to plead not guilty. He pointed out that Martin has no reason to illegally hunt deer; he receives invitations from notable people all over the country to hunt game on their land.
"He can hunt anywhere," Porter said. "The whole thing, none of it makes any sense."
A trophy illegally taken
It was Dec. 4, 2004, and deer season was in full swing. With Christmas coming up, Pritchett knew he wasn't going to be getting out to the Murrin family ranch much.
Pritchett had been hoping to bag the big 11-point buck he had seen earlier in the season, but time was running out. The deer in his sights at the moment was small, but he wanted to put some venison in his freezer.
He aimed and fired.
As Pritchett walked toward his fallen deer, he spotted two other deer carcasses -- one with its head cut off and the other with its head and antlers still attached. Although he couldn't be certain, he suspected that the headless deer was the trophy he had been hunting for some time.
"When I saw it and realized that is what they had taken, it felt like somebody had just come to your house and taken it off your property," Pritchett said.
Nearby were two white-and-orange hand warmers sticking out of the dirt and a bloody, yellow dishwashing glove. Pritchett suspected that the poacher used the gloves so he didn't walk off the property looking like he had just cleaned a deer.
"It happens all the time," Pritchett said. "This guy, obviously, all he wanted was the rack and the backstrap," a prized cut of venison.
The next day, Pritchett showed Mathis, the game warden, what he had found. Mathis cut the femur bones from both deer carcasses, collecting them as evidence.
He already had a suspect in mind.
Suspect had 'a history'
Because the case is pending, Mathis declined to speak about specifics, but dozens of records obtained by the Star-Telegram under Texas' open records law provide insight into that investigation, as well as others involving Martin.
According to the documents, several years ago, a man contacted Mathis about Martin's hunting activities and explained that Martin often hunted at the Murrin Ranch.
The informant told Mathis that Martin would get dropped off on Farm Road 1187 during the middle of the week by someone who would then go to the Big Daddy Game Room in the Wheatland community, also known as Whiskey Flats. When Martin was finished hunting, the tipster stated, Martin would contact the pickup person on a hand-held radio, the documents stated. The driver would make a couple of passes to make sure the law wasn't around before Martin jumped inside.
The informant said Martin had killed a lot of big deer this way.
On Dec. 10, 2004 -- five days after Pritchett discovered the carcasses on the Murrin Ranch -- Mathis and fellow game warden Randall Hayes took a drive out to Martin's place in Parker County.
"We had a history of Jacky," Hayes said. "We knew he was a violator, a road hunter and a foot hunter."
Martin wasn't there, but his son was. He told them that his dad was on his way to California.
As they were talking, the wardens saw, in plain sight, two decomposing buck heads outside the barn, according to an arrest arrant affidavit.
There was an eight-point deer head on a table. There was also an 11-point deer head with Jacky D. Martin's tag on it, stating that it was killed Dec. 1, 2004, in San Saba County on the Myles Ranch, the affidavit stated.
Mathis seized the deer heads, as well as a white-and-orange hand warmer found nearby.
He contacted Pritchett, who was told they would use DNA to compare the head with the femur bones from the carcasses on the Murrin Ranch.
"I remember saying, 'You do DNA on deer?'" Pritchett said.
On Dec. 13, 2004, Mathis sent the femur bone samples and meat samples to the Texas Parks & Wildlife forensic lab in San Marcos for DNA testing.
Forensic scientist Beverly Villarreal analyzes deer DNA cases for the lab. Villarreal is the only one who conducts DNA analysis and the lab was going through an accreditation process at the time, creating a backlog of cases.
Mathis waited for nearly two years.
'He did not belong'
It was the middle of the day on Jan. 7, 2006, and Bobby Harter was riding his four-wheeler on the Moncrief Ranch in Parker County, making sure that a nearby fire had not spread onto the land.
That's when he saw a man, later identified as Martin, in camouflage walking across a barren field.
Harter, a longtime ranch worker, turned his four-wheeler in the stranger's direction and watched as he dropped down and hid in the grass.
"I knew he did not belong," Harter said. "On the Moncrief Ranch there is no deer hunting. They like to preserve the wildlife."
A short time later, the man rose and Harter ordered him to drop his belongings, which included knives, a cellphone, a two-way radio -- and a seven-point deer head.
Harter, who had no phone, told the man that they had major problems with poaching on the ranch and that his boss would want to speak with him.
Strangely, Harter said, the man handed him his phone.
Not only did Harter call his boss, he phoned the game warden and the Sheriff's Department.
"He told me he was from Arkansas and that his family was starving for food," Harter said. "I told him, if you are starving for food, you shouldn't be dragging out a deer head, you should be shooting does for meat."
A plea agreement
Not only did Martin admit that he had been hunting, but it was after deer season. And when officials patted Martin down, they found a small vial of methamphetamine, which Martin said he was using because he had "bottomed out" after his wife's sudden death in October 2005, according to the reports.
Inside his backpack was a deer hindquarter and two backstraps wrapped inside a trash bag. The rest of the deer had been left to spoil.
"I said, 'Jacky, where is the body of the deer?'" Hayes said. "He said, 'It is out there somewhere,' then he took us back to the body of the deer."
Seven months later, on Aug. 8, 2006, Martin pleaded guilty to the drug charge and to unlawfully taking a deer without the consent of the landowner and was sentenced to four years' probation. In exchange for his guilty plea, Parker County prosecutors agreed to dismiss a charge of retrieval and waste of game, stemming from allegations that he failed to keep the edible parts.
As part of the plea agreement, Martin was ordered to forfeit his hunting equipment and his Texas hunting license for four years.
Hayes was satisfied with the plea agreement.
"Now, he is a convicted felon that cannot possess a firearm," Hayes said. "His days of hunting in the field and carrying a weapon are over with. To him, that is a death sentence."
The plea agreement had other ramifications for Martin.
On Feb. 3, the Texas Racing Commission suspended his license until 2011 because he pleaded guilty to the felony drug charge.
Martin plans to appeal that suspension -- and he is now also appealing his conviction.
He has retained attorney Bob Ford, who said he is "trying to get his plea bargain set aside on the grounds that it was an involuntary plea."
Porter, Martin's agent, said that when Martin went to court that day, he expected to receive a large fine for misdemeanor offenses.
"We walked into court and they handed him a plea agreement to a felony," she said. "His attorney told him that, if he did not sign it right then, he would go to jail. It was an involuntary plea. We would just like the opportunity to have adequate counsel and face the charges again. That is what we are asking for."
Making ends meet
Since his racing license has been suspended, Martin -- who has won the prestigious All American Futurity in Ruidoso, N.M., seven times -- hasn't been on a track anywhere in the country. He has been making ends meet exercising horses at training facilities and helping a friend build a barn.
"He cannot ride at all," Porter said. "It is not just a job or his career. He is a legend in the quarter horse industry. There isn't anyone who doesn't know who Jacky Martin is."
His legal troubles are far from over.
On Dec. 4, 2006 -- two years to the day after Pritchett came across two deer carcasses -- Mathis, the game warden, received the DNA test results on the Murrin Ranch case.
According to documents, there is a 1 in 109 million probability that another randomly selected white-tailed deer from Texas would have the same genotype as the deer whose carcass was found on the Murrin Ranch and whose head was found at Martin's place.
Martin was arrested on a warrant about 3 p.m. on Dec. 13, 2006, when he went to check in with his Parker County probation officer. His trial date has not been set.
Steve Murrin, who signed an affidavit stating that he had never given Martin consent to hunt on the land, said he has "zero tolerance for someone invading someone else's property."
"I don't have any qualms about prosecuting him to the fullest extent of the law," Murrin said.
Deer season
The regular white-tailed deer season for North Texas begins Saturday and ends Jan. 6.
Citizens with information on wildlife violations can call the Operation Game Thief hot line at 1-800-792-GAME (4263). The hot line is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Timeline
Dec. 4, 2004: Two deer carcasses are found on the Murrin Ranch in southwest Tarrant County. The next day, the game warden cuts out the femur bone from both carcasses.
Dec. 10, 2004: Game wardens go to Jacky Martin's ranch house and confiscate two deer heads, including an 11-point that they suspected was from the headless carcass.
Dec. 13, 2004: Femur bone samples and meat samples are sent to the Texas Parks and Wildlife forensic lab in San Marcos for DNA testing.
Jan. 7, 2006: A ranch hand discovers Jacky Martin, wearing camouflage, on the Moncrief Ranch. Martin was carrying a 7-point deer head, according to reports. He was also carrying a vial of methamphetamine.
Aug. 8, 2006: Martin pleads guilty to the drug charge and to unlawfully taking a deer without landowner consent. He is sentenced to four years' probation.
Dec. 4, 2006: Game warden Ronald Mathis receives DNA test results on the Murrin Ranch case, linking the carcass found in the pasture to the 11-point deer head found at Martin's ranch house.
Dec. 13, 2006: Martin is arrested in connection with the Murrin Ranch case and later charged with one count of taking wildlife without landowner consent and one count of making a false entry on a hunting license tag.
February: The Texas Racing Commission suspends Martin's license until 2011 after his guilty plea on the felony drug charge.
mjmcdonald@star-telegram.com
Melody McDonald, 817-390-7386
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