No one followed the hunt for the escaped New York prison convicts more intensely than John Casey. Did searchers notice this? Did they look for that? Did all that tromping through the woods destroy crucial clues?
Among a slew of other things, he's an instructor for the Mountain Trackers Association in Tennessee, an organization that teaches law enforcement officers and first responders to track signs of human activity in the woods. He'd just completed his first course when a search for his father inspired him to build on his training.
So there's that. Also, he works with the regional Allegheny Highlands Group in Tennessee. A detective of sorts in the forest, he patrols thousands of acres checking for dope growers, meth makers, timber burners and other malefactors. A former game warden wannabe, he finally found a way to work in the woods.
Plus, he's a law enforcement firearms instructor for the National Rifle Association. And a private investigator. And a powerlifter with five state titles. He teaches kettlebell classes at the YMCA, too.
Whew!
His late father, a county prosecutor and circuit judge, encouraged him to choose law. The diverse accomplishments surely overshadowed any disappointment. "I think he was very proud of me," he said.
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"I was born in Morgantown when my father was in law school. I had seven brothers and sisters. We moved to Beckley and then Marmet after he graduated. He got a job as an investigator for the prosecutor's office in Kanawha County and ultimately became the county prosecutor and a circuit judge.
"I grew up in the East End of Charleston. Here at the YMCA was part of my neighborhood, my playground. The Triangle District was wide open. I was forbidden to go, which was all the more reason to investigate. Police officers knew exactly where I was. If I was getting in trouble, my father knew about it.
"My dad wanted me to go to law school. But I was impressed with all the police officers coming and going in the house. My maternal grandfather had been a police officer. Everything he did, I wanted to do. His father had been a deputy sheriff. He was killed in the line of duty back in the '30s. We had a kind of family legacy that was intriguing to me.
"So I wanted to be a policeman from the time I was a kid. I gravitated toward outdoors work. My first choice was game warden. But back when those positions were open, you had the Vietnam War ending and a lot of returning war veterans, so they gave them preference. There would be two positions open and maybe 300 of us looking for it. So I never got to work for the Department of Natural Resources as a game warden. I ended up working in wildlife resources in the fisheries section for a short while.
"I came back to Charleston and got a job first at the Marmet city police department back when you didn't have to have any training. After about a year and a half, I got a job with the Kanawha County Sheriff's Department and was there from about '75 until 1981.
"I started as a deputy in the jail, then went to the State Police Academy and was assigned to Sissonville and then to the criminal warrant division, where we started processing a backlog of maybe 5,000 warrants.
"Working as a deputy on the road was exciting. We had to work alone. There were times when I was the Lone Ranger out there with no backup. You'd have to go up Paint Creek and answer a domestic call. You were pretty much operating on your wits to keep things tempered down.
"When I look back at police work then versus now, I'm very thankful I got to do the job then. What with what the guys are going through with all the controversial shootings. I don't know that I would want to be out there as a target.
"We had to beat the pavement. We didn't have computers. The first computer they ever brought in had a ping-pong game on it. That's all we knew to do with it. When I was working the fugitive division, you learned how to talk to people and develop informants and you worked with that and relied on your wits and your imagination to solve crimes. We didn't have a lot of technology to help us, not even cell phones.
"In '81, I started back into investigative work. I had a short stint in the restaurant business. I like to cook. But it wasn't something I wanted to do. So I went to work for Marvin Masters, a law firm in town, my first exposure to the civil end of investigations, and I learned quite a bit from him.
"After a few years there, I hung my own shingle and began the process of building the company I have now -- Allegheny Highlands Group. We do a lot of forest resources work and general investigations. So I came full circle back to what I really wanted to be.
"I work in Tennessee. We are sworn law enforcement officers. I go once a month for three or four days, and I have a man working there. We have about 140,000 acres we cover that are private lands that we are contracted to oversee, hunting and fishing leases and making sure nobody is burning the timber or planting dope.
"Cooking meth is a big problem. They cook a lot of dope outside. It's such a tragedy to see country people wasting away to nothing. I never thought I would see the day you couldn't leave your doors open in the country and had to guard your farm equipment lest it be stolen and recycled. The criminal element is 100 percent driven by the drug problem.
"I got acquainted with the Mountain Trackers some years ago in Tennessee. I took an academy tracking course. I fell in love with it. We train law enforcement officers and first responders to find what they can observe as human sign in the forest and on grass. We teach them to track that sign to find the person who left it.
"I followed the New York prison escape very closely. I don't know if they had trained trackers on that job. In Tennessee, every regional area has a tracking team that gets called out if you have a fugitive on foot or a lost person or a crime scene where you think there might be evidence in the woods, anything that needs a trackers eye.
"I'm now an instructor. My father, after he retired, began to suffer from dementia. During my first course, I got out of the woods where we were training and my cell phone was popping messages, including one from my brother that said, 'He is OK.' My dad and mother were living on the farm in Monroe County. My father had taken a riding mower up to the top of the hill early in the morning and didn't come home. My mother called the fire department. They started looking for my father. The State Police arrived. About 5 a.m., they find my father about a mile and a half from the house on his hands and knees. His jacket, hat, cane and glasses were all missing.
"Mom took me to where they found the mower. I have this new skill and I am showing off. 'Hey mom, there's a little foot sign, a little scuff in the leaves. I can tell four or five people have been through here and headed off in that direction.'
"We continued our walk up the hill. If you are a trained tracker, you are constantly aware of the ground and your surroundings. We're walking and I say, 'Mom, here's another foot sign, a broken twig, some gravel pressed in. Somebody has walked this way in the last couple of days.'
"I started measuring the stride and could find each step. Within 100 yards, I found his hat. Then I found his glasses. A little farther down, we found his cane and then his jacket. The search party had beat up the woods trying to find him, but I knew what I was doing. What took me 20 minutes to do took them hours and hours, and they found him accidentally.
"I was inspired by being able to do that, so I went back for course after course until I had enough hours to apply for assistant instructor. I have about 300 more hours to get my master level.
"We train law enforcement officers in Tennessee -- federal agents, state troopers, city police officers, sheriffs deputies.
"I'm on call in Tennessee. If the situation arises, every department I know calls me. I have a jump bag, so I don't even have to pack. One of our trackers tracked James Earl Ray and caught him one of the three times he escaped.
"At the Y, I volunteer on Tuesday for kettlebell class. I help Brandon Walters, the head trainer, coach the class. He's also my trainer. He keeps me relatively fit. I believe in fitness. Fitness is the path to longevity, just keeping your body fit, eating good food.
"I'm a powerlifter. Over the years, I have managed to take five state titles in the dead lift. The last contest I lifted 425. In training a month ago, I hit a 440 lift and I wasn't even trying.
"Romayne, my wife, is from Sri Lanka. I like to tell people I bought her. She was here trying to figure out whether to go to grad school. She got a job at Moore's Book Store 33 years ago and had the misfortune of running into me. She's a big tennis player.
"I'd like to continue to teach more. Along with the tracking, I teach firearms defense courses. I teach people how to use firearms correctly in a defense situation. If you are going to carry a gun for defense, you'd better know how and when to use it and how to be effective. I'm an NRA life member and a law enforcement instructor with the NRA. I'm proud of my accomplishments there. The NRA is about gun safety and lawful and responsible ownership of firearms.
"I just hope by the grace of God I get to continue to work. I have no goals to retire. I have no regrets about anything. I feel healthy and happy. I wouldn't change anything. I just enjoy being alive."
Reach Sandy Wells at 304-348-5173 or sandyw@wvgazette.com.