by Mike Missoula
January 6, 1997
Black Ops Reporter
Nothing seemed worse for the man than to sit and speak with two FBI agents in Billings that cold Montana spring day of April 20, 1996. Sure it could have been worse. The two FBI agents were asking a lot of questions about his friend and associate Gene Moore.
The man knew Gene Moore well from his days in Shelby until Gene had moved 52 miles east to the tiny farming community of Joplin on the Burlington Northern "Hi-Line" railway which crosses Montana just to the south of the Canadian border. The man knew Moore well. He knew him as a wild man; a helluva hunter; an across the road trucker; and a family man who wanted to settle down with his wife Tammy and their two kids.
The man knew Gene Moore as a man who would stand up to wrong. Gene Moore was a man with determination. The man believed determination was why Gene Moore had been tangling with the authorities for years. Nothing serious, just another Montanan who balked at paper work.
But today the FBI wanted to know something else about Gene Moore. They quizzed the man about what he thought Gene might know about a big drug smuggling ring along the Hi-Line. The two FBI agents wanted information about the drug ring and asked if Gene Moore had ever talked to him about Marc Racicot being involved in the operation. It's doubtful the man would have told them anything which would hurt Gene Moore. But from that spring day the man was distinctly concerned that the name of Montana Governor Marc Racicot was brought up in the conversations.
Months later the man is also concerned that the two FBI agents asked if Gene Moore might have information about the deaths of Bruce Madsen and Michael Wolfe near Sidney. The deaths in December,1993 were thought to have been related to a police protected drug ring in Sidney. The man had the distinct impression that the agents were not targeting Gene Moore, but were looking into information Moore, or a third person friendly to Moore, may have provided them.
On the following Wednesday, the man's friend, Gene Moore, was killed in a shoot out with local Montana law enforcement outside Joplin. Two Sheriff's Deputies were also wounded.
The law enforcement officers were attempting to affect an arrest warrant on Gene Moore for the homicide of Walt Sullivan, of Butte, whose body was discovered November 22, 1989 near Shelby.
(Oddly enough the surname Sullivan was associated with another of the "Hi-line Murders" in the death of former policeman Mickey Sullivan, also of Butte, who was found shot to death, tangled in a barb wire fence. The death came after Mickey and another rogue officer were arrested in a bungled attempt at extorting money from the Kurth Ranch hydroponic hemp operation outside Fort Benton.)
Before the funeral the Great Falls Tribune sent out staffer Carol Bradley to cover a story which had sent shock waves throughout Montana. Bradley's balanced account set the stage for further questioning of the official story of the killing. This has proven true one hundred fold over, since a statement has surfaced from a witness who saw the deceased Walt Sullivan with a local sheriff's deputy several hours after he was last seen with Gene Moore.
Tribune reporter Bradley said in her article "...Spend enough time with the survivors and you come away dizzy from the web of theories involving an extortioner's plot, a drug cartel in Shelby, and how Moore's knowledge of this did him in." Carol Bradley was very discreet about the drug allegations. As a Great Falls Tribune staffer she no doubt was aware that her newspaper had correspondence with Krassimir Ivandjiiski, the editor of "Bulgaria Confidential", a Sofia based intelligence journal, who had published a lengthy report implicating a well known Helena political figure in drug traffick. Carol Bradley was likely also aware of the federal prosecutions of Albert and Frank Luciano and the death of banker Ochenrider two weeks before the trial in Montana.
Carol Bradley knew newspaper politics were involved. She heard the family's entire story. She took volumnious notes. She published Gene Moore's mother's statement,"The same person who killed Walt Sullivan murdered Gene Moore, his mother declared, "He knew too much" she says." The mother and widow did not buy the "accidental death" theory either.
That day Tammy Moore had come upon the scene after Gene Moore had been cornered in his fuel truck. She could distictly hear Gene Moore yelling "Help! Help!" before she was forced away from the scene. Tammy was aware that law enforcement tried to lure Gene away from the Joplin Farm Store earlier in the day by making a phoney request for assistance on the highway. Tammy went to the request for assistance alone in a service truck and found a Sheriff's Deputy waiting.
In a cascade of official announcements from the agencies involved it was learned that Montana Criminal Investigation Bureau agent Joseph Uribe and another agent had just spent two days questioning Gene Moore. All Montana was puzzled that the Sullivan homicide investigation would be resurrected again after six years. And confidential law enforcement sources were suspicious that agent Joe Uribe would be tasked with the investigation. Uribe - who claimed that he did not obtain a recorded statement from Moore -had given false statements under oath in District Court in Teton County. In that matter Uribe had falsified a witness statement and tape recording.(See State vs. Ralph Howard Kress Jr. DC 004- 1992, 9th Judicial District, Teton county, Montana. The Order signed by Judge McPhillips is dated March 20,1992)
Normally false statements would have ended then Teton Deputy Sheriff Uribe's law enforcement career. But shortly thereafter Joseph Uribe was hired as an agent in the scandal ridden Montana Criminal Investigation Bureau in Helena. Soon Uribe and his sometime partner,Tom Woods, were up to their eyeballs in controversy. The death of CUT member Mitch Mandel looked heavy handed since Park County Deputies had fired 86 rounds into a man his family claimed was unarmed.
Issues was raised about official negligence and improper training of the officers by the Mandel family lawyers. Curiously, pages related to proper training technique disappeared from the Instruction Manual at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy in Bozeman only days after a visit by an MCIB agent. Both Agent Uribe and Agent Woods were tasked with the internal investigation of the Mandel matter.
But there was an even more startling development as Agent Woods and Agent Uribe worked together. Two witnesses . Jack Lorenz and Robert Farrel of Fairview, who gave information in support of the Hobbs Investigation in Sidney, claim agent Woods falsified their statements in regards to drug dealing by a local police detective and prosecuting attorney. Lorenz was approached directly by Woods after Agent Woods advised Lorenz's attorney that he wanted to obtain a statement from Lorenz about the drug dealing police detective and lawyer. Woods spoke to Lorenz on an unrelated matter- and then presented an edited transcript to the local County Attorney claiming that Lorenz had "perjured himself". Jack Lorenz had reportedly supplied documentation to the FBI about the incident and the MCIB's ambiguous response to his reports of wrong doing sometimes prior to Moore's death.
Perhaps the two FBI agents were considering the information from Jack Lorenz. Perhaps they were also considering the reports from Chinook concerning the Cowan Murders and the reports of a local lawyer and banker involved in flying drugs into the Chinook airport. The local Chinook Opinion newspaper was featuring a series of articles about local smuggling and drug related murders and how the murders seemed to be protected by a corrupt Helena political influence at the time. Surely the FBI agents were aware of the credibility problems of the MCIB since the press had recently reported that Helena Bureau Chief Bob Fairchild had resigned after confiscated VISA receipts at the Great Falls bordello."Tokyo Message", had turned up charges with Agent Fairchild's credit card and signature. Montana investigators in other agencies did not believe Chief Fairchild "had only been getting cash" with the credit card.
Carol Bradly is an exceedingly wise journalist. Or perhaps she is lucky. In the midst of the official statements she did her research throughly. She confronted Undersheriff Riggin with the forensic inconsistencies at the scene:
"The family can say whatever they want," Undersheriff Riggin said later, Any blood that's at the scene is not Gene Moore's. He was never pulled from the truck. If they are saying that they are completely false."
Reporter Bradley had known that the family had taken blood samples of the large pool of blood 43 feet from the truck where Gene Moore had died. Months later it would be revealed that blood samples taken from the pool of blood were in fact Gene Moore's.
Within days of the Moore killing another journalist, Chinook Opinion editor, Mike Perry , was warned by law enforcement that a mob "contract" had been placed on his life because of his editorials on the drug scandal.But Perry made it clear "that not all Montana law enforcement is crooked", pointing out that former Blaine County Sheriff , Jack Harrington, had told the Chinook Opinion of a teletype request from a Sidney Detective concerning a possible investigation of Fred Dion in Chinook.. Mr. Dion owned the farm property where the Cowan bodies were found and had business interests linked to several Sidney individuals. Sheriff Harrington was suspicious of the teletype since Blain county Deputies had earlier observed vehicles belonging to several Sidney police officers at the wedding party of a drug dealer in Chinook where drugs were openly used.
To be sure, there were many law enforcement personages who wanted nothing to do with drugs, corruption, or drug related murders in Montana. That's why Scott Wheeler's "Strategic Investments" newsletter in Washington DC trusted the DEA source (who wished to remain anonymous) who told that a major Montana political figure would be indicted for duplicity in narcotics traffick. The "Strategic Investment" newsletter had been edited by former CIA Director William Colby until his death earlier last year.
The death of Gene Moore has left many questions. But the questions are smart questions by smart people. A Montana size puzzle may be having its last pieces fixed into place.