Ever Onward Podcast

Inside Idaho’s Most Infamous Cases: Daybell, Vallow, and Duncan with FBI Agent Douglas Hart | Ever Onward - Ep. 53

• Ahlquist. • Season 1 • Episode 53

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Join us for an inside look at the extraordinary career of Douglas Hart, a retired FBI agent turned Chief Deputy, whose work as a law enforcement leader has shaped some of the most high-profile and chilling cases in recent history. What does it take to solve these complex and chilling investigations? Doug shares his inside look at some of the most high-profile cases in recent Idaho history.

Douglas Hart is a retired FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent with 27 years of experience and now serves as the Chief Deputy for the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office in Caldwell, Idaho and is also the Founder and Chief Safety Officer of Threat Zero Solutions. Doug brings a wealth of knowledge and firsthand insights to this episode.

Doug opens up about his pivotal role in the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell investigation in Rexburg, Idaho—one of the most notorious criminal cases in recent history. From the initial discovery of missing children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan, on November 27, 2019, to testifying in both murder trials, Doug provides an unparalleled behind-the-scenes perspective on the nearly five-year investigation that gripped the nation. He also shares insights from his work on another harrowing case, the Joseph Duncan investigation involving survivor Shasta Groene, offering a unique look at the challenges of bringing justice in complex, emotionally charged cases.

Throughout the episode, Doug reflects on his career evolution, from tackling drug and violent crimes early on to focusing on terrorism and national security in the post-9/11 era. He also recounts formative experiences working on Indian reservations, highlighting the distinct challenges of law enforcement in diverse communities.

The conversation takes a broader lens to explore the dynamic relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve, dissecting policy shifts like Oregon’s drug decriminalization laws and the “defund the police” movement. Doug compares these with international approaches, like Portugal’s, offering a candid assessment of their real-world impact on community safety.

As we mark 25 years since the Columbine tragedy, Doug provides a sobering reflection on how law enforcement’s approach to preventing violence in schools and workplaces has evolved. He introduces Threat Zero Solutions, his initiative aimed at early identification of pre-attack behaviors, empowering communities with evidence-based strategies to prevent violence before it happens.

Doug’s steadfast commitment to public safety shines as he discusses the intricacies of managing workplace threats and his innovative vision for keeping communities safe. This episode is a powerful tribute to his unwavering dedication to justice, his deep understanding of human behavior, and his relentless pursuit of solutions to today’s most pressing safety challenges.

Join us for this compelling discussion that dives into Doug Hart’s remarkable career, the lessons he’s learned, and his vision for a safer future.

Lear more here: https://threatzero.org/

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Speaker 1:

Today on the Ever Onward podcast, we have Douglas Hart. He was a 27-year FBI agent and he was involved in some of Idaho's most high-profile cases. Can't wait to catch up with him on those and just get his thoughts and feelings. He also just retired and has started a new company called Threat Zero Solutions, an organization whose mission is to prevent violence in our schools and organizations. Doug is a great friend. I've known him a while and it's going to be really fun to have him on today. Douglas Hart. Doug, this is a lot better circumstances than the last time I saw you. Yeah, I'd never been to the FBI office before. You hadn't? No, I was scared to death. I'm going to tell the story. It'll be a heck of a way to start this podcast. All right, very good. So you were with the FBI for 27 years, right, correct? And I got some threatening emails, yeah, and I came in and you were so awesome. You reassured me, oh thank you.

Speaker 1:

You're like, hey, it was really really good At the time. It was really serious. We were pretty freaked out and my wife was freaked out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

My family was freaked out and you're like, hey, listen, here's how this thing goes and you're going to be okay. Yeah, thanks for that. You're welcome.

Speaker 2:

It's been a while Now you've retired Well for five days and then started with. I'm currently the chief deputy for the Canyon County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so I'm still full-time in law enforcement. I thought you were off doing this new business and that's what you were doing full-time, but you're still working.

Speaker 2:

I'm still working. I'm doing both, doing both. So the sheriff has been wonderful when I was with the FBI. There's absolutely no outside employment In this current job. I have some freedom to do things outside of the sheriff's office and so Well, they probably love you there. Has that been good? It's been great. Absolutely love it. It's a great organization, wonderful people and a lot of innovation the past couple of years. I've been there for two years now and it's just a. You know, the sheriff is currently the president of the National Sheriffs Association, which is the first time in the 84 history of that organization.

Speaker 1:

He is a cool guy, yeah, so he's just a cowboy, really. Yeah, yeah, pretends to be a law enforcement guy, so it's been great.

Speaker 2:

And then, yeah, when I left the FBI, I uh founded this company threat zero solutions, so I'm I'm pretty busy doing both.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can't wait to talk to you about the new company and all things that. But when we got to start, 27 years in the FBI, yes, how was that?

Speaker 2:

How was that? I loved it. I love the profession of law enforcement, wonderful people. Fbi has become politicized, which it shouldn't be, but for your average agent on the street that's not. You know all the frustrations that are felt with the politicization of.

Speaker 1:

How did that happen? Did it used to not be that way? I think it happened. So, 27 years, two years out, so go back three decades when you first went in. Probably was the furthest thing from your mind.

Speaker 2:

Correct. When I first came in, that was before 9-11. Our criminal programs were the primary focus of the FBI.

Speaker 1:

Subsequent to 9-11, then terrorism and national security rightfully so, you know rose to the fore. So before that, you said that quickly. But what so? The first? So that's 9-11, 20 years ago. So your first 10 years, what did you spend most of your time? Drugs and violent crime, okay. Drugs and violent crime, okay. Drugs and violent crime, yeah. And where were you stationed during?

Speaker 2:

that First office was in Honolulu, hawaii. Okay, it's not a bad place, no. And then I wanted something different, so I took what's called an Indian country assignment. So I transferred to Lewiston, idaho, oh, and spent the next seven years working on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. I didn't know that. Yeah, working homicides and rapes and assaults and arsons and every you know. And that was out of Lewiston. Yeah, two-man office, nice people up there, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I got to spend a lot of time with the tribe when I ran for governor and it was really fun getting to know a bunch of people.

Speaker 2:

I really I loved my time. I spent seven years on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, did a little bit of work on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, been to Duck Valley multiple times and then when I was the supervisor, I supervised our Pocatello office, which was the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. So I've worked a lot with the Choban tribes and responded to a lot of crime over on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. So I've worked a lot with the Choban tribes and responded to a lot of crime over on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. So I really liked working with the tribes.

Speaker 1:

That's really great. Did they see you as friendly or how was that interaction with the different tribes?

Speaker 2:

The interaction with the tribal law enforcement was wonderful. Um the communities. It's a mixed you know, um when. When you're advocating for a victim that they know, then you're their friend. When you're investigating somebody that they know, you know law enforcement is, it is. It's a different environment on the Indian reservations, but we made it work and had a lot of very good experiences working a lot of very difficult crimes.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. So sorry, I'm going to like take you off. I'm going to take you off on a bunch of changes. So the first 10 years was kind of violent crimes, drugs. Take you off on a bunch of changes. So the first 10 years was kind of violent crimes, drugs, and then it became the FBI, became more. You know you have 9-11 and then the world changes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And so that's the next big shift. Yeah, still not politicized, though, right?

Speaker 2:

No, no, not nearly as much. We were getting into. You know, hillary Clinton and some of the things that happened there associated with major investigations centered around deleted emails, but also elections, and so it's a really difficult. I didn't you know, I had nothing to do with those, and I think that's what people need to understand is that that occurred at very, very high levels of the FBI with a very select number of people. A lot of them lost their jobs over it and I'm not into politics, so I don't know what happened, you know, subsequent to that, but I think at the leadership level they don't want to be in the middle of that, but they find themselves. You know, how do you not get politicized when you're investigating the son of the president of the United States?

Speaker 2:

You know it's going to get political, it's going to get political, it's gonna get political. So, um, but I think the point is for your average agent it, it, just, it's just not right, it's just not so you were, you were in lewiston, and then where was your next stop?

Speaker 1:

because where were you kind of during this change from being not political, yeah, because at some point you ended up in Boise right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I transferred to Boise in 2008, and I spent seven years running the Treasure Valley Metro Violent Crime Task Force, which is a multi-agency. It's an FBI-led violent crime task force. So you know, back in the early 2000s the gang problem in Canyon County was pretty significant. That's where the task force is headquartered, and so we had 10 different agencies represented full time on the task force and I was the day-to-day supervisor working gangs and violent crime here.

Speaker 1:

That's a pretty incredible story that not many people realize. If you look at the crime data from Canyon County, caldwell, what I have, my theories on what happened. But I think it was really really good leadership I think you had. I mean, you had some great city leadership. I think you had some great law enforcement leadership. You had the YMCA that went out there. You had some community activism that's like, hey, we're not going to do this anymore with good law enforcement. But it's a great story that doesn't get told.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know it was a wonderful collaborative effort that I think demonstrates how we can solve societal problems and have an impact. And so you know, idaho made national news back in the 2004 timeframe for the level of gang violence that was going on in Canyon County In 2006,. City of Nampa had, I think, 211 reported drive-by shootings In 2012,. They had three. The city of Nampa had, I think, 211 reported drive-by shootings In 2012,. They had three. So you know, when people get together in a collaborative way and say let's address a problem, you look back at the data and it's like what happened here.

Speaker 1:

Right, Because it went from like nation-leading statistics all over the news to like nothing happened here. Right, because it went from like nation leading statistics all over the news to like nothing, yeah yeah, and pretty much has stayed relatively low right.

Speaker 2:

It's creeping back up. A lot of the people who were really problematic that were sent to prison they're back and so we're having a bit of a resurgence not nearly like it used to be and we still have very good leadership within the various police departments that are in the cities within Canyon County as well as in Ada County. Idaho is a unique place when it comes to law enforcement. I've never been any place that has more of a cooperative, collaborative, sincerely helpful environment than I've seen here. Isn't it wonderful? The leadership actually likes each other. Yeah, we talk to each other when a problem. You know, I just got a call yesterday from the Meridian chief of police on an issue and people have kind of grown up here in their law enforcement careers and so we've known each other for many, many years. People want to stay here. Did you know Ked Wills?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what a wonderful human being. So Ked and I knew each other. We need to have him on here, you should. Yeah, he just retired, right, he did Going back to. Is he going to go back to Glenn's Ferry?

Speaker 2:

No, he's staying here. He's doing some consulting, is he but? But he and I were together in Lewiston and so my yeah, so I've known him for over 20 years. So when you think of law enforcement leadership in in the Treasure Valley, in this region, there are a lot of very long standing relationships that have developed as a result of these, these working through a lot of crises together, and so it just makes for. You know, the citizens benefit from that pretty significantly because of the collaboration that exists at the top levels of law enforcement.

Speaker 1:

I don't think the general like day-to-day. I don't think we appreciate what it's like in some other parts of the country. We've last year we started helping actually been about two years now a group out of San Diego that was leading a childcare for law enforcement and we've been able to be at play a significant role in that and opening the first daycare essentially childcare for law enforcement. But we spent a lot of time with these retired folks from from San Diego and California that are leading this nationally and you hear, you just sit with them and ask question after question and it's terrifying what their lives are like living in San Diego, california, as a law enforcement officer and the crap they put up with.

Speaker 1:

It's like a different world to us and I can't imagine living in a place where law enforcement is not seen as part of your friends, family, neighbors, part of your community. And I tell the story often I did night shifts for 10 straight years and worked as an ER doc in this town and I don't know how many hundreds, if not thousands, of nights I had law enforcement in the ER with me and I tell people this all the time. Not one time ever did I ever, ever, ever see something that wasn't kind. Courteous, you know, doing their job, professionalism, I mean, it's just part of our DNA, yeah, and I can't imagine living in a community that didn't have that part of their DNA. I just it's just such a fabric of our safety in our life and raising a family that you, you respect law enforcement and they're part of your community, absolutely it's weird it is, and it's.

Speaker 1:

So you go through this whole defund, the police thing that happened, and you're like what on earth is this? Yeah, it's bad, it's just.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. Yeah, I'm glad we don't have that here, glad we don't either.

Speaker 1:

I think it's kind of, don't you think it kind of ran its course a little bit too?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're seeing the pendulum swing the other way because, despite you know you can make statistics work for you however you want, but the end result is a dramatic increase in crime. You know, when you essentially say we're not going to allow you, as law enforcement officers, to enforce the law, I mean, look at what just happened in California with the overwhelming vote to reinstate criminal penalties for theft at certain levels, because you saw, I mean San Francisco. It's just insane.

Speaker 1:

It's insane. Yeah, it's insane. People would walk in and steal up to $1, it's look anywhere.

Speaker 2:

It's just insane. Yeah, it's insane People would walk in and steal up to $1,000 and walk out.

Speaker 1:

So we were in Seattle at the Nike store, A group of our, you know.

Speaker 1:

we went over together and we watched a baseball game and we hung out in Seattle together of my guys here that we worked together and we're in the Nike store. There's like six of us and you know one of mark clarely company's like, hey, that guy's stealing stuff. I'm like what? And I honestly we all sat and watched him walk around to each of the racks, pick his size and throw the item over his shoulder probably 20 items. So we went and grabbed their, their the worker there and said, hey, you guys gonna he's gonna steal all he's stealing. They steal all he's stealing. They're like, yeah, this happens all the time. We're like what do you mean? It happens all the time. Watched him go around the entire store and then said you're not. He's like no, it's our corporate policy not to do anything. And I said, well, don't you call the police. And they're like, well, they wouldn walked out of the store and left and they don't even file a report. They don't report it Exactly.

Speaker 2:

I mean that's not America, no, no, we're a nation of laws, you know, and the laws need to be enforced.

Speaker 1:

Hey, I'm going to ask you all these other questions before we get into some other stuff, but tell me, I listened to a fascinating podcast the other day and it was two guys that were very responsible for the Oregon laws on drugs.

Speaker 1:

So back in the day, these guys were Californians and they were very instrumental in passing the law, and listening to the history behind it was fascinating, because the thesis was hey, if you go to Portugal and they decriminalized all drugs, then there's no reason for people to do, you know, unlawful things and everything's going to be great and it's going to be like visiting Portugal and they do it over in Oregon and it's been a disaster. And so, listening to the guys that actually helped push that legislation, it wasn't that long ago I think it was 2020 if I'm trying to remember, but I think it wasn't too long ago and it's already fell miserably. Oh yeah, like horrifically bad. Yeah, that's our border, though. Yeah, how has that impacted Idaho with the decriminalization? And now I think they're unwinding things as fast as they can over there because they realize they're destroying their communities.

Speaker 2:

But did you see an impact on that? Oh yeah, and you bring up a good point, because I think that people should look at that and say how did you know? We tried an experiment, how did it work? And it was a disastrous failure. One of my frustrations is when Oregon legalized marijuana. There's no, you know, I don't know how a state can simply choose to take a drug and legalize it. I don't know if you're aware and I should preface this with. I think these are the correct statistics, but you can check with the state of Oregon or with the high-intensity drug trafficking area organization in Oregon, but Oregon produces 250 times more marijuana than they consume.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 250. Where does it?

Speaker 2:

go. So where does it go? It goes all over the nation. So how does one state say we're making a decision to legalize this drug and we're going to, so I? It looks like he's pulling some stuff up but they, you know Oregon, oregon. Marijuana is all over the entire nation, so how do they get to make that decision unilaterally that impacts the rest of the country, and that's no different for Colorado or Washington or wherever else.

Speaker 1:

So the other fascinating thing that was on this thing cause these guys were very pro. Remember they were like pro-drug early, but they even said when we legalize we should have regulated. Because the other thing that's happening is it would be like going from prohibition and then legalizing alcohol and then saying alcohol can be whatever percentage you want, sold anywhere you want whatever. It could be whatever percentage you want, sold anywhere you want whatever. So the amount of THC that is in the products that are being sold is also through the roofs, because what they're trying to do is get addiction immediately to these things. So it's not like the old days where, hey, you were smoking a joint or whatever that had this much THC. These products are loaded with THC, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and far beyond marijuana, they also legalized you know— Everything. And so when you go to Portland and look at what the results of that are from a societal perspective— and you know this, being a physician.

Speaker 2:

But in laboratory testing, if you expose animals to cocaine or amphetamines, they will take that drug. They will ignore food, water, sex, all the other drives, and they'll take that drug until they die. So to simply say we're going to unleash all of these things and society will be better for it, because then the government or private entities become the drug distributors. If you don't think the cartels would jump into that, you're very naive. And the substances we're dealing with now? The amount of drug overdose deaths is approaching over 110,000 deaths per year in the United States, which has doubled in a very short period of time. Fentanyl is everywhere, um, and it's killing people at a at a rate that's just truly unbelievable.

Speaker 1:

And the. So the other thing they keep bringing this back up, but they talk about what was going on in the Tenderloin District in San Francisco. So they would actually have billboards that were put up that said hey, do drugs with friends, right? Their whole thing was hey, it's not that you're doing fentanyl and heroin, it's that you're doing it alone. Are you kidding me? And then they realized there was a lawsuit filed by the residents of the Tenderloin District saying get this stuff out of here. So I think the social experiment failed miserably. It's just now. How do we keep Idaho and hopefully we've seen that fail in Oregon, colorado around us and I think this idea Anyway.

Speaker 2:

It's been a massive failure. The impact that those types of drugs have on an individual's life is just devastating, and so to think that if we just legalize all of it, it's all going to be this wonderful, you know it just doesn't work.

Speaker 1:

What are you seeing right now in the Treasure Valley? Is it fentanyl? Back when I was in the ER, it was meth above almost anything, and you don't go to the ER for meth usually, but you'd have to be really, really having a problem to come in. But we saw a lot of that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's meth and fentanyl. Meth was king for a long, long time. Fentanyl is everywhere it's. I mean, we seize thousands and thousands of pills on a regular.

Speaker 1:

That is so insane to me because it is so potent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we, just they. The task force had a traffic stop a couple of weeks ago, seized 17,000 pills, and so for. Of weeks ago sees 17,000 pills, and so for. This is the DEA estimates that six out of 10 fentanyl pills contain a potentially lethal dosage. Now, for somebody who's accustomed to opiates that's probably not, but if you or I were to sit here with 10 fentanyl pills so a little bit of what happens is like the opiate receptor it's called a mu receptor upregulates very quickly.

Speaker 1:

So if you started with a couple of Percocet and you kept taking Percocet every day, you just need more and more and more. And those people when they'd come in the ER, if you gave them one dose of Narcan someone that was addicted they would go ballistic because their cells are just chock full of all of this mu receptors and they would go crazy. But the issue with Narcan is it has a very short half-life too. So the other thing is that people are using Narcan because you can get it now, but the half-life of Narcan is very much shorter than an opiate. So they're back in trouble again. But the point is the dependency happens quickly, and so you've got these people that are addicts, that are dependent, that can take two or three or four pills or an injection or whatever, and then you get a newcomer that doesn't have that. It's lethal, exactly.

Speaker 2:

And that's the problem. Pfizer's not making this stuff. It's all coming from Mexican cartels and their quality control is questionable, have you seen, with the border being basically wide open.

Speaker 1:

that's part of the problem, right. It's a huge part of the problem, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Gosh, can we talk? We can't get into anything positive yet because I've got a couple more. Okay, doug, you were part of some of the biggest cases in Idaho and I don't know how much you can talk about them, but you were part of the Shasta and Dillon groaning right.

Speaker 2:

Groaning.

Speaker 1:

Groaning yeah, horrible case. That's the worst one I've worked. Worst one, right? Yeah, horrific, yes. And how do you deal with some of that? Because the other one I'm going to talk about both of them and then you can kind of talk about it. But you were the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell, you were one of the leads on that, right? Yeah, horrific, yes, yeah, well, first of all, how do you see something like that? These are two very high-profile cases in Idaho, but what people can do to other people is just shocking. In the Vallow case, it was their children, right, but how is it being the one leading that and digging into it and just dealing with it?

Speaker 2:

So for me, the responsibility that you have as an investigator on those cases is substantial, and when you have a duty to perform, it's probably similar in the emergency room If you're a bystander and see a gunshot victim, that's traumatizing. But if you're a physician and you're analyzing that, saying these are the steps I need to take in order to affect an impact on this Protective right, be valuable to you in how you navigate that case, and so you know you have a duty to perform, which is an important duty and, at least for me personally, that's always been a little bit of a protection. You know, at some point does that dam break, or how do you unpack that baggage? I don't know. There are things that I saw in the Groney investigation that I've, you know, literally never discussed with another human being, probably won't ever. It's that bad, but you, I mean you can't really pack up and go home, so you compartmentalize it and stuff it away somewhere.

Speaker 2:

And you work and so you know. That's just the that's. You see a lot of bad things, you see a lot of heartbreaking things, but you are the voice for the victims in those cases, and if you fail to do your job, then they don't have a voice. You become their advocate for justice.

Speaker 2:

And so that is a motivation and that helps you to respond to those things. You know, when we were excavating the graves of the JJ and Tylee over in eastern Idaho, those were two really rough days. You know, we're parents and you're seeing things that you shouldn't see.

Speaker 1:

I think, with that one being so recent, I think everyone knew, but they were just cheering for, like find these kids and get some closure to it. When did that break? When did you know where they were just cheering for, like find these kids and get some closure to it? When did that break? When?

Speaker 2:

did you know where they were? You know that was a really interesting interesting is not the right word, but it was a very complex set of circumstances and what I really take pride in as far as the Dave Belvalo case is it's not one individual that did some brilliant thing, it was just really methodical, thorough law enforcement investigations that won the day. And so what we were doing, we were following every lead that came in. At the same time we were doing a massive electronic device, cell phone analysis, and there was a piece of that that was really critical in terms of some timing and some particular dates. In conjunction with that, we were looking for what's our last known sighting of Tylee? What's our last verifiable sighting of JJ? Those dates became important, our last verifiable sighting of JJ. Those dates became important and that was an entirely separate line of investigation.

Speaker 2:

We had seized probably close to 60 different computers and phones. We had to go through those one by one. One phone, for instance, had 54,000 text messages and you can't do a keyword search because you don't know what the keyword might be, so you have to go through them line by line, and and we had an analyst going through one of the phones and and we knew these dates for last known sightings alive, and there was a text message that coincided with the date of the last known sighting, of that of Tylee alive, and also coincided with the date of the last known sighting of Tylee alive and also coincided with some cellular telephone analysis that put Alex and Chad on the property. And so you start putting all these and then you build, and so we said, okay, with all of these pieces we have enough for a search warrant and you have to meet that threshold. You have to meet that threshold, you have to meet that threshold.

Speaker 1:

You're also thinking of the end from the beginning, right, yeah, you've got to have something that's going to hold up in court and put these guys away once you get it Right. So then you were able to get the search warrant. How confident were you when you went there that that was going to be what you found?

Speaker 2:

I was fairly certain because the text message was Chad Daybell texting his wife. You know, I shot a raccoon while I was burning these branches and then I buried it in the pet cemetery. Well, what that is is he's having to come up with an excuse why they're digging and burning on the property. On the morning after the last known sighting of Tylee, in conjunction with Alex being on the property for two and a half hours during the exact time that that text was sent, I felt fairly confident. But until you actually found them and we found JJ first and then Tylee was I don't want to be graphic, but Tylee was in pieces. So that took two full days to process that crime scene.

Speaker 1:

With those two your opinion on this, because you could almost say, okay, was one person so delusional that they were just but two people so delusional that they could kill their children? I mean, it's just so sad and so horrible. What are your thoughts on that case?

Speaker 2:

I think it was a unique circumstance. There were more than you know. There's Alex the brother was in that, as were some other people on the periphery. I think Chad Daybell was the driver of that. I think Chad Daybell was the driver of that and there were people of the LDS faith who were looking at some very extreme content that these groups were putting out and wanted to believe in some of these things that are very, very far-reaching. And so, and Lori was one of those, and so I think, you know, I think, for Chad, he saw it as his way to manipulate that process and get what he wanted in terms of he wanted Lori and he knew the way to get her was to be this visionary and this prophet and what was in the way and this prophet and what was in the way.

Speaker 2:

You know, jj was an autistic boy who required a tremendous amount of time and attention and care, and Tylee was a teenage girl going through a lot of stuff, and so I think, you know, in Chad's world he had the fantasy girl. He just didn't want the baggage that went along with that. Concepts that he came up with justify, you know, murder as essentially freeing those people from the dark spirits that had inhabited their body.

Speaker 1:

So evil, yeah, so evil, yeah. Well, man, bless you for doing it all. I mean, it's a heavy thing I want to getthis goes by way too fast, doug. So let's transition to some really great things you're doing, sure. So first of all, james, your brother. Yes, I love that guy. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1:

So I've got to tell the story of James. So I'm on a plane with him, going to a football game, and I was looking for a CEO of my company and I'm sitting there he's like you know, we're just getting to know each other. And he's like what do you do? And I'm telling him what he did and he had just like exited another company and I said, well, here's kind of where we're at, but we really need someone to kind of take it to the next level. And between going there it was a Utah State game, I think going to the game and coming back, I'm like, hey, can we meet tomorrow?

Speaker 1:

Anyway, he became the CEO of stat pads, which is a company I had, and absolutely just killed it for us. Perfect guy, right time, right place, right Skill set. It's a great example actually, of sometimes founders. You, you know what needs to be done and you kind of have the vision for it, but you kind of need the guy to execute your plan. Yeah, and he was the executioner came in and just kind of he just killed it for us and did a great job. So you've, you found a new business with him.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he's the CEO of threat zero solutions.

Speaker 1:

So threat zero solutions. I can't wait to hear about this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, um, so towards the end of my FBI tenure, the last seven years of my career, at a national level, any time a threat related to the state of Idaho that came straight to my desk to deal with. And so the last seven years of my career, I dealt with hundreds and hundreds of threats to schools, to organizations, hundreds and hundreds of threats to schools, to organizations, and had to. The FBI's done a lot of top quality research along with the Secret Service and Department of Education and Homeland Security, have looked at how can we prevent violence in our society, and primarily I'm talking about, you know, active shooter events and mass attacks, but also other types of violence that take place. And so there were so many of these threats that I eventually became what's called a certified threat manager, and there are very few of those in the country. You have to take a series of exams to obtain that certification, but that's the volume of threats I was dealing with.

Speaker 2:

I wanted to get better at threat assessment and threat management and consequently traveled and trained for years throughout Idaho and throughout the West on an evidence-based approach to violence prevention, and that's what I love about what we're doing is it's 100% evidence-based. And the problem was, as an FBI agent, I would leave that training and I've given you some good information, but I've given you nothing to implement. I've taught you something, but where do you go from there, but where do you go from there?

Speaker 2:

What do I do now? What do I implement? How do I implement it? And so, as I was winding down my career in the FBI, I spoke with my brother frequently and with my oldest son, who had graduated and was working in the venture capital finance world venture capital finance world and we just, over the course of a number of years, said we'd love to have a mission, focus, a purpose to do something that we see is really so desperately needed. As you're probably aware, this year is the 25th anniversary of Columbine, and so at Columbine there's a plaque that says it brought the nation to our knees. But now that we've gotten back up, what have we learned and how have things changed? And so those two questions apply not only to schools but to our society, because that's where, in fact, it's in business where most of these things take place. They own almost 50% of these types of attacks. And the answer to that question what have we learned? We've learned a tremendous amount, but how have things changed? I'll show you this that I brought. I mean, this is the trend line since that time. So the answer to how have things changed?

Speaker 1:

is Wow, that's 25 years, right there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, look at that trend line, yeah, and so I'm not a fear monger. My message is one of hope and control, that we have the ability to impact these things, but unfortunately, the lessons learned have largely been ignored, and so that's what Threat Zero Solutions is about is. We've developed, we've taken all of this research, we've distilled it down into its critical elements and we've put it in a format for organizations and for schools to be able to implement a very easy training program to make their what's your website?

Speaker 1:

I want to walk through this it's uh called threatzeroorg okay, here we go. So prevent violence with threat zero. And how? How do people learn more? Because this seems like this is again big societal problems. We have Huge Like safety of our kids in school, big, big deal, yeah, and a lot of talk, a lot of chatter, a lot of hey. We need to do something much, much harder to say, okay, what do we do, what's the next step? So walk us through this.

Speaker 2:

Well, what we know is that this type of violence is preceded by what we call observable pre-attack behaviors or indicators, and it's many, many months, often years, in advance of somebody acting violently. So if I can tell you what the behaviors are, I can tell you how far in advance of an attack or a violent act they occur, I can tell you who observes those behaviors, then I've given you the ability to. I'm not naive, we're not going to prevent all of these, but a very large number could be prevented. We know that in the schools, 100% of the students who commit these atrocities display these behaviors. It's slightly less when we go to the rest of society, but it's 89%. So even in the workplace, in government, in the other sectors of society where these things take place, 89% of the time those behaviors are present, and these are behaviors that should elicit immediate concern. They're not subtle behaviors, but here's the key thing we can't expect people to do what they're not trained to do, and so we need to make people aware of what these behaviors are, and that's the training program that we've created. And then the second piece is you have to give people a mechanism to share those concerns, to report those behaviors.

Speaker 2:

Most organizations today have no formal reporting mechanism, like if your employee sees something that's concerning, what do you do with it. So we built that. And then, lastly, you know, depending on the size of the organization and the security posture the science of behavioral threat assessment. You need to have some guidance and some structure and some expertise. So we built a digital threat assessment tool to walk someone. If a person of concern is brought to their attention, we have a process in place that they can do all of that. That sounds so. It's an all-inclusive solution and we've had some amazing success stories that, I think, demonstrate why an evidence-based approach is where we should be paying attention. And so we've had organizations that are using this. We just had one about six weeks ago. They noticed they it's a video-based training. It's three to five minutes. Basically, five minutes a month is all it takes, month by month, to get your folks trained up.

Speaker 1:

So again, going through your algorithm. So it's knowledge first. Yes, so it's training that's easy to get to, but, hey, this may be something that may or may not be intuitive to you. I'm going to train you. So it's training that's easy to get to, but, yes, this may be something that that may or may not be intuitive to you. I'm going to train you so yes exactly, then a reporting mechanism, yes.

Speaker 2:

And so those trainings are different. For for schools, we, we, we. Actually, one of the things that's unique about us is we developed a student. One of the things that's unique about us is we developed a student. We know 92% of the time it's students who see the behavior, 94% of the time it's at school, but we ignore the students. So we created a monthly training for students. We created a monthly training for staff and teachers. We even created a training for parents, because they need to know about this as well. So we want the whole community to know about this. Similarly, on the organizational side, we want the employees are the eyes and ears of the organization. You, as the CEO, are not going to see the behavior, but the employees are. But the employees will, and so we give them that training and what we've seen. You know it's five minutes a month. You watch a short video on a critical behavior. We can take you to the published research for every video, but after one of our videos, one of the organizations using this had a person exhibit. You know some behaviors came to light. They subsequently called me I'm kind of the phone-a-friend of all of this and we walked through that and I recommended that.

Speaker 2:

This is one case where a law enforcement response was needed. That's definitely not the case most of the time, but in some circumstances that's what you need. Law enforcement got involved. They were able to seek a search warrant and in executing the search warrant they found, you know, a lot of very concerning materials as well as a written plan to to commit an attack. Um. A few weeks later in a school we we got a call. Can you, can you tell what state that was? In Oregon, oregon. Yeah, a few weeks later we got a call um on uh, here's, the other thing is we're, we're sitting here in in Meridian Um. Do you know in the Boise school district last year how many suicides they had?

Speaker 1:

I don't. I should know that.

Speaker 2:

They had seven student suicides in seven weeks, wow, and so self-harm. Someone contemplating self-harm will also exhibit.

Speaker 1:

In a similar way.

Speaker 2:

Similar way, similar behavior, same with if they're the victim of extreme bullying or harassment on the corporate side. You can't imagine how many of these are driven by intimate partner violence and spillover of intimate partner violence into the workplace. And so this awareness piece is what's really critical and what's missing. And we had a student come forward and say hey, based on what I've just been taught, this classmate of mine is contemplating suicide. And sure enough, they contacted that student and the student verified yeah, I'm in a really bad place, and got him some services. And so it's no different than in the field of medicine If you follow the evidence and the research, that's what leads you to the solutions, whereas what we're doing in society now is misaligned, because well-intentioned people don't understand the evidence, they don't understand the problem. So let's take school safety, for instance. We're spending three and a half billion dollars a year in our country on school safety. Do you know where most of that goes?

Speaker 1:

Not to this.

Speaker 2:

It goes to physical security. Well, 95% of school attacks take place in middle school and high school, and do you know who the perpetrators are? Currently enrolled students over 90% of the time. So if we're spending all of our money on access control, physical security ballistic film the threat is.

Speaker 2:

That's all wonderful for an external threat. Now, when we look at our elementary schools, it truly is an external threat. So I'm a big advocate of making our elementary schools very, very hard safe places from a physical security perspective, because it's an external threat. But when you move into middle school and high school, it's almost exclusively an internal threat. Yet we're approaching it as an external threat and so we have this program that we've created.

Speaker 1:

Well, and my guess, I mean I just I know James, he absolutely just killed it. For us, it's what is scalable. You're using technology. You're doing a lot of the things that he actually did for stat pads. Yeah, that probably are correlating very well of how do you scale this thing, how do you do it, how do you, how do you track it, how do you?

Speaker 2:

all, a lot of that's probably playing straight over right. Yeah, and it's been. You know, we're, we're, we're. It's just working really well in terms of.

Speaker 1:

So how do people like for people listening today? How do you get more information and where do we go?

Speaker 2:

Just go to threatzeroorg and there's a tab up there that says book a call and we can reach out for you, and particularly in the workplace. What I think is also a factor in this is there's a massive exposed liability. Sure, because when you look at this in the workplace today, you can't say I don't know about this, this isn't, it's almost it's preventable, or at least could be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we call that foreseeability, and so, from a liability standpoint, one of the things that I do quite a bit of is I'm hired as an expert witness in violence cases to evaluate who's liable for these things. And so not only is this the right thing to do for the right reasons for your people, it gives them hope, it gives them control, it gives them a sense of ownership, a shared responsibility in their own safety, which is wonderful. If you have nothing in place in terms of workplace violence prevention policy, workplace violence prevention training, then, should you have an incident, the argument of I couldn't possibly see this happening doesn't exist in our society anymore, and so it's also an insurance program.

Speaker 1:

It's also an insurance policy. Yes, yeah, and and so um your, your, uh, the businesses you serve, um any business any business school districts here.

Speaker 2:

That's your, that's your we're doing schools, municipalities and organizations and we have great solutions. Uh, if you're in the retail space space, we have really good solutions. If you're in the, you know we call it businesses that are generally closed to pedestrian traffic. So you know manufacturing industry any of any organization that has employees should have something in place. And what's interesting is it's actually starting to be legislated. So not that we want to follow California, but California put in legislation that every company had to have a written workplace violence prevention policy. We expect Oregon and Washington to follow suit. New York State also implemented that. I don't know if that will come and touch Idaho. I don't believe it needs to be legislated. I'm certainly not an advocate for that. But my point is finally, after decades of seeing this kind of violence, you have some people saying we've got to pay attention to this, some people saying we've got to pay attention to this, and I would hope that we wouldn't need to look for a legislative solution but that we would recognize that. But there haven't been a lot of solutions.

Speaker 1:

Super compelling on so many fronts because of you know I'd already thought of because I've talked to James a little about the prevention for workplace violence and school safety, but I hadn't thought about the suicide thing, oh yeah, and how correlated they probably are on a lot of those same evaluations and warning signs. So you're really saving lives in two different ways and you're doing the right thing.

Speaker 2:

Well, let's take the statistics right now indicate that one in two women and two in five men will be victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. You have over 16 million domestic violent incidents in the US per year. Well, that's probably happening to somebody in your organization, to somebody in your organization. Would you not want to advocate for them and get them some help? Half of the mass attacks that we've seen have come in conjunction with an employee being fired, reprimanded or otherwise disciplined. So how many organizations end up terminating people in the course of operating their businesses? That happens a lot, and so I'm just saying that there are great answers to a lot of the worries and concerns that both schools and organizations have that are, I'll keep saying it, 100% evidence-based. This isn't, you know, we put it together, but the research comes from pretty irrefutable sources that are published and verifiable, and so if you pay attention to the evidence, then the solution works, and so that's what we're all about.

Speaker 1:

Well, hey, we're thrilled to be able to get the word out and send people your way. And then, as importantly, thank you for your service, doug. Oh, my pleasure. A long time and still right here in our community taking care of people. Yeah, I'll be here for a long time more. Thank you for taking care of me when I needed a little threat assessment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that was really good. I mean, that ties into all of this. We're providing those tools to be able to assess that kind of thing, just like what happened to you. That's amazing.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you for your service. Doug, thank you for coming on today, my pleasure.

Speaker 2:

I can't thank you enough for having me. Thanks, thanks, everybody.