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The Hunt with John Walsh

The Capture of Charles Mozdir; Killers Behind the Wheel: Where is Christopher Ponce?; David Burgert Flees Society

Aired December 27, 2014 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN WALSH, CNN HOST: Back in 1981, I had the American dream, the beautiful wife, the house in the suburbs, and a beautiful 6-year-old son. And, one day I went to work, kissed my son good-bye, and never saw him again. In two weeks, I became the parent of a murdered child and I will always be the parent of a murdered child.

I still have the heartache. I still have the rage. I waited years for justice. I know what it is like to be there waiting for some answers, and over those years, I learned how to do one thing really well. And, that is how to catch these bastards and bring them back to justice. I have become a man hunter. I am out there looking for bad guys.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVE GASKINS, SERGEANT AT FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL: July 19, 2012. 2:45 in the morning. Arrived on scene. It was rarely apparent two cars had collided head-on.

WALSH: A car is just as deadly as a gun.

SGT. GASKINS: We had three people in one car, all of them had serious injuries and one person had a fatal injury.

WALSH: Sometimes what looks like an accident really is a crime.

SGT. GASKINS: There are people that really should not be on the road behind the wheel of a car. That really should be in jail and Christopher Ponce is one of those people.

WALSH: There is no question who the bad guy is in this case. The question is, where is he?

(BEGIN VIDEO CAPTION)

Christopher Ponce charged with vehicular homicide on the run since May 2013.

(END VIDEO CAPTION)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAY DAVIS, PASSENGER IN WILLIAM ANGEL'S CAR: I met William in 2005 at middle school here in Florida. Our friendship had built over the years, probably sat at the same lunch table just about every year through school. One of our good friends had returned from Afghanistan with the U.S. Marines, and we had not seen him since high school.

So, me and William with another friend of mine, Robert, we figured out a good meeting point would be down in Hyde Park. At the time, I did not have my own vehicle, so me and Will sort of chipping both in on gas for his car. He had had that Mustang since high school. We took that thing to work every day. We went, hung out with all the same people together and I mean, that was our -- that was the car. That was the familiar vehicle for us.

LYNN ANGEL, WILLIAM'S MOTHER: William did not really want to drive that night, but he said Robert's car was on the fritz, so he was probably going to have to drive.

DAVIS: By the time we actually got there, it was probably at least 11:00, 11:30. We were underage, but we were still allowed to hang out in the bar because it was a restaurant also. We were just having a good night, you know? We had no idea what was to come.

Closing time comes and we got in the car. I sort of squashed myself in the back of his mustang. I must have been halfway behind the passenger seat, halfway in the middle. We were coming up to the merge. I saw headlights. And, I remember veering to the right, and I heard both William and Robert scream. Before I knew it, I was going through the windshield.

SGT. GASKINS: Early in the morning of July 19, 2012, I was out patrolling with the Florida Highway Patrol. I was traveling on Interstate-4 approaching the junction here in Tampa with I-275. There were reports on the radio that a severe crash had occurred. I was roughly about 3 miles away, so I was able to respond rapidly.

DAVIS: When I opened my eyes, I was laying through the windshield face down on the engine. The first thing that really crossed my mind was I am outside, how can I be outside. I was just like, "What the hell happened? What happened?"

I could not really feel any pain. I think the only thing I could really feel was the sensation of the hot engine on my arms and my chest. And, I heard Robert yell, and he told me that his arm and his leg were broken.

Robert's father is a police officer and we knew it was best to try and stay awake. So, we tried talking to one another and just tried to keep each other calm. We had not heard anything from Will. I think we both assumed that he was knocked out from the impact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE OFFICER (1): There is a pretty large signal 4 on I- 275 northbound.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE OFFICER (2): That thing is destroyed. I guarantee you it is a 1032 in that car right there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE OFFICER: And, no one is in the vehicle they are moving right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVIS: As it turns out, I did actually pass out. When I woke up, there were some people driving through the rubble. One gentleman got out and he approached us, and as soon as he got up to the vehicle he just put his hand over his face.

The paramedics arrived and I could hear the ambulances, as I could hear a helicopter also. And, I could see the lights from the ambulance. They reached the vehicle and they were shining the flashlight through the front of the twisted mess.

Robert started yelling for them to get William out of the car first. So, I just chimed in. I could not see Will. I started arguing with the paramedic. And, I heard him call signal seven. Signal seven means that there is a body.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALKS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: One unconscious male in the Mustang.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVIS: And, the paramedic sat in the front of the vehicle and I am still arguing with him about Will. He just said to me, "He did not make it." And, that was the first time that I heard that I had lost my best friend.

SGT. GASKINS: Right off the back, I could tell that the driver of the mustang had been killed in the crash. The other person inside the other car was receiving treatment from fire rescue personnel. They had to extract him, but he was alive as well.

We started to piece the evidence together, and what we surmised occurred was that the driver of the Ford had entered the wrong exit ramp, coming the wrong way, and collided head-on with the Mustang.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: When someone is coming at you in the wrong lane down the highway and you have no options, you are going to hit head-on. You are lucky, you live. If you are unlucky, you are dead. And, one person, William Angel, in that car, was the unlucky guy who died. Because of an entitled, "Spoiled, Drunk Kid."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. GASKINS: We identified what became known as the wrong-way driver as Christopher Ponce. And, in a case like this, that is so egregious. It was very clear early on that alcohol most likely played a role.

WADE ANGEL, WILLIAM'S FATHER: I do not know why he was on the road. Why was he allowed to drive?

LYNN ANGEL: Actually, why was he allowed back on the road?

WADE ANGEL: It was just a matter of time before he killed somebody. It was just a matter of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. GASKINS: His license had been suspended numerous times.

LYNN ANGEL: You kill somebody with a gun, you are not allowed out on bail. He still killed him. Why is he given the privilege of being home?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH: Christopher Ponce is accused of driving drunk the wrong way on I-275 early Thursday morning and causing a deadly head-on collision. The car he hit, a mangled Mustang driven by 20-year-old William Angel of Wesley Chapel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WADE ANGEL: William drew satisfaction from making other people feel good. He was going to work for my sister's motel and Marina on the Portage River up in Ohio, fishing tourist area. He had the perfect personality for that work.

My sister wanted to build a cabin each year to rent out and I was building one, and he was due to come up in August to look at our first cabin. And of course, July 19th came and he never got to see the first cabin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WADE ANGEL, JR., WILLIAM'S OLDER BROTHER: This is William's room. Has not changed much. It is still the same room, complete with books and pictures and pictures of his old dog; his bed in the corner where it always was. This is still William's room.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: I know that feeling. I have been there. Somebody tears your heart out, but you do not die. You do not bleed to death. You are still functioning. Your heart broken and you are devastated. He was a great little brother. We love him. We want justice. We want our day in court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WADE ANGEL, JR.: We learned a lot in that first day, but there is still so many questions. I did not know Chris Ponce from the guy next to me. No idea who he was. How do you get on an off-ramp, especially downtown? How does Chris get on the wrong side of the road?

SGT. GASKINS: He had had a previous DUI arrest. We knew that his license has been suspended numerous times for various reasons, pretty much throughout the state of Florida, from the panhandle to the, you know, the south end of the state.

WADE ANGEL, JR.: Reckless driving charges, drunk driving charges, speeding tickets. I mean, you can expect for a teenager to get a speeding ticket, but the list was horrifying for a man that is 22 years old.

DAVIS: The only thing that I know about Chris Ponce is that his parents were successful dentists.

WADE ANGEL, JR.: Christopher went to an expensive private school. The one thing that you could definitely say was that Chris was very lucky financially to be born into the family that he is.

RACHEL, CHRIS PONCE'S FORMER CLASSMATE: Chris loves expensive watches, flashy clothes, fast cars. He used to laugh when people called him reckless. I think he took it as a compliment. The accident did not really surprise me. He had been caught drinking and driving before. His lifestyle did not really seem to change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Without a doubt, this is not an accident. This was a deadly, troubled, alcoholic time bomb waiting to blow up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. GASKINS: Our investigators arrived at the hospital when we knew that Christopher Ponce would be released once his treatment concluded.

DAVIS: He had a broken ankle from the accident, which seems minute compared to everything that we went through. SGT. GASKINS: We took him to the Hillsborough County Jail. At that

point, we made charges of reckless driving, DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide. Those were some pretty serious offenses. The first hearing that Mr. Ponce would face would be a bail hearing and because toxicology results can often take weeks or months to return, and without those results, the judge did not feel completely comfortable, you know, keeping Mr. Ponce in jail, and opted to provide a high bond.

WADE ANGEL: The judge said that he was going to grant the bond, but he turned to the prosecutor and said when that blood alcohol comes back, if it is over the legal limit, he will be retained back into custody.

JUDGE WALTER HEINRICH JR. HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE: Our life comes to a screeching halt. You are not going to school. You are not going to church. You are going to sit in your house and you are going to stay there.

SGT. GASKINS: The judge was very aggressive in his comments and I think he actually said what a lot of people were thinking. This is a traffic homicide case and the keyword being homicide. He killed somebody.

JUDGE HEINRICH, JR.: I think you were drunk. I think you are lucky you did not have a girlfriend in the car that did not die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: It was a homicide. The victims are in terrible shape. But, the guy who caused the whole thing is on the couch watching cable T.V., getting food brought to him and taking a nice shower in his bathroom when he is supposed to be in jail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WADE ANGEL: It was extremely difficult for me to maintain my composure.

LYNN ANGEL: See, I do not understand is that -- you kill somebody with a gun, you are not allowed out on bail. You kill somebody with a car, I mean, he still killed him. So, why is he given the privilege of being home?

SGT. GASKINS: Toxicology results indicated that Mr. Ponce was drunk.

MIKE PEROTTI, MAJOR SHERIFF'S OFFICE, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FL: He had sustained injuries that required follow-up care. Many of the doctors' appointments did not require removal of the ankle monitor. The MRIs did.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEROTTI: This is your standard ankle monitor. The circuitry of the transmitter is connected and completed within the plastic of the band. If the band is broken, the circuit is broken and therefore, it will not transmit. It is not designed to be fool-proof. It is designed to add an extra layer of assurance that the promises made by this particular defendant are going to be adhered to.

SGT. GASKINS: Weeks later, toxicology results were provided to the judge and indicated that Mr. Ponce was indeed under the influence of alcohol. He was drunk. He was at .14, almost twice the legal limit.

WADE ANGEL: We are expecting the judge is going to say, "OK, we are going to remand you back into custody." Instead, he recused himself from the case, because of the comments he made previously.

JUDGE HEINRICH, JR.: I think you were drunk. I think you are lucky you did not have a girlfriend in the car that did not die.

WADE ANGEL: It was assigned to another judge and that judge let the bond --

LYNN ANGEL: Stay.

WADE ANGEL: -- stay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: First judge said if the tox comes back and it is over the legal limit, you are going to be in jail. The second judge, do not they talk? What would be the problem to say, "I made a deal, if the tox comes in positive, you got to remand the bond, you got -- you got to bring him in. He needs to be in jail while he is awaiting trial."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEROTTI: Mr. Ponce had sustained injuries that required pretty substantial follow-up care. It was not unusual for us to be aware of doctors' visits, aware of an MRI, and we had very good compliance with him up to that point. Many of the doctors' appointments did not require removal of the ankle monitor. The MRIs did.

SGT. GASKINS: May 9, 2013, I had received a call that Christopher Ponce had removed his ankle bracelet, so the ability to track him was now gone and that we did not know where he was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Do not tell me he did not arrange the run. He scheduled multiple doctors' appointments over one month. He takes the bracelet off, and he always comes home. He set the cops up.

WADE ANGEL, JR.: I had just assumed that he was going to face what he had done. I was expecting him to go away for awhile and serve his time that he should be serving. I sure did not expect him to flee.

PEROTTI: It is one thing when somebody was just recently in our custody and that is now on the lam somewhere. It is another thing when they were in their own home, capable of making any of a number of arrangements that we do not know about. It makes it more difficult. I do not know a lot of 22 year olds that are going to successfully pull off going off the grid without help. And, that is what he has done thus far.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Here is a kid who has never done anything in his life but take money from his parents, beautiful car, entitled, no remorse, no empathy. That is what everybody says. How does a kid who does not have the street smarts and savvy and connections organize a run?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WADE ANGEL: Somebody knows where he is at. He needs somebody else to clean up after him. So, somebody knows where he is at.

SGT. GASKINS: We would like someone to come forward, whether it be a friend or just the general public that just recognizes this man on the street. Come forward and tell us.

WADE ANGEL, JR.: We have started a website just to get people talking, because word of mouth travels. All it takes is one little mess-up, one little detail, to catch somebody.

WADE ANGEL: We are still trying to get what is right.

LYNN ANGEL: We are trying to find justice for William. Because we are the ones that are left that need to do that. Because he is not going to be forgotten. And, we love him, still.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Chris Ponce has brown hair and brown eyes. He speaks Spanish fluently and may be living in a Spanish-speaking country. If you have seen Chris Ponce, or have any information as to his whereabouts, please call 1-866-THE-HUNT or go online at cnn.com/thehunt. You can remain anonymous. We will pass your tip on to the proper authorities and if requested, will not reveal your name.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF CHUCK CURRY, FLATHEAD COUNTY SHERIFF: Dave Burgert was not your normal rational citizen. He was the kind of guy that just did not fit well in society.

JAMIE ROGERS, JOURNALIST, MISSOULA, MT: David forever has had a hard time with authority.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE POLICE (1): I have information --

WILL NEWSOM, DEPUTY SHERIFF, MISSOULA COUNTY, MT: I know he hates cops. He had a gun pointing at me, and then I saw the gun go off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF CURRY: We live in a very beautiful part of the country. This portion of Montana borders glacier national park. We are in the Rocky Mountains. We are surrounded by lots of very mountainous, sparsely populated terrain. We get a lot of people coming here to escape urban city life, to escape high crime areas. It is a great place to raise your kids and live.

ROGERS: There are people in Montana who are less than enthused about the government, who are less than enthused about the idea of government.

RACHEL CARROLL RIVAS, MONTANA HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORK: They often call themselves survivalists, but what are they preparing to survive for? They have a belief that there is something they are going to have to survive and that is going to be a showdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Montana has a huge tradition of the population there making a living in a tough environment. People are proud, they work hard. They are the embodiment of the American western spirit.

Then you have got the other side. Militia men, skinheads, tax protesters, sort of that unhinged part of Montana that everybody knows is there. They co-exist with it, but it is the underbelly of this beautiful state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGERS: When he was young, David Burgert cared very much about helping other people, particularly helping people whom he perceived to be weaker. I think in his mind, joining the military was a way for him to get to be a hero, to live out his fantasies of helping and saving people.

And, when he got there, you know, guys screaming in his face every day did not -- did not work with his chemistry. When he came back from the Marine Corps, violence had become a main form of expression for him. His mother says that he used to press his jeans, put on a cowboy hat and get like really gussied up to go fight.

SHERIFF CURRY: Mr. Burgert was the kind of guy that just did not fit well in normal society. He was the kind of guy that would do whatever he could to provoke you. I think he just felt that things should be his way.

ROGERS: For that period of his life, his decisions did not make a lot of sense. In 1985, he got drunk and broke into a trailer. He went into the refrigerator and made himself a sandwich, but he was carrying a firearm. He heard a car coming, took off and forgot his pistol. He woke up the next day and he did not have his gun, wanted to find it and he asked the sheriff's department if they had found it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: In his mind, he had made a mistake. He got too buttered and he left his gun in the trailer that he broke into, and then he was even dumber when he called the cops. It was me, I did not really do anything that bad, little B & E. I left my gun. I was not going to hurt anybody, give me the gun back. How did they repay David Burgert for his honesty in 'fessing up? Four years in prison.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGERS: When he got out of prison, he moved to Flathead Valley in Northern Montana. He got married and at some point, David decided he wanted to join search and rescue.

SHERIFF CURRY: Mr. Burgert did apply for our search and rescue team, and during the course of that application process, we found that he had a criminal history. So, we did tell him that he would not be accepted under the search and rescue team. He was not overly happy about that.

ROGERS: That was important to him. That was a void in his life. He had wanted to fill for a long, long time and had failed at every step. You know, he could not cut it in the military. He is not allowed to be on search and rescue, so he just becomes this sort of like citizen watchdog in his mind, I think. The guy was notorious for being just a pain in the ass.

SHERIFF CURRY: He was just one of those very confrontational individuals.

FRANK MIELE, MANAGING EDITOR AT DAILY INTER LAKE: The people who knew Dave felt that it was just a matter of time before something happened.

ROGERS: In November of 2001, David worked as a process server for a Missoula based attorney and that attorney was in Kalispell trying to serve a woman and was having a hard time tracking her down.

Finally, he said I got to go back to Missoula and he dropped the papers off with David. This attorney on his way out of town happens to see the woman in her car, and starts following her. Well, she calls the police and says this guy is stalking me. The police come. They pull him over. They asked him what he is doing. He calls David and says, "I need you to bring the papers down and prove that I am who I say I am."

David arrives at the scene and his relationship being what it was with all members of law enforcement in Flathead County, was told to get back in his car immediately. David refuses to get back in his car after he is told to do so. And, is pepper sprayed in the face. An officer puts him in handcuffs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: I am real familiar with david. I do not want him with his history behind my back while I am on a traffic stop, OK? ROGERS: This had to be a moment where David really snapped.

SHERIFF CURRY: And, it turned out they were members of this militia group known as Project 7. The goal of this group was to assassinate people that had wronged them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Nobody surrender your weapons at nobody --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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ROGERS: In January of 2002, David disappeared. His wife said that he went fishing. The sheriff's department went down to the river and found, you know, a tackle box open and a rod there.

SHERIFF CURRY: It looked like Mr. Burgert had fallen into the river and drowned, but it was not a place where one would slip and fall, so it appeared to us at that point that Mr. Burgert was attempting to stage his own death or disappearance, and we did not believe that he would stay missing for very long.

In February of 2002, we get a 17-year-old male individual who came to us and said that Mr. Burgert was not dead. He had been living up in the woods with his girlfriend, Tracy Brockwood.

ROGERS: Tracy Brockwood was having an affair with David.

SHERIFF CURRY: And, they were members of this militia group known as Project 7.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Project 7 believed that if big brother or big government becomes too oppressive, they were going to fight back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE CHEZEM, FORMER MEMBER OF PROJECT 7: Being a citizen of the republic is not a spectator sport. The only way that you keep government in line is if you are an active participant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JOHN STOKES, KGEZ RADIO HOST: Good morning.

DAVID BURGERT, MEMBER OF PROJECT 7: Morning, John. How are you?

STOKES: I am doing good.

BURGERT: I need to let you know as well as the listeners know that those active members that know what I am talking about, they need to secure the areas that they have been assigned to secure. Nobody, nobody surrender your weapons to nobody. I do not care what color the uniform is. Do not surrender your weapons.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHEZEM: By straw poll, Dave was made number one.

He had been in the battle a long time. He had a lot of knowledge. Dave's specialty was firearms mainly, because hey, he was good.

MIKE DOMINICK, CAPTAIN, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT, MISSOULA COUNTY: I dealt with the Militias before here in Montana. They have been quite active over the years and we had some core paranoid-type people like Burgert, who somehow came to be seen as leaders.

CHEZEM: I was designated number 2 by the group. And, from time to time, we would get together. We talked about current events. We talked about different pieces of information that we had picked up about things that were pertinent, you know, to surviving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: People in the counterintelligence business and law enforcement share a similar philosophy. Let's stop them before they start. Let's get them before they grow into a giant plant from a little seed. So, they started to put pressure on Project 7. They started to investigate them, and then came the real showdown.

ROGERS: The sheriff's department staked out Tracy's house. They see David and Tracy get in the car. They follow the car. David bails out of the car and starts running through the woods.

SHERIFF CURRY: We actually chased him through the woods for several hours and we are sure he was getting tired. I think he finally realized that we just were not going to go away.

Once the reality of that sunk in, he sits down, puts the gun to his own head and we begin talking to him and attempting to get him to give up without any violence to us and without harming himself.

ROGERS: Eventually, the negotiators convinced him to put the gun down and then they arrested him.

SHERIFF CURRY: Once Mr. Burgert is arrested, more and more things came to light. Project 7 had a huge stockpile of weapons and ammunition. Some of these were actual machine guns that it was not legal for them to possess.

Additionally, we found evidence that they were compiling a list of people that they felt needed to be assassinated in local government. And, they had developed the means to carry out those plans.

ROGERS: David and the other members of the group were brought to federal court and charged with weapons violations.

SHERIFF CURRY: There were several people federally indicted. And, the culmination of the Project 7 investigation and people did go away to federal prison for a period of time.

CHEZEM: I was the only one that went to trial. Everybody else pled guilty. David pled guilty, too.

ROGERS: And, he went to prison for seven years.

SHERIFF CURRY: We are all lucky that this case ended at least for us back then the way that it did. And, then I did not hear Dave Burgert's name for years until he got into a shootout with Missoula County deputies.

DOMINICK: He had told people that he was going to go down in a ball of flame and glory.

WILL NEWSOM, DEPUTY SHERIFF, MISSOULA COUNTY, MT: I was looking down the barrel of his gun. And, then I saw the gun go off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROGERS: When he got out of prison, things were not better for David Burgert. And, in the spring of 2011, David removed himself from society more or less and was living in a campground outside of Lolo, Montana.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE POLICE: 911, what are you reporting?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE CALLER: There has been someone parked -- and sleeping there in the last five nights.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

NEWSOM: There was not a whole lot of specific information we were given from dispatch. But, it was enough certainly for us to go and try to find the person and find out what was going on. As we pulled into the wreck area, I could see the guy outside in his truck. The trunk was open and he was doing something at the trunk.

The guy had gotten in his car and started driving out. So, we passed each other. As he is leaving, he just plain runs the stop sign. He gets on the highway, and he speeds up to 80, 85. When I ran the plate, dispatch told me that he was on federal and state probation. At that point, he slowed quickly and made a hard right turn on the

jeep trail that goes by the power lines. This is bad. He is taking us into the wilderness. He is trying to isolate us. This was not going to end well. Once we got toward the top of a ridge line, my concern was he was now looking for an opportunity to engage us in a gun fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Forget about Project 7. Forget about all the Militia ideas. Now, it was David against the cops.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWSOM: He started slowing down. We could see him looking around left to right. I thought, "OK, this is it. He is going to get out and start shooting," but he pulled hard to the right and then just went off road. On top of the hill, Burgert stopped and jumped out of his vehicle.

He got up that hill. I started running up the hill with my rifle. He had a gun pointing at me. I was looking down the barrel of his gun. Then I saw the gun go off. He shot directly at me. I fired all five rounds. I assumed we would hit him or he was hiding behind his jeep. So, we slowly worked up the hill.

When we got to the point we could see behind the vehicle, he was not there. Burgert was gone. That was the moment that I knew he would just tried to kill me and I had no idea where he was. And, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: The FBI and U.S. Marshalls have joined in the hunt for a known Militia man, David Burgert after he shot at Missoula County Sheriff deputies. He is armed, at least with a handgun, and he is considered extremely dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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DOMINICK: We did not know if he had been shot. We did not know if he is waiting to ambush deputies. We were not able the find any blood that a lot of times people do not leave or animals leave a blood trail. The man hunt ramped up quickly. 80 to a hundred officers doing a ground search. When that came up negative, we knew then that he was out of our immediate perimeter.

ROGERS: Later they found caches in the woods.

DOMINICK: Food, extra clothing, sleeping bags.

NEWSOM: When the stashes were found, it became clear that he had a plan for how he wanted it to play out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Unless you go to Montana, you do not really understand how vast these areas are. They searched for David Burgert, but he disappeared into thin air.

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SHERIFF CURRY: There are a lot of Dave Burgert's theories. Has he met up with Militia groups that are plotting and planning other things.

DOMINICK: That would be a real possibility that he had joined another group that felt he was a hero for the cause. I would not be surprised that he is still in Montana or Idaho.

ROGERS: This guy, for his entire life could not stay out of trouble. I just do not buy that all of the sudden after decades of run-ins with law enforcement, he would stay completely under cover for years. I think he is dead.

DOMINICK: There has been no sign at all that we have a dead body up in the woods. We have not seen any scrap of clothing, any bones.

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WALSH: David Burgert is armed and dangerous. He is already fired at cops. He knows how to live in those mountains. He is a survivalist. I believe David Burgert is out there. David Burgert is a skilled outdoorsman, extremely familiar with weapons. He is openly hostile toward government and law enforcement. And, he is armed and dangerous.

If you have seen David Burgert, or have any information as to his whereabouts please call 1-866-THE-HUNT or go online at cnn.com/the hunt. You can remain anonymous. We will pass your tip to the proper authorities. And, if requested, we will not reveal your name.

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DOMINICK: Burgert is a big guy who has disguised himself in the past. He may have gained weight. He may have lost weight. He has had long hair in the past. He has had short hair. I would encourage anybody that has had any dealings with David Burgert to call law enforcement.

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WALSH: I do not know how he got away. They do not know how he got away. They are pissed off that he got away. This guy left everybody in Montana with one big puzzling mystery. Where is David Burgert?

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