Hack off a head of magnificent antlers. Slice away a scrotum of trophy semen. Roll the carcass onto its snowy belly to conceal the crime. High-five. Make bank. Fly away in a jet. Do it again.
One of the most astounding illegal hunting cases in U.S. history unfolded in the pastureland and crop rows of southwest Kansas with the poaching of at least 119 giant bucks, representing a minimum of 16,600” of horn, a mind-boggling quarter-mile stretch.
Who was killing the monsters of Kansas? Who triggered one of the wildest conservation busts on record?
“The sickest bunch of outlaws I’ve ever come across,” says retired game warden Tracy Galvin. “They came up here out of Texas and Louisiana, and raped our deer country.”
Sugar and Vinegar
In the rolling red gypsum hills and dagger-leafed yucca of Comanche County, a stone’s throw from the staggered flow of the Cimmaron River, with the nearest backup officer a lonely two-and-a-half hours distant, Galvin knelt beside a barrel-chested, headless deer. No shell casing, no tire tracks, and no physical evidence beyond the decapitated beast. Just Galvin and a mutilated buck in the back of beyond.
It was November 2003, and although illegal kills were part-and-parcel of the 25-year veteran’s world, the dead whitetail pricked his intuition. Random poacher? Hell no.
“There were several bucks killed in that time frame that struck me as connected,” he recalls. “But sometimes you just watch and wait for a tip, leak, or mistake.”
Comanche County, part of Kansas’ renowned Unit 16 hunting section, was loaded with groceries and cover for whitetails: Forested drainage, arid buttes contrasted by an abundance of irrigated crops, and 790 square miles of big spaces dotted by less than 2,000 people. The county also housed plenty of magnets for outlaws in the form of the biggest bucks in the Jayhawk universe. However, snagging a permit in cream-of-the-crop Unit 16 was highly competitive, especially for non-resident hunters.
The following year, in 2004, at his home office in the county seat of Coldwater, during the opening of archery season, Galvin fielded a phone call from a local farmer describing odd activity the night before: rifle shots and headlights.
Clad in green Wrangler jeans and gray shirt, with a .45 caliber Glock 21 on his hip, Galvin climbed into a full-size, four-door Dodge pickup and rumbled up US 183, with game warden B.J. Thurman riding shotgun. Responsible for a massive four-county expanse (Grant, Morton, Stanton, and Stevens) due west, plain-talking Thurman fit the classic mold of lawman. As a duo, Galvin and Thurman had remarkable presence—Galvin carrying a 300 lb. frame and Thurman solidly stacked over 6’1”, decked in boots and cowboy hat.
Arriving at the property location described in the farmer’s call-in, Galvin and Thurman eyeballed seven men, rifles in plain sight, gathered outside a temporary hunting camp.
Doling out sugar, rather than vinegar, Galvin and Thurman offered handshakes. The small group of men, most in their 30s and wearing tell-all grins, introduced themselves as humble visitors from Shelby County, Texas—600 miles southeast of Coldwater. Outwardly, they presented as a respectable hunting crew clad in camo holding non-resident archery permits, i.e., honorable outdoorsmen. In reality, outlaws.
The leader? James Bobby Butler, 35, of Center, Texas. “He was really friendly. Too friendly,” Galvin remembers. “He was super talkative. Too talkative. My radar was going off the charts. The more he spoke, the more suspicious I got.”
“We didn’t know it right then, but Butler had numerous criminal charges and convictions ranging from drugs to money laundering to gambling to wildlife offenses,” Thurman notes.
Soaking in the campsite’s incongruities, Galvin asked if the party knew anything about gunshots the previous evening.
Yes, that was us. We shot a wild pig last night. Nasty critters. Tear up jack. Thank you for asking.
“Sure as s***, they showed us a fresh hog they’d killed,” Thurman describes, his words flavored by a southwest drawl. “No. No. No. We weren’t buying it. We were close to the well-known Hashknife Ranch and some seriously big deer, and these guys were roaming all over Comanche County and surrounding counties. We knew something bad was going on because the entire setup felt crooked as hell.”
Sincerely. Galvin and Thurman had just rubbed the edges of the most consequential poaching slaughter on Kansas record and one of the most significant busts in U.S. history.
“Burying and burning antlers, sneaking deer on airplanes, cutting off balls, moving drugs, and so much more,” Galvin exclaims. “All in the name of greed.”
Poaching Incorporated
Over the next two years, Galvin noted a consistent location shift by the Texas hunters. “They moved around in different spots of our area, and every now and then, a local would say something to us about strange things going on. But we had no probable cause—yet.”
However, in roughly 2005, Butler and company dropped an anchor 5 miles southwest of Coldwater, establishing a hunting post on eight purchased acres composed of three trailers, several sheds, and an elevated bin, all fronted by a pole flying the Texas flag: Camp Lone Star.
Visiting hunters to Camp Lone Star flew in by private jet to Comanche County Airport, hopped in a Chevy Blazer parked permanently at the airstrip, and rumbled to the makeshift hunting base—reversing the process for the trip home. Butler paid big coin for farmland and pastureland leases, keeping Kansas landowners tickled pink. Yet, despite the gleam of cash on the barrelhead, people knew.
“Stories were everywhere,” Galvin notes. “We didn’t know specifically what James Butler was up to or where he was connected, but we sure as hell were digging.”
Poaching Incorporated was in session. Camp Lone Star turned Comanche County and its monster bucks into Grand Central Station for out-of-state hunters. “It’s important to realize this was all happening in Unit 16, where there was a limited draw on deer permits,” Thurman details. “I’m talking very, very competitive to get a tag, but Butler meanwhile was flying guys in steady on a King Air jet. He had something bigger than the Titanic going down behind the scenes.”
During the opening of muzzleloading season in October 2005, Galvin and Thurman, along with a host of other conservation officers, worked the Oklahoma-Kansas line, running a dragnet to snag Okie outlaws sneaking onto Jayhawk land. Following the border vigil, returning to Coldwater, Galvin suggested a slight detour: a courtesy stop at Camp Lone Star.
Pulling onto the property, the game wardens immediately eyeballed in-the-act violations. Two men, toting a bloodied cooler, were on the edge of an adjacent field, and in the main yard, a buck dangled on a skinning rack.
Officer Brian Hanzlik, with K-9 partner, Alley, at his side, snapped into action. “Brian was that guy,” Galvin says. “Always ready and he could handle anything. His dog caught the scent and went right into the field where two of the guys had just dumped a doe.”
Galvin inspected the hanging buck and found no tag: “One of these camp guys piped up and said, ‘That buck was shot by a lady from Louisiana and she’s inside the trailer. She’ll sign the tag.’”
“Huh? Hell no,” Galvin says. “They had an unsigned tag, but it was too late. I seized the buck. We’d only been there for minutes, but it was obvious: Regardless of what they were up to, they were a pack of liars.”
While Galvin issued tickets, Butler ran cover, claiming his Lone Star group was “a bunch of old deer hunting buddies,” who pooled money and leased ground.
“Who is the woman? Who is the guy with the woman?” Galvin asked.
“I’m not sure,” Butler answered. “I think they’re from Louisiana, but I don’t even know them.”
Clear as mud.
“Butler was all over the place,” Galvin recalls. “In one sentence, he told me they were all great friends. The next sentence, he denied knowledge of who he was hunting with.”
Lies, half-lies, and all points in between, the particulars of Butler’s unraveling story were of secondary concern. More importantly, Galvin and Thurman had just obtained a steaming pile of probable cause. Gung-ho to follow Butler’s hot trail, the pair of wardens didn’t yet realize the stakes: They had a tiger by the tail.
Word was already out: Come to Kansas and get a monster.
Horror Show
Operation Cimarron, the coordinated sting of Butler’s poaching ring, went into high gear in November 2007. Lying in a depression at field’s edge adjacent to Camp Lone Star, Galvin, Thurman, Hanzlik, and other wardens began taking stakeout posts under cover of darkness, attempting to record license plate numbers and activity. Spooky as hellfire.
“We’d be there all night sometimes, just trying to catch a hint,” Galvin explains. “Their vehicle lights would cross you, and you’d breathe deep, wondering if you were exposed. There was a time or two when they sensed movement or something, because they threw spotlights over us, searching for anything out of place.”
“We’d be watching from the other side of a fence,” Thurman concurs, “and they’d start spotlighting right outta the trailers, and we’d have nothing to hide behind except sagebrush. A spotlight going over your freaking head shined by bad guys with rifles is pretty damn uncomfortable.”
Meanwhile, Butler was leasing more land. Big ground: Box Ranch, Huck Ranch, Oasis 7 Ranch, and several smaller properties—over 50,000 acres.
And the jet at Comanche County Airport was eating plenty of fuel hauling hunting guests. Bottom line: Galvin and Thurman needed more than stakeouts.
Thurman reached for a friend with a bigger badge. He called a USFWS agent and detailed the suspected poaching ring situation. In came the feds. The agent tapped a DEA contact in Colorado and obtained the loan of a high-end, digital surveillance camera capable of zoom and pan. In November 2008, technology in hand, Galvin and Thurman hid the camera in plain sight.
How? Under the guise of standard maintenance work. A local co-op crew “repaired” the electric pole directly outside Camp Lone Star. Wearing a hard hat and disguised in blue collar gear, a federal agent placed the camera inside a fake transformer atop the pole.
“It all looked so real that a couple of the Texas boys walked out while the work was going on and started a casual conversation,” Thurman describes. “They never had a clue. This was the first time in conservation investigation history that this particular camera was used and it was awesome.”
The camera was the ultimate Trojan horse. Instantly, Galvin and Thurman had remote access to watch all movement around, in, and out of Camp Lone Star. A horror show in high def.
“Later, we would document them killing 119 deer at an average Boone & Crockett score of 159,” Thurman says. “At least 70 major trophy deer. One of the deer we later seized was a 185” 8-point. We learned that one of Butler’s poaching customers had first shot a 203” buck, and when he walked out to get it, the giant 8-point stood up—and he shot it too. They killed at such volume that it was becoming hard to find a true monster.”
There was more hidden behind the Camp Lone Star curtain than massive antlers. “They were stealing more than horns,” Thurman continues. “Catching these guys became kind of like piecing together mob activity to track who was doing what. That camera revealed a damn roadmap of crime.”
Extraction of Semen
As suspected, Butler was ringmaster. From deep East Texas, Butler managed High Roller Whitetails, a fenced deer farm in Center, a 17-mile jump from the Louisiana line. Without a guide license, Butler was flying scores of Texas and Louisiana clients to Camp Lone Star and charging $2,500 for archery hunts and $5,000-plus for firearm hunts.
“If you flew up and killed three deer, that could be $15,000 in one go for Butler,” Thurman says. “And these clients made return trips.”
Butler’s younger brother, Marlin, 32, rode shotgun, receiving $500 per week as guide, tips from customers, and free hunting access.
“Marlin Butler (dec’d 2024), just like his brother, James, was a rough customer. Marlin had previous criminal charges from weapons to aggravated assault to resisting arrest to impersonating a public servant,” Thurman says.
Why did the Butler brothers choose Comanche County? Chickens and slots.
“I had always wondered how poaching rats located each other,” Galvin says. “In this case, we found out Butler had once been in prison for cock fighting. A local in our area, Huey Gray, was in the same prison for running illegal slot machines. They met in lockup and Huey told Butler all about our big deer. Butler came to take a look for himself and saw dollar signs.”
Behind Butler, Galvin suspected, was deep-pocketed Terry Bailey, a resident of Center and owner of High Roller Whitetails. “The Butler brothers handled the hunts, but we suspected Bailey was the money man who paid for the leases and owned the jet everyone flew on,” Galvin posits. “We were never able to prove Bailey had done anything illegal. He died (dec’d 2017) in a helicopter crash a few years later.”
“The Butlers came here at first to poach,” Galvin continues, “but then got into filming with a guy named Matt Moore, who had a hunting television show, Closing the Distance; and then came guiding; and then we believe came genetics and deer theft.”
To cloak illegal hunts, the Lone Star cabal used fall turkey permits, landowner permits, Unit 10 tags in Unit 16, doe tags, and a host of other false fronts. If checked in the field, Butler and company had the veneer of legitimacy. Essentially, a permit of any type was a master key to monsters.
“These dirtbags were going into nursing homes, paying old people $100 to put in for a permit, and then using it for their out-of-staters,” Galvin says. “It was beyond nuts.”
“They left no stone unturned when it came to violating deer hunting regs,” subsequently described USFWS Special Agent John Brooks.
“They had people hunting without permits, exceeding bag limits, hunting the wrong units, shooting deer with illegal weapons for the season, they trespassed, used spotlights, shot deer from roads, just cut the heads off and left the meat to rot. I don’t know what they didn’t do.”
However, the level of disdain for conservation skyrocketed when Galvin began finding deer carcasses missing more than heads and racks. As in, bucks with scrotums removed. The implication: Extraction of semen.
“We suspected Butler and the Lone Star gang were flying testicles of monster deer to Texas to inseminate their pen-raised herd,” Galvin explains.
“You gotta understand, that’s how wild this investigation was, and Butler knew to cover his tracks,” Thurman says. “He was wary. One time, he had a table at a show somewhere in Texas, selling hunts as an outfitter. Two feds showed up to book a hunt and Butler said, ‘No.’ He smelled them out. He always had his ears up.”
Galvin and Thurman needed a voice on the inside—an informant. They needed someone to get sour and jump the Camp Lone Star reservation. They needed the boy from Beaumont.
Kicking in Doors
Entirely independent from Camp Lone Star, a legitimate out-of-state bowhunter from Beaumont, Texas, who frequented south Kansas, befriended Galvin. The denizen of Beaumont, who had an acquaintance at Lone Star, would frequently provide Galvin with rumor-mill updates on camp activity. Second-hand info shared over a pot of coffee.
Coincidentally, Galvin and several locals often hunted farmland a half mile from one of Butler’s leases. During the 2007 rifle season, one of Galvin’s hunting friends, a Coldwater native, wounded a deer, and he and Galvin obtained landowner permission to blood-trail the buck onto a plot of land adjoining Butler’s lease.
Butler spotted Galvin—and mistakenly assumed a stakeout was in process.
“What a lucky break,” Galvin says. “He thought we were out in that field coming for him and went paranoid. Butler was convinced one of his own guys had screwed him. They had a big falling out and one guy got all the blame. That one guy, who was buddies with my friend from Beaumont, was ready to talk to me.”
Days later, Galvin and a federal agent drove to Texas and let the canary sing. “Holy s***. He told us they were moving drugs. He told us all about the poaching. He told us they knew all the tag numbers on our vehicles. He told us they were watching us. He told us they’d tranquilized does and transported them alive to Texas.”
“He told us Butler was convinced I was flying around watching them from above, and so they had rules in the field: Kill a deer, take the head, and roll the body on its belly to hide the white from any air searches. Rules to be followed.”
The Butlers had turned Comanche County into a poaching mecca. “It was unreal,” Thurman says. “Butler’s right hand man was Johnny Risinger, a taxidermist from Center, and he was camera man for Closing the Distance, the hunting show. Butler transported deer to Risinger for taxidermy work, and those trophy bucks—illegally taken from Kansas—were hanging all over East Texas, and some in Louisiana.”
Galvin and Thurman were ready to pull the legal trigger on the Camp Lone Star wildlife crimes. “This case had so many rabbit trails, but we had to focus on the poaching,” Galvin describes. “We knew there were drugs involved and we searched their Blazer parked at the airport. A K-9 drug dog hit all over the vehicle, but we steered clear of that pursuit because if the DEA got involved, the drug charges would wash out the wildlife charges.”
By 2008, monster deer, once abundant in Comanche County, were getting hard to find. The Camp Lone Star shtick was wearing thin. “Even though Butler was still dumping money here, ranchers and farmers had finally had enough,” Galvin says. “Butler was making enemies.”
Despite video footage, eyewitness testimony, 159 names linked on a spreadsheet, and over 2,000 pages of documentation, Kansas authorities balked at prosecution. “They wouldn’t commit even though we had tons of evidence,” Thurman says. “But when Kansas declined, the feds said, ‘We’re in.’ Basically, our Kansas bosses got their hands forced. Suddenly, it was finally on. We had this s*** pinned down.”
Time to kick in doors.
The Brag Wall
In April 2009, 45 officers converged for a takedown in Center, Texas. Under Thurman’s direction, 15 Kansans, 20 Texans, and 20 feds covertly set up a command post outside of town in a house with a profile tree of photos, charges, and relationships pinned on the wall—in the manner of the mafia.
Thurman had created a Rosetta Stone of the entire Camp Lone Star affair. He meticulously compiled an exhaustive breakdown of each suspect’s activity and association, all cross-referenced and tabbed to note every individual’s appearance in the overall record. The report was a major feather in Thurman’s cap, with the template later borrowed by the feds to peel the onion in other investigations.
Nothing was left to chance. In synchronized raids across three states, Thurman’s teams deployed in Texas, Kansas (Camp Lone Star in Coldwater), and Louisiana (Lake Charles and Monroe), hitting houses, sporting goods stores, and bars. “We seized mount after mount, and they didn’t even protest,” Thurman says. “They knew they were guilty.”
Once in motion, the law enforcement blitz was fierce: “It was intense as all hell,” Galvin says. “You’d pull up to a stoplight in Center and see two game warden trucks racing one way, and a third going another way. It was on.”
Carrying Thurman’s report for reference, three-man interview squads—Kansan, Texan, and fed—were deployed for each suspect, ensuring the right mix of piss and honey. “It was pretty damn wild,” Thurman recalls. “At 9 a.m., we hit the first 10 suspects, and then the second 10, and so on, in tiers.”
On the first day alone, 40 deer were confiscated.
As word of the conservation sting shot across Shelby County, Butler’s cohorts went into panic mode, burying antlers in the woods, dumping horns in ponds, and burning racks in pits.
Each hit was surreal, none more so than the bust at Center Municipal Airport, conducted by KDWP Officer Brian Hanzlik and Texas Officer Ellis Powell of Lone Star Law television fame. The duo spotted Bailey’s jet taxiing on the airport runway and made a do-or-die stop. Powell raced down the tarmac and pulled in front of the aircraft, forcing the pilot, Brandon Sapp, to stop the aircraft.
“Ellis stopped right in front of the jet and Brian hauled out the pilot,” Galvin describes. “They laid him out on the runway, and he was in the crouched position, bawling his eyes out, fessing up to killing 11 deer. We wanted to seize the jet, but we never able to prove Bailey’s direct involvement.”
However, when officers searched Butler’s home (owned by Bailey), Galvin witnessed a moment of reckoning. “I was guarding out front while officers went in with a search warrant and suddenly Bailey pulls up in a pickup. He headed for the house, and I stuck my hand out to shake his hand, looked him in the eye, and said, ‘My name is Tracy Galvin. I’m a game warden from Kansas. Coldwater.’”
“It froze him. He got this faraway look and just kept shaking my hand over and over, and repeating, ‘Colllllllllllldwater. Collllllllllldwater. I believe it was a moment of realization and he couldn’t hide his gut reaction.”
All told, KDWP officers seized 133 mounts, averaging 160”. Anticipating a significant jumble of confiscated antlers, Galvin and Thurman had pulled a utility trailer to Center for the trip home. No dice. Too many horns. They had to rent a U-Haul to accommodate the trove.
“It was a moment of satisfaction,” Galvin describes. “Some of these guys were about to go to jail. But at the same time, looking at the truck filled with antlers made me sick to my stomach. These guys had total contempt for conservation. If given enough time, they’d have killed every big buck in our state.”
Back in Coldwater, the KDWP raid at Camp Lone Star added a pile of additional evidence. Butler’s brag wall told a tale. “Every frickin big buck they killed had a picture hanging,” Thurman details. “They were so proud of dropping our deer average from the 160”-170” range to the 140” range. All for money and greed.”
Poachers for Life
In March 2011, James Butler pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, one substantive Lacey Act count, and one count of obstruction of justice. Marlin Butler pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and one Lacey Act count.
Forty-one months in prison for James Butler and 27 months in prison for Marlin Butler, in addition to fines, restitution, and prohibitions from hunting and guiding activity. However, the siblings appealed, and a judge reduced the original sentences to 10 months and 8 months. Twenty-five of their associates also were prosecuted.
Operation Cimarron, a six-year (three years of intense scrutiny, 2007-2009) poaching investigation, documented 120 federal felonies (beyond those lost to the statute of limitations), hundreds of state violations, 16,600” of illegal antlers, $500,000 traced to Camp Lone Star, 40 years of suspended licenses, multiple lifetime hunting bans, $80,500 in fines, $110,000 in restitution, and 119 mounts forfeited.
The groundbreaking case, from camera technology to the paperwork system used to track activity, permanently changed hunting violation investigations in Kansas and beyond.
“The judge let them off light,” Galvin, 75, says, “but this was the most worthwhile investigation of my career. It had to be done because what they were doing was intolerable. There were others involved we couldn’t get, and there was money we couldn’t trace, but this work was done to ensure nobody else tries something anywhere close to what Butler and his people did. B.J. Thurman and I were just doing our job, and we were only two guys among many making sure the bad guys went down. We were part of one big team across multiple agencies with so many people helping.”
Because Galvin and Thurman refused to spit the bit in the Camp Lone Star case, their tenacity ensured Kansas now has a trophy statute that puts a monetary value on deer and defines methodology to determine that value. “If this same stunt happens today, the poachers will do 10-15 years in jail,” Thurman says.
“Think about what they did: Wholesale slaughter,” Thurman, 65, concludes. “These were the most reckless and lowest form of poachers. They were in the process of killing almost every monster deer in our area. It was devastating to our population and herd genetics.”
Poachers for life? Absolutely, Galvin emphasizes. “Doesn’t matter if you prosecute, those individuals never stop. You can slow them down, but they’re in for life. However, you do everything you can to expose and prosecute as a deterrent, because the message gets out to others and the next generation: Don’t come to Kansas to poach. Stay the hell away.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business
County Shuts Down 15-Yr-Old’s Bait Stand on Family Farm, Threatens Daily Fines
City Gov to Seize 175-Year-Old Farm by Eminent Domain, Replace with Affordable Housing
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
