FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TSCRA provides quick justice for cattle theft victim

FORT WORTH, Texas, May 23, 2006—A call to Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association resulted in quick justice for a Lynn County victim of cattle theft.
      J. R. Brady of Wilson, Texas, returned from a weekend trip out of town March 6 and noticed several of his cattle were missing: three recipient cows implanted with embryos at a cost of about $5,000 each and three registered Limousin calves ready for sale as show calves. Total value of the missing cattle was about $30,000.
      Brady called the sheriff’s office the next day. On March 10 he called Dean Bohannon, his area TSCRA inspector, and gave him a detailed description of the missing cattle, including gender, color, markings, brand, ear tag numbers and approximate weight. Such meticulous information gives an investigator a huge advantage, but Brady provided an even bigger bonus—a likely suspect and the probable location of sale.
      Brady told Inspector Bohannon that his employee, Mark Cruz, was having some serious financial problems and might have taken the cattle. He added that Cruz had previously hauled some of his cattle to the Muleshoe Livestock Auction. Bohannon immediately contacted Richard Wills, who inspects cattle for TSCRA at the Muleshoe sale. If Cruz had sold any of Brady’s cattle at Muleshoe, Wills would have a record of it.
      TSCRA employs 80 market inspectors who inspect every head of cattle sold at the 119 auction markets in Texas, recording descriptions of the cattle and information on the buyer and seller. During 2005 TSCRA market inspectors identified a total of 4,766,235 head.
      The market inspectors send their reports to TSCRA’s Fort Worth headquarters, where the information is processed for computer retrieval and distributed to more than 700 law enforcement agencies nationwide. That database is usually the first stop in any investigation conducted by TSCRA’s commissioned law enforcement officers, known as field inspectors.
      Bohannon is one of 29 TSCRA field inspectors stationed strategically throughout Texas and Oklahoma. All are thoroughly trained in law enforcement, have in-depth knowledge of the cattle industry and are commissioned as Special Rangers by the Texas Department of Public Safety and/or the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. In 2005 TSCRA field inspectors recovered or accounted for stolen livestock and ranch equipment valued at more than $6.2 million.
      Bohannon was not disappointed; Wills told him that cattle matching the ones Brady had described had been checked in at Muleshoe on March 4 by Mark Cruz. Bohannon got copies of the sale papers and a check made out to Cruz.
      It was time to confront the suspect. Bohannon and Deputy Jim Bingham of the Lynn County Sheriff’s office went to Cruz’s house about 5:30 p.m. on March 13. No one appeared to be home, so Bohannon called the home phone number. When there was no answer, he called the cell phone.
      Cruz answered, but said he was in South Texas and wouldn’t be back for a week. The lawman’s instincts told him the suspect was lying. He left his business card with neighbors and asked them to call when Cruz returned. Sure enough, Bohannon got a call two hours later.
      He returned to the house and called Cruz on his cell phone. He told him he knew he was at home and asked him to come outside and talk. Cruz agreed. When Bohannon asked him about Brady’s cattle, Cruz exploded.
      He said a drug dealer had forced him to steal the cattle by threatening his family. The drug dealer made him cash the check and took all the money. Cruz then refused to talk further without an attorney.
      Bohannon now turned his full attention recovering Brady’s cattle. He used buyer’s sheets to trace where the missing animals had gone from the sale barn.
      The three recipient cows had been sold to a packer. Bohannon contacted the head cattle buyer and was told they and had been killed on March 7. 
      The two purebred Limousin bull calves went to a ranch in New Mexico. Bohannon advised the New Mexico Brand Board of their location and was assured they would locate and hold the bulls. The buyer reported he still had the calves, but had castrated them.
      The purebred Limousin heifer was traced to a nearby ranch, where it had been commingled with seven similar calves. Bohannon advised the manager that Brady’s calf had a yellow ear tag with the number 30 on it. The manager pointed to one of the calves and said he remembered removing a tag with that number. On March 14 Brady identified the same calf as his.
      All of the cattle had been located and the culprit had confessed within four days of Brady’s call to TSCRA.
      Local legal authorities also moved quickly. On April 21, Mark Anguiano Cruz pled guilty to Third Degree Theft in the 106th Judicial District Court of Lynn County, Texas. He was sentenced to five years in the state penitentiary and instructed to pay $30,000 in restitution, a $1,000 fine and $261 in court costs.
       “TSCRA would like to both thank and commend Lynn County District Attorney Lynn Smith for the expeditious and efficient manner in which this case was prosecuted,” said Larry Gray, TSCRA director of law enforcement. 

—TSCRA-16-2006—