Motel Hell

"If you don't move from this sidewalk, I will arrest you."  It was the sharp end to a surprisingly short and terse exchange with a Cocnino's Sheriff's Deputy.  The Officer had only engaged me for a matter of minutes, but it was enough time for him to threaten to put me and my photographer behind bars for standing on the sidewalk near the Coconino Municipal building.

Scott Curley

It was understandably a difficult evening for everyone in law enforcement, particularly in the southern part of Utah and the northern half of Arizona.  A man, Scott Curley, was on the run in the shrubby red rocks of Fredonia, Arizona in Coconino County.   One of their own, Kane County Utah Deputy Brian Harris had been shot and killed by Curley earlier that day.  Curley, after an afternoon crime spree, shot and killed Harris as the deputy tracked Curley into the rough terrain. The wanted man lay in wait under a Rocky Mountain Juniper and ambushed Harris as he trudged up over a rise.  When I encountered the deputy, Harris's widow was grieving, Curley was still on the run, and the Coconino Sheriff's building was filled with deputies, EMT's and fire fighters who were milling about, trying to find fellowship at Fredonia's multi-purpose maintenance building.

It was late, sometime after 11 when photographer Matt Michela and I rolled into Fredonia.  We had just checked into the Grand Canyon Motel.  A dusty brown plot of worn cottages off of highway 89.  The motel, wasn't for short vacation stops, it was an extended stay place that had been taken over by weary, dew rag wearing oil workers doing itinerant, back-breaking work in the surrounding oil fields.  The worn-out men in their early 40's look like they are in their late 60's and stand, or more likely slump on the broken wooden porches of their worn-out cottages, pull drags from cigarettes held by their oil pocked hands, and quietly morn the lonely life they live.   Our assignment desk had called ahead to make reservation, which, I am told surprised the motel's owners, since there hadn't been a reservation made at the faded pit stop in years.

Courtesy Matt Michela

As we park our news vehicle, the shine of the headlights pulsate off of the eyes of about a dozen cats, who slink, sleep and casually lick their paws as we unload our equipment after a long day on the road.  As I fumble for my room key, I notice the name of the motel, accompanied by the address: PO Box 456, Predonia, Az.  Of course being in "Fredonia," I wondered if the owners, never saw the typo, or just didn't care.

As I enter my wood paneled room, the thick stink of cat urine overpowers the shabby space.  As I drop my bags, I noticed the stench is not leaving, so I prop open my door, which is a reminder to about 3 cats that they enjoy peeing inside, and they marched in, giving me a look as if to say, "What, exactly, are you doing in our litter box?"

Matt and I decided to forgo more time inhaling cat urine and jumped in our news vehicle to scope out the town in which we will live for the next several days.

As we cruise down the main portion of town, a woman, suggests that an employee at the gas station across from the municipal building might be able to help us.  I speak with the young woman, who nervously admits she is friends with Curley, and knows he's been having some mental health issues lately, she agrees to speak to us, but only after she is off the clock, in about 15 minutes. Matt and I set up across the street to wait.

Kane Co. Deputy Brian Harris

That's when we met the deputy.  He approaches us quickly, as if he is marching up on a band of protesters, cloaked in masks, hoodies, and armed with rocks.  He downshifts into "There's nothing to see here" mode. "Ok fellas, the press briefing is tomorrow morning, so head on back to your room," he announces, pointing with his right hand in the direction he supposes is the location of our hotel, and, oddly, begins waving us on with his left, as if he is directing traffic.  "Ok," I respond pleasantly, "we look forward to that," and I continue standing on the sidewalk, turning from the deputy to the Sinclair gas station across the street.   After a brief pause, and no movement from us, the officer, again stretches his finger northbound, "well, there is nothing to get right now, and you are making the officers at the municipal building uncomfortable, so you need to get going." he says, this time more firmly than before.  Not interested in spending more time inhaling ammonia than I have to, I stay put, "Well, I understand, but we have no intention of bothering any officers right now, and we still have a little work to do, so we'll be headed back soon," I say, raising my level of annoyance to meet his, as I glance through the grimy gas station window pane at the woman who has agreed to talk to us.  She notices the officer  standing next to me, and I sense that she might back out of our interview, if she believes the police are involved.

The deputy, runs his tongue, from left to right, across the front of his bottom teeth, and begins speaking tersely into his shoulder mounted walkie-talkie.  "You are blocking our vehicles from coming and going!" he boils at me.  I sigh, and look up, and am, for a brief moment, distracted by a sky carpeted with a billion sparkling stars, but return my eyes to the deputy, "Look, you know as well as I do, that this is a public sidewalk, and we have every right to be here!"  I say, raising my voice and squinting as the two of us continue our standoff.  "Not if you are interfering with the easy transport of emergency vehicles!" his voice is, almost on cue, interrupted by the deep, distant howl of a prairie wolf, loud and pronounced, as I look from left to right, at a vacant, dust covered highway sleeping quietly under the bright shine of the moon.  Here comes my first mistake. Sarcasm, which I've learned over the years, is always my first mistake, "Yes, I can see, it looks like Los Angeles at rush hour." I laugh as I give a sideways glance at the woman across the street who is locking the doors to the convenience store and looks nervously over her shoulder, cloaked harshly under the sickly hue of buzzing neon lights.  "We are expecting more vehicles anytime now!"  He is fuming at this point, "and if you stand here, you're camera will distract the officers driving."  I press my chin towards my chest, and look at him in amazement, "Seriously.  You just said that?"

Grand Canyon Motel

"If you don't move from the sidewalk, I will arrest you!" the lawman says chest heaving, "Ok, look," I try, a few seconds too late, to diffuse the situation, "You see that woman over there?" I gesture to the nervous girl, her hands stuffed deep in her pockets, moths dancing and crashing into the harsh lights illuminating the gas pumps by which she stands. "We are tying to talk to her, and if you leave us alone, we will do just that and go."  The angry deputy steals a quick glance, and begins to breath normally, "Go!" he points at the girl, "Then go to your motel!"  As we gather up our gear and cross the street under the deputy's watchful eye, I say, again sarcastically, and again, mistakenly, "We'll try not to get hit by the SWAT team rumbling through town!"  Matt's eyes widen, and so do mine, but as we approach the girl, he stomps away towards the municipal building without arresting anyone.

That night as I settle in, laying, sleepless on top of the scratchy, army grade blankets, I breath in the nauseating smell of cat waste, and listen to felines howl and rustle outside.  I blink and watch the ancient digital clock tick off time, from 3:32 to 3:33, and as I spot a small roach dance across the ceiling, I think, "perhaps a night in jail wouldn't have been so bad."

The Sound Of Silence

"So, what do you think?"  I say after a prolonged explanation, to which I hear...Nothing, silence, static.  then after the most pregnant of pregnant pauses, so pregnant in fact, that you might describe it as, "with twins," pregnant, I pull my cell phone away from my ear, and squint questioningly into the screen, and return it, as I whisper, "hello?  "Oh yeees!" comes the plucky, perky response from Carrie Jenkins, the long time head of public relations for Brigham Young University.

Carrie Jenkins, BYU PR

I just asked Carrie to answer some questions about Kathyrn Skaggs,  a speaker scheduled to talk at The BYU Women's Conference.

Skaggs is the author of the wildly popular, and conversely, wildly panned blog, "A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman."  Skaggs recently penned a scorcher of a post, that claims, in no uncertain terms, that the Disney animated movie, "Frozen." is a shrill anthem shoving the gay agenda down the throats of American children.  She says the title song of the movie, "Let it go," is pretty gay.  Her controversial blog post has received praise in some circles, and ridicule in many others.  Kendall Wilcox, a documentary film maker and founder of the group, "Mormon's Building Bridges," wonders if Skaggs is the best person to speak at the conference given her controversial views on gays, and same-sex marriage, so I decided to ask Jenkins about it.

Kathyrn Skaggs, Blogger

"Weeell" says Jenkins, who has an amusing way of turning truncated words into rubber bands, "I juuuuuust think you should chaaaaat with her," she responds elastically.  "Yes, but she is speaking at your event." I suggest,  "Would you like to talk about why she was invited?" I say.  Again, I'm greeted with the uncomfortably loud echo of silence.  This time I'm determined to wait her out.  Which I do, for an agonizing 30 seconds, but, like most people ensconced in uncomfortable silence, I break and blurt, "What do you think?!"  "Oooooh," says Jenkins, "I just thiiiiiink you should taaaaaalk to her!"  She chimes happily into her landline.

Jenkins, is likely a hero in the public relations world.  She is supremely disciplined, she is never rattled no matter the controversy, and she is always, without exception, smiling.

Over the past 15 years, I've sat in her office on numerous occasions and watched as she smiles gently into the lens and masterfully and methodically chants hypnotically, her message for the camera.

I remember many years ago, asking her about an issue related to gay rights on BYU's campus.

"Weeeeeell, we certainly do respect aaaaaall students on campus, but that has aaaaaaalways been our policy," she repeated for the third time, with the corners of her mouth turned up gently towards the sky, and her eyes happily agreeing with her lips.

It would be the sentence she would parrot, 5 more times throughout our videotaped conversation.  No matter what the question might be, she returns eagerly to that singular, simple sentence, never once getting upset with the different iterations of essentially the same question I would pose.  

I could have asked: "Is the sky blue?"  and the response would have likely been: "Weeeeeeell, we certainly do respect aaaaaaall students buuuuuut,..."

Jenkins knows, the best way to avoid controversy is to remain silent, or if the controversy already has legs, to speak, but to stick to your guns.  She likely learned years ago, that if you try to give a fresh answer to the same question, you might say something you regret.  She also knows getting mad is a sure way to have a grimace, or snappy answer, end up edited into a finished piece, so that smile, that omnipresent smile, never fades. 

To her credit, Jenkins will, on many occasions, graciously invite you to her office on the BYU Campus to recite her formulaic answer to you.  That's pretty good, when you consider what her counterparts at many Federal agencies will do.  The FBI and Transportation Safety Administration for example,  appear to employ public information officers, who I believe are officers who neither talk to the public or provide any information.

In fact the spokesperson for the FBI doesn't even have a phone number to give the media.  Reporters are required to Email if they have questions.  Last week while acting on a tip about a case being worked on by the Salt Lake City office of the FBI, I wrote several Emails to the spokesperson, but as far as I can tell, she never even opened them.  

I have images in my mind of an office in the Salt Lake City FBI building marked PR, with the lights out, and cobwebs draped across a bank of dusty blinking and, buzzing, 50's style telephones.

The Email policy appears to have been enacted while the office was in the hands of a former reporter.   Reporters-turned-PR people are traditionally, in my opinion, the most difficult PR people with whom to work.

I'll never forget a former colleague of mine.  He was one of the toughest reporters in the business, he would seldom allow a PR "flack" to get away without answering a question.  He was particularly prickly when a public relations officer would chastise him for doing a story the PR guy didn't' like, "That's not a story," the media handler would say, to which my friend would always respond, "You don't get to name the stories."  Many years later, my friend went to work for a Utah politician.   Literally days after taking the job, I remember him bleating into his phone, as I discussed a controversial issue involving his boss, he said, without an ounce of irony, "that's not a story!" 

I was stunned into silence when he blurted that out, and I've learned over the years that Silence is something, you will often get from the office of public relations.   

Hard Candy and Puppies

"Hard Candy?" came the high pitched offer from Curtis Mullins Sr. who poked me with his elbow and held open his hand with 3 pieces of butterscotch placed carefully in his open palm.  I looked at the portly Southern gentleman in his boxy black suit with bewilderment.  "Hard candy?"  He insisted his already comically high voice climbing a few octave higher, as he thrust the cellophane wrapped treats into my fist.  A funeral seemed like a strange place to get offers of candy from strangers, but after this emotional, long, and difficult week, Curtis, and the small, peculiar and isolated Virginia town of Grundy seemed in a way, like home.

The Mullins, Junior back left

Ethan Stacy

More than three years ago, in the soggy foothills of the South, 4 year old Ethan Stacy was buried.  Just this week, his stepfather, Nathan Sloop was sentenced to 25 to life in prison for the brutal death of his step-son.  I'll spare you the details.

Ethan's dad, Joe, is from a town near Grundy, and wanted to bring his boy home to this battered, nearly abandoned enclave.  Grundy, is a grubby coal town that has endured bad luck.  Since 1929, the burg has been afflicted with 9 major floods, that have all but killed the once proud city, turning it into a zombie town, that wanders, unaware that it is mostly dead.

In 2001, the state undertook a major relocation project, carving out a new existence on higher ground. The "new" Grundy.  Like an empty-nester who downsizes from a large 3000 square foot home into a small 2 room apartment, but refuses to get rid of any of the furniture, is crammed into 13 long acres scratched into the rocky mountains across from the unpredictable Levisa Fork River along State Route 83.

Grundy, flooded 9 times since 1929

Every morning Curtis Mullins Sr. and his extended family, who all live in a house connected to the Grundy Funeral Home, which they run, wake up, and peer across the Levisa into the hollow husk of their old life, a once bustling coal town, that is now filled with abandoned shops, homes and farms.

Curtis had a stroke a few years back, and that has made his voice a high, raspy shrill.  At first his tenor makes you chuckle a bit until you learn the circumstances.  Despite his new voice, Curtis retains his old, authentic Southern hospitality, as he invites me into his home, so his son, Curtis Mullins Jr, "who knows the computer," can burn me copies of pictures of Ethan.  "Do ya wan't some biscuits?" says Junior, a heavier, younger, carbon copy of his father, as his pleasant wife thrusts a pan  into the oven, next to a refrigerator, covered from top to bottom with pictures of grand kids, announcements from the baptist church, and fliers about dances at the high school.

"We'll we hope ya'll have a good visit here," says Junior, as he hands us a CD filled with Jpeg images, and stuffs a biscuit in my hand, "now take this," he insists, "it's chilly out there."

On the day of Ethan's funeral, the already impossible parking situation in Grundy is even more difficult as hundreds of mostly strangers and journalists make their way to the funeral home.  Old men with creased faces and hands blacked by the coal, "visit" and laugh, and tell jokes almost as weathered as their paws, "I'm so broke I can't even pay attention." quips an old vet sporting a 25 year old seersucker suit, and a baseball cap emblazoned with an insignia from the USS Saratoga.

Funeral for Ethan Stacy

I wasn't the only person to whom Senior had offered that "hard candy,"  I smiled gently listening to the eulogy for Ethan, as Mullins bounce from reporter to photographer, in town to cover the funeral, nudging each, and offering them a butterscotch.  The photojournalist from Rueters News Service, a notoriously prickly character, was noticeably annoyed by Senior as the gentle man tapped the journalist on the shoulder, "hard candy,"  Nick, frowned violently and shook his head vigorously.  Senior jabbed him again, "hard candy!" he said his tenor climbing higher, "No!" Nick seethed under his breath to the old man.  Senior jabbed the butterscotch into the photographers breast pocket with a smile, "hard candy," he mouthed triumphantly, and happily moved onto the next guest.  Nick shot an angry glance at his pocket, and a guffaw, then returned to snapping pictures.  After the funeral I noticed Nick editing his photos in his rented SUV.  He pulled a pen out of his breast pocket and with it, that little "hard candy," without noticing the irony, he popped the butterscotch into his mouth, and for a brief second, I saw the jaded journalist grin, before his perpetual scowl returned.

At the cemetery where Ethan was laid to rest, I sucked on a butterscotch as I sat in our large satellite truck waiting for the burial to begin.  With a start, a small dog, some kind of a terrier, chihuahua mix, bolted into our truck, and greeted me with tail wagging.  The pooch took a quick look around or truck then jumped out to greet others who were trudging somberly towards the burial plot.

"Who owns that dog?" I asked a Buchanan County Deputy perched near us, "I dunno," he said, petting the puppy's ears vigorously, "he's always here for some reason."

Joe Stacy at son's funeral, with the puppy in tow

I watched as Ethan's father Joe, made the long walk from his car to the final resting place of his son, that little dog sauntered up to his side, tail wagging and smiling as the broken father dragged himself. Joe glanced down for a moment at the happy doggy, and grinned, letting a  subtle laugh escape his mouth for a moment, a temporary reprieve from his darkness, before being enveloped again by the unimaginable fog of sorrow.

The next morning as I purchased a cup of coffee at a convenience story, I pulled out another butterscotch from my suit pocket, and noticed the front page of the local paper, on it a picture of Joe, surrounded by family, and to his side, that ridiculous, amazing puppy trailing along.

It has been several years, and hundreds of stories ago, since I was in Grundy, but I think about it often, and how the town was able to conjure bits of happiness out of tragedy. Happiness, like you might find in a piece of hard candy at a flood, or a puppy at a funeral.

If you like this these stories, I'd love it if you would go to City Weekly's Best of... and vote for it for best blog.  

Why Do You Make Me Do This?!

"You're a sleazy reporter!"  He seethed into my face releasing the strong smell of booze into my nostrils. "And I'm glad I got to know that," he continued, his eyes red rimmed, and coated with a clear sheen.  "Ok," I responded, seeing that the conversation was quickly devolving, "Thanks for your time," I continued, and turned to walk away.  "Oh F*%k you!" he blurted, annoyed by my sudden politeness, and he staggered away, veering sharply to his left, then, over correcting wildly, and snapping quickly to his right. The man, who we will call Allen, was upset with a story I had reported about some unfortunate events in his life (I will withhold his name because he was cleared of any wrongdoing)

Rep. Michael Grimm (R) accosts reporter Mike Scotto

I thought of the encounter this morning as I read about New York Congressman Michael Grimm threatening to throw a reporter "off this f#*king balcony" after NY1 corespondent Mike Scotto tried to ask the representative about allegations of improper handling of campaign finances.

Scotto was interviewing the congressman about President Obama's State Of The Union Address, and his last question of the congressman was about the investigation.  Grimm refused to answer the query and stormed off, only to march back a few seconds later and threaten the reporter.


Allen, wasn't being interviewed when he accosted me, it was really a chance meeting, but I suspected, when I saw him posted outside my office, that there would be fireworks that evening.

I had stepped outside the 2News studios in downtown Salt Lake City, just before 10 PM to do a live report, when I noticed Allen sitting awkwardly on a planter near our Main Street Studios.  I found it kind of humorous, because the pot Allen had plopped down upon was wide, but very short, so as he sat with his neck craned back so he could watch  the Jumbotron screen, that shows our newscasts live, outside our station, his knees where thrust high into his chest, and his arms dangled, lifeless, down both sides of his body.  Allen listed side to side, as he watched the images flicker across the large television screen, and then he noticed me as I put my IFB in my ear, and fastened a small lav mic to the lapel of my coat.

He slowly ambled his way towards me, casually looking to his right then left as if he was just out for a leisurely stroll directly in to the marble pillar by which I was standing.

I decided to make it easy for him, and I approached Allen with my hand extended.  he, gently grabbed my palm and slowly squeezed tighter and tighter, and without releasing his grip, seethed and  fumed about "sources," and a "smear campaign" when in reality I'd done one story about him, based on allegations filed in court.  After about 5 minutes of his glossy eyed rant, I responded, "perhaps you should turn your attention to the person who made the allegations," I suggested, as I prepped myself for my live report, "Oh f*&k you!" he yelled, then wandered away.

Later that night someone emailed me a link to his Facebook where he posted details of the encounter on the page, and reveled in his "confrontation."  In the comment section, his friends wrote statements like: "Go get 'em Allen,"  he reveled in the encounter, only to delete the entry the next morning, presumably after sobering up.

Oddly, several weeks later, he came across a co-worker of mine from 2News, and Allen told him he "felt badly," about what he'd said, and asked my friend if he should try to get in contact with me to "have a beer and talk it out."   My Colleague said "sure," but I never heard from Allen.

The day after his outburst, Allen regretted it, and had been ruminating on it for weeks.  This morning Rep. Micheal Grimm, likely regrets what he said, and would like to move on.  the difference of course is Allen shouted his profanity at me, on a near empty street, and reveled about it in the abyss that is social media.  Grimm on the other hand, exploded in front of a camera, near a "hot" mic.  Allen wanted to explain to me what happened, and that he was sorry, Grimm is likely readying an apology for all 84,000 voters in district 11.

Throwing Hats and Punches

"I don't want to risk it," Speaker of The House Becky Lockhart smiled after Rod Decker of 2News asked her to repeat some incendiary words she had uttered in a speech just moment earlier.  "You can read the speech," she urged reporters.  It's hard to say what Lockhart would "risk," by re-tossing her hand grenade at Gov. Gary Herbert, you can't un-explode and explosion.   Lockhart, in what is usually a ceremonial pep talk to members of the state house on the first day of the legislative session, called the governor "an inaction figure," because of his support for accepting ObamaCare money to help Utah pay the health care bills of the poor.

Lockhart had to know her, "inaction figure" phrase would get attention, from legislators, certainly the governor, and of course, the press, but when questioned, she was dodgy when pressed by reporters about the comments, and at times seemed a bit put off by the repeated grilling from my colleagues.

Political watchers believe this was her first salvo in the long battle for the governor's office.  Lockhart jabbed then played defense with the press afterwards.  She tried to soften the ax she'd swung by saying she was simply trying to encourage all in the legislature, including herself to be "action figures,"  an odd metaphor which made me envision a bunch of tiny law makers encased in plastic resin.  Not emblazoned in ties and pant suits but rather encased in scuba gear, skin tight superhero garb, and toting little plastic machine guns, while sitting at a committee meeting listening to a division head droning on about an appropriations bill.


Lockhart's reluctance to go "all in" with her "inaction figure," comment, reminds me of my friend who had been eyeing a British racing hat.  He told me, "you know, I'd really love to wear that around if I could, but I'm afraid people would make fun of me." I told him I would definitely make fun of him, but I'd be less likely to do so if he wore the hat with  absolute confidence, as if that's, "Just the way it is."

Lockhart wore the hat, for a while, but when she noticed people looking, she quickly took it off and tossed in the back of the closet.  If she plans on throwing that hat in the ring for governor, she might want to get comfortable with wearing it all the time.

Miscalculation

 "Come in, come in!"  Mark Shurtleff waves me into his home enthusiastically as I stand on his front stoop in 2001. Shurtleff is the newly elected Attorney General of the state of Utah, and I remember sitting comfortably in his living room after an interview about his hopeful agenda as AG, chatting with ease about a variety of topics.

Shurtleff, who was in the process of rounding out his staff, was oddly open about whom he was considering for positions.  He asked me about a former colleague of mine, Paul Murphy.  Shurtleff was considering him for his PR boss.  "I  don't think you could do much better than Paul," I told the new Attorney General.  Two weeks later Murphy (not because of my endorsement I'm sure) was on staff in the AG's office.

That friendliness highlighted Shurtleff tenure, I recall once, being rounded into duty during my day off. The governor was making a major, unexpected announcement at the state capitol, so I hustled up to the hill in a blue sports coat and, self-consciously, a pair of casual sandals.  While the governor spoke, Shurtleff ambled up to me, "Those sandals really go nicely with that coat," he joked.  "They compliment my eyes," I  retorted,  Shurtleff laughed and jabbed me with his elbow and marched off.

The most powerful man in Utah law enforcement, isn't particularly imposing, despite his sizable frame. Shurtleff is easily 6'6" perhaps 220 pounds, but he carries his girth rather awkwardly, like a newly born fawn, struggling to find it's gate, probably because of a badly injured knee that has required countless surgeries over the years, but it is not Shurtleff's knee that has on occasion caused his public missteps.

Shurtleff's chin out approach made the AG susceptible to public pratfalls, like the time he accidentally Tweeted his intention of running for the US Senate.

I remember wondering about his judgement after I stumbled upon this Youtube video of the Attorney General on stage at a pep rally for local, Multi-level marketing company, Usana.  Shurtleff was an enthusiastic shill for the elixir company, and I thought it seemed like a blatantly odd place for the Attorney general to be, so  I cross-reverenced the health food manufacturer against a list of Shurleff's donors, only to find they had given Shurtleff a sizable pile of cash.

At the time Paul Murphy, the man whom I had enthusiastically endorsed for Shurtleff's PR job, was exceedingly angry with me after the story ran, but I knew it was an important headline, and went to the attorney general's decision making.

More than bad Judgement seems to be at the center of the expansive investigation involving the former AG and his protege, John Swallow, who followed Shurtleff as Attorney General, only to resign recently.  Investigators have uncovered a breathtaking list of issues.  State Senator Todd Weiler, who sat in a committee meeting with dozens of other lawmakers, told me there were "audible gasps," as investigators unraveled a laundry list of alleged schemes, dirty politicking, and questionable money handling by Shurtleff and Swallow.


The jolly, deliberately goofy Shurtleff seems like an unlikely candidate for the role of political villian. He lacks the dark-hearted scowl of a Richard Nixon, and his gentle eyes are more like a Golden Retriever's, than those of crooked Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.  The AG's sunny, self-deprecating humor reminds you of your the friendly accountant who lives next door, not the back-slapping political intimidater, LBJ, or the icy, calculated ambition of a man like Joe Kennedy.
Shurtleff never seemed calculating at all, actually the opposite, but in the end, particularly if the former AG faces charges, perhaps a little calculating is exactly what Shurtleff needed. 

Political Cancer

"She had 2 different kinds of cancer," says the former state representative, fiddling with his black tie framed against his bright red dress shirt.  Brad Daw stands inside his Orem home, as photographer Paul Sampson extends a light stand, and un-spools a black cable for our interview.  Daw glances at a blank wall, I suppose, recalling his wife's fight against the ravages of breast cancer, and his own battle against a nebulous, mysterious, and brutal political action committee, that, to Daw, may have seemed like the political equivalent of cancer.  "Needless to say, 2012 was not my favorite year." he says with melancholy.

Former State Rep. Brad Daw

In 2012, representative Daw and his wife huddled together, grappling with the stark realities of her mortality. At the same time, Political mega-broker Jason Powers and soon-to-be Attorney General John Swallow were, according to a recently released affidavit, gathering as well, in the back rooms of pay day loan companies, planning Daw's political death.

Court documents suggest that John Swallow, being mentored by outgoing Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, was constructing a political machine, that Boss Tweed might have envied.

Search warrant affidavits claim Swallow, with Powers, were raising money, not only for Swallow's AG race, but to defeat politicians with whom they saw a a threat to their allies.  In the case of Brad Daw, it was the peddlers of pay day loans.  Daw who had championed a modest bill that pay day loan businesses didn't like, found himself in front of Swallow's money machine investigators claim.

Swallow had secretly funneled money into a PAC called "The Proper Role of Government Defense Fund, say investigators, and the PRDGF began to brutalize Daw with a misleading ad campaign that suggested he was a supporter of ObamaCare, was for illegal immigration, and was even a proponent of school yard bullying.

For years, Daw never knew who was truly behind the scathing blitz that lead to his eventual defeat, but he never suspected it could be his old friend, John Swallow.  A friend for whom Daw had expended considerable political capitol, leading the charge on a child predator bill that was not popular among some state legislators.

Former AG John Swallow

I can tell, the defeat still stings deeply for the former representative.  "Do you still have any of those old flier?" I ask, in hopes of getting a few pictures of some of the more egregious attacks against him, " I have them all," he responds with pained enthusiasm.  Daw marches up the steps of his split level, and like a homing pigeon locates a plastic, aqua folder containing the offending fliers.  He holds the handbills with pained, cautious reverence, as if the card stock handbills are historic relics or a basket of rattle snakes.

Anti-Daw flier

Daw splays the political placards out gently across the flowered love seat in his sitting room, "that was one of the first ones," Daw eyes a glossy handout, showing the former rep, next to President Obama, both men in surgical scrubs, claiming the two were allies on health care issues.

 After our interview,  I ask how his wife is doing with her cancer battle, and with real joy he responds, "remission!" That joy is tempered a bit as he bends down to carefully gathered up the fliers,  attentive not to crease them as he places them into that vile aqua folder,  remembering the time that a different kind of cancer, killed his political career.