A Valuable Bear - MDC

 

      Thirteen-year-old Wylie Williams  killed a 420-pound black bear during the 2024 season on his father’s land.  He had paid for all his tags and violated no laws. MDC agents came to the site two weeks after bear season opened and claimed they found bait there. Therefore they confiscated the bear’s pelt. If indeed they did come to the site after the hunting season, then indeed the bait they may have found was legal. 

      BAIT IS ONLY ILLLEGAL DURING THE SEASON AND THE AGENTS WERE NOT THERE DURING THE OPEN SEASON.  THEY DIDN’T FIND ANYTHING DURING THE OPEN SEASON.  THEY WERE    NEVER THERE THEN!

 

      Lyndell Williams, Wylie’s father told me this… “We had baited the area legally in the months before, mostly with old bread and donuts, but very little corn. Two weeks before the season opened we removed all the bait we could as the law says to do. After the bear hunting season was over, agents came and found what one told me was ‘less than 20 grains of corn in the dirt’, even some that had germinated.  We had removed all we could with a rake and shovel.  Just those few kernels were all that were left.”

     An Arkansas bear hunter who has killed 16 black bears over bait, which is legal there, told me this… “We use popcorn and you would need a bulldozer to remove it all before the season.  It is scattered everywhere and buried in the packed ground!”

      If Wylie had killed a 200-pound bear he would be in the clear.  A 200-pound bear’s hide isn’t worth much, but a 420-pound bears hide is.  Therefore Wylie and his dad were in trouble.  The MDC wanted that bear skin!  So after the season ended they came after it.  It was confiscated from a taxidermists shop.

      It cost Mr. Williams 30-thousand dollars to go to court to try to get it back and they made him go to Jefferson City court to contest it,  rather than Christian County where the bear was killed.  There, his lawyer and the prosecuting attorney got together and decide there wasn’t enough evidence for a wildlife conviction.  His lawyer told him that if he would plead guilty to ‘littering’ and pay 300 dollars he could get the bear skin back for his son.  The attorney lied to him-- what’s new about that! I am wondering what that honorable judge in Jefferson City got from the MDC to take 13-year old Wylie Williams bearskin away from him. I have investigated three occasions when judges have received gifts from the MDC. Western Missouri judge name Kelso got a gift of 245- thousand dollars.

        The Jefferson City judge said the MDC could have the bear hide, so they can sell it for whoever wants to pay for it or give it away as they have done often with confiscated products. In his written judgment the judge indicated the boy and his father did not prove they were innocent.  He wrote, (concerning the  bear skin) that the ‘plaintiff did not prove he acquired it (the bear) in conformity with the law”. 

      That is a quote from the written judgment.  The kid didn’t prove he was innocent from the charge that he had killed the bear over bait!  READ THAT AGAIN… HE NEEDED TO PROVE HE WAS INNOCENT!

        There is a good chance that sometime in the future it Wylie's bear will show up in a Bass Pro Shop somewhere or maybe in Cabela’s.  Many confiscated mounts; especially deer heads have showed up in both.

      I will continue this in another column someday after and if I can interview the agents and the MDC director about this.  In the meantime Lyndel and Wylie Williams want to appeal this decision but he is told it will cost another 30 thousand dollars to do so.  Why? If there is an honest lawyer out there who will help him, his number is 417-840-0453. Williams says he has heard of something called ‘gofundme’ on the Internet to help raise money for a good cause but knows nothing about how to do it. Whoever feels they can help with this appeal or set up that ‘gofundme’ site for him, should call him.

 

An add to this column.. the MDC gained more than 8,000 dollars from hunters applying for the 400 tags sold eventually that first year. The eight bears killed (likely all killed over bait) in the weeklong season was a heck of an idea for an agency whose only goal is money.  Add to that a couple thousand the boy’s bearskin will surely bring them.