If you want to learn more about the topics of today's episode, visit the podcast website at naturessecretservice .com.

Thanks for listening.

Okay, people, listen up.

Here we go.

This is Nature's Secret Service.

I'm your host, Ed Newcomer, and you're about to join me as we go back in time to March 1962 and join U .S.

Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Vic Blasevic in the field to experience every law enforcement officer's worst nightmare, an ambush.

Who was Special Agent Vic Blasevic?

Well, I met Vic by telephone in 2005.

Back then, I was a fairly new special agent myself.

I was all bright -eyed and bushy -tailed.

And I just called him out of the blue, and I asked him to tell me the story.

Aside from that call, I didn't really know Vic.

And unfortunately, he's no longer with us.

Okay, so in telling the Vic story, I thought it would be a great idea to reach out to somebody who actually knew him.

So I'm very happy to welcome retired special agent Jerry Smith to the podcast because Jerry knew Vic Blasovic.

Jerry, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

I really appreciate it.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Go ahead no no i let's listen first of all i want to say i you and i have never met prior to this podcast but i know of you because of course you know.

The mission wildlife service fairly small and so we always hear about other people But I always heard good big great things about you and I know of you because you have been instrumental in kind of organizing retired special agents to kind of keep in touch with each other and Before we started recording today.

You told me that you have been doing that for over 29 years Keeping the retirees together and I got to tell you as a new retiree recently retired guy I really appreciate that.

I mean, it's so great to, it's hard to leave the agency because we loved our jobs, right?

But it's so great to leave and know I still have a connection not only to people I worked with, but great people, you know, historical, people who have historical knowledge, institutional memory, that now I can get to know as a retiree and share stories and reminiscence.

So thank you for doing that, first of all.

You're welcome.

It's been a pleasure and of course, as you said, we had the best job in the entire world.

I never once went to work on Monday looking for Friday.

To me, that says the most about any job.

If you have that type of a job that you can't get enough of it.

I started in 1968 in South Texas, right on the border.

As a kid from North Dakota, that was quite a change.

Then I migrated to the east.

I told my wife I was never going to go east of the Mississippi, but I spent most of my career east of the Mississippi.

I went to Washington as a trainee, and that's where I met Vic Blasvik.

So what can you tell us about Vic in terms of what he was like as a person and as an agent?

Tell us a little bit about Vic Blasvik.

Now you knew him.

How'd you know Vic?

Well, like I said, I first first met him when I was in that training position and he was the agent in charge in Chicago.

And then after that, We changed names in 74 to senior resident agents.

And so anyway, then we always kidded Vic.

He moved to Washington as the chief branch of investigations and Washington office.

And we kidded Vic up until the last time I saw him.

And I'll talk about that a bit.

But he is the only agent.

that came to the headquarters office by accident.

Vic was a real good agent, but he was a great driver.

And in Chicago, I think what it was is that he used to be a state game warden in Minnesota.

Uh, uh, then he was in Illinois and he wasn't used to the big city.

And, uh, I can understand that having been in New York, uh, but he had one accident and, you know, uh, that was his fault.

And that, that was kind of set aside and everything else.

What do you mean?

Like a car, like a car or a car accident?

Okay.

But then he had a second car accident.

And they took away his driver's license, his government driver's license.

So an agent without being able to drive is kind of sitting on the limb and they're sawed at off.

So they found another position for him.

And that was in Washington.

And so they moved him to Washington as the chief branch of investigations.

And he was the only one came there by accident.

I love it.

I love it.

And what a, what a character, huh?

He's an agent for the U S government.

He's such a bad driver.

He loses his driver.

That's pretty funny.

Anyway.

Then when I was in New York, I was up there for five years and they had another reorganization and they were eliminating positions.

And so Clark Mayven, the chief, opened up the position of deputy chief.

And I was selected.

And so I moved out.

And as you're probably aware, when you are selected, you have a deadline to get there.

And so we put our house up for sale and it obviously didn't sell right away.

So I had to be in Washington for my new job when my family was still outside of New York City.

So I contacted Vic.

I knew he had retired and was still living in Fairfax.

And he said, oh, yeah, come on down here.

Vic was just a very funny guy, but he was just a, some stranger talks to him, they think he's a grouchy old man.

That's the way he, but he had a heart of gold.

He really did.

And he was quite intelligent and funny.

He had a real dry wit about him.

But anyway, he says, come on down.

I've got plenty of room.

So I went down there and asked him about how much.

Do you want for me to live here for?" I said, I'm not sure how long.

Eh, nothing, no problem.

So anyway, about the first part of September, 1982, I moved in with Vic Blasvik and his house in Fairfax.

And I lived with him until it was probably early December.

of 82 when we finally got our household and I moved my family down.

But living with Vic was quite an experience.

After he retired, he became a beekeeper.

I knew he was into bees, but he was actually a beekeeper.

He actually was.

He was also very, very eccentric.

Like houses give me an example.

Okay I've got two or three of them.

Okay.

One is that when he bought that house and moved in He was still married and then that didn't that didn't work out And so anyway, they had this big house, but he didn't have a place for his separator for his his beat, you know the Honey you put homes in and it separates it into honey.

So they had a place on his kitchen table and that's where he sat his separator right in the middle of the kitchen table.

So when we ate lunches or dinners or whatever it was, we sat around the separator.

That might have something to do with why he got divorced.

That could very well be.

Now, he also, he didn't believe in wasting any money.

So he kept the house quite cold.

And in Virginia, in October, November, it gets pretty chilly.

So darn cold, but he said, well, I'll just give you extra blankets.

That's what he did.

And then another thing, he hit up.

Small microwave.

I don't know what it's about like that.

After every use, he would unplug it.

I said, Vic, why are you unplugging the microwave after you use it?

Well, he says, even off, it uses some electricity and I'm going to save on electricity.

How much?

Electricity, but a microwave used being off.

You know, that was that was that was Rick and he was he got around a lot and for selling his honey.

And I went I went out with him to work on the bees where he collected the combs and everything else.

And I didn't do much with him.

delivering the honey.

Except one day, it was in November, I was in the office and Vic gave me a call.

They said, Jerry, I'm going to be downtown D .C.

late this evening to deliver some honey.

Do you want to join me?

And then I'll give you a ride home because I was taking the subway, the metro and things like that.

He knew that.

So I said, oh, sure, Vic, where do you want me to meet you?

He says, well, meet me at the old executive office building, because we're going to the White House.

He's delivering honey to the White House.

So I said, oh, all right, Vic.

So I met him, I don't know, like five thirty, six o 'clock, something like that.

I was just getting ready to go home anyway.

So I met him there and we went down in the basement.

The basement of the old executive office building is where you enter the tunnel.

going to the White House.

But they had the police there stopping, you know, the Capitol Police.

And so I was still packing.

So I had to leave my gun.

They gave us, you know, tags, name tags and things like that.

And we went through the tunnel and got up and we were waiting in kind of a waiting room with things.

And there was probably four or five guards.

around there.

And one of the guards came over and started talking to me and just chatting, chit -chatting about, I can't even remember what, but it was probably just about normal.

And then this guy came in and introduced himself to me as Morton Blackwell.

And he was a special assistant to President Reagan.

And he was one of the customers of Vic.

No kidding.

How Vic ever got to him as a customer, I don't know.

But first thing he did after shaking hands with Vic and introducing himself to me, he says, well, who are you?

I said, well, I've been here for over two years and I've never seen those guards talk to anybody.

They don't talk to me, but then they were talking to you.

That's probably because I'm a law enforcement officer.

Oh, well, that probably could be.

But anyway, Vic delivered the honey.

And then Mr.

Blackwell said, well, do you want a tour of the White House?

Yes.

Well, yeah.

So he took us to the Oval Office.

And so he must have been pretty high.

high up as a special assistant to Reagan.

So we had a real good time.

Interesting scene, the White House and some of the other special rooms there that the average tourist doesn't get.

But that's the kind of person that Bick was.

He sounded very grouchy and everything else, but he hit that.

and about him that he can just get get together with anybody.

I mean, and I was a special assistant to the president.

That's maybe that proves the old adage that if you want to get to know, you know, important people, you should use honey sweets.

If you ever thought it's important people use honey.

I never thought of that.

You know what I thought of when you were telling these stories, Jerry, I thought, you know, Maybe the reason that the separator was on the table and maybe the reason he kept it so cold and maybe the reason he unplugged the microwave was to make sure you didn't stay too long.

That could be, but with Vic, I doubt that.

The last time I saw Vic was after I retired in 94 and then we went with some of the get -togethers for the Region 4, like I already mentioned.

One of them was in Asheville, North Carolina.

I called Vic and asked him, I said, well, why don't you come on down?

Because he knew some of the older agents there from Region 4.

Like we usually do, it's usually about a two -day affair and just mostly visiting and things like that.

We were just about ready to Go home.

And the late one, it was the last evening, just before dinner, here came this old pickup that Vic had.

Then pulled up, they all came, Lazarick, and he came in, said, oh, I'm a thing.

And they chatted for probably 15, 20 minutes.

They said, well, goodbye.

Got to go.

They got this pickup head and go home again.

Oh, he sounds like a character.

I love it.

Oh, yeah.

I love it.

I do not know anybody who ever knew Vic and didn't like him.

Yeah.

And you wouldn't you wouldn't know it like, say, oh, I know it was that type of guy.

But it didn't take long to know what his heart was all about.

Yeah.

He was all about.

Love and things like that.

But I really, really missed it.

Well, it's so awesome to hear kind of a little bit about his personality and your relationship with him in the background, because, you know, when I reached out to him to ask him to tell me the story of his shooting, you know, I heard that gruffness in his voice, but he couldn't have been more.

Open to me and welcoming.

He didn't know me.

I was just a new agent, you know somebody he'd seen a million of before and You know, he spent time with me on the phone to tell me the story about how he was ambushed by poachers in Illinois in 1962 and I was just astonished by the whole story that his tenacity and his his ability to kind of push through that and save himself really from being killed.

Did he ever talk to you about that incident or did he keep quiet about it?

Was he one of these guys that was so stoic he didn't talk about it?

Yeah, he never talked about it.

I know we had pictures of him blowing up pictures of him with the shot in the face and all of the BB holes and things like that.

But I do not remember talking to him.

about it in depth or anything like that.

It wasn't something that was on his mind constantly.

Yeah, which is amazing, which is amazing.

I mean, considering what happened to him, like you said, he's shot in the face.

You know, I think, would you like to hear the story about what happened to him?

Because I'll tell you.

Yeah, I'd love to.

So let me, let me do that.

I'm going to make you wait though.

I'm going to make you listen to the podcast to hear it.

Let me tell you the one thing I'll leave you with this.

Uh, and I think it will resonate with you as that's Vic, um, in, in doing my research for telling the story, I also looked for old documents related to it.

And I found a few memos that went through headquarters.

So you probably saw them.

Um, but well, no, maybe you wouldn't cause it would have been Earlier in your career and you wouldn't have been at headquarters, but there was some memos that went back and forth.

And while Vic was still recovering after being shot at basically point blank range with a shotgun, um, he was mad because they weren't going to let him go up to do the annual waterfowl count.

He wanted to be back out in the field working as an agent.

And I think that says everything about him personally.

but also his dedication to our mission and our job.

And I'm sure you'll agree, most of the agents in the service share that kind of attitude.

It's certainly the best agents share that attitude.

But listen, Jerry, I can't thank you enough for coming on just to talk about Vic and a little bit about your career.

You will be back as a guest because I know you are loaded with great stories about the service.

And maybe you can add some context to some of our other stories, such as Marie Paladini's involvement in that alligator case.

But thank you so much for your time today.

I really appreciate it.

Now let's move on and let's tell this story about Vic Blasevik getting ambushed in 1962.

The story you're about to hear is true.

It was personally told to me by Special Agent Vic Blasevik years after he retired from the service.

It's spring 1962 in southern, Illinois an area known in the United States as the corn belt Imagine barren soggy farm fields as far as the eye can see All or most of the corn has been harvested and these are open fields with trace corn kernels strewn about They make the perfect stopover point for ducks as they migrate from south to north along the central flyway a major migratory route for all types of birds, including ducks and geese.

It's early March.

U .S.

Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Vic Blasevic, an irascible and dedicated federal wildlife agent, receives a tip that around the small town of Quincy, Illinois, poachers are lurking through the empty corn fields at night to kill migratory ducks.

Vic knows that this is a violation of federal law.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits the taking of wild ducks except during highly regulated hunting seasons.

There is no hunting season for ducks in the springtime.

Knowing it's dangerous to work at night when you're in law enforcement, Vic teams up with Calvin Lear, a local Illinois State game warden who he's worked with before and who he trusts.

They plan to go into the fields to find and apprehend these poachers.

Both law enforcement officers are armed.

Vic is wearing hip boots and carries a Smith & Wesson Model 60 .38 caliber revolver in a shoulder holster.

It's just after sunset on March 18th, 1962.

You can imagine the air is brisk.

There's like a three -quarter moon just rising in the east.

Both these men carry flashlights, but they aren't going to use them.

They don't want to give away their presents.

It's cold that day, about 30 degrees Fahrenheit.

Gunshots echo in the distance, close but too far away to identify the shooters or where they're located.

Vic and his partner immediately recognize the sounds of 12 gauge shotguns.

The kind of guns used by duck hunters and duck poachers.

Moving more carefully now, Vic and his partner move toward the sound of the shots.

Three more shots ring out.

They're closer.

They're way closer now.

Both men drop into a crouch and they wait and they listen.

They scan the horizon with their binoculars, trying to make out shapes in the dark.

Vic believes he knows where the poachers are located, using his binoculars.

He sees the silhouettes of two men at the edge of a slough moving toward an unharvested stand of corn.

He and his game warden partner split up.

The plan is for Vic to pursue the poachers while the warden cuts off their escape.

Moving quickly now, Vic continued to use his binoculars to keep an eye on the escaping poachers.

They emerged from the standing cornfield into a harvested cornfield.

heading away now from where the game warden was waiting.

Vic immediately moved toward them, practically running now with his binoculars pressed to his eyes.

He sees one of the poachers drop into a crouch, as if trying to hide within the corn debris on the ground.

The other poacher continued to run.

Vic moved directly toward the crouching poacher.

The binoculars screwed up my depth perception, said Vic when he told me this story back in 2005.

I'd gotten too close to them too quickly.

Suddenly, Vic heard a shot.

He felt a sting on his left thumb and something heavy hit his chest.

Realizing he'd been shot, he turned and yelled out to warn his partner, Warden Lair.

His night vision was now gone from the flash of the first shot, but he turned back to locate his assailant drawing his pistol as he turned.

Vic sees the flames shooting from the end of a shotgun at close range and hears the sound of the shot He goes down on his back his pistols hit by the blast of pellets and knocked from his hand He never returns fire Nearly unconscious Vic has no idea where the poachers are or if they're going to shoot again Vic lay on his back in the mud listening waiting He can hear a pulsing noise in his head and he can feel blood spurting from his neck It's 1962.

He has no portable radio He's on his own and he realizes that if he's going to live he's gonna have to save himself His survival instincts set in and he found the strength and courage to get up find his pistol and head toward the road He knew he was hurt bad The vision in one eye was so blurry that he couldn't use it.

He covered it with his left hand and held his pistol in his right hand.

He started walking across the cornfield in the direction he believed might take him to his partner, the Illinois State Game Warden.

The warden had heard those shots followed by loud and excited voices.

He knew that something had happened and he headed in the direction he hoped would take him to Vic.

As he swept his flashlight across the cornfield, gun in hand, the warden saw a blood -covered figure moving toward him.

It was Vic.

The warden helped Vic back to the warden's patrol vehicle, and with lights, flashing sirens blaring, they raced to the nearest hospital in Pittsfield, Illinois.

Ironically, they had a flat tire on the way, and ended up having to wave down a passing motorist, who then drove them the rest of the way to the hospital.

The doctors in Pittsfield saw that Vic had been shot in the face, eyes and neck.

He was bleeding badly.

He needed more sophisticated medical care than they could provide.

Once they had him stabilized, they transferred Vic by ambulance to the hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois.

There, surgeons spent long hours removing pellets from Vic's head and neck.

They couldn't safely get all of them.

I was struck by about 50 pellets, said Vic in an official report he later filed with the U .S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.

About 15 are still in my head and chest, and one is still lodged in my thumb.

Two pellets were behind his left eye, and one lodged in the muscle of his right eye.

The pellets that entered his left eye bounced off the orbital bones and perforated his retina, causing considerable hemorrhaging.

Fortunately for Vic, advances in the use of lasers in eye surgery allowed specialists to successfully repair his retina.

Assaulting a federal agent is no joke.

Remember, this happened in Illinois in 1962.

Just 30 years earlier, famous federal agents like Elliot Ness and Melvin Purvis were working in Illinois to capture equally infamous killers like Al Capone, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Babyface Nelson.

When someone goes after a Fed, the entire federal law enforcement apparatus is brought to bear.

FBI agents from the Chicago field office were dispatched to the area in search of the attackers.

There really were no leads, but word got out a federal agent had been shot.

A tip came into the FBI office that led them to a farm near where the ambush and shooting occurred.

There they interviewed 49 -year -old Hubert Motley and his 24 -year -old nephew Robert Eugene Motley and the truth was quickly exposed.

The shotgun was found concealed beneath the kitchen floorboards at Hubert Motley's farmhouse.

It was a 12 gauge double -barreled shotgun capable of firing two shotgun rounds before reloading.

Hubert Motley was identified as the shooter and was charged with assaulting a federal agent in the line of duty.

Robert Eugene Motley was charged as an accessory to the assault, harboring a fugitive and obstructing justice by helping his uncle evade capture and to hide the shotgun.

Both men were convicted.

When I spoke to Vic in 2005, he said that he believed that both were sentenced to serve eight years in federal prison but served three before being released on parole.

Although that's Vic's memory, it's likely that Robert Eugene Motley would have received a slightly lighter sentence as an accessory, but I couldn't find any records related to his conviction and sentence.

Vic believes that if Hubert Motley had been armed with a pump -action shotgun, which can hold more than two rounds, that he would have shot again and probably killed Vic.

These guys were out poaching ducks.

That's an offense that would have likely landed them with a federal citation and nothing more.

But poachers hate game ordnance, and sometimes that hatred turns deadly.

It wasn't about ducks to the Motley's, it was about their hatred of law enforcement.

If you're a conservation law enforcement officer or someday want to be one, never forget that you can get yourself killed over the most routine and minor violations of law.

Stay alert.

Be safe.

The story of Vic's ambush doesn't end here.

I don't know what happened to Hubert Motley after he was released from federal prison, but I do know what happened to his nephew, Robert Eugene Motley.

Convicted as only an accessory to the assault on Agent Blasevik, Robert Eugene Motley would go on to fulfill his wish to murder.

In 1976, in an absurdly concocted plan to win back the affections of his ex -wife who'd left him, Motley placed several homemade bombs at the Quincy Compressor factory in Quincy, Illinois.

Don't ask me why he thought that would work in getting his wife back.

We know from his involvement in the attack on Agent Blasevic that Motley was not a man who spent much time thinking about the consequences of his actions.

To build the bombs, Motley used dynamite he'd stolen earlier in the month from the Western Illinois Stone Company.

On September 27th, 1976, U .S.

Army demolition specialist Mike Vining and several of his U .S.

Army colleagues were in Quincy attached to the U .S.

Secret Service detail protecting then US Senator Bob Dole, who was in Illinois campaigning for the re -election of President Gerald Ford.

Dole was Ford's pick for Vice President.

The Army Demolitions Team was there in case any explosive devices were found at the various campaign events.

With Dole's campaign events finished for the evening, the soldiers were enjoying a late meal when they heard a series of explosions in the distance.

They returned to their hotel and learned that the explosions had no connection to Senator Dole's presence in the area.

The next morning, after Senator Dole's plane left the airfield, Vining and the rest of his team were asked by the local county sheriff to go to the scene of the bombings to provide their expert advice about the type of devices and detonation systems used.

When they arrived at the Quincy Compressor facility, They were told that another unexploded device had been found on a truck trailer underneath a large industrial compressor ready for shipment.

The device was placed in such a way that it could only be reached by walking between two truck trailers.

The device consisted of six sticks of dynamite wired to an alarm clock and a six volt battery.

One of Vining's colleagues, Sergeant Major Ken Foster, said that he would walk down between the two trailers to examine the device to determine the best way to defuse it.

He directed Vining to set up and organize the equipment they would need to defuse the bomb.

Foster, accompanied by an Illinois state arson inspector, soon disappeared between the two trailers.

Seconds later, a loud explosion rocked the area.

The state arson inspector came staggering out of the smoke and debris cloud.

his eardrums bleeding and ruptured, and he was temporarily blinded by the blast.

As two of Vining's teammates assisted the arson inspector, Vining ran down between the trailers to find Foster's mangled body.

Foster was killed instantly by the blast.

A reward was offered, and Motley's ex -wife came forward with the information implicating him in the crime.

A search warrant of Motley's home uncovered detailed schematics for the construction of the bombs.

He was arrested and charged with murder and arson in Illinois State Court.

His ex -wife declined to accept the reward and instead asked that it be given to Master Sergeant Ken Foster's family.

Motley agreed to plead guilty in exchange for assurances that he would not be referred for federal charges related to the interstate transport of explosive devices, or for an unrelated deer poaching case in Missouri.

What does that tell you?

To me, it's clear that Motley was desperate to avoid the discovery of his previous conviction as an accessory to the assault on a federal officer.

There is no mention of his previous record in the Illinois State Court sentencing documents, and given that this was the mid -1970s, there were likely no computer databases that would have made it easy for Illinois authorities to discover his prior federal conviction.

On March 1, 1977, Robert Eugene Motley was convicted of murder and sentenced to serve no less than 15 and no more than 45 years in state prison.

I don't know when Robert Eugene Motley was released from prison in Illinois, but I know that he died on December 4, 2021 at the age of 83 in Louisville, Kentucky.

His obituary contains no mention of his violent past, but does mention that he was a member of the Beechwood Baptist Church and worked as a truck driver for the Roan Polink Transportation Company before he retired.

I doubt he's missed.

U .S.

Army Demolition Specialist Mike Vining went on to join the U .S.

Army's elite Delta Force, where he served with distinction, including as a surviving member of the 1979 attempted rescue of the U .S.

hostages held in Iran.

He retired from the U .S.

Army as a Master Sergeant.

U .S.

Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Vic Blazovich survived the attempt on his life and fully recovered from his wounds.

Miraculously, his vision didn't suffer and he was able to continue his career as a special agent.

He went on to serve as the special agent in charge of investigations at the Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters in Washington, D .C.

and retired in 1978.

He passed away from natural causes on August 18, 2008.

Everyone I talked to who knew Vic said that he was a dedicated hard -working agent who never talked about his near -death experience.

Perhaps he was humble or perhaps he simply didn't want to think too much about how close he came to death at the hands of wannabe murderers.

It's a shame really that he didn't talk more about it because it's the kind of story that new and existing US Fish and Wildlife Service agents should hear and take to heart.

I'm glad I reached out to him in 2005 and convinced him to tell me the story in his own words.

Vic's devotion to the mission of the U .S.

Fish and Wildlife Service and his love for his job can be seen by visiting his grave site.

Embedded into his tombstone is the gold special agent badge from the credentials he once carried in his pocket.

The same badge I carried and the same badge every current U .S.

Fish and Wildlife Service agent carries to this day.

Thanks for listening.

Nature's Secret Service is written and produced by me, Ed Newcomer and is co -produced by the DHTV team here at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

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