♪
-Few have what it takes to work undercover,
living in secrecy and constant danger,
unrecognized beyond their tightest circles.
Undercovers put some of the worst criminals behind bars,
but they never get to tell their stories
until now on...
In rural Baxter, Tennessee, drug dealer William Dunn
and his girlfriend, Misty Langford,
do not want to go to jail, and they will do anything
to stop a local undercover detective
from testifying against them...
including murder.
-These people have no boundaries.
As someone who has a wife and kid myself
living at home at the time, you take it very personal
that these criminals like Langford and Dunn
would actually try to follow you
and find out where you live and your family lives.
I think a lot of normal people, citizens, don't understand.
It's, like, these folks don't -- They don't think like we do.
The value of life doesn't mean very much
and that people that they need killed
are just simply an impediment to them that is in their way.
Baxter, Tennessee, is not the kind of place
that you would associate with a lot of crime.
It's a very nice, very picturesque community,
middle Tennessee, rolling farmland and hills.
Beautiful part of the country.
In the William Dunn case,
Dunn had been arrested by the Putnam County, Tennessee,
Sheriff's Department following an undercover investigation,
at which one of their detectives
had made a series of purchases of cocaine from him.
-Dunn approached a friend to ask for help
in arranging to kill the local detective
so that he wouldn't be able to testify against him.
But that friend happened to be a confidential informant
working with the local police.
-I was subsequently contacted to assume the role of a hitman
in a murder-for-hire investigation.
This is definitely a race against time,
in that we, as law enforcement, need to intervene
before they get an actual criminal
to kill this police officer.
As an undercover agent,
I know that this is something that can happen to any of us
who do this type of undercover work
and that they will definitely try to find out
who you are and where you live.
And it not only affects you,
but more personally, it affects your family.
My wife told me that that was the one aspect of my job
that scared her.
In most murder-for-hire cases that I've done in the past,
you get everything done in one day.
It's one meeting, basically.
You get the conversation
and if the elements of proof are met during that conversation,
the team comes in, they arrest the suspect,
and the case is pretty much made.
That's what we hoped to accomplish this day
in Baxter, Tennessee.
-Not wanting to waste any time, Kilday heads
directly over to Dunn's residence
to be introduced to the couple by the confidential informant.
-Planning and conducting an undercover operation
in a rural environment like this has its own set of challenges.
In an urban environment, you have a cover team
who are 30 seconds, 45 seconds away
from getting to you.
In a rural environment,
there is not a lot of cover for the agents to hide in.
My closest cover team
was probably close to a quarter of a mile away.
In this situation, if either Dunn
or if Langford comes out of the house with a gun
and they decide that they want to do something to me
and the informant, my cover team may just be the cleanup crew.
-Agent Kilday was wired for sound but not video.
What you are about to see is a re-creation of events
using actual audio recorded during this investigation.
-The informant knocks on the door...
...and Misty Langford comes out with him
and approaches me in the truck.
-Kilday quickly finds out that Dunn is not at home.
Kilday secretly relays the information to his cover team.
-She gives me the name Jeff Mezzina.
I know it's a different name, but of course,
I can't allude to the fact
that I know it's Detective Jeff Cessna.
When Langford misidentifies the person
I know that they want killed,
it creates a problem for us because we need that
as part of the proof against her and Dunn.
-To make a solid case, Agent Kilday needs Misty
to correctly ID the target she wants killed --
if not by name, then by detailed description.
-I'm trying to hone in on the fact that I know
it's Detective Jeff Cessna.
And I start asking her what she knows about him
and how I can find out for sure who he is
because she's kind of ambling about the name.
She doesn't know.
She's talking about they've been following his kids.
And the first thought that occurs to me is,
"Do they want the whole family killed?"
-Before Agent Kilday can take this any further,
he needs to ascertain whether Misty
wants Jeff Cessna's wife and children murdered, as well.
-The weirdest thing is just how callous
the criminal element is, how nonchalant she is about this
as if it was just business.
It's late in the afternoon.
At that point, I know we're probably not gonna
complete this case on this day.
We're only half done
because they both want this police officer killed,
and I know that we have to firm it up
and complete the case by meeting with Dunn himself.
It's very important that we get Dunn quickly
before he might actually contact someone
who was willing to kill this police officer
and/or his family.
♪
-Kilday received a phone call from William Dunn
asking him to return as soon as possible to discuss the deal.
-When I meet with William Dunn,
I need to actually have the person
that he wants murdered identified,
correctly identified.
I also need his commitment on it.
Another thing I would like to get, if I can,
is a material piece of evidence from him such as a down payment
so that I can give that to the prosecutor
as just another piece of evidence
to go along with the conversation.
-As they approach William Dunn's home,
Special Agent Kilday notices something is wrong.
Because they suspect that Dunn and his girlfriend, Misty,
have guns in the house,
the cover team appears to have stationed themselves
a little too close.
-This surveillance van is literally
less than 100 yards behind the house.
They're right on top of the deal.
I see Dunn and Langford on the front porch,
and I see our surveillance van behind the house.
A lot of things go through my mind.
I know that he's gonna be paranoid.
I know he's been armed in the past.
I don't know if anyone else is in that house with him.
He could be doing a drug transaction at that time.
I don't know.
And I don't know if he's seen the van,
but I'm there, and we have to do the deal anyway.
-After he talks about my truck, he asked the informant
to speak to him away from me, and he walks away with him.
-Kilday reports to his team of a development
that causes him concern.
-Well, now I'm wondering what that conversation is about.
Is he talking about the van?
Is he asking him, "How can I trust this guy?"
I'm kind of on a roller coaster.
Dunn is very paranoid. He's very nervous.
And I don't know what this conversation
has just been behind the house.
This is an important aspect of the case
because Misty Langford two days earlier had the name wrong.
She said Mezzina.
We have now identified the person that Dunn wants killed.
-The CI tells Kilday
that the reason Dunn pulled him behind the house
was to show him the van parked suspiciously 100 yards away.
-Dunn has spotted the surveillance van,
and he is suspicious of it,
so that changes the game for me and it creates a problem.
I'm afraid that it could cause him
to back out of the entire deal or something a whole lot worse.
Maybe Dunn pulls a gun on me or if Langford comes out
of the house with a gun and they decide
that they want to do something to me and the informant.
I'm gonna have to take care of things
for an extended period of time.
Now that I know that Dunn is aware
of the presence of the van, I want them to stay in place.
I want it to look like they're totally unassociated
with what I'm there for.
When Dunn tells me that he has guilt,
I know that this could be a possible entrapment defense.
Entrapment is when I coerce you into committing a crime
as a police officer rather than you being predisposed.
In other words, I put the idea in your mind
rather than you already having it.
It's important to give the suspect an out.
-At this point, I feel like I've fulfilled
two of the three things I wanted to fulfill.
I've identified the intended victim,
I've gotten his commitment
and that he is fully engaged in this.
Now I want to get, if I can,
some type of material down payment.
From my perspective,
Dunn at this point is not making a lot of sense.
I believe he's high.
I've been around people before who were high on cocaine
and were sweating like Dunn was that day.
And I feel like I need to refocus him on the task at hand.
After Dunn named the person he wanted killed,
let me know that he was committed to it,
and he had given me the cocaine and the money,
I knew that he was a had lad.
[ Engine starts ]
I meet some of the cover team a short distance away
before I turn off the recorder, and I also turn over the cocaine
and the money to one of the agents.
They start making plans to come in and arrest Dunn
and Langford, which they did.
I find these moments very rewarding.
When you feel like that, not only have you caught
a career criminal like Dunn,
but you might've played at least a small part
in helping save someone's life.
Following his arrest, I put William Dunn out of my mind.
I had other cases I was working on.
I didn't think about William Dunn for months.
Then I receive a call telling me
that he is soliciting people in the jail to try to kill me.
By soliciting someone to kill me,
he made things a whole lot worse
than they were originally for him.
William Dunn was ultimately sentenced
to 325 years in federal prison
for conviction on approximately
21 federal felony counts.
Misty Langford immediately cooperated
with federal authorities
and testified against William Dunn at trial
and entered into a plea agreement.
♪
-Undercover agents live double lives.
When they leave their homes in the morning,
they enter a dark world,
facing criminals who would not think twice before killing them.
Take this case in Tucson, Arizona.
An undercover agent comes face-to-face
with the person he put behind bars for 20 years.
-Tucson is a Southwest desert town
from very high-end, expensive, ultra-wealthy homes
to other parts of the town
where people are living with dirt floors
and corrugated tin shacks and everything in between.
Tucson is 60 miles from the Mexican border,
so it's a narcotics hub.
And with narcotics comes violence.
I was first introduced to Curtis through a confidential informant
who was aware that I was working undercover
and was aware that Curtis was doing robberies
that were targeting firearms.
The cover story I used for this case
was the cover story I used for hundreds of cases.
I was this White-trash, debt-collecting,
gun-running quasi hitman.
My first impression of Curtis was that
he was a violent young man and living a violent life
and was caught up in that lifestyle.
I was convinced that if someone didn't step in his path,
he was gonna hurt somebody.
On February 18, 2004, the informant called and told me
that Curtis had robbed some shotguns
and that he had cut some of them down into sawed-off shotguns
and that they were on the market.
Sawed-off shotguns, below 16 inches, are illegal weapons.
And I told the informant, "Well, then bring them to me.
That's what I do. I buy sawed-off shotguns."
-The informant arranges to bring Curtis
to meet Jay at a nearby motel.
-In preparation for the shotgun buy,
we rented a hotel room, installed a hidden camera,
and then I also had a nearby cover team.
My cover team consisted of probably five or six agents
who were in the room next door that would use the pass door
to barge in if things got out of hand.
I turned the recording off, waiting for Curtis to arrive.
Before he arrived at the hotel room,
I got a telephone call from the informant.
He tells me that Curtis has been coked out for days,
that he's paranoid, that he doesn't trust me,
that he's stuffed a pistol in his pants,
that his girlfriend's bringing a gun,
and if anything makes him uncomfortable,
we're gonna have a bloodbath.
"You have to call this operation off."
And my instant reaction, my arrogant reaction,
my reckless reaction was, "No, you bring him anyways.
I'm not shutting this down.
No one's killing me in my hotel room."
I never considered shutting the deal down.
I never considered calling it off.
My job was to get those guns off the street,
and I was gonna get them or die trying.
-Common sense says, "Call that deal off and do it another day."
In hindsight and reflection, it was a reckless choice.
I was too cocky.
I was too arrogant to shut it down.
My name is Jay Dobyns.
I was an undercover ATF agent for 27 years.
ATF is a violent-crime agency,
and so we investigate the tools of the trade.
Guns and bombs lead to narcotics,
lead to home invasions, lead to murder-for-hires.
My family worried because they knew
that I had a dangerous job to do.
Every morning when my alarm clock went off,
I knew that I was gonna be walking into
something dangerous that day, but I loved it.
I loved every day of it.
You're living a false life,
you're presenting a false persona to violent people.
And ultimately, the danger is,
if they find out that you're lying to them,
they're gonna drag a straight razor across your throat.
You can't make mistakes
because mistakes have life-and-death consequences.
-Me and my girlfriend at the time were both armed.
I was amped up, I was paranoid,
and I had told her that I had the weird feeling.
I felt like the money was coming too easy.
-I knew he was gunning for me.
I knew he was paranoid and agitated,
and I wanted to diffuse that attitude.
I wanted Curtis to feel comfortable.
So my solution was to answer the door in my boxer shorts.
-It was a red flag when I seen him in his boxers.
So it's one of those things that either he's doing it
for a reason,
or he's stupid enough to open a door
in his underwear during a gun deal.
And obviously, I thought the latter.
I felt that it gave me the upper hand.
-Curtis is there with other people
and a bunch of shotguns.
I knew I was gonna be outnumbered,
and I knew the people I was dealing with
were gonna have guns on them.
That's uncomfortable.
My job is to project comfort and confidence in that situation.
He brings a dozen shotguns into the room.
At one point, I made a slight adjustment
to where the camera was at
because I just wanted to frame Curtis.
I wanted to make sure that we were getting our best evidence.
[ Gun cocks ]
♪
I was especially focused on the sawed-off shotguns.
A sawed-off shotgun is a dangerous weapon.
It's no longer a hunting weapon.
Possession of sawed-off shotguns and then being the person
to have altered the shotguns are crimes.
It's just designed now to inflict violence.
Most of these shotguns
were high-end, super-expensive competition shotguns.
With his description of a process
of turning a legal gun into an illegal gun,
he was making my case for me.
I purchased all the guns that he brought.
I didn't want to let any of them get back on the street.
...7, 8, 9...
I think I made the entire exchange for $1,500.
...1, 2, 3...
-When I finished the deal with Jay,
how he conducted himself and how he did business,
I didn't have any suspicions of Jay at the time.
-So after the purchase of the guns was complete,
we traced the weapons and found out
that they had been stolen and found the original owners.
There was a skeet-shooting competition in the area.
Curtis robbed an RV that one of the competitors was staying in.
When he came out with this big haul
of very high-end competition shotguns,
we knew he was doing robberies. That was his M.O.
So it opened the door to discuss a narcotics robbery
or a home invasion
because we knew he was predisposed towards it.
-To advance the operation and gain access
to Curtis's network of co-conspirators,
Jay befriends Curtis to get closer to him
and gain his trust.
-I meet Curtis in his apartment,
and we talked about the robberies
that he'd been doing.
I presented an opportunity for him
to do a home-invasion robbery.
I laid out a story that I was involved
with some cartel-type people
and that I would occasionally become aware
of where a stash was being planted,
and I was one guy, and I needed help.
I couldn't rip it off myself.
I asked him if he had people that he was comfortable with
that he could put a rip crew together.
And he confirmed that he did.
So after that conversation,
I was just waiting for him to confirm
that he had his robbery crew built and ready to go.
But I couldn't get ahold of him on his phone,
he wasn't answering pages.
So I made arrangements to meet with his girlfriend, Crystal,
and I drove into an alley behind her house and parked.
When Crystal came to my car, I could tell she was scared.
She never really got fully in the car.
She left the door open.
I knew she was afraid. I knew she was afraid of me.
And I know she's leaving herself an escape.
She didn't want to get trapped in that car with me.
Curtis's girlfriend, Crystal, tells Agent Dobyns
that the local police picked up Curtis
on a previous warrant,
and now they're putting the heat on her.
-I was trying to comfort her
and continue my credibility in her eyes,
but I was mainly trying to get to the rest
of the home-invasion crew.
If Crystal doesn't put me in touch
with the rest of the crew and if I'm not able to identify
who they are, the case is done.
I don't know who the players are.
Okay.
After I left Crystal, I got contacted
by one of Curtis's home-invasion crew members
and then met with his little crew of gangsters
that were gonna do this drug rip
and gave them an opportunity to escape it.
Told them, you know, "We're not talking about
stealing grandma's purse off her shoulder.
We're gonna go in to a narcotic stash house."
And I ask them, "Are you sure you're up for it?
Do you know what you're getting into?
If you don't have the stomach for this,
now's the time to get out."
They all reassured me that they'd done it before
and were willing to do it again.
So on March 19, 2004, that was takedown day.
That was the day that we were going to arrest
the home-invasion crew.
-The team leader lays out the takedown plan --
the suspects will arrive by car.
Once they arrive, they will be shown
a rental truck parked onsite.
The suspects will be told that the truck will transport
the narcotics after the robbery.
But the SWAT team will be hiding inside.
-I put the call out to the home-invasion crew
to come and meet me in the desert
to stage up to do the robbery.
-The plan was, once the suspects arrived,
I would examine what they brought, what their tools were.
Then at that point, once we were a go,
I invite them to come to the U-Haul.
-With the tactical team in place,
all Jay can do now is wait.
[ Cellphone rings ]
-As I'm waiting for the suspects to show up, I'm nervous.
I don't want anybody to get hurt on either side.
I don't want the suspects to get hurt,
and I surely don't want my guys to get hurt.
Well, anybody that's there for a home invasion,
they're physically and mentally ready for a confrontation.
How they're gonna react...
-Three...two...
-...is unknown. -...one.
-I confirm with them that they understand
that we're gonna do a narcotics robbery.
They show me the tools of the trade
they've brought -- rubber gloves, guns,
bulletproof vests, ski masks.
And then I invite them to come to the U-Haul.
You never know what someone's gonna do
when they're desperate or greedy.
The suspects are armed, and this could be a shootout.
As I'm walking the robbery team to the U-Haul,
I had a mark I wanted to hit.
The SWAT team wanted me to get these guys
to a certain point close to the U-Haul
that would be advantageous for the SWAT people.
As the arrest team piles out,
you have all different reactions from the suspect crew.
Some instantly give up and put their hands up,
some start to run,
some trying to figure out where they can escape.
There's nowhere to escape to,
and that was by design.
So they were all put down on the ground and handcuffed,
and that was the end of the tactical operation.
We put them in the middle of the desert.
There was nowhere to run.
-As soon as I heard that -- all my friends had got
wrapped up in the sting operation
and got arrested out in the desert --
I knew my goose was cooked.
So the other guys that were in our crew,
they all received a 5-year sentence.
-Curtis was convicted and took a pretty heavy prison sentence.
-Jay did testify against me in my trial.
At that time, I was very upset with Jay.
-Once Curtis realized that "Jaybird" Davis,
the gun runner, was actually Jay Dobyns, the ATF agent,
he started making death threats against me.
One of his cellmates, after he was released,
came to ATF and told ATF,
"Curtis Duchette is plotting his murder.
He's fantasizing about the murder of Agent Dobyns."
The informant told ATF, "He wants to do it himself,
but if he doesn't get out, he's gonna hire someone to do it."
If I saw Curtis again, what would I say to him?
I'm not sure I have anything to say to him.
I do know this, he was moving down a bad path.
The road he was on was a dead end.
I would like to think that he got his life together
and straightened himself out.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
I don't know.
We good? -Yeah, it's all good.
Thank you very much. -Right on.
-I hope that wasn't too bad.
-It was a little stressful.
I was stress-sweating a little bit there.
♪
I haven't seen Jay since my trial,
but I truly do believe that he did save my life.
♪
How you doing, big guy? -I'm happy to see you.
-I'm happy to see you, too.
And I want to apologize to you for any undue stress
that I caused you or your family.
And, man, it's so good to see you.
-You look good. -Yes, sir.
-You look healthy.
-Doing the right thing. -Yeah.
-Been working, and I completely
360 changed my whole life around.
-And you have a family? -Yeah, I got
a 9-year-old daughter, 17-year-old stepson.
Everything changed for me.
If it wasn't for you and what happened,
then God knows where I would have been.
-You were on a path that had two endgames --
prison or in the ground.
-It took a lot of years for me to come to terms with things
and realize that you were just doing your job.
The blame was on me. I put myself in that position.
No one else did.
-I spent my life gaining people's trust,
gaining their confidence, at times, gaining their love,
and then betraying it.
In this case, I don't really question that
because it has a happy ending.
Can you snap a picture for me?
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
♪