MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Tripp Brazeale

**Brit Prawat** (0:00)
Hi, Crime Junkies, it's Brit. And I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, Counter Clock, is back with a brand new season. And it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap, it is a re-investigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to Counter Clock season eight now, wherever you get your podcasts.

**Ashley Flowers** (0:37)
It's 1240 a.m. on November 3rd, 2024, and St. Francis County Deputy Trey Bynum is in hot pursuit. He's on a rural road in Forest City, Arkansas, chasing someone on a four-wheeler, and they are both booking it down this windy road in the dark. From the sound of it, Bynum is right on their tail, so when they come on to this raised dirt berm in the road, almost at once both the four-wheeler and Bynum's truck go airborne before crashing back down to the road.
Now, both vehicles get turned around, but something happens to the four-wheeler, and it stops suddenly. So Bynum slams on his brakes and calls out to the rider.

**Brit Prawat** (1:24)
Get on the ground.

**Ashley Flowers** (1:27)
But before he can even approach the four-wheeler, the rider is on foot. He hops a fence and darts into the woods.
It's all so fast that by the time Bynum draws his service weapon and aims for the woods, the rider is gone. Now, rather than jumping the fence and following him into the woods in the dark, Bynum decides to run back to his truck and call in the stop over his radio.

**Deputy Trey Bynum** (1:51)
Hey, right there, I got the four-wheeler.

**Ashley Flowers** (1:53)
There was another deputy following close behind, Sergeant David Kinney, so it only takes a minute for him to pull up.

**Deputy Trey Bynum** (2:02)
I'm good, but we went up the ditch. I said, I'm good, but we went up that ditch right there, both of us, me and him both.
I need the trailer because I'm throwing that one. There's going to be a white male on a chem-fly's hoodie and blue jeans look like he went off that way.

**Sergeant David Kinney** (2:20)
Did he roll it or something?

**Deputy Trey Bynum** (2:21)
He turned it and jumped off and took off running across the field.

**Ashley Flowers** (2:26)
So Sergeant Kinney goes to get the trailer so that they can tow the four-wheeler while more backup begins arriving, and several deputies begin to assist in this manhunt.
But they're having no luck, not after 4:20 a.m. when Kinney comes back and calls the fire department and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to come and set up thermal night vision drones to assist or after 7:20 a.m. Then the East Arkansas Department of Corrections brings tracking dogs to the scene, though they do find signs of the man who fled on foot.
Deputies locate a boot and a hat a short distance from where he entered the woods.

**Brit Prawat** (3:03)
Just one boot?

**Ashley Flowers** (3:04)
Just one. But even with this physical trail, for some reason, the canines aren't able to track his path.
By the time daylight breaks, authorities are no closer to finding their man. So they decide to call in even more reinforcements.
By that afternoon, there's not only the sheriff's deputies searching, but also state police troopers, the state emergency response team, two local fire departments, Forest City police officers and volunteers. They create a search grid and form eight teams to deploy in different areas. And they do end up finding a second boot, a wallet, a phone charger and hoodie. But their man is still in the wind. And almost 19 hours after they first began their pursuit, at 7:18 p.m., the manhunt is called off due to the dark, and it is set to resume the next morning. So they pick up again in the morning, but it's not until late afternoon, around 2:12 p.m., as their search radius widens, that one of the groups finds several footprints in a creek. A search of the creek bed comes up empty, but one game and Fish Warden notices a trail of broken twigs from the creek, leading up to the base of a steep ridge. She follows it one step at a time, and when she looks up, she sees who they were all after, and he is hanging from a tree at the top of the ridge, with a green ratchet strap around his neck.
His death is ultimately ruled a suicide by ligature hanging, the assumption being that this writer took his life, maybe so he didn't have to face the consequences. But Arkansas State Police still conducts a death investigation anyway, and as part of it, on November 12th, over a week after the chase that set off this tragic chain of events, ASP Senior Special Agent Andre Mack interviews both Deputy Bynum and Sergeant Kinney. Both interviews are recorded, and both men tell pretty much the same story. So I'm just going to play you part of Bynum's interview edited for clarity.