by Travis Mateer

I have developed a unique approach to understanding local power dynamics that the above image brilliantly encapsulates. How does my shit-talking echo-location methodology work? It’s simple. I go around town, talking shit, and what bounces back at me when a certain name is included gets added to the pile.

In the summer of 2022 the incoming call on my phone said FBI, but it was really Detective Guy Baker. Why was Baker calling me? Well, the way a young girl was selling flowers didn’t sit right with me and the woman I was with, so I did something about it, then I wrote about it because that’s what I do.

The call was a result of all the preliminary work I had done, including emailing my disappointment to the County Commissioners after my attempt to utilize 911 proved to be worthless. Here’s what I wrote at the time about how my concerns were handled by Baker:

The follow up call came a few days later, and I guess it was intended to put my concerns to rest. I was told by Detective Baker that a vigorous 6-8 hour investigation revealed the man was indeed a Russian out-of-stater traveling with his “family” from western Washington. There were two boys and a woman who appeared to be the “mother”. This family’s behavior had caused another bystander to call 911 two days after I did, and this concerned citizen took pictures, something Guy Baker suggested I could have done to make his job easier.

Yes, instead of saying THANK YOU, Detective Baker gave me tips on how I could have gotten MORE involved in order to make his job easier. For some reasons that makes me think of Colton Peterson, the young 21 year old man Missoula authorities pushed into committing suicide, despite the clearly articulated concerns of his parents before he went to O’Brien Creek and shot himself.

Police say Peterson got on the wrong side of the law in July working as a medical marijuana caregiver. He was licensed by the state to grow six marijuana plants for a single patient, and six plants for himself, but a tip to law enforcement from an informant allegedly revealed a larger grow operation at his apartment.

That tip led to a raid on July 26 and an eventual agreement between Peterson and detectives on Missoula’s High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas task force – he would work as a “cooperative defendant,” gathering string on potentially more serious drug dealers in the area, and in exchange police would tell prosecutors he had cooperated with the investigation.

While I have no direct knowledge of Baker’s involvement with THIS case, there is other knowledge I have, including how the use of a very potent word might be used to get certain results, and that word is SNITCH. Unfortunately, there is knowledge that I will never have, like knowing what Sean Stevenson and Johnny Lee Perry could have known about local power dynamics before they died.

Before I lost my last studio space and considered going on a Good Samaritan Gone Bad Tour, I did that shit-talking thing when an old man came out of his massage session. The result? He knew Baker as a little kid because they lived on the same street. Did I know his dad was cop, the man asked? Yes, I said, and I even know the infamous nickname.

Before I disclose this closely kept piece of information, let me string together some other interesting data points worth noting, like another conversation I had at that same studio space with a man about his dog. If you don’t think my shit-talking echo-location methodology is an effective tool, then listen to what my roommate witnessed as he helped me move shit out of my studio.

The man approached the building with a working dog (a real one, not some emotional support con job), and it was because of the breed that I asked the man if he knew David Barsotti. At first the answer was no, but when I described how David Barsotti supposedly shot and killed one of his BELGIAN MALINOIS dogs for biting him, the man realized that YES, he actually had been cold-called on the phone by someone he thinks was probably Barsotti about the business of breeding Belgian Malinois.

Did I forget to mention David’s wife, Rebekah, ALSO ended up dead, along with one of their Belgian Malinois dogs?

On July 26, Sheriff Toth announced on social media that Rebekah’s dog, Cerberus, had been found dead in the Clark Fork River by the Mineral County Search and Rescue team, about 10 miles downriver from where authorities believe Rebekah and the dog went into the water.

What do these kind of dogs have to do with Detective Guy Baker? Well, some of the shit-talking I like to do involves criticizing Baker’s use of dogs in the Jermain Charlo case, like implying with my charming cynicism that FOUR MONTHS to get FBI dogs onto the property of the ex-boyfriend sure seems like an “unintentional” gift to the ex-boyfriend, since the blood on the clothes they found were admissible due to how long they were out in the elements.

The Jermain Charlo case got Guy Baker plenty of mainstream media attention (something he may have acquired a habit for after his experience with KRAKauer), and it got the host of the podcast, Stolen, inteviews with Rolling Stone, where Connie Walker had this to say about the jurisdictional maze she entered (bold is the question):

I know reservations have different law enforcement separate from the rest of the state or town. Does that make your work difficult? It’s interesting for me because I feel like I’m getting an education about all of the jurisdictional mazes that exist for indigenous people in the United States. But Jermain’s reservation, the Flathead Reservation, they have tribal police, but they also have county oversight. So the local counties are also working in collaboration with tribal law enforcement, and in Jermain’s case, as well. And Jermain’s case is also unique in that she’s a tribal member, she’s a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes. And she was reported missing to tribal police by her mother. But she also was last seen in Missoula, so her family also reported her missing to the Missoula’s city police. I think, there are, actually, four or five different counties that have jurisdiction on the reservation. So depending on where you are on the reservation, a different sheriff’s office might respond to your call.

While Connie moves on to exploit other communities for “true crime” dollars, I’m still here, wondering if I should call it a coincidence or trolling that the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office just got some new pups. Can you guess the breed?

From the link (emphasis mine):

The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office announced on Facebook that they are welcoming a dual purpose K9 named Django.

Django is a 15-months-old Belgian Malinois/Dutch Sheperd mix who was born in Hungary.

He is trained in detecting narcotics, evidence searches, tracking, building searches and apprehension.

Throwing out data points, while definitely a part of my methodology for weaving together these amazing posts I offer for free, is not how I came across Detective Baker’s nickname, and I wouldn’t be sharing this nickname now if I hadn’t heard it multiple times, like at a downtown location that shall remain nameless.

This shop-owner, who knows shit, was actually there with no one else around, and I had my copy of the Missoulian to show him Lowell’s funny face on the cover, so after doing some shit-talking he asked me, as if testing me, if I knew Detective Guy Baker’s nickname.

YES I DO, was my reply…GAY BIKER!

Juvenile? Sure, because I think it came from juveniles twenty years ago, but for some reason it stuck. And it makes me smile every time I think about it.

If you enjoy the fruits of my mutha fukin methodology, a little support would be most appreciated.

Thanks for reading!