When Undercover Police Plans Go Bad

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Law Enforcement Talk: True Crime and Trauma Stories
Host: John "Jay" Wiley
Guest: Jennifer Eskew (Retired ATF Agent, former Virginia State Trooper, author of Becoming Fire)
Episode: When Undercover Police Plans Go Bad
Date: January 18, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the real-life dangers and complexities of undercover police work, as experienced by Jennifer Eskew—a pioneer female officer with the Virginia State Police and later a long-serving ATF agent. Jennifer shares gripping accounts from her undercover assignments, the trauma and dilemmas she faced, and reflections on how violent operational moments shaped her life and career. The episode also explores her recent memoir, Becoming Fire, highlighting her personal and professional journey in law enforcement.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Jennifer's Early Career and Challenges as a Female Trooper

[03:02-06:15]

• Jennifer began her career with Virginia State Police in 1986, at a time when female presence was very limited (approx. 25 women vs. 1200 men).
• She shares her early struggles and how male colleagues, many of them Vietnam War veterans, supported her learning and confidence.
• On the culture of support and respect:

  "They always felt like they could count on me being there and that they never had a question as to whether I was going to show up." (Jennifer Eskew, 06:15)

• A Marine veteran’s praise for her reliability deeply impacted her approach to team dynamics and accountability.

2. The Realities of Undercover Work

[15:03-20:19]

• Female officers often had an advantage in undercover roles due to gender stereotypes among criminals; women were less likely to be suspected of being police.
• Jennifer’s entry into full-time undercover work—becoming the first female to hold such a position in her agency—came after three years as a road trooper.
• She describes the incongruity of buying drugs from both gang members in housing projects and Mennonite farm operations producing clandestine Valium.
• On how she gathered invaluable intel:

  "They saw me as, hey, she seems to have some money... yeah, she's perfect." (Jennifer Eskew, 15:45)

3. When Undercover Goes Bad: The Waynesboro Operation

[23:22-30:19]

• Jennifer recounts a harrowing undercover operation involving a violent family of drug dealers, one member of which suspected Jennifer and her informant of being police.
• The tension escalates over one night, culminating in a fatal shooting of a local college student—an innocent victim mistaken for someone else.
• The shock and trauma of the event, both operationally and personally, are still palpable for Jennifer.

  "You always go back and you think, what if we'd have done this? And what if I'd have done that?... there's nothing more. And there's nothing else I could have done." (Jennifer Eskew, 30:53)

4. Survivor Guilt and Processing Trauma

[30:19-34:40]

• Host and guest connect over memories of cases that haunt them, discussing survivor’s guilt and the lack of “hindsight” in real-time law enforcement operations.
• On living with legacy trauma:

  "There are still incidents in my head where I think, if I could have done this, I should have done this, they'd still be alive today." (John J. Wiley, 30:19) "I'll probably always carry that when I talk about this... I always get that feeling, and my throat always gets kind of caught up because I just..." (Jennifer Eskew, 30:53)

5. Transition to ATF and Organized Crime in Rural America

[34:40-36:49]

• After state police, Jennifer joined ATF, spending 25 years in rural Appalachia—a region with significant meth, outlaw biker, and gang activity due to convenient transit routes and lower law enforcement visibility.
• They underscore that rural areas are hotbeds for organized crime, contrary to general perceptions.

6. Posing as a Hit Person: Undercover Assignments with ATF

[36:55-41:52]

• Jennifer describes how a chance call from a well-placed informant led her to pose as a professional hit person for a suspect with a record of trying to rob the FBI.
• She recounts the professionalism required, including precautions on recorded conversations and the logistics of meeting with the target.
• Memorable undercover anecdote:

  "I actually had him buy me dinner. So I ate seafood while all the surveillance team sat in the van. And it was really cold. It was in February." (Jennifer Eskew, 40:20)

  • The operation concluded with the suspect providing a down payment, a map to the intended victim’s house, and discussion of possible murder methods.

7. Reflections and Memoir: Becoming Fire

[42:00-43:13]

• Jennifer’s memoir, Becoming Fire: Chasing the Passion to Protect, Serve, and Love, chronicles her journey from farm life to undercover ops, her failures, lessons, and triumphs.
• She reflects on the personal cost and growth derived from her service.

  "I wrote the book about my career with the Virginia State Police from coming off of, you know, being a farm kid in a rural area to going to the academy, becoming a trooper, you know my mistakes and then my successes..." (Jennifer Eskew, 42:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Learning from Veterans:

  "The reason I’m going to help you is because you’re not afraid... and you take accountability." (Unnamed mentor, related by Jennifer Eskew, 06:15)

• On Breaking Gender Stereotypes in the Field:

  "For the most part, when I went undercover and finally got into it full time, they did not see me as the threat... They let me know too much." (Jennifer Eskew, 15:45)

• High Stakes, Human Toll:

  "But they shot him and killed him. And it just was a, it was a horrific night because, you know, there was just so much going on..." (Jennifer Eskew, 29:47)

• On Carrying Trauma:

  "I'll probably always carry that when I talk about this... there's nothing more. And there's nothing else I could have done." (Jennifer Eskew, 30:53)

• Undercover Humor:

  "I ate seafood while all the surveillance team sat in the van... Sometimes you got to mess with the people that are working with you a little bit." (Jennifer Eskew, 40:20)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment | |----------|----------------------------------------------| | 03:02 | Jennifer’s introduction & law enforcement culture | | 06:15 | Earning respect as a female officer | | 15:03 | Undercover career beginnings | | 18:16 | First full-time undercover assignment | | 19:38 | Clandestine Mennonite Valium busts | | 23:22 | The operation that went bad | | 29:47 | Aftermath of the failed operation | | 30:53 | Survivor’s guilt and trauma | | 34:40 | Transition to ATF | | 36:49 | Drugs and organized crime in rural areas | | 37:56 | The hit-person undercover operation | | 40:20 | Undercover anecdotes and sting details | | 42:00 | Memoir: Becoming Fire |

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Tone and Language

The tone is candid, direct, and introspective, with moments of dark humor and camaraderie between experienced officers. Jennifer’s storytelling is authentic, respectfully detailing both her grit and vulnerability. Jay, as host, balances empathy with professionalism, often drawing on shared experiences to ground the discussion in a reality understood by frontline law enforcement but unfamiliar to outsiders.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a firsthand account of the unpredictable and often perilous world of undercover law enforcement. Jennifer Eskew’s stories highlight not only the operational complexities and dangers involved but also the enduring emotional costs for those who serve. Listeners gain rare insight into what it means to live "behind the badge"—not just in action, but in the aftermath.

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Transcript

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[John J. Wiley]

She was a Virginia State Trooper who left the agency to become an ATF agent. Now retired from the atf, she's here to talk about the dangers she encountered and the unusual circumstances of working undercover. Welcome to the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. In the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show, we are joined by special guests talking about their experiences, their realities of investigating crimes plus those have experienced horrendous trauma. Police, first responders, military and victims of crime share their stories. Hi, I'm John J. Wiley. In addition to being a broadcaster, I'm also a retired police sergeant. Be sure to check out our website, letradio.com and also like us on Facebook, search for the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show. You know we used to have an app and it was a very popular app and then guess what? We couldn't hold a candle through our Facebook presence. How many people have the mobile Facebook app already installed on their phone? How many people use it on their computer? Make sure you follow us, make sure you like us on our Facebook page. Just search for law enforcement talk radio show and podcast and be sure to send us a comment to one of the posts. Best of all, as 100% free, connecting with us from Georgia, we have retired ATF agent Jennifer Eskew on the law enforcement talk radio show is also a Virginia State Trooper and she is author of the book Becoming Fire. Jennifer, thanks for your service, number one. Number two, thanks for being a guest on the show and talking about it. It's very much appreciated.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me on. And thanks, thanks for thanking me.

[John J. Wiley]

It's a pleasure to have you here. And by the way, you spent a lot of your career, and this is just my opinion, my opinion only, you spent a lot of your career with the atf. The ATF is one of the agencies that had a reputation being real police. DEA was another one. I'm not going to name the ones that didn't, but in Baltimore, the at, they were running gun and they were.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Out there working, right? We, yeah. And I got to work with a lot of the guys that were in Baltimore too, back in the day when I first started with atf because that was part of our field division at the time. And so, yeah, I think with ATF we were looked at as street agents because we knew that what we called our bread and butter was working with our state and local partners and being involved with them actively on dealing with anything violent crime, particularly shootings, guns and drugs, the trafficking of the weapons from the south to the north and all over the place, as well as arsons and bombings. And that involved a lot of, you know, motorcycle gangs, but also a little bit of the mafia, a little bit of everybody.

[John J. Wiley]

Right. A lot of people don't consider that. But you started your career with Virginia State Police. And by the way, I grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, and that's where I spent most of my child. My dad was career Navy guy and Virginia State Police had a great reputation back then. That was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. And their reputation, as far as an agency goes, it still has got a good reputation.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Yes, it does. It does. I started, see, applied to them in 1985 and I got hired in January of 1986. So early on, I was one of the earlier females to come on with the agency. They had hired their very first female in 1976. She was the only female in a class of 72. When I came on, there were three of us in my class. We've all talked about it or several of us have talked about it since then and we're like, how many do you think there was of us? We'll sit there and add them all up and It'd be like 22 to 25. There couldn't have been more than 25 actual female state troopers, but there were 1200 men. So we were like, we're a little outnumbered.

[John J. Wiley]

Yeah, a little bit outnumbered. A lot of testosterone where you worked it. And so in our agency we had, and I started in 1980, we had a lot of female officers and they worked everywhere. And by the way, people love. We had a former commissioner that made fun of them. But I owe my life to a lot of these female officers. And it wasn't a matter of how big they were, how strong they were. When I needed help, when I was in a fight for my life, they came in and they grabbed me, grab the hand. And meanwhile, some of the muscle bound macho guys would never show up. They would never ever be on a hot call.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I guess some of us, we just really like to fight. Yeah, that's might be putting it a little rough, but, but I, I think from everything I hear from a lot of my fellow people that I worked with over the decades, they always tell me, and I've always heard from them and I, and I hear it back, that they always felt like they could count on me being there and that they never had a question as to whether I was going to show up. One of the better compliments I ever got on the job was from a Marine, a former Marine who'd been in Vietnam. And he always told me, he said, if I'm going, I want you going with me because I know you won't leave me, right? And I said, well, that's what I'm not supposed to do. I'm going, I'm going to be there. I said, I'm going to get you back. I said, we're going to, we're going to, you know, we're going to do what we got to do out here. And I always had it. I tell everybody I got lucky early on in my career, even though I did encounter some people who were probably not thrilled about having females on the job and had some issues. For the most part, I got lucky. The men who I worked with were very good to me. They worked very hard to help me out and to learn and to get beyond my rookie days and my rookie mistakes and, and they taught me the right way to do things. So I didn't get hurt. And so I did improve and continue to work that way. And a lot of those guys were Vietnam veterans, and they had been in bad situations overseas. They'd come back and been in law enforcement for 10 to 15 years, and they were very helpful. One sat down with me one night and he said, the reason I'm going to help you is because you're not afraid. He goes, and you take accountability. So. And he spent one night working with me and teaching me stuff. This was past FTO days, and he just wanted to show me things. And I credit him giving me permission to stop being so polite to everybody, particularly people who might really hurt me, and do my job, be hands on and do my job what I'd been taught. But at the same time, you were intimidated because you didn't want to make anybody mad. No, it was like, you have to get past that. You have to get to where you can just get your work done, get your job done and deal with the situation. And he kind of gave me that permission to go do my job and do it the right way and treat people the right way, but do my job the right way and get it done.

[John J. Wiley]

We have a lot in common.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I've always credited him.

[John J. Wiley]

I was trained by a lot of Vietnam combat veterans, and we had a few Korean War veterans or command staff, and they were some of the best police ever because they taught these basic principles. And the basic principles was respect people everywhere you go until they change the tone of conversation and then there's no backing down. And if you feel like your life is threatened, you take action and you be quick about it. Don't wait, don't play pity Patty, whatever it is, give a dog a bone thing. If you got to hit someone, hit them. And never lie about it.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Right? And you don't lie about anything you do. This is what you you did. You articulate it, you explained why, and you stand by it. There's no time to be waffling and changing and creating a new story, because you're not out there for that. You are out there to do your job and be honest about it and explain why you did it. And if it turns out that why you did it wasn't good enough then, now that'll have its own repercussions. But if they come back and look at it and go, yeah, we can kind of see it from that way. We see why that happened and what this is, and it's logical it had to happen that way. And I said, I'm grateful to all of those people. That worked with me and helped me out at the beginning because it gave me that little boost of confidence. The fact that people weren't looking at me as this little college kid who just bebopped up in their office and was like, hey, I'm college kid Jennifer. Yeah. Well, I came on, I was 23. You know, I was like five, six maybe. I don't know. By the time I got in the office, out of the academy and everything, I might have been about 120.

[John J. Wiley]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Eskew]

A little bit heavier than that when I got to the academy, but I wasn't really big.

[John J. Wiley]

They run you into shape. By the way, where'd you go to college?

[Jennifer Eskew]

Old Dominion.

[John J. Wiley]

Same here. But see, the difference between you and I was I didn't graduate. I was. I left quickly. I tell people all the time. I majored in drinking and a minor in sociology. I got a 4.0. My.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I was majoring in the same thing and I. And a little more pizza. I did a lot of the martial arts programs down there.

[John J. Wiley]

Well, then, we'll take a short break. We're talking with Jennifer Eskew. She's retired atf. She's author of the book Becoming Fire. This is law enforcement talk radio show. We're talking about her undercover career in just a few moments. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Of all the radio stations in the United States, there are no other shows like the law enforcement talk radio show. And on Facebook, there's only one official page. Do a search on Facebook for the law enforcement talk radio show. And be sure to like the law enforcement talk radio show Facebook page.

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[John J. Wiley]

Return to conversation with Jennifer Askew on the law enforcement talk radio show. Jennifer is retired ATF agent, former Virginia state trooper, and she's author of the book Becoming Fire. And she's contact from the great state of Georgia before leaving the Virginia State Police, which some people do, and going to the atf, by the way, the Old Dominion days. I've got to go back Very quickly I said I was a lousy student and I found out the police academy was actually a good student. And then when I sobered up, I became a really, really good student. And all of a sudden, when things important to me, I paid attention. So when I was, wasn't it across the street in a bar, Friar Tucks, and I was actually in class, I probably would have graduated.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I love Friar Ducks. It was the same for me. When I found things that truly interested me, I put all my focus and attention on it and I excelled at it. And when I was in the police academy and then furthering my law enforcement career and everything I've done over 32 plus years, it was, I really did great. I took, you know, university courses, I got a master's degree, all those things. And I made mostly A's in everything because I took to it, I enjoyed it.

[John J. Wiley]

And I guess as we get older, we become more. More serious about what we care about. I've got to say this, when a lot of people, and I almost laugh when people say, yeah, I'm gonna go to the police acade and then I'm going right to homicide, I'm like, nah, that's not quite how it works. Unless you are a golden boy. When you graduate from the Virginia State Police Academy, were you a road trooper?

[Jennifer Eskew]

Yeah. Everybody is going to be a uniform road trooper when you get out. And back in the day, the fastest you could get to be a special agent was probably seven years, but the average was 10 to 12 years, and it could be longer because it was evaluations, testing scores for that particular promotion, as well as a panel interview. Those kinds of things mattered. In our experience, all of those things were going to be added in before you could get promoted. But I realized when I was in the state police Academy, there was a point where it just hit me. I want to be a criminal investigator, I want to be a special agent. And I'm asking questions about it and everybody's going, learn to be a trooper first. And I was like, I got you. I just want to know how to get there. And they were like, learn to be a trooper first. But I kept asking people because I knew I wanted to be a special agent. I wanted to investigate the felony crimes. And so I was really focused on that. And I realized it was going to be a very long time getting there.

[John J. Wiley]

Right.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I was trying, though.

[John J. Wiley]

Well, here's the thing.

[Jennifer Eskew]

One of the routes was the undercover in Baltimore.

[John J. Wiley]

One of the things, and I'm not saying this as a sexist position, but Female officers had an advantage, and they were quite often sent in undercover work because they posed as the girlfriend for the informant or the undercover, and they were there to gather information. And also, let's be. Let's be honest, a lot of the drug dealers, they were. They didn't view females as potentially being police. And so it was not. And I'm not saying this is negative, it was a macho world, for lack of better words, and they didn't consider women to be a threat. Did you find it to be a case for you?

[Jennifer Eskew]

For the most part, when I went undercover and finally got into it full time, they did not see me as the threat. They didn't recognize, you know, what they were dealing with. And so in that process of not knowing that, they let me know too much. They took me in. I gathered a lot of intel that way. They got in my car with me. The next thing you know, I'm with guys who are trafficking firearms and bringing in the drugs, and they're in my vehicle and they're talking to me about buying guns for them so we can take them to New Jersey and do these different things and how much crack they can, I can start selling for them during a week. They're. They're telling me a lot of their business, and I'm learning more and more about things that they've been involved in in the past and, you know, different places where there have been homicides, where they've had to suddenly leave. And I was learning, you know, their names, that sort of thing, because they weren't recognizing that I'm the person wearing the body wire, that I'm the person that's got a gun, that I've got a badge. They. They saw me as, hey, she seems to have some money. She's not too stupid. She's got a vehicle, you know. Yeah, she's perfect.

[John J. Wiley]

Right. And they wanted to impress you. Let's be honest and say they wanted to impress. And I'm not saying this is a negative. I. Sometimes. I'm going to ask you this informal question. I think sometimes the female officers that did better were the ones who stayed in uniform. They had a tendency in our department, and I'm generalizing here, to use these people and without thought of what the. Their lives would be like afterwards.

[Jennifer Eskew]

No, well, like I said, they. They didn't. You know, state police came and asked me, you know, I'd been on. I've been on three and a half years at the time, and if you count the first half of the year was nothing but Academy. So three years in uniform on the road and they asked me if I'd like to do be a full time trooper. A full time undercover trooper. And I didn't realize I was the very first female to be actually going into the full time position. It was going to be a two step increase in pay which is like $80 more a month or something much. And I'm like, yes, I'll take it. I knew it was a way to open the door to eventually becoming a special agent with the state police. Plus my love life had gone to he doublel in a handbasket.

[John J. Wiley]

We can say that safely.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I was kind of like really in a slump. And I was like, this is great. I get to change names. I get to have a whole new life. This will be great. I'll start over. And I didn't realize I was going to start over in a housing project and be surrounded by gangs. And I'd be there 247 for six months. But that was my very like here.

[John J. Wiley]

You go into the fire from the frying pan.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Yeah, pretty much. And so I got there and I had a topside agent, great guy. CBY @Charlie as always calling Charlie. And we also worked with a detective named Scott Klein. And we got an informant or two. And I got introduced around and I started buying drugs from like everybody. Eventually I'm buying crack, I'm buying cocaine, I'm buying heroin. And then I started buying drugs from the Mennonites. And that was like different. That was like a side gig. They were like, hey, you don't mind going over here to the Mennonite farm and buying, buying this stuff they're selling. We'll figure out what it is. And it was clandestine. Clandestine. Made Valium. And that was such a weird world because I bounced between hanging out with the gangs to showing up at a farm at a Mennonite house. And it smells like buttermilk. And I'm in there buying drugs from them.

[John J. Wiley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jennifer Eskew]

And they're telling me I can't call it drugs or medicine. I have to call it herbs and minerals because that's what the DEA told them. And I'm thinking, okay. So it was, it was just things like that. And I was getting in. The state police was just really cranking up and getting into this thing of the prescription drug, the diversion, the pill mill stuff. So I started helping out with that, going in and buying a lot of prescription drugs from people when I had time in between. So I was just buying drugs for everybody from everybody.

[John J. Wiley]

We're going to take a short break on that. We're talking with Jennifer Eskew. She's retired from the atf, which we'll talk about an undercover assignment that went bad. Hertz transition to atf, which included undercover work and posing as a hit person. And she's authored the book Becoming Fire. This is law enforcement Talk Radio show. We're going to take a short break. I promise you we will be right back.

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[John J. Wiley]

Return to conversation with Jennifer Eskew on the law enforcement talk radio show. Jennifer is retired from the ATF show. She's a former Virginia State Trooper. She's author of the book Becoming Fire. Part of your career. Jennifer, in both Virginia State Police and ATF was working undercover. We talked a little about transition between buying drugs from Mennonites, working in housing projects with known street Gangs. The dichotomy has got to be mind blowing. But part of your assignment was you worked undercover, and you had a particular undercover deal that went very, very bad.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Yeah, I had one of the gangs. We knew that they'd been involved in a homicide in Richmond with one of the guys. And then I had another gang, and we knew that they were out of New York and that there was one of the family members had been involved in a homicide of a security officer in New York. So we knew the people we were dealing with. And of course, everybody was armed. They all were armed. He saw the guns, they talked about guns. We knew that they were buying guns and trafficking them, and we were trying to get all that documented and trying to get in touch with ATF and work with them on that. We knew that everything was trafficking with the crack and all. So we were out running around, and we were right near the very end before we were going to bust out of the operation and wrap it up. And we were really close to the very end, and we've been out buying dope all day. And it just. There was like a tension in the air. I don't know, it was just a bad day. And so as things are going along and everything is happening, the next thing you know, for some reason, out of the blue, one of the people we're dealing with, and his name was because he had like 26 kids. And all of the males were drug dealers for him from ages 13 up to like 33 or something. They were all drug dealers on the street for him. And one of those was wanted for the homicide in New York. But as things were going on that day suddenly tells people that me and the informant were either snitches or narcs. We don't know why he got that in his head, but he did. So it started making everything difficult on us. And now we're having to watch our back and trying to kind of avoid him and his sons and just sort of see what's going on, and maybe that's just calm down and figure out where that got started at. Meantime, we had other things going on and doing some deals. And as the night wears on and everything is happening, we're wrapping up and I'm finished. It's just me, an informant in the car. And I'm like, I have lost the guys. I said, but the battery must be dead in this wire. Let's go to a pay phone. Let's find out what's going on. And we've had a few run ins with sons.

[John J. Wiley]

What Way. Correct. When you say the guys, you mean your surveillance team is watching my top side guys.

[Jennifer Eskew]

My guys, yeah, Charlie and Scott.

[John J. Wiley]

And what we're going to do is I'm gonna bleep out the. The name because we don't do trials by media, and I don't, like, believe in giving any publicity. Bad guys.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Okay. Yeah. Well, anyway, the family and they. And they were a family. The family was out running around, and we kept running into them, and I kept. Kept kind of having brushes with them, and they don't seem to be mad at me, but they're really, really angry that night. And I don't know what's happened with them. They're acting. I tell people it's kind of like poking up a hornet nest, and they're acting like they're really upset. Well, we run into the youngest one. He's 13 years old, and he is just really upset. He wants me to give him a ride, take him to his older brother's apartment to drop him off. I'm thinking, well, maybe this will get me back in good with them, so I'll do it. And he's talking about the fact that they. That they're going off, that they're upset and that they've got guns. And he's. He's raging on about it, and he's like, somebody's gonna get killed. Somebody's gonna get killed. Well, I. We don't get any information, any details out of him. He won't tell us anything, and we don't know who he's. Matt. Who they're mad at. But I. I don't want to be the focus of whatever's going on with them. And I don't. You know, we were like, something's wrong. We're like, we need to stay out of whatever they're mad at and just kind of figure it out from the outskirts, not be around them anymore. But as the night goes on, we don't. We saw them driving away, going someplace. We're like, all right, you know, don't want to deal with them anymore because something's wrong with them. I'm out with the informant. We're still out buying drugs from other people. And then finally, like I said, we lose our topside guys. I don't know where they are. I think the body wires dead. So I'm not really in touch with Charlie and Scott. It's getting late. It's dark, it's cold. We go to a pay phone that's like, way outside the outskirts of Waynesboro, Virginia, and normally I get called back right away while I'm using the pay phone and I don't get a call back. So I try again and I'm paging them and I don't get called back. So I wait, I try it again and I don't hear back. And it's like. Well, it's like 15 minutes. This is, this is unusual. And it's making me nervous. Just everything felt wrong that night. And when I do get called back, I'm so happy to hear them. And it's at that point that Charlie, who's state police, Charlie Wyatt, he said there's been a shooting in Stanton. Well, Stanton is maybe a 18 minute drive from Waynesboro to Stanton in the city of Stanton. That's where they had a female undercover that was living with me at the undercover apartment. That's where she worked on the street. So I realized she's not there, she wasn't involved. It's not, not around her. And it's like, wow, okay, who? And they said, we don't know why. It's this college kid. They shot him five times in the chest. And we're like, who shot him? They said, we don't know who. And all of these things are just coming together and we're trying to figure it out. And then that's when I'm learning that the last time I saw that particular family running around together and stuff, they're in the vehicle that was seen in Stanton at the shooting. And now I know who's involved and what all they've done and what's happened, and I'm telling them what I know, they start putting that out. And now it's a huge manhunt is ongoing to try and locate them and their vehicle for this shooting. And then it's a lot of search warrants, a lot of arrest warrants. Everything is going on. It's just really, really rapid and it's just really tragic because Dickerson, he's a college kid and he was the wrong kid. He wasn't who they were looking for. But they shot him and killed him. And it just was a, it was a horrific night because, you know, there was just so much going on. And I go into it in the book by kind of just tracking the timeline of that night from all of my police reports and all of my drug buys that day and all of the different run ins of people that we had and things that were done and said right up until this point, and then how things turn out later in the court with that particular family and their Involvement. And it just. It was one of the things that just became you so hard.

[John J. Wiley]

I can imagine. It sounds like it still. It still bothers you. It's. And here's. Here's a question I have. And by the way, I was lousy undercover. I'm a great surveillance agent. I was a good topside person. But when it came to undercover stuff, lousy. There are still incidents in my head where I think, if I could have done this, I should have done this, they'd still be alive today. Are you thinking at all? I know this is a typical survivor's guilt, that we could have done something different. We could have wrapped this up. They never been on the streets. We arrested them. They still be alive today.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I will probably always carry that when I talk about this. And I'm sitting here right now and I'm. I'm not going to cry. I'm trying not to. My cheeks always get flushed, and I always get that feeling. And my throat always gets kind of caught up because I just. You always go back and you think, what if we'd have done this? And what if I'd have done that? And when I was writing about it, I always. I went through every scenario all over again. Everything again. I dragged it back up, you know, 30 years, and it was like, I can't, you know, wow, I need to. And there's just nothing more. And there's nothing else I could have done. And.

[John J. Wiley]

And by the way, never know.

[Jennifer Eskew]

You would have never known what was going there.

[John J. Wiley]

And what they say is hindsight is 20. There's no such thing as future vision. And by the way, I tell myself, I'm not God. I'm not Superman. I did what I could do. Sometimes it's all you can do. We're talking with Jennifer Eskew. She's a retired ATF agent, which we'll talk about in a few moments. She's a former Virginia state trooper and she's authored the book Becoming Fire, which we will talk about in just a bit. This is law enforcement talk radio show. Don't go anywhere. I promise you. We'll be right back. Get your free ebook on tips to improve your health. They are tips you can start using.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Today and most will cost you nothing. Plus, the ebook is 100% free. Download the free ebook@let healthy.com when we say free, we mean free. Get the ebook for free today@Let. Healthy.com that'[e-mail] Again, the website is LetHealthy.com.

[Commercial Narrator]

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[John J. Wiley]

Return A conversation with Jennifer Eskew. Jennifer is a retired ATF agent. She's also a former Virginia State trooper. Virginia State Police I think is the actual term they use. And she is authored the book Becoming Fire. When I say Virginia State Police, they have great reputation. When I was a kid growing up, I'm so old, Jennifer, I remember Virginia state troopers in North Virginia driving 73 Plymouth Furies with 440s or 4 hundreds and you could see the leaves suck up under the dash when they gave a gas they passed everybody gas station. It's great, great times.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I'd have loved to drive those. I love going fast. They were absolutely love driving fast.

[John J. Wiley]

There came a point and by the way to quickly go into. There's still things that, that pop up that I find difficult talking about I don't want to talk about with people. And I appreciate you spending time talking about this undercover thing. But there are things I'm thinking, man, if I could have done things differently, I would have. But there is no, there's no magic pill where we make things go back. There's no red or blue. There's, it's like just reality. And unfortunately some people pay the price in this line of work. You eventually left Virginia State Police and went into the ATF and that a lot of it is plainclothes. They're not a uniformed agency to speak of. And you want to continue your role in undercover work, am I correct?

[Jennifer Eskew]

Yeah, I continue doing undercover work out of my. I was in the Bristol Virginia field office over on the southwestern Virginia and Appalachia right on the Tennessee border. And I in fact I worked in that office for 25 years. That's where I stayed as an agent during that time. But I continued doing undercover off and on for years along with just regular investigations on a variety of things and eventually got involved with like arson and explosives type work. But yeah, that was part of it.

[John J. Wiley]

And we don't tend to think of the rural areas of the United States as being violent, but that's where most of meth is. That's where most of the organized crime is. That's where a lot of the outlaw bikers live. And it's not the big cities where a lot of stuff goes. By the way, a lot of stash houses are out in the suburbs, out in rural areas, because a lot less eyeballs.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Oh, yeah, there's a lot that goes on in the rural areas. Plus everybody's got an interstate. Everybody's got an airport, you know, everybody's got a tractor trailer coming through. Everybody's got, you know, something going on. There's always going to be criminals when they find a place that they can set up and not be as easily targeted by law enforcement, they find it easier. It was really easy between Washington, D.C. and New York and Atlanta and Nashville and Charlotte, North Carolina, for the gangs to be running up and down the interstates, coming right through our area.

[John J. Wiley]

And by the way, we talk about Richmond, Virginia, that's no joke with organized crime and gangs. Norfolk, Virginia is no joke at all either.

[Jennifer Eskew]

No, not at all.

[John J. Wiley]

And a lot of people kind of think they don't even know Norfolk exists. Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads, the whole Hampton Roads area. There's I think about 2 million people there.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Oh, yeah.

[John J. Wiley]

And the worst traffic I've ever seen in my life.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Now, when I, when I was a trooper, that's where I worked at as a uniformed trooper while I was undercover. I eventually was brought back into Portsmouth, and that was in. I was in Portsmouth's heyday of heroin and crack.

[John J. Wiley]

And by the way, Portsmouth used to.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Have the shootings and the stuff and that, you know, and it was rough, you know.

[John J. Wiley]

Gotta ask you about your career working undercover. I have my notes to you posed as a hit person. By the way, is there ever anybody that is not a hit person, that is not police?

[Jennifer Eskew]

Don't know if anybody ever hires one.

[John J. Wiley]

I've never heard of them.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I guess there's a few. I think there's a few. But it's really. It's really odd as to how many people end up contracting an undercover.

[John J. Wiley]

Right. That procedure. I think I'm going to Google how to hire a hitman and not be a police. Where do you find the registered hit people? They're not around.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Apparently somebody tried to run a dark web website on that one time and that didn't work out well for any of those people either. And it was just like, yeah, I don't you finding somebody to do that for you just to hire somebody. Do you know them or do you not know them because, you know, you probably hiring an undercover, but probably, you know.

[John J. Wiley]

By the way, how did. How did you get thrust in this position of posing as an undercover hit person?

[Jennifer Eskew]

I was work. I got horses. Once I got with atf, I got a horse, and I started hanging out at a barn and taking care of my horse on the weekends when I wasn't working. And it was just my timeout. My. My peace of mind. And I get a page on my pager, and it's from a very reliable informant that I knew. So I call him back. I'm like, in the world she bother me for on a Saturday, but it has to be something good, because that's just how he was. And anyway, I knew something, and he's telling me. He goes, hey, I'm here with so and so and so and so. He wants to talk to you about whatever and everything. And he's. He wants. He's got something he needs you to do. He needs you to take a hit on somebody. And I told him you were the person to do it. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, I got to get this on recording. He goes, I know, I know. I know you want to talk to him, you know, and everything. And I'm thinking, okay, he. He's. He's docking code. And I'm on the phone, and I've got. This is. You know. So I told him, I said, look, I'll speak to the guy for a few seconds just to catch the voice, but tell him no business over the phone. None. And from that moment on, we were locked in with the guy. He had done federal prison time for trying to steal 38 kilos of cocaine from the FBI.

[John J. Wiley]

That's not bright, by the way.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Yeah, he gotten out. He'd been out a few months. That get rich quick scheme didn't work, and he was looking at another scheme of get rich quick, and he needed this person taken out. And so he was looking for someone, and he thought that the informant that I was working with would do it for him. And he told him. He said, no, I can. I got my daughters. I got to look after. I got this. I got that. But I know someone. And then told him. He said, well, it's a woman, and she kind of is friends with some of the friends that we all kind of know out of the Chicago area, but she lives down this way, close by, if you're interested. And this guy was interested, and it was like, okay. And so we end up talking a couple of times on Recordings on the phone, just briefly, just to get introduced and to agree to meet. We then met in person. I actually had him buy me dinner. So I ate seafood while all the undercover. While all of the surveillance team sat in the van. And it was really cold. It was in February.

[John J. Wiley]

Eating Beanie Weenies in the van while you had seafood.

[Jennifer Eskew]

I was sitting there with my fried shrimp and deviled crab and hush puppies, because you can crunch those over the body wire.

[John J. Wiley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Sometimes you got to mess with the people that are working with you a little bit.

[John J. Wiley]

You got that?

[Jennifer Eskew]

But I wouldn't talk business with him, you know, in a restaurant with all these people around. And then we finally get to a private area where we can sit and talk. And he was very serious. He brought me a down payment. He brought me a map to the person's house. He actually used colorful markers to do the map. Let me know where the guy lived, last name of the guy that he wanted done. Promised to bring me a gun on the next meeting. We talked different ways of how he wanted it done. He suggested piano wire. And I'm like, no, because I'm probably not gonna be strong enough, and that's just not gonna. And then he brought up something about using a syringe. Like a. No, because poison doesn't. You know, that doesn't work that way, and they'll find it. I said, can we just make this look more like maybe he picked up a hitchhiker and got robbed and found himself dead. And he's like, oh, that would be great, you know, And I said, well, then if that's something you want, then we can work that out. And he was just all for it. But he went into so much detail of why he wanted the guy dead and how much money he was going to make out of this, and. And, I mean, he was looking at becoming a millionaire.

[John J. Wiley]

Yeah. We're running out of time. Let's talk about your book Becoming Fire. Is that available now for purchase?

[Jennifer Eskew]

It is going to be available November 18th is the launch date. Becoming Fire and the subtitle Chasing the Passion to Protect, Serve, and Love. A True Crime Memoir. And it's by me, Jennifer Clark Eskew. My forward is by Joe Kendall.

[John J. Wiley]

Oh, yeah.

[Jennifer Eskew]

And I'm really proud of that. And I got some great blurbs from some great people that are. Have been in law enforcement or have been involved in the true crime documentary type world. And so I wrote the book about my career with the Virginia State Police from coming off of, you know, being a farm kid in a rural area to going to the academy, becoming a trooper, you know my mistakes and then my successes and the things that I dealt with and then my first few times trying undercover and then getting into uncover full time and just all of the things that I went through and the different kind of cases and the people I dealt with and the people I worked with.

[John J. Wiley]

You know I mentioned fire with Jennifer Askew, just Jennifer Clark Askew. Jennifer, thanks so much for your service and thanks for being guest on the show. Both very much appreciated.

[Jennifer Eskew]

Okay, thank you.

[John J. Wiley]

This was the podcast version of the nationally syndicated law enforcement talk radio show and we are so glad that you decided to join us. Big thanks to our guests for telling her story on the show. Two simple things you can do. Be sure to check out our website letradio.com that's letter and be sure to follow us or like us on Facebook. Do a search on Facebook for law enforcement talk radio show and be sure when you see a post that we put up that you like, that you resonate with, that gets your attention. Be sure to share it with your friends. We'll be back in just a few days. Another great episode of the show. See you then.

[Commercial Narrator]

If you're an H vac technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[John J. Wiley]

If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.