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- [00:02]
Daryl Cherney
Wondering.
- [00:10]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
It's May 24, 1990, in Oakland, California. A white Subaru station wagon makes its way south towards Santa Cruz with Daryl Cherney in the passenger seat. He's 34, sporting poofy hair and a bushy beard, with a guitar that's almost always attached to his hip. Next to him in the driver's seat is his co organizer and on again, off again romantic partner, June Judy Berry. She's 40 years old, with messy brown hair, smile creases around her eyes, and a deep passion for protecting the earth. Darryl and Judy met two years earlier, but their relationship is starting to fizzle. Yet there's still one thing they're both madly in love with the majestic endangered redwood trees of Northern California. They're particularly concerned with saving the remaining old growth redwoods from logging companies. Daryl and Judy are both part of an environmental organization called Earth First. That's Earth first with an exclamation point, which kind of sums up the group's vibe. They travel all over, recruiting new activists, holding rallies and playing protest music like this one, sung by Daryl himself. Forget all the mayhem and utter destruction.
- [01:23]
Daryl Cherney
That'S tearing my planet in two.
- [01:27]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
And I want to spend the. On this day in May, as they drive south in their Subaru, Judy's got her fiddle in the back seat along with a spare guitar just in case Daryl's strings break. There's nothing especially remarkable about this trip. Then Judy steps on the brake pedal and in an instant, everything goes sideways. Here's Daryl.
- [01:56]
Daryl Cherney
My ears are ringing, which I later found out was the sound of my eardrums flapping because they had been broken.
- [02:02]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
An explosion had ripped through the car, shattering windows and causing the ceiling to balloon into a dome. It all happened so fast. Daryl doesn't know what's going on.
- [02:11]
Daryl Cherney
I'm bleeding, Judy's calling out in pain. The car is bouncing. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Before it hits a guardrail on the opposite side of the road and comes to a stop. And I literally thought I was dead.
- [02:25]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Meanwhile, Judy is screaming. She can't move, can barely think. It feels like her back is broken and something is wrong with her legs. By some miracle, when first responders get Daryl out of the car, he's able to walk on his own. Judy is not so lucky. She's in excruciating pain as EMTs get her out of the car and put her on a gurney. She's rushed to the hospital in the ambulance. Before she goes, Daryl tells her he loves her and promises her she's going to live. And somehow she Does.
- [03:01]
Judy Berry
I remember a nurse hugging me and telling me that they were going to put me unconscious. And I remember begging them to let me die. And that's the last thing I remember before I lost consciousness.
- [03:16]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
When Judy eventually comes to, the first thing she notices isn't that she has a broken pelvis or spinal damage or. Or a paralyzed foot. It's the two police officers standing over her hospital bed looking at her like she's done something wrong. Then they tell her that she's under arrest. From wonder. I'm Zach Goldbaum, and this is Lawless Planet. Each week we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy it.
- [04:00]
Daryl Cherney
They deliberately and immediately covered up the tracks of the bomber, which makes them an accessory after the fact. At minimum.
- [04:27]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy Berry was a smart, fearless activist who was building an alliance between loggers and environmentalists. Those traits are what made her a leader in the movement to save the last of California's old growth redwoods. They also made her a lot of enemies and a long list of suspects who might want to place an explosive in her car. Judy barely survived the bombing, but the way law enforcement turned on her afterwards only made things worse. Instead of helping her, they began to paint her as an eco terrorist. This was a decade before the Green scare of the 2000s, when the FBI began cracking down on radical environmentalists, and nearly three decades before activists sabotaged the Dakota Access pipeline and were tried and convicted as terrorists. A story we covered in an earlier episode. But Judy and Darrell's case was a precursor of sorts, a warning sign of what was to come. What all of these people have in common, aside from being smeared as terrorists, is a belief that nature is worth defending, no matter the cost. For Daryl Czerny, that conviction took root years earlier, on the day he first laid eyes on the redwood forest.
- [05:43]
Daryl Cherney
I was 14 years old, traveling cross country with my parents, and I couldn't believe it. I was looking at these trees that were 350ft tall, that were 15ft wide, that had been there for 2,000 years, and you get a sense of just how small you are in the grand scheme of things.
- [06:06]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
By the time Darrell was In his early 30s, he felt the best way to protect the trees was to run for Congress, of all things. So he got his name on the ballot for the Democratic primary in California. One day in 1988, he was at an environmental center in Mendocino, California, struggling to put together a brochure for his campaign. The center's director introduced him to someone who might help Judy Berry.
- [06:31]
Daryl Cherney
She comes up to me, she knows exactly who I am, and she starts to ridicule me for running for Congress. While she's designing my brochure, she's telling me that I'm an idiot for running for Congress, that I really should be up a tree, not in Washington, D.C. and I have to tell you that it was love at first sight. I was completely just smitten with Judy Barry.
- [06:55]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy was in the middle of a messy divorce and custody battle, but when Darryl asked if he could go home with her that night, she said yes. Although she quickly added that she was not cooking him dinner. So they went home together. But no, you can get your head out of the gutter. It wasn't like that. Darryl met her kids and then started playing the violin. And then she showed him a whole wall of books on labor history. See? Really sexy stuff. But it worked for them. Soon they were in a stormy romantic relationship. They were both very opinionated, and amid the romance, they constantly disagreed about the best way to organize.
- [07:34]
Daryl Cherney
Judy and I love to play a game of can you top this? You know, what kind of action are you going to organize next? We had nicknames for each other. She was the undebatable. I was the unignorable.
- [07:45]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy was a college dropout from Maryland who had protested the Vietnam War in school, then joined a few labor fights before moving to the west coast to make ends meet. She worked as a carpenter in Northern California, and it was there, as she built luxury homes out of redwood lumber, that she grew to believe that the logging industry was out of control. It was a real life Lorax situation. Like Truffula trees, the redwoods are natural wonders, some over a thousand years old, but being chopped down in droves. So much so that by the late 1980s, around 95% of virgin old growth coastal redwoods had been cut down. The redwoods had always been spiritually significant to indigenous people and deemed worthy of their protection. But now activists like Judy were joining the fight. It's what led her to the Earth First Movement. The Northwest chapter focused on taking direct action against the increased logging and clear cutting of redwood forests. And when Darrell's congressional run ended with him receiving only 5,000 votes, he joined as well. Here he is laying out their mentality.
- [08:53]
Daryl Cherney
Shall we compromise half of the ozone layer? Shall we compromise half of the forest? It's not ours to give away. That's why we say no. Compromise. Compromise. In defense of Mother Earth.
- [09:05]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy's chapter of Earth first preached nonviolence but those principles didn't necessarily extend to equipment, which did sometimes get sabotaged. These strategies are called monkey wrenching tactics. At one end of the spectrum, there were things like activists chaining themselves to trees or equipment to slow work. And on the other, there were people damaging equipment by burning it or otherwise destroying it. They were controversial tactics even within the movement. Judy and Darryl claimed they veered away from them. But Darryl also remembered Judy having a.
- [09:37]
Daryl Cherney
Tough side during her union days. One guy at the United States Post Office lunchroom as she was walking by, grabbed her breast, and she turned around, grabbed the guy's head and threw it into her fist and broke his nose, much to the cheers of the entire mail room.
- [09:56]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
After that, Judy became known as Punch and Judy. She embraced the new nickname later when she got a slot on local community radio. She even called it the Punch and Judy Show.
- [10:07]
Daryl Cherney
Sometimes she would joke. She'd say, I flunked nonviolence training.
- [10:14]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
In 1988, the same year they met, Darrell and Judy headed out to Caddo Peak, a remote area in the forests of Northern California filled with old growth redwood trees. In the early morning hours before the loggers got started on work, Judy, Darryl and a group of fellow activists gathered around a campfire right in the middle of a remote dirt road.
- [10:36]
Daryl Cherney
You're standing in front of the road and you're blockading them, and in the meantime, we're singing songs, we're talking to the guys, explaining to them what's going on, that this is public land, that the Caddo Wilderness is on Bureau of Land Management land. We feel it belongs to the public and don't want to cut. And so then they call the sheriffs and the sheriffs show up.
- [10:57]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
The sheriffs told the group that they were going to get arrested if they didn't leave. So Judy, Darryl and the group start to leave slowly, very slowly, as slow as they could possibly go. As they walked in slow motion, they moved mini boulders into the road, large branches, any bits of debris they could find to cover the path behind them and slow down the sheriffs, who then had to clear it all.
- [11:24]
Daryl Cherney
In the meantime, we contacted the local Native American tribe, the Caddo Nation, and informed them what was going on. And they were not notified that their sacred sites, some of which happened to be in that forest, were being potentially desecrated. So they filed an appeal. And after three days of all this negotiating, the Bureau of Land Management shut down the logging.
- [11:49]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
It was a huge victory for the group, but it also put massive targets on Judy and Darryl's backs. They Were nuisances and they'd officially started making enemies. For the next year, Judy and Darryl keep up their protesting efforts Using all the same tactics. One day they set up a blockade against a lumber operation in Mendocino county. The next day, Judy is driving to another rally at a mill. Her two daughters are in the car, along with Daryl and another female activists with her two sons behind their car. One of the logging trucks from the blockade the day before is following them.
- [12:30]
Daryl Cherney
As we were driving down Highway 128 going west toward the coast, There was a hitchhiker who we recognized as earth first Activist, and we wanted to pick her up. So we started to slow down the car to pull over to the side of the road. And the next thing you know, we are flying through the air. We had been rear ended by a logging truck.
- [12:53]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Everyone is a little shaken up, but thankfully okay. As they're all getting their bearings, the truck driver rushes over to them.
- [13:01]
Daryl Cherney
The truck driver said, I didn't see the children, I didn't see the children. He said it twice, which meant that maybe he would not have rammed us if he had known there were kids in the car, which is what it sure sounded like.
- [13:13]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy and Darryl are both convinced the truck driver hit them on purpose. Judy calls it attempted murder and tries to get the police involved. But they treat the whole thing like a routine traffic accident. The responding officer even has the gall to say the accident happened because Judy's taillight was too faint. By early 1990, Judy is regularly receiving death threats. There's one that particularly scares her. She gets a photo in the mail of her playing music at a protest With a rifle scope over her. She brings the information to the police, hoping for some help and protection. Instead, they tell her they don't have the manpower to investigate. One officer tells her, quote, if you turn up dead, then we'll investigate.
- [14:01]
Daryl Cherney
Judy and I were very, very rattled. In fact, I would maintain that it broke us up as romantic partners. That's the kind of stress that it put us under. And I was terrified for Judy's life. I couldn't bear the thought of her being killed.
- [14:18]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy doesn't take as many precautions as Darryl would like. The threats keep coming, but she refuses to let them scare her into submission. And in March 1990, even as their relationship is running its course, Judy and Daryl announce a new major campaign they're leading together. It's called Redwood summer, and it's going to get all kinds of attention. Heading into the summer of 1990, Judy and her fellow activists were excited about an upcoming initiative on the California ballot, Proposition 130, which they called Forest Forever. Here's Darrell explaining how he and Judy had given suggestions for the proposition that would still keep timber workers employed while also conserving the forests.
- [15:04]
Daryl Cherney
Judy Barry and I were involved in writing the timber worker program for that which put like $33 million for jobs for timber workers in doing restoration work and other timber work that kept them in the woods but altered it from cutting trees to replanting and regrowing forests.
- [15:21]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Nice idea, but obviously the timber industry wasn't thrilled about more regulations. If Prop 130 passed, it would stop clear cutting, increase stream protection zones and set aside money for preservation. All in, it could cost the industry billions of dollars. So many of the logging companies were trying to harvest as much timber as they could before the fall vote, just in case. One of those companies was Pacific Lumber and its CEO, Charles Hurwitz. He'd been in charge for five years after a hostile takeover saddled him with quite a bit of debt. To dig himself out of that hole, Hurwitz had doubled the company's cutting rate.
- [16:03]
Daryl Cherney
Since he took over Pacific Lumber, Hurwitz has himself become a target of five federal investigations into his tactics. Pacific Lumber is now cutting trees faster than it's ever cut them before.
- [16:16]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Hurwitz represented every logging company CEO that Judy hated. He was the real enemy, not the loggers. They blockaded on a day to day basis. Those men were just doing their jobs.
- [16:28]
Judy Berry
We're not here because of the loggers. We're here because of Charles Hurwitz. Some slime bidder from Texas who's never seen a redwood in his life. Make $4 million a year. That is 10 times what the average millworker will make in a lifetime.
- [16:45]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy had actually been trying to build a coalition between loggers and activists so they could apply real pressure to the CEOs at the top.
- [16:53]
Daryl Cherney
Judy Barry did something that I believe is unparalleled in the history of the environmental movement. She is an Earth First. Activist who took it upon herself to organize workers into the IWW labor union.
- [17:13]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
But she'd received some pushback from companies and locals alike. She knew she'd have to keep building support for her approach. That was why new legislation was so important. In the meantime, of course, logging executives like Hurwitz weren't going to let the initiative pass without a fight. The logging companies hired consultants who went about labeling Earthfirst as eco terrorists. They even fabricated documents that made it seem like the group was encouraging violent forms of protest.
- [17:41]
Daryl Cherney
These fake press releases were distributed in the mills with Earth first. Letterhead so that people would think that we were going to be violent to loggers, so instigating violence against us as well.
- [17:53]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Even as Judy tried to find common ground with the loggers, the press releases struck a nerve. Like I mentioned earlier, there were some factions of the movement that used monkey wrenching tactics like spiking trees. That's when protesters put metal spikes into random trees in a forest. Loggers are unaware of the spikes, so the trees are cleared and sent to the mill. But when machinery cuts into the tree and hits the spike, it explodes like shrapnel. Darrell even wrote a tongue in cheek song called Spike a Tree for Jesus.
- [18:28]
Daryl Cherney
So spike a tree for Jesus, Spike a tree for Jesus.
- [18:33]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
It's a catchy tune. But in 1987, a millworker was almost decapitated by a tree spike. So even though that was reportedly the only injury ever attributed to the practice, Earth First. Leaders like Judy and Darrell came to denounce it.
- [18:49]
Daryl Cherney
Now, yes, over the decades, equipment has been sabotaged. Nevertheless, Earth first engaged primarily in direct action, in sitting in front of bulldozers and blocking entranceways to nuclear power plants, sitting in trees, that sort of thing.
- [19:06]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy and Darryl planned to continue protesting the logging nonviolently. During the Redwood Summer campaign, they took inspiration from the Civil Rights Freedom Summer movement in Mississippi, calling on college students and Eco Freedom Riders to come to Northern California and join the fight. Judy and Daryl wanted to make a big statement, but they were stirring up trouble. Less than two months after announcing their campaign, the bomb went off in Judy's car. And when she woke up in the hospital, she and Daryl found out they were the ones being arrested. A car bomb explosion sends two members of the Earth First.
- [19:54]
Daryl Cherney
Group to the hospital. And the question tonight is, will the injured environmentalists face criminal charges?
- [20:01]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Immediately following the bombing, authorities began asking Darryl who would want to bomb Judy's car. Darrell's like, well, where do I start?
- [20:09]
Daryl Cherney
I mean, we had this laundry list of people that could have been sending us death threats, and one of them just said, look, we can tell if you did this, so why don't you just confess, make it easy on all of us and get it over with.
- [20:22]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
But instead of chasing down Leeds, it quickly became clear that authorities believed that Judy and Daryl were responsible for the bomb and arrested them both. Judy was immobilized in her hospital bed and remained under police supervision, while Darryl was thrown into a holding cell. For seven hours, he sat in the room with no food until finally Oakland police officers began questioning him.
- [20:45]
Daryl Cherney
I literally spoke to them for four hours, from 11 o' clock at night till 3 o' clock in the morning, begging them. Begging them to go out and look for the bomber. And at the end of my interview, Lieutenant Sims from the Oakland Police Department said to me, you sure don't fit the profile of a bomber. And I said, no shit, Sherlock.
- [21:05]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Darrell was eventually put in another holding cell. He looked around and saw a payphone on the wall.
- [21:11]
Daryl Cherney
I pick up the telephone, and there's a freaking dial tone. It's like, oh, you know, a miracle from heaven. I knew the Phone Number of 90 media outlets by heart because I was the media slut. And so I started calling collect all the TV stations, all the newspapers.
- [21:34]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
He even called up the community radio station and started to share what happened to him and Judy. Here's part of that call.
- [21:41]
Daryl Cherney
I heard a crack, and then my whole head started to ring like a sitar in my head, like. And the car came to a screeching halt. And then I heard somebody scream out, it's a bomb. There was a bomb. And that it all made sense that someone had tried to kill us.
- [22:04]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Darryl went on to talk about how there didn't seem to be any other suspects besides them. Judy and Darryl's bail was set at $100,000 each. The bombing happened on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, and technically, authorities could hold Daryl for 48 hours. But with the holiday weekend that extended to Tuesday, activists rallied outside the police station, calling for Judy and Darryl to be released from custody. Darrell's friends found a way to gather enough money to post his bail and get him out Monday night. But that was only the start of their troubles. Now the FBI was involved, led by Agents Frank Doyle and Richard Held. Held was known for targeting Black Panthers and members of the American Indian Movement, and they, too, believed Judy and Darryl had blown themselves up. Held and Doyle accused the duo of knowingly transporting the bomb and that it went off accidentally. They claimed they gathered evidence at the scene that confirmed Judy and Daryl had to have known about the bomb based on its placement in the backseat. But other details about the bomb's location were contradictory.
- [23:10]
Daryl Cherney
When the Oakland police showed up, they said that the bomb was underneath and hidden under the driver's seat. But as soon as the FBI showed up, the bomb literally started to crawl toward the back seat. Literally in their report, started to move. And then the last Oakland police report says Special Agent Frank Doyle informed me that the bomb was in plain view behind the back seat. But you can see by the damage to the driver's seat and the lack of damage to the backseat, you could see where the bomb was.
- [23:42]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
That discrepancy would prove to be a huge sticking point, even as another potential suspect emerged.
- [23:52]
Daryl Cherney
Now it's like day six or so and all of a sudden a letter comes out taking credit for bombing us from somebody calling themselves the Lord's Avenger.
- [24:06]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
The Lord's avenger sent the letter to a local newspaper, writing in pseudo biblical.
- [24:11]
Daryl Cherney
Language, I built with these hands the bomb that I placed in the car of Judy Barry. Doubt me not, for I should tell you the design as only I shall know.
- [24:18]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
And the letter goes on to describe the bomb from Judy's car, full of details that hadn't been publicly released. They also took credit for a bombing at a sawmill two weeks earlier. As for a motive, the author claimed to take issue not only with Judy's environmental activism, but with her pro choice stance as well, calling her a woman possessed by the devil. But the letter didn't give away any clues that would reveal the Lord Avengers true identity. Either way, as far as the FBI was concerned, Judy and Daryl were still the lead suspects. The FBI agents even thought that one of them or one of their friends had written the letter to try to throw them off the scent. Darryl turned that back on the FBI because they also knew all the details that were in the letter. Maybe they were the ones who had written in. While all of that was going down, Judy was still in her hospital bed. She had to remain there for eight more weeks while she recovered from her broken pelvis and other injuries. And yet she didn't want the fight for the redwoods to let up. So from the hospital, she recorded a message for her fellow activists.
- [25:28]
Judy Berry
I think the energy is phenomenal. I think that every attempt that they've made to stop it has only made it bigger. They call us the terra hydra. Every time they try to stomp out earth first, it grows three new heads.
- [25:42]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy called on people to still come out for redwood summer. She said there was no time to waste. They needed to slow down logging so that there would still be something left to save. By the time Prop 130 passed in the fall, the footage from her hospital bed was used in recruitment videos for the protests. And while she recovered, Daryl took up the mantle of rallying the troops. He took center stage at protests, leading people and singing all redwood summer long. But the timber industry kept pushing back. In fact, in their ballot arguments as to why Californians should vote against Prop 130, they named Darrell, saying He was an eco terrorist who supported the bill. And then when it finally came time to vote for Prop 130, we lost.
- [26:26]
Daryl Cherney
That ballot initiative in a heartbreaking vote by only 4%.
- [26:32]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Despite everything Judy and Darryl tried to do, the timber industry was undeterred. For nearly two months after the bombing, law enforcement's focus was on Judy and Daryl and no one else.
- [26:48]
Daryl Cherney
That special agent in charge of the San Francisco bureau of the FBI raised his ugly head. Special Agent in Charge Richard W. Held. And he got on television and wrote a letter to the editor of one of the newspapers saying why he thought we were guilty and why the investigation was going to continue.
- [27:08]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
They seemed dead set on blaming Judy and Darryl, putting forth a lot of shoddy evidence. Take the nails used in the pipe bomb. Authorities raided Judy's home, searching for evidence, and found some nails, yes, nails in the home of a former carpenter. Eventually, the cops were forced to admit that the nails didn't match those used in the bomb.
- [27:30]
Daryl Cherney
The district attorney said that he did not have enough evidence to press charges. So then a second hearing happened, and the DA again said, no, not enough evidence. We can't press charges. And then the third time, he announced that they were not going to charge us.
- [27:46]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Finally, after eight long weeks, it was official. Investigators conceded that they didn't have enough evidence to charge Darryl and Judy with anything. As soon as the announcement was made, Judy and Darryl's lawyers said they would be filing a lawsuit against law enforcement for their handling of the case. They also called for a real investigation into the bombing. Now, the police had decided Judy and Darryl weren't suspects. That meant the actual suspects were still out there. Police refused to accept the blame for not having answers. They pointed the finger at other Earth First. Activists, saying they hampered the investigation because they refused to talk to authorities about possible suspects. In reality, the activists just didn't want to help authorities pin the blame on Judy and Darryl when everyone in Earth first. Knew they were innocent, as promised. A year after the bombing, in May 1991, Judy and Darryl filed a lawsuit against the FBI and Oakland Police Department. They wanted an apology, and they hoped the suit would encourage investigators to find the real bomber. The lawsuit triggered discovery and kicked off a host of depositions. Through that process, they uncovered evidence turned over by the FBI that suggests that the agents had in fact framed Judy and Daryl.
- [29:05]
Daryl Cherney
One of the big discoveries was the photographs. They took pictures of the bomb car and after the fact, they had a guy, one of their bomb experts come from Washington, D.C. and show the FBI itself and Oakland police that the bomb had to be hidden under the driver's seat.
- [29:22]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
So authorities had known for years that the bomb had likely been beneath Judy's seat, even though they had always claimed it was in the back. Getting the truth out reinvigorated Judy.
- [29:34]
Daryl Cherney
Judy's voice became more and more powerful. She was basically a celebrity who could gather hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of people to come hear her speak.
- [29:45]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
And Judy's able to keep her sense of humor throughout the whole thing. Don't get me wrong, she was pissed about the treatment she got from the FBI, but she also wrote and performed songs like this.
- [29:55]
Daryl Cherney
They took away my Birkenstock they took.
- [29:59]
Judy Berry
Away my car but when they took.
- [30:02]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
My fit away, you know they went too far. The hippie I stole my fit away.
- [30:08]
Judy Berry
The hippie I stole my.
- [30:17]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy continued organizing for years, even though she never stopped feeling the effects of her injuries. She had shooting pains from nerve and intestinal damage. Her pulverized lower vertebrae were permanently dislocated, so she couldn't sit without using a special pillow. And even then, the pain was excruciating.
- [30:35]
Daryl Cherney
Judy was heroic in that way. I've never met anybody who could withstand that much pain and. And still have the brain power to function as an organizer.
- [30:45]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
And through it all, on top of organizing, she and Daryl kept fighting to prove that they'd been framed. She would later tell an interviewer, I want justice. I want my family and the world to know who bombed me. Judy and Darryl's fight continued for six years, all the way to the fall of 1996, when Judy announced that she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 46. It quickly spread to her liver. It made everything feel all the more pressing, and Judy became determined to sit and give a deposition for her and Darryl's case.
- [31:34]
Daryl Cherney
The FBI tried to delay and delay her giving a deposition because they did not want her to speak. They did not want any jury to hear Judy Barry give her under oath deposition, and we had to force it.
- [31:46]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
By the time they made it happen, Judy was incredibly weak. She could barely sit up. So accommodations were made for her. Instead of a more formal setting, she was allowed to lay down on a couch and give her deposition. She recounted in great detail everything that had happened to her, But Judy would never get to see her tape played in a courtroom.
- [32:06]
Daryl Cherney
I was in love with Judy from the day I met her. And at the very end, I said to her, you know, Judy, you and I always had a love hate relationship. And she says, well, it was really more like hate love. And that was kind of the way we were.
- [32:24]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Judy passed away on March 2, 1997. She was just 47.
- [32:34]
Daryl Cherney
Today, awarding Earth First. Supporters a stunning victory, the jury today found that six of seven law enforcers themselves broke the law, violated civil rights, in essence.
- [32:46]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Framing Czerny and Barry. In June 2002, 12 years after the bombing and five since Judy's death, a jury found the FBI and law enforcement liable for violating Darrell and Judy's civil rights. The jury said they should be awarded $4.4 million.
- [33:04]
Daryl Cherney
They are liable for these damages, that they violated our freedom of speech, our First Amendment rights, because they said we were guilty because of our political and environmental positions. They deliberately targeted us because of our positions on protecting the environment.
- [33:20]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Specifically, the jury found three FBI agents and three cops responsible for the framing. And the biggest share of the blame was on Frank Doyle. He was the one who had falsely asserted where the bomb was and steered the investigation. Not so fun fact. Frank Doyle later became an explosions expert for the cable TV show Mythbusters. Richard Held, on the other hand, had left the FBI a few years prior to his involvement, had been dismissed pretrial. Still, Darrell was in tears over the verdict.
- [33:54]
Daryl Cherney
I was crying and we were joyous. And then we came outside for our press conferences and everybody was ecstatic. It was just astounding.
- [34:05]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Finally, after many long years, Darrell and Judy's names had been fully cleared. There was just one question left. If they weren't responsible for the bomb, then who was? During the trial's discovery process, Darryl and Judy's team had unearthed a suspicious coincidence. It just so happened that the month before the bombing of Judy's car, the FBI had led a bomb training program with the Louisiana Pacific Logging Company. Which sounds like the same name as Pacific Lumber, but they're actually two separate companies. But still, what is the FBI doing leading a bomb training program with a logging company? Very fishy. What's also fishy is the training was led by none other than Frank Doyle, the agent in charge of Judy and Darryl's case. As it turned out, Frank Doyle had a personal friendship with the head of security at Louisiana Pacific, Frank Wigginton. They'd both gone to bomb squad school together. And Daryl has a theory.
- [35:10]
Daryl Cherney
We were on the FBI's radar. We were on Louisiana Pacific's radar. In other words, there's no way in the world Frank Doyle and Frank Wigginton weren't yakking it up about Earth first and Redwood Summer while they were blowing up the insides of cars with pipe bombs, replicating the exact thing that would happen to Judy, Barry and I. Thirty.
- [35:30]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Days later, the FBI claimed the training was on how to handle an explosion, not how to cause one. Still, Darryl and Judy remained unconvinced. They had always believed that the FBI, for whatever reason, had covered up the tracks of the bomber and shifted the blame onto them. But maybe it was worse than that. Maybe the FBI had actually been involved in the bombing itself. It is an allegation that would have serious consequences if true. Unfortunately, we don't have answers one way or another. What we do know is that according TO Daryl, in 2010, the FBI moved to get rid of the evidence left over from this case. But Darryl fought to have it preserved. As he pointed out, this is still an open investigation, whether the FBI wants it to be or not. The bomber was never found. So why would they want to get rid of the evidence? Why did it seem like the Bureau had no interest in getting to the bottom of this case?
- [36:26]
Daryl Cherney
This much is for sure. They deliberately and immediately covered up the tracks of the bomber, which makes them an accessory after the fact, at minimum. So why were they covering up the tracks of the bomber? To this very day.
- [36:44]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Daryl still hasn't given up on finding the perpetrators. In 2012, he even produced a documentary called who Bombed Judy Berry? With Judy's deposition at the center of it. We may never know who is responsible for the bombing, but we can take a guess as to why they did it. Judy Darrell and the Earth First Movement represented a genuine threat to the logging industry. And in that way, they may also represent an example for activists today.
- [37:13]
Daryl Cherney
We still have the privilege, if I may use that word, to fight and to protest. So the thing that I would advise activists today, number one, is the nonviolence code, that we must remain peaceful in our protests. Number two, it's important to recognize, as Deep Throat said during the Watergate era, follow the money. In other words, target the people who are directly responsible. And number three, as Judy and I did reach out, build bridges.
- [37:46]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
Nowadays, only about 5% of the original 2 million acres of old growth redwood forest in California remain. The effects of the logging industry on the environment are profound. And without activists like Judy Darrell and the people they worked with, that precious 5% might be even less. Part of their legacy is their conservation. The other part is their message to keep fighting, whether that's for the redwoods or for each other. Because 35 years later, we are still no closer to knowing who planted the bomb in Judy's car.
- [38:21]
Daryl Cherney
Well, anybody confess on their deathbed? The short answer is I don't know, but I will never give up trying to solve the case of who Bombed Judy Berry?
- [38:47]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
On the next episode of Lawless Planet. When a researcher sets out to study what's powering green energy, he uncovers a world of greed, exploitation and modern day slavery.
- [38:58]
Daryl Cherney
It's the most ruinous, hazardous, miserable, dangerous livelihood you can possibly imagine.
- [39:09]
Narrator (Zach Goldbaum)
For today's episode, we were life heavily on Daryl Cherney's documentary who Bombed Judy Berry? High Country News Earth. Judy Berry Avenged at Last by Josh Richman and Judy Berry's Timber Wars. Lawless Planet is produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbaum. This episode was written by Alex Burns. Our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producer for Wondry is Andy Herman. Our senior managing producer is Lata Panya. Our managing producer is Jake Kleinberg. Our associate producer is Lexi Pirie. Sound design and music by Kenny Kusiak. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Farzan. Sync fact checking by Brian Punyant. Our legal counsel is Deb Droze. Executive producers are Marshall Louie and Jenny Lauer. Beckman for Wondery. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next. Saunders.