3: A Duck’s a Duck

Summary

Operation Night Cat – Episode 3: “A Duck’s a Duck” (Nov 20, 2025)

Podcast: Operation Night Cat
Host: Nate Hegyi (NHPR Document team & Outside/In)
Theme: Final episode in a three-part series uncovering a vast poaching and corruption case involving New Hampshire Fish and Game, state corrections officers, and the criminal justice system – and tracking how a promising investigation sputtered out amid bureaucratic inertia and institutional self-protection.

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Episode Overview

In the conclusion to Operation Night Cat, Nate Hegyi leads listeners through the unraveling and ultimate stalling of one of New Hampshire’s biggest poaching and public integrity investigations. The episode revisits the wild beginnings—a backyard poaching ring involving state prison corrections officers—and highlights the missed opportunities and institutional failures as law enforcement agencies pass the buck and the most shocking alleged crimes go unpunished. Throughout, the episode keeps a raw and sometimes wry tone, juxtaposing the reality of the case against the expectations set by reality TV.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The “Alphabet Soup” Meeting: The Scope of the Investigation

[00:00–01:00]

• Fish and Game Warden Ron Arsenault is called to a multi-agency meeting in Concord featuring agents from the FBI, IRS, Postal Service, the DOJ, and more—so many “alphabets.”
• Investigators realize the ramifications extend from night hunting to potential federal crimes (cross-state wildlife trafficking, witness tampering, mail theft).

“It was just spiraling out and spider webbing every different direction. It was crazy.”
— Ron Arsenault [00:43]

The Poaching Charges: Big Case, Small Consequences

[01:13–07:12]

• Ron and colleagues uncover large-scale, night-time poaching: bobcats, foxes, black bears.
• Some officers involved are corrections employees—further discoveries include evidence pointing to mail theft and witness tampering inside prison.
• Agencies split the case: Fish and Game sticks to hunting violations, while feds eye the more serious parts (e.g., illegal bobcat trafficking).
• Despite the drama, there would be no big “TV arrest.” Ron methodically charges Tom Kelly (main perpetrator) with 47 infractions.
• Yet, when passed to prosecutors, the case is quickly plea-bargained down: 47 counts shrink to 7, with fines under $5,000 and only short hunting bans.

“I’m not gonna cut the guy a break. I’m just gonna write him for everything.”
— Ron Arsenault [06:56]

“For a county prosecutor, these charges are small potatoes.”
— Nate Hegyi [07:33]

Institutional Barriers and Lost Momentum

[07:13–10:34]

• Ron’s sense of justice is dulled as the seriousness of the case fades in the maze of bureaucratic priorities.
• The multi-agency approach causes siloing—no one keeps Ron or Fish and Game in the loop after initial handoffs.

“Once you basically ask for help, you lose your control of the case.”
— Ron Arsenault [07:19]

“I feel as though if I didn’t do my job, I would certainly hope somebody would be my squeaky wheel to keep me going.”
— Ron Arsenault [10:06]

The Corrections Connection: More than Poaching

[10:34–14:46]

• Sergeant Kevin Bronson recalls searching corrections supervisor Randy Inman’s house and discovering not just poaching evidence but “weed, mushroom grow,” and indications of mail-in drug sales involving his stepson.
• Text records suggest Randy traded prescription pills and helped hide/facilitate drugs within the prison parking lot.
• These red flags get handed off to the AG’s office—Fish and Game “not in their wheelhouse”—but ultimately result in no further criminal charges.

“It was surprising to me that somebody in law enforcement, where it’s illegal here, I’m smelling marijuana in the house.”
— Kevin Bronson [13:09]

Bureaucratic Delay and Feds Backing Off

[14:47–17:34]

• After promising beginnings, the federal and state investigations stall over procedural technicalities (a search warrant unsigned for months).
• When the warrant is executed, the FBI and USPS decline to pursue charges. State agencies, after receiving the case back, also suspend their investigations.

“What seemed to us … like an explosive set of allegations and evidence appears to have fizzled away.”
— Nate Hegyi [14:46]

Prosecutorial Standards vs. Reality

[17:34–20:30]

• Mike Lewis, former NH DOJ prosecutor, and Julian Jefferson, law professor/public defender, agree: the texts alone are inadequate for conviction but should have spurred more digging.
• Contrasts are drawn between aggressive prosecution of ordinary citizens for minor drug crimes and the leniency shown to authority figures.

“The texts alone are not enough, you know, but the texts are really concerning.”
— Mike Lewis [18:22]
“This feels unfair. This feels unbalanced.”
— Julian Jefferson [20:18]

Administrative “Accountability”—But No Real Consequences

[20:31–21:59]

• After declining to charge criminally, the Department of Corrections handles the fallout as HR matters.
  • Inman retires, keeping state pension.
  • Kelly is fired.
  • Massey (another CO) demoted.
  • “Accountability has been administrative rather than criminal.”

The Thread That Never Gets Pulled

[21:59–22:40]

• Ron is left waiting for the feds to indict wildlife crimes involving bobcats. Still, nothing comes.

Voices from Inside: Shannon Labella

[24:43–26:42]

• Inman’s ex-wife substantiates accounts of his drug use and violent tendencies, states her son (his stepson) had nothing to do with the mushrooms.
• Describes reckless hunting as expressions of “control, power, dominance” by Inman inside and outside the prison.

“It’s just disgusting in every way, and I’m disgusted I was ever a part of his life.”
— Shannon Labella [24:43]

"There is no job out there stressful enough that drives you to kill innocent things that have never harmed you a day in your life."
— Shannon Labella [26:42]

Systemic Accountability—Or Lack Thereof

[27:29–30:40]

• Dean Williams, corrections executive in Alaska and Colorado, is both alarmed and unsurprised reading the report. He’s seen this pattern before: both cost aversion and fear of embarrassment lead institutions to bury wrongdoing.
• A parallel is drawn with New Hampshire’s massive Youth Development Center abuse scandal: institutional self-protection at the expense of victims.

“If you start down the road and say … this is embarrassing to us. This is going to make us look bad, this is going to cost us some money ... it reinforces, this is the way we do business.”
— Dean Williams [29:50]

Ron’s Disillusionment

[30:40–34:18]

• Finality hits home for Ron Arsenault as Nate shows him the official report declaring no criminal charges will be pursued. He’s visibly tired, demoralized, wondering what all the work was for.

“It just makes me feel like there’s just no accountability.”
— Ron Arsenault [31:39]

“At the end of the day, I don’t know if I’d do it again … You just did all that work for what?”
— Ron Arsenault [31:58]

• He is given a citation letter from a US Senator—a symbolic recognition, useless in the face of institutional inertia.

“It’s just a letter with an award basically saying, you did a good job. I did my job.”
— Ron Arsenault [33:52]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It was just spiraling out and spider webbing every different direction. It was crazy.” — Ron Arsenault [00:43]
• “It’s like they’re playing grand theft auto behind their house, except with animals.” — Kevin Bronson [01:23]
• “You have them outrightly admitting that they stole my fucking legal mail. That’s a federal offense.” — Mike Lewis [02:04]
• “I’m not gonna cut the guy a break. I’m just gonna write him for everything.” — Ron Arsenault [06:56]
• “After going through all of it… at the end of the day, I don’t know if I’d do it again.” — Ron Arsenault [31:58]
• “Corrections is an interesting world… There’s a lot of pressure on corrections leaders to sort of bury things.” — Dean Williams [27:59]
• “This feels unfair. This feels unbalanced.” — Julian Jefferson [20:18]
• “At the end of the day, you did all that work for what?” — Ron Arsenault [31:58]

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Important Timestamps (MM:SS)

• 00:43: Arsenault describes the scope and chaos of the case.
• 02:04: Mike Lewis highlights text messages admitting mail theft.
• 06:56: Arsenault explains his charging decisions—“no break”.
• 13:09: Bronson expresses shock at a corrections officer’s home full of drugs.
• 14:46: Nate summarizes the fizzling of promising charges.
• 18:22–20:18: Prosecutors and public defenders discuss evidence hurdles and fairness.
• 21:59: Administrative, not criminal, consequences.
• 24:43–26:42: Shannon Labella’s story of violence and abuse.
• 27:29–30:40: Dean Williams frames the systemic context—why institutions bury scandals.
• 31:39–34:18: Ron reads the state’s report, faces personal disappointment.
• 33:52: Ron’s reaction to receiving a Senator’s citation letter.

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Conclusion

Operation Night Cat, Episode 3 is a poignant, often frustrating look at how even dogged law enforcement investigations can evaporate in the face of bureaucratic caution and institutional unwillingness to address embarrassing misconduct by authority figures. The episode moves deftly from gritty fieldwork and legal wrangling, to heartbreaking personal accounts and a systemic critique of public accountability—leaving listeners with a sense of how difficult it is to achieve “justice” when the hurdles are as much political as legal.
In the end, as Ron Arsenault quietly sums up, “a duck’s a duck”—and, all too often, the system is what it is.

Transcript

[Nate Hedgey]

This is Operation Nightcat. I'm Nate Hedgey. It was a cloudy spring day in 2023, and fish and game warden Ron Arsenault had been summoned to an office building near the New Hampshire State capitol in Concord. He walked into a conference room and sat down at this big round table. Can you tell me about that big meeting?

[Jason Moon]

Yeah.

[Ron Arsenault]

Well, I can tell you there was a lot of people there, a lot of different alphabets. You know, there's like four or five federal agencies involved.

[Nate Hedgey]

Looking around, Ron saw special agents from the FBI, the irs, the US Postal Service, attorneys from New Hampshire's Department of Justice, and investigators from the state's Public Integrity Unit. Corruption busters.

[Ron Arsenault]

And it was just a meeting of how we had started this case and what we were at and all the other stuff the other guys were finding at the search warrants. You know, it was just spiraling out and spider webbing every different direction. It was crazy.

[Nate Hedgey]

This Alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies had assembled because of all the potential crimes that Ron had uncovered during Operation Nightcat. First off, there was the illegal poaching.

[Ron Arsenault]

Gray fox, bobcat. Gray fox, bobcat, red fox, red fox.

[Nate Hedgey]

Evidence that, that a group of men were hunting at night, hunting out of season, baiting animals.

[Kevin Bronson]

It's like they're playing grand theft auto behind their house, except with animals.

[Nate Hedgey]

Mostly violations and misdemeanors. But the dead bobcats, a protected species in New Hampshire, were being registered in other states where hunting them is allowed, and that would be a federal crime.

[Ron Arsenault]

Hey, we got some bobcats getting cranked in New Hampshire at night and they're tagging me legally, going across state lines.

[Nate Hedgey]

But some of these hunters were also corrections officers at the state prison for men, where text messages had uncovered a whole host of other potential crimes. Witness tampering, falsifying physical evidence, and mail theft.

[Mike Lewis]

You have them outrightly admitting that they stole my fucking legal mail. That's a federal offense.

[Nate Hedgey]

With all these potential charges, this was a huge opportunity for law enforcement. But there were also risks.

[Ron Arsenault]

What the Freds were afraid of was a thing called double jeopardy. So if we charge them for a violation for the bobcats, then they basically couldn't because they've already been charged for that.

[Nate Hedgey]

The Alphabets hashed out a plan to divide and conquer. Each agency got their own set of charges to follow up on based on their jurisdiction. Ron and his colleagues at Fish and Game, they would handle the lower level hunting crimes. The U.S. fish and Wildlife Service wanted a stab at the bigger bobcat charges. Meanwhile, the FBI, the US Postal inspectors And the state attorney general's office would look into what was going on inside the prison. Were you feeling at that point that these guys were gonna get their comeuppance for the stuff that they were doing inside the prison?

[Ron Arsenault]

Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was at the point where, like, all right, the people, you know, that need to know, know, and, you know, we can concentrate on our hunting violations, which is what we did.

[Nate Hedgey]

When I was talking to Ron, he told me there are parallels to hunting a deer and tracking a criminal suspect.

[Ron Arsenault]

Finding of evidence is like the hunt. You catch a poacher that you've been after for years. It's like a big buck for a hunter.

[Nate Hedgey]

This investigation into Tom Kelly, Randy Inman, and the other poachers, it was like Ron had stumbled upon the biggest buck of his life. More than five sets of law enforcement agencies have seen evidence of these alleged crimes. But when they had them in their sights, most of these agencies never took the shot. Why not?

[Mike Lewis]

It's the embarrassment. It's the embarrassment to say, how in the world did this happen? How did we get here?

[Nate Hedgey]

From NHPR's document team and outside in this is Operation Nightcat. Episode three, A Duck's a Duck. From NHPR's document team and outside in this is the final episode of Operation Night Cat. I'm Nate Hedgey. There is something I never mentioned up until now, which is that Ron Arsenault is kind of a reality TV star. For nine seasons, he and his colleagues were the focus of Northwood's Law. It's a folksier version of Cops, which aired on Animal Planet. From the White Mountains of the northeast to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, the conservation officers of New Hampshire stop at nothing to protect the wildlife.

[Ron Arsenault]

Did you kill the deer?

[Nate Hedgey]

Tell me the truth right now. In one moment, you might see a conservation officer dinging someone for catching too many bass, and in the next, another one is rescuing an injured loon. I just really don't want to stress.

[Ron Arsenault]

This thing out any more than it.

[Nate Hedgey]

It's a pretty family friendly show, but to me, the twists and turns of Operation Night Cat have always seemed grittier, like something you'd see on hbo. You can imagine the scenes of Tom Kelly, the guy at the center of the investigation, shooting coyotes from the sniper's nest on his back deck. Scenes of Ron walking through the woods to find Tom Kelly's bait pile. And you can imagine it all culminating in a dramatic arrest. Officers surrounding Tom Kelly's house, then bursting through the door.

[Ron Arsenault]

Race blank. Double dumb move.

[Nate Hedgey]

Dumbo. Dumbo put Your hands up against the wall.

[Mike Lewis]

Your hands up against the wall.

[Nate Hedgey]

But in the end, that is not how Operation Night Cat went down.

[Ron Arsenault]

We didn't take him out of his house, you know, kicking the screen with handcuffs on, not like the TV shows.

[Nate Hedgey]

Ron says he just showed up at Tom Kelly's door with an arrest warrant and asked him to come down to the local police station. But make no mistake, even though they were leaving the big charges to the feds, Ron really threw the book at Tom Kelly. Nine counts of misdemeanor illegal night hunting, 16 counts of misdemeanor hunting without a license, and nearly two dozen other violations. Illegal baiting, hunting out of season, illegally hunting black bears. 47 charges in all.

[Ron Arsenault]

It was one of those things when we started, I'm like, I'm not gonna cut the guy a break. I'm just gonna write him for everything. So that's what I did. That's why there's so many.

[Nate Hedgey]

But then Ron handed the investigation over to the county attorney's office to actually prosecute the case.

[Ron Arsenault]

Once you basically ask for help, you lose your control of the case.

[Nate Hedgey]

What do you mean? When you lose your control of the.

[Ron Arsenault]

Case, they kind of have control of what they can plea bargain out at the end of the day.

[Nate Hedgey]

A plea bargain. Hunting at night and baiting out of season might be a big deal for Fish and Game, but for a county prosecutor, these charges are small potatoes.

[Ron Arsenault]

They're dealing with murderers and rapists and stuff like that. So they're like, oh, he shot at night. Okay, well, not a big deal. So that they're not invested like the game wardens are.

[Nate Hedgey]

Back. When Ron was showing me videos of Tom killing bobcats, watching a deer suffer.

[Ron Arsenault]

He told me, when you take it all together, you're like, oh, man, these guys are really bad. Yeah, these guys should never hunt again.

[Nate Hedgey]

But when it came to all those charges against Tom Kelly, county prosecutors struck a plea deal. In exchange for pleading guilty, Tom Kelly's 47 charges were whittled down to just seven. He was fined a little under $5,000, and he lost his hunting privileges for just three and a half years.

[Ron Arsenault]

And at the end of the day, everybody's like, well, you know, you won. We're like, yeah, we did win, you know, so I guess we won, you know, at the end of the day.

[Nate Hedgey]

Randy Inman, the prison supervisor, he also got charged with nearly 50 violations. But after another plea deal, it amounted to less than $4,000 in fines, and he lost his license for 10 years. The other three guys swept up By Fish and game in the poaching ring got even less.

[Ron Arsenault]

Even if it wasn't like 100% what we wanted, they were found guilty.

[Nate Hedgey]

After everything, Ron had discovered the biggest case of his career. This was a small victory, but remember, it was also just one small branch of Operation Nightcat. Ron had taken the first shot, but he knew there were more coming. Are you still feeling hopeful that it'll go through?

[Ron Arsenault]

I still feel hopeful for the feds, you know, their investigations and stuff, but.

[Nate Hedgey]

The way these multi agency investigations work, they're pretty siloed. Ron wasn't expecting to be kept in the loop. And when I was driving around with Ron this past spring, all he'd heard so far was silence.

[Ron Arsenault]

You won't hear anything. Yeah, that's just how they work. Which, I mean, it's fine, but I just want to know who. Like, he's still going forward with it.

[Nate Hedgey]

Still, Ron couldn't help himself. He felt compelled to check in.

[Ron Arsenault]

I feel as though if I didn't do my job, I would certainly hope somebody would be my squeaky wheel to keep me going. Yeah. You know, because somebody needs to keep these people accountable.

[Nate Hedgey]

Can you hear yourself in the. In the headphones?

[Kevin Bronson]

I can't hear myself.

[Nate Hedgey]

Okay, I got you. Sergeant Kevin Bronson came into our studios at NHPR on an early spring morning. And I brought him into the studio because there is a whole other thread to this investigation that we haven't talked about yet.

[Ron Arsenault]

Hello?

[Nate Hedgey]

Hello.

[Kevin Bronson]

Oh, I can hear myself.

[Nate Hedgey]

Yes. It's always a weird feeling, too, when you can first hear yourself.

[Kevin Bronson]

Yeah, through the headphones, like with Northwood's Law. When I first heard my voice on tv, it was cringeworthy.

[Nate Hedgey]

Kevin was one of the Fish and Game officers who worked on Operation Night Cat. He was in charge of investigating another one of the guys in this poaching group, Prison guard Randy Inman. Remember, Randy was the supervisor who allegedly helped Tom Kelly cover up an assault on an inmate. When Fish and Game officers searched Randy Inman's house back In January of 2023, looking for evidence in the poaching case, Kevin noticed something else. I want to ask you a very strange question. What did the house smell like?

[Kevin Bronson]

What did it smell like? Oh, it smelled like weed. Yeah. We walked in and we could smell marijuana.

[Nate Hedgey]

Marijuana is illegal in New Hampshire, but it's also been decriminalized. So if you're caught with a small amount, you'll just get a $100 fine. But officers found a lot of marijuana in Randy's house. More than 50 bags of weed gummies, dozens of THC vape cartridges, seeds to grow marijuana, and a kit to make edibles. Most of these were found in a single room where Randy's 19 year old stepson from a previous marriage was staying. And in that room, they also discovered something else. Psychedelic mushrooms. There was a mushroom grow in the house?

[Kevin Bronson]

Yes.

[Nate Hedgey]

Yep. And you don't think that was Randy's? You think it was this kid who was living with him or who was it?

[Kevin Bronson]

It's hard to say. It was all in a kid's room. It wasn't in Randy's room. I asked Randy that night if, like, what's the deal? Did he know this was going on? He said, no, I had no idea. You know, kids will be kids type, type attitude. I don't go in his room.

[Nate Hedgey]

The feds consider psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound in psychedelic mushrooms, to be a Schedule 1 controlled substance. And growing it carries stiff penalties up to 20 years in prison. Randy told investigators that he was aware of drugs being inside his house and that some of the paraphernalia found in the living room was his.

[Kevin Bronson]

It was surprising to me that somebody in law enforcement where it's illegal here I'm smelling marijuana in the house.

[Nate Hedgey]

During the search warrant, Randy also tried to hide his cell phone under a rock. But a fishing game dog named Winnie literally sniffed it out. From there, Kevin extracted a digital copy of Randy's texts, photos and videos. Now, I have seen redacted summaries of these texts in public records. They don't mention mushrooms in particular, but they do suggest Randy was helping his stepson sell drugs by mailing them to other states. Other texts suggest Randy was trading prescription pills. He and another corrections officer texted about leaving envelopes of pills and cash in the gas caps of their vehicles in the prison parking lot. A supervisor at the prison potentially dealing drugs at work. But Kevin never charged Randy with any drug crimes. Just like the other threads of Operation Night Cat, this was out of their wheelhouse as Fish and Game officers. So like everything else, it got handed off.

[Kevin Bronson]

We handed off our stuff to the AG's office, I think, and the AG ended up taking that. I thought they were. I'd hoped something's still gonna come out of it.

[Nate Hedgey]

I am gonna save you the suspense about these other lines of investigation. The drugs, the alleged mail theft and assault, the Bobcats crossing state lines. There have been zero charges related to any of it. What seemed to us and to fishing game wardens like an explosive set of allegations and evidence appears to have fizzled away. So what happened? No one we talked to seemed to know what, or at least wanted to tell us what came after that Alphabet soup meeting. So our team filed public records requests to find out. And we discovered that almost immediately, the investigation hit a snag. Before federal investigators could dig into the prison allegations, they needed their own separate search warrant to get the evidence Fishing Game had already collected. That might sound complicated, but this is actually a pretty straightforward procedural task. And they did this. But then the search warrant sat unsigned in the U.S. district Attorney's Office for months. Apparently, it sat for so long that the head of New Hampshire's Public Integrity Unit, the state's corruption busters, wrote a letter to the US District Attorney, basically saying, what's the deal? The clock was ticking, and the state had actually paused its own investigation to let the feds take first dibs. In this letter, the head of the Public Integrity Unit wrote, any potential state level crimes are becoming stale. Now. Whatever the reason for the delay, documents show that several weeks after that strongly worded letter, the search warrant was signed and executed. But then, not long afterwards, the FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service decided not to pursue any charges. We asked the U.S. attorney's office why they decided not to prosecute, and they gave us a pretty curt reply. Justice Department policy is to not discuss internal deliberations. We also do not confirm or deny the existence of investigations. After the feds declined to pursue charges, they handed the investigation back over to the state's Public Integrity Unit. The job of this unit is to prosecute wrongdoing by government officials like cops, state politicians, or prison guards. Then, just like the feds, they suspended any further criminal investigation.

[Mike Lewis]

Strange. It's almost as if they're like, there's this concession that, you know, some level of violence like this is going to happen regardless of any articulated justification in a corrections situation.

[Nate Hedgey]

This is Mike Lewis. He's a former prosecutor with New Hampshire's Justice Department. When our team first got ahold of Tom Kelly and Randy Inman's prison texts, it seemed like an open and shut case. The stolen mail, the beating and the COVID up, it's all laid out right there. But we are not lawyers. And what seems like solid evidence to the public might not cut it in a courtroom. Putting on your prosecutor's hat for a second. You've seen these texts. Are the texts enough to charge someone?

[Mike Lewis]

The texts alone are not enough, you know, but the texts are really concerning. I mean, they really are concerning.

[Nate Hedgey]

What Mike Lewis sees here is an investigation that never really got off the ground. The text messages should have been the starting point for interviews or more records that could bolster a case.

[Mike Lewis]

You would want, you know, to see documented photographic evidence. You would want to interview the victim and any other third party witnesses.

[Nate Hedgey]

But from the documents we received, there is no indication that took place.

[Jason Moon]

There are.

[Mike Lewis]

They're all hard cases to investigate and prosecute. But, you know, hard cases are just as worthy of thinking about as easier cases. Even if your. Your interests and freedom are substantially, substantially diminished to almost nothing when you're in prison, that doesn't mean that, like, you know, it's open season on hurting you. The whole point of the Public Integrity Unit is to take investigations further and find facts if they believe there's obvious gaps.

[Nate Hedgey]

This is Julian Jefferson. He's a law professor and former New Hampshire public defender. Like Mike, Julian agrees that the texts alone wouldn't be enough to win a case in court, but also that everything we saw should have merited a more.

[Mike Lewis]

Rigorous investigation, particularly with the drug piece. You know, I, over, you know, years now have been representing people where the police are actively patrolling the streets looking for evidence of drug users using and then charging them with possession of a controlled drug. Then to look at this evidence where you have these text messages of people in positions of authority who, on its face, certainly seems like they are exchanging in potentially illegal drugs, that there's not this aggressive response to it, and you can look at those things and say, this feels unfair. This feels unbalanced.

[Nate Hedgey]

We reached out to New Hampshire's Department of Justice to ask what happened, and the spokesperson emailed us a statement. He said that while some of the findings were concerning, there wasn't enough proof to bring criminal charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, he told us, accountability has been administrative rather than criminal. And here is what that means. After all the agencies passed on pursuing charges, the Department of Corrections conducted their own investigations, Basically HR reviews. During those investigations, Randy Inman retired. He's still pulling a penchant from the state. Chris Massey, the guy Tom Kelly was texting with about the stolen mail, he was demoted. And Tom Kelly. Well, Tom Kelly was fired. In his dismissal letter, the prison warden said Tom's conduct would cause a reasonable person to doubt the individual's own honesty, fairness, and respect for the rights of others and for the laws of the state or nation. There is still one thread in Operation Nightcat that may still be open. At one point during this past summer, Ron Arsenault was sure a federal indictment from the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service was coming. I called him up to talk about it. Hey, Ron, can you hear me?

[Mike Lewis]

Hey, yeah, how are you doing? Good.

[Nate Hedgey]

This is about the Bobcats. The charges Fishing game left to the feds to avoid double jeopardy. Ron had sources who told him charges were gonna be coming any day now.

[Mike Lewis]

Yeah, I mean, glad they're doing something with the whole case. And I mean, we did get him for some stuff, but we were pretty light, you know, in the contingent that they were gonna be doing something.

[Nate Hedgey]

But then the indictment never came. That was months ago and Ron is still waiting.

[Jason Moon]

Investigative reporting takes a lot of time. It's also expensive and it's a team sport. I'm Jason Moon of the producers of this series. Operation Nightcat took a whole year to report and a lot of behind the scenes work to deliver. As you heard in the last episode, we sued the state for access to public documents. We also drove roughly 1700 miles around New Hampshire to interview sources and get documents. We paid fees to get court records, and we hired a fact checker to confirm every single detail in this story. We know these costs are worth it to bring you the truth, but what's also true is that we can't do this without your support, especially now. Federal cuts to nhpr, the station that produces this podcast, have reduced our funding by hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can make a gift right now on your phone with Apple pay or on the app of your choice. All you have to do is hit the link in the show notes and thank you.

[Nate Hedgey]

This is Operation Nightcat. I'm Nate Hedgy. We tried to reach out to Tom Kelly and Randy Inman for the story. I called, I emailed, I texted, I wrote letters. Tom pointed me to his lawyer, who didn't agree to a recorded interview, but said the prison allegations were a lot of hot air and gas. He also said that Tom Kelly didn't break the law because, again, no criminal charges were filed. The lawyer also told us that Tom is appealing to try and get his job at the prison back and that his hunting violations were minor. As for Randy Inman, I never heard anything from him. I did hear from someone else, though. His ex wife, Shannon labella.

[Shannon Labella]

It's just disgusting in every way, and I'm disgusted I was ever a part of his life.

[Nate Hedgey]

Shannon reached out to me after we published a news story about these investigations, and she corroborated one of the allegations suggested by state documents that Randy was using prescription painkillers. She said he had all sorts of substance abuse problems during their marriage, especially with prescription pills and alcohol. But she denied that her son had anything to do with the psychedelic mushrooms fishing game found at Randy's house. What was it like to be married to a guy who works inside that prison?

[Shannon Labella]

It was constant overtime and just stress, understaffed, and fights and, you know, just seemed like not much control in there. And everybody did whatever they wanted as long as they didn't call in sick or refused overtime.

[Nate Hedgey]

Shannon also filled in more details on Randy's hunting and trapping, that he was always out with his buddies. She says they could be reckless and violent.

[Shannon Labella]

I went a lot of times, not all the time, but pretty often. And one day, they were just shooting under a bridge at pigeons. No rhyme, no reason. They weren't using it for bait or for any other purpose just to kill them. And after that, I never went with them again.

[Nate Hedgey]

Why do you think he liked killing so much?

[Shannon Labella]

Control, power, dominance. Because that's what he could do at work. I mean, he had total control. And when he was home and, you know, we'd have an argument and he wouldn't be in control of it. You know, he made sure he regained it some way somehow, by any means necessary.

[Nate Hedgey]

Back in 2015, Randy was charged with assaulting Shannon, but she told me she was too afraid to take the stand and testify against him. The case was dismissed, and Randy continued working at the prison for another eight years.

[Shannon Labella]

I don't know if he's just an orphan sheep's clothing or if it had to do with his job. Like I said, there is no job out there stressful enough that drives you to kill innocent things that have never harmed you a day in your life. So to me, that's nothing but an excuse he's made for the horrible things he's done.

[Nate Hedgey]

After talking to Shannon, I reached out to Randy one more time for his side of the story. He never responded. So let's just start it off, actually. First, Dean, do you want to give me your first and last name and the kind of work you did and do now?

[Mike Lewis]

Yes. My name is Dean Williams. I'm the former executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, and before that, I was the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections.

[Nate Hedgey]

I wanted to get another perspective on what happened with this case from someone outside of New Hampshire. Dean has led two different state corrections departments, and when he read the investigation reports and the text message threads, it set off alarm bells. But it also didn't really surprise him.

[Mike Lewis]

Corrections is an interesting world because most other public entities, you know, if there's a plane crash, for example, it's thoroughly investigated, right? Because you want to learn from the mistake, you want to learn why it happened, to try to teach others and in case there's mechanical issues so it doesn't happen again. That's not what happens though. In penal systems. There's a lot of pressure on corrections leaders to sort of bury things.

[Nate Hedgey]

Dean told me that you'll often hear two arguments on why criminal investigations in prisons get buried. The cost if victims sue.

[Mike Lewis]

And it's the embarrassment. It's the embarrassment to say, how in the world did this happen? How did we get here?

[Nate Hedgey]

And that's the kind of situation the state of New Hampshire knows all too well.

[Shannon Labella]

Most victims of the systemic decades long abuse inside the youth development center are still waiting for settlement checks from the state.

[Nate Hedgey]

Five years ago, a former resident of the state's juvenile jail came forward. He said he was physically and sexually abused there. And then a dam broke. More and more victims came forward, more than a thousand of them, including Sean Cochran, the guy from the last episode. These allegations span more than six decades. A culture of abuse that was taking place unchecked behind another brick wall. The millions of dollars in settlements being paid by the state over this scandal, AKA being paid by you, the taxpayer, are just one way to measure the cost. And over and over and over again, people have wondered, how could this have happened?

[Mike Lewis]

If you start down the road and say, well, look, this is embarrassing to us. This is going to make us look bad, this is going to cost us some money. And that becomes the driving factor. It perpetuates and reinforces, this is the way we do business. And so then you have another event, then you have another event after that. And these things be, you know, becomes a chronic issue. And that's where systems get. Get messed up. They get screwed up, man. It will, it will cost you sooner or later, but it will cost you way more than if you just fixed it to begin with.

[Nate Hedgey]

I gotta say, Ron, this lake is beautiful in the fall, isn't it? It's gorgeous. The last time I met up with Ron Arsenault was in October of 2025. I was there to show him the report from the state saying they wouldn't pursue criminal charges against Tom Kelly, Randy Inman and the other corrections officers. Now, up to this point, as far as he knew the case was still open. Nobody had ever told Ron the state closed the case. Take your time. It's about nine pages, really. I mean, you can read through it or we can read, we can go to the end, which is the thing I really want to show you. We sat Quietly as Ron read through the report on my phone. Normally, Ron has the energy of a Labrador retriever, but now he looked tired and shut down. How does that make you feel?

[Ron Arsenault]

Mmm. It just makes me feel like there's just no accountability. You know, that's what it really comes down to.

[Nate Hedgey]

Remember, Ron went above and beyond his line of duty to report what he had found. He spent hours pouring through text messages, calling attorneys, hoping there would be justice.

[Ron Arsenault]

And after going through all of it, you know, at the end of the day, I don't know if I'd do it again because of all the stuff that just happens. It's like, you just did all that work for what? Yeah, you know, and it's like, oh, so it just grinds on you, you know, and eventually you're like, all right, I'm done. I'm a game warden. I'm finding out the hunting violations. That's what I'm. I'm here for. I'm not here for the drugs or the mail or, you know, the integrity units. Like, that's not my problem. I pointed that out. And if they want to go with it, go with it. You know, we have a thing when a law enforcement officer finds, you know, violations they have the duty to report, which is exactly what I did. And, you know, we're taught, oh, report all this stuff. You know, it goes all the way down to, like, sexual harassment. You know, everything. Report it, and we'll do something. Report it. You know, it's. It's like, okay, yeah, you will, and then you won't.

[Nate Hedgey]

Why do you think they don't. They don't pursue charges on stuff like.

[Ron Arsenault]

This because it makes them look bad. It's gonna make the state agency look bad, and they're trying to save face. I don't know if I'm supposed to say that or not, but it is what it is.

[Mike Lewis]

Doc's a dollar.

[Nate Hedgey]

When I met up with Ron, he was supposed to be getting dressed up for a big ceremony. New Hampshire's congressional delegation had selected him for a Unit Citation Award for his work on Operation Nightcat, but it was postponed because of a government shutdown. So all he had was a letter from U.S. senator Jeanne Shaheen.

[Ron Arsenault]

It's just a letter with an award, basically saying, you did a good job. I did my job.

[Nate Hedgey]

Does that do anything for you at all? You have a letter from a US Senator.

[Ron Arsenault]

No, it's. It's cool. But at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, it'll probably go somewhere in a file. My wife will put it somewhere and.

[Nate Hedgey]

That could be framed.

[Ron Arsenault]

Nah, I got my pictures of the eagles and stuff in my walls. Can't take them down.

[Nate Hedgey]

So the letter will go into a file somewhere and Ron's house. Just like the investigations into Tom Kelly, Randy Inman and the other corrections officers are most likely tucked away into hard drives or file cabinets in some government building. Just like that video of Tom killing a bobcat is probably sitting on a laptop somewhere at the US Fish and Wildlife Service office in Boston. In that video, for a brief moment after the rifle fires and a game camera flashes, everything is illuminated in light. The naked eye can see it all, the dead bobcat, the white snow, and then just as quickly, everything goes dark again.

[Mike Lewis]

Sa.

[Nate Hedgey]

Operation Nightcat is a special three part series from NHPR's document team and Outside In. If you like this series, check out more of Document's incredible accountability reporting including their three part investigation into the scandal at ydc. It's called the Youth Development Center. There's a link in the show Notes this episode was reported and written by me, Nate Hedge with help from Lauren Chulgin and Jason Moon. Jason produced and mixed this episode. He also wrote the music. It was edited by Taylor Quimby and Katie Culinary with help from Rebecca Lavoy, Jackie Harris, Dan Barrick, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon and Marina Hanke. Fact checking by Danya Suleiman Photography by John Tully which you can check out at our website nhpr.org nightcat the bobcat photo in our logo comes from Jill DeVito. Special thanks to Bill Chapman. Taylor Quimby is the Executive Producer of Outside In. Rebecca Lavoy is Director of On Demand at NHPR and Operation Nightcap is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

[Mike Lewis]

Sam.