Off The Hook
We are a group of private investigators, bounty hunters / fugitive recovery agents, and bail bondsmen that have been in this line of work for over twenty five years and have many stories to tell. We have traveled all over the country catching fugitives and bringing them back to have their day in court. With our years of experience we are trying to educate the public about bail and why it is a needed part of our judicial system.
Off The Hook
A Wild Chase and What We Lost Along the Way
A countdown on the radio, a finger on “record,” a mall loop where you’d bump into half your school—then a hard cut to sirens, a boxed-in exit, and a head-on collision with a fleeing domestic violence suspect. That’s the spectrum we ride today: what we lost when life moved faster, and what happens when accountability moves slower than danger.
We start with the texture of the 90s—boom boxes, dial-up, rotary phones—and how those small frictions shaped patience, community, and a sense of place. Then we shift to the realities of bail bonds work: the phone that decides your week, the pressure to answer, and the judgment calls that keep victims safer and communities stable. From there, we talk about noise in the culture—politicized late-night monologues, performative takes—and why all that static makes it harder to have straight talk about consequences and safety.
The core story happens in Greenville, North Carolina. A $30,000 domestic violence bond, a girlfriend connection, long hours of surveillance, and a suspect who sleeps by day and moves at night. We track the car, set an intercept at an apartment complex, and watch a split-second decision turn metal into shrapnel. He rams us, runs, and we chase on foot through brush to a creek bank where the arrest finally lands. The search reveals drugs; the aftermath reveals something else—injuries, insurance headaches, and a courtroom dismissal that leans on the claim he mistook us for gang members. Outside, the man cries and apologizes. We listen. We also ask for better: clear incentives, real consequences, and protections that put victims first.
If you want stories with real stakes—domestic violence enforcement, field decisions under pressure, and honest talk about policing, policy, and culture—this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves true fieldwork stories, and leave a review with your take: are we softer or smarter now, and what would you fix first?
What's going on, everybody up here? Chad, what's up? We are back for another episode. I'm glad you came back to listen to us. Man, Chad, I was uh before we get into the story. I was on TikTok. No, say it's not so right. But it's something came across to TikTok that I thought was very I I liked it. You know, you know, you get your normal crap, it comes across, and you get tired of seeing it, but it was it's something new. It's like these kids from 1990. I grew up in the 90s mainly. The 80s and 90s. And you grew up a little bit before me. So so more 80s, right? So I was like 80s and 90s. All right. So, but I remember some of this stuff. It was he was he was saying, he goes, remember back in the 1990s when we uh when you wanted to hear your favorite song, and like nowadays you can just go straight to Spotify and you can look it up instantaneously. But he goes, Remember, remember back in the 90s when we had to sit beside the radio and wait for it to come in?
SPEAKER_02:Dude, I remember laying in my bed with my boom box at the floor of my bed waiting to hear the countdown as Casey Case and counts them down. Yeah. And got my finger on the record button to catch the beginning of the song I wanted to record. So if you got a clean, you know, recording, you know. Kids don't will never know the struggles we had. Oh, no.
SPEAKER_01:But it to me it wasn't struggle, it wasn't. You know what I mean? Yeah, it was fun.
SPEAKER_02:It was, it was, yeah, it's what made it more special, is it was harder to get a hold of.
SPEAKER_01:And he also he he he also was like, Yeah, you know, you come for dinner one night and you see a bunch of beans and chopped up weenies, you know, you know were broke at the moment. And I was like, I've had a few of them, and then uh it said, Oh, here's another one. Another one is I'm from the 90s. Remember when when internet came out, we had to sit and wait for it? And it was just it's just a picture of AOL going right. You had to wait forever to get on the internet, yeah. Yeah, and we didn't even like I didn't even really get it.
SPEAKER_02:And you're excited when you had mail.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, you have mail.
SPEAKER_02:You finally signed on and you got mail. Oh god, somebody wants to, you know, that's so cool.
SPEAKER_01:It is junk mail.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't like it. I heard somebody talking about answer machines. Who was it? Uh oh, it's Joe Rogan. He's talking about back when you had answer machines, and you come home and there's a flashing light. You're like, oh shit, I got a message. Somebody wants to talk.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I uh I grew up uh in my grandparents' house, we had a rotary phone. You remember them?
SPEAKER_02:You had to turn it. Oh, yeah. My grand, I go see my grandparents, and they had a number they would call to get um the time and the temperature, and uh and it was some local thing. They would call all the time, they want to know what the temperature was and exact time. Yeah, they would they would call. It's just you know, little things we take for granted. I mean, a freaking cell phone is if you broke this down as to what all this thing can do, you know, it would be a million dollars.
SPEAKER_01:And and the last one, they were talking about how like we all you go hang out at the mall and all the shops will be open, everybody's talking, everybody's hanging out. Right, right. You don't have that no more.
SPEAKER_02:No, you got yeah, pretty much people are afraid to go to mall. I mean, I know ours is ghetto, at least the one over off Olander. Yeah, it's it's yeah, you know, you gotta go to Mayfair, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But no, but but you don't see kids hanging out, you know. Every now and again you see some kids at Mayfair because my son has done that. Yeah, my son goes to Mayfair. But but not like it was though, right? Yeah, you see your whole high school at the mall.
SPEAKER_02:Well, hell we used to cruise. I mean, we had a street back where I'm from, like main drag, like everybody would cruise. Yeah. Kids gotta have something to go do, or else I think that manifests itself into something else.
SPEAKER_01:We used to hang out at Walmart parking lot.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, people, yeah, parking lots and yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh the good old days.
SPEAKER_02:Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I I'm starting to feel a little old now because of that. Well, yeah, I guess so, but you know what?
SPEAKER_02:It was a better time, but it was fun. We just have to make it to where kids can do those things again and be kids. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I think if we, you know, limited time on these things right here and these things, social media.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, all this, all the problems came with with this um with the conveniences, right? But with Pandora's boxes open, so can't get it back in, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's why when like go that's what I love going like when we go on vacation. That's I don't even pay attention to the thing.
SPEAKER_02:I wish I could. It's rare, you know, the times I forward you the calls, but those are nice for me. Yeah, I'm sure it is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I I don't bother you. I'll send you a message from time to time, hey, this is what I got.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, that that's that's cool. You know, it's like in our business, you can never completely relax. Not completely. And people don't get that about bell bonds, but I mean, you know, I'll be talking to somebody at the gym or wherever, and like my phone starts ringing. I'm like, and they'll be in the minimum sentence. I'm like, sorry, I don't mean to cut you off, but I have to take this. If I don't take it, they're gonna skip me and go to the next person, you know, and that that call can make your week, your month.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, especially right now. You know, it's it's yeah, it's slow right now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, our county is they're just letting them unsecured, unsecured, unsecured, let them go right now.
SPEAKER_01:Um, oh, I another thing, man. I saw something online and I can't stand the man. I've told you this. Don Lemon. I can't stand it.
SPEAKER_02:I saw it this morning. I saw his little punk ass talking.
SPEAKER_01:You know what? I I I wish he would come up to me and talk to me. I would love for him to come up and talk to me. I'll tell him how a piece of shit he is. I can't stand him.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know what his agenda or what he actually thinks that he's he's a good person. I don't I don't see how, but everything everything that's come out of this dude's mouth, man, it's just been trash.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um I I think people get really getting sick of it. You know, the Jimmy Kimmel coming back.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I caught a little bit of his apology. His apology to but he did make a good point. I I will give it to him. He did make one good point about um Charlie's wife. He said when he he he saw her, that's the way he goes, that right there is the way you're supposed to do things. And and he was talking about Erica and how she you know forgave him and and and how how she would what she said.
SPEAKER_02:It's lip service, man, that he's providing.
SPEAKER_01:It's not it's not truly at least I don't know if it's heartfelt or not. That's not for me or you to know. It's my opinion. It but I think it's I think it's it's good to acknowledge that. Wow. Because if I mean if you don't, it you are a piece of shit. But but I'm sick and tired of all the you know late night hosts and all this getting political. I don't like to see like it was back in the 90s and it wasn't political. You had Arsenio Hall.
SPEAKER_02:He wasn't people wouldn't know what to do if things weren't political, to be honest. I mean, they're so conditioned to hear it all the time. Um, it they wouldn't, I mean, I don't think people would would know what to do.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, I mean neither.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you can show old clips and stuff of of uh uh Arsenio or old Johnny um was the name Johnny Carson. Yes, Johnny Carson. You know, I mean there was no agenda there, and even though even if there was a slight bit, it was it was all funny and everybody. I mean, it was it wasn't taken out of contact, it was just general humor, right? You know, it wasn't mean toward anyone, you know. So and that's that's where we're at now.
SPEAKER_01:Uh I'm ready for it to to to kind of like chill out, you know, and I'm tired of it.
SPEAKER_02:This uh arenas law. Uh yeah, yeah, arena say her name, arena arena's law in North Carolina. So apparently it's made its way through the House, Senate, and it's on its way to get signed by the governor, which he's not a big bail fan, but um, I hope he has common sense enough to have people tell him he needs to sign this because it's a good it's a good thing that I looked at some of it.
SPEAKER_01:He commented after the whole arena thing stating that we need more law enforcement. It's not that we need more law enforcement, yeah, more consequences for your actions.
SPEAKER_02:It's funny the people that wanted to defund police now all of a sudden they're saying, Well, we need more police. I mean, it's just a general statement. We need more police. We need good cops. We've got we lost a lot of people. We got we got a lot of people that you know currently that are police officers that just want a job, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah, and you know, they I mean, I wouldn't want to do that job. Exactly. That's my point. It's like so many of the good ones. Hell, I got a couple in my neighborhood that they quit because of what it was becoming, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Hands are tied, can't do nothing no more.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I heard uh guy on Newsmax this morning just talking about that. He's like, you know, they they sl they the lawyers when they get to court, they're slowing it down and they're finding something that happened in a in a very fast situation. They had to make a split decision, and they're trying to tear them apart. And so who wants to go through all that when you're trying to do your job? Nobody. Exactly. So, you know, it's it's only uh getting worse as far in my opinion. We need uh people that really want to do the job and love the job, yeah. Those people.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's hard, and then you know, ICE is getting they're getting attacked. I just read some.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, a few people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Like, come on, people, like you gotta stop.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I think you know, for all these people that want to lay down on a roof with a scope and a and a rifle, um, when they're caught, I think there should be a public execution of them. There should be no taxpayer funded time um for them to be in in jails to you, you know, can have appeals and all this and get out. No, you should have a month, make sure we got the right person. See you on video, there's no doubt, and um, you know, you should save the taxpayers some money. So that's just my opinion.
SPEAKER_01:Well, other than that, um the world going to a hell in a handbasket. Uh, we got another story to tell you guys.
SPEAKER_02:All right, what's up?
SPEAKER_01:All right, so this one here, I'm on, I got a I got a good uh intro music. Ready?
SPEAKER_00:Just a good old voice. Never meaning no harm.
SPEAKER_01:The reason why I played that one, the Dukes of Hazard, is because of what happened in the end of this story. And it's a good it's a good story. So uh it was me, Eric, I think this is a case that it was Mike Molina. Remember Mike? It was Mike and Eric, and then they asked me to come along. I was like, all right, cool, they needed you know some extra help. And this was happened up in Greenville, North Carolina. I want to say like a$30,000 bond. Okay, is what it was. Um, and it was had a lot to do with domestic violence. That's what it was. The girlfriend. So they did their homework and they've been watching this guy, you know, and trying to figure out social media, you know, friends that are ratting on them. Like where he's staying. But you know just as well as I do, 30 party third party address you can't you can't go into. So Mike calls me, and Eric, hey, we're going up to Green Boy, you want to help us out? Okay, cool. Uh I jump in the car with Mike and drive. And yeah, I'm jumping to call Mike. I'm trying to remember this. It's been a little bit. Uh, Eric had drove separate. Uh I'm gonna go to Greenville. We sit and watch this this place forever and nothing. Go uh, and I think it was his parents' house. Then we go and watch uh another house with nothing going on. And I can't I don't know. We're me, Eric, and Mike, we're all sitting at a like a dollar general going up through the case, trying to figure out what's going on, and we figure out the girlfriend literally was on the opposite corner where we were at. So we go over there and we see the car that she's driving, but he's driving it too because he doesn't have a vehicle, so he's just using hers. But the how we found out about the girlfriend is that the charge was a domestic violence charge. So when we looked it up in with the courts, we found out who the victim was, and it was her, the girlfriend. So of course they're still together. We watch that place for hours on end, and then we see some movement in the afternoon because he sleeps all day, goes out and parties all night. Young guy. And granted, he's not supposed to be with her, and we see him we see him pop out and throw the trash out and go back in. So we know for a hundred percent for a fact he's in there. Now, what do you think, Chad? Should you know, we see this. Should we go hit the house?
SPEAKER_02:As long as you're 100% you're coming out with him.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. We don't know we don't know the area that well. We don't know the the houses. And plus his domestic violence, you know, you don't know what's in the house.
SPEAKER_02:We what did you know about anybody else in the house?
SPEAKER_01:That's it. That's all we knew. We didn't know much about him. We just know he was a little wannabe gangbanger.
SPEAKER_02:Talk to any neighbors?
SPEAKER_01:No, because neighbors don't look like they can like they might tell him. Yeah. Right. Yeah, so you you you're kind of stuck, you don't know what to do. So me and Mike are sitting watching across the street at the house, and then Eric's sitting on the other um on the other side of the parking lot, and we're watching. And Eric calls and he's like, Hey, they're coming out and getting in a car. So we know what car they're driving, you know, the license plate and everything. So they start pulling out, and when they pull out, we kind of pull out behind them. So we're across the street. So they're not thinking that they're not thinking nothing but us following them. And so we're we're driving, he drives all over Greenville for for no reason, like stops for a second.
SPEAKER_02:You don't have a tracker or are you just following him? No, we're just following.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Um, because we just found the car. Well, he starts taking off. Eric's in front of him now. Eric's in front of him. He's he's getting spooked about something. I don't know what it was, because we weren't following him too close, but he was driving fast as hell. He goes into this apartment complex and it's over there on the back side of the hospital in Greenville. When he pulls in, see, there's two there's an entrance and an exit out of this um this apartment complex. He pulls in the entrance, and Eric comes in from the from the back entrance, or exit, whatever you want to call it. Okay. Blocks him in, jumps out, and tells him to show him his hands, freeze, whatever. Dude doesn't. He backs up in the car and takes off towards the entrance of this apartment complex where we're coming in at. Well, it's only one way in. And what's he do? He just he says, hell with it. I'm I'm not stopping. And rams us head on. And it hurt. But at a time, you know, all the adrenaline rush, you know, you don't you don't feel it. And I see Eric, but when he hits us, I see Eric out, he's running towards us. And this guy gets out and he starts taking off. And of course, in the uh, it's so funny, there's a there's a dash can that Mike had that we you we used in court or uh later on, and all you can hear is me go, Mother, that son of a bitch! And he hear me get out and you start running. I I start running towards him. Well, we're running across, and this dude's fast. Me, Mike, and Eric are on foot now after him. Uh I go on one side, Eric and Mike, like we're all we're trying to take, you know, one big area, split up, and next thing you know, I hear them wrestling down in the woods. It's Mike and Eric. They get this guy. So they they get him in this little creek bank. Uh they kind of corner him. They wrest him. They cut, they come up, and I'm like, dude, what in the hell are you thinking? You just smashed your car all to hell, and now ours. And so we we go back. He's talking at all. He ain't talking much at all. No. So we sit him down. Of course, we you know, get the police to come, ambulance comes out there, the fire department comes out, you know, because there's shit everywhere, dude. There's car parks everywhere, man. And I'm starting to feel it. Now the drilling's wearing off, the the wreck, you know, it's starting to it's starting to take take its toll. Well, they look they looked me over and I jacked my back up. My back was all messed up. And Mike, I don't think he had much going on. I don't think he because when they hit us, so when when he hit us, he he tried to aim his car a little to the left, and he hit directly in front of me on the passenger side. So it just it it crushed the whole front in there. And what were they in? They were like in a little Honda Honda specific uh same same type of car, some little four-door Honda. No, it was Mike's girlfriend's Gina. It was Gina's Gina's oh, sorry.
SPEAKER_02:Gina, Gina, that sucks.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that really sucked. Um so Eric, for some reason, his like heart rate wouldn't come down. So they're like, hey, you're not going nowhere yet. And I'm like, dude, he just he just ran like two football fields.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I'm like, yeah, his heart rate's gonna be you got the right to be beaten right now. Right.
SPEAKER_01:So uh so finally everything kind of settled down. They they let us go. The cops come out, and the sergeant was like, All right, we're gonna charge you with assault on a on a government official. I was like, all right, cool, they're actually gonna do something about ramming ramming us head on. And they took him, served him with warrants, but when they were searching him, they found all the time like tons of weed and cocaine on them. So he got more charges. Wait. Like, you're okay, so here's my question. If you got drugs on you and you're being chased, are you gonna keep them on you or just going, are you like, or just leave them in the car, throw them out, leave them in the car, or something. But he left it on him. So that means tell me he was scared.
SPEAKER_02:Well, if you're driving and you got them in your pocket, it's kind of hard to dig in your pockets while you're driving to get away from somebody. I guess, but you know, I would think, you know, hell, I can't get my damn cell phone out of my pocket when I'm going down the road and nobody's chasing me. This is true. This is true. I can only imagine what some all of that stuff he had and trying to, you know, dig in there. I don't know, unless he had the pants that hang down to, you know, pass his butt or something. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it was they were hanging down.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, well, maybe that's why they do it.
SPEAKER_01:So they got they can just reach down here and so the girlfriend comes out while we're there sitting with the amulets and the cops and everybody, and he's in the back of the garden. She comes out. Y'all's fault, isn't it? It was our fault.
SPEAKER_02:Of course it was.
SPEAKER_01:I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. You ain't supposed to be around him, and he's driving your car. And the cops were like, Yeah, like what is all this? I was like, Yeah, you you might want to uh note this uh there, Sergeant. The restraining order, yeah. And so I they popped him with that. Um and we tried, you know, we claimed had to claim it on insurance and everything. And the insurance company was trying not to to pay out to fix it because they said that he was an authorized driver. Well, yeah, no, she does it, but it's not our fault that he that he ran right into it. Like, it's not our fault. Like, but they end up the attorneys got involved and they ended up paying. Now, fast forward eight months to a year, and we have to go to court on his criminal side of things. And we're sitting there, and it was me, Mike, and Eric. Them two, that they got on the stand first. I got on last because I was the one that was hurt the most. I I had to go to the doctor in 09. And his lawyer goes, Were you were you hurt in this accident? I said, Yeah. My bag was all messed up for a couple weeks. I was like, I'm better now. I said, but I don't get it. I was like, why would you do that? And his his lawyer goes, Well, I'm sorry that you that that you got hurt. I'm like, no, you're not. Sure he was. Yeah. And the judge had he dismissed the he dismissed the case against the guy. This is part of the whole, you know, the whole liberal crap. Okay. Dismissed it. And I'm like, why are you this? I'm like looking at the judge going, what? Why are you dismissing the man a minute about hitting us? And you know, you know what the lawyer's argument was?
SPEAKER_02:He was oppressed because he was trying to get away and he thought that you're not.
SPEAKER_01:No, he didn't think the guy that was on the run, the fugitive, thought we were gang members and we want cops because we didn't have anything showing that we were cops.
SPEAKER_02:We can't cops other than badges. We can't put stuff on our vehicles.
SPEAKER_01:I said, I looked at the attorney, I said, I said, bro, that it's illegal for us to do that. So you're asking us to do something illegal? And he was like, uh uh uh uh. What county was this? Pitt County.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay, Greenville.
SPEAKER_01:In Greenville. Okay. So they dismissed it. So I'm like, whatever. So we walk out, and the dude that we that hit us was in the in the uh like the four-year area crying on the bench. Crying when we come out. He goes, he goes, man, I just want to apologize. I said, You're gonna you're apologizing. He was like, Yeah, man, I'm so sorry, man. He goes, man, I I I gotta do something different with my life. And so me, Eric, and Mike sat down and talked to him about getting his shit together. Now, whether he did or not, who knows? But we sat down and we talked to him. Told him he's got to stop, you know, got to stop all this shit. Did the gangbanging, the the the hidden women, there's no way to live. Whether he did it or not, I don't know. But that was a story of Mr.
SPEAKER_02:He didn't learn the lesson with the girl beating up on the girl, right? So now you're supposed to believe that. When did when when do you stop crying wolf, right? Who knows?
SPEAKER_01:I mean there's nothing, I mean there's nothing we could have done after he got the just talk to the boy, and you know what, I didn't talk to him long. I told him it was how it messed up it was, you know. I was like, look, dude, I said you could have killed somebody. I got kids. And nothing. So whether he's gonna straighten up or not, I don't know. But that was a story of swerving Irvin. So that's we're gonna call him Swervin Irvin.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Uh well I'm out of coffee, therefore we're pretty much done.
SPEAKER_01:All right, yeah, we're only what 20 seven minutes.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and don't all right, guys. Well, that was the story of Swervin Irvin. Um, if you uh like what you hear, uh you can see us on YouTube, Off the Hook Bell Bond Podcast. Go check our website at off thehookbail.com. Uh we got a little uh is that video still up there?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So we had uh a special video that we put on the website um to discuss um bail reform?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So yeah, go to the website as a special episode up there, just on our website, off the hookbail.com.
SPEAKER_02:It's in the article section uh under under the website. So if you guys want to check it out, that'd be great. Um be cool if we can put a link in there somewhere. Can we do that? Do we have the skills? Uh uh possibly. We're not we're not big uh technical people, but uh we enjoy doing these shows.
SPEAKER_01:Uh anyway, just go to our website, off thehoot bell.com. Do that, yeah. And uh we can we can figure that out those.
SPEAKER_02:It's the first article under articles. That's the first one. I do know that.
SPEAKER_01:All right, guys, that's enough uh for today. Until then, we'll see you next week. I'm Rob I'm Ched, what's up? We'll see ya.
SPEAKER_00:We hope you've enjoyed this video. Make sure to like, rate, and review. And be sure to follow us for notifications for another exciting episode. But in the meantime, you can go to our website at www.clofty dollars.
