Wednesday, November 13th 2019
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Former Chief Deputy Brent Clapp spoke to TCOLE, during its investigation of whether the sheriff had turned in phony training reports.
In the summary of the TCOLE report, the investigating officers said, ‘Clapp said it wasn't outside the realm of Lewis fabricating a document because he had manufactured a supplement for a missing person a year and half after it happened.’
ABC 7 dug deeper to find the original statements from all the deputies interviewed in the investigation. Because some of the deputies are still employed with the sheriff's office, we agreed to protect their identities.
Here is what Clapp had to say when TCOLE investigators asked why Sheriff Lewis might fabricate the training records:
‘Because we've been through the Tom Brown mess ... on that deal he manufactured a supplement a year and half after the fact,’ Clapp said. ‘Same deal. When you write reports a year and after because why? Because we're getting ready to turn it all over to the attorney general and I go to him and say you've got two pages in this thing. I've got 26. You need to catch up some supplements. You need to do something. Where is your documentation? ...
The attorney generals came in and they wanted to know about a video that did or did not exist. It was a huge issue. [surveillance videos from] Dollar General and Fronk. And he came up with a report on that a year and half after the fact.’
A second deputy also discussed the Dollar General surveillance video with a TCOLE investigator:
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Nathan always said there was never a video,’ the deputy said. ’Well, then after the attorney general came down to talk to me about the whole situation he said something one day in his office. He said whenever I looked at the video from the Dollar General there wasn't anything on there, so I threw it away.’
So, was the surveillance video viewed and discarded?
The sheriff said there was simply nothing on it.
As to the documentation of Thomas's investigation, though memory may be imperfect a year and a half after the fact, there is no indication the report is inaccurate. The only allegation here from the deputies is that the report was largely reconstructed long after the event, information that was passed on to the attorney general’s investigators.
ABC 7 asked the attorney general for a copy of the report, and we were told that technically, it is still an open case so the documents are still confidential. We also asked the Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office for its report on the case and have not received a response.
A private investigation agency, Klein Investigations, said there was evidence that was missed by the sheriff’s team, including
blood in Thomas Brown's vehicle and a shell casing from a .25-caliber gun.
The deputies and Sheriff Lewis would not comment on the record for this story.
Yet, Sheriff Lewis briefly discussed Thomas' case with TCOLE investigators:
’We had this missing deal come up in November,’ Lewis said. ’I wasn't suppose to take over until January. ... I thought we did everything right. We did everything good. We had the peer reviews with the Rangers. The major of Company C said you all did a fantastic job for a small town agency up here in the Panhandle. You all did fantastic. ... They said, 'Man everything is good.’”
We have provided the raw TCOLE interviews with former Sheriff Nathan Lewis and former Chief Deputy Brent Clapp below.
Be advised, these audio clips contain some strong language.
Sheriff Nathan Lewis TCOLE interview
Chief Deputy Brent Clapp TCOLE interview
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ABC 7 reached out to TCOLE to see if the deputies' statements about the reconstructed report would warrant a new investigation.
We received this response: ‘If our investigators come across a separate crime that falls outside of our purview during the course of an investigation, we will turn it over to the appropriate state or local law enforcement agency. In this situation, the investigators had knowledge that another law enforcement agency was looking into the missing person situation.’” (BBM)
Much more at the link:
TCOLE investigation of reveals new information about Thomas Brown case