First time I went to Varnum town, I went to see the Fort, Dale Varnum's Fort.

This is Cory Duber, the North Carolina state cop, most responsible for taking down Dale Varnum's drug operation.

I decided I needed to see with my own eyes, and I drove down there, and sure as hell, there was the Fort. That's where Dale Varnam was moving cocaine from. It was basically a compound with fencing 10 feet high, I'm guessing, that had fake cameras on the fences. The cameras were not legitimate. They didn't work, but they were meant to look like they were working. It was very surreal.

I love a fake camera.

Who doesn't love a fake camera? It's so affordable. You don't know if it's fake or real. Unless you get up real close. If the point is to make people be aware that they're being watched, fake camera works as well as a real camera. A hundred %. And it's much cheaper.

Much cheaper.

If those cameras actually worked, Dale might have known that there was a cop facing his place.

I actually stopped the car and got out, and I walked around Dale Varnum's compound, unbeknownst to him, and I was attacked by a turkey. Dale had an attacked turkey.

An attack turkey?

That's right. An attack turkey.

I walked towards the garage and this turkey came at me, scared the crap out of me. So I decided to take myself out of that situation real quick. He is a dangerous, unique individual.

Let me get this right. A high-powered state agent shows up at Dale's compound to investigate this reputed drug, Kingpin, and he's driven away by a turkey.

An attack turkey. Let's just be clear. There's a difference. Do you think that what makes Dale a dangerous, unique individual is that he has an attack turkey?

Who expects an attack turkey?

Nobody. Nobody. What super villain has an attack turkey?

Well, one in Varnumtown.

How is he possibly going to take down a drug running operation if at the first sign of challenge, a turkey trots out? How is he possibly going to take down Pablo Escobar if he can barely deal with a turkey.

Well, in this episode, we are going to go deep with Cory Duber and try to understand what was really happening in Varnumtown.

Besides attack turkeys.

Oh, no. We're going to spend the entire episode talking about attack turkeys. Get ready. Welcome back to Varnumtown. Okay, after the turkey incident, I want to know how did Cory do?

What was his next step? Yeah, exactly.

Talk about being green. I was green.

Duber was working as a uniform street cop in Dallas, But he was actually born and raised in New York City, in Brooklyn and Long Island.

We were Jewish. Everybody I knew was Jewish. I did the Hebrew school route and was bar mitzvah.

He wanted to become a big league detective, so he started looking for openings.

I needed to get to a place where I could grow. As a street officer, you don't really work on cases. You respond to calls. And I felt like I was spinning my wheels. Next step was a major police Department, something like New York, LA, where there was all kinds of avenues to grow within the Detective Division.

But his wife was from North Carolina, and she wanted to be closer to her family. So Duba landed a job with the State Bureau of Investigation.

And soon after he was hired, his superiors told him that there was great news. They were tapping him to lead the investigation on Barnumtown.

I had no sense how big it was. I had no sense on how to investigate it. It was like a whole new world.

So why in God's name did they ask this young guy from New York to run the operation?

They were looking for an agent to be in charge, and I happened to be in the area, and I didn't have a caseload.

I love the interview process here. Hey, are you in the area? Check. Yes. Are you doing anything? No? Great. You're hired. You're leading this major investigation.

I don't know why they didn't ask me. Yeah, you were in the area. I was down there. I mean, I've done a lot of detective work in my career.

Yeah, how was your kid? You were busy.

Their loss, as far as I'm concerned.

Duber was detailed to Mike Grimes in the DEA, but Grimes was a little confused.

I can remember at first Mike saying to me, They're giving me a guy that's green to do something so important?

So a street cop from New York, by way of Dallas, ends up assigned to investigate Varnumtown. It seems like nobody wanted to go to Varnumtown.

Yeah, I mean, listen to how Mike Grimes describes it down there.

There's some inbreeding down.

You'll meet some three-eye people down there if you haven't met them already.

They were a very small, connected by blood community.

Cory Duber, again.

Everybody was married within the families. It was a lot of first cousins getting married there, and everybody knew everybody.

So in hindsight, maybe it was helpful that Duba was from New York. I mean, he wasn't tied to anyone and therefore less likely to be corrupted.

That's a good point. That's actually pretty important, considering the corruption within law enforcement inside and around Varnumtown. I agree.

But the problem from an investigative perspective for Duba is that very hard to disappear into the crowd like he could do in New York and possibly Dallas. I mean, there were really only 300 people around.

In a big city, you can blend in. You cannot blend in in Varnum town.

No, there's 300 people on a block in New York City. It's easy to blend in.

I wonder how he thought he was going to do it.

Let's find out.

If a car went by that wasn't supposed to be there, It was out in a matter of seconds. I can't count the cars that I had to use to go in and out of that place because of that reason. I'd switch cars with other agents for the day. It was just a matter of trying to keep from being seen.

Does this actually work? You drive into a small town in a different car every day. It seems like the locals would notice you even more.

I think they would. If somebody drives down my block every day in a different car, I'm wondering, did they win the lottery? Yeah.

Where do they keep them?

Where do they keep all these cars? Particularly if it's an out-of-towner in a town of 300 people, they're going to notice who's behind the steering wheel as much as they are the car. It's not like the car is going to camouflage the cop. Right.

Well, we asked Dubaer if this technique succeeded in concealing his identity. Here's his answer.

Didn't work. I was pegged every time I went through that community.

This is funny. You have a New Yorker driving into town in a new car every day, and the locals just totally know who he is.

Yeah, what I'm wondering is what instructions did his superiors give him to help him out?

I think they were pretty minimal.

Well, it was basically watch your ask because everybody's got a gun. If you're an outsider, they'll know who you are. Nobody's going to talk to you. And good luck. That was basically the way it was.

So he has no idea what he's doing?

Yeah, basically, that's right. And He's not feeling too good about it all.

I was scared, to be honest with you. The perception that you see on TV is that everybody has guns, and this was during the Miami Vice days. And that made drug work look really hard and really dangerous. I can remember when I was here my first week, and I went to a vessel that was down in the Brunswick County area that had brought in about 30,000 pounds of marijuana. There was residue on the boat, but that was it. And now it our job to figure out who brought it in and where it went and where it was. And I was like, How the hell do you do that? I didn't know.

So how the hell did he learn to operate down there?

Well, Mike Grimes, the other outsider cop in the area, gave him some advice.

Mike Grimes said to me, Cory, it's like this. Take a box and start talking to people and write down everything they say and throw it in a box. And about every week, read what you got in the box, and the pieces start to come together. And he was right.

It sounds like it would not work. It sounds like the switching the car every day technique.

Here's what would make it work is if you put your hand in the box and drew out just one piece of paper.Right..

And then go arrest that person.Yeah..

And then just based on that, you had your suspect.

Until the box is full, and then what? Are you done when the box is full?

No, you have to get another box, get a second box. It seems like a fool's errand, because even Mike Grimes says people in Varnumtown won't talk. That was not an easy trick, getting a rat down there. They were a tough nut to break. It is just the tightness. You don't rat. You just don't wrap. So what does Dubaer do?

Well, there's not a lot of choice. He's got to try. So he wanders around Dale's compound until he's attacked by a turkey.

And then runs off. Exactly. That turkey did its job really well. True.

And in fact, Dubaer had a big decision to make right at the start of this investigation.

What was that?

Was he going to kill the turkey?

Didn't want to kill the turkey.

So the turkey survived. It lived to fight another day.

At least until Thanksgiving.

Okay. So Dupre tries driving a bunch of different cars into town, putting notes into a box, and getting harassed by a turkey. How did he finally make progress?

I spent about, I'd say I spent a month doing research on Dale as much as I could. Back then, there was no Internet, so I had to do it by foot and try to get people to talk to me and talk to some people he went to high school with. They said he was really a nice guy. They all said he was a nice guy that he'd give you the shirt off his back.

So he goes and talks to some high school friends.Putting.

Notes in a box.Right..

And these notes say that Dale is a great guy.

Right. But still, Duba feels like he's making progress because these friends of Dale's-Oh, by the way, they clearly know that this New York cop is wandering around asking about him. Right. Everybody knew that the cop was there. But still, Duba feels like he's making progress because everyone says the same thing about Dale's ambitions.

Dale wanted to be a big-time drug dealer. I got enough people to know that I was in the right direction.

All right. I feel like I'm learning a lot about police work here.

That's right. For example, what do you do when the suspect's friends say he is a big-time drug dealer? Well, the answer is you go knock on the guy's door.

Knocked on his door and told him that the train was about to leave. And did he want to get on the train or did he want to get run over by it?

Whoa. I didn't expect that. That is some badass New York City posturing, man.

My question is, what is the train?

What is he talking about? You know what? It doesn't even matter what the train is. It's just like, you're going to work with me on this or not? And if If you're not, then I'm going to kick your ass.

Where is the train going?

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I did not have a case made against him at that point, I guess you'd say, I took a shot. We were about to start an investigation and locking up people left and right, and you either want to be someone that's going to cooperate and minimize your exposure to prison, or you're going to spend the rest of your life in jail.

And what did Dale do?

He just folded.

He said, You got to help me because I can't go to prison because I can't do that. I won't make it in prison. I don't think people knew how soft he was. He was frightened, so frightened of going to prison. I think he thought that he'd be beaten, and he was so afraid of prison and so aware of what he had done. I'm pretty convinced that I was going to be the man that was going to prove it, that he cooperated quicker than anybody else. This is so crazy.

I mean, is it possible that there's something else going on here? Is Dale doing something to throw Duba off the trail, maybe implicate other people? Or is Dale and Varnumtown being told to fold by Escobar, so the feds will be distracted while Escobar moves on to another small town?

I like that idea that Escobar is just hopscotching across the US, from small town to small town. And when one gets burned, he just immediately moves on and tells that town to tie up the cops as much as possible. Right.

So How did it all go down? Well, Dale just started giving up names, left and right.

I'd wire him up where he would wear a voice recorder. So he did that. I'd say he did it a lot. Probably 50 times.

And once Dale started talking, he couldn't stop.

No question about it. Dale was very helpful as far as leading me in directions of people who are involved in trafficking narcotics. Dale probably gave me information on 400 people.

Four hundred people in a town of approximately 300.

Wait a minute. Something seems fishy, no? Don't you think? Dale is ratting out people that don't even exist? Do you think that's what's happening?

I like that idea. I like the idea that he's giving Duba fake names.

A hundred more than live in town.

Well, the information actually did lead Cory Duba to real people.

We arrested Close to 200 people.

Duba kept track of every case that Dale was part of, and in the end, Dale was charged, too.

He was looking at like 11 or 1,200 years with everything that I was able to connect him to.1,200.

Years?i know. Can you believe it? Talk about a lifetime sentence. Oh, my God. What's the point even of putting somebody in jail for more than 100 years?

I never got that. So how long did he actually go away for?

Well, you're not I'm not going to believe this, but Dale just walked. What? No jail time.

That's incredible, and I've got to say somewhat impressive.

The agents that were involved with him went to bed for him, including me. I gave Dale Varnum the biggest opportunity in his life.

Dale got zero time in jail after all he did. That's crazy.

I can't believe it. Why give somebody 1,200 years if then you're going to let them just walk with zero? It really doesn't make any sense. Now, here's where the story takes a turn. Duba has shown up in Varnumtown, right? He's a brand new agent. He's looking to make a name for himself. So he knocks on the door of one of North Carolina's largest cocaine dealers.

Well, all of his friends have told him he's the biggest dealer, right? At least in the visions.

And so this guy, Dale, just starts spilling names. For a new agent who's trying to make a name for himself, it's a dream come true. Yeah. And Duba begins to form a friendship with Dale.

I really thought he cared about my welfare. He had a big heart, so I thought I was doing the right thing. And now, in hindsight, I didn't do the right thing because he wasn't the type of person that deserved to have the right thing happen to After that initial meeting where Duba told Dale to get on the train-Yeah, whatever train it was.

Whatever train, they started spending a lot of time together, like a lot of time.

I can say I was with him five days a week for three years. I taught him that he had to have a driver's license. He didn't have a driver's license. I taught him how to tie a tie. I taught him how to eat properly. I taught him how to do everything that he should have known as a grown man, but he was lacking. I was like a father figure to him.

That doesn't seem like a normal cop-informant relationship to me, right? I just want to check in with you.

No, that's not what the handbook says, not what law enforcement recommends. But I can see how it's hard to avoid if you're trying to cultivate a source and if you're really, really close to them.

I don't know. Maybe it is recommended. Become like a father figure to your source. It certainly is going to hurt when the betrayal happens.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Hindsight's easy. And you learn about getting too close to informants. I mean, it's one of the things that they ring into your head. And I always knew I have to keep that line of personal life separate. But at the same time, the man was needy.

It seems to me that it triggered something in Duba That Duba felt like he couldn't say no. True. That, too. It hit some emotional thing for Cory Duba, such that Cory would open himself emotionally. When you're dealing with an informant, you have to work with them, but seemingly, you're not supposed to be emotional.

Takes a special person to do that, to keep that separate, though.

And it doesn't sound like Cory Duba was able to keep it separate. No.

He needed help in a lot of ways, and I couldn't turn my back on him at that point. I felt like he was helping me. I was doing something that was very important, so I was going to help him.

Dale started doing things for Duba, things that weren't quite right.

Drive up to my house, and Dale's car is in my driveway. And I got scared. I didn't know what the hell was going on. I didn't know he knew where I lived. Look in my backyard. He's painting my out building. And I said, What the hell are you doing? Because that's frowned upon, to say the least. It was not permissible. And he said, Well, I heard you talking to the other guys that you needed to paint your building, but you were going out of state, so I just thought I'd help you. I said, Get the hell out of here. You can't do this. Called my supervisor immediately. Look, I want to let you know. Got to my house with another agent. There he was. He meant it out of his heart. But you can't do things like that. That is improper.

It's confusing to hear Duba talk about Dale because he says that Dale Paul has a big heart that he was trying to be helpful. But then he says things like this.

He is not a stupid man at all. He's the best con man I've ever, ever engaged with.

Okay. So what was the con?

Duber explains it like this.

We'd eaten some food, and I got up and went to the bathroom. And when I got back, he had paid the check. And I said, What the hell did you do that for? You're not supposed to do that. You can't buy things for me. And he said, Well, I wasn't trying to hurt anything. All I was trying to do was pay the bills.

After cooperating with Duber and turning in hundreds of names, Dale had one last name to turn in. Can you guess? Cory Duber.

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It was like, Oh, what the hell do I do now? Do I go up to the register and say, Give him back his money?

Cory Duber wasn't sure how to respond when Dale Varnum paid for his lunch.

And then he used that. He told the investigator, said he would buy me things, which was so It was false. But did he buy me lunch that day? I guess he did, didn't he? So dangerous.

Duber was investigated for accepting things like the free lunch from Dale, but he was eventually cleared.

There's nothing worse than being accused of something you didn't do, and you have to sit back and watch it play itself out. It caused marital problems. It caused personal problems.

So what are we supposed to make of Dale Varnum? Dubaer has a strong opinion.

He is a dangerous, unique individual who will do whatever it takes at any given moment to get you to believe in him.

And you remember what Mike Grimes said about Dale in episode three?

He's a Charles Manson.

You know, Manson was a manipulator. He could manipulate people. And that's what Dale does. He walked away from 52 years in prison. He's really stupid, but he's got this gift of manipulation.

I think it's funny that the number of years that he was facing is always shifting. It's 1,200 years. It's 52 years. It doesn't really matter after a certain point.

It doesn't. After a certain point, it's all the same.

I guess the key point, though, is that he walked away with no time. Yeah.

I mean, what does this mean about the quality of Dale's information? If he ratted out his own handler using false information, what is the truth?

He had this plethora of stories that he liked to tell about things like being involved with Escobar. Yeah, it was all fictitious, but I didn't know that. I checked out every single one to see if there was validity or not, because Dale was a fabricator. Creator. He told stories of things that went on that never took place, which brings me to the conclusion that Dale was a façade of himself. That he was not this big dope dealer. Dale created a mystique about himself for gain in all facets: power, fear, money, womanizing. And he was able to create this facade. When he built that fort, it was like he was pissing in law enforcement's face. Catch me if you can. I got cameras and everything else. Dope dealers don't want to bring attention to themselves. You don't build a Ford around your own damn property. He built a mystique of being a bad ass dude. I spent more time going down the ladder than going up. My goal was to go up the ladder, to go after the importers and things like that. It just wasn't there. That's the mystique of Dale Varnum. But he did a good job at it.

He convinced everybody, including law enforcement.

And for a while, Dale made Cory Duber a hero.

I used to I used to get all these accolades, Oh, you got the biggest dope dealer in the world. I was the first person to say it wasn't that much dope. I was the first one.

Wait a second. Dale is full of shit?

It seems like sometimes he was and sometimes he wasn't.

He did move some cocaine. But in DEA, there's different level offenders. And in reality, Dale was a low-level offender. He was not a Class A offender.

I mean, people serve time in jail.

But it's almost like the whole we are the center of the drug dealing universe was just for fun, to create some drama in a small town.

Yeah, it was just something that made them feel important. And when it started to be less fun, they said, Well, forget it.

Let's call the whole thing off. Okay. And we'll just have Cory Duber bring it all down. Cory Duber says that Dale was small time, but one thing is clear, Dale Varnum became a complex local legend. We heard one story in particular from a number of people.

How many times we went to Disney World?

This is Amanda Varnum. Dale Varnum's daughter, and she was just a kid in the '80s. And SeaWorld was...

We went often, and he would make it up as if it was a family trip. Then later, we found out it was not a family trip.

He went to Florida to pick up, I think he said, five kilos of cocaine.

This is Kevin Holden, a local cop from the Varnum town area.

He needed a cover. It was in the summertime, so we went to his wife and his daughters with him. They were young as mom. And perfect cover on vacation. He gets down there, gets the cocaine, and then he said, Man, I didn't think this through. What am I going to do with this bag of cocaine? So I can't leave it in a motel or anywhere. So he said, I just took it with me. There I was walking around with five kilos of cocaine in a shoulder bag.

At Marine World? Yeah.

And they got this pool where you can pet dolphins. You go up and you can stick your hand in. Dolphins swimming around. So the kids and all was while they're petting the dolphins and everything. He said, I reached in there and I broke off a corner of one of them kilos like that. And you could buy fish. You just flip one of the dolphins would catch them. He said, I took that corner and I flicked it like that and that dolphin gated like that. He said, In just a minute, that thing started cutting flips and just doing all sorts of crazy stuff. And the animal trainers come out there in wet suits and got in the pool with it, and they opened the gate in the back and ushered it out of there.Oh.

He got the Dolphin high.

Yeah.

Next time on Varnumtown, it's time to confront the myth of Dale Varnum directly and go knock on his door. Is Is he a small-time crook, a folk hero, a major narco trafficker, a fabulous, or some combination of the above? Are you ready to confront the turkey, Kyle? The attack journey. That's right. Are you ready?

Absolutely not. I'm scared to death.

Varnumtown is produced by Epik magazine, Picture Perfect Federation, and Full Picture, in Association with Podcast One.

Special thanks go out to the residents of Varnumtown for telling their story, and to Lynn Betz, for her help.

The Epik team includes Harry Spitzer, Josh Levine, Frank Slo Disco, Melise Touserre, Dan O'Sullivan, and Lila Tuline.

Additional reporting by Keijin Higashibaba.

The Picture Perfect Federation team includes Patrick Waxberger, Ashley Stern, Tyler Nell, and Samina Martin.

The full picture squad is Desiree Gruber and Ann Walls. Frank Reina supported me during production. Original music composed by Jonna Bechtolk and Rob Kieswetter. Additional music provided by American Production Music, Epidemic Sound, and Premium Beats. Studio recordings took place at Silver Lake Recording Studios.