Was it a hoax? 4 accused in illegal Ohio hunt of 18-point deer
What end deer hunter Christopher J. Alexander foresaw in November when he reported the buck whose pinups drew raves couldn’t have been this one.
The tale Alexander related at the time hinted at fortune, not ruin. At fame, not infamy. A tangle of facts sometimes intrudes.
The story of the potential Ohio record buck hasn’t reached an end exactly. An indictment is only a charge. That holds true when even 23 charges and a grand jury are involved, as occurred early this month.
A Clinton County court ultimately will adjudicate the matter of guilt.
What Alexander, 28, of Wilmington, is accused of by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office boils down to felony fraud and to misdemeanor hunting violations, some of which are tied to more than a single deer.
But it was a single deer that commanded attention.
Mike Rex, an experienced measurer of antlers, an officer in the Buckeye Big Buck Club, and a longtime and successful hunter of trophy whitetails, took a close look soon after the Nov. 9 kill and declared, “It was the biggest set of antlers I’ve ever held in my hand.”
With only the slightest of reservations, Rex said in December he would support Alexander’s 18-point buck as a state record when in January a panel of measurers officially would put tape to the typical, that is, symmetrical rack.
Neither Rex nor most interested people at the time pondered reasons to doubt Alexander’s story about a surprise late-afternoon encounter with a distant deer carrying epic antlers on property his sister, Kristina Alexander, had only recently acquired.
The deer, Alexander said, seemed to be pursuing a doe when it fortuitously ambled to within about 7 yards of the tree stand and the waiting crossbow.
“I knew he was a giant,” the hunter said. “I didn’t know he might be a record.”
A few weeks after the kill, Alexander confided that he’d already been offered $20,000 for the antlers but was holding out until the official scoring. He said was willing to take the risk because the antlers might fetch $100,000 if determined to be a record.
The possibility that a giant buck could have been roaming the countryside not far from Wilmington unknown or unphotographed did seem unlikely in an age of preseason antler scouting and in-season trail cameras.
That Alexander’s chance deer had drawn attention and interest before its demise seemed unavoidable. And thus was the case.
The big buck generously had showed up for semiregular public viewing at a local cemetery. Its head and antlers mounted on some hunter’s wall wasn’t on the wish list of many who’d come to appreciate the deer’s stately presence among them.
How the Ohio Division of Wildlife was alerted hasn’t been revealed, but an investigation begun in December uncovered evidence that led to the indictments.
According to Attorney General David Yost's office, Alexander claimed that the deer was shot and killed on the land owned by his sister, where he had written permission to hunt. However, an investigation by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which obtained a warrant for Alexander's cellphone data, found that deer was illegally hunted on private property 10 miles from his sister's land.
Alexander staged the deer taking at his sister’s property, according to Yost's office, with the help of Corey Haunert and his brother, Zachary Haunert, to conceal the poaching. The written permission presented to wildlife officers was likewise falsified.
ODNR's investigation also found that Corey Haunert aided Alexander in poaching deer on multiple occasions, according to Yost's office.
Charges against Alexander include three felony counts of theft by deception and one felony count of tampering with evidence. Hunting violations, all misdemeanors, include multiple counts of hunting deer without written permission, taking possession of a deer in violation of a division rule, hunting without a license and hunting deer without a valid permit. Single counts include jacklighting, theft, falsification and sale of wildlife parts.
Corey Haunert, 29, of Hillsboro, was indicted on a felony charge of tampering with evidence and on misdemeanor charges including four counts of aiding a wildlife offender, two counts of hunting without permission and a single count of falsification.
Kristina Alexander, 37, of Blanchester, and Zachary Haunert, 31, of Lebanon, face two misdemeanor counts.
Contributing: Chad Murphy, Cincinnati Enquirer
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio hunting: 4 accused in illegal hunt of record 18-point deer
