Last updated on 2022-04-11
We have noted previously Hyde County Sheriff Mike Volek’s seemingly shocking lack of curiosity at the scene of Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg’s car crash on the night of September 12, 2020, the crash in which distracted driver Ravnsborg killed Joseph Boever. After sending Ravnsborg back to Pierre with the Sheriff’s personal vehicle, and while waiting for the tow truck from Black Hills Towing to arrive from Pierre, Sheriff Volek saw a glowing light in the ditch, but instead of investigating closely, assumed it was a light from Ravnsborg’s car.
Quick check: how many of us have lights on our cars that remain illuminated when they detach from our cars? I have enough trouble with lights that don’t stay illuminated while attached to my car. If I’m standing at the scene of a car crash, and if, more than half an hour after the wreck, I see something glowing in the ditch, I’m not going to think, Oh, one of the car’s lights came off, and it’s still lit. I’m going to think, What the heck is that light? Did something from the car set some grass on fire? Is that a phone or something? I’d better go look!
Ravnsborg’s chief of staff, Tim Bormann, who followed Ravnsborg back to the scene of the crime the next morning to give Ravnsborg a ride back to Pierre after he returned Volek’s car, was with Ravnsborg on Highway 14 when Ravnsborg called him over and pointed to the body that he said he’s just discovered in the grass at the edge of the road, the body of Joe Boever. Bormann was thus the second person known to have seen the body. In his interview with North Dakota law enforcement the next day, Monday, September 14, at 3:20 p.m. in Pierre, Bormann did not mention seeing Boever’s flashlight, the flashlight Boever was carrying, illuminated in his hand, at the time Ravnsborg killed him, the flashlight Sheriff Volek hadn’t investigated the night before, the flashlight that investigators have said was lying near his body, still lit, when they arrived on the scene on Sunday. But Bormann did say he shared our sense that Sheriff Volek did not show sufficient professional interest in investigating the crime scene:
A personal observation from my point, I sort of, wondered at how Sheriff Volek handled things on Saturday night. Um, as a former neighbor in Faulk County, knowing my sheriff at that time, we knew Mike. He’s been sheriff in Hyde County for a long time. He gets reelected because, the joke is, he won’t apply more law than Hyde County will take. But, I sort of wondered if everything about when, when Jason’s like, well he lent me his vehicle, sent me home, I was like, o.k., did, you know, I understand dark night, might be a car-deer, you don’t know, but, you look for something, and I think it just drove it home more to me on Sunday morning, when it’s like, we’re the last people who should have found the body [Tim Bormann, interview with North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation Special Agents Joe Arenz and Arnie Rummel, 2020.09.14, transcribed from video, timestamp 23:20].
But Sheriff Volek’s wasn’t wholly lacking in curiosity that night. In his report, before noting the largely uninteresting and easily dismissed light glowing in the ditch 50 yards behind Ravnsborg’s car, Sheriff Volek writes more about the unlit Ford F150 in the ditch ahead of Ravnsborg’s car:
Volek included 24 pictures of the Ford F150 in his report, several apparently taken that night while he waited for the tow truck:
Sheriff Volek recorded more detail in his report about the white Ford F150 than he did about the flashlight. Volek wrote more about the truck than he did about the actual dead body discovered the next morning:
Maybe Volek took pictures of the body as well, and maybe those photos were redacted from the publicly released investigation file. But the report as presented online shows no indication of redaction.
Sheriff Volek showed more curiosity about a vehicle abandoned in the ditch well ahead of the site of the crash than he showed in an unusual light at the edge of the road amidst the trail of crash debris, a light which he dismissed with an illogical explanation. Sheriff Volek wasn’t incapable of applying his curiosity to the scene of a car crash. But that night, he lived up to Bormann’s assessment, making sure he didn’t apply more curiosity than the Attorney General would take.
Chief of Staff Bormann’s assemment of Sheriff Volek, “he won’t apply more law than Hyde County will take”, is spot on. Volek was a very lazy sheriff, did as little as possible and went out of his way to avoid having to file forms or do paperwork. I’ve known Volek for decades and don’t for a minute believe his statement that he saw the flashlight the night of the crash, I don’t believe he walked the shoulder of the road with a flashlight looking for anything. What I think he did that night was sit in his car with the flashers on waiting for the wrecker to show up and haul Ravnsborg’s car back to Pierre. Later the next day he concocted his lie that he walked the scene seeing nothing and when asked about the flashlight quickly made up the lie that he saw it but figured it was a lightbulb detached from Ravnsborg’s car.
I don’t believe one damn thing about Volek’s account of his actions that night. The next day things went downhill for him in a hurry and his lies became more and more outlandish as he became aware of and was asked about crash details, and tried to cover his ass and keep from looking like the disinterested, lazy officer he was.
Yes, Nick, having grown up in a town of a thousand people and having known the county sheriff well, I’d say your assessment is correct. In that environment, the county sheriff guards against cattle thievery and, through networks of informal contacts, tries to retrieve those cows for the rightful owner. They clean up the mess of various domestic disputes. and try to keep track of who’s living with who. They try to stay out of court as they are inexpert in the way of the law, and prefer not to be under oath. Another important job is to keep an eye on the welfare of any number of functioning alcoholics in the community and assist when necessary if they veer beyond the parameters of allowed behavior. A small town tends to enable alcoholics in their disease by providing enough supports for them to get from day to day. The Sheriff helps out when necessary, but addiction to alcohol is not treated as a law enforcement issue on the local level. In fact, the two county sheriffs I knew as a kid were both heavy drinkers themselves.
Just stop, Nick. You are getting tiring with your obsession with this. Make more enemies in Highmore I guess. I’m not the one that has to live there, but it is not good to be so full of anger and resentment and Boever’s siblings, some of them, want you to stop.
Joe Boever’s siblings are more important in this story than Nick Nemec, They have wanted Nick to back off months ago. I am just speaking up for them. I don’t know why that bothers you guys.
Jenny, I think the topic is on the wackadoodle sheriff and his laziness that allowed all of this in the first place. Had he done his damn job, Ravnsborg would be in jail while you and Evans could move in and cuddle on some other topic.
Awww, Jerry you old rascal. That is actually kinda funny but please stay on topic.
Racnsborg would never have seen an inside of a jail. The Pubs would have made sure of that.
There is enough anger to go around but like I say, Boever’s siblings and most of his cousins just want this sad story to end so they don’t have to see it on the news anymore. It is just continual trauma for them when everytime they turn around there is yet another story or news article on their beloved brother.
Don’t be mad at me, be mad at your one party corrupt system you have in South Dakota.
Jenny, no member of Joe Boever’s family, widow, siblings, cousins or otherwise has ever told me to stop talking about Jason Ravnsborg, his actions, his reprehensible behavior and his refusal to accept responsibility. His widow, several siblings and numerous cousins have thanked me for helping keep the light of publicity turned on.
You complain about South Dakota and the “one party corrupt system” in South Dakota every chance you get, yet when you have an opportunity to help do something about it you instead attack me and side with those who apologize for the man who killed Joe Boever.
The Ravnsborg/Boever stories will continue because the story is not over.
Nick, some in Joe’s family have no desire to speak to you.
I certainly have my hopes up that once the vote to imimpeach is lost on Tuesday that the storm will calm down.
Do not put words in my mouth. I am not apologizing for anyone. Let the extremes of the right wing have their bizarre beliefs. You are never ever going to change them otherwise.
Do not get mad at me for commenting on SDs rampant corruption. I have every right to as much as anyone. It is disturbing and am glad I left like so many other Democrats. I meet fellow Democrats from SD here in MN all the time and we all say we are so glad we left and just shake our heads at what SD has become. 😔
Ms. Jenny, I agree with you that many more will Take A Walk like that Mr. Odenbach fellow did. Chicken from their duties, and fail to appear on the floors on the legislatures and cast down a vote. By Taking A Walk they are voting to not impeach, or more accurately they are too chicken to appear on the floors and let the public know where they stand.
And those fellows who stand with Mr. Ravnsborg will no doubt be subjected to a whole bunch of public scrutiny.
Who could have thunk that a few years ago an inept and incompetent fellow would be elected to the General Attorney position and still have a chance in Satan’s Kitchen to keep his job? Not Bob, not Lar, and for sure not grudznick.
I believe Sheriff Volek filed an honest report admitting an honest mistake.
On the day before the crash, Joe had a prescription filled with 90 pills of the psychotropic drug lorazepam, which can cause suicidal ideations. The prescribed dosage was up to three pills per day. There were 12 pills left after the crash.
On the evening of the crash, Joe drove his truck into a bale beside the highway hard enough to force the grill guard back into the grill. Neither he nor the cousin who picked him up reported that crash.
Joe left town on foot after dark, didn’t ask anyone for a ride, declined a ride offered by a passing motorist, and never told anyone why he was out there.
Joe’s impact with the right side of the car would have angled it from the driving lane to the shoulder, or from the shoulder to the ditch, unless Jason was already steering back to the left when it occurred.
Jason says he was in the driving lane, he hadn’t set the cruise control yet, he looked down at the speedometer, he heard a sudden bang, and he fought to see through the shattered windshield and keep the car on the pavement.
It still seems to me that Joe probably dove onto the hood in the driving lane to commit suicide, and that the collision on the shoulder probably happened as Jason steered back to the left, when Joe’s right leg slid off the front of the hood.
What evidence supposedly contradicts that scenario?
How does Craig Price claim to know that Joe was “walking” during the collision on the shoulder?
How does Price claim to know that there was no prior collision in the driving lane?
The people who saw Joe’s flashlight that night describe a dim glow, but in any case, how does Price claim to know that it wasn’t switched off before the crash and switched back on by the crash and its aftermath?
How could an initial collision on the shoulder have been violent enough to separate Joe from his lower leg but not violent enough to separate him from his glasses?
If Joe’s leg was amputated when his body went onto the car rather than when it slid off, why wasn’t there any blood on the hood?
The investigators have said the passenger side mirror was broken off. Was it?
The investigators have said there was bone scrape in the rumble strip. Was there?
The investigators have said they refused to administer a lie detector test because it likely would have said Jason was lying even if he was telling the truth. What if it had said he was telling the truth?
I remain astonished that the ND forensic fellows don’t pay you for your analysis, Mr. Dale.
Or…do they?
Not sure i understand, as I thought the only purpose for such blog posts is truth, justice and holding constitutionally elected officers accountable for the duties to which that office requires.
Ms. Schaffer, grudznick doesn’t understand either. Bloggings don’t hold any truth, justice, or accountability for constitutionally elected fellows, as they are but bloggings. Bloggings are but bloggings.
Kurt Evans is displaying the same obstinance he has displayed throughout this entire saga. Just because Ravnsborg say he thought he was on the road doesn’t mean he was. He is either such an inattentive driver he didn’t hear all four tires crossing the rumble strips or he is straight up lying. Joe had beyond therapeutic but non lethal levels of lorazepam in his blood, this make the suicide leap claim even more improbable. 55 year old men don’t make 11ft standing broad jumps. All I can say is read the report, watch the briefing. And for heaven sake stop the conspiracy BS. If you believe the investigators made stuff up out of whole cloth just say it.
Nick Nemec writes to me:
I believe that Craig Price and John Berndt made stuff up out of whole cloth.
And the North Dakota investigators seem arrogant and gullible.
At some point will Craig Price be required to report how many hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars he’s spent on in-kind campaign contributions for Kristi Noem and Marty Jackley?
And how did the people behind the billboard targeting state representatives know to include Scott Odenbach before the Ravnsborg report was public?
grudznick said, on more than one occasion:
Mr. Evans none of your speculation changes the fact that investigators from two states found blood splatter from a severed right leg on the very edge of the road shoulder.
Nick Nemec writes to me:
Yes, that’s probably where Joe’s leg slid off the front of the hood as Jason struggled to keep the car on the pavement.
They also found blood on the bottom of the car, but none on the hood, as if the amputation occurred when Joe’s body was sliding off the car rather than going onto it.
The crazy comments regarding Joe Boever and Nick Nemec are unbelieveable!!
Don’t lament the sad state of affairs in South Dakota. Don’t spout crazy conspiracy theories!
DO SOMETHING! (Don’t troll )
If there is not accountability on Tuesday on the impeachment vote—THEN DO SOMETHING!
Start a BLOG, run for office, register 5 or 10 new voters, start a coffee or juice club and meet every week and encourage and inspire each other!!
Do you think Elon Musk launched rockets into space by talking? Or DOING and being ALL IN?
You all should be ALL IN!
If Ravnsborgg gets impeached Tuesday, great, there’s the beginning of accountability!
All you people who SMACK your lips and say. Oh I moved to Minnesota…. Well, look at the black people killed by police in a Democratic city–Minneapolis-St. Paul !!!!
Stop SMACKING your lips! Do something good, and the good will multiply, it ALWAYS DOES!
Joe Boever was just a guy trying to make his life better and absolutely making life better for plants and people.
Nick Nemec is just a guy trying to find justice for his cousin.
Trollers, you must be ridiculous at your keyboards.
Like Cory does, start a blog, let’s start an online Newspaper for Kadoka, which is losing theirs.
We can start a Blog called Impeach the NonImpeachers (if House does not impeach), and we the people can Impeach much faster than
Lag-islators do– we can remove them from office every 2 years!!
A lot of you guys sound frustrated by complaining about the Republicans, and complaining does not build ANYTHING!
You can complain for the next 8 years, and in 2030, you will have NOTHING.
Build SOMETHING GOOD!
It is the best way we can pay tribute to the good life of Joe Boever.
If some of you guys don’t want to INSPIRE and ENCOURAGE all of us,
why are you on this blog then?
To spread negativity?
We will DO GOOD!
I agree with ABC and will follow you to Kadoka to take over the Kadoka Press. When will you leave ABC, to get that job started and publishing? On to Kadoka, you wild and crazy bloggers!! Maybe, ABC, you can get Evans and Jenny there too, their byline will be “Peas and Carrots” in the fiction section, this is gonna be great!!
If I go, I would like to get Sara Frankenstein as an editor for the positive side of the Native News portion of the paper. Maybe Joop to write about the financial aspects of foreign investing in EB5 along with law and order. Marina Butima to write about the outdoors, while finding political lovers in the wilds of South Dakota, compared to the duds in Mother Russia! John Thune to write about his love of Russia and it’s current president, for the travel segment. Yes, the possibilities are endless.
Also, an important segment from Ravnsborg titled “How I did it and got away with it”. This will be a series of course, with a follow up called “Impeachment Threat, and how to make it politically successful”.
Nick, you and Tim Bormann make clear that Volek was a lazy sheriff. Another document in the investigation file notes that on Sunday, September 13, the day the body was finally officially reported and state law enforcement came to investigate, Sheriff Volek asked when the investigators would be done so they could open the highway again, suggesting his concern was more about the inconvenience that the investigation was causing for everyone than for finding all the evidence and figuring out what happened.
But he seems to have been less lazy about checking out the white pickup truck. How do his longer writing about the truck and all those photos fit into your analysis of the situation?
Nick, Dr. Linde does not do computers however he is a voracious reader. He sends his support and gives me hope when he talks about the old days of the Democratic Party in S.D. and the top names included you.
Everyone we know around here wants “Justice for Joe” so thank you Nick and Cory for your persistence.
The small minded, small town, stubborn, social meddling, “my point of view is right no matter what any facts might say, and I will repeat – repeat – repeat” attitudes of Jenny and Kurt is what really drive people away from SD. The state is full of them. They see society as strictly a contest of wills, and nothing more. There are no underlying moral or ethical principles – nor underlying scientific discipline – it’s all just will power.
Gotta love the one dingus who comes on here claiming to be the arbiter of truth, completely ignoring what the experts concluded based on available evidence and their training. Then, that same dingus outright accusses them of lying under the guise of “just asking questions.”
Thanks for having a monopoly on the truth, Kurt. If you can come up with ANY explanation, Ravnsborg must be innocent.
Jenny and Kurt are making two very different arguments. Please do not mingle the two.
My head is starting to hurt trying to sort everything out. What a tangled web we weave when we travel at night for Republican “fundraisers.” Driving at night is a dicey matter by itself. It is Monday morning and I expected maybe sudden bulletin of Mr. R. resigning, as he would finally come under tons of pressure to do so, to save SD the embarrassment of proceedings going forward. We’ll get the national media out here, as they traverse Flyoverland. It is a sordid, depressing matter. Many legislators will have a hard time swallowing their pride, as they realize the impeachment measure should have been exercised long ago. Stop and think: If Donald Trump were to assess this matter, his first comment would probably be “there’s a bunch of Democrats at the DPS.” Four years of his presidency has normalized such talk or thinking.
But don’t be distracted from the evidence in Sheriff Volek’s report that he spent a lot more time checking the white pickup in the ditch than he did Ravnsborg’s car or obvious impact zone, where a body lay with a lit flashlight. Even after seeing the body, Sheriff Volek filed a report with more detail about the truck than about what he saw when Jason and Tim showed him the body. Why did Volek pay so little attention to the most important evidence at the scene?
Nick Nemec is not the person keeping this story in the news, Jason Ravnsborg is. If Ravnsborg would accept responsibility for his actions and resign, he and Joe Boever would become asterisks in the South Dakota history books and be quickly forgotten. …
Jeez Kurt Evans, if I ever get in serious trouble with the law, since I’m not an Attorney General or anything like that. Would you be on my jury?
Nick, I applaud your tenacity in pursuing justice which has been circumvented by spineless cowards in and out of the state legislature. You are honoring the public promise you made to see to it that Ravnsborg is hounded out of public office and eventually brought to justice, a goal which the South Dakota legal system has been incapable of doing. If you are successful, all South Dakotans would benefit. One party rule has had its systemic wickedness on full display throughout this 19-month ordeal.
Those of us who know of your service as a U.S. Marine officer, a family farm activist, a S.D. Legislator and South Dakota’s Democratic National Committeeman are aware of your high personal character and sense of compassion and decency toward others.
…Nick has, correctly, in my opinion, tried to shine the light on (an unfortunate, but accurate, metaphor) a simpering, professionally inadequate, obsequious little toad who sucked his way into an office for which he had no credentials, and who killed a man while being inattentive on the highway.
Come on folks, an Attorney General runs into a man while driving. Gets away it. Has simple minded dweebs defending him. What kind of… state is South Dakota? Next Ravsborg will run for Governor. It’s laughable.
…Getting back to Sheriff Volek and his lack of investigative skills, it occurred to me that on that night after Ravnsborg has driven off in his car, he sees the white pick up and investigates its ownership…the pickup is badly dented and well into the ditch and has apparently struck a round bale. So now the Sheriff has a badly damaged Taurus, on the highway, a dented up pick up in the ditch,the Attorney General of South Dakota reporting hitting a deer, no dead or injured deer in sight, , and , the body of a local fella he knew well in the ditch illuminated by a small flashlight. He may or may not have seen the flashlight (hard to miss…he did see it but says he failed to check it out. ) Did he also see the body (hard to miss, by all accounts, but the Sheriff isn”t in an investigating mood). The body lays there all night to be discovered the next day by Ravnsborg. Then Sheriff Volek swings into action, telling Ravnsborg to commit his story to writing (??), dismisses him, and calls for the DCI and Highway Patrol. He is still puzzled by the pick up. Perhaps Sheriff Volek believes he’s been transported to an episode of Twin Peaks. There is a small town habit of “let’s just leave well enough alone.”…Perhaps that’s what the Sheriff is thinking. Let the others sort this out.
Volek was just passing the time so he took more pics than usual of the Pickup.
Arlo Blundt, good points about Sheriff Volek. Ravnsborg reports hitting something and his vehicle is so damaged that he is unable to drive it the 48 miles to Pierre. After loaning him a vehicle and sending Ravnsborg on his way Sheriff Volek discovers a pickup in the ditch with no driver in sight. Eventually he figures out who the owner of the pickup is but doesn’t attempt to find him. It was turning out to be a busy night, the sheriff just wanted to go back to bed. A lazy, incurious, good old boy, small town sheriff’s life of providing his county only as much law enforcement as they can stand is quickly crashing in around him. Had he conducted a search for the missing pickup truck driver he might have found Joe hours sooner. Joe would have still been dead, but might have been spared the indignity of laying in a road ditch for over 21 hours.
[Editor’s Note: I am editing the family dispute out of this post. I want to focus the discussion on Sheriff Volek, the crime scene, and other matters of public interest. I want to take no position on the family dispute that has popped here other than to say it is none of my business, it is none of anyone else’s business, and it most definitely should not be discussed in public on the eve of impeachment. —CAH]
Arlo, I’m not sure Sheriff Volek would have gotten the Twin Peaks reference.
Tomorrow the House will consider impeachment. I will do the same thing I have done everytime the issue of the impeachment of Jason Ravnsborg has been before the Legislature or Jason Ravnsborg has had a court date, I will attend.
Thank you, Cory for taking out the family dispute comments. I appreciate it
In reference to this sheriff’s laziness and the restraining order I was requesting, he did direct me to Hughes county when he was fully capable of assisting me in Hyde County. That event occurred months before the JB incident. When my daughter was side swiped on the driver’s side of her car when turning left at the major intersection near Holabird he did not issue the other driver a citation. Our insurance claim was denied because of it. I presented Volek with the state statute and then presented the case to the state insurance commissioner. I have no clue as to whether a citation was ever issued but the driver at fault’s insurance finally did cover it.
I guess that’s the price you pay with living in Deep Republican Territory, MJ, a Duke’s of Hazzard mentality, just a good old boy!
To be fair, corrupt and racist law enforcement is a problem all over the country. We learned that with Minneapolis with Trump thug Bob Kroll being head ol the police Union there for years when he should have been outed right away for protecting bad cops.
South Dakota gets the booby prize for electing the biggest loser AG of all though.
Ravnsborg would have gotten a couple thousand votes is all in MN, if even that much.