Cynthia Beebe - Boots in the ashes : busting bombers, arsonists and outlaws as a trailblazing female ATF agent

RON PETKUS WAS AS BAD A MAN as I ever investigated as an ATF agent. He was an enforcer for the Hells Henchmen Outlaw Motorcycle Club, now a part of the Hells Angels. He told me on his deathbed in prison that he had murdered forty-six people. Bloodshed and violence were his profession, and he was good at it.

Petkus had two nicknames. He was tagged with Stupid when he shot himself in the butt with a shotgun as a young man. He always denied it to me, but that was the story. His other nickname, the one I saw provoke not fear but terror, was Big Ron. And Big Ron was laughing uncontrollably in the backseat of my car.

In the spring of 1994, I worked with a team of ATF agents to arrest Ron Petkus on charges of attempted murder in the first degree, arson, and possession of an incendiary device. Petkus and another Hells Henchman, Melon, had blown up a car, intending to murder the wife of a prominent Chicago criminal defense attorney, Richard Kagan. Kagan had hired Petkus to kill his wife, Margaret, because she was contesting their divorce and delaying his marriage to his younger girlfriend.

Petkus and Melon had followed Margaret Kagan for weeks trying to shoot her with a silenced .25 caliber pistol but neither one could get a clear shot. So Petkus decided to blow up her car instead. He built a powerful bomb out of sweating, degraded dynamite, which has a yellowish, waxy look to it and makes the weapon highly unstable. A booby traptriggering mechanism would detonate the explosive device when the car moved.

When the fateful day came, the two men, who knew where Margaret would be, saw her park her car in a train station parking lot. After they watched her depart on her train, they attached the deadly device underneath her sedan, unobserved. When she returned to her vehicle later that day, Margaret put the car in reverse and touched the accelerator. The resulting explosion was massive, destroying her heavy automobile and shooting shrapnel, flames, and choking smoke through the sedan. Remarkably, Margaret Kagan survived the devastating blast almost unscathed.

As the lead investigator, I worked for months with an excellent team to build the case against Richard Kagan, Ronald Petkus, and Melon. While I had no doubt Richard Kagan was ultimately responsible for the attempted murder of his wife, I had to prove it. And I needed Petkuss cooperation to make the case against Kagan airtight. After several months of hard work, we obtained enough evidence to get an arrest warrant for Ron Petkus.

We arrested Petkus on a beautiful April afternoon, just a few minutes after he drove away from the Hells Henchmens clubhouse in Chicago. He was in the passenger seat of a compact white pickup truck that was driving through a neighborhood of brick houses and small businesses on the near southwest side of Chicago. I was in the passenger seat of the car following right behind him, with at least a dozen additional units right behind us. I couldnt help laughing as we tailed Petkus because he was so huge that the little white truck leaned heavily to his side as they sped alongtruly a Big Ron.

We came to a four-way stop at a quiet intersection. I decided to arrest him there rather than risk them getting to a busy street and radioed to my team that we were taking him down now. We peeled out into the intersection and pulled in front of the truck, boxing him in with cop cars in front and back. I jumped out of my car, sprinted to Petkus, and stuck my black .40 caliber pistol in his face through the lowered front window of his pickup. I grabbed him by his T-shirt and yelled, Police! Get out of the car! He opened the door without hesitation, and I dragged him facedown onto the ground. Agents swarmed around us. I told Petkus he was under arrest for attempted murder in the first degree while I worked to cuff him. True to his name, he was so big I needed three sets of handcuffs to fasten his hands behind his massive back. I searched him and pulled a loaded six-shot .38 caliber revolver from the back right-hand pocket of his jeans.

Together with several other agents, I was able to bring Petkus to his feet, walk him over to my government sedan, and secure him in the backseat. I got into the front seat and turned to look at him. I told him who I was and asked him about the revolver in his back pocket. He calmly told me that if hed known I was a cop, he would have shot me.

No, you wouldnt, I told him, because I would have shot you first.

To my surprise, Petkus burst out laughing. I knew he meant what he said, and he knew I meant what I said. And based on our mutual willingness to shoot each other, we built a highly productive professional relationship.

In my twenty-seven years as a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, I investigated many sinister bad guys. Ronald Petkus and Richard Kagan are just one story out of many that shaped my unusual career.