Some suspects were linked to illegal activity in Canada and Nebraska.
The resulting case therefore crossed several layers of law enforcement: local conservation officers, state authorities, federal agencies and Canadian wildlife officials.
For investigators, cooperation between agencies was essential.
A deer killed illegally in one jurisdiction could become evidence in another.
A photograph taken on a cellphone could become part of a federal investigation.
And a message sent from one state could help investigators establish what happened somewhere else.
Part 7 — The Investigation Becomes a Major Conservation Case
By the time the investigation reached its later stages, authorities had accumulated an extraordinary number of allegations.
The Missouri Department of Conservation reported more than 300 charges filed in state, federal and international jurisdictions.
In Missouri alone, information from the investigation tied 14 residents to more than 230 charges across 11 counties.
The scale of the case required coordination among investigators in multiple locations.
On July 11, 2016, approximately 100 state, federal and Canadian wildlife officers participated in simultaneous interviews involving suspects and other persons of interest.
The goal was not simply to make arrests.
Investigators were attempting to reconstruct years of wildlife violations.
That meant identifying animals, locations, weapons, photographs, communications and relationships between suspects.
It was painstaking investigative work.
And much of it depended on information supplied by ordinary members of the public.
The Missouri Department of Conservation's Operation Game Thief program played an important role in providing information about wildlife violations.
The program allows people to report suspected poaching, including anonymously, and rewards may be available for information leading to enforcement action.
In a case this large, public cooperation could become just as important as forensic evidence.
Part 8 — The Courtroom and the Return of the Bambi Sentence
By 2018, the investigation had produced multiple convictions and penalties.
David Berry Jr. pleaded guilty to illegally taking wildlife.
In December 2018, Lawrence County Judge Robert E. George sentenced him to one year in jail.
Then came the unusual condition.
Berry was ordered to watch Bambi once a month while incarcerated.
The first viewing was required by December 23.
The sentence was immediately picked up by national and international media.
Smithsonian Magazine reported that the judge's order was added after Berry violated the terms of probation.
The timing was deliberate enough to make the symbolism unmistakable.
In Bambi, the young deer loses his mother after she is shot by a hunter.
For a man convicted of illegally killing deer, the connection was obvious.
The judge reportedly expressed the hope that the famous scene would make Berry think about the consequences of his actions.
But the legal meaning of the sentence was less straightforward.
Could watching a Disney movie actually change someone's behavior?
Could a judge use an unconventional requirement as part of a criminal sentence?
And was the order intended primarily as rehabilitation, symbolism or something else?
Those questions generated debate among legal observers.
Smithsonian cited legal commentary questioning the boundaries of creative judicial punishments and whether such measures were genuinely rehabilitative.
Whatever its legal significance, the sentence accomplished one thing immediately:
Everyone started talking about poaching.
Part 9 — Seven Months of Bambi
The popular version of the story sometimes suggests that Berry spent an entire year watching Bambi every month.
The official Missouri Department of Conservation record provides a more precise account.
Berry Jr. served approximately seven months of his one-year Lawrence County jail sentence.
According to MDC, he watched Bambi once a month during those seven months.
The department later noted that the movie was shown to him in the jail's recreation room.
After approximately seven months, Berry was released from the county jail.