Chapter 4: The Door

When I went back and read old newspaper stories on Sheriff Thompson, there was another law enforcement officer whose name kept popping up.

A lead investigator for the DEA named Dale Stinson.

When I started asking about him, people like Rod Ponton, Robert Chambers' old lawyer, made it clear that Dale had a specific reputation.

Some federal law enforcement guys like that realize that they're there to hold the line and sort of make a presence and do what they can.

And some people think they can win the war on drugs.

And at the time, I think he was one of those.

He was a true believer he was going to keep fighting the war on drugs.

I wanted to meet that true believer.

And eventually, I did.

All right.

So, Dale, one thing I noticed, who is that behind you?

That's Clint Eastwood.

You don't recognize him? That's a Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world.

Dale, like Rod Ponton, is one of those guys whose office walls are kind of a monument to their lives, lined with memorabilia, photographs, tchotchkes.

And in Dale's office, Clint Eastwood was one of the hardest things to ignore.

He's grimacing at you while sticking a pistol in your face.

On a poster for a Dirty Harry movie.

The series about a vigilante cop pursuing his own brand of justice when wimpy bureaucrats and weak laws aren't up to the task.

Do you feel lucky? Why do you have a

picture of Dirty Harry on your wall? Just for old time's sake, I've got a picture of...

Kiki Camarena on the

wall up there too, the Time Magazine cover.

The man on the Time Magazine cover would play a key role in the lives of some of Monroe's friends in Mexico and in the story of Robert Chambers and Rick Thompson because his life and death had a colossal impact on the whole story of the war on drugs.

Dale and Kiki met in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1984, when they were both DEA agents, working with the Mexican Federal Police on drug enforcement.

We had an operation going on where we were trying to identify the heroin labs and the marijuana grows.