the troopers were stuck with a drug case and the cash how much money do you think that is I don't even know make sure you keep your recorder on in your car just leave it on that way there won't be ever any question about about anything honestly I've never I've never got this much currency where I'm dealing with it myself so I just want to make sure it's new nobody's saying that we doing any funny stuff [Music] on July 29 2021 Corporal Matthew Nix was called in and told that his help was needed to log evidence Nix was the evidence technician for the South Carolina Highway Patrol and was used to such calls this one was almost expected since the department was conducting a routine roadblock and Nix knew it was likely his Services would be needed more than once before the event ended still the amount of money that had been confiscated was surprising 4 899 bills totaling 110 482 dollars Nix along with three other officers had to sort and count the money until their tallies matched before they could leave by nearly four in the morning the exhausted men agreed on the total and Nix put the money in the safe all seem well until a call from the bank came saying that there was a discrepancy of over three thousand dollars Nix and Welsh were immediately placed on suspension until an external investigation could be completed all right [Music] good morning I can just introduce myself my name is Jacqueline Goss I work with the state law enforcement division today's date is August 9th and the times approximately 9 34. now before we get started there's a fund I need to go over with you policy since this is an investigation I'm going to go through it with you and as I go through these blocks if you would initial if you understand those okay all right I understand this is an investigation to determine whether any criminal laws have been violated [Music] I understand acknowledge that this is not an internal administrative or disciplinary inquiry I understand acknowledge that I have not been compelled or coerced to give a statement or answer any questions regarding this matter I understand acknowledge that my cooperation with this investigation is freely and voluntarily given all right where it says sign if you would please sign your name for me all right if you would please State your first name for me Matthew and your middle name Raymond will you spell that for me r-a-y-m-o-n-d and your last name Nicks Nix what's your date of birth do you go by Matthew do you get my man what is a good contact number for you now all right can you tell me who you're currently employed with uh South Carolina Highway Patrol and how long have you been with South Carolina Patrol 16 years as of this past July and what is your current rank cool in which area are you assigned to the central evidence facility how long have you done that uh November will be two years tell me a little bit about the central evidence facility what exactly is that we intake all evidence from all the the divisions of the Department of Public Safety which is Highway Patrol State transport police the beer protective services and until recently the immigration unit which now falls under sled they got taken over so all right so you you're over HP and what were the other transport and BPS Nix is responsible for any evidence seized from a vehicle or suspect this can range from money drugs and weapons to personal possessions some of the evidence is not what one would typically expect all right let's do this deal with name it just an idea a lot of emotionally uh for like DUI evidence blood and urine samples we collect them send them to sled to get analyzed and then when sled gets done they come back to us and we house them until we're until after the court date until we get a closed case from the trooper itself any drug evidence that they seize weapons of any shape form that are seized on the road we house and keep um any kind of like crash evidence from especially like The Mating to multi-disciplinary action investigation team anywhere from hoods bumpers doors airbags the airbag control modules for the computer systems itself that anything related to a crash that made with Colette we keep um about hit and run evidence so we have a container full of like bicycles and stuff like that um vehicle crashes and of course every time there's a cash easier now that the cash is not supposed to stay at CEF or any a long period of time it's just until it gets deposited into the bank but we do have a safe to house it so okay where is the CEF located shop Road in Columbia 1620 I believe it is 1620 ShopRite okay so obviously we are here in regards to an investigation on a money seizure that took place um wood do you remember the day that you were contacted about the moon seizure Thursday the July 28th okay so it was on a Thursday right um kind of kind of go through what happened all right uh well let's see Thursday I think it was around in between 10 30 and 11 P.M I was contacted by Lieutenant Teresa Alford with Troop One Highway Patrol that a money seizure had taken place in Sumter County I was advised to give Corporal Cameron Welsh a call to get to particulars and see what direction we need to go in got off the phone with her called uh Corporal Welsh he advised me that there was probably close to a hundred thousand dollars it was that they had found at a room check along with what he described as pwid possession would attempt to distribute um the amount taken in that night far exceeded anything the officers had experience dealing with DHC edibles anytime that there is a money seizure possibility that they have to have reason and PW ID unit got drug is that reason they can't just take the money because so well that's what I advised him he had actually he asked me if I was coming to the road to actually collect the money and I told him no that they need to go ahead and clean up the scene do what they need to do and I will meet him at the Sumter patrol office okay um and of course I don't know if I advise that this was actually come across that a light driver's license checkpoint it wasn't like it was a crash or traffic stop but it was a license checkpoint okay so anyway I went ahead gotta got dressed and went on to the patrol office in Sumter uh and this was probably in between 11 30 12 when I got there that that night um and when I got to the office Corporal Welsh was there and Trooper Baker was there at the office Welsh was schp's Trooper one Trooper of the year for DUI arrests in 2015 and was awarded the patrols Trooper Of The Year honor again in 2019. I recently released another highly intense video on my patreon an explosive altercation between two cops were tension escalated so quickly resulting in a drawn gun and a devastating gunshot in a mere 26 seconds witnessed the events unfold as two officers engage in a fight that turns deadly watch this video and more at patreon.com stranger stories Plus as soon as I got in got all my paperwork set down and Corporal Welsh advised me that it is a very big possibility that DEA was going to adopt this case and I know from listen to the guy the CEF and stuff and they're dealing with him on the road when I was on the road that usually DEA comes in that night takes the evidence and then they that's it we're done with it do you know why he saw what DEA would be taking that had he spoke with anything you spoke to uh uh I think it's either Lance corporal trooper I don't know his current ranked but it's Shropshire he is affiliated with a lot he is he's one of the highway patrols what we call drug dogs he's associated with them knows him on a first name basis on the DEA which is in the area so he's familiar with the process dealing with the DEA and taking money and he was on the phone with Shropshire and Shropshire told me that his contact said that they was going to take the case but called him back or told him later on in a conversation that that the DEA was tied up at the moment that they will be adopting this case it just won't be tonight okay it'll be at a later date and Shop Shire told Welsh that to your knowledge yes okay all right so go ahead so in that case we were going ahead with the cash seizure process and uh this uh corporate Warehouse advised me that uh um Baker was the technically the arresting trooper that was making all the charges to the driver um and uh so I I gave Baker a whole packet of our cash seizure paperwork and I advised him I don't know exactly what all you need at this point seeing how the defense are going to get involved just fill it all out anyway and if we don't need it we can shred it and it was two affidavits a seizure it was a what we call the ace report which is an aggressive criminal enforcement report that was an old form that we use given details also a section on there where he attaches his statement once he does his incident report he can put it on that same form and then I advise corporate Welsh that we need to go ahead and separate all the denominations of cash that was there and then count each individual denomination and uh on the talent sheet on a separate Talent sheet the money was divided into denominations as Nix suggested covering two large tables out of the denominations the majority was in twenty dollar bills um the bag of cash it was in a brown not not similar to a brown grocery bag but it looked more like a food takeout bag it was brown approximately about almost 18 inches tall with brown paper handles like a little zigzag design on the bag and basically he dumped it out on the desk and it was it was hundreds fifties twenties teens fives and ones all intermixed together the majority of it was rubber banded together with little small black rubber bands not from Corporal Welsh it was from the actual violator that had the cash that they had banded it up and if I'm not it's either I honestly don't remember I want to say it was then ten thousand dollar increments but it was all in it mixed it was some hundreds fifties twenties all together so I advise him that all of this has to be separated so we're going to have to unbind all of this cash and to separate 100 feet and get everything straight that took a while um once we got everything separated and right let me back up before we started separating it Trooper um record showed up he was if I'm not mistaken he was at the at the road check waiting on the tow truck to get there and secure the vehicle before he came back to the office so okay but now we're back to actually separating out the denominations in the summer patrol office is probably twice the size of this room maybe three times size of this room but in the middle of the room there is a long table that's probably twice as wide as this desk and it has a partition in the Middle with like a bulletin board where you can post schedules and stuff like that on and each side of that is another like table area so what we did is we put all the cash out on that the center table and just laid them out but all the hundreds at the beginning did the 50s and just went down the line to the 100 to the dollar bills um and I advise cameras um we're gonna have to camp this thing you got to do your tally I'm going to do mine so you start on this end I'm going to start on this end and we'll meet in the middle somewhere and then pass each other and then keep going so I started on the one dollar bills and they started on the hundreds they being who they being cam of mosquito Corporal Welsh and Trooper um uh record do you know his first name I do not I said Zach I believe yes exactly okay Baker was still I do not know Baker's first name he's a brand new Trooper um he was still on the computer doing his statement do it and and uh doing the paperwork so I started on the ones I counted all the ones that wrote them on my tablet sheet and I started on the fives and kept going until I got about I got to the 20s within all of the cash that was laid out the twenty dollar bills was by far the most we had to count and number um by the time they got through with the hundreds and 50s they had already started on the 20s neither Riker nor Baker was suspected of any wrongdoing and got a big portion of them counted well I said they got a pile of them counted up I don't know how many they were it was enough but they were still counting the 20s Corporal Wells about somewhere in the middle while they were counting the 20s um told Baker to let him type the statement because he knew the details as far as what went on because Baker was also dealing with a violator because he was DUI and he was going through the field sobriety process and then doing the breathalyzer and all that good stuff so Camp it's okay well you've established this first name as cam so you're good you can make names so cam basically wanted to help him out with the statement because he knew more of the in vehicle particulars that Baker did not know just from what I gathered Baker was dealing with the DUI he was not dealing with the car concentrate on him so care more to help him out with the statement part and you know where the cash was what was going on in the vehicle and as far as that on the statement part portion of it so when cam started typing on this on the computer Baker got up and helping the record to make tally I was still working on my my own personal one so I'm just trying to let you catch up no you're good go ahead yeah okay because we're going to go back all over this so it's all good got you so when I started account when I got to the park portion where I was going to start counting 20s I asked them which stack they had finished with I'll start on that one that way we're not hitting each other and messing up each other's tablets so they said okay we're done with these so I took these and put them on my desk which was separate from where they were sitting because I wanted to not get involved with them they not get involved with me and I started Counting and when I got done with my stack of 20s I said did y'all separate these out and know how many you had here yes how many do you have um I don't remember exact numbers but we were off and I was like crying I just my head dropped because I know it took me Department procedure states that money must be counted and the final count agreed upon before anyone can leave nix's position in the department means he will make the final call and ensure everyone follows this rule almost an hour to count the stack of 20s that I was counting and I said we're already off let's stop and we got to back up and put you said you're off so did they have more or less than you do I don't remember I do not remember I just knew we were off and that and I knew we had more than twice as many to go right so we were just going to get worse and worse and worse as we went on so that was about time the time cam was started back counting again so at that point it was three of them counting and one of me Counting okay and it was probably getting close to I guess about 1am 2 A.M area we've been there for a while counting so corporate Wilson and I decided look all right let's figure out a way that we can stack these 20s up and try to get an accurate count because I we can't leave here until we're both in agreement that this is what we got Welsh had recently changed from his usual shift and was not yet used to the hours so what we did is basically start over on the 20s the hundreds were right the 50s were right the tens were right the files and the ones were right we were dead set on planting our flag on our numbers on our tallies on those rat denominations so what we did is we took the whole stack of 20s and everybody grabbed some okay everybody being who all four of us okay so we started damn Baker so we put all the 20s in 50 50 counts of 50. 50 bills and we had them laid out on both sides of that big long partition on a desk on the side by the window well you know it was by the other computer desk over here on the far side and then the desk I was working on we had stacks of 50 on that and so once we got all that separated out I think there were two stacks on the computer desk that were not quite at 50 and on my desk I had a short stack that wasn't quite 50. okay and then once we were in agreement that we had fifty dollars I say fifty dollars twenty fifty yes I understand what you mean 50 bills on each stack we started counting stacks and I had my cell phone calculator and I was doing the math on that and then Cam went back and counted his 50 50 Bill stacks and then of course we manually counted the short stacks and got a number and we were both in agreement at that time that I believe it was 4301 was the total amount that we had deals four thousand three hundred and one twenty dollar bills right yes he and I both were in agreement we signed our tally sheets and then I took that cash and I put it in 500 or 520 increments and rubbing and banded them up okay and within that I had we I had some evidence bags in my little go bag that I could take on seizures and stuff that it was the largest um beverage bags that we have and two of the bags were full of the 20s but nothing but 20s and the other bag had the hundreds fifties Ten Thousand Ones in it so you had a total of three bags three bags okay and again make sure everybody was good to go everybody's planted their flag that's the number we're going with and I took that cash put it in my patrol vehicle and drove to Columbia ShopRite all right so you leave you leave Sumter and you go to Columbia yes where did you place the money when you left Sumter and went to Columbia my back sleep were the bags sealed evidence yes I signed the bag and dated it but I did not sign the seal again it's always 20 20. that's all right so you you signed actually on the front of the bag in the back of the bag in front of the bag with a date um I think at that time it was right at 3 A.M so it was been on the 29th July 29th all right so you place the bags in the back seat you go to Columbia yes ma'am what'd you do once you got to Columbia unlock the office logged in my computer and printed off the evidence labels that sergeant okay I need to back up and talk about sergeant debose we had to call her once the count was set this is before he left the summer off before I left the smoker off so I said I apologize that's okay reason is we've got a new evidence system and It's All Digital okay Baker had to make the evidence items on his report and place them into the um I guess it would be their Dropbox is what they call it it's for Sumter Sergeant Dubose and first sergeant McFadden are the only two people in the Sumter office that have access to the Dropbox in the evidence on our system once the money had been placed in the Dropbox none of the officers involved should have been able to tamper with it so they had we had to wake sort of the bows up to get her computer to sign out that evidence the cash to CEF transfer location the system is All Digital and you in this very few codes or ways that we can move things in order for me to take it in as CEF so he just had to contact Sergeant debuzzle let Sergeant Dubose know Hey listen yeah it's this is what in evidence the CEF is taking it yes yes so once we got all that in once I got to come to Columbia I logged on my laptop received that cash evidence out of the central evidence transfer location in the computer and put it into my possession and then from my possession into our what we call our green safe that's our cash save so instead of putting on there that you received at the Sumter because it the computers already showing yes that it's been it's gone to CES okay that all that is time stamped too so when Sergeant Dubose puts it in transfer location it that system knows when she did that okay and then from there basically from Sumter office to shop Road it's in CEF transfer location okay in the computer okay once I get to the office and I think it was right at 4am or close to 4 A.M is when I went in there um checked it let's see how I'm trying to think how the system the verbiage on it once we get it this check out the trooper officer and then Mr Nicks and then from Mr Nix to the green safe that's how it should have that's how it was listed on the chain of custody in the area system okay I printed off evidence labels like I printed off forward I know I printed off three of them maybe four I put one on on each 20 and then one on the other evidence back so we got three bags of cash all item one and then I think I put another one on the outside on that brown paper bag because I had I put everything back in that brand same brown paper bag that cam gave me or I can't add it in at the office okay did you take possession of the Edibles no at that night I did not okay you normally are what we do is just go for cash they bring the whatever drug it is at a later date okay all right so green safe is at a term that's used for the the safe that's at the CEF for the for the money well that's a very big large green safe because it's actually green so what all goes in that green safe green safe is any kind of of course monetary value items if there's like some jewelry that was confiscated or found the safe is for anything that an officer might be tempted to take evidence such as blood or urine samples does not need to enter the safe a lot of towns in the past Troopers have taken stuff like that at wreck things for safe keeping and yeah they're still in there so items of monetary value yes okay all right so once you put it in the green safe what'd you do lock that went home and I probably got back home 5 30 a.m ish did you have any other dealings with the money at that point none when were you contacted and it was indicating there was an issue it was Tuesday when Sergeant Allen had taken the money out of the safe sign and took it straight to the bank do you know Sarge Allen's first name Michael did he contact you where was that office together on Tuesday so I knew I knew he was getting the money out and count and not counting it counted right he went took those my evidence bags that I settled up in and took it straight to the bank and the bank opened it and they counted there do you know the bank Wells Fargo and do you know which Wells Fargo no I do not okay Sergeant Allen handles all cash deposits okay the bank used a money counting machine to get an accurate total is that all he does no no no he's just the he's the lead he well in our the CEF there's three corpses one sergeant and one Captain okay and then an admin all right but he's the only one that handles cash he does he is the lead on that Captain River's assigned that attached to him that he's the only one that deals with it all right so at what point were you notified the count was wrong when he got back all right tell me that conversation he was in the captain's office and Captain Rivers Mental Rivers uh called me into his office and so that I was in there and he advised that the bank had a different count on the 20s that it was off um I asked how much and he had a piece of paper on his desk with some numbers right on there and I looked over there and I saw 157. I was like 157 dollars no 157 20s were off I was like oh okay you said what was Captain Rivers's first name all right so [Music] realize it was a 157 20s off what happened next I had asked Captain Rivers do I need to go ahead and call Cam and let him know what's going on because he's the other signature on there and he said go ahead I dial Cam's number and as soon as he that cam picked up the phone um cat Bruce the whole time out let's let's just wait and I told Cam it's like just hold tight I'll call you back so by this point Welsh had discovered a bag of money in his car that had slipped into the floorboard and under a briefcase varying what would happen when the department found out Welsh did not report it until Nix called and then he advised that we need to get to the bottom of this something's not right how can you be off this much so he said let me make some phone calls and that was pretty much the end of that conversation all right what what ended up happening after that well when I went back to my office cam actually I I think I can't remember if he called me right that called me back or I called him one one way I spoke to Cam he advised me that's when he found the other bag of money in the back seat of his car no and I was kind of forward of that this was Tuesday and I believe he said that the cash bag that he found his backseat was found on Sunday and he just said it was in a bag yes in an Evidence bag evidence Bank yes he didn't put it he had put the cash in in evidence bag did they indicate to you what kind of bag it was found in his back seat no okay but after he said he had found it on Sunday he said he put an Evidence back he put it in evidence back that night at the from the scene from the scene and from my understanding from him that it was actually cash that was found in the center console that the large amount of cash was found in the back seat in that brown paper bag there was more cash found in the center console and another small amount of cash found on his person so that center console money was never counted at the center correct okay all right what else did he say he was nervous he was upset scared didn't know what to do and I say cam go through your chain of command inform your sergeant of the situation that you just told me and get ahead of this before it starts looking worse than it already is right I said because our account that we had in the summer office is way off way off that this does not help so from my understanding he did he all started to booze well they give Mr what was going on and by that afternoon cam was in our office at CEF to turn that cash in well in the meantime Captain Rivers had been on the phone from lunchtime until Kim got there about three o'clock and cam or Captain Rivers advised cam to go to the troop one headquarters and to his Captain's office which is um Captain Chris Shelton and then they would handle variant dealing with that amount of money where's the trip one office this same parking lot as ours this is right next door so ShopRite this the way shop right away if you had the Carolina stadium like here our office states are evidence and supply like a loading dock group one headquarters DMB that's how I set up in the same like campus area [Music] Dr Everson camera trip wanted to talk to his captain yes and what'd you say is captain's name was Chris Shelton were you standing there when rivercent came over to trip one yes yes do you remember what rivers told Cam he needed to go to his Captain's office you need to take that bag go to your Captain's office so the bag that had the money in it Kim had it with him to represent take possession no sir no no ma'am not at that point not at that point I think eventually they agreed that that cash was not going to stay in Columbia at The Troop One office that it needed to go to CEF and Nix never came into contact with the money that had been found in Welsh's car I had already gone for the day because we we worked from eight to four and this is after four o'clock when all that took place so I just know Captain Rivers called me back later on that afternoon about 5 30 told me to get back to Columbia and bring my truck so the same day on Tuesday yes okay um so the last time you saw cam was when River sent him to go to Shelton's office yes all right and then were there was there any other conversations held between you and rivers that day about the money the shortest money yes no okay um what about the money that was in the evidence bag that cam says oh I found on Sunday no no okay um and then you said that you you got off at four yes what are your usual hours eight before eight to four um and then you received a phone call from whom later Captain Rivers Captain Rivers called Jen told you to bring your stuff to the office well he just said I needed to come back to the office in the office being the CES office you know that was around five five thirty when you start football practice at six and then we was fixing to walk out on the field so sometime between 5 30 and 6 p.m yeah I was already at the school fixing to walk out on the football field and Cameron was called and said go change clothes come back to Columbia we got some more paperwork to do you know what happens when you get back to CEO when I get back to CEF I go into this Captain has already locked up the building because CEF closes at five CEF is open from eight to five Monday through Friday if you're not on call you work eight to four if you were on call you were nine to five you're the closer okay when that cash recedes on the 28th the week prior I was on call so I would have been the one closing but send out it was a new week I was off call we go from Sunday to Sunday on Tuesday I was a eight to four man we left it forward the nine to five guy I think it was I think Phillip Odom was the one on called that that particular week today or whatever he leaves at five Captain rivers are still there okay they've been dealing with this pretty much that whole afternoon um Captain Rivers had gone ahead and closed up shop lock the doors and he was in his office alone nobody else was there dude and when I got there I went in um he advised me that this has become an invested full-blown investigation through opr that sled would more than likely to be involved seeing how dealing with this that cash that they wanted an outside agency so to speak to handle he said as of right now you are put on suspension without pay until the investigation is complete give me a form signed by director woods and to explain that same situation and uh be advised that I needed to you know get my personal stuff out of my vehicle I needed to turn in my badge and gun my credentials that he would be securing all that stuff and he was going to take me back to my residence where to he would collect uniforms and the other equipment that I had and and here we go and so Captain Rivers took me from this Central evidence back to Bishopville to my residence Welsh was also suspended without pay on Tuesday oh on Tuesday afternoon have you talked to cam since I spoke to him I believe it was Tuesday night no may have been Wednesday I checked my phone and see exactly he was just I think it may have been it was Tuesday night because I guess from my understanding talking to him he pretty much got the same treatment you know we'll take you home from Columbia and collect your stuff did y'all discuss anything about the anything about any of the money increments whether it be the accountant Sumter office or the money that was found in the backseat of his car he did not realize that I got put on suspension along with him he was seemed to be upset about it but both of our names was on a piece of paper so what are they going to do they got to when did Kim find out here he told he told him he called me he said well I guess I get a couple days off I said hi me too they're like what yeah it's under investigation our name is on a piece of paper they have to do this he said he was upset about that for them suspending you as well yeah why was he upset about that well he just didn't realize that he thought it was mainly because of the cash that was found his vaccine not about the whole cash being short did he have any knowledge of how short it was I told him that it was off 157 20 bills and what'd he say pretty much the same thing I said what yeah all right we'll start from the beginning okay all right is there anything else you could think of obviously there'll be a point at the end of the interview we'll ask you if there's anything you want to add but just so we can make sure because I know that you've had to go back a couple of times I just want to kind of make sure we've got everything completely understood I think we're good okay that's okay um you said so on Thursday you were contacted and um she actually called you called my work cell phone Lieutenant offered you said Teresa right she called you to let you know about the large money seizure um you ended up talking to Corporal cam Welch um they said it was approximately over a hundred thousand dollars with some edibles a license checkpoint do you by chance know where that road check was no no I won't um you told me he'd made about the Sumter office when you told them to meet you at the Sumter office at that point had he indicated to you how the money was packaged or anything of that nature he said it looks like it's in a large Olive Garden bag Olive Garden takeout bag a little while did he indicate to you where that large Olive Garden bag was taken where it was at in the vehicle back seat he did he did say Plain View several times as far as the money and the Edibles so he wanted to make sure he indicated that they didn't get in the car apart right but so he only indicated one large bag in the back seat the one Olive Garden bag Welsh was careful to have his body camera on the entire time if he had deliberately kept one of the bags he would have known the discrepancy would have been caught on camera in the back seat all right um let's see here you might have told me that the Sumter where is the Sumter office oh the exact street address I told him to write off it's off of Highway 378 outbound tour um the beach next to the damn there's a pipe Road I think is that is there a different post or different just triple post a I think they're supposed to a see the A or B but it's the soccer Claritin patrol office okay um so you get to the office about 10 11 30 12. um and he said cam Welsh and Baker we're there um Welsh indicated to you that he had talked to High Patrol Lance corporal shop shine he's the one that has a lot of dealings with DEA as far as large seizures indicated that DEA would potentially be taking the case with their title was something right then later on shop Shire talked to Welsh and said that they would be taking the case we'll be taking it but be picking up the cash later that we should proceed okay um well I told you that Baker was the arresting officer and Baker was dealing with the potential DUI suspect um you gave him a packet of for cash seizure inside that packet there were two Affidavit of seizures and Ace report and also another form for him to fill out the step for the arresting officer who thought the statement did Cam start filling that pack it out right then or Baker did okay um you decided to separate each denomination of money you said that there were hundreds fifties twenties tens fives and ones um when when Welsh bought out the bag you described it as a brown paper bag eight ten inches tall um they dumped the money on the table you said that there were a majority of the monies were banded with black rubber bands it looked like it might be in ten thousand dollar increments how did you know it looked like I mean have you ever seen ten thousand dollar abandoned money before you can't count it a few of them just to check okay um and don't do you recall once he counted what denominations those were mixed so there were no stacks of bands of 20s there were no bands of 100s there was just an accumulated there were yeah there were some that was just the same denominations but with it being all mixed up like that we took all the bands off and separated ourselves all right um when the money was dumped on the table had Trooper Reichard gotten there yes okay so he was there before the money was dumped on the table and you said you think his first name is Zach okay um so who took the rubber bands off the money uh I took several off cam took several off I imagine uh Riker took some off too because it was a lot of them right [Music] one so you on a large conference style table you start y'all separated the monies from 1 5 10 20 50 to 100s um you decide the best way to count this would be you start at the ones and then um Welsh and Reichert would start at the hundreds correct now when you when you had the money laid out were they all obviously because there were so many twenties how did you have them stacked was it all the hundreds on top of each other in the 50s and in the 20s did you have several rows of 20s how did y'all how did y'all figure out how to do that I wish you could see my cell phone my work sack because I took pictures of it and that was going to be a follow-up question I did on my cell phone went to Captain River's office has pictures of all the stacks like in there the hunters was just in a pile not spread out right I don't like car table type thing right just stepped up here in the 50s there the 20s they were you know stacked up best we could get them without following other place right and then the five tens in the morning was the same thing it's just but there was enough space between them were you not gonna we had them yes so once you had all the money laid out in the denominations did you photograph it before you counted it yes okay and that's on your state cell phone Welsh also had pictures of the money on his Department issued phone which he sent to his personal phone he wiped his Department issue phone before turning it in which is against Department regulations and all the money you had laid out that was all the money at that point right yeah that's all the money because I know later on we have money every year we have money every year so that's what we make sure um all right so y'all begin your your counting process you'll end up meeting basically in the middle of the 20s because there were so many um count in the 20s what they had y'all compared notes and um nothing was right the stack that they had already completed once I completed all the rest of the denominations and we were right I counted their stack of 20s and we were off okay did that count your stack of 20s they had already counted that stack okay I was counting it and we were off okay they were still over here counting actually the 20s so I just wanted to go behind them and check their their account to see if we were going to be at least close now we were so all right so what's that first stack of 20s was counted and you realize how awake uh some were I'm not getting what y'all are getting was that stat recounted yes and did it coincide at that point or that's when we recounted it into 50 the 50 Bill increments we had to physically count that whole stack again okay we just started up scratch that number off let's go from the beginning all right so once you put the recount was not done carefully and they agreed to decide on a total that they felt was correct 52 50 to Slack Stacks Stacks um you went and counted it what else counted it and did right count it as well no I didn't know once they got that that's when Cam and US counted our own Stacks okay so would Cam counter-stack and you go back behind them and kind of make sure I went through first all right I got my total number and I said over there and got my little phone calculator and did the math and then game went through and got his we were in agreement so they were consistent at that point yes okay um did prior prior to you telling cam hey I've got this many 20s did Cam inform to you how many twenties he counted so basically after you got done camping the 20s hypothetically speaking it really can be like all right I had like 4228 hypothetically speaking not any of that number um and then Kim goes and camps and he's like yep I got 4 200 whatever no okay so that's why how did how did that how'd that come about you already knew how many 20s you had counted and then cam says okay I'm done this is what I counted and did his number match your number or okay and you remembered it was 4 301 12 301 okay um all right once y'all count the 20s everyone was in agreement y'all filled out a tally sheet um we already filled out the fallacy because that's what I used to do my running totals okay now I did have a little sticky note that I was right now I'm about to you know the ones that were short if I had this did the math and then wrote down my final number on my Tally and multiplied it out by the nomination [Music] all right so when y'all had all the 20s spread out did you take photographs of all the 20s no I did not the only other photographs that were taken once we got all the money counted and bound back up into the 500 stack we haven't laid out and actually took a picture of that before I backed it were there any photographs taken of the money prior to taking the bands off of them did you take a photograph I think the bands yes the photograph that I took initially when we got them separated I think that that photo was with the bands on the 20s yes I think there were still some most of the 20s were still band up at that time and they were separated yes by the nomination yeah did to your knowledge was a photograph ever taken of nothing separated and the money just stacked on top of each other at the very end or beginning beginning okay you did not take it back and you don't remember seeing anybody else take a picture correct okay now there was photos taken once we had them out right but um all right so 4301 total 20 20 bills do you remember the total of the money that was seized that night well ten doesn't change I don't know 110 000 for that I don't want you remember it being an estimate 110 000 yes okay um so at this point once all the money is counted everything's tallied up photographs are taken you place them you place the 20s into two different evidence bags because it was that much that he had to place in there yes but then the other bag contained The Hundreds fifties tens Dives and ones correct you still the bags yes you signed the bag yes did anyone else sign the bag no um did you date it time it anything it's 7 29.01 the 21 I'm sorry I'll take a sad thing is I know what you meant did you put a Time on there or anything or you just dated it okay um so Baker filled out the information inside the computer for showing that evidence was being dropped and then CEF was taking possession of it okay he contacted Sergeant Dubose was Sergeant dubose's first name Paige and Sergeant McFadden first sergeant McFadden Ridge he was actually not even working at his mother had some issues or something he was completely I he was not to be contacted but so it wasn't contacting me okay so Sergeant Paige Dubose was and what does Sergeant page debose was bless you do Sergeant I mean does she work from a Troopers yeah she is there's something declared and Sergeant okay she's uh basically trip one Sergeant trip one Sergeant second in command all right let's see his base Sergeant Dubose should have been made aware of the money found in Welsh's car but she did not receive that information until it had been determined that an investigation was necessary I don't know their exact office duties over there but um I see her a lot as far as the M decides so she's like the primary evidence custody of the silver Clarity so she does mainly office work yes they do but not as much right well the predominantly in the office yeah all right so he placed the money in the backseat of your Patrol vehicle what kind of Patrol vehicles 1500 pickup truck all right once you get in your vehicle you put the money in your back seat and you get a CEF which is located on ShopRite in Columbia got plenty about four o'clock um you went to the computer typed in everything to show that it had been transferred CEF to Green safe printed out evidence labels you said there were three evidence labels at least three maybe I think I put one on the brown paper bag too showing all items one so the money that was taken from the Sun drivers you just put it back inside that brown paper bag exactly so um so you think probably four labels were printed all right and one for the Olive Garden bag or brown paper bag um you put the money in the green sake and you went home and that was it um at that point there was no other dealings with you and that money no never laid eyes on it again Tuesday you're at the CEF and you are talking to Sergeant Michael Allen and he handles the cash deposits for CEF yes you had knowledge he was going to the bank yes to get the get the monies counted what the EA had requested is that instead of taking the actual cash take to the bank deposit it get a cashier's check they'll come get a check that's why they wanted to handle it okay any idea why this wasn't handled on Monday it is hard to believe that Welsh and Nix would have done such a sloppy job of counting if the money had been taken on purpose if the count matched with the banks they would never have been under suspicion um did you have any did anybody talk about it on Monday on like what they were going to do and had you heard anything else about the DEA no well the DEA said no not it's just you personally yeah not officially no well I was scheduled to work Friday missing I got called out that she's like an office rule they get called out especially on a long call out like this that is your Friday that's right so I never come back to work on Friday in a normal in the office so the cash was there a Friday morning 14 you know 4 30. and sit there until Tuesday and the group sale so I'll never opened a green safe again because I did go back to work on Monday worked all day Monday and technically worked all day Tuesday from eight to four so but I'm sorry Alan took the cash out to go get deposited on Tuesday and it may have been that he was in contact with the DEA and they had made arrangements to have all that there's nothing you had any idea how did you find out the DEA said take the money to the bank get them to you know and that said that that's how they wanted to do it so is that the conversation you and Alan had on Tuesday when it was going to the before I went to the bank no no that was again I don't get involved in that I knew her hearing him talking with Captain rivers and them and just selling them so yeah well dea wants to check they don't want the cash right so that means I got tickets to the bank to the counter okay before I cash your check and they do now all right so um went to Wells Fargo you're unsure of which Wells Fargo um you said Captain Mandel Rivers let's see you went back into the office now I was talking to Captain and Alan indicated did Allen or the captain indicate to you that it was off the count was off and he indicated it was 157 20 bills difference from what was to posited or counted at the bank um you ask hey do I need to call Cam he was like yeah sure you call Cam and cat was like wait a minute hold up let's let's look into this for a second something's not right um Tuesday he went back to the office nothing else I mean nothing else was nothing else was spoken of at that point um you you Tuesday night you talked to cam or Tuesday afternoon I talked to Kim and um this is Camp um you indicated to him the count was off then he says oh by the way I found a bag of money in my backseat that was an Evidence bag hang on one second let me see yeah he's he's close so we're trying to um so he indicates that you found a evidence bag in the back seat of his car did he indicate if it was in his seat or if it was a nice floorboard I think he said it was in between the center console over his briefcase in the back there he had slid in between it it was not in the media site he was cleaning out his car on Sunday and he saw it and that's when he's at his heart drop and then he indicated you that was the money that was found in the center console the violator's vehicle Kim indicated he was nervous and he was scared she didn't know what to do um you told the college student command Welsh was well aware that even mistakenly mishandling the evidence could result in a demotion or losing his job then he called Sergeant but that's his next level though he showed cam showed up CEF to drop money on Tuesday no Thursday River sent cam to troop one then the headquarters and he met with Captain Shelton to your knowledge um that afternoon cat Rivers called you and said hey come to CEF um explained because of the miscount or the off-count you were going to be under suspension without pay he took your items from you and took you home you talked to cam on Tuesday Tuesday evening you know I shared information about suspension he had no idea you'd been suspended um and I had no idea he was officially suspended either Kevin he just said hey looks like I got a couple days off and he said hey well me too and that's when y'all discussed I'm under suspension too um what do you think happened with the money we screwed up account [Music] do you think Nixon Welsh both agree that they messed up the count Welsh also pointed out that between his job with the highway patrol and owning his own Plumbing business he wasn't in need of money it was also a small amount for such a large risk dude let me let me ask when I left it who had the money from the checkpoint to the office it had to be cam because the baker had gone to the jail to do the data master and is that you just kind of assuming that it was probably cam because baby girls tied up with a DUI she don't really know that Riker was tied up with the record waiting on the tow truck okay Baker was going to the jail Cam's coming to the office because I told him to meet me at the office okay and by the time I got to the office and that the guy actually refused to breathalyze the dynamaster or whatever so it'd take as long as he thought they just put him into jail because traded off in the jails not too far from the office the money that was inside the Olive Garden they were there were they all banded or were there some loose people okay okay and he took a photograph of everything laid out on the table a big wide shot and individual shots but you did not take a photograph of the money stacked on top of each other banded up there were some bands still on there I'm pretty sure okay I mean I wish I wish you could get my phone that's okay did you take that picture no I did not take that okay that's why I'm asking about the money stack on top of each other um because there's a lot of money there that still have bands on it so I did not take any pictures of the drugs I knew that so that's something that ain't my business and that if you don't mind can I see that picture that make it in after count I hope it's not motivated because it's painted up there's a black bands right okay because that's about how thick they were when I battered it up for the final to put them in our Inner Space do you have any idea who might have took that picture no that's okay and if you didn't see anybody take picture there like I said they were pretty much all I said pretty much all of us were taking pictures of it right so [Music] um did you take this photograph of the evidence bags no I did not okay once you put the money once you put the money in the bags did you take photographs of the money and the evidence back okay okay did you take a picture of any loose increment I mean I'm not that picture [Music] no man [Music] I mean [Music] is this Italian sheet you were telling me about that is looks like Cam's Italian sheep it does your time sheet look like that as well Eagles well this is not the one we the tally actually yeah the talent sheet itself just the form is this is exactly the same but these numbers are not where we counted up somewhere office and that's not my signature that looks like it was from the other bag the guy was found in his car but that would be kind of how y'all would that's exactly how we do it do the denominations of how many bills you have of the ones too okay [Music] was there any kind of report that you had to complete generally if you get called out for a CES you know and you have to go to CEF is there any type of documentation you do on your end other than going into computers showing a transfer from whatever the captain rivers and Sergeant Allen the text headed to Sumter They seized over 100k with pwid THC get murdered said be careful that was the only correspondence that I had with them before the money was actually counted just to give them a heads up make on summer right I ended up staying nearly four hours longer than they should have this was in addition to Welsh's 12-hour shift plus it gives them an idea of what time you left right there and semi checks and balances um did you take any money no um would you be willing to submit to a polygraph absolutely do you have any type of medical conditions that might enable you or inhibit a proper examination nix's first polygraph result shows deception indicated and his second examination shows no opinion blood pressure you take medication any anxiety okay um obviously we're gonna We want to offer you a paragraph we want we want one to be completed um again checks and balances absolutely um do you think how long how long have you known cam um let's see I did his background when they come over Highway Patrol okay so since day one it's always Highway Patrol career how long has he been a triple seven years maybe maybe six or seven do you think he would take money can you yes no ma'am not at all do you think Riker would take anymore no how long have you known like her I did his background as well funny as it may see that's all right reason is when I was on mate at the time we were doing all highway patrol backgrounds for employment and since I lived in Bishopville anytime there was one in Kershaw leaves some declared and I got it because I was the closest one right so yeah the baker I do not know Baker at all to your knowledge is Baker or even count any money yes we do okay um no one was left unattended while counting not at all all four of y'all were sitting the only time that money was in a single person's hands after the camp was mined on the way from Sumter to Colombia and the only other person's hands that was in alone prior to the count was camps from the road to the office yes during this entire time period Welsh was on camera was cam already at the office when you got there yes okay it was and what Reichert wasn't there yet so he just came there by himself Sam Baker Baker was there when I got there I got you all right out of all this information you've given me is there anything that you can think of that maybe I haven't asked a direct question about as far as that night the count any statements that were made to you or around you that you would feel being important for this investigation no I don't think so it is as complicated of a matter as this is to me is a simple explanation we messed the cow up I said it was miscounted [Music] do you think anybody took the money so we believe it's just a screw up on you guys's part absolutely all right do you have any questions for me um and nothing further that you would like to add no ma'am all right um we'll get you set up for a polygraph hopefully it'll be in the next couple days gonna call Columbia and find out when they have available right um I do know you're out of work without pay we want to try to get you know would it be thorough and concise as we can be absolutely um and Bob the ball is in our core we've got to deal with polygraphers too that already have schedules so we're going to try to get everything worked out for you um if you have nothing further to add that will conclude this interview the time now is 10 44. all right opr found that Corporal Matthew Nix failed to count and document money in the manner detailed by schp policy Nix was also being investigated on an allegation that he inappropriately took money from a cash seizure for his personal use which the opr report listed with a non-sustained finding Nix was paid back pay for the time he was suspended but was docked eight hours pay as disciplinary action thank you for watching check out my patreon link in the description below and drop a like on this video also don't forget to leave a comment I'm always curious to read what you thought of the case