Catching Hell: A True Story of Abandonment and Betrayal

Jay Dobyns was hired by ATF on a Monday in 1987. Four days later he was shot, point blank in the back by a criminal suspect. The bullet traveled through his lung and exited his chest. He was 26 years old. While in the hospital, he rejected offers from attorneys who promised millions of dollars in a lawsuit against his agency. He rushed back to work and for the next 27 years, enthusiastically accepted every dirty and dangerous assignment possible. Some days he succeeded, on others, he failed, but all he ever wanted to do was to defend and protect people who could not, or wouldn’t, do that for themselves. Every morning when his alarm clock went off, he was excited to investigate violent crime on behalf of the American people. Death threats mounted from street criminals. At a point in time three international crime syndicates held contracts to murder him, gang rape his wife, torture his teenage daughter and kidnap his adolescent son. He was again shot in the back. This time not by a suspect, but by the government and executives he worked for; abandoned and marginalized, the threats and dangers ignored. In 2008, his home was destroyed by an arsonist. Jay’s wife and kids were inside and narrowly escaped. Jay’s bosses attempted to frame him as the arsonist and thus, someone willing to murder his own family by fire. What came next was corruption and cover-up of proportions that few would ever believe our government was capable of. This is his true story.