(Albuquerque television station KQRE posted the following story on its website on August 1.)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Dead cows and horses all over the tracks.
That’s what Louann Lodwick claimed the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad trains were doing to her livestock. She sent them claim from counties all over the state and from the San Felipe Reservation. She claimed her animals— sometime whole herds of them, were on the railroad right-of-way when they were leveled by locomotives.
So the railroad wrote out 43 checks for more than $144,400.
Lodwick started slow, claiming one dead horse in December 2001. BNSF paid $1600 for that animal. The claims escalated quickly to three cows and a calf. Last April, she claimed a train rampaged through a whole herd, killing six cows in one collision. In ten days last spring, she claimed $11,000 worth of dead horses.
“I can tell you we have never had a situation that I am aware of similar to this,” said BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent.
So how did Lodwick get away with it?
BNSF investigators say her husband was the claims representative for the railroad and he wrote her the checks. Or he did, until one of his clerks blew the whistle, so to speak. Investigators moved in and connected the dots between Lodwick and claims representative Scott Waterman of Albuquerque.
Now, Waterman and his wife, Lue Ann Lodwick Turnquist Waterman, are in jail, facing 43 embezzlement counts and conspiracy. Both are being held on $100,000 bonds.
Meanwhile, the railroad continues its investigation, trying to confirm any of those claims with engineers, especially that one about the whole herd of cows. “Although the equipment is very large, if there were a herd of cows or horses that could come in front of the locomotive, the engineer would know,” said Kent.
Mrs. Waterman is identified as a corrections officer, working for the New Mexico Central Correctional Facility in Los Lunas. Officials there say they will investigate and decide if she will be put on leave following her arrest.
The railroad has not said what it will do to Waterman.
Investigators say Waterman originally told them he paid the claims without question because he said Lodwick was a Native American, and he had been trained to pay those claims quickly to keep up good relationships with the reservations.