Michelle Shepherd
Appearances
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Scott says that's how he learned what he likes to call his verbal judo.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
When he graduated from college, it took a while to get a policing job, so he kept bouncing. His first chance at law enforcement came in 1993 when he started working for the Greenville County Sheriff's Office, where that ability to talk served him well.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
From beat cop, Scott moved to vice and narcotics. This was the early 90s, two decades into the war on drugs.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
As President George H.W. Bush promised victory, Forbes magazine named Pablo Escobar the seventh richest man in the world. On some nights, Scott's assignment would be to pose as a buyer looking for a fix.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Scott knew right away that's what he wanted to do. He was not going to stop until he became an undercover agent.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
But there were only so many opportunities that came through the local sheriff's office.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
In one corner, drenched in sun, there's a high stool and amps for when he's playing his guitars. When he isn't, he hangs them up like championship pennants, next to an American flag the size of a bed sheet. At the back is a shelving unit that takes up almost the whole wall.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
But during one of his shifts, he was passing the hours with this sergeant who he idolized.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
you're going to learn that Scott has a lot of nicknames. I'm not sure I've met anybody with as many as he says he has.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
So he applies, and he gets in. With his basset hound in tow, Scott packs up his 4x4 truck and heads to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Weeks into the program, all the agents in training are assigned a stressful task. List the FBI offices where you'd like to work in order of preference. All 56 of them.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
That's Scott's college buddy, Joe Ferris, again.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
It's adorned with memorabilia from his undercover cases, rows of trophies and plaques, medals, framed certificates, and photos.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
But Scott has a knack for fitting in even when he doesn't. So on the 22nd floor of the FBI building in Manhattan, he finds a home with the Colombian drug squad unit. It was a busy beat. Yet he can't stop thinking about doing undercover work. But to become an undercover agent with the FBI, you have to pass a rigorous certification program at their undercover school.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
It's not something you can just sign up for. And it would take him another four years until he even got an invitation to attend the program.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Terry Rancorn spent 21 years in the FBI, and he and his wife retired shortly before Scott in 2019.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Like Scott, he was an undercover agent, and he was also an instructor at the FBI's exclusive undercover school.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Legend. That's FBI speak for your backstory, your undercover persona.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Oh, wow. These are the instructors they're doing. It sounds a little bit like hazing.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
What were your impressions when you met him?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
After graduating, Scott goes back to his day job. He gets a transfer to another FBI division near the Mexican border in San Antonio, Texas. He's back doing narcotics investigations, human smuggling operations, and he's happy. But he is getting impatient. He really wants an undercover case.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
He doesn't get a bite, but he is asked to come back to the undercover school as a role player to get more experience.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
And finally, he gets a chance. It's for a massive biker investigation, and there's nothing Scott would love more. He seems perfect for the role. But first, he has to audition. So he flies to Boston.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
He thinks the audition went okay, but he's not the only candidate, and he's pretty green when it comes to undercover work. But then, by coincidence, he's in Oklahoma on a case, and one of his mentors is there.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
There's a whole shelf devoted to the Klan. There's even a copy of the official KKK handbook with a chapter called Klanversations.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Scott gets the gig. His targets? Members of the Outlaws, one of America's most violent biker gangs and historic arch rivals of the Hells Angels. They're notoriously insular and almost impossible to infiltrate. When you got that and you were like, this is my dream, this is what I always wanted to do, this is why I got into it, did you have any idea what you were in for?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
That's coming up on the next episode of Agent Pale Horse. This series was written and produced by me, Michelle Shepard, senior producer Ashley Mack, and producer Eunice Kim. Mixing and sound design by Evan Kelly. Emily Connell is our digital producer. Our intern was Rachel DeGasparis. Special thanks to Andrew Friesen, Graham MacDonald, the CBC Reference Library, and Oralation Studios.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Chris Oak and Cecil Fernandez are our executive producers. Tanya Springer is the senior manager and Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts. This series was written and produced alongside a book I wrote with Scott, codename Pale Horse, How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis. You can catch up with Season 1 of White Hot Hate wherever you get your podcasts.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
And if you're enjoying this series and want to help new listeners discover the show, please take some time to give us a rating and review on whichever is your chosen app. It really helps.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
When he retired and gave that interview to Rolling Stone magazine, he started to get known as a type of hillbilly Donnie Brasco. And he didn't mind at all. Scott says the number one rule of being a good undercover is to be yourself. Or at the very least, know who you are, where you came from, and how to fit in. So, who is Scott Payne? Where did he come from? And how does he fit in?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
I'm Michelle Shepherd, and from CBC, this is Agent Palehorse. Episode two, you got anything for rednecks?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
What do those people say?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Scott was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, home of Shoeless Joe Jackson, Beautiful Parks, and Southern Charm.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
It was the 80s, you know when movies like The Breakfast Club came out? And high schools tended to have well-defined social groups.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
What was it like? Like, did you hang out with the jocks? Did you have a certain clique?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
You don't say clique?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Was this, Byron, your retirement project?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
The Beta Club is for high academic achievers. Its motto is developing the leaders of tomorrow. But the stereotype of what a Beta Club kid looks like wasn't exactly Scott.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
I've seen the pictures. I know you like that look, but it is god awful.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
I grew up in the 80s too. Big eyebrows and shoulder pads. It really wasn't a good looking decade. And Scott, he didn't just have a mullet. He also wore sleeveless shirts, fingerless weightlifting gloves, and a spiked leather bracelet. He was a big kid with an attitude to match. But it was back in high school that Scott first got a taste of undercover work.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
And it all began at the Greenville Eastside High School Talent Show, where Scott and his band played Van Halen's Hot for Teacher.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad. I'm hot for teacher.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Show's over. The weekend goes by and it's Monday morning. Scott gets called down to Mr. Walker's office.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Mr. Walker grabs the big, clunky VHS recording of Friday night's talent show, and they watch.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Scott's working his cliques, slash cliques, doing what he does best, blending in, chatting, being a people person.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
But the Mr. Walker investigation didn't set him on the path of becoming one of the FBI's most storied undercovers right away. Scott had a lot going on at home. He watched his father struggle with depression, and after a year of constant fighting, his parents filed for divorce. Even though he was raised in a devout Christian family, Scott didn't turn to God for comfort.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Scott said he would spend hours watching horror movies. He'd imitate the creepy voices of the characters to try to scare people. And he did. But he says there was one night when he took this shtick too far.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
We're in Knoxville, a city in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee. It's early June and inching towards that temperature where moving around outside feels like a challenge. It's especially hot inside the barn that Scott Payne built. And calling it a barn doesn't do it justice. It's a man cave, really. Or as Scott calls it, the barn dominium.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Scott cemented his faith that day. Shortly after, he went off to college and he decided to study psychology, in part because he wanted to understand his dad's depression.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
So Scott finished up his psychology degree as he began exploring options in law enforcement. But he was also acquiring some valuable schooling at the time that didn't come from higher education. He was about to learn a lot inside a bar called Desperados.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
Joe Ferris is one of Scott's closest friends. They both played football in college, and they were roommates. Scott was paying for his tuition by bouncing at a country bar named Desperados. Joe worked there with him.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 2: You Got Anything for Rednecks?
And I think, I mean, obviously to be a bouncer, you need to have physical strength, but what other kind of skills do you need to have? And in particular, what kind of skills did Scott have when he was working there?