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Madison County Deputy Justin Watson at Huntsville Hospital after the traffic stop of Aug. 22, 2012. (Photo by Madison County Sheriff's Department)

This story will be told in seven pieces over a week, with a new installment at 8 a.m. every day. This is Part 3. For the best experience, we recommend you start with Part 1.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Official descriptions of the $625,000 traffic stop are inconsistent.

Details change between different police documents and between different times of retelling. But here is the version Madison County Deputy Justin Watson tells in court during a preliminary hearing for Robert Bryant in December of 2012.

Watson says he saw a pickup cross the center line three times. He says the driver "looked like he was about to run off the road." Watson says he pulled him over.

Watson is asked if he checked Bryant's truck tag. Watson replies: "I gave it to dispatch. I didn't run it through records or anything like that."

Bryant's attorney Jeremiah Hodges asks: "And is that not what you always do?"

Jeremiah Hodges, Bryant's criminal attorney

Watson: "Yes, sir, that's procedure."

Hodges: "But you didn't -- so you didn't actually run his tag number."

More strange details emerge. Watson says he didn't like Bryant's "odd stare." Bryant stared at him with "glossy bloodshot eyes." He testifies that he figured Bryant "was possibly under the influence of alcohol or pills or some form of influence." (Bryant would not be charged with any crime related to drugs and was not found to be intoxicated.)

Hodges stops him and asks: "Before that night, had you ever seen my client before?"

Watson says: "No, sir."

Hodges: "So you didn't recognize him?"

The Sheriff's Files

Two year's worth of police files, released by the Madison County Sheriff's Department to settle a lawsuit, now offer a rare look at the internal investigations and maneuverings in response to a traffic stop that would ultimately cost the county $625,000 and lead to the current FBI investigation of deputies. Told in seven parts.

Watson: "No, sir."

Watson says the window was tinted. It was dark. He says he asked whether Bryant had a gun, and Bryant said he did. (This question is the lone detail that matches with Bryant's account of the stop, although Bryant says Watson was not the deputy who stopped him or asked that question.)

Watson says he walked back to his patrol car with a couple of Bryant's IDs, a driver's license and a pistol permit. That's when he called for backup. He then returned to the truck to ask Bryant to step out. He says Bryant was moving around a lot, and he wanted to separate him from access to his gun.

He testifies that Bryant suddenly lunged at him and "grabbed my shoulder/neck area." (Unsigned, official police reports from that night tell various stories. One report has Bryant attacking Watson during a field sobriety check, another has him growl and leap from the truck's cab.)

Watson says: "I took a step back, bladed myself and attempted -- it's called a brachial stun to the neck." Basically, Watson says he put one foot in front of the other, like an archer, and tried to karate chop the guy in the neck. But that didn't work.

Watsons' hands on Aug. 22, 2012, at Huntsville Hospital (Photo by Madison County Sheriff's Department)

So Watson says he began "delivering elbow strikes to his face." But Bryant kept coming forward, so Watson hit him in the "common acromion on his left leg" with a baton four times. That didn't work either. Watson says they wrestled on the ground for a couple minutes until Watson was able to choke Bryant into submission and handcuff him.

Watson testifies that he rolled off of Bryant just as backup, including Deputies Drew Lane and Stan Bice, arrived. He says Lane and Bice subdued Bryant while Watson "tried to regain composure and get the blood off of me." (Police records indicate Lane fired a stun gun at Bryant during ensuing efforts to restrain him. Bryant's lawsuit claimed he was "choked out" and unconscious before backup arrived.)

Hodges: "If the medical records from Huntsville Hospital were to indicate that he suffered head injuries from the altercation, you wouldn't disagree with that?'"

Watson: "No, sir, I wouldn't."

Robert Bryant at Huntsville Hospital on Aug. 22, 2012 (Photo by Madison County Sheriff's Department)

But the key moment at the hearing comes last. This is the moment that's the real problem for everyone from the assistant district attorney to two deputies, Sgt. Chad Brooks and Lt. Mike Salomonksy, who are suspicious about the events of the night.

Watson has already denied recognizing or knowing Bryant. But Hodges probes with a more clear question: "You had an encounter with my client, Robert Henry Bryant, prior to Aug. 22 of this year, didn't you?"

Watson: "No sir."

Hodges: "Have you ever been to a place called Billy's Bar & Grill?"

Watson: "One time, yes, sir."

Hodges: "And do you sit here under oath and say that you didn't have an encounter at Billy's Bar & Grill with this man sitting right here?"

Watson: "Yes, sir, correct."

Hodges: "Do you deny that you got angry at him because you thought he was checking out your girlfriend or significant other or wife or whatever it was?"

The prosecutor objects. Hodges rests. The case is bound over for trial.

Bryant's truck (Photo by Madison County Sheriff's Department)

At least four times, under oath, Watson denies recognizing Bryant. Despite having pressured a dispatcher for Bryant's name and information. Despite turning around in front of Billy's Bar. Despite the rear window of Bryant's pickup saying "Robert's Auto Repair, Painting & Detailing."

Much later, senior officers would not overlook this.

Fast forward one year

"It is well documented by the official court transcript that Deputy Justin Watson's testimony in the District Court of Madison County Alabama and while under oath was not truthful," writes Capt. Charles Berry in a report to Sheriff Blake Dorning one year later.

It's December of 2013, a year since Watson's testimony. Watson has not been disciplined. But things are different now, Bryant's most forceful public advocate, Jason Klonowski, has been found murdered.

By this time, state investigators are working the Klonowski killing. But the state refused to investigate the traffic stop.

Madison County Sheriff Blake Dorning (file)

The Alabama Bureau of Investigation takes over the murder because of the many conflicts with deputies, including Dorning's personal connections. His brother Mitchell Dorning, a rodeo rider, had moved back to Huntsville from Oklahoma a few years earlier. For a while, Mitchell Dorning had lived in Klonowski's basement.

Friends say Klonowski and Mitchell Dorning had a falling out. But, several months before he died, Klonowski brought Mitchell Dorning back to lay a wooden floor. Neighbor Denise Brown says Klonowski thought that befriending the sheriff's brother once again might help resolve Bryant's criminal case. It didn't.

By September of 2013, Klonowski announced on a stage in his yard, and on video, that he used to be friends with the Dornings, but not anymore.

Bryant on Aug. 22, 2012 (Photo by Madison County Sheriff's Department)

So sitting there in December of 2013, confronted with an unsolved murder and the likelihood of a lawsuit and all sorts of rumors, Sheriff Dorning is forced to go back and look into what exactly Klonowski was so fired up about, what happened at a roadside near the Tennessee line.

One year after Watson testified about the traffic stop, Sheriff Dorning asks Capt. Charles Berry to compile the reports.

On Dec. 23, 2013, Berry sends the sheriff the notes about Watson's "not truthful" testimony and the long buried, year-old findings of Lt. Mike Salomonksy and Sgt. Chad Brooks.

Coming tomorrow, what Salomonsky and Brooks learn after the hearing.