This story will be told in seven pieces over the course of the week, with a new installment at 8 a.m. every day. This is Part 1.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - One deputy was suspicious from the start.

Sgt. Chad Brooks -- who leapt upon the bleeding and thrashing man, only to take a kick to the gut -- would later write that in 14 years he'd never seen anyone resist with such ferocity.

"He was making growling noises and screaming uncontrollably despite no one actively restraining him," wrote Brooks of that night in August of 2012, of his arrival at the dark roadside near the Tennessee line.

There were already a handful of deputies there. Brooks writes Deputy Justin Watson looked exhausted and had blood on his shirt. Watson assured Brooks -- his boss on the third shift -- that the blood came from the man lying in the ditch.

Brooks approached the suspect. But the man had been playing possum. He rolled onto his side and put a boot in Brooks' stomach. Then the man, still in handcuffs, tried to stand up. Brooks tackled him to the ground. They struggled. More deputies piled on.

While lying across the man to keep him still, Brooks noticed the bruises and the blood on the man's face. His teeth had been knocked out.

The man's name, he would later learn, was Robert Bryant.

"Over the course of the next three nights, while I was off duty, I reflected on the extent of the violence displayed by Bryant, the location of the stop, and the proximity to Billy's Sports Bar," wrote Brooks in an internal report to senior officers. "I recalled the rumors of Deputy Watson's altercation at the bar, and began to theorize what would make Bryant fight with such violence toward Deputies."

He'd heard talk of a drunken sucker punch at Billy's and a fat lip.

"I began to wonder if Bryant was the same man Deputy Watson had fought off duty."

$625,000

This spring Robert Bryant sued the sheriff and eight Madison County deputies for stalking him, stopping him, beating him unconscious and arresting him in revenge for a barfight at Billy's.

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

But he sued two deputies too many.

Hank Sherrod, attorney for Bryant, says if the suit had gone forward, they would have dropped two names: Sgt. Chad Brooks and Lt. Mike Salomonsky.

"Based on everything I've seen in the record, they tried very hard to investigate this incident and were shut down," said Sherrod.

There was never a chance to drop those names. Madison County this summer folded its cards and paid Bryant $625,000. The county settled without taking a single deposition or ever presenting its side of the case.

In fact, Sherrod tacked on one more demand. It was a big one.

He demanded all the internal files related to Bryant's case. Bryant's criminal attorney Jeremiah Hodges had a year earlier asked for the same internal files, but a judge denied the request.

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.

This time Madison County complied.

As of today, the FBI is investigating possible criminal civil rights abuses by the deputies involved.

But the sheriff's department's own files -- recently shared by Sherrod -- now show that two dogged deputies had long ago asked the same questions the FBI is asking, only to have their investigation quashed by the top brass.

Murder raises stakes

The internal investigation of Sgt. Brooks and Lt. Salomonsky would likely have gathered dust forever, if not for the execution of Jason Klonowski.

None of this - a barfight and a beatdown -- would have ever drawn much public interest if not for the unsolved murder on a suburban lane just north of Huntsville.

Throughout the criminal case, Jason Klonowski was essentially the voice of Robert Bryant, the one calling for justice. He was mostly ignored. But Klonowski had built a courier business, had no day job and had plenty of time and money. He wasn't going away.

He also had a strange track record of tenacious legal battles, having fought Jack Daniels in court over siding for a cabin in Lynchburg, Tenn. He told friends he spent $100,000 fighting in Madison County courts for the ownership of a lost dog.

Jason Klonowski

Klonowski had long employed Bryant as a handyman. So when Bryant came to him for help, Klonowski found him a lawyer and helped pay the bills. In the fall of 2013, tired of waiting for Madison County to drop the assault charges, Klonowksi bought "Support Robert Bryant" yardsigns and t-shirts and built a small stage in his front yard.

On Sept. 28, 2013, he stood on that stage and promised not to stop until Deputies Justin Watson and Jake Church were imprisoned.

So when he turned up dead a month later, shot three times through the back of the head and posed in a chair by his barn, everything changed. The murder ignited a sudden rush of activity around Bryant's case.

Deputies stopped Bryant in August of 2012. The internal investigation cranks up in December of 2012 and is quashed in January of 2013.

Then nothing. The case is quiet for months, until November of 2013, about one year ago.

Nov. 3, 2013: Klonowski is found dead.

Nov. 7, 2013: Madison County cancels a scheduled hearing to argue over GPS data from patrol cars on the night of Bryant's traffic stop.

Nov. 13, 2013: Madison County District Attorney's office drops all criminal charges against Bryant.

Nov 17, 2013: Chief Deputy Chris Stephens, long the number two in the sheriff's department, is demoted to night shift. (Police records suggest Stephens quashed the Bryant investigation.)

Nov. 20, 2013: Sherrod, Bryant's lawyer, writes an open letter calling for an outside investigation into Klonowski's killing, saying deputies had "motive" to harm him.

Nov. 21, 2013: Sheriff Blake Dorning writes the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, asking for help investigating the misconduct of deputies involved in the Bryant stop.

Dec. 2, 2013: The ABI refuses. They take over the murder case. But they say too much time -- more than a year -- has passed since Bryant's traffic stop. Sheriff Dorning is on his own.

There's much more. Bryant is finally interviewed, a deputy is fired, another deputy is moved and more. So a lot happens in November.

But it's in December of 2013, roughly one year later, that the sheriff finally dusts off the investigation by Salomonsky and Brooks.

Coming tomorrow, what the sheriff finds in those investigative files.