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CARA HETLAND: South Dakotans call him "Wild Bill" Janklow. And everyone has a Wild Bill story, like when he grabbed an automatic weapon to join the police to help end a hostage standoff at the State Capitol. He emerged from the building only after police had the suspect in custody.

Janklow loved to win, whether in court or in a political debate. He buried opponents under the shear force of his words and the power of his ideas, and he loved action. When a tornado nearly destroyed the small town of Spencer, South Dakota in May of 1998, Janklow raced the storm in his truck to get there. While weather watchers called it the perfect storm, political observers called it classic Bill Janklow.

He simultaneously played the all-caring governor, the hard-driving boss, and the micromanager supreme. Standing amid the Spencer rubble the day after the tornado, Janklow took charge.

BILL JANKLOW: We need to work with each family to go through the rubble, to find their mementos, to find their possessions, to find their pictures, their valuables, whatever that can be found before we haul the town away.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow moved there for a week, sleeping in his camper and supervising the recovery down to the smallest details.

BILL JANKLOW (ON SPEAKER): So folks, at 2:30 this afternoon, we're going to let you bring in your vehicles to load your personal effects. If you need help, we'll have help here to give you a hand, get your stuff loaded.

CARA HETLAND: He brought prison inmates to Spencer to help rebuild the town. Spencer mayor Donna Ruden says, Janklow literally saved the town of 350.

DONNA RUDEN: Without him, we would have probably been in chaos. People would have left town, not cleaned up any of the property, whereas he had people come in and help us clean up and get back on our feet, start us over again.

CARA HETLAND: But even in his finest moments, the seeds of his undoing were present. The morning after the storm, Janklow described how he arrived in Spencer less than an hour after the tornado departed.

SPEAKER: You got here awful quick last night. Were you in the area?

BILL JANKLOW: No, I was east of Sioux Falls at home, but they told me that a tornado was about to-- they thought was about to slam into this community. And so I immediately headed west.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow lives in Brandon, 50 miles from Spencer. He described how the high winds blew his truck into a ditch. He managed to drive out and continue. He drove fast. All the while, Janklow says he was on the radio.

BILL JANKLOW: I started mobilizing the emergency effort as I was driving down the highway on the radio, on my police radio and my car radio. I had the prisoners rolling before I got here. And I had the National Guard called and-- I mean, I had a lot of things going on while it took me 35 minutes, 40 minutes to drive here.

CARA HETLAND: In fact, during his manslaughter investigation, evidence showed that in the aftermath of the tornado, he ran a stop sign and almost crashed into a car near Spencer. Bill Janklow liked to move fast in his car and in his life. He made decisions quickly and stuck to them. His politics were the same as his personality, "Hurry up, take chances, clean up the mistakes later."

He had no room for doubters. With Bill Janklow, you were either on his side, the right side, or against him.

[BUDDY HOLLY, "REMINISCING"] I'm just sitting here reminiscing

Bill Janklow grew up in Chicago and came to love the Rock and Roll revolution that was breaking all the traditional rules of music and dance. To this day, he's a whiz at early rock trivia. The family spent time in Germany, where his father prosecuted Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. Janklow was 11 when his father died.

Soon after, his mother moved the family to her hometown, Flandreau, South Dakota. It was 1954 and Janklow was 15. He only lived there a short time but is linked to the town forever. As he admitted during a press conference a few years ago, he soon developed a reputation.

BILL JANKLOW: Let's just say I was a kid from the streets of Chicago who moved to Flandreau. And in those days, they hadn't made all the modern advances in chemistry, so the chemistry was a little rugged. And I ended up getting in my share of trouble.

CARA HETLAND: He tangled with school officials. He hung out with the wrong people. He was reckless. Before long, the police were after him. Janklow was accused of assaulting a 17-year-old Flandreau girl. Many years later, during his first political campaign, Janklow said it wasn't rape. He said, quote, "It didn't go that far."

He says charges were dropped and he didn't appear in court. It was the first of several brushes with the law in his hometown. While still in high school, Janklow was caught shooting a gun at a water tower. A judge gave him two options, reform school or the military.

BILL JANKLOW: I grew up in the Marine Corps. I learned that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was or as tough as I thought I was or a lot of things as I thought I was. I learned that you have to-- if you're going to win, you got to do it as a team. I think it was an important juncture in my life.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow didn't stay humbled for long, though. After the Marines, it was clear Janklow was more the hard-driving drill Sergeant than the order-taking grunt. Without a high school diploma, he talked his way into the University of South Dakota and then went on to law school.

His first job was as a legal aide attorney on the Rosebud Indian reservation. He was proud of his defense record there. He said he defended 30 Indians accused of murder or manslaughter. All were found either innocent or guilty of a lesser charge. He liked working for the little guy. He said it gave him purpose. Sioux Falls lawyer Jeremiah Murphy first met Bill Janklow while testifying at a legislative hearing.

JEREMIAH MURPHY: He looked like he was driving a road grader or something because he had this flannel shirt on and jeans. And he gave wonderful testimony. I didn't catch his name.

CARA HETLAND: But soon everyone in the state would know who he was. Janklow, the defense lawyer, switched sides. Running a get-tough-on-crime platform, he won election in 1974 as South Dakota's Attorney General. In 1978, he won his first term as governor. After two terms, he left politics to practice law.

In 1994, after then-Governor Mickelson died in a plane crash, he announced he had decided to run for governor again because South Dakota needed him. The voters agreed and gave him two more terms. During his years as governor, he pushed for tougher criminal penalties. In 1998, he said he had no respect for lawbreakers.

BILL JANKLOW: I think most people that go to prison are losers. Like I tell them, you can't even succeed at crime. Even at crime, you're a failure. Now you got caught, and you got convicted.

CARA HETLAND: After he left the governor's office, he won a seat in the US House in 2002, a term cut short by his car crash and resignation. Janklow ran as a Republican but often questioned the party line. He worked easily with Democrats. He trusted his own judgment over anyone else's. Roger Damgaard, a former law partner, says in some ways, Janklow had his own political party and he was the only member.

ROGER DAMGAARD: I think Bill Janklow defies categorization or definition when it comes to politics or a whole lot of other things. People like him only come along maybe once every 500 years. He's just Bill Janklow. Bill Janklow is Bill Janklow is Bill Janklow, period.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow loves to argue. Damgaard says that's his way of learning about an issue. But once Janklow makes up his mind about what he wants, he's a driven man. Support him and ride an unstoppable steamroller, oppose him and he will roll right over you. Roger Damgaard says Janklow doesn't care what people think, he just wants to win.

ROGER DAMGAARD: That kind of attitude wins things and gets things done and gets things accomplished, but it also bruises people along the way. And if Bill Janklow thinks you're a bad guy or you're doing something wrong, he's going to say what he thinks.

CARA HETLAND: Indian activist Russell Means has felt Janklow's heat. Means was a leader of the American Indian Movement, AIM. AIM is best known for its 1973 armed takeover of the tiny village of Wounded Knee. The South Dakota Attorney General made Janklow a special prosecutor for AIM cases brought by the state. The former defense lawyer now went after certain AIM members. Means says Janklow did it for political purposes.

RUSSELL MEANS: He's the consummate lawyer, dedicated to his client. I saw that once he became a South Dakota politician, his constituency are the white people of South Dakota. And he didn't come out so much anti-Indian as he used AIM to play on the prejudices, the ingrained racism of South Dakotans.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow's team convicted Means, and he spent a year in prison. But as if to prove it was all about politics and nothing personal, Janklow pardoned Means just before he left the governor's office. Janklow's aggressive style made many political enemies. One of the most damaging incidents of his career took place in the small South Dakota town of Plankinton.

[WIND WHOOSHING]

Plankinton's juvenile detention center stands empty today, quiet, except for the swish of dry grass and a chilly wind. A chain-linked fence topped with barbed wire circles the long, low buildings. In the 1950s, Plankinton was the state's reform school. Bill Janklow would have served time here in his youth had he not taken the other choice provided by the judge and joined the Marines.

As governor, Janklow decided to model the detention center on his own past, turning it into a sort of marine boot camp. Janklow wanted teenagers to learn discipline, physical fitness, and teamwork, the very things the Marine Corps had taught him. Janklow believed he knew best and even said the state could be a better parent to troubled teens than their own mothers and fathers. He transformed the detention center in the late 1990s without telling key political leaders.

Pat Haley, head of the democratic caucus in the South Dakota House at the time, and a member of the corrections committee, says he didn't know about the boot camp until parents and kids started reporting mistreatment.

PAT HALEY: They were four-pointing teenage girls naked on cement pads in isolation cells at Plankinton, handcuffing them to little rebar loops that had been fashioned into cement pads.

CARA HETLAND: A judge sent 14-year-old Gina Score to Plankinton, July 1999, for shoplifting. David Score says his daughter thought the camp might be a good idea.

DAVID SCORE: She was at one end on a Friday. She entered the boot camp on a Monday and died on a Wednesday.

CARA HETLAND: Gina collapsed after being forced to run two miles on a hot and humid July morning. Boot camp counselors refused her help. They said she was faking. Gina sat under a tree for several hours before someone called an ambulance.

DAVID SCORE: After the doctors had flushed her system with cold fluids and tried to resuscitate her, they finally took her core temperature and it still was over 108, and that was an hour and a half later. So basically, she cooked to death.

CARA HETLAND: There was an outcry. Janklow closed the boot camp in 2000 citing management problems. David Score says Janklow shares the blame for his daughter's death. He says the governor handpicked the camp's director. He says the counselors were not trained to deal with medical emergencies.

The Scores sued over their daughter's death. They settled with the state and a hospital for $1.25 million. Two boot camp employees were charged. Both were acquitted. Former Legislator Pat Haley says, Janklow's reaction to Gina Score's death was typical. He went on the attack. He tried to discredit kids and parents who spoke out on camp abuse. When Haley confronted Janklow during a phone conversation, Janklow ripped into him, too.

PAT HALEY: His anger can be overwhelming. The words were one after another after another, it was like an assault. And he would always drop back at some point and cajole a little bit. And about the time you would begin to feel like you were back on your feet, then he'd come at you again.

CARA HETLAND: Haley said Janklow threatened to destroy him. It wasn't just opponents who were afraid of "Wild Bill" Janklow's larger than life personality. Minnesota Public Radio contacted dozens of people, supporters as well as opponents, to ask about Janklow. Most refused to be interviewed. Bill Janklow himself declined an interview request.

One person who did speak is journalist Jim Carrier. Carrier was the executive editor of the Rapid City Journal in the early 1980s when he tangled with Governor Janklow. Janklow had sent state troopers to a bankrupt rancher's house to repossess livestock and machinery. Janklow worried there might be a gunfight.

Carrier, as a reporter, heard about it and was on the phone with the rancher when the troopers arrived. When Janklow found out about the call, he called Carrier and accused him of tipping the rancher off and deliberately endangering the state troopers. Carrier says he told Janklow that the rancher knew before his call, that the law was on its way.

JIM CARRIER (ON PHONE): I refused to back down in my conversation with the Governor. And within a couple of hours, he had gotten a conference call with my publisher and proceeded to repeat the accusations against me. When that had finished, I went ahead and got the paper out, reported the story. And when I came in Monday, I was fired.

CARA HETLAND: Though few people will publicly accuse Janklow of intimidation, when the tape recorder was off, many gave examples of it. They acknowledged Janklow rarely admitted he was wrong. They believed he placed himself above the law. During the 1998 race for governor, Democrat Bernie Hunhoff accused Janklow of corruption. Hunhoff campaign manager, Bret Healy, runs down a list of specific allegations.

BRET HEALY: He also was able to get a $250,000 loan when he didn't have the collateral to put up $250,000 loan. And it just so happened that the banker that he borrowed the money from, he had appointed to the state banking commission. In other states and in other venues, we'd call that corruption. And frankly, that's what we should call it in South Dakota. In 1998, it was called, just politics.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow supporters insist the allegations were not true, but voters didn't seem to care one way or the other. Janklow beat Hunhoff by 32% of the vote. In fact, Janklow only lost one election in his life, a primary race for US Senate. Political scientist Alan Clem of the University of South Dakota says voters liked Janklow because he was a sort of pirate saint.

ALAN CLEM: He's a kind of a scamp or a rascal, maybe that's the word, and it's kind of an affectionate character.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow won all of his governor races by double-digit margins, including one by 42 percentage points. Old friend Jeremiah Murphy says voters recognized Janklow worked hard for them.

JEREMIAH MURPHY: I've heard him tell subordinates when they were going out to have a hearing, now you give those people a good listening to whether you have to-- you need to be-- you have to be there till 1:00 in the morning. In other words, let the people know you care. Joe Sixpack and Bill Janklow are one.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow reached out to regular South Dakotans. He was a populist who made things happen, but he also was a very personal saint, too. Minnesota Public Radio talked to many who say they were directly helped by Janklow. Though again, even they refused to be interviewed. Former law partner Dick Gregorson had a role in one Janklow good deed.

DICK GREGORSON: One Christmas, he called me and said he was in California. And he said, say, I always take $500 cash to this particular priest for some poor people. And I don't want him to know where the money comes from, these people. I forgot to take the money over. And he said, would you do that, would you run over with the $500 cash, give it to the father, and I'll pay you back when I get back.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow was active in the Make-a-Wish Foundation, which helps dying children fulfill some of their dreams. Janklow shared his love of rock and roll at fundraisers.

[BILL HALEY AND HIS COMETS, "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK"] One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock

He was known as BJ the DJ. Dave Rowe also volunteers for Make-a-Wish. He remembers how Janklow bid generously but anonymously at a Make-a-Wish auction.

DAVE ROWE: He went back in a corner, sat with somebody he know. That other person started doing the bidding. And I looked over my shoulder and pretty soon, I knew what was going on. Bill was tapping him if he wanted to bid. He outbid everybody in the place through this other guy's voice. That's just Bill Janklow.

CARA HETLAND: "That's just Janklow," was a characterization that followed Wild Bill through his career. Some said it in affection, some said it in frustration, and some surely thought it on August 16, 2003, in anger. That day, Janklow ran a stop sign at nearly 70 miles an hour, right into the path of motorcyclist Randy Scott.

Scott didn't have a chance. His bike hit the car just behind the driver's door. His body struck the back of Janklow's borrowed Cadillac with enough force to tear open the trunk. Shortly after his death, Randy Scott's friends held a motorcycle rally in his honor. Scott's family and friends were devastated.

The Hardwick, Minnesota farmer was a popular figure. He was always ready with a joke. Most of the people there, like Dick Lauseng, were bitter toward Janklow.

DICK LAUSENG: I remember years ago when Janklow was governor, he wanted flashing lights on his vehicle so he could speed and stuff like that. So apparently, he loves speed. And it just finally caught up with him. And it's too bad it was a bike. Too bad it couldn't be a semi.

CARA HETLAND: A semi-trailer would have flattened Janklow. Flandreau, South Dakota, December 8, 2003.

SPEAKER 1: Did you kill that man, Congressman?

SPEAKER 2: Are you going to appeal?

CARA HETLAND: Reporters shout questions at Janklow as he leaves the Moody County courthouse in his home town. Moments before, a jury had convicted him of manslaughter. Many on the jury knew Janklow personally. After the accident, Janklow seemed a changed man. He'd suffered a head injury in the crash. At his first public appearance after the accident, he spoke slowly and seemed confused.

BILL JANKLOW: I'm 64 years old. And I've never dealt with anything-- you can't prepare in life to deal with the enormity of what I'm dealing with.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow misidentified the dead motorcyclist. Repeatedly, he called Randy Scott, Mr. Robertson.

BILL JANKLOW: There's no way that I know how to express the sadness and the sorrow and the grief that had been brought to Mr. Robertson's family, none.

CARA HETLAND: Janklow refused to talk about what happened that day, saying it was for the courts to decide. Some South Dakotans were upset that Janklow maintained his innocence in the face of the early evidence.

The criminal investigation brought more shocks. It documented that Janklow had long been just as aggressive on the highway as he had been in politics. He had received a dozen speeding tickets over a 10-year period. Once he was clocked doing 100 miles per hour. It also showed South Dakota police and State Patrol officers regularly let Janklow go without a ticket once they found out whom they had stopped.

His record made a mockery of words he had spoken in 1999. During his State of the State message, he was arguing for stiffer criminal penalties. He used himself as an example of why stiff penalties deter criminals.

BILL JANKLOW: Bill Janklow speeds when he drives. Shouldn't, but he does. And when he gets the ticket, he pays it. But if someone told me I was going to jail for two days for speeding, my driving habits had changed. I can pay the ticket, but I don't want to go to jail.

CARA HETLAND: Now, he'll likely serve time for his manslaughter conviction up to 11 years. During the trial, it was clear South Dakotans lost faith in their pirate saint, who too often put himself above the law. Opinion polls showed most people wanted Janklow out of office. Hours after his conviction, Janklow resigned from the US House.

In a letter to constituents, he said it marked the end of his public life. But old friend Jeremiah Murphy wonders what may happen.

JEREMIAH MURPHY: He certainly has a future helping people, and God's not done with him. And there are a lot of us that know what a valuable asset he is, and we don't want that asset to ferment. We want it to stay active and grow.

CARA HETLAND: As he walked down the courthouse steps in Flandreau after his conviction, Janklow looked beaten. He always knew his reckless and aggressive style carried risks. He once told a reporter, people like what I do, but they don't like the way I do it. Many were openly happy at Janklow's fall. The larger than life politician who behaved rashly, intimidated opponents and bent the rules, had finally been forced to live within the law.

Janklow didn't play to opinion polls, and he once said, what's important to him is his own conscience, how Bill Janklow judges Bill Janklow. Yet, Janklow seems to have been too easy on himself. He was the delinquent who narrowly avoided reform school and entered the system. He was the lawyer who mocked criminals, but himself broke the law.

When he had the chance to judge himself and change, he didn't. He was reckless and got away with it, was even loved for it, until he took one risk too many and killed a man and went from being a pirate saint to a simple outlaw. Cara Hetland, Minnesota Public Radio.