BANGOR – What do you get when you cross three angry deer hunters with three game wardens trying to track poachers in Penobscot County? A civil lawsuit spiced with enough backwoods drama and animal anatomy to thrill the most seasoned hunting veteran.

Throw in a graphic detail about a stinking, severed deer head distracting a game warden allegedly hiding in the woods, and a few other wildlife anecdotes, and the seven-page lawsuit, filed Oct. 19 at U.S. District Court in Bangor, becomes required reading for Maine woods fans.

In four counts, the federal lawsuit pits two men and a woman from Dixmont against game wardens Daniel Scott, David Georgia and Doug Tibbetts as well as the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The Maine Warden Service also is mentioned as a defendant in a case of a missing deer, an apparent attempt at backwoods espionage and several complicated lab tests that tried to match the missing deer’s heart to packages of frozen deer meat confiscated from the Moore-Herrin home.

Lloyd E. Moore 56, and Lloyd D. Moore, 24, are father and son and live in Dixmont. Also residing in the Moore home is Jamie Herrin, 19, fiancee of Lloyd D. Moore.

The trio claims the defendants inflicted emotional distress, violated their civil rights and subjected them to “malicious prosecution” in cases adjudicated last winter in Newport District Court.

The lawsuit alleges the game wardens’ “conduct in planting evidence, violating the plaintiff’s constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and seizures and conspiring to bring false charges was so extreme and outrageous as to exceed all possible bounds of decency and must be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”

The Moores and Herrin seek punitive damages and costs of the litigation, although a specific money amount is not mentioned

The Attorney General’s Office will represent the DIF&W and the game wardens. The department has received the lawsuit and staff members are now reviewing it but cannot comment further at this early stage in the litigation process, said Bob Way, spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office.

Wardens Scott and Georgia have been served with legal papers, according to a clerk at U.S. District Court in Bangor. A return-of-service form on Warden Tibbetts is scheduled to be delivered to the courthouse by Nov. 24.

Attorney William Kelly of Belfast is representing the Moores and Herrin. He termed the allegations “fairly serious” against the game wardens. Kelly said a tort claim alleging wrongdoing on the part of the game wardens was filed nearly a year ago “but we never received any response” from the wardens or the state department employing them.

By next month, Kelly’s clients would have lost their legal right to sue because of a statute-of-limitations rule, so a civil lawsuit was filed, the attorney said.

The complaint “is fairly detailed and it really speaks for itself,” said Kelly. It details “what the behavior was in this case,” Kelly added.

The lawsuit outlines a series of events that allegedly began when Lloyd E. Moore struck a deer with his truck on Dec. 2, 1998. Moore took the deer to the home of Warden Daniel Scott the same day, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges Scott determined that there was insufficient damage to Moore’s truck to warrant the Dixmont man retaining the deer. The warden kept the deer, according to the lawsuit.

The deer was gutted and left hanging in Scott’s yard. Scott retained the animal’s heart, which played a key role in events that occurred later. The animal’s carcass reportedly disappeared from the yard two days later and was presumed stolen.

Scott reportedly went to the Moore-Herrin home and asked the elder Moore if he knew anything about the deer’s disappearance. Moore denied any knowledge of the missing deer, the lawsuit states.

About seven weeks after the deer disappeared, Wardens Tibbetts and Georgia went to the Moore-Herrin home and questioned the residents about a report of a moose allegedly killed in the area, according to the lawsuit. No mention was made of the missing deer or other suspected illegalities, the lawsuit states.

Before knocking on the door, Tibbetts and Georgia “dropped Warden Scott in the woods directly opposite of the Moore-Herrin home,” the lawsuit states.

Scott “hid in the woods to observe the house,” the lawsuit states. Scott claimed in report he made out later that “while hiding in the woods across from the Moore-Herrin home” he happened to find a “‘stinky deer head’ lying on top of deep snow,” the lawsuit states.

Scott’s report “did not mention any tracks leading to or away from this stinky deer head,” the lawsuit states. Neither does the report mention “Warden Scott undertaking any investigation in the immediate area to determine the origin of the head or the person who placed it in the snow,” the lawsuit states.

The story gets a bit complicated at this point because Wardens Georgia and Tibbetts confiscated nine packages of deer and moose meat from the Moore-Herrin home during their visit. A month later they asked a warden laboratory specialist to try to genetically match the deer meat to the missing deer’s heart.

The specialist examined the meat, the deer heart and head and sent it to the University of Maine for DNA testing.

None of the meat matched the deer heart, the lawsuit states.

After the testing was completed, the wardens told the Moores that the moose meat was legally take, but said there were more deer in the samples than the Moores could account for.

In August 1999 Lloyd E. Moore and Lloyd D. Moore were charged with illegal possession of wild animals or birds and exceeding the bag limit on deer. Both counts were dismissed. On Jan. 12, 2000, Lloyd E. Moore pleaded guilty to one count of possessing unlabeled gift deer meat and paid a fine of $150.

The case could be ready for trial within a year.