Pod Insights Park Predators The Cowboy About this episode When a man comes forward claiming his friend gunned down two Idaho game wardens, a massive manhunt ensues to find the notorious trapper who pulled the trigger. Then, the case takes a series of twists that no one saw coming.
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0:30 Speaker 01 Hi, park enthusiasts. It's Delia. If you listen to Park Predators, you already know that sometimes the most beautiful places can hide the darkest secrets. But what happens when the danger isn't miles from civilization? It's in your community, and sometimes even in your own backyard. On Crime Junkie, hosts Ashley and Britt dive into real cases every week, from missing persons to unsolved murders, breaking down what we know, what we don't, and the details that still don't sit right. If you care about the stories behind the headlines and the victims at the center of them, you'll want to check out Crime Junkie. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
1:10 Speaker 01 Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia Diambra. And the case I'm going to share with you today is one of those true stories that has, in a strange way, turned the villain into somewhat of a legend, but for all the wrong reasons. I think it's important to be clear from the outset of this episode that the man at the center of this double murder was, without a doubt, a dangerous individual. But for some reason, I saw several retellings of this case that indirectly, and sometimes directly, portrayed the killer as almost a folklore-like hero, which just doesn't feel quite right to me. The murders that he carried out happened in Oihei County, Idaho, which is located in the southwest corner of the state.
1:54 Speaker 01 The city of Boise isn't too far away, and neither is the Twin Falls area. A key landmark in this region is the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. According to the US Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management website, this landscape has the greatest concentration of nesting birds of prey in all of North America. The Snake River runs through a deep canyon there and steep cliffs with lots of ridges and overhangs that overlook the water, create the perfect home for birds like eagles, falcons, hawks, and owls to make nests and raise their young. It's a protected area, one of many in the state of Idaho that hunters and poachers are supposed to respect.
2:36 Speaker 01 And the people responsible for enforcing the laws around wildlife are the state's game wardens, also known as conservation officers. Back in the winter of 1981, a trapper with a bad reputation broke the rules. And the events that followed played out like something from an American western movie plot. Except, it's not fiction. Every bit of what I'm about to tell you actually happened. This is Park Predators.
3:45 Speaker 01 On the afternoon of Monday, January 5th, 1981, a man named Jim Stevens was on his way to meet up with a friend of his named Claude Dallas Jr. at Claude's remote animal trapping compound in O'Waihe County, Idaho. Jim knew that his buddy needed some supplies and food to endure the winter before spring arrived, so he hadn't thought twice about making the trek to the remote campsite some three miles north of the Nevada state line and roughly 13 miles east of Idaho's border with Oregon. As Jim approached the compound, he fired a few gunshots into the air to alert his friend that he was almost there. Prior to this, Claude had asked Jim to fire his gun upon approach so that he wouldn't be surprised when Jim arrived.
4:27 Speaker 01 According to later coverage in an episode of the FBI files and a piece by the Idaho Statesman, Claude was the kind of guy who didn't like to be caught off-guard at his trapping compound, so he'd come up with this gunshot warning system to be able to differentiate between his friends and unwanted strangers. When Jim got to the compound, Claude greeted him and took the supplies he brought. Laying around the site were several bobcat skins that Claude said he planned to sell when spring arrived. Jim wasn't planning on doing any trapping this trip, though. He was more interested in collecting Native American artifacts from the landscape. So while Claude restocked his compound with the supplies and tended to the bobcat furs, Jim wandered off with his metal detector to search for artifacts along the South Fork
5:11 Speaker 01 of the Oahu River. A few minutes later, though, he heard what sounded like loud voices coming from the trapping compound, so he headed back to see what was up. When he arrived, he saw Claude and two other men, 50-year-old William "Bill" Pogue and 34-year-old Wilson "Conly" Elms, who I read in the coverage most often went by his middle name, Conly. Both of the men were game wardens. Jim saw that the trio of guys were arguing and Claude seemed to be growing more and more frustrated by the warden's presence. Bill and Conly pointed out that it wasn't bobcat or deer hunting season, yet it was clear that Claude had already killed several of those animals. The trapper couldn't come up with a good reason for his alleged poaching activities,
5:55 Speaker 01 and the longer the discussion went on, the more agitated Claude became. According to an article by Ellen Marks and Mark Crane for the Idaho Statesman, and later coverage for that same publication by Gary Strauss, "At one point, one of the wardens took a handgun from the men and unloaded it, but then gave it back, apparently under the impression that was the only firearm they had on them." Bill brought up the fact that he and his colleague should probably write Claude a citation for the bobcat pelts violation. That remark seemed to bristle Claude, and after that, Conley went into the trapper's tent to search for more illegal harvests. Before the two game wardens knew it, Claude had pulled out a .357 handgun that apparently
6:39 Speaker 01 had been hidden on his person and shot them. According to that episode of FBI files I mentioned a minute ago, after shooting the men with his .357, Claude armed himself with a .22 rifle and shot both game wardens in the head, reportedly to make sure they were dead. Now, immediately after this attack, Jim was shocked by what had happened. He didn't have a clear idea of what had prompted the blitz executions. However, in the aftermath of the murders, Claude told his friend that Bill Pogue had drawn his firearm first, basically suggesting that what had happened was an act of self-defense. And Jim believed him for the time being because, considering what had just happened, Jim figured
7:22 Speaker 01 it was in his best interest to comply with his friend. He then helped Claude dispose of the two game warden's bodies. Together, the men loaded Bill Pogue's body onto a mule and moved it into Jim's truck, which was parked just on the other side of a nearby ridge. After that, the men brainstormed about what to do with Conley's body. He was a much larger man than Bill, some sources say almost 300 pounds, so trying to move him to the truck via mule was quite difficult. So they decided to drag the game warden's body about a half mile away and dispose of him in the nearby river. Just prior to that, though, Claude had actually suggested they dismember him and scatter his remains, but neither man had the stomach to go through with that.
8:03 Speaker 01 After that, Claude used kerosene to torch all of the areas in and around the compound that were bloody. Then, the men built two fires where they burned some of the victims' belongings, as well as the ropes they used to move the game warden's bodies. When they left the trapping compound in Jim's truck, Claude remarked that they needed to take Bill's body to one of his friend's houses in Paradise Hill, Nevada, who could help them dispose of it. Throughout their five-or-so-hour journey to that location, Claude told Jim that he was sorry he'd gotten him involved in the matter, but once again emphasized that what happened between him and the wardens was justified. He claimed Bill and Conley had basically invaded his space, and the shootings were merely an act of self-defense.
8:45 Speaker 01 But in the back of Jim's mind, he kept replaying everything that had happened, and he couldn't quite figure out how exactly Claude's version of events was self-defense. But fearful for his own life, he didn't argue with his friend because he didn't want to meet the same end as the game wardens. So Jim just kept playing along.
9:05 Speaker 01 Around 11:00 PM, the pair arrived in Paradise Hill and met up with a couple named George and Liz Nielsen. George and Liz operated a tavern out of their house, and at that time of night, they were just about to close up. Claude explained to George that he had Bill Pogue's body in the back of Jim's vehicle, but they'd left Conley Elms's remains somewhere in the Oaihe River not far from the trapping compound. Instead of stopping right then and there and telling Claude to beat it, George, who producers for the FBI files described as having a similar resentment for law enforcement as Claude, agreed to help the men cover up the crime. George told Claude that they could use his pickup truck to transport Bill's body to a burial site in the Nevadan Desert.
9:49 Speaker 01 So after moving Bill's body into George's truck, Claude drove away, and Jim watched his friend fade into the desert just northwest of the city of Winnebago. A few hours later, in the morning, Claude came back to the Nielsen's home, took a shower, changed his clothing, and packed some of his things before getting money, food, and a ride to an area about 15 miles away from the couple's house. With him on that trip were George and Jim. After getting out, Claude met up with another friend in a different car and then vanished. After returning home from such a whirlwind of a night, Jim Stevens had a crisis of conscience and decided that someone in law enforcement should probably know about what Claude had done. So later that day, he visited Liz Nielsen, where she worked at a local hospital, and
10:34 Speaker 01 together, the two of them came to the conclusion that they needed to speak with an attorney and notify the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department, which in turn, I believe, got in touch with the Oaihe County Sheriff's Office.
10:47 Speaker 01 In his statement to investigators, Jim laid out what he'd seen and heard at Claude's trapping compound, including the fact that he wasn't sure whether Bill Pogue had actually displayed a firearm first, like Claude claimed. The Nielsen's gave statements to the sheriff's department, too, and George admitted to his role in helping Claude flee, but he explained that he had no idea where the 30-year-old had gone. After gathering these interviews, the sheriff of Hawaii County asked for help from the Idaho Department of Law Enforcement because that agency had more experience investigating crime scenes. A special agent with the FBI based in Nevada also joined the case to assist in both the murder investigation and the manhunt for Claude. Authorities were confident that Claude had crossed state lines after fleeing, so that's
11:32 Speaker 01 one of the reasons why federal investigators handled that aspect of the investigation. Anyway, by midday on Tuesday, law enforcement's two most pressing priorities were finding Claude Dallas Jr. and recovering the bodies of his victims. It took a few hours, but eventually sheriff's deputies and forensic experts from the State Department of Law Enforcement made it out to the section of the county where Claude's trapping compound was located. When they arrived, no one was around, but there were still animal skins sitting where Claude had left them, which I imagine indicated to police that he had not returned to retrieve them after going on the run. Investigators made note of the pelts and began combing the compound for physical evidence.
12:13 Speaker 01 They especially wanted to find anything that could prove Claude had personally been there. They didn't want to only rely on Jim Stevens' witness account, they needed evidence that backed up his version of events. Around noon the following day, Wednesday, January 7th, investigators rode in a helicopter above the landscape to try and locate Conley Elms's body. And after flying around for a short while, they spotted him. His corpse had become lodged under a submerged tree branch in the river, about a quarter of a mile downstream from Claude's trapping compound. He hadn't been weighted down with anything when he'd been put in the water, so it hadn't taken long for his body to surface and get snagged on the branch. Shortly after he was located, investigators began the process of retrieving his body.
12:57 Speaker 01 Reporting by the Associated Press and Idaho Statesman stated that, once he was removed from the river, his body was kept at the crime scene overnight Wednesday until resources could arrive to take it for an autopsy. But even with the results of that examination pending, officials told the press that it was clear Conley had been shot twice in the head and two times in the chest at point-blank range. While processing the crime scene, detectives had discovered other things of interest, too, including some traces of blood on the ground in various places. Those spots appeared to have been covered by vegetation debris that someone had tried to burn, but not all of the blood had been incinerated, so they took samples of it. They also collected firearm evidence and snapped photos of several shoe prints on
13:41 Speaker 01 the ground. They discovered spent shell casings for both .357 and .22 caliber ammunition and were able to recover some of the victim's belongings that Claude and Jim had burned in the two fire pits. The blood samples and other trace evidence were quickly sent to the Idaho State Crime Lab for analysis, but the results weren't immediately available. So, in the meantime, investigators asked Jim to walk them through everything he remembered from the day of the murders. They asked him to basically reenact, step by step, where Claude had been, where he had been, and where the game wardens had been when the crime went down. Obviously, though, Jim was only able to provide them with limited information, since there were some aspects of the shooting he had not personally witnessed, and it had all
14:26 Speaker 01 happened so fast. He also wasn't much help when it came to locating Bill Pogue's remains. If you remember, according to Jim and the Nielsen's, Claude had disposed of Bill by himself, with no witnesses around. So, there was no one to help authorities narrow in on a more specific search area. Investigators decided the best place to start was within a 30-square-mile radius of Win Amukka, Nevada, which is where Claude had last been seen.
14:54 Speaker 01 With such a broad search area to cover, the task of finding Bill became that much more difficult for investigators. They organized a formal search party, which included Conley's older brother, Michael, and members of law enforcement. From what I read in the source material, it seemed like everyone who was involved wanted to see the fallen game warden's body returned to his family and laid to rest properly. About 15 years before this, Bill had joined the fishing game department after serving as the sheriff of Winnemucca. He was described as a dedicated lawman who shared four children with his wife Dee. He'd previously been stationed along the Payette River, but had been transferred to Boise in the later part of his career. Conley Elms had only been with the state fishing game department for three years, but according to Pete Zamowski's reporting,
15:39 Speaker 01 he'd yearned for a long time to land a job as a game warden. He'd worked in a factory, as an electrician, and even part-time for the fishing game department until his dream of becoming an officer finally came true in the fall of 1977. Just like his colleague, Conley was also described as a skilled conservation officer. A state fisheries manager who knew him told the Idaho Statesman that Conley was interested in both law enforcement as well as the biological research aspect of wildlife management. The 34-year-old was married to his wife Cheryl and was originally from Oregon, but had moved to Boise, Idaho when he became really interested in working for the fishing game department. The only reason he and Bill were in the Oaihe Mountains on January 5th was because an area rancher
16:23 Speaker 01 had tipped them off to ongoing incidents of deer and bobcat poaching in the region, and they were investigating the source of those problems. Conley's wife Cheryl told reporter Pete Zamowski that on the day of the crime, Conley had actually been summoned for jury duty, but not called yet. By that afternoon, he learned that Bill was gonna go investigate the alleged poaching violations by himself, and Conley refused to let his colleague go alone. No other officers were available to accompany Bill at the time, so Conley stepped up. Cheryl said she'd asked her husband not to go, but he made up his mind. After learning of his death, she expressed she was devastated, but she was also glad to know that Conley had breathed his last while doing his dream job. Cheryl told reporter Pete Zamowski
17:09 Speaker 01 that she planned to cremate Conley's remains along with one of his favorite fly fishing rods, hat, and suspenders that belonged to his father. She wanted to spread the ashes in the South Fork of the Boise River, which was one of her husband's favorite streams to fish in. Leading up to his death, the couple had been planning to adopt a baby, their first child together. She told the newspaper that even though she'd tragically lost her life partner, she still planned to move forward with the adoption, which I find not only admirable, but inspiring.
17:39 Speaker 01 Bill Pogue's loved ones, though, couldn't find much closure, simply because his body remained unaccounted for. Without something to lay to rest, there would be no finality to his death, no burial, no answers, until his remains were located and brought home. The terrain that searchers were looking for him in was unforgiving, and at times, the weather conditions were brutal. Temperatures dropped, storms rolled in, and there were numerous gullies and abandoned mine shafts that Claude could have discarded the missing game warden in. Investigators traversed the search grid by foot, by air, and on horseback, but no sign of Bill turned up. Two days after the murders, the broad-stroke circumstances of the crime were all over the news, but authorities remained tight-lipped about who the suspect was
18:23 Speaker 01 or who the victims were. All investigators would say was that two game wardens had been killed while investigating reports of illegal trapping. However, those closest to the men knew what was going on, and so on January 8th, just one day after the initial coverage on the case came out, authorities finally shared more and announced that they were looking for Claude Dallas Jr. in relation to Conley Elms and Bill Pogue's deaths. First-degree murder warrants had been drafted and approved, and investigators were chomping at the bit to find the elusive trapper. But that was going to prove to be very, very difficult to do.
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19:34 Speaker 04 One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene. A dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids.
19:54 Speaker 05 It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.
20:01 Speaker 04 Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived. Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.
20:12 Speaker 06 That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.
20:17 Speaker 07 I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?
20:22 Speaker 04 I'm Eva Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
20:39 Speaker 01 A deputy with the Ojai County Sheriff's Office told the press that Claude Dallas Jr. wasn't your ordinary poacher. He was armed, dangerous, and had expert knowledge of the landscape in which he'd carried out the killings. The 30-year-old was described by many folks as a loner with survivalist skills who didn't like being around people. He would spend most winters by himself in the desert, living off the land, and when the weather got warmer, he took truck driving jobs or worked at farms to make ends meet. One article I read by Stephen Anderson and Mark Crane for The Idaho Statesman explained that Claude had lived along the Idaho-Nevada border for about 10 years prior to the murders. So the dude knew it like the back of his hand.
21:20 Speaker 01 A deputy even went as far as characterizing Claude as a self-professed mountain man who had a lot of experience in the outdoors. George Nielsen's brother told The Idaho Statesman in part, quote, "Claude's lived the kind of life most of us only wish we could live. He knows the cowboy life. He knows about open country and taking care of himself. He's an educated guy. How many men do you know who could winter alone out on that desert and survive?" End quote. Inside a trailer Claude had in Paradise Hill, authorities found a bunch of books about fashioning gun silencers, combat, ammunition, and survival skills. And they later learned that in October of 1980, a few months before the murders,
22:03 Speaker 01 he'd purchased an AR-15 automatic rifle and a canoe in Sandpoint, Idaho. The gun was accounted for at his trailer, but the canoe was not. And it also wasn't among his belongings at his trapping compound, which prompted officials to suspect that he'd probably hidden it somewhere and was likely using it to evade capture and stay off the land where he could be more easily tracked. UPI News unearthed an old issue of National Geographic Society's magazine, "The American Cowboy in Life and Legend", which featured two-color photos of a much younger Claude living his best cowboy life at a ranch in Paradise Valley, which I think only further cemented the image of him being a well-equipped person who could survive in the harsh landscape. So in light of all that information,
22:48 Speaker 01 investigators strongly suspected Claude would be very difficult to find in Idaho and Nevada's remote terrain, if in fact that's where he was still hiding out.
22:59 Speaker 01 To make matters even more challenging, people from the region who knew Claude were openly expressing that they hoped he wouldn't be caught. They sided with him in the narrative that he'd been defending himself against the law. Now, as wild as that may seem to some of you, I've been doing this long enough to know that oftentimes, in remote areas like this, where locals feel a strong sense of pride and ownership for the land they believe they have the right to live off of, anti-regulation sentiments with regards to wildlife restrictions can run deep. So it's not necessarily surprising that folks in this part of the country were rooting for Claude, despite the fact that he stood accused of murdering two men in cold blood. A spokesman for Idaho's fishing game department told The Times News that the
23:44 Speaker 01 double murder was the first time the department had lost personnel enforcing the state's fishing game laws due to a violent crime. The only losses the agency had documented prior to Conley and Bill's murders were two officers who died in an automobile accident and a plane crash. There had been some previous incidents of people threatening game wardens with firearms or assaulting them, but nothing as serious as murder. A sheriff's deputy at the time told the Idaho Statesman that the loss of two game wardens was a major blow to the fishing game department. At that time, he said, there were only about 10 officers who worked in the southwest part of the state, so losing two at the same time was devastating. As the manhunt for Claude dragged on, time seemed to move in slow motion, and the conditions
24:29 Speaker 01 for searching only became that much more challenging. For example, authorities attempted to search a reservoir in the Bilt Creek Mountains, but it was completely frozen over. Still, a diver descended into the icy body of water to check for Claude or anything that might be tied to him, and you guessed it, nothing useful came from that. As reality began to set in that Claude was essentially a ghost, for lack of a better term, everyone began to develop an opinion about the elusive trapper and his origin story. According to an Idaho Department of Law Enforcement agent who'd interviewed locals and an article by Charles Etlinger, Claude had just shown up one day in either 1969 or 1970 in Humboldt County. He was riding a horse and driving some pack mules.
25:14 Speaker 01 It was like he'd just materialized out of nowhere, and there was so much mystery around him. Stephen Anderson and Mark Crane explained in articles for the Idaho Statesman that by January 11, 1981, authorities working the murder investigation were considering disbanding the manhunt because no sign of Claude had surfaced. Investigators strongly suspected he was on foot and managing to stay one step ahead of them while living somewhere in the vast mountainous landscape. They even speculated that he'd hold up in a cave or an abandoned mineshaft. Bill Pogue's only brother, Ed Pogue, told the Idaho Statesman that despite all the efforts to locate his brother's remains being unsuccessful so far, he vowed to never stop searching.
25:57 Speaker 01 And it seemed that law enforcement welcomed Ed's help with open arms. They permitted him to go out on searches and even sit in on meetings about the manhunt. Ed explained that he was determined to see his brother's killer brought to justice, and he knew that was going to require patience and endurance. He told the newspaper, quote, "I'm not going to take the law into my own hands. I'll do whatever the sheriff says to do, but if he's spotted, you know I'll do whatever I can to help bring him in. I'm ready to wait as long as it takes. He's bound to resurface somewhere, and that's what I'll be waiting for." End quote. By January 14th, though, law enforcement's determination was not as resolute as Ed's. Formal ground searches for Claude had scaled back significantly.
26:42 Speaker 01 The task of trying to locate Bill Pogue's remains continued, though, and the sheriff of Ojaihe County told UPI that, similar to what Ed Pogue had previously expressed, it was a waiting game when it came to finding their prime suspect. The sheriff said in reference to Claude, quote, "My personal opinion is that he is not very far from home. We just have to figure out what part of his backyard he's in." End quote. Around that same time, reporter Ellen Marks briefly got ahold of Claude's father, Claude Dallas Sr., at his home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And Dad said that he was really heartbroken to learn about the murders his son was accused of committing. But he and his wife still planned to stand by their son and were very worried about his safety.
27:27 Speaker 01 When asked, Claude Senior denied being in contact with his son and stated that the family had spoken with the FBI and local law enforcement in their area about the situation. In that same newspaper article, a little bit more information about Claude Junior's origin story and family makeup was revealed. And it turns out, he was one of a handful of siblings: four brothers, two half-sisters, and one sister. They were scattered all over the country, and it's unclear from the source material if they were in close contact with or had any relationship whatsoever with Claude. But I did see some coverage that explained at least one of his brothers would eventually support him. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't have all the details there, but I don't think it was a situation of no contact, for example.
28:12 Speaker 01 Anyway, by January 17th, 12 days after the murders, authorities decided to officially disband the search for Bill's body. The sheriff told the press that a tremendous amount of resources had been expended by that point, and nothing had been found. The only new information they had to work with were recent findings from Conley Elms's autopsy. The ME confirmed the version of events Jim Stevens had already explained, which was that .357 and .22 caliber firearms had been used in the murders. The larger caliber gun had fired two rounds into Conley's chest, and the smaller caliber one had been used for the headshot. The sheriff at the time told the press that the use of two weapons and the specific area where Conley had been shot in his head were indicative of how a trapper would kill an
28:57 Speaker 01 animal to make sure it was dead. An experienced trapper would commonly deliver two shots to the body, and then another one with a small caliber weapon like a .22 near the back of the ear. With not much else to do except keep an eye out for Claude Dallas Jr. and hope someone would come forward with information, authorities, residents, and loved ones of the fallen officers organized a joint memorial service to honor their lives. This happened around the same time the search for Bill's body was called off, and around 400 people gathered at a park near the fishing game department's office to remember Conley and Bill's legacies. One of Bill's colleagues told the press that he was a gifted wildlife officer who had an almost expert knowledge of birds.
29:41 Speaker 01 He was dedicated to his work and his family, and to my surprise, Bill had actually dodged death a few times before his eventual murder. He had been in two nearly fatal car accidents, stranded in poor weather conditions that could have killed him, and he'd even been bitten by a venomous snake. Conley was eulogized as an equally dedicated law enforcement officer whose friends remembered him as a teddy bear of a person and an avid angler. A few days after the memorial service, a committee for the Idaho State Senate approved a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case. And shortly after that, a district judge signed a court order declaring Bill Pogue deceased. I presume since his remains had not been found and it was unlikely in anyone's mind
30:24 Speaker 01 that he was still alive, this move was purely a formality. It allowed his loved ones to claim things like life insurance, workman's compensation, and other post-death benefits. In early February 1981, despite Claude still being a fugitive, the Humboldt County District Attorney began preparing the case for a grand jury. He wanted to make sure he had all his ducks in a row, and he wanted to explore potential charges for Claude's alleged accomplices. You know, folks like George and Liz Nielsen, and even Jim Stephens. Because there was little doubt that had those three people not done what they'd done to assist Claude, he'd likely be in law enforcement's custody, and more importantly, Bill Pogue's body might have already been found.
31:08 Speaker 01 While the grand jury prep was underway, volunteer searches for Bill continued. Tidbits of info about his alleged killer's whereabouts trickled in too, including reported sightings of Claude as far away as Alaska and Maine. But nothing panned out. By mid-March, Claude's parents had hired a lawyer to look into the case and investigate the alleged crimes their son would be charged with if and when he was found. A few weeks after that, in April, reward posters advertising an increased reward of $20,000 were distributed nationwide and in Canada. The flyer showed two variations of the fugitive trapper's appearance. There was an actual picture of Claude that showed him without a beard, and next to that image was a composite sketch of what he'd look like with a fuller beard and wearing
31:53 Speaker 01 a wide-brimmed hat. Nearly a year after that, in March 1982, Idaho's then-governor asked the FBI to add Claude to their 10 Most Wanted list, but was told that wouldn't happen until one of the fugitives who was already on the list was captured. However, the universe must have been favoring the authorities, because about a month later, on Sunday, April 18th, investigators got what they'd been waiting more than a year for: 10 Most Wanted lists be damned. Claude Dallas Jr. surfaced all on his own, in a blaze of gunfire.
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32:38 Speaker 02 Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.
32:41 Speaker 00 We don't just alert. We help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. SimpliSafe: Ahead of Crime in Real Time.
32:56 Speaker 03 Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.
33:03 Speaker 01 One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County.
33:10 Speaker 01 Inside, they found a strange scene: a dining area converted into classrooms, with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks.
33:20 Speaker 01 The couple that lived there had 21 kids.
33:23 Speaker 05 It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory. A baby factory.
33:30 Speaker 01 Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.
33:38 Speaker 04 Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.
33:41 Speaker 06 That's the one time that we called the cops, because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.
33:46 Speaker 07 I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?
33:51 Speaker 01 I'm Ava Kaufman. "The Journey" is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
34:08 Speaker 01 According to articles in The Idaho Statesman, a few days before April 18, 1982, Humboldt and Oihe County authorities, the Idaho Department of Law Enforcement, and agents from the FBI received information from an anonymous tipster, which led them to check out a trailer about 50 miles south of where Claude's trapping compound had been located at the time of the murders. The Humboldt County sheriff told the newspaper that when 18 to 20 members of law enforcement approached that trailer around 5:45 PM, they hollered out who they were. And right away, a man wearing military-style fatigues, who they knew to be Claude Dallas Jr., jumped through a glass window, got into a pickup truck, and hauled tail across the desert.
34:51 Speaker 01 Authorities quickly pursued him in their vehicles and via helicopter. And during the chase, Claude shot at officers multiple times and they returned fire. At some point Claude was shot in his foot and ended up giving up. When he was taken into custody, investigators found a 22 caliber handgun and a rifle with him. They also noticed that the clothing he was wearing was quite dirty. In addition to arresting Claude, authorities also arrested a 35-year-old man who owned the trailer he'd been staying in and charged that guy with harboring a fugitive. According to coverage by the Idaho Statesman, the two men had known one another several years before the murders, which I think just goes to show the significance of the point I made earlier, which is that there were some diehard Claude sympathizers in that
35:35 Speaker 01 part of Idaho and Nevada who were willing to aid him even though they knew he was wanted for two murders. After being treated at a local hospital for his gunshot wound, Claude was transported to jails in Reno and Sparks, Nevada to await his arraignment in federal court. During his time on the run, he'd used the alias "Jack James Chapel" and had actually managed to hold a job at a farm equipment manufacturer in January, February, and March of 1981, which was right after the murders happened. After leaving that job due to an altercation with a coworker, he disappeared. The sheriff of Oahu County told the Idaho Statesman that he suspected Claude had likely spent several months traveling all around the country. But then, in the fall of 1981, had made his way back to the Idaho-Nevada border because
36:20 Speaker 01 that's the area that Claude knew best and had the most supporters. When law enforcement searched the trailer the trapper had been hiding out in, they seized a bunch of ammunition, traps for animals, gun holsters, a shotgun, two rifles, and five handguns, as well as a bunch of other personal items they believe belonged to Claude. There were also 10 other guns in the dwelling, but those were tied to the owner. Interestingly, among the firearms suspected of being Claude's, there was a .357 Magnum, a 22 caliber rifle, and a 22 caliber handgun, which were all the same calibers as the murder weapons. Within days of apprehending Claude and going through all this evidence, the charges for harboring a fugitive were dismissed for the guy who owned the trailer.
37:03 Speaker 01 I know, big eye roll there. But I presume since Claude was the big fish that authorities were focused on, nabbing the other man who assisted him just wasn't a huge priority at the time. Anyway, by May 9th, Claude was in custody at the Canyon County Jail awaiting a preliminary hearing, and reporters had done a lot of digging into his background, which, like it or not, was pretty interesting. He'd grown up in Ohio but moved around in his youth. One of his former high school teachers and a classmate described him as a kind of shy, unmemorable, unassuming boy who was really into the outdoors, and very interested in moving to the western part of the country one day. Not long after he'd arrived in Idaho, the government came calling when the Vietnam War draft started.
37:48 Speaker 01 According to reporting by Charles Etlinger, Claude dodged the draft and was indicted by a federal grand jury in the summer of 1973. However, by the time he got indicted, the draft had already ended, and when his case made it to court, his lawyer managed to get the charge dismissed. At his arraignment for Conley and Bill's murders in May 1982, Claude pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, which by that point included two counts of first-degree murder, resisting arrest, concealing evidence, and use of a firearm during the commission of a felony. When his trial got underway a few months later on September 15th, it took place in Caldwell, Idaho, because the presiding judge had granted the defense's request for a change of venue
38:31 Speaker 01 to get the case out of O'Waihe County. If convicted, Claude faced capital punishment. Interestingly, even though so much time had passed and Claude was finally in custody, no one had managed to figure out where Bill Pogue's body was. His brother Ed Pogue continued to search the unforgiving terrain of Humboldt County, but even with the case in court, the mystery of Bill's final resting place remained unresolved. Some of the more crucial witnesses to testify at trial were Jim Stephens and George Nielsen, the folks who were considered the state's star witnesses. From what I gathered reading the source material, it doesn't appear that either of those men were ever charged in relation to the murders. Instead, they'd turned state's evidence.
39:15 Speaker 01 Not to mention, Jim had undergone a polygraph in January 1981 and passed. So investigators were confident he was not personally involved in the shootings. Anyway, when it was George's turn to take the stand, he told the court that he considered Claude a close friend. And after he and Jim Stevens showed up at his house after the shooting, asking him to help get rid of the game warden's body, he went along with it and provided them with his truck, digging tools, and fuel. He also admitted to giving Claude a head start and provided him with $100 to go on the run. Similarly, Jim's testimony covered a lot of what folks already knew, which was that he'd been at the campsite at the time of the killings. He told jurors that he believed Bill Pogue had been shot before he'd even had a chance to reach for his service weapon.
40:00 Speaker 01 Jim said that when he'd asked Claude why he shot the game wardens, Claude's response had been, "I swore I'd never be arrested again, never be handcuffed." But when it was the defense's turn to present their findings of things to the jury, they went all in on the self-defense claim. And the person who they put on the stand to talk about that in detail was none other than Claude Dallas Jr. himself. He testified that he felt certain Bill Pogue and Conley Elms would have killed him on January 5, 1981, if he had not acted first. His version of events was that Bill had been acting very aggressively from the get-go, and he'd threaten to shoot Claude if he didn't cooperate. So, in an act of pure fear, according to Claude,
40:44 Speaker 01 he said he gunned down both officers when he thought he saw Bill reach for his service weapon. During his time on the stand, Claude revealed the location of Bill's remains in Nevada. And by that afternoon, while the trial was still ongoing, investigators went directly to the area in the desert where he said Bill was. In a shallow grave about three feet deep, they discovered leg bones, a pair of boots with lower leg bones and feet bones still in them, and a human skull. There were also signs of animal activity at the site, and several remains were scattered nearby in the landscape, one of which had a piece of trouser material on it that was green, like the uniform fishing game wardens wore. Interestingly, where Bill had been buried was an area that searchers had previously combed,
41:27 Speaker 01 but because his remains had been covered up, searchers never saw them.
41:33 Speaker 01 But even with Bill's remains found, jurors ultimately did not convict Claude of first-degree murder. Instead, on Wednesday, October 20th, when the verdict came in, they found him guilty of two counts of voluntary manslaughter, obstructing or concealing evidence, and using a firearm during the commission of a crime. The foreman of the jury told the Idaho State's Men Afterwards that it came down to the order and number of shots Claude had fired. He said that if Claude had not delivered the final headshots to Conley and Bill, the jury likely would have acquitted him. But because he'd made sure the victims were dead after initially shooting them in self-defense, the jury had to go with the voluntary manslaughter verdict.
42:15 Speaker 01 The maximum amount of time Claude was facing in prison was 50 years and 6 months. The prosecutor who argued the case for the state was super disappointed in the verdict and told the press, quote, "I thought it was first-degree murder, or I wouldn't have prosecuted Dallas for first-degree murder. I think he lied on the witness stand. The Claude Dallas who was in the courtroom and the Claude Dallas at the shooting scene are two different individuals. I think the jurors believed who they saw and heard on the witness stand. No one will be able to convince me otherwise. This is a verdict the jury will have to live with." End quote. Obviously, family members of the victims were disappointed, too. Dee Pogue, Bill's wife, told reporter John Akala that it was ironic how the court system
43:00 Speaker 01 had failed her husband, who'd been such a law-abiding person. Conley Elms's sister-in-law expressed her outrage about the verdict, too. And one of Bill Pogue's daughters also told the press that she thought Claude should have gotten more of a punishment. She expressed that she thought the jurors likely sympathized more with Claude. Bill's brother Ed told the Associated Press that he believed the jury was ignorant, and he didn't like that the defense had painted his brother as an overly zealous lawman who'd provoked Claude. Ed told the publication, quote, "My brother was a professional law enforcement officer. He was as good a peace officer as anybody will ever find. He's one of the last like him. As far as I'm concerned, this thing isn't over yet." End quote.
43:46 Speaker 01 And Ed's words could not have been more true. For several weeks after his conviction, Claude was allowed to be out on bond until his sentencing hearing. At that proceeding in early January 1983, a judge ruled that he would serve 30 years in prison with a minimum of 10 years behind bars before he'd be eligible for parole. A few months after being shipped off to prison, though, Claude got in trouble for allegedly colluding with another inmate to, wait for it, try to escape. Reportedly, Claude and this other guy were loitering in a section of the medium-security prison compound that they shouldn't have been, and so the warden suspected they were trying to hide out there until it got dark so they could make a run for it.
44:27 Speaker 01 For that offense, Claude was put in disciplinary detention, but he later disputed the accusation and actually ended up filing a lawsuit against the prison, which was eventually settled. And yeah, I wish I could say that was that, but no, this story has just one more twist. Claude got another infraction in prison for having contraband items in his cell, and then in March of 1986, after having a post-conviction appeal denied, he finally did it. He escaped from prison. According to an article in the Idaho Statesman, Claude had been seen at the ball field at Idaho State Penitentiary around 7:35 PM on Sunday, March 30, 1986, when out of nowhere, he was just gone.
45:12 Speaker 01 Prison staff conducted an inmate count a few hours later around 10 PM, and he was nowhere to be found. So they looked at who'd last visited him, and that's when they realized a woman from Nevada had been the last person to speak with him. According to the most credible coverage I could find, Claude had used wire cutters to get through two chain-link fences by the prison's administration building before making a run for it. The woman who'd visited him last was questioned, but it doesn't seem that led anywhere, at least not right away. Because for almost another year, his whereabouts remained unknown, despite being added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list in May 1986. Finally, though, after nearly a year on the lam, on March 8, 1987, Claude's luck ran out.
45:57 Speaker 01 He was tracked to Riverside, California, where FBI agents took him into custody. At the time of his arrest, he was outside a convenience store and living in a motel across the street, under the alias Al Shrank. While he'd been on the run, he'd kept company with a few people and gotten access to a vehicle. And yeah, this is the part of the episode where you'd probably think I'm gonna tell you how he was extradited back to Idaho and then convicted of prison escape. But nope, that's not how this one ends either. In September 1987, an Idaho jury acquitted Claude of all the charges related to his escape from prison. He'd contended at trial that the only reason he'd felt compelled to escape was because he said the prison guards had threatened to kill him.
46:42 Speaker 01 Sound like a familiar defense? He admitted under oath that he'd planned the whole thing and been assisted by some of his supporters on the outside. But he refused to provide any names or information about who those accomplices were. I know, this part of the case was bananas to me, but don't get too mad. Even though Claude was acquitted on the prison escape charges, he was still required to finish serving time for killing Bill and Conley. So he was sent back to prison for that case, and about 17 and 1/2 years later, after receiving eight years' credit for good behavior, he was released from prison on February 6, 2005. Where he is now is anyone's guess. I couldn't find much out there about his life after prison, except in some online
47:27 Speaker 01 web forums, which I don't give a ton of credibility to. What I'm more concerned with is remembering the legacy and contributions to society his two victims, Bill Pogue and Conley Elms, made in their lifetimes. Like I said at the start of this episode, there are a number of books, podcasts, television movies, and publications out there about this case, but not many of them focus on the men in uniform who died at the hands of Claude Dallas Jr. And I don't think it should be that way. According to coverage in an episode of the FBI files, Conley and Bill's widows spearheaded the construction of a fallen officer's memorial, which still stands today in Idaho, and it's known as the Idaho Peace Officers Memorial.
48:08 Speaker 01 A lingering question about this crime that few people have ever been able to answer is why? Why did Conley and Bill have to die the way they did? Some folks, I imagine, chalked the answer up to Claude being territorial and afraid of getting fined for illegal harvests. But others expressed in interviews that they believed it was, in a strange way, an almost fitting end to commemorate Bill and Conley's devotion to their work. For example, one of Bill's colleagues stated to the press that it was almost appropriate that his friends' final moments were in the wiles of Oahu County, simply because of how much Bill loved the land. Bill's son, Steve, also emphasized to reporter Ellen Marks that his dad was in love with nature, especially Idaho. And he'd found peace knowing that his dad
48:53 Speaker 01 was doing what he loved and the place he loved. The associate director of Idaho's fishing game department put it this way, quote, "The Lord needed a couple of good conservation officers, and he picked two of the best. I'm confident they'll do as good a job for him as they did for us," end quote.
49:17 Speaker 01 Park Predators is an AudioChuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, @parkpredators.
49:36 Speaker 01 I think Chuck would approve.
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