Infamous America - MANHUNT Ep. 3 | Claude Dallas: “The Fugitive”

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

Claude Dallas won’t stay confined for long. After his arrest and conviction for murder, he escapes from prison and goes back on the run. It’s the third manhunt in the short life of Claude Dallas, and this time he lands on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list. Thanks to the Jordan Harbinger Show for sponsoring this episode! Get started with the podcast here: JordanHarbinger.com/start Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The prison was buzzing. Administrators were sweating as questions piled up. When did this happen? How could this happen? Did anyone see it? Who was in charge at the time? Were there any accomplices? The prison warden bent down to get a good look at the damage.

Reporters and photographers joined in. The warden described the scene. Someone had taken a cutting tool, maybe a pair of bolt cutters, and cut triangular holes in two fences in the prison. prison yard. It happened last night at around 7.45 or 8 o'clock. This was going to be rough. Five years ago, the escapee had spent more than a year on the run before being caught and sent to prison. There was no telling how long law enforcement would have to spend looking for him this time. My relentless sleep problems have always come from an overactive mind. I lay in bed at night

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and use the code infamous to get 20% off your first order. And they have a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Mood.com promo code infamous. From BlackBarrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling two stories of American man hunts across six episodes. This is story number one, episode three, The Fugitives. Claude Dallas stole into the Nevada darkness in the early morning hours of January 6th, 1981. The previous day, he'd killed two game wardens, Bill Pogue and Conley Elms, in a remote part of southwestern Idaho. He dumped Elms' body in a river near the scene of the crime.

and then used his friend's pickup truck to drive Pogue's body to an undisclosed location in northern Nevada. That friend, George Nielsen, drove clawed out to a spot where he could then hike into the Oahuahoe Desert. The Oahuahy is a massive area that sprawls across three states. It has flatlands, canyons, mazes, mountains, and rivers, basically every type of natural feature that exists. It's a paradise for outdoor adventure seekers, and a great place to lay low if you're about to be the subject of an intense manhunt. As Claude headed into the wilderness, where he was more comfortable than anywhere else,

the manhunt started behind him. Three of Claude's friends reported the killings. Jim Stevens had been at Claude's campsite in a remote area called Bull Basin when Claude shot and killed the two conservation officers. George Nielsen and his wife Liz had played small roles in helping Claude go on the run. But the day after the crime, Jim, George, and Liz decided they couldn't continue the deception. They reported the crime to a prosecutor in Nevada, and then he called the sheriff of the county in Idaho where the killings occurred. And now, the Oahuahee County Sheriff's Department

was coordinating a multi-state, multi-agency manhunt for a killer. There were three goals. Obviously, number one was to find Claude Dallas. Numbers two and three, were to find the bodies of Bill Pogue and Conley Elms. Finding Claude would be a true test, and no one knew how difficult it would be to find the bodies. Claude had a day's head start, and he knew the terrain better than anyone. He'd spent years by himself in the Oahuahe Desert, and in addition to all the other natural features, it had caves that were perfect hiding spots. It was also lined with old mine shafts that could conceal a man on the run while all

also giving him the ability to see anyone coming from miles around. The county sheriff's office sent up helicopters and planes to comb the area from above. But the Manhunt's first aerial discovery wasn't made by law enforcement. Word of the killing spread rapidly beyond the Sheriff's Department, and as soon as the local news heard it, they sent an airborne crew of their own. While flying above Bull Basin, where Claude had set up camp, the crew spotted something floating in a river. It was the body of Conley Elms.

The condition of the body confirmed Jim Stevens' account of the killings. Elms had been shot multiple times in the torso and once behind the ear, and the body showed signs of having been dragged across the ground. When deputies scoured Claude's camp, they found more evidence, shell casings, litter, bloodstained sticks, and clods of earth. If it looked suspicious, the deputies bagged it up. They also flew Jim Stevens back out to the scene of the crime. They recorded a videotape of him recounting the events of January 5th.

Jim walked them through the crime one step at a time, and while investigators in the West poured over the landscape in northern Nevada, investigators in the east tracked down Claude's family. The FBI found Claude's mother and father in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Agents repeatedly questioned the couple, and Claude Sr. and his wife repeatedly said they knew nothing. They'd been harassed by the media and interrogated by law enforcement, and the one person who hadn't contacted them was their son. Reports came in of solitary figures wandering through the sagebrush, or lone campfires in the distance, but they led nowhere. Claude was apparently spotted all over the northwest, as well as California, Texas, and Texas.

Mexico, Maine, Canada, and Alaska. Officers stopped buses and trains because of reported sightings, but the suspects were just lookalikes. One poor guy resembled Claude so much that he was arrested multiple times, including once while he was on his way to the Alaska State Police to say that he was not the fugitive. And that illustrated a major problem with the hunt for Claude Dallas. Claude was the quintessential average guy. He was about five feet ten inches tall with brown hair and brown eyes. He had a medium build. He wore glasses, and he may or may not have had a beard.

When wanted posters went up, it became apparent that he could be damn near anyone. But investigators didn't stop. They talked to everyone who had ever spoken to Claude Dallas. In the tiny community of Paradise Hill, investigators searched the trailer behind George Nielsen's bar. It was the closest thing Claude had to a home, and it was stocked with guns, ammunition, knives, and military gear like helmets and gas masks. There were also magazines like shotgun news and manuals for specific guns and combat training. The police believed Claude was itching for a gunfight, and it only fed the growing myth of Claude Dallas. Claude had amassed a circle

of friends, supporters, and sympathizers all over the Northwest who were reluctant to cooperate with the investigation. When asked about Claude, former employers said they didn't remember him. The regulars at George Nielsen's bar made two things abundantly clear. They didn't know where Claude was, and they stood by him 100%. They weren't going to give the authorities anything, and the investigation began to stall. Authorities had learned a ton about the reclusive cowboy, but they were still no closer to finding him. Despite the sheer volume of manpower that was assigned to the case, Claude Dallas had vanished, though it wasn't entirely to his credit. In addition to the lack of physical clues and cooperation from friends and family,

the investigation was plagued by poor communication, arguments over jurisdiction, and a lack of trust between agencies. And all of that helped Claude slip through the net, which also ruined the search for Bill Pogue's body. Claude was the only one who knew where Pogue's body was buried. Claude had borrowed George Nielsen's pickup truck to help with the disposal, but no one knew where Claude went, and he didn't say a word about it when he returned the truck. As the weeks rolled by with no luck,

the nation's attention turned elsewhere. Searchers had no new leads and could no longer justify the expensive price tag of a huge manhunt. They would just have to be patient and hope Claude made a mistake or someone turned him in. Someone did make a call, but it was far too late to be useful. In early January, after Claude had hiked into the Oahuahy Desert, he made his way east to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He found a job at a steel mill under the name Jack Chapel. Like all the other jobs he'd taken, Claude quickly proved himself a capable hand.

He was able to lay low for a couple months. months. And then in the spring, he vanished again. A few months later, a former co-worker from the steel mill recognized Claude's photo and sent a report to the police. But by that point, Claude's trail was as cold as ice. Throughout 1981, Claude learned how to quietly pass through his adopted home of Paradise Hill in Nevada. He'd arrived quietly, he'd spend a few days or even a few weeks in town, then he'd disappear again. For nearly a year and a half, Claude evaded the authorities, but in April of 1982, his luck ran out. Investigators tracked him to a trailer 20 miles north of Winamucka. Agents and local cops surrounded the trailer. A helicopter

flew overhead. Officers shouted for Claude to come out. Escape was all but hopeless, but Claude was determined to try. He crows. He crashed through a window at the back of the trailer and raced for a nearby pickup. He opened fire with a rifle and forced the agent's back. They returned fire as he dove into the truck, started it, and sped away. Maybe escape wasn't hopeless after all. He charged down dusty roads around Winnamucka with the police right behind him. He led the convoy for miles before the pickup truck stalled.

As the truck's engine died, Claude opened the driver's side door and fell out of the cab. He'd been shot in the foot, and it was nearly impossible to walk, let alone run. So he crawled, still clutching his rifle, into a nearby patch of tall grass to make his last stand. From the helicopter above, an agent could easily see Claude's hiding spot. But the agent on the ground couldn't. They eased through the grass, scanning for the fugitive. Claude could have done serious damage, but at the last moment, he surrendered. He dropped his weapon and presented his hands to be cuffed.

The agents loaded him into a police vehicle and took him to a hospital in Reno. The 15-month manhunt was finally done. The courtroom trial of Claude Dallas was not as straightforward as it might appear in hindsight. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, and he was staring down a potential death sentence. But the prosecution had to clear a set of challenging hurdles. The first was location. The trial was set for September 1982 in Oahuahee County, Idaho, where the killings happened. But the defense successfully argued for a change of venue, saying the population of Oahuahee County

was too biased against Claude to have a fair trial. The case was moved to the next county over. The prosecution hoped for a jury of law-abiding outdoor types, people who were familiar with the point of view of a man like Claude, but who still sided with the Fish and Game Department. A few people on the jury fit that bill, but for the most part, it was composed of people without experience with guns or hunting and trapping. The prosecution painted Claude as a cold-blooded murderer who had killed Pogue and Elms without provocation.

Claude's lawyers tried to say it was a case of self-defense. There was very little solid physical evidence, so most of the prosecution's case rested on the shoulders of Claude's friend, Jim Stevens. Jim took the stand and told the jury his story. He'd gone to Bull Basin to deliver supplies to Claude's camp. When he arrived, he found Claude talking to two conservation officers, Bill Pogue and Conley Elms. The officers disarmed Claude and Jim.

And then, over the course of the conversation, Jim looked away from the other men. At that crucial moment, he heard a noise, either a gunshot or a shout, then whipped around to see Claude crouched and firing at Pog and Elms with a 357 revolver. Pogen Elms went down, and then Claude went into his tent, grabbed a 22-caliber rifle, and shot each officer once behind the ear. Then, Claude turned to Jim and swore he would never be arrested again.

The jury found it generally believable, but Jim's testimony still left the most important question unanswered. answered. What happened during that moment when he turned away? Claude's lawyers put their client on the stand to provide an answer. Claude said Bill Pogue made the first move. Claude noticed Pogue reach for the gun on his hip, and that was when Claude drew his 357 in his jacket. According to Claude, he and Pogue fired at about the same time. Claude's shot hit its target, but Pogue missed.

Claude fired at Pogue again, and then at Elms, who was drawing his gun. Claude fired it Pogue two more times, and then at Elms one more time. Then he switched to the rifle. There was really only one way to prove or disprove Claude's story. Find Bill Pogue's gun and see if it had been fired. But Claude had buried it, and now he testified that he didn't remember the location. So the entire case came down to whether or not. not the jury believed Claude's story about something that may or may not have happened in a

fraction of a second 20 months ago. Did Bill Pogue draw first? The defense knew it would come to this, so they brought in character witnesses to testify to Claude's good nature and to Bill Pogue's tendency to abuse his power. Claude testified that he told Pogue he would cooperate with a citation, but Pogue threatened to, quote, carry Claude out, if he didn't. and cooperate with an arrest. Claude took that statement as a threat on his life. But the prosecutors had a good rebuttal, the 22-caliber rifle. When they cross-examined Claude, they grilled him about the rifle.

He had shot the officers multiple times with a 357 at close range. That was probably enough to kill them. But even if it wasn't, they were clearly on the ground and out of the fight. Claude could have stopped right there, but he didn't. He shot each man in the back of a head with a small caliber rifle, just like he would have done if he was killing an animal that was caught in one of his traps. Why? Claude said he had no rational explanation.

He said he was out of his mind when he did that. Prosecutors finished by asking him why he ran and stayed on the run for more than a year. Claude said he thought it would have turned out worse if he had turned himself in. Fleeing was his best bet to stay alive. In the end, the jury split the difference to an extent. They thought Claude was a credible witness, but the kill shots with the rifle were too damning. After a long, multi-day deliberation, the jury handed down a verdict.

Not guilty of murder, but guilty of two counts of voluntary mansions, slaughter, two counts of using a firearm to commit a felony, and a misdemeanor charge of concealing evidence. The verdict was not well received. Some denounced it as a declaration of open season on game wardens. Others expressed their displeasure in more grisly ways. Shortly after the trial, someone killed the judge's dog and put the dead animal on display on the man's lawn. The perpetrator thought the judge had gone soft throughout the trial. though the judge wasn't happy about the outcome either. But the jury stood by their decision.

One juror actually said that if Claude hadn't taken the additional step of shooting the wardens with a 22 rifle, the jury would have considered Claude's actions justifiable homicide and delivered a verdict of not guilty. When it came time for sentencing, the judge read a lengthy statement condemning Claude's actions and weighed in on the facts of the case himself. In the judge's view, Claude had used unnecessary force from beginning to end. The judge focused on the shooting of Conley Elms. In neither Claude's version nor Jim's version of the events was Elms the immediate aggressor. Elms was walking out of Claude's tent with pelts in his hands.

He posed no immediate threat. It was therefore unlawful for Claude to have shot Elms without giving him a chance to drop his weapon. The judge also argued that the rifle shots, the disposal of the bodies, and the burial of the warden's guns, were not the actions of a man who was simply defending himself. The judge threw the book at Claude. He sentenced Claude to two consecutive 10-year terms for the killings, a third consecutive 10-year term for the use of a firearm and commission of a felony, and six months in county jail for concealing evidence.

Claude had already spent more than six months in county jail since his arrest, so his sentence for concealing evidence was credited as complete. Now he faced 30 years in prison. Claude's lawyers appealed the sentence to the Idaho State Supreme Court. They argued that the sentence was an abuse of judicial discretion, but the court agreed with the judge and threw out the appeal. Claude was sent to an Idaho state prison, and for five years, things were mostly quiet. But then, on Easter Sunday, 1986, chaos returned to Idaho. Claude was absent from his cell. He had escaped from prison, and he was on the loose again in the West. Newspapers reported that there was a hole in the prison's fence large enough

for a man to fit through. The corrections officers said that was how Claude made his exit. The manhunt was on again, and Claude was immediately placed on the FBI's ten most wanted list. It was believed that Claude had an accomplice, a woman from Reno. She visited Claude just before he escaped. She was a known sympathizer. During the trial, she and her husband were some of Claude's most vocal supporters and collected money for his legal defense fund. Her car was impounded, though investigators couldn't find any of Claude's fingerprints. Authorities launched a tri-state search in the Idaho, Oregon, Nevada area. Lanes circled the skies, and bloodhounds sniffed the trail, but there was no trace of Claude Dallas.

While Claude was on the run for the second time, and in the years since these events happened, his prison break has been the subject of debate. The official story was that Claude somehow acquired a pair of bolt cutters, cut two triangular pieces out of the fence, and ran from the prison grounds. But the Idaho statesman newspaper did an investigation in 2001 that ran. raised questions about the official story's plausibility. Claude escaped somewhere around 8 p.m. as a group of inmates was moving from the prison's administrative building to the main yard.

According to some on the team, anybody walking that path would have immediately seen the hole in the fence, and yet the hole wasn't discovered until it was already known that Claude had escaped. The investigation was ultimately inconclusive, but it led some people to believe that it was possible that Claude simply walked out of the prison's front door when no one was looking. Then prison officials created the fence-cutting story to cover themselves. Whatever the method, Claude was gone. For law enforcement, it was deja vu. Tips about Claude Dallas sightings came in from across the country, yet the man was nowhere

to be found. Claude evaded capture for 11 months. At some point while he was on the run, he slipped into Mexico, and paid for plastic surgery to alter his appearance. Police conducted raids against potential Claude Dallas suspects, but they were cases of mistaken identity. Or Claude had actually been there, but he was already gone. Then in March of 1987,

Claude was finally found in Southern California, near the city of Riverside. He was using the name Al Shrink. The police arrested him outside a convenience store. When they told him he was under arrest, Claude did not resist. He dropped his purchases and cooperated. Claude went to court again, this time on charges of escaping from prison. Claude's argument was that it was absolutely necessary for him to do so. He claimed the correctional officers were threatening his life, just like he'd claimed the FBI agents who'd arrested

him for draft dodging had threatened him. Whether it was true or not, it was a winning strategy. The jury was convinced and he was acquitted. He went back to prison to serve the remainder of his original sentence, as if the escape and the 11 months on the run had never happened. Like the original verdict, Claude's acquittal was controversial, and the jury knew it. They emphasized in post-trial interviews that it was a difficult decision, but the state didn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Claude had escaped to avoid his prison sentence,

rather than to protect his own well-being. The second verdict was just more fuel for national attention. Everyone who watched the TV news or read the paper knew Claude's name. In the years between the trials, there were multiple TV movies about the story, as well as songs and two fast-selling books. No matter how a person felt about Claude, his story made for good press. No one could escape it. In the words of a 10-year retrospective in the South Idaho press, no one was ambivalent.

During the original trial, the courtroom was packed. The families and colleagues of the two gay wardens were on one side, and Claude's friends and outside supporters were on the other. They were nicknamed the Dallas cheerleaders. Throughout all of it, Claude stayed consistent. He said as little as possible. But he did answer the question that everyone had been asked, asking from the beginning. He told the authorities where to find the body of conservation officer

Bill Pogue. Claude described the route he had taken to the burial spot. He pointed to the spot on a map. When authorities arrived, they found a shallow grave that was nearly empty. Animals had scattered Pogue's bones across the landscape. The remains showed signs of gunshot wounds, which were consistent with the stories that had been told in court. But Claude still maintained that He could not remember where he buried the guns of Bill Pogue and Conley Elms. So there was still no way to verify whether or not Pogue fired his weapon, as Claude claimed. In the aftermath, the Idaho Fish and Game Department started requiring officers to be armed while on patrol. Claude Dallas was released from prison in July of 2005 after serving 22 years of his 30-year sentence.

Like he did during the trials, he has declined all interviews, and he lives a life of relative anonymity. He is currently 71 years old. Next time on Infamous America, it's the story of another famous manhunt in the West, the kidnapping of American biathlete Carrie Swenson and the search for her captors. That's next week on Infamous America. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They received the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website,

blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships began at just $5 per month. This season was co-executive produced by Steve Walters in association with ritual productions. Research and writing by Dante Flores. Original music by Rob Valier. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your host and producer. producer Chris Wimmer.

Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America Podcast. This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin's World. Once Upon a Crime and many more. Thanks for listening.