Infamous Idaho Killer Dallas to Be Freed

[Hawkeye6]

Infamous Idaho Killer Dallas to Be Freed

February 05, 2005 7:44 PM EST

OWYHEE COUNTY, Idaho - Idaho's most infamous outlaw, Claude Dallas, killed two state officers in a remote desert 24 years ago in a crime that brought him notoriety as both a callous criminal and a modern-day mountain man at odds with the government.
Now a bespectacled 54-year-old, Dallas is to be released from prison Sunday after serving nearly 22 years for the execution-style slayings of Conley Elms and Bill Pogue, officers for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

The case has been among the most polarizing in Idaho history, with some expressing disgust at how Dallas has gained a measure of folk-hero status among those who rally against the establishment.

Some compared him to Gordon Kahl, a tax-evader killed by U.S. marshals in Arkansas in 1983; to Randy Weaver, the protagonist in the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff; or even to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.

"Those cases always end up getting connected after the fact," said Jess Walter, the Spokane, Wash.-based author of a book about Weaver. "But at the time, they were just having trouble with law enforcement."

Dallas' 1986 jailbreak only heightened the legend perpetuated by his friends, that his rugged lifestyle got crossways with a heavy-handed U.S. government. Dallas hid for nearly a year before he was caught and sent back to prison. He was charged in the escape, but acquitted by a jury after he testified he had to break out because the prison guards threatened his life.

"It's sure an emotional issue, and his release has heightened those emotions," said Jon Heggen, head of the Fish and Game Department's enforcement bureau. "There's been a lot of tears shed the last two weeks."

Dallas' 30-year sentence was cut by eight years for good behavior.

He was convicted of manslaughter in 1982 for shooting the officers, who had entered his winter camp on the South Fork of the Owyhee River, one of the West's least-populated regions, to investigate reports of illegal trapping.

Jim Stevens, a friend of Dallas who was visiting the camp, witnessed the killings.

According to evidence at the trial, Pogue, who had drawn his own weapon, was hit first with a shot from Dallas' handgun. Dallas then shot Elms two times in the chest as the warden emerged from the trapper's tent, where he'd found poached bobcats.
Dallas then used a rifle to fire one round into each man's head.

The 28-day trial made national headlines, with Dallas claiming the game wardens were out to get him. A group of women - who became known as the "Dallas Cheerleaders" - gathered daily to support him.

A jury of 10 women and two men acquitted Dallas of murder, finding him guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter instead.

"We remain horrified somebody could have gotten manslaughter for cruelly killing our people, and then following it up with shots from a .22 rifle," said former Fish and Game Director Jerry Conley, who testified at Dallas' sentencing.

But one of Dallas' lawyers, Bill Mauk, still sees Dallas as a victim: He fired on the officers after his privacy had been violated and after he was threatened by government agents enforcing game laws he didn't believe applied to him.

Jury foreman Milo M. Moore, a retired shopkeeper, said Dallas might have been freed outright if he hadn't used his .22 caliber rifle. Moore said testimony about Pogue's reputation as a tough-guy lawman influenced the verdict.

"We felt it was self-defense up to a certain point," Moore said in a recent interview. "Had he not shot them in the head, it would have been a different verdict."

Moore said Pogue had come "gunning" for the poacher, and said Pogue was on trial in some jurors' minds more than Dallas.

Dallas' story inspired a television movie, and writer Jack Olsen chronicled the crime in a book called "Give a Boy a Gun."

"Claude Dallas," a ballad written by singer-songwriters Ian Tyson and Tom Russell, and sung by Tyson, romanticizes Dallas' lifestyle and life on the lam, saying: "It took 18 men and 15 months to finally run Claude down. In the sage outside of paradise, they drove him to the ground."

Kevin Kempf, the warden at the Idaho Correctional Institution at Orofino, where Dallas has been since Jan. 15 when he was moved from a Kansas prison, won't say where Dallas will be released.

"He's prepared," Kempf said. "It doesn't appear he's going to be leaving our facility without any direction or without a plan."
Dallas did not respond to interview requests from The Associated Press.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Classicvette63]

You can count one of Clude Dallas's supporters right here. That jerk pogue thought he could push folks around without repercussions. He found out different. I guess that azzhat never heard of the saying "If you're gonna talk the talk, you better be able to walk the walk." Since I'm having a Super Bowl party tonite, I'll raise a glass to you Claude. Cheers.

[gspsonny03]

I'm not crazy about pushy law enforcement people, but if you break the law, you have to expect punishment. How did he figure the law didn't pertain to him? I just hope they don't release him in Wyoming. Don't need him here. I don't care who you are, if you have to kill someone in self defense, that's one thing, but to finish them off with a shot to the head, that's something totally different. JMO

[Classicvette63]

Sustinance hunting is not poaching, so what law was he breaking? As for the .22 coup de grace, do you think the game warden would have let him live if the tables were turned? Not a chance. The game warden didn't follow the most basic and simple law there is. If you don't want to get dead, don't pull guns on people and start pushing them around. Pretty simple and straightforward common sense. The only sympathy I have for pogue is in the dictionary, right between scat and syphillis.

[gspsonny03]

So, in other words, if you go out and kill an animal out of season, you can justify it by saying your sustinance hunting? Frankly I don't think there is a Game and Fish Dept in the USA that will buy that one. Was he eating all those bobcats that he had the pelts for? I doubt it. And I won't even try and justify Pogue, you have people like that everywhere. But the fact remains that he killed both officers, so if his problem was with Pogue, why did he kill both of them. He has the drop on the second one when he came out of the tent. He could have tied him up and left the country, he didn't have to shoot him. The man should have been fried, end of story.

[tooldummy]

I wish 20 years ago I would have seen a post on here (to bad we didn't have internet back then) "CPO BLOWS AWAY POACHER". I read all about it in an outdoor magazine back then, and saw the movie a couple of times. The only simpathy I have is for the two CPO's, pushy or not. This was murder. He should have fried.

[royinidaho]

Classicvette,

I deleted what I was going to post, it had something to do with the sun not ever setting on your butt in Idaho.......

You know not of what you speak. Nevertheless I pray that we never meet.

[fishdoggydog]

Dallas has spent 22 years in prison, the American justice system has said that will be it if he stays cool. I hope he is sorry for the pain he caused, and I hope the rest of us know life can change in an instant, and be thankful we were not there that day.

[Classicvette63]

Roy, Did you know any of the folks involved personally? I'm not being a smart aleck. If you did, please fill us in on some of the particulars. I never met any of the particulars, so I am going by what I've read. Like most people I came to conclusion based on that.

I know how the game wardens can be because I was in a similar situation. When you are armed, they are civil to you. Once unarmed they treat you like crap. It's amazing how many g.w.'s don't think to look for a backup piece.

Facts are:

1: I do not have a problem with someone living of the land. If a person decides to say screw y'all and head for the hills like Jerimiah Johnson, more power to him.

2: Having a badge does NOT give you the right to push people around. PERIOD If you do that long enough you'll come across someone who is going to push back, so don't complain about the consequences.

3: If a LEO has a reputation for being a prick, well there is a saying, where there is smoke there is fire. pogue's superior's decision not to intervene or reign him in is the root cause of this situation.

4: The .22 coupe de grace was over the top. Doctors can debate all day long what kind of physical shape those two were in after the intial gunfight. However, it couldn't have been too good of shape. So basically they were dead or dying. The jury said if it wasn't for the .22, Dallas would have walked.

5: If Dallas was some bloodthirsty maniac, why did he surrender his pistol instead of just opening up upon sight of the two leo's? The circumstances tend to lean toward someone cooperating until the leo's crossed the line somewhere.

[tooldummy]

Classicvette63, I did not know any of those involved either. But, like you, going on what I read and saw in the movies, I do not think those two officers deserved being gunned down in cold blood.
I don't know how many other murderers have used the "prick defense" for justifying homicide. Probably a lot. If that was a feasable defense, I'm sure others would have by now. And maybe even for shooting a prick like me.
If I remember correctly, one of the CPO's was almost blind. And both close to retirement. And this fine outstanding mountain man had been reading books about and practicing fast draw techniques. I think he also said he would never be taken to prison or arrested or something to that nature. He took them by surprise is all. Most times conservation cops apprehend sportsmen without anything happening. Then there are times they run into a someone ready to kill for any reason they can find. I wish they had been more prepared.

[PJgunner]

For those of you who wished the game wardens had done Claude Dallas in, you don't know the whole story.
First off, Dallas had good reason to fear Pogue. Second, regardless of what was said about his poaching bobcat hides, that a pile of BS.
Now, before you go off and flame me, I knew both antagonists personally. Not in an what one would call a close personal knowledge, but I was aquainted with them.
There was intense hatred of Dallas by Pogue. Pogue, who used to be an LEO, chief of police, I think, before he was more or less run out of town, for what reason, I haven't a clue. However, knowning how the hierarchy was run in Winnemucca, I'll bet he picked on a member of one of the ruling families.
Anyway, more than once, I personally have seen Pogue when he came to visit friends of relatives while drinking, swear that if he ever caught Claude Dallas out in the boonies, he would shoot him down like a dog. BTW, that was sworn to in court. Dallas would have gotten away, if that's the proper term, with justified self defense if he had not given the two wardens finishing shots to the head.
As far as the movie that protrayed the incident and what led up to it; that was pure out and out BS! Since when does Hollyweird get anything right.
As far as Conley Elms being shot, after Dallas shot Pogue, Elms was drawing his weapon.
Anyway, there is a hell of a lot that has never come out about all this, and probably today, Dallas is the only one who really knows what it was all about.
I find it strange, that if Claude Dallas was such a bad guy, why did so many people from paradise Valley, Paradise Hill, and Winnemucca go out of their way to help him evade capture?
Do I condone what he did? I'm not sure. I think that if I was out in the boonies, and a game worden who bragged about killing me if he caught me out in the hills showed up and pulled a gun, I'd be inclined to do what Claude did.
FWIW, those "poached" bobcat hides has nevada tags on them and bobcats were legal to be taken in Nevada at the time of the incident. His camp was in Idaho, because that was the nearest available water.
I lived in that area for a bit over ten years, and left due to a job transfer shortly before all this went down. Now that I'm retired, if I could afford to move back up there, I'd do it so fast smoke would fly.
My point is, don't pass judgement by what was shown by the media and Hollywood. They never gave the full story.
Paul B.

[fabsroman]

Wow, this is a tough one not knowing all the facts. I can tell you that I do have nightmares of LEO's that are out to get me, but I also know plenty of LEO's that are nice guys. I have run into nice LEO's and bad LEO's; however, none have ever drawn a gun on me.

The shot to the head was definitely over the top and he deserved time for that. The self defense issue is one that goes to state of mind. The only person that really know what was going through Claude's head when he pulled the trigger was Claude himself. A bunch of circumstantial evidence was probably used to justify the self defense motive.

Whether or not the LEO's "got what they deserve" depends on what they were actually thinking of doing. Maybe they were drawing weapons to protect themselves and actually had no intention of killing Claude. Of course, we will never know what they were thinking. However, I have a pretty good guess about what the second LEO was thinking. He was probably thinking "Holy Crap this guy is going to kill me" and he instinctively tried to draw his weapon. If somebody shot the guy next to me and I was with that guy, I think I would be pretty afraid of losing my own life.

These situations suck. I wish we were able to read people's minds and talk to the dead. Granted, a lie detector test of Claude might be nice, but they can't be introduced into evidence anyway so it wouldn't have helped with the trial.

Let's hope that this guy learned his lesson by losing 22 years of his life in a prison. 22 years that he will never get back. Kind of ironic that 22 years matches the caliber bullet used to shoot the officers in the head. Anyway, I hope that he doesn't kill anybody else and actually stays out of trouble. Only time will tell.

[PJgunner]

Fabsroman said, "A bunch of circumstantial evidence was probably used to justify the self defense motive."

I wouldn't call it circumstantial. There were too many incidents that Pogue made the threats. usually he'd been drinking and maybe it was all noise and bravado, and maybe he was serious.
However, out in the boonies with a guy with a gun in his hand who made the threats, how would you react if the threats, real or not had been made at you.

I don't doubt that Mr. Elms, seeing Pogue being gunned down would have drawn his weapon. Dallas would have had no choice but to react in the way he did. Conley Elms just had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I never knew him, so I have no idea of what kind of a person he was.

FWIW, the sheriff that arrested Claude the first time, when he was wounded by one of the deputies was a close neighbor, living only two doors down from me. I noticed that the movie made him into somewhat of a country bumpkin. He was far from that.

I suppose everyone will have an opinion of one kind or another in this matter. Seems to me, Claude may have been just as much a victim as the two wardens. You can believe what the media says about it, or you can form your own conclusions. Was he the "bad guy"? Or was he the victim of a rogue game warden? We'll never know.
Paul B.

[gspsonny03]

I wasn't going to get back into this, but here goes. If
Dallas was such a victim, why is it that Mr. Elms was shot in the back? Dallas and Stevens had both been relieved of their weapons and neither officer had their guns in hand. Dallas had a hideout gun. Elms had went into the tent and came out with Two bobcat pelts aand was kneeling down to look at them, Dallas asked Pogue if he was under arrest, Pogue said yes, Dallas pulled the hideout gun, shot Pogue twice and the turned and shot Elms twice. By the way this was reported by Stevens who was Dallas's friend. They took Pogue loaded him on a mule hauled him to Stevens blazer, went back for Elms, but he was so much bigger the mule wouldn't haul him, so they dumped him in the river. They drove Pogue into Nevada, buried him in the desert. Course this all took place after he shot them in the back of the head. It don't sound to me like he was so innocent and pure. Everyone who was called for witness said that Pogue was a stern but fair man with the exception of one who said the Pogue gave his wife a ticket and was very rude and crude, but when they checked on the ticket it was wrote by someone else. Now I never met the man and don't know anything about either one, all I'm saying is Dallas had other avenues he could have taken.

[Nulle]

Well I hope he don't settle in SD either and really don't care what kind of "excuse" you can come up with as to why he Broke the Law and killed .