Bidding for Freedom : Auction Benefits Game Wardens’ Killer as Police Protest

Forty Nevada law enforcement officers, including FBI and DEA agents, police, deputies and game wardens, carried picket signs protesting the auction here Saturday of “Mountain Man” Claude Dallas’ personal effects.

The auction netted close to $10,000 for Dallas’ defense fund set up by friends and admirers to win him a new trial in the latest episode in the continuing saga of the hunter-trapper considered a cold-blooded killer by most, a folk hero by some.

He killed Idaho game wardens Bill Pogue and Conley Elms in his remote desert lair on the Idaho-Nevada line Jan. 6, 1981. He was a fugitive until his capture in an FBI shoot-out 16 months later, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 30 years. He escaped prison in March, 1986, and was recaptured a year later in Riverside, Calif. He is being held in the Lansing, Kan., penitentiary.

Pogue and Elms were attempting to arrest Dallas for poaching deer when he shot the officers through the head at close range. He pleaded self-defense at his trial.

Carrying Signs

The signs carried by the picketing law enforcement officers proclaimed these and other messages: “What Next, Charlie Manson’s Property?” “Blood Money,” “If You Bid, Contribute Equally To The Victims’ Family,” “Claude Dallas Is A Murderer. He’s No Hero.”

Nevada game warden Steve Albert’s son, Johnny, 3, walked beside his father carrying a sign that read: “Daddy, It’s Really Not OK To Kill Game Wardens, Is It?”

Inside the auction warehouse jammed with 150 people, spirited bidding took place for an arsenal of 17 guns, scores of knives, thousands of rounds of ammunition, Dallas’ clothing, snowshoes, glasses, cooking utensils, his library, including the book, “Kill Or Get Killed,” and even four “petrified” biscuits found in his oven when he was captured by the FBI. The biscuits brought $25.

A pair of Dallas’ spurs went for $350, his Green Mad River canoe $250, a rope $80, his saddle $1,250, the revolver he had when he was captured $450 and an AR-15 assault rifle $725.

Don Klarid, 38, a Reno businessman who bought Dallas’ wallet and birth certificate for $100, said, “I’m really not a Dallas supporter, I just recognize this stuff is becoming more and more valuable as time goes by.”

The bidding was by the curious, by collectors, by supporters and friends of Dallas. More than 150 people jammed the Stremmel Auction center. Renae Hoff, 38, of Caldwell, Ida., Dallas’ attorney, said she spent years trying to obtain her client’s personal belongings from authorities.

Signed Certificates

In signed certificates that went to each successful bidder, Dallas described the various items, such as:

“This is the gun I had when I was captured by the FBI.” “This rifle helped me through the winter when I was hiding out.” “I bought this gun in a bar in Midas, Nev.”

Steve Stremmel, 35, owner of the auction house, closed the center’s large doors when the sale started to prevent the sign-carrying law enforcement officers from viewing the activity inside.

“I neither condone nor condemn the man who owned this property,” Stremmel said. “It’s just another business deal to me. I get the usual percentage.”

He has been severely criticized by officers and others for conducting the sale.

‘Glorifying a Murderer’

Hoff, Dallas’ attorney, said the auction was held in Reno “because Claude has many friends in this area. We’re overjoyed with the results. This money is going to go a long way to achieve justice in our struggle to get his freedom.”

Nevada game warden Fred Messman, 42, one of the picketers, commented: “I can’t believe what’s going on. It’s really bizarre. Those people are in there glorifying a murderer.”

Dave Spencer, 46, one of five FBI agents carrying signs, was involved in the shoot-out that resulted in the capture of Dallas. “Those people are in there making a hero out of a man who shot two policemen. That’s why we’re here. It just isn’t right, and we want the public to know how we feel,” he said.

And, inside, many among the bidders expressed their feelings as to why they are supporting the man who shot and killed two game wardens. Walt Weaver, 40, of Sparks, Nev., said: “I’m a hunter. I’ve been stopped by game wardens. They treat you like criminals. In my mind I think Dallas acted properly.”

‘Bullying Him’

Said Al Marshall, 58, a Reno carpenter: “Those officers have no right picketing a private business. I’m against the law of bullying. That’s what those two game wardens who were killed were doing to Claude Dallas. They were bullying him.”

Dallas has been the subject of two books, songs and a CBS television movie.

“We want to put a stop to this myth. That’s why we came out to protest the auction, to let people know what kind of a human being Claude Dallas really is,” said Todd Shipley, a Reno detective and president of the Reno Police Officers Protective Assn.