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Sheriff closes book on Barker case |
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Tuesday, 24 June 2008 |
 To the right of the frame, Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze (r) and Investigator Jeff Hollowell have a quick confab on May 21 near one of four carefully excavated sites at Barker Ranch as members of the media wait nearby for an official word about the fate of the dig, which was called off that day. Photo by Ken Koerner By Darcy Ellis
Editor 6-21-2008 It’s official.
There are no clandestine graves of Manson Family victims at Barker Ranch, no bodies waiting to be discovered beneath the crust of the Death Valley desert where Charles Manson and 23 of his followers were arrested by local law enforcement in 1969 – at least at the sites painstakingly excavated by a team of law enforcement officers and scientists in May.
That was the conclusion reached this week by Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze, who authorized the limited excavation at the remote ranch based on inconclusive soil chemistry analysis, geophysical data and canine alert responses.
It was Lutze’s hope that an exploratory dig would determine – “once and for all” – whether bodies from the Manson Family era were buried at Barker. The dig turned up no bodies or skeletal remains.
Now, after reviewing what he called conclusive results of additional forensic testing conducted at the ranch during the May 20-21 excavation, Lutze is closing the books on a case that whipped up an international media frenzy, renewed interest in the notorious Manson Clan and its crimes, and caused rampant speculation about the storied desert ranch and what secrets it could have been hiding.
“Evidence from the excavation sites was shown not to contain human remains,” Lutze said in a press release issued Thursday. “The Inyo County Sheriff’s Department will not conduct further testing or excavation at Barker Ranch.”
Lutze’s announcement is the first time he has addressed the matter since the investigative team called it quits at Barker Ranch on May 21 – when a visibly exhausted team of Inyo County sheriff’s investigators packed up their shovels and a dejected crew of scientists assembled from across the country dismantled their array of equipment amid a field of four, painstakingly dug trenches under the watchful eyes of local and national media.
The only significant finds of the intensive excavation effort were a bullet shell casing – determined to have been discarded at the site in recent years – and evidence of ancestral Native American activity.
At the time, Lutze told the weary, weather-beaten assemblage “it’s a good thing that there weren’t bodies to be found,” adding that “I think we’re all glad not to have more victims having been murdered by the Manson Clan.”
Whereas law enforcement left the ranch with some sense of relief at not finding homicide victims, the experience for the top-notch forensic scientists that gathered for the effort was disconcerting, in that their cutting-edge technology may have failed them.
There was also the sense that they were leaving with unanswered questions, in particular why their ground-penetrating radar and lasers had previously detected signs of human decomposition in locations where no remains were found.
The scientists initially suspected plant life and rocks with certain natural magnetic properties may have falsely “triggered” their otherwise highly-advanced equipment.
Review of the forensic testing at the site confirmed those suspicions. “Many of the chemical compounds observed in soil samples were present as the result of natural production by the indigenous plants at the site,” said Arpad Vass, Ph.D., a research scientist with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee (known as the Body Farm). “Ground-penetrating radar and magnetometer anomalies appear to have been the result of natural features and plant root systems.”
According to Lutze, the four sites dug up in May were “excavated thoroughly, exceeding the size and depth of the identified anomalies,” which further confirms investigators’ belief that no bodies are buried at Barker Ranch.
The investigative team had been encouraged by early results from soil samples taken during a February trip to the site which showed the possible presence of biological decomposition. Lutze explained, however, that most of these markers “decreased significantly” or vanished with the soaring Death Valley temperatures, which reached around 120 degrees during the excavation.
The ambient temperature increase only exacerbated the trouble for the scientists trying to make sense of what their equipment was picking up.
“The desert environment at Barker Ranch is uniquely complex,” said Vass. “The soil chemistry was especially challenging since it seemed to change drastically with increasing environmental temperatures.”
Just as he did at the conclusion of the excavation and in the weeks leading up to the dig, Lutze is describing the entire episode as a highly beneficial learning experience for his department – one that allowed his investigators exposure to cutting-edge forensic techniques, some never before used in the field.
“It’s been great for our department staff to be exposed, in a real-world setting, to be able to learn how to best utilize these investigative tools in future cases,” he said on May 21.
The investigative team included not only Inyo sheriff’s personnel and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Scientists, but also investigators from the Utah Attorney General’s Office Cold Case Unit and, of course, K-9 forensic teams. “It was truly a privilege to work with the Utah Attorney General’s Office, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the K-9 forensic teams and National Park Service,” said Lutze, who has received widespread praise for his professional handling of the case amidst what has been called a media circus.
It was the K-9 teams, one dog and handler in particular, who propelled Barker Ranch and its possible Manson victims to the forefront.
Paul Dostie, a sergeant with the Mammoth Lakes Police Department, and his cadaver search dog, Buster, broke the story to local and national media in 2007.
Dostie became intrigued with the possibility of additional Manson Family victims buried at the ranch when he heard stories, secondhand, in 1998 from an author who had been in contact with a former Manson Family member.
He visited the ranch in February of 2007, at which time Buster “alerted” on several spots which, combined with additional information from other sources as well as further research into the case, led Dostie to believe bodies were hidden at Barker.
Dostie was unavailable for comment at press time, but at the conclusion of the excavation did acknowledge his disappointment.
“On a couple of these sites I thought for sure we’d dig up a body,” Dostie said on May 21. “But we’ve done everything we can do to determine if there were bodies. So unless someone credible comes forward as an eyewitness to a Barker Ranch murder, I don’t think there’s anymore to be done.”
While Dostie and Buster’s work at Barker Ranch didn’t turn up any remains, the same cannot be said for another effort toward which the duo recently turned their attention.
And this time, in another desert hundreds of miles from the Panamint Valley, Buster’s nose proved infallible.
Just this past Tuesday, the San Bernardino County Coroner used dental records to positively identify the body of a woman found last week in the Mojave Desert as a married mother of four who has been missing for eight years.
According to the L.A. Times, investigators received a tip from an informant about where the body of 46-year-old Phelan resident Kathryn Barrett was buried, and the search began Friday with Buster leading the charge. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 31 July 2008 )
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