The saga of convicted killer Claude Dallas will continue until he is released from jail, says a contingent of supporters who are auctioning off his 17 guns in Reno, Nev., to raise money for his legal defense.
"I fully feel we'll win (on appeal). It wasn't right that they locked him up for so long and we're working as hard as we can to get him out," said Dallas' friend, Geneva Holman of Reno.The interview was printed by the Moscow Idahonian Friday.
Holman is organizing the fund-raising auction Sept. 16 in Reno. Dallas gained release of his personal property including trapping equipment, weapons, boots, saddle and spurs from the state of Idaho last month. The items were confiscated and held in Owyhee County for years before being released by the courts.
"I just can never believe a murdering, thieving S.O.B. like that has got the attention and sympathy he got," said Owyhee County Sheriff Tim Nettleton Friday. Nettleton pursued Dallas after he shot to death Idaho Fish and Game officers Conley Elms and Bill Pogue at Bull Camp on the Idaho-Nevada border in 1981.
Dallas was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. In 1986, he escaped from the Idaho State Penitentiary near Boise and eluded police for 11 months until he was recaptured in California. But Dallas was acquitted of escape after a trial in which he claimed prison guards planned to kill him.
Holman said Dallas plans to appeal his sentence to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
While his supporters call him a victim of overzealous law enforcement, lawmen say Dallas is nothing more than a cold-blooded killer.
"The same sort of people with the same attitudes still live in that area (in the Intermountain desert), and it could happen again. They're not trappers, they're poachers," Nettleton said.
Dallas has been in the Kansas State Penitentiary since mid-July. He was sent to Nebraska and then to New Mexico after he beat the escape charge in 1987.
Reno auctioneer Steve Stremmel said he has received nothing but positive inquiries about the Dallas sale.
"It's mystic. He's got friends all over the place. Because of the nature and the ambiance of the event, the bids could go off the Richter scale," he said.