The prime time soap opera Dallas ruled the airwaves in the early 1980s and by January 1981, most of America was asking, “Who Shot J.R.?” Authorities in the northwest United States, however, were more concerned with a different question: “Where was Claude Dallas?” Six years later, they were asking the same question.

Claude Dallas twice led the F.B.I. on nationwide manhunts. The first time he did not give up easily, but the second time he surrendered without incident.

In the sparsely populated northern Nevada and southern Idaho regions, it is often said, even today, if you want to start a bar fight, mention the name Claude Dallas. To some he was a charming, charismatic old school cowboy unjustly imprisoned for wanting to live off the land, free from government interference. To others, Dallas was a deceiving, beguiling cold-blooded killer who cheated justice.

Claude Dallas

A Virginia native, Claude Dallas spent most of his childhood in Ohio. After graduating from Mount Gilead High School in 1967, the independent seventeen-year-old hitchhiked west, ultimately settling in a remote region of southeastern Oregon where he worked as a rancher and trapper.

On September 17, 1970, during the midst of the Vietnam War, a warrant was issued for Dallas’s arrest on a charge of draft dodging. He had failed to respond to repeated notices mailed to his parents’ Ohio home ordering him to report for military induction.

Dallas was located and arrested three years later. He claimed he and his family were not communicating and that he was not aware of the notices. He was acquitted after the draft board concluded he never knew of the induction letters.

Despite beating the draft dodging charge, the experience fueled Claude Dallas’s feelings of disdain and distrust for all types of governmental authority.

Claude’s Anti-Authority Ire Begins

Shortly afterwards, Dallas settled near Paradise Valley, Nevada, a sparsely populated mountainous region whose few residents were known for anti-government sentiments.

Claude Dallas may have had the surname of a large city, but for him the rugged terrain and the area’s disdain for the law was his idea of paradise. Here, he could be a mountain man and, he believed, answer to know one.

Continuing to make his living as a trapper, Dallas set up camp in December 1980 just north of the Nevada border in Owyhee County. He viewed his camp as his own private Idaho.

Living Off The Land

On January 5, 1981, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game received reports that Dallas was poaching. Two conservation officers, fifty-year-old Bill Pogue and thirty-four-year-old Conley Elms, were dispatched to his camp to investigate.

Dallas’s friend Jim Stevens was searching the area for Indian artifacts. He heard the wardens arrival and their speaking to Dallas. Soon, Stevens heard voices raised as the conversation had turned into an argument.

When Stevens arrived at the scene, an irate Dallas was screaming at the wardens as they were confiscating the out-of-season venison and bobcats he had shot. As Stevens turned his back for only a few seconds, he heard an array of gunshots. When he turned around, both of the wardens lay motionless on the ground.

Dallas then went into his tent and returned with a .22 caliber shotgun. As hunters shoot their prey in the back of the head to ensure they were dead, Dallas did the same to the wardens.

Afterwards, a still fuming Dallas told Stevens the wardens had drawn their weapons first, and that he had shot them in self-defense with a concealed handgun. Dallas ordered Stevens to help him dispose of the bodies. Stevens did so, partly out of wanting to help his friend but more because he was afraid of him.

Dallas and Stevens loaded Bill Pogue’s body into Dallas’s van and hid it in a coyote den in the barren desert. Conley Elms was too heavy to lift, so they instead dragged his body into the river.

                                 Bill Pogue                            Conley Elms

Dallas and Stevens then went to the home of another friend who shared their anti-government views. The friend gave Dallas money, food, and supplies, enabling him to go underground.

Aided by additional friends, Dallas eluded capture for fifteen months. When he was cornered in a friend’s mobile home north of Winnemucca, Nevada, on April 18, 1982, authorities ordered him outside. Dallas came out, but not in the typical fashion.

The desperate and determined Dallas dove through a closed glass window and made his way to a car. He then proceeded to lead the FBI on a two-mile chase, all the while firing gunshots as he was driving.  The agents returned fire, hitting Dallas twice. The wounded fugitive then fled the vehicle and attempted to hide in the forest before finally being captured.

Claude Corralled

After healing from his wounds, Claude Dallas was charged with two counts of murder. Prosecutors thought they had an airtight case for a murder conviction. Dallas had shot the wardens in the back of the head after they had already been incapacitated. But officials soon realized the degree of the region’s contempt for the law.

Many residents believed Dallas’s claim of self-defense. Others were so disdainful of governmental intrusion that it did not matter if the federally-employed game wardens had been murdered. To them, the wardens had committed a crime by intruding on private land and received a just punishment.

Claude Applauded By Many

Claude Dallas was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter. Although he was sentenced to the maximum of thirty years in prison, he would be eligible for parole after eight years.

Killer Claude, however, was not content to wait that long.

Voluntary Manslaughter

Not Murder

After his appeal to the Idaho State Supreme Court was denied in 1985, Dallas engineered an Easter escape from the State Penitentiary east of Kuna on March 30, 1986. He took advantage of the holiday when fewer people than usual were on staff at the prison. Using pilfered tools, he picked the lock to his cell and made his way outside. Under cover of darkness, he used pliers to cut through the fences.

During Dallas’s trial, many local women who had become attracted to him were dubbed the “Dallas Cheerleaders.” One of them, Geneva Holden, waited in her car outside the prison walls and drove her “Dallas Cowboy” to freedom.

An Easter Escape From Prison

Round two of the manhunt for the mountain man commenced. This time, even more resources would be used to capture him.

In May 1986, Claude Dallas became the four-hundredth fugitive placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.

 Placed On The Top Ten List

The fugitive buckaroo’s freedom didn’t last quite as long during his second run from the law. Much to the chagrin of his fans, Dallas went down in a far less dramatic, and some would say comical, fashion.

On March 8, 1987, the live-off-the-land, eat-what-you-catch self-proclaimed survivalist was captured in Riverside, California, as he was buying groceries at a Stop-N-Go 7-Eleven. He was found to have been living under the name Al Schrenk and working area constriction jobs.

Claude Is Caught Again

The mountain man still seemed to have somewhat of a Midas Touch. After beating draft dodging and murder charges, Dallas was acquitted of escape after claiming the guards at the Idaho prison were plotting to kill him.

He was, however, transferred to another prison to serve the remainder of his thirty-year sentence for manslaughter.

Acquitted Of Escape

After serving twenty-two-years, Claude Dallas was paroled for good behavior in February 2005. He has since lived in Grouse Creek, Utah, and the Alaskan wilderness.

Since his release, Dallas has declined all requests for interviews.

Paroled

Claude Dallas is still viewed as a folk hero in some circles.

For its sesquicentennial in 2014, the Idaho Statesman, the state’s largest newspaper, asked Idahoans to vote on the state’s top fifty stories for the last one-hundred-fifty years. At the peak of the list was the saga of the mountain man.

Awed By Claude

The 1986 TV movie The Hunt for Claude Dallas was made after his escape from prison but before his recapture. Dallas was played by Matt Salinger, son of author J.D. Salinger. The elder Salinger and Dallas were probably close to being equally reclusive.

Brent Spiner, soon to be of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame, played Dallas’s friend Jim Stevens.

                           Matt Salinger As                      Brent Spiner As 

                             Claude Dallas                          Jim Stevens 

The gun Claude Dallas used to shoot Bill Pogue and Conley Elms was a .357 caliber Ruger Security Six handgun that he always wore concealed. Dallas disposed of the gun after the killings.

In December 2008, nearly twenty-nine years after the incident, the gun was found by an Idaho man using a metal detector.

The Killing Cowboy’s Gun Is Found

Ian Tyson’s 1987 album, Cowboyography, includes a song entitled “Claude Dallas” telling the story of Idaho’s most famous outlaw.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117439342/william-harlan-pogue#

 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117438961/wilson-conley-elms#

SOURCES:

• The Blue Review
• City Confidential
• FBI Files
• Manhunt for Claude Dallas
• Murderpedia
• The Oklahoman
• Rolling Stone
• The Spokesman-Review
• The True Story of Claude Dallas by Jeff Long