The Case of the Missing Game Warden

by Steven T. Callan

  “What do you do when you’re not traipsing around the desert?” said Glance, sitting at the breakfast table across from Sledge and Beasley.

  “I sell Indian crafts to the snowbirds during the winter months,” said Beasley. “I’m half Chemehuevi, ya know.”

  “No kidding?” said Beau, holding back a chuckle. Although Beasley’s skin was the color and texture of boot leather, and his shoulder-length gray hair was tied in a ponytail, Beau suspected that their garrulous guide had no more Native American blood flowing through his veins than the customers he swindled with his Taiwanese trinkets and doodads. Beasley chattered nonstop during breakfast and all the way to the Highway 95 Turtle Mountains turnoff.

  “Wow!” said Henry, marveling at a pair of imposing, rocky spires in the distance.

  “The far one is Mopah Peak,” said Beasley, sitting in the back seat next to Glance. “Some people call it Mexican Hat. It’s a thousand feet high and straight up. There’s a spring near the base, and that’s where we’re headed.”

  Sledge’s Bronco rumbled through three miles of rocks, soft sand, and ancient creosotes before coming to a stop near the mouth of a desert wash. “We walk from here,” said Sledge.

  Henry kept his eyes open and his mouth shut for most of the three-mile hike up the sandy, rock-strewn wash to Mopah Springs. Having read extensively about Sonoran Desert flora and fauna, he silently celebrated sightings of palo verde, barrel cactus, mesquite, and smoke tree. As the morning progressed and sunshine peeked over the adjacent hillsides, reptiles began to appear. Lightning-fast zebra-tailed lizards darted from one prickly bush to another, while whiptails slinked slowly across the sand like miniature dinosaurs. At one point, Henry stopped to admire a horned lizard sunning itself on a nearby rock.

  “Better keep movin’ if we’re gonna get there before the sheep come down from the mountain,” said Sledge.

  “How do you know they’ll come down from the mountain?” said Beau.

  “They gotta come down for water,” said Beasley. “And we’ll be a-waitin’ for ’em.”

  Approaching the base of the mountain, Sledge cautioned Glance and Burnside to keep quiet and follow his lead. He led them to a group of smaller crags overlooking a well-traveled sheep trail. The trail extended from the treacherously steep mountainside to a grove of desert fan palms. “Sometime during the next three hours, a band of desert bighorns will climb down from that mountain and come to the spring for water,” whispered Sledge. “The other day we saw three young rams and a full-curl granddaddy with ’em.”

  “The spring is at the base of those palm trees,” whispered Beasley. “It’s no bigger than a washtub, but every critter within five miles comes here to drink at one time or another.”

  It was a few minutes after 10:00 when Sledge scanned the sunlit east face of the magnificent volcanic peak and noticed movement amongst the jagged, gray-and-red-colored rocks. “Here they come,” he whispered. “It’s almost impossible to see ’em way up in those rocks unless ya know what you’re lookin’ for.”

  An hour after Sledge had first spotted the band of sheep climbing down the sheer spire, seven sheep appeared in the open and made their way to the spring. “Looks like they’re all ewes,” whispered Beau.

  “Don’t worry,” whispered Beasley, “the rams won’t be far behind.”

  “I think I see one now,” said Henry. “He just walked out onto that lowest ledge.”

  “Sure is,” said Beasley, focusing his binoculars. “That’s the granddaddy Sonny was talkin’ about. Don’t he look proud, posin’ there like he’s king a the world?”

  “I see three smaller rams in the shade, just below him,” said Sledge. “Beau, I want you to quietly rack a cartridge into the chamber and lock the bolt in place. Stay low, and don’t even think about shootin’ until I give you the word. I’ll tell you when it’s time. We’re downwind, so they shouldn’t be able to smell us.”

  All seven ewes had drunk their fill and were heading back up the mountain when the rams walked out of the rocks and ventured toward the spring. The younger rams stepped aside and let the dominant, full-curled ram drink first. Kicking and butting, the others jostled for position behind him. When the big ram had finished drinking, he turned and slowly walked up the trail from which he’d come. “He’ll stop in a minute to smell the air,” whispered Sledge. “That’s when you’ll take him. Put the crosshairs right behind his shoulder.”

  Resting his left shoulder on the large rock he hid behind, Beau Burnside took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and gently squeezed off the trigger. KA-BOOOOM came a resounding blast that could be heard by Warden Rollins, three miles away. Beau hit his mark and the ram dropped dead in his tracks. Before Henry could compliment Burnside on his marksmanship, Beasley and Sledge were dragging the carcass into the shade of some nearby rocks. “The sooner we get this big boy caped out, the cleaner the mount is gonna be,” said Beasley. “It don’t take long in this heat for the hair to start slippin’ and the hide to go bad.”

  Henry and Beau watched as Beasley took a razor-sharp skinning knife from his canvas backpack and began cutting through the ram’s hide. Almost sickened by the sight, Henry reminded himself that by taking this single bighorn and building a case against these two money-grubbing criminals, he and fellow officers would save countless other animals. Should they find and arrest Kurt Schuler, the Las Vegas taxidermist, the investigation would be a resounding success.

  Like a surgeon, Beasley completed the process by sawing through the ram’s eye sockets and disconnecting a set of twenty-pound horns from the skull. When he’d finished, Sledge instructed Henry and Beau to help him drag the carcass away from the spring and into a nearby wash. “In a week, this carcass will be completely eaten by the critters,” said Sledge. “Nobody will be the wiser.”

  By 2:15, Sledge’s Bronco was back on Highway 95 and headed north toward Needles. Warden Rollins watched them pass from a hidden location on the east side of Highway 95. When the Bronco was out of sight, Rollins signaled Calloway to pick him up. Calloway radioed Agent Norris that the subjects were headed north, toward Needles, and a shot had been fired. Together, Calloway and Rollins drove across the highway and followed Sledge’s Bronco tracks.

  Reaching the wash where Sledge and the others had parked, Calloway grabbed his camera and both wardens began the arduous hike to Mopah Springs. They were a quarter mile from their destination when Rollins spotted the first turkey vulture. Soon, more than a dozen birds circled the carcass. After chasing a coyote away, Calloway photographed the sheep while Rollins took tissue samples.

  Meanwhile, Sledge dropped Beasley off at the restaurant parking lot in Needles. With the cape safely stashed inside a cooler and the horns wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag, Sledge, Glance, and Burnside headed back to Bullhead City. Sledge had no way of knowing that the minute he crossed over the Colorado River into Arizona—with an unlawfully taken bighorn sheep, for which he had already been paid $5,000—he’d violated the federal Lacey Act and committed what could be classified as a felony.

  Arriving at the motel, Sledge pressed Beau Burnside for the other $5,000. Beau paid him in cash with investigation money provided by Agent Parnell.

  “How soon are you going to get my ram to the taxidermist?” said Beau. “I don’t want it to spoil.”

  “I’ll have it to him today,” said Sledge. “He’s the best in the business, so I’m sure you’ll be happy with his work. It’s my understandin’ that you want the mount shipped to your business address in Oklahoma?”

  “That’s right,” said Beau. “Ship it to the address I wrote on the back of my card. How long will it take?”

  “It may be a year or so before you get your mount.”

  “Who do I call to check on it?”

  “Call me,” said Sledge. “You have my number.”

  As Sledge drove away from the motel, Warden Glance quickly unlocked the Ch
evy Chevelle glove compartment and radioed Agent Norris. “The items you’re looking for are in the rear of the Bronco,” said Glance. “You’ll find a cape in the ice chest and the horns in a black garbage bag.”

  “Ten-four,” said Norris. “We’ll take it from here.”

  U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents followed Sledge to his residence, a singlewide mobile home located in a shaded trailer park upriver from the motel. Sledge climbed back into his Bronco ten minutes later and drove across the river into Nevada. A team of federal agents, leapfrogging back and forth in unmarked cars, followed Sledge to Las Vegas. Sledge continued to the northern outskirts of Las Vegas before turning east from Highway 95, driving 300 yards up a paved access road, and disappearing behind a fabricated steel warehouse building.

  Sledge’s Bronco reappeared thirty minutes later, traveled back to Highway 95, and was stopped at the intersection by six federal agents in three unmarked cars. “Are you Porter Sledge?” said Agent Norris, displaying his badge and identification.

  “Yeah,” said Sledge. “What’s this all about?”

  “Please turn off the ignition and step out of the car.”

  As agents searched the Bronco, Sledge was cuffed, frisked for weapons, and placed under arrest. The ice chest in back contained nothing but ice, and the black plastic bag Henry had previously described was gone. Minutes later, a federal marshal arrived in a caged patrol unit and transported Sledge to a Las Vegas jail. All six agents jumped back into their cars and descended upon the warehouse from which Sledge had just come.

  Agent Norris and his team rounded the north end of the warehouse and drove south past a dumpster and two ten-by-ten, roll-up doors—both closed. The officers came to a stop next to an older-model Pontiac Tempest station wagon parked in front of the entrance.

  Agent Norris was about to knock on the entrance door, when he and the rest of his crew heard chains rattling. Frozen in position, they watched one of the roll-up doors slowly rise. When it stopped, a twenty-plus-year-old Hispanic laborer pushed a cart outside, in the direction of the dumpster.

  “Hello,” said Norris, “We’d like to speak with the owner of the warehouse.”

  “No entiendo,” said the young man.

  “The owner is not here,” came a voice from inside the building. All six agents quickly positioned themselves, shoulder-to-shoulder, in the open doorway. “You must come back later,” said a middle-aged Hispanic gentleman.

  “We are federal wildlife agents,” said Norris, displaying his badge and identification. “These men will remain here in the doorway until a search warrant arrives. I suggest you and your workers stop what you’re doing and relax. If we see anyone attempting to remove or destroy evidence, they will be arrested.”

  From their vantage point in the doorway, agents saw the head of an African eland, a standing ten-foot polar bear, a mountain lion posed in the crouch position, and a perched golden eagle. They continued to secure the premises while Agent Norris drove to a nearby pay phone and telephoned another agent waiting at the federal prosecutor’s office in Las Vegas. Much of the necessary probable cause statement had already been written. Norris provided the agent in Las Vegas with additional information, including what Warden Glance had witnessed, what Norris and his agents had witnessed, a detailed description of the premises to be searched, and a list of items to be searched for.

  The search warrant arrived at 6:35 p.m., ten minutes before Kurt Schuler. While Schuler and his employees sat and watched, federal agents conducted a methodical search of the building, its dumpsters, seven large freezers, and all of Schuler’s business records. Within the first half hour, agents found the bighorn-sheep horns and cape that had recently been delivered by Sonny Sledge. They also found two other sets of bighorn-sheep horns and capes, both tagged by Sonny Sledge.

  By daylight the next morning, agents had seized into evidence three desert bighorn sheep, a bald eagle, two golden eagles, an Alaskan brown bear, a polar bear, a Siberian tiger, two mountain lions, a leopard, a sable antelope, and an African eland.

  All of Shuler’s records were seized into evidence and examined over the next several days, allowing agents to build substantial criminal cases against Kurt Schuler, Sonny Sledge, and nine wealthy big-game hunters.

  Sonny Sledge was later convicted of felony conspiracy and several Lacey Act violations. He was ordered by the federal court to return $5,000 to Beau Burnside, return $5,000 to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and pay a fine of $100,000. Sledge was sentenced to one year in federal prison, and his hunting and guiding privileges were revoked for life. He was also forbidden from possessing a firearm or being in the field with anyone else who was hunting, guiding, or in possession of a firearm.

  Kurt Schuler was convicted of numerous Lacey Act violations involving the importation and possession of wildlife unlawfully taken in the United States, Africa, and the Soviet Union. He was also convicted of violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. For his wildlife-related crimes, Schuler was sentenced to one year in federal prison and ordered to pay a fine and civil penalties in the amount of $450,000. His records were turned over to the Internal Revenue Service, after which the IRS charged Schuler with tax evasion and sent him to prison for an additional three years.

  For his part in the unlawful take and possession of a fully protected California desert bighorn sheep, Clem Beasley was charged in state court and convicted of felony conspiracy. Since he was already a convicted felon at the time of sentencing, Beasley was sent back to prison for a period of five years.

  All nine wealthy hunters convicted in the case plea-bargained through their attorneys and paid substantial fines. None of them received jail or prison sentences.

  Henry telephoned Gary Lytle in late September to thank him for his part in the investigation. “Without your help, none of those people would have been caught,” said Henry.

  “I’m glad I could help,” said Lytle. “How are you coming on your murder investigation? Or have you forgotten about that?”

  “I was working a couple good leads when this bighorn-sheep investigation came up. Unless I get sidetracked again, I’m going to devote serious time to that investigation this coming year.”

  “If anyone can solve that case, you can, Hank.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Warden Glance had racked up over 200 hours of overtime planning and conducting the undercover bighorn-sheep investigation in Southern California. Because of Henry’s significant, but justified, breach of department policy, Captain Odom ordered him to take the entire month of October 1970 off. When November finally rolled around, Henry was biting at the bit to go back to work and check out information he’d gleaned from Norman Bettis’s diaries.

  By mid-morning on Monday, November 2, 1970, Henry had tracked the last official documentation of Hollis Bogar’s whereabouts to July 4, 1956, at the City of Chico’s One Mile swimming pool. According to Butte County Sheriff’s Department records, Bogar had been arrested by officers of the Chico Police Department for disturbing the peace and public drunkenness. Bogar’s personal information sheet provided the following:

  Name: Hollis DeWayne Bogar

  Date of Birth: 11/21/30

  Birthplace: Chico, California

  Height: 6’4” Weight: 265

  Hair Color: Brown Eye Color: Brown

  Description of Marks, Scars, and Tattoos: Chipped upper front tooth

  Home Address: Shady Rest Trailer Park, Space 106, Gridley, CA 95948

  Henry was about to close Bogar’s criminal file folder and return it to Records Clerk Lois Reed when he noticed a familiar name handwritten at the bottom of a release-from-custody form inside. According to the form, Bogar had been bailed out of jail by Blake R. Gastineau.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” said Reed, sensing a positive change in Henry’s normally stoic demeanor.

  “I did, Lois. Would you mind checking ou
t one more name for me?”

  “Sure. What’s the name?”

  “Stillwell, Ferlin Richard.”

  “Why does Stillwell ring a bell?”

  “Back in April, you checked out the serial number of a .30-30 rifle for me. That afternoon, you called and said the rifle had been reported stolen by a man named Tucker Stillwell in Kingfisher, Oklahoma.”

  “I remember now.”

  “Ferlin Stillwell was Tucker Stillwell’s grandson. He was also the person who stole the rifle.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “A friend of mine in Oklahoma did some detective work for me.”

  “Let me see if I can find something on Mr. Stillwell. I’ll be right back.”

  Minutes later, Reed returned with Stillwell’s criminal file folder. Perusing the folder’s contents, Henry learned that Ferlin Richard Stillwell—aka Richie Stillwell—was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, on June 9, 1932. He was five-feet-six-inches tall and weighed 155 pounds. Stillwell’s only distinguishing mark was the tattoo of a dagger on his right forearm. His home address was listed as Shady Rest Trailer Park, Space 106, Gridley, CA 95948.

  “Just as I suspected,” mumbled Henry.

  “What did you suspect?” said Reed.

  “Thanks for all the help, Lois. I left the folders on the counter. I’ll see you later.”

  “Wait a minute, Hank. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “If I told you, it would spoil the story,” said Henry, walking toward the door. “You’ll have to wait and read about it in the paper.”

  “Don’t get too cocky, young man. And be careful.”

  That evening, Henry telephoned his friend and working partner, Tom Austin, to tell him what he’d learned.

  “Norm Bettis wasn’t much of a writer, and most of his entries were chicken scratch,” said Henry, “but I was able to read between the lines and come up with a few possible leads.”