by Waits, Chris
...Summer 77 up [name], I shot a cow in the head with my .30-30, then got the [expletixe] out of there. I mean a rancher's cow, not an elk cow.
FBI rRANSCRiPiiON I-ROM CODKO joiRNAL [To further com-phcate his numerical code, Kazcinski used no apostrophes, created misspellings, and altered word breaks.]
SOME [expletive] Bl ILT A VACATIONHOl'SH A FEW YEARS
A(;o ACROSS [name]... SO one m(;h r i fall i sneaked
OVERTHERE,THOUGH THE^AVEREHOME,ANDSTOLE THEIR CHAINSAW,Bl'RIED IT INA SWAMP.THAT WASNOT ENOUGH,SO COUPLE WEEKS LATERWHEN THEVHADLEFTTHE PLACE,I CHOPPED MY WAY LN LO THEIRHOUSE,SMASHEDrP INTERIOR PRETTYTHOROUGHLY.ITWASA REAL LUXURYPLACE.THEY ALSOHADA MOBILEHOME THERE.I BROKE INTO THAT TOO,FOUND SILVERPAINTED MOTORSYCLE INSIDE,SMASHED IT UP WITHTHEIR OWN AX.THEYHAD4SN0WM0BILES SITTING Ol STIDE.I THOROUGHLY SMASHED ENGINES OF THOSE WITHTHE AX.THINKTHEYWERETHE ONES I CUTCYCLE TRAIL AT [name],SINCE SILVERPAINTED CYCLEISUNUSUAL.WEEK OR SO LArER,COPS CAME UP HERE AND ASKED ME IF IHADSEEN ANYONE FOOLING AROUNDWITH ANY BUILDINGS AROUND HERE.ALSO ASKED IF IHADHADANY PROBLEMS WITHMOTORCYCLES.THIS LASTQUESTION SUGGESTSTHATTHE TRUTHCROSSED-THEIR MINDS.BUTPROBABLY THEY DIDNOT SERIOUSLY SUS-PECTME,OTHERWISE THEIR QUESTIONING WOULDNOTHAVEBEEN SO PERFUNCTORY.THIS WINTER (1982T01983) VERYFEW SNOWMOBILESHAVECOME BY.I SUPPOSE EITHERTHOSE [EXPLETIVE] HAVENOT GO'IMACHINES FIXED YE'r,ORHA EREALIZEDTHAT-THEREISSOMEONE WHOWILLNOT LET THEMGET AWAY WITH TERRORIZINGTHE AREA.WHO SAYS CRIME DOESNT PAY.^I FEEL VERY GOOD ABOUTTHIS.IAMALSO PLEASEDTHAT I
WASSO COOL ANDCOLI.KCn KD IN ANSWERING COPS QUESTIONS.
Standing there with Dave and Max, I now understood why the FBI agents had been carrying a boat around these forested mountains the summer before. Dave said they'd been prepared to search "the swamp" where Ted said he had buried the chainsaw.
Dave now^ told about journal entries that described a hair-raising story of three young motorcycle riders who violated Ted's code of not riding off-road.
As they playfully climbed the steep mountain trails, riding comfortably on top of their noisy two-stroke machines, they didn't have a clue that their young lives were almost snuffed out on that bright summer day.
Ted, hiking nearby, saw them through the trees and was so enraged that he raised his rifle, leveled the sights on the first rider, took aim and prepared to fire. Then he paused momentarily and lamented that one of the riders might escape before he could kill them all.
That, coupled with the proximity of his home cabin and the intensive manhunt that would surely ensue if the boys were missing or found dead, saved their lives. Ted also wrote that the shootings would undoubtedly have ended his bombing campaign, so he backed off and allowed the forest desecraters to escape.
The thought of that near-fatal experience made me cringe and led the three of us into a discussion about Ted's cowardice: If he couldn't carry out an act in a pusillanimous way he wouldn't carry it out at all.
Dave had another equally chilling example: Ted wrote about a wire he had stretched across a mountain trail at neck height to snag motorcyclists.
I had found a similar wire many years earlier, and took it down and wrapped it around a tree, I said.
Dave said Ted had written about stretching a wire between two trees across a trail, and described the location. FBI agents had found it the previous summer. But Ted wrote about setting more than one such trap. We wondered how many more deadly wires could still be out there in the woods.
At the end of Summer '75 after the roaring by of motoreyeles near my camp spoiled a hike for me, I put a piece of wire across a trail where cycle-tracks were visible, at about neck height for a motorcyclist. (Next summer I found someone had w rapped the wire safely around a tree. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone was injured by it.)
rXDVIKD JOl RNAL EMRY
Summer '77...I strung a neck-wire for motorcyclists along the divide trail above [location]. Later I found the wire was gone. Whether it hurt anyone I don't know.
Another myster' solved.
Max, Dave, and I hiked farther south upstream until we came to a fork in the creek. We hopped across the side fork and followed it through a flat area loaded with wild herbs.
As I started naming some of the vegetation, including yellow^ mon-keyflower, bog orchid, arrowleaf groundsel, and pink penstamen, I also noted the thick carpet of light-green sphagnum moss covering the ground.
Max broke in and told me about one of Ted's accounts that mentioned sphagnum moss. I replied it was a common form of vegetation found in many areas near Stemple.
We moved on, explored briefly some of the historical areas of the gulch and decided to head back, since the day was wearing on. Even though we hadn't found anything monumental that day, there were successes, and Dave and Max w ere satisfied to have stood in the place Ted had described as his "Most Secret Camp."
We made good time hiking dow^n the mountain, which left enough of the afternoon to explore the old mine tunnel. We stopped at one of my sheds to grab extra lighting, climbed to the old mine adit and carefully crawled inside the body-sized opening I had dug out several weeks earlier.
I led the way with Dave close behind. Max w ould have no part of the underground adventure and waited outside. We follow ed the tunnel, dark and musty because of the stagnant air, some seventy-five to
206
one hundred feet. We couldn't find anything that could be clearly linked to Ted, even though many objects littered the inside. They could have been carried in by pack rats as well as Ted.
Ducking under overhanging rock and crawling through the tunnel, which was chiseled and blasted out of sedimentary shale, made one appreciate the hard work and danger hard-rock miners faced as they followed veins of gold into the mountainside.
As we crawled back through the small adit, squinting as our eyes adjusted to the sunlight, Max snapped a couple of photos. He suggested that the pictures would probably end up on the safety bulletin board back at FBI headquarters, an example of what an agent shouldn't do in the field.
We climbed down from the old mine and returned to the house, where we settled into a discussion about more of Ted's strange characteristics. Max said he was amazed by the vile language Ted used in his writings and how viciously he attacked friend and foe, even members of his own family.
FinalK; as the early evening air cooled, Dave and Max drove back out the gulch to Stemple Road and to Lincoln, eager to reach their motel room.
Over supper, Betty and I conversed about the day's events and what I had learned. One piece of information really embarrassed her. As we came back down the mountainside, Max, Dave, and I had stopped along the trail where we could easily look down on our house. I jokingly said Ted could have peered into our atrium windows from that spot and watched us climb into our large spa, night or day. It wasn't a joking matter, they said. Ted had watched people frequently and wrote about it, which really surprised me.
But even that little bit of information left an indelible mark on us and our lifestyle. My wife would never again enter our spa while the lights were turned on.
The next day we had planned another trip to the secret cabin. After Max and Dave arrived, I piloted them back to the shelf high on the mountainside by a roundabout route, actually passing the cutoff point and then backtracking on an oblique angle.
We approached from a different direction, w^alking in to the east side of the cabin site. I wanted Max and Dave to fully appreciate the
secretic location Ted had chosen and that it had all of the (jiialifica-tions of a hideout and none of a campsite.
We took off our packs and started to carefully remox e all the metal items from the inside of the cabin and then searched both inside and out w ith a metal detector.
As we worked I really noticed the decomposition of some of the more fragile items I had tried to protect so diligently while waiting for the FBI to arrie. That confirmed my theory that things deteriorated quickly when left unattended in the harsh mountain elements, so Ted had surely used the cabin on a regular basis, right up to the fall and winter before his
arrest.
Nothing new was found during this search.
Then I was surprised, and disappointed, as was Dave, when Max said this would be our last day out in the field.
Dave wanted to stay and continue the searches, feeling we were just getting a good start.
I argued we could find Ted's missing 30-30 and try to link it to the shooting many years ago of an area miner as he stood on the top of his washing plant. Authorities had retrieved the slug from the victim and could perform a ballistics test if we could find the rifle. The statute of limitations had run out, but Dave especially wanted to close the book on yet another unsolved case.
The sneaky shot certainly fit Ted to a "T," and when I informed Dae just how quickly the crime scene could be reached from the secret cabin site, his suspicions grew. Even though proving Ted shot the miner wouldn't add to the sentence he faced, it would be comforting for people around Lincoln to know the case had been solved.
But Max had already made up his mind the field search was coming to a close that day and there w ould be little time for us to look for the 30-30. Almost as if to settle any argument, Max started to read from Ted's journal pages, which mentioned another cabin, an old miner's shack that the agents had found during the summer of 1996.
The discovers; a few gulches to the west, had been one of their few field successes that first summer after the arrest, but it proved to be a hollow victory because Ted had mapped the cabin as nothing more than a reference point and possible emergency shelter.
We made one final sweep of the area around the secret cabin with
a metal detector, this time in a larger perimeter. The agents used a random method that was pretty much hit or miss and we found nothing more that was earth-shattering.
I wasn't the least bit discouraged, though, because as we searched we talked and I was continuing to learn more about Ted and the case.
I was shocked, but not totally surprised, when Max said Ted had often shot at airplanes and helicopters overhead. The rumors that had circulated in Lincoln in the past were true.
Ted had even made special excursions into the mountains with the intent of shooting a helicopter or plane.
CODED-JOIRNAL ENTRY
EARLY AUGUST I WENTANDCAMPED OUT,MOSTLY INWHAT
ICALL [name]GULCH, hopingto shootup a helicopter in
AREA EASTOF[name]IOl NTAIN.PROVED HARDERTHAN ITHOUGHT,BECAUSEHELICOPTERSALWAYS INMOTION,NEVER-KNOWWHERETHEYWILLGO NEXT, TALLTREES IN WAYOF-SHOT.ONLY ONCE HADBEHALF [sk] A CHANCE.2QUICK-SHOTS,ROUGHLYAIMED,AS COPTER CROSSEDSPACEBETWEEN-2TREES.MISSEDBOTH....FORGOT TO MENTION,ON TRIP-WHERE I SHOT AT HELICOPTER,I CHOPPEDDOWNWOODEN-POWER LINE POLE,[name]CREEK AREA.
It was obvious that the more time I spent with the agents the more I learned about the Lincoln mysteries of the past twenty-five years.
On one hand I felt good that Ted had been removed, so there would be no further damage or violence here. But on the other hand, the more I learned the angrier I became. I found myself begging Max for an opportunity to be alone with Ted in his jail cell for even five minutes, knowing it would never happen.
They humored me, saying they wanted Ted to be alive and healthy when he was tried for his crimes. I was joking, anyway, but I had to wonder what the cowardly Ted would think if I was placed in his cell. If nothing else, it would lead to some interesting conversations.
If Ted didn't approve of my occupation or had concerns about it, why didn't he have the guts to discuss things with me.^ Actually, he
would hac found I shared many of his views and concerns about the en ironment, and would have loved to talk about the issues.
But as I mulled over his secret years and acts in Lincoln, it became apparent his motivation to carry out his acts of terrorism really had little to do with saving Mother Karth. Mis true motivation was nothing more than hatred and rev enge.
His self-conceived superiority even extended to a feeling that hunting should be banned. Of course, he hunted daily and killed scores of forest birds and animals for sustenance.
Sept. 11, 1975
I just heard 2 shots, a few^ minutes apart, maybe 1/4 mile away; something light, but heavier than a .22 I'd say. Made me nervous lest they see the smoke from my fire (no chance of their finding my camp otherwise). Makes me about ready to join the ban-hunting crowd, just to keep these disgusting twerps out of the woods. Of course I'd hunt anyway.
We finished at the secret cabin site, packed up our gear after taking a few^ last photographs and headed down the mountain. As we walked along the game trails toward home, I was perplexed that Dave and Max hadn't packed up any of the evidence and taken it with them. I didn't say anything, though, and felt satisfied about the week's work.
Everyone would like to have found more evidence, but considering the time parameters, I was especially pleased about all the new things I had learned. We had worked together well and they knew all the sensitive information was safe with me; I wouldn't be responsible for a leak that could jeopardize the trial.
I told Max and Dave that I wanted to continue the investigation on my own and wondered if it would be possible to procure some of Ted's journal entries to assist me. I had plenty of information to continue the search. I had already written down our daily conversations almost verbatim and had redrawn most of the maps and landmarks from memory. They hadn't realized that was part of my nightly routine.
I explained my motivation was to fmd hard evidence to corroborate the things about our friendship and Ted's use of my gulch I had talked about from the start, especially since my character was being assassinated by Ted and his few sympathizers who were calling me a liar.
Max and Dae understood and said they would see what they could do. I didn t want them to jeopardize their jobs since I knew about the non-disclosure statement each had been required to sign.
When we arrived at their vehicle Dave surprised me with a gift, a full-color, computer-enhanced satellite photograph of my gulch and much of the country surrounding me.
After loading their gear. Max and Dave said they wanted to drive down and make a quick stop at the area where I stored wire, solder, pipe, copper tubing, and electrical switches, among many other things.
As we got out Dave showed me another one of Ted's intriguing hand-drawn maps. It charted, starting in the fall of 1971, all his foot routes through the mountains. I was astounded to see all the places Ted had hiked in the various drainages of my gulch. It was another piece of irrefutable proof that Ted had spent an incredible amount of time living and hiking in the gulch.
We dug through the various boxes of electrical wiring and other materials as the agents looked for something that might match evidence recovered in Ted's cabin or that he used in his bombs.
I mentioned the gold and the black sand found in Ted's home cabin, and wondered if it was the material pilfered from my sluice box a few years earlier.
If I could just see a few flakes of gold and a small amount of the black sand, I would be able to identify its origin.
Max and Dave were intrigued when I went on to tell them that placer gold and the black sand that accompanies it have individual characteristics as unique as fingerprints.
They thought it would be interesting if I could see the gold and tell where it came from, but that wouldn't be possible since nearly all the evidence taken from Ted's home cabin w^as still back at the FBI crime lab in Washington, D.C.
They examined the contents of the last box of wiring and found several pieces that caught their eye. Ted obviously could have used
some of the material, they said, since it was the same type of wire. He garnered what he needed from dozens of places and much of it would ne er he traced to its origin.
We headed down to the house. When we got there Dae pulled out several more presents—a couple of FBI glass mugs and two ballpoint pens with ''FBI" embossed on them.
They encouraged me to continue the search and keep them informed.
It was almost anticlimactic, watching them turn onto the
Stemple Road and roll out of sight toward Lincoln. We had waited all summer for this exploration, and now it was over.
I was back on my own. Armed with a plethora of new information, I could hardly wait to get back out there.
My first order of business would be to return to the secret cabin, gather up all the evidence and protect it before it deteriorated further.
I wasn't sure why the agents hadn't taken anything with them, but I had a theory. Maybe the prosecution thought they could circumvent the laws of discovery by not gathering any of the evidence.
Certainly Ted's defense lawyers would return to talk to me before the trial. What would I tell them.'^ I just hoped I wouldn't get caught up in the middle of charges of failure to disclose evidence.
It was aggravating and puzzling they'd go to such efforts to find evidence to corroborate Ted's journals and then not w^ant to take it and process it for the trial.
Interviews and Trial Strategies
Flattery^ won't buy you much in a mountain community like Lincoln, especially if you're a stranger. Small-town people get right to the point.
"How's the weather.^"
"It's 20 below zero on the old barn thermometer this morning. The dogs won't even go outside."
Talk all you want about the splendid scenery in the Upper Blackfoot Valle; the rustic charm of the town of Lincoln and its stores, the friendliness of the people, but it won't buy a cup of coffee at Lambkin's.
Any conversation laced with profuse compliments immediately draws a suspicious look: "You want something.^"
That's pretty much the way it went in those months of late 1997 during the final interviews as both sides prepared for Ted's trial. Attorneys and experts were in Lincoln, and there were plenty of compliments being handed out, sometimes almost to the point of embarrassment, as the defense tried to learn about the strategies of the prosecution, and vice versa.
