Crime News: Macabre murder in Utah
chest...@my-dejanews.com
to go into much detail. Suffice it to say, a couple who lived on a small
ranch were apparently shot to death. I say apparently because their bodies
were then either blown up with high explosives or mauled by an African lion,
and the unidentifiable remains buried in the ranchlands of Eastern Utah. One
of the chief suspects, a neighboring rancher named John Pinder, appeared at a
radio station and claimed he was innocent, the victim of a "much bigger web
of crime, illegal drugs and government cover-up," then disappeared.
-----------
Rancher Charged With Double Murder - (DUCHESNE) -- Duchesne County
authorities have charged rancher John Pinder with two counts of first-degree
murder in connection with the deaths of two people found shot to death on his
ranch. Pinder, who had been missing for two weeks, showed up early yesterday
morning at the studios of K-S-L to deny killing anyone. He's missing again,
and police are desperately trying to find him. The interview took place
before murder charges were filed. Pinder says he's the target of a much
bigger web of crime, illegal drugs, and government cover-up.
Idaho River May Hold Clue To Utah Killings
BY GREG BURTON © 1998, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE The search for clues in
Utah's gruesome Duchesne County double homicide is stretching from a
riverside scene of blown-up body parts in the eastern Utah community to the
bottom of an Idaho river, where investigators are searching for a possible
murder weapon. Investigators, who were tipped that a weapon may have been
dumped in the Coeur d'Alene River in the Idaho Panhandle, have spent two days
combing riverbanks and now are locked in a bizarre game of hide-and-seek for
pieces and bags of evidence. Meanwhile, detectives confirmed late Tuesday
that they have been unable to locate the estranged wife of a man police are
seeking for questioning in the double homicide -- a woman informants say may
be dead. ``We haven't found her yet. We have no indication that she is
dead. It's just that nobody knows where she is, including her son,'' said
Duchesne County Sheriff Ralph Stansfield. ``We are dealing with some weird
stuff.'' It has been six days since relatives filed a missing-persons
report for cowboy Rex Kettle Tanner, 48, and Tanner's girlfriend, June Flood,
whose purse and asthma inhaler were found outside a motor home in Lake Canyon
area of Duchesne County. Tanner and Flood's modest property straddles the
Strawberry River, a trout-friendly stream that runs between the Uinta and
Ashley national forests. Two days after the report was filed,
investigators found a makeshift burial site on the JJNP Ranch, a rugged
spread owned by Robert J. and John Pinder, a father and son who ranch and
speculate for oil in the region. Tanner, who worked for John Pinder, and
Flood -- who has not been positively identified -- probably were shot to
death, for unspecified reasons, authorities theorize. The victims' bodies
then were huddled together and destroyed with heavy explosives, say
detectives. A tractor owned by JJNP Ranch was used to cover bits of
remains with four feet of topsoil. ``We're just trying to get the victims
positively ID'd, but it's just sickening -- we can't find enough of her,''
Stansfield said. ``They were apparently just lain down in an open country
area and blown up.'' Detectives working with the FBI and agents from the
Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms have recovered explosives from one of
the Pinder-owned ranches and have ordered tests to determine if they are
similar to the compound used to try to destroy the victims' bodies. No
shell casings have been found, and detectives are unsure where the couple
were killed, although a woman traveling with John Pinder told her family she
helped clean Pinder's truck of blood and helped scatter evidence in a string
of Dumpsters and rivers between Utah and Idaho. ``My daughter's in real,
real bad trouble,'' the woman's father, who lives in northern Idaho, told The
Salt Lake Tribune. ``She said they stopped at many small towns to get rid of
clothes and throw the gun away.'' The man's daughter, who met John Pinder
15 years ago in Montana, is estranged from her husband and has allegedly
threatened to kill her husband if he doesn't leave a home they share in Rose
Lake, a hamlet 20 miles east of Coeur d'Alene. The woman's husband used
to work for Pinder in a mine owned by John and his father. ``My daughter
told us if we said anything they would do their damnedest to kill us,'' the
father told The Tribune. ``She's crazy. I don't know what in the world has
gotten into my daughter.'' Based on tips from the woman's family and
friends, Kootenai County, Idaho, sheriff's detectives joined the
investigation on Sunday. John Pinder, who police say is not a suspect, is
a colorful 40-year-old with a penchant for assault rifles. He keeps a
550-pound African lion named Sinbad caged on his Duchesne County ostrich
farm. Pinder tussled with Duchesne County lawmen this summer when he
showed up at a Vernal 7-Eleven with Sinbad and Filomeno Valencia-Ruiz, a
34-year-old man Pinder hired to take care of the lion. Both men were
charged with driving under the influence and violating open-container
statutes. Pinder also was charged with a raft of weapons violations --
possession of a loaded and concealed weapon, possession of loaded firearms in
a vehicle, possession of firearms while intoxicated -- and driving on a
denied Utah driver's license. On Monday, Valencia-Ruiz was charged in 8th
District Court with theft, evidence tampering and driving without a license.
He is being held as a suspect in the double homicide, sheriff's officials
said. Bail was set at $500,000 cash. ``This is all bullshit. They know
where my son is,'' said Robert J. Pinder, a Park City businessman. ``[The
Sheriff] told me they didn't want to talk to my son, not yet, but they said
he could be a suspect.'' The JJNP Ranch where Tanner and the other victim
were found is owned by Wilcox Investment Company, a business operated by
Robert and his son John. In Utah, the Pinders have interests in, together
or separately, the Wilcox Corporation; Three Creeks Corp., a property venture
company; Brain Tree International Inc., a security and commodities service;
Pacesetter Land & Investment Inc., a real estate company; Aviva Exploration
and Development Company; Savvy Oil Inc., an oil and gas exploration company;
Road Runner Oil Co., another exploration company; Solamere Associates, an
investment company; and Team Simba, a partnership John Pinder created to
manage his lion's movie career. While Pinder has yet to emerge, Summit
County attorney Patricia Geary has spoken with him and is negotiating an
interview with Duchesne County detectives, according to law enforcement
officials. Geary did not return phone calls. The Duchesne County killings
and cover-up have impacted the small ranching and farm hamlets scattered on
either side of the Strawberry River. And it has sickened many
investigators. ``I've never even heard of such a thing, let along
witnessed it,'' said Larry Bettendorf, the Denver spokesman for the Bureau of
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, whose agents are sifting through the piecemeal
remains. Rumors of drugs, debauchery and the manufacture of
methamphetamine were persistent among the backwoods neighbors of Rex Tanner
and June Flood, say investigators. And Tanner was well-known to local law
enforcement. He was paroled twice after stints at the Utah State Prison
in Draper and has been convicted of driving under the influence, possession
of drugs and distribution of a controlled substance, all in the early to
mid-1990s. After one traffic stop, Tanner's blood alcohol content was
0.03 -- almost quadruple Utah's legal limit. But mostly, neighbors
considered Tanner and Flood a hard-living and hard-working couple. Tanner was
a cowboy who herded cattle for JJNP Ranches. ``They were just the best
people, regular folks,'' said a waitress at Cowan's Cafe in Duchesne. ``Why
would this happen here?'' That answer may buried with the bodies, dumped
in a river or hidden in an even more chilling reservoir. ``We have heard
a lot of rumors about the lion being used,'' Stansfield said. ``To hide
things, pieces. It's all pretty hard to believe, but we have to check it out,
and it takes time.''
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Michael Newton
>
> Fascinating story out of Utah, of all places. It's too bizarre and macabre
> to go into much detail. Suffice it to say, a couple who lived on a small
> ranch were apparently shot to death. I say apparently because their bodies
> were then either blown up with high explosives or mauled by an African lion
Hmmm. Maybe I'm missing something here, but if the M.E. really can't
tell the difference between high-explosives damage and a lion mauling,
maybe they should get a second opinion. For one thing, the lion won't
leave burns, shrapnel, and chemical residue...unless it was one badass
cat.
mn
chest...@my-dejanews.com
Michael Newton <eyeo...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> chest...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> >
> > Fascinating story out of Utah, of all places. It's too bizarre and macabre
> > to go into much detail. Suffice it to say, a couple who lived on a small
> > ranch were apparently shot to death. I say apparently because their bodies
>
> Hmmm. Maybe I'm missing something here, but if the M.E. really can't
> tell the difference between high-explosives damage and a lion mauling,
> maybe they should get a second opinion. For one thing, the lion won't
> leave burns, shrapnel, and chemical residue...unless it was one badass
> cat.
>
> mn
Amusing. Police believe the couple was shot, then blown up, then the body
parts were buried, discarded and possibly fed to the lion, who had merely
acquired a taste for human stir-fry. At this point the lion is not suspected
of shooting nor blowing up the two people, but no one really wants to
interrogate it.
Kris Baker
>In article <364314...@worldnet.att.net>,
> Michael Newton <eyeo...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> chest...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
Why "of all places" ?? I'm here in Utah, and I can tell
you that we have as much crime as anywhere else - and
probably more. Don't believe all the publicity.
Several TV movies have been made of our very strange
type of murders:
Deliberate Stranger (yes, Bundy operated here, and
it's theorized that the woman who is missing 20+ years
from the gas station 1/2 mile from my home is a Bundy
victim.)
At Mothers Request/Nutcracker (Francis Schroeder
gets her son to murder her father Franklin Bradshaw)
Siege at AltaView (title may be wrong.) MoMo father of
multiple children takes the hospital nursery hostage
in retaliation for the tubal ligation performed on his
long-suffering wife.)
Mark Hoffman bombings (to cover up phony papers
created by Hoffman, some bought by "The Church" to
suppress what they said.)
I could go on and on....but won't
Kris
Ellie
family. Wow!
"The 4 O'Clock Murders" by Scott Anderson; The true story of a Mormon
family's vengeance.
Ellie
Kris Baker wrote:
>
> >In article <364314...@worldnet.att.net>,
> > Michael Newton <eyeo...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >> chest...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> >> > Fascinating story out of Utah, of all places.
>
Kris Baker
>And then there's the LeBaron Family. I just read a book about this
>family. Wow!
>"The 4 O'Clock Murders" by Scott Anderson; The true story of a
>Mormon family's vengeance.
>Ellie
Thanks for the reminder, Ellie. How could I forget "our"
LeBarons (murdering polygamist cult.) There's another
book on the LeBarons by Rena Chynoweth entitled
"Blood Covenant."
Look for more books to come, based on the ongoing
polygamists based here in Utah. Incest, rape, theft, and
deception by multi-millionnaires protected by "the first
amendment" (at least that's the opinion of our Gov Leavitt.)
Kris