Plane crash cause listed

Inland News Today
Cactus Thorns

INLAND EMPIRE – (INT) – A High Desert plane crash last year has been blamed on the pilot flying too high without supplemental oxygen.

On 4/5/2012 at approximately 8:12 p.m. a 2002 Cessna 182 crashed in the open desert just west of the Mojave National Preserve (about 20 miles north of Ludlow).

The plane was located at 11:30 p.m. by San Bernardino Sheriff’s Aviation personnel.

Due to the condition of the aircraft, darkness and terrain, the decision was made to return the following a.m. to recover the remains of the pilot. Dennis Bazar, a 63 year old resident of San Marino, was the pilot and solo occupant of the Cessna, and had just taken off on a cross-country flight.

The National Transportation Safety Board ruled this week that Dennis Bazar was flying alone above 14,000 feet causing him to become impaired by hypoxia. The small plane went into a rapid descent, but the pilot was unable to recover his vision and judgment.

Shuttered California state parks may be vulnerable to vandalism

Damage to the visitors center and other structures at Mitchell Caverns in the Mojave Desert has officials working to improve plans to protect as many as 70 other California parks scheduled to close in July because of budget cuts.

Kevin Forrester, a superintendent with the California Department of Parks and Recreation, walks inside Mitchell Caverns at Providence Mountains State Recreation Area. Since the remote park's closure, intruders have cut fences, kicked doors off of hinges and shattered windows and display cases at the visitors center. Critics say it might be a harbinger of what's to come when 70 more state parks are closed because of budget cuts. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times / February 22, 2012)

By Louis Sahagun
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Providence Mountains State Recreation Area, Calif. -- California parks officials closed a gem of the state park system last spring, sadly shuttering Mitchell Caverns, a natural wonder that for eight decades had drawn visitors to this remote spot in the Mojave Desert.

Workers hauled away the precious Native American artifacts and historical documents and locked the gates, assuming the area would sit undisturbed until the state could afford to reopen it.

But several times in the last four months, vandals traveled 16 desolate miles north from Interstate 40 to plunder and damage the park's isolated structures. Their actions left advocates for the caverns angry at the state and have officials working to improve plans to protect as many as 70 other California parks scheduled to close in July because of budget cuts.

The worst damage was to the 78-year-old rock-and-mortar visitors center at Mitchell Caverns, the main attraction of the 5,900-acre Providence Mountains State Recreation Area.

Intruders cut fences, kicked doors off of hinges and shattered windows and display cases. They stole metal signs and survival gear, including hand-held radios, flashlights and binoculars. They also stole diesel-powered generators and ripped out thousands of feet of electrical wire used to illuminate the only natural limestone caverns in the state park system, San Bernardino County sheriff's investigators said.

"What happened at the visitors center is devastating and heartbreaking," said Kathy Weatherman, superintendent of the California Parks and Recreation Department's Tehachapi District. She said the caverns themselves were not damaged. The state is taking steps to try to prevent more destruction, including searching for a full-time caretaker, Weatherman said.

The attacks have heightened concerns about possible vandalism at other state parks scheduled for closure. Those 70 parks are among the least used in the state. They represent one-quarter of the 278 that exist across California but tally just 8% of total visits. Many are in remote areas where they are particularly vulnerable.

Officials are seeking anyone with the clout and funds to keep them from being left unguarded after they are closed. "Now, amid budget constraints, we're looking for ways to get caretakers, guardians, local law enforcement and volunteers to protect these precious places," said Roy Stearns, a spokesman for the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

As with so many cuts in California government spending these days, the hope is that once the budget improves, the state will restore services and amenities that have long made the state a rich place to live. But there are no guarantees, especially because just 13 of the state parks and beaches are financially self-sustaining. Fans of many of the parks scheduled for closure are scrambling to try to find some combination of private funds and volunteerism to keep the gates open, fearing that if they ever close it could be for good.

The Mitchell Caverns visitors center, 220 miles east of Los Angeles, had been the home of the caverns' original owners, Los Angeles businessman Jack Mitchell and his wife, Ida. The couple moved to the desert to open the caverns as a tourist attraction in the 1930s and sold them to the state in 1954. A memorial plaque says the Mitchells wanted the state to preserve the area and the caverns "for future generations to appreciate."

Sue Ellen Patrick, 71, granddaughter of Jack and Ida Mitchell, said of the destruction: "My family feels betrayed because the state didn't do what it promised us, which is protect the caves and the heritage."

State Parks and Recreation Department officials decided to mothball the area last May because of two unrelated events. The park's two rangers retired and the state found serious problems with the water system, said Linda Slater, resource interpreter at the nearby Mojave National Preserve. The state couldn't afford the repairs needed to keep the park open.

After valuables were removed, the property was left unguarded, parks officials said.

"The state locked up the place and then walked away, leaving it wide open to troublemakers," said Dennis Casebier, executive director of the nonprofit Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Assn.

Said cattle rancher Rob Blair, 54, who lives within view of Mitchell Caverns: "It's disgusting what's going on out there. These intruders were pretty bold to cut the locks off a state park gate, then tear everything up and steal big-ticket items."

Park officials estimate the damage at $100,000.

Responding to a trespassing call on Feb. 5, sheriff's deputies arrested Christopher Alvarado, 48, of Azusa and Trisha Sutton, 36, of Covina. Deputies said they found stolen items at the couple's campsite near Mitchell Caverns. Alvarado and Sutton were booked on suspicion of burglary, receiving stolen property, possession of a controlled substance and possession of burglary tools, Sheriff's Lt. Ross Tarangle said.

The investigation continues, with police trying to determine whether other people were involved.

Although police reports indicate that a person interviewed at the site said vandals found a key to the cavern gates and destroyed natural features inside, Tarangle said those reports have yet to be confirmed, and parks officials insist they have no evidence the caverns were damaged.

From a distance, the entrance to the caverns resembles two large eyes on a massive rock. Their earliest inhabitants included a Pleistocene ground sloth that stumbled into the darkness 15,000 years ago and left claw marks on a wall. Later, the caverns were blackened with smoke from the fires of Chemehuevi Indians who used them for shelter, storage and ceremonial purposes for at least 500 years.

This week, Kevin Forrester, sector superintendent for the parks department, recalled memories of better times as he walked along a path to the visitors center.

"Look at it now," Forrester said with a sigh. "We've had to board up the windows and weld the doors shut.

"It's going to take a lot of money to bring this place back to life."

Two ways of life collide in Wonder Valley

OUT THERE

Solitude reigns in the desert community until the off-road vehicles roar in. Then the tension escalates and tempers flare.

Al Gartner of the 29 Palms Historical Society inspects the remains of an adobe house at the Poste Homestead Natural and Historic Area. Preservationists say the area was damaged by off-road vehicle enthusiasts over the Thanksgiving weekend. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Wonder Valley - Eric Hamburg bought a house in this valley of wrinkled mountains and sugar-soft sand to escape life in Los Angeles and drink in the empty solitude only the desert can provide.

"I loved the peace and quiet. I loved the tremendous sky. I loved the heat in the summer," he enthused about his remote getaway outside Twentynine Palms. "It was like a safety valve for me."

But he quickly became aware of another way of life, one far less conducive to quiet meditation.

"You see them buzzing around all the time and they just come closer and closer," he said of the men, women and children who blast joyously through the desert on rattling dirt bikes and quad runners.

Some own homes in Wonder Valley, just as Hamburg does. But John McEntire's idea of a good time is charging about in a dune buggy exploring old mines.

"It's been a lifestyle for us," said the 73-year-old outdoorsman. "I bought the place in 1979 so my family could ride on established trails. We go out, pick a lunch spot and make sure we leave no trash behind. I enjoy the camaraderie."

As desert communities go, Wonder Valley is the real thing, an eclectic array of artists, retirees, certified desert rats and second homeowners. There are no strip malls, fast-food joints or other signs of homogenized America.

Houses are cheap and often come with five-acre lots. The dirt roads -- and they're nearly all dirt -- slice through a confusing hodgepodge of private land and Bureau of Land Management property.

Because the place attracts seekers of all kinds, there's a natural tension. But lately it's escalated into intimidation, threats and accusations of vandalism.

Things came to a head on Thanksgiving weekend when critics said marauding riders deliberately overran a historic site that they'd worked hard to restore.

"We are crestfallen because of all the efforts and energy we put into this and in a matter of two days off-roaders destroyed it," said Phil Klasky, president of Community ORV Watch, a group dedicated to curbing illegal off-roading. "It's a culture clash."

Ray Pessa, president of Friends of Giant Rock, which fights for off-roader rights, said law-abiding riders shouldn't be penalized because others flout the rules.

"I have run into these guys myself. They have cussed me out and kicked up dirt in my face," he said. "But off-roaders take in all walks of life. A lot of them just want to feel the wind in their face."

He and others in the off-road community have scoffed at Klasky's version of what happened at the Poste Homestead Natural and Historic Area. They prefer to call it the Chadwick Hog Farm after its former incarnation, and have insisted that its historical value has been inflated to restrict riding.

"I don't think there was any concerted effort to do anything, and I didn't see a lot of damage," Pessa said. "I saw a lot of tire tracks and a small amount of trash."

The 1923 homestead is a humble site, essentially two low adobe walls surrounded by a grove of tamarisk trees. That's all that remains of the home of David Poste, a former miner and justice of the peace, credited with running Twentynine Palms' first telephone exchange.

A recent visit found tire tracks crisscrossing the sand dunes. Earlier in the year, volunteers had strewn twigs to trap seeds and grow plants. Most were gone.

"They did as much damage as they could. It was deliberate," said Pat Flanagan, resource advocate for the Mojave Desert Land Trust, as she examined the dunes. "That's where the kangaroo rats are, the seed banks and lizards. As soon as you get tracks on a place, it's a long time until they are gone, sometimes years."

San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputy Scott Andrews, who showed up to make a report, said, "We get calls for service for motorcycles and ATVs out here all the time. The people I see are either plain dumb or they don't know the law."

The Bureau of Land Management office in Barstow has seven rangers to patrol the 3.2 million acres of desert it oversees in the area.

"As long as people stay on existing trails, then it's OK," said Mickey Quillman, BLM chief of resources. "It's just the fact that they drove off road into the dunes where there are fringe-toed lizards and animal burrows. It's a limited-use area. You can drive cars and motorcycles on the roads, but you can't take vehicles into the desert -- and people ignore it pretty regularly."

Johnson Valley -- with more than 180,000 acres the country's biggest sanctioned off-roading area -- is 40 minutes away, he pointed out.

Gary Daigneault, news director and owner of KCDZ-FM (107.7) in Twentynine Palms, has closely monitored the battle between the two camps. He sees blame on both sides.

"You have the 'jerk factor' of off-road vehicle owners who have hurt their own sport," he said.

"But I also think Klasky's description of what happened at the Poste Homestead was blown way out of proportion."

Klasky, a professor of ethnic studies at San Francisco State University who spends four months a year in Wonder Valley, is public enemy No. 1 to riders here.

In 2006, his group helped push through a county ordinance aimed at off-roaders that tightened regulations on noise, dirt and trespassing and required groups of 10 or more to purchase a $155 staging permits before assembling on any property, including their own.

Klasky said he was once punched by a man on a quad runner when he tried to photograph him on his property. He said he and others who dare to stand up to off-roaders are routinely threatened.

"I have been the subject of anti-Semitic hate speech and racist remarks. Last year my property was vandalized, but I will continue to organize and speak out," he said.

His biggest critic is Dan O'Brien, a hot dog vendor who runs Mustard's Last Stand in Twentynine Palms and also operates the Cactus Thorns blog, home to his sharpest barbs.

Sometimes he calls Klasky a meddling outsider and environmental extremist. He's also used epithets and referred to him as a tinfoil hat-wearing ding-a-ling.

"These guys came to an area that is rough-and-tumble and they brought their ideas of a desert utopia with them," he said.

"But people here are saying we have a desert lifestyle that has worked for over a hundred years. It's like moving next to an airport and complaining about the jet noise."

O'Brien, 58, denies his highly charged rhetoric intimidates people.

"I walk the line. I tippy-toe on that line but I would never instigate violence," he said. He sees off-roaders as an embattled minority.

"We feel we have lost the desert and now we are being put on these little reservations," he said. "We are starting to feel like Indians."

The battle is far from over.

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors may remove the controversial staging permit from the off-road ordinance this month.

Klasky said he figures he can get at least 100 people to the board meeting.

Pessa, of Friends of Giant Rock, said he can beat that.

"I am going to flood that meeting with off-roaders," he vowed.

Human bones found in desert

Staff Reports
Desert Dispatch

ESSEX • Travelers found human bones near the Mojave National Preserve when they pulled their car off of Interstate 40 Tuesday morning.

The bones were discovered in a desert area between Interstate 40 and Essex, approximately 100 miles east of Barstow, according to a San Bernardino County Coroner’s report. Sgt. Frank Montanez said the travelers flagged down a California Highway Patrol officer after finding the bones, and the officer contacted the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

The body has yet to be identified as a man or woman. The sheriff’s department and coroner are investigating to determine the body’s identity and cause of death.

Anyone with information about the body is asked to call the coroner at 909-387-2978 or the Sheriff’s Specialized Investigations at 909-387-3589.

Korean Visitor Dies Of Heat Exposure

Mesquite Dunes. (James Gordon)

Death Valley National Park
National Park News

The park received notification that several people were down with heat-related issues at the Mesquite Dunes area near Stove Pipe Wells on the afternoon of Sunday, July 26th.

Rangers were on scene within minutes and found six people at their vehicle who were all displaying symptoms indicating varying degrees of heat exposure. All were South Korean nationals. They told the rangers that another member of their party had collapsed in the dunes and had been dragged into what scant shade was available.

Rangers John Fish, Jennifer Yeager, and maintenance worker Kit Oesterling, with assistance from one of the members of the party, located the woman under a creosote bush and determined that she had expired. She was identified as 52-year-old Sohee Koo. Koo and other members of her group were from a Buddhist monastery; they were traveling together, but not as part of a commercial tour group.

The ambient air temperature at the time was 123 degrees Fahrenheit, with ground temperatures approaching 140 degrees.

The Inyo County Sheriffs Office and the Inyo County coroner were advised of the situation and responded. Group members were triaged and treated at the scene by rangers. Two of them showed symptoms of heat exposure, but refused further medical treatment.

Communications proved to be a challenge because only a few members of the group were able to speak English and cultural protocols required them to communicate through a group elder who did not speak English. Next of kin and South Korean consulate notifications were made by the Inyo County Sheriffs Office with assistance from district ranger John Fish.

Most of the rangers assigned to this mission had to be diverted to a vehicle fire at Towne Pass 13 miles west of the incident scene, leaving Fish and ranger Amber Nattrass to finish patient treatment, investigation and assist with the recovery of Koo’s body.

The Inyo County Sheriff’s Office is the lead agency in this investigation.

Suicide Victim Found At Inholder Residence

Mojave National Preserve
National Park News

On July 21st, a woman contacted the information desk at the Kelso Depot Visitor Center and said that she hadn’t heard for a while from her father, Michael Obert, who was staying at an inholder (sic) residence within the park (sic). She asked that a ranger check on him, as he’d left a message for her the previous day saying that she should send help if he was not heard from by 8 a.m. on the 21st.

Ranger Brian Cooperider and a San Bernardino County deputy sheriff drove to the residence near Cima and discovered Obert dead of a gunshot wound. He was lying face forward with a .22 caliber handgun underneath him and as single gunshot wound in his head.

The county coroner was notified, as was his daughter.

Inland desert power line projects unearthing possible murder mysteries

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

As energy officials begin surveying Southern California's deserts to prepare for solar power development, they are making some unexpected discoveries: human remains.

The bones of at least two people were found last month by biologists conducting wildlife surveys required for solar projects in the Mojave Desert, a sparsely populated region that covers thousands of square miles. The survey crews found one set of bones near Baker and another on the extreme edge of California near the border town of Primm, Nev.

Both finds are being investigated. The identities and causes of death have not been determined.

At least one of the biologists, far from being creeped out, said finding human remains is "interesting."

Alice Karl was surveying land May 18 just outside of Primm and west of Interstate 15 when a member of her crew came across the skull and other scattered bones, along with some clothing.

Karl, whose home base is Davis, was working for Southern California Edison, which intends to improve power lines to transmit electricity from solar plants planned in the area.

She said finding human bones isn't much different than finding the skeleton of a large animal.

"No, it is not creepy. ... We are biologists," Karl said. "It is a little unusual."

Not all that unusual, though.

Karl said she has found four sets of remains in her 31-year career. She figures at least one, discovered about eight years ago near Desert Center in Riverside County, had been murdered: The skull had a bullet-sized hole in it.

In the Primm case, Karl said the crew identified the bones' location and called authorities.

Four days earlier, another wildlife survey crew came across a human skeleton near Interstate 15, about 10 miles east of Baker.

On April 2, college geology students doing field work near Interstate 10 about 20 miles east of Desert Center found a human jawbone, triggering an investigation into a possible homicide, Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Dean Spivacke said.

DNA TAKES TIME

So far, not much is known about the remains found in May, other than both were men, said David Van Norman, a deputy coroner investigator for the coroner's division of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

It takes a state laboratory more than four months to analyze DNA from skeletal remains and seek matches with DNA records kept in a national database, Van Norman said. In California, state law requires close relatives of people missing more than 30 days to submit DNA samples for the database.

A skeleton found last year in an off-roading area south of Barstow was identified this week through DNA analysis as a missing San Diego County man. Officials are now working to track down his next-of-kin, Van Norman said.

Law enforcement officials said they expect more remains to turn up as energy companies prepare to build solar plants in the desert.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is processing 78 applications to put solar plants on more than 1,000 square miles of public land between Ridgecrest and El Centro. Each would require surveys to determine what sensitive plants and animals are in the project's path.

Having so many people on the ground finding remains will help solve murder and missing person cases, Van Norman said.

The sooner a body is found, the more evidence can be gathered from bones, such as DNA samples, clothing and personal effects, he said.

"I am just delighted by this," Van Norman said. "These remains are people who otherwise would not be found."

Wildlife biologists offer more than just additional sets of eyes scanning remote places.

They are trained scientists who can tell the difference between animal and human bones, Karl said. They walk specified grids. And they carry global positioning devices that can pinpoint the locations of what they find.

Karl said she's happy to help authorities.

"We could close a few cases," she said.

Weather lull allows rescuers in

A San Bernardino County sheriff's helicopter crew patrols the area around Pioneertown, where several people have been rescued in the past several days after being trapped in deep snow.



By JAN SEARS
The Press-Enterprise

Skies may turn sunny today, but Christmas Eve may bring heavy rain and more snow that could last into Christmas morning, forecasters said.

A weak weather system brought showers to the valleys Monday and winds in mountain passes, but no serious problems.

San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies used the lull between storms to continue checking on and rescuing people stranded in remote desert cabins or stuck on snowy back roads.

Two women in their 70s trapped by snow in a Pioneertown-area cabin north of Yucca Valley were rescued by sheriff's helicopter crews, said Flight Officer Mike Ells.

The team was sent to check on two families and the first was fine, he said. The women, however, signaled that they needed help.

"We landed in about a foot of snow and walked about 50 to 100 yards to the house," Ells said.

The home had no heat, no water and broken windows, and the women had been sleeping in their car to keep warm, Ells said.

The team -- Ells, pilot Alex Kahn and Deputy Heather Moon from the Morongo Station -- was greeted by the women's 24 dogs.

"Probably 10 of them were not happy to see us," Ells said.

They decided the women needed to be seen by paramedics, but a medical team was unable to drive to the area. A paramedic was helicoptered in, and then a larger helicopter was summoned to take the women to a hospital, Ells said.

"With the weather, and a new storm coming in, we said, 'We need to get them to a hospital,' " Ells said.

There still is quite a bit of snow in the higher desert regions, he said.

"For the past three days, we've been going after people that were stuck out in the desert in the snow," he said.

Several were off-roaders who underestimated the depth of the snow and became confused about their locations. They were found in good shape, he said.

Monday's storm brought 0.15 of an inch of rain or less, said National Weather Service forecaster Noel Isla.

The next storm "is going to be a little bit stronger," Isla said.

Valleys could see more than an inch of rain and there could be another foot of snow in the mountains above 5,500 feet, forecasters said.

Grandson arrested in missing woman’s death

Vehicle found in Barstow




By ABBY SEWELL
Desert Dispatch




Arturo Hernandez


BARSTOW • The grandson of a missing woman who turned up dead in the Mojave Desert has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Arturo Hernandez, 20, was arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of his 58-year-old grandmother, Luisa Aguilar Ventura, on Thanksgiving Day. Despite inquiries on the status of the case, officials did not release the arrest information until Thursday.

They also did not previously release the fact that Ventura’s silver 2002 Toyota Tacoma had been found parked behind the Barstow Mall on East Main Street Nov. 20. Witnesses said the truck had been apparently abandoned there for about three days, according to a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department report.

Sheriff’s department spokeswoman Jodi Miller said that investigators asked that the information be withheld until Thursday, out of fear of jeopardizing a sensitive investigation. She declined to elaborate on the reasons.

Family members in Pomona reported Ventura and Hernandez missing on Nov. 17, after they failed to return home from a trip to Las Vegas as expected. They had left a family member’s house in Las Vegas the day before.

Ventura’s body was found on Excelsior Mine Road, west of Interstate 15, on Nov. 25, according to the most recent sheriff’s report. The body had signs of trauma, Miller said, but a cause of death has not been determined, pending toxicology test results.

After Ventura’s body was found, family members told investigators that Hernandez was back in Southern California, Miller said. He was found at a bus stop in Rosemead by Temple City Sheriff’s Department personnel, who detained him and brought him to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department central headquarters for questioning. He was arrested there.

Miller said there was no obvious motive for the killing.

“Apparently (Hernandez) has lived with his grandmother for the majority of his life, and there’s no indication of why this may have happened,” she said.

Hernandez was arraigned in Barstow on the murder charge Tuesday and pleaded not-guilty, according to court records. He is being held at the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino on $1 million bail, with his next hearing date set for Dec. 9.

Investigators are now trying to piece together what happened between the time when the pair left Las Vegas and when Hernandez was arrested. Anyone who recalls seeing Ventura, Hernandez or the truck is asked to call the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department homicide detail at 909-387-3589 or the 24-hour dispatch center at 909-387-8313. To remain anonymous, call WE-TIP at (800) 78-CRIME or leave information on the WeTip Web site at www.wetip.com.

Timeline:

• Nov. 16: Luisa Ventura, 58, and grandson Arturo Hernandez, 20, leave a family member’s house in Las Vegas to head home to Pomona.


• Nov. 17: Family members in Pomona report them missing when they fail to arrive home.


• Nov. 20: Ventura’s Toyota Tacoma is found behind the Barstow Mall, where witnesses say it was abandoned for about three days.


• Nov. 25: Ventura’s body is found in the Mojave Desert southwest of the California/Nevada border.


• Nov. 27: Hernandez is arrested in Rosemead.


• Dec. 4: Officials release the information that Hernandez has been arrested.

Unidentified body found near Amboy

ABBY SEWELL Staff Writer
Victorville Daily Press

AMBOY — The body of an unidentified man was found under a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway train bridge near Amboy Monday.

A bridge maintenance worker found the remains wedged against the bridge piling on Bureau of Land Management property near National Trails Highway, about seven or eight miles west of Amboy between 9:30 and 10 a.m., said San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Damon Ward.

The man was carrying no identification and officials could not determine an age from the dried out and partially decomposed body, Ward said. The man was white, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing about 180 pounds, with light brown hair and a short beard, according to a report from the county coroner’s department. He was fully dressed, and a backpack containing plastic bottles, clothing and a badly faded ticket issued by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was found nearby, Ward said.

“Our best guess at this point is that he was probably a transient and the heat was probably too much for him and he just died out in the desert,” he said.

However, deputies have not ruled out homicide as a possibility. The San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department will conduct an autopsy to determine a cause of death and will attempt to identify the man.

To report any information relating to the death, call the Barstow sheriff’s station at 760-256-4838. To remain anonymous, call WE-TIP at 1-800-78-CRIME or leave information on the WeTip Web site at www.wetip.com.

Several Train Thieves Arrested, Another Dies Of Heat Exposure

Mojave National Preserve
National Park News

On August 23rd, a joint effort by Union Pacific police, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and the National Park Service resulted in the arrest of four people for train burglary and a search for a fifth who was later found deceased from apparent heat exposure about five miles from the site of the attempted burglary.

Over $30,000 worth of property was recovered.

Around 2 p.m. that afternoon, rangers McDermott, Spillane and Cooperider were notified of a train burglary in progress near Cima, which is within the park. Union Pacific employees discovered between 10 and 15 people in the act of stealing 31 42-inch-wide televisions from a train. The employees told rangers that they’d fled in many directions into the desert.

Rangers requested a helicopter and assistance from the sheriff’s department and from the UP police. Upon arrival, the police told rangers that they had information that the would-be thieves were armed.

A search was begun, and UP police later in the day intercepted a vehicle driven by a known accomplice, arrested him, then put an undercover team in the vehicle to drive the surrounding roads. The team located and arrested four other suspects in a remote area of the park about four miles from the scene of the burglary. They told officers that another member of their group was sick and that they’d left him under a tree about a mile away in the desert.

McDermott and Cooperider retrieved ALS gear and along with UP officers started looking for him, finding him just after 11 p.m. He was DOA, having likely succumbed to complications from heat exposure (temperatures were over 100 degrees).

Teenager found dead in desert after train burglary

By ABBY SEWELL - Staff Writer
Victorville Daily Press



Union Pacific train on the Cima grade between Kelso and Cima in the Mojave National Preserve.

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE — Railroad police and park rangers found a 17-year-old boy dead in the desert after arresting several suspects in a train burglary in the Kelso-Cima area Saturday night.

Union Pacific Railroad police and U.S. National Park Rangers found the body of Omar Antonio Gonzalez Barajas of Paramount at about 8:30 p.m., according to a report from the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department.

Railroad police were called out to a burglary at a train car sitting on a siding in the Mojave National Preserve between Kelso and Cima at about 2 p.m. Saturday, said Union Pacific spokeswoman Zoe Richmond. A railroad track inspector called police after seeing several men taking television sets out of a train car while the train was at a standstill waiting for another locomotive to pass.

Officers arrested two suspects almost immediately and arrested two more suspects later in the evening, after an extensive search of the area, Richmond said. Dave Ashe, chief ranger for the National Park Service at the Mojave National Preserve, said the two suspects arrested later in the day were apparently waiting for a driver to pick them up at a pre-planned location. The men told officers that Gonzalez Barajas, who was with them, had gotten sick and passed out under a tree, Ashe said.

After a 45-minute search of the area, officers found Gonzalez Barajas, who was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the coroner’s report.

An autopsy has not yet been conducted to determine the cause of death, coroner’s spokeswoman Sandy Fatland said. Ashe said his rangers’ initial assessment was that the death was heat- or dehydration-related, possibly combined with a reaction to a wild melon that the teenager had eaten.

Richmond said that train burglaries, which are both difficult and dangerous, are not a widespread problem for Union Pacific.

“Situations like this are pretty rare,” she said. “It seems a little bit old-fashioned, sticking up a train ... It’s unfortunate that someone had to die in the situation.”

Ashe, however, said that in his nine months working in the Mojave National Preserve, two trains had been burglarized in the preserve, and he had heard of several more being targeted in other parts of the county. Typically, burglars stake out mountain pass areas where they know that trains will be traveling slowly, or sidings where they will stop to allow other trains to pass, he said.

“This is the first fatality that I’m aware of, but as far as trains being hit, the railroads are shelling out millions and millions of dollars every year,” he said.

The Union Pacific police, U.S. National Park Ranger Service and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department are investigating the death.

Off-duty H.B. officer involved in Dairy Queen shooting

Transient in Ludlow shot in confrontation with several off-duty officers, according to reports

By JON CASSIDY
The Orange County Register

HUNTINGTON BEACH – An off-duty Huntington Beach police officer was involved in a shooting in a Dairy Queen in the High Desert city of Ludlow on Sunday night.

Lt. Mitchell O'Brien of the Huntington Beach police confirmed that one of the department's officers was involved, but said the department is not releasing the officer's name pending investigation of the incident.

Daniel Pettit, 21, a transient, was arrested, airlifted to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center to be treated for his gunshot wounds, and booked into West Valley Detention Center at 7:46 p.m. on suspicion of robbery, according to the Desert Dispatch newspaper.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department is investigating the shooting. A spokewoman for the department did not immediately return a phone call Monday.

Several off-duty police officers from different Southern California agencies were in the Dairy Queen at 25635 Crucero Road in Ludlow, which is 36 miles east of Barstow, when a man went behind the counter of the store and threatened employees, store manager Lorraine Flowers said.

"He was pacing back and forth, back and forth," said Flowers, who was not in the store at the time, but reviewed a tape of the incident and talked to employees who were working.

"He was acting a little bit bizarre and came behind the counter," Flowers said. "He didn't demand money or anything like that."

One employee jumped over the counter in fear, and another asked the man what he was doing.

The man grabbed a couple of screwdrivers from a shelf and told the employee, " 'If you come near me, I'm going to stab you,' " Flowers said.

Employees evacuated the store, and the officers confronted the man, ordering him to drop the screwdriver, the Daily Dispatch reported. When the man advanced on the officers brandishing a pair of scissors he had used to cut the wires for the Dairy Queen's computer system, one or more of the officers fired, according to the report.

Flowers said there were four officers involved; the Daily Dispatch said there were five.

Pettit was shot twice, Flowers said.

Ludlow - Armed Robbery, Off-Duty Officer Involved Shooting

Inland Empire News Blog

On Sunday, August 17, 2008 at approximately 3:00 pm, Daniel Pettit entered the Dairy Queen in Ludlow armed with a screw driver and attempted to rob the store. Five (5) Off-duty peace officers from five (5) different law enforcement agencies were in the store at the same time, only two of the officers were together.

Management from the Dairy Queen began moving customers from the crowded store as the off-duty officers confronted the suspect who had moved behind the clerk’s counter, still armed with a screw driver. The suspect refused to comply with orders to drop the screw driver, and instead picked up a pair of scissors and advanced toward the off-duty officers.

Ultimatley two of the five officers shot at and struck the suspect. The suspect fell to the ground but continued to fight with the officers as they detained him and awaited the arrival of San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputies and CHP.

A Sheriff’s helicopter was the first to arrive. The suspect continued to be combative as the helicopter crew took the suspect into custody. A Sheriff’s Air-Rescue helicopter responded and flew the suspect to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center where he was treated and is listed in stable condition. The suspect was booked for PC 211, Armed Robbery.

Detectives from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Homicide Detail responded to the scene for the investigaton, as is common practice in any officer involved shooting.

Anyone with additional information can contact Detective Dave Burgess or Sergeant Frank Bell of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Homicide Detail at 909-387-3589.

Public Affairs Division
(909) 387-3700

GARY PENROD, SHERIFF
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT
c/o Public Affairs Division
655 East Third Street
San Bernardino, California 92415-0061
Telephone: (909) 387-3700

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department
Current Press Release

PC 211 ROBBERY, OFF-DUTY OFFICER INVOLVED SHOOTING–8/18/2008
26535 CRUCERO ROAD, LUDLOW,
VICTIM: DAIRY QUEEN
SUSPECT: DANIEL LEE PETTIT, 21 YEARS OF AGE A TRANSCIENT

Moon Over Mojave

DESERT RATTLER



by Ken Layne
LA City Beat



White Trash Stonehenge.
Ken Layne.


Go north up the old Route 66 out of Victorville, past the biker saloon (FOR LEASE) and abandoned Old West antiques shops and the monstrous limestone-cement factory on the dry Mojave River, the chalky beige bluffs to your left, lush green cottonwood and alien tamarisk trees on the river bed, and you’re finally out of the Southland sprawl.

The river is underground, at this point, flowing under the alluvial sands, feeding the trees and reeds and just barely supporting the handful of houses and farms along its banks. Next to the junkyards and crumbling mobile homes, some unlucky speculators have built Custom Homes on highway-frontage lots. Brand new houses with the standard granite counters and stainless steel appliances and Pergo flooring, never lived in, just sitting here 50 feet off a forgotten highway that used to define America.

Seven months ago, when snow still covered the San Gabriels and Barstow still froze at night, I looked up and down this secret river for a decent place to call home. Nobody seemed to know the housing market had collapsed after a few wild years. Nothing was for rent, everything was priced for a boom that had long passed and was never real anyway. I chased weird leads: a century-old adobe on an alfalfa farm, mystery houses inside Mojave National Preserve that only existed on computer maps.

Kids and dog in the car, I finally investigate “Silver Lakes.” Here, alongside a thirsty little river that rarely appears above the desert sands, some jackass genius carved a pair of evaporation ponds, built a collection of comical boat slips around the fake shore, and lined it all with “lake view” residential lots. About a third of the houses are vacant, For Sale signs everywhere. The cracked-stucco strip mall restaurant lunch is inedible. A dreary windowless liquor store is doing good midday business. At the otherwise empty real-estate office, a woman with a bleach-blonde Mojave beehive hands over a single-spaced full-page list of houses for rent.

It’s an asphalt maze of terrible architecture – everything from faded 1970s ranch boxes to orange 1990s two-story “Moroccan” monstrosities hanging over the lot edges. I get lost in dead-end loops of vacant lots and desolate playgrounds of sun-blasted plastic. It’s a gloomy Philip K. Dick colony on Mars, a shoddily constructed replica of an American suburb back on Earth.

I drive out of Silver Lakes and shudder. That night, two local kids are murdered, “execution style,” at an abandoned World War II bunker up a dirt road from the weird suburb. The story will play out in the Victor Valley newspaper over many, many months:

Bodhisattva “Bodhi” Sherzer-Potter, a 16-year-old honor student who lived in Silver Lakes, and her 18-year-old boyfriend Cody Thompson, of nearby Apple Valley, were hanging out with other kids at the trash-strewn bunker, celebrating somebody’s birthday. Bodhi and Cody were the last kids left when two psychopaths from “down the hill” showed up, dragged the doomed lovers into the bunker, and shot them dead.

As usual, the killers had MySpace pages with the requisite self-portraits brandishing their guns, and within a few weeks they were both behind bars. A third kid was arrested as an “accessory.” A San Bernardino sheriff’s deputy had stopped by the party spot before the murders, and left the teenagers drinking in a desolate Air Force bunker because “none appeared intoxicated and no trespassing complaints had been filed against them.”

The bunker was built for Hawes Auxiliary Field, a World War II air station and an environmental catastrophe thanks to its deteriorated fuel tanks poisoning the groundwater. A mile south of Highway 58 on a gently rising sage bush slope, the bunker loomed like a white-trash Stonehenge.

After the murders, the parents in Silver Lakes protested until the Pentagon agreed to tear down the bunker. But it’s endangered desert tortoise habitat, so fencing would have to go up, to prevent any tortoises from wandering into the demolition zone – a demolition that would be performed without explosives so as not to bother the tortoises. A wildlife biologist would be on the scene until the job was complete.

Late July on a 105-degree afternoon, I drive up the dirt road from Silver Lakes, discovering a Lockheed stealth test site along the way, its distant runway and giant hangars and weird pylons protected by chain-link and dozens of menacing NO TRESPASSING signs. Just before the 58, a pile of old tires points the way to the party bunker. I follow the jeep trail to another pile of tires marking the entrance. But the bunker is gone, wiped off the desert floor. There’s a wide circle of bulldozed and smoothed-over sand, patches of beer bottle shards glimmering in the white sun, pink shotgun shells pressed into the dirt here and there. No fence, no memorial, nothing to mark the scene beyond the pitted concrete rectangles set in the desert at 60-degree angles, in a loose circle around the half-mile site. I walk across the scraped desert site, wondering where, exactly, the two kids were murdered, for no reason at all, in a cold concrete pit somewhere beneath this ground.

The Air Force wants to renovate this old Army Air Field, for the new generation of robot war planes, those high-altitude drones often mistaken for alien spacecraft over the Mojave and, these days, over Iran.

Woman lost in Mojave National Preserve

Special to the Times
Quartzsite Times






Maria Pomona Cruz Estrada


A woman from the Philippines who was visiting relatives in the Blythe area, has been reported missing.

Maria Pomona Cruz Estrada, 66, was last seen on June 7, 2008. Estrada and a companion were hiking in the Mojave National Preserve in the area of Fort Piute, west of Laughlin, Nev. The two separated around 6 p.m. the same evening and she was last seen in a ravine west of Fort Piute.

Estrada was last seen wearing blue jeans, a long sleeve white shirt, an orange bandana, white althletic shoes and a baseball hat with "San Luis Obispo" written on front.

She is described as an Asian female, 5'3", weighing 128 lbs. She has black eyes and brown hair.

The San Bernardino Sheriff's Office began a search using helicopters, dog teams and on foot.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Deputy Travis Vessells, SBSD Colorado River Station at (760) 326-9200 or Sheriff's Public Affairs at (909) 387-3700 or email to corv-detectives@sbcsd.org.

Man found dead near Mojave Desert highway

San Diego Union-Tribune
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LUDLOW – An elderly man was found dead after he wandered from his disabled van in the Mojave Desert on a day when temperatures soared above 100 degrees.

Elton Eugene Fields, 75, of Reno, Nev. was found Monday night about two miles south of his vehicle off Interstate 40, the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner department said Tuesday.

Somebody reported Fields' empty vehicle and a search and rescue team found his body several hours later.

An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.

It was the second time in a week that someone was found dead in the desert.

On June 16 a passer-by found the body of 77-year-old Joyce Sanders and her severely burned husband, 90-year-old Virgil Sanders, about 50 yards from their car in eastern San Bernardino County. Temperatures reached 116 degrees in the area that day.

Search for missing hiker continues

ABBY SEWELL Staff Writer
Victoville Daily Press

PIUTE CANYON — Searchers continued to comb the Piute Canyon area in the Mojave National Preserve on foot and from the air Tuesday for a sign of a missing 67-year-old woman.

Maria Estrada became separated from her 64-year-old male hiking companion in a section of the Mojave National Preserve about 40 miles northwest of Needles on Saturday, according to reports from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and the National Parks Service. Her friend reported her missing on Sunday. Search and rescue teams began looking for her that night.

Although Estrada was not carrying food or water, Sgt. Tim Smith with the Colorado River Station of the sheriff’s department said there is water in the canyon area. Search teams have not given up hope of finding the lost hiker alive, he said.

Estrada and her companion separated at a fork in the trail to look for their vehicle, which they both thought was located in different directions, Smith said. When Estrada did not return as promised, her companion began searching on his own but waited until the following day to report her missing.

About 22 searchers from the sheriff’s department and the park service were covering the canyon on Tuesday, along with search dogs and a county helicopter.

Smith said that Estrada, who is from the Philippines, had been staying with family in Blythe for about four months. She was last seen wearing a white long-sleeved blouse, denim shorts, white tennis shoes and a denim “San Luis Obispo” cap, according to a report from the National Parks Service.

To report any information on Estrada’s location, call the Colorado River Station at 760-326-9200.

Unidentified Body Parts Found In California Desert

Help Cops ID Remains And Solve A Murder

America's Most Wanted






The desolate Amboy Road cuts through an incorporated stretch [in the Morongo Basin, a region] about an hour outside the desert town of Palm Springs. Miles away from the casinos, spas, and outlet shopping, a road crew made a startling discovery on the dirt shoulder on July 10, 2007.

While repaving, workers came across a human torso laying in some brush. When investigators from the San Bernardino Sheriff's Office arrived at the scene, they noticed that the legs, arms, and head had all been removed with a sawing tool of some sort. They also surmised that whoever the victim was had most likely been killed elsewhere.

One day later, authorities made a second discovery -- the unknown victim's legs were found two miles away. Police began a comprehensive search of the surrounding areas using helicopters, off-road vehicles, horses, and personnel on foot. As a result of the 21-mile search, several items, including firearms and clothing, were located. But nothing pointed police to a suspect or an identity for the unidentified remains.

An autopsy was performed on the torso and the legs and no definitive cause of death could be determined. The body parts showed no signs of animal activity prior to death nor were there and tattoos or identifying marks to aid police in naming their John Doe. The Coroner's office determined the victim to be 43 to 55 years old, 5'4" - 6'3" and either white or Hispanic. Using the femur bone, cops were able to process a DNA sample, but there were no matches for the victim in the Department of Justice's Missing Person DNA database.

Now, police are asking for the help of AMW viewers. Cops say Amboy Road is a barren avenue that could be used to to travel in and out of Las Vegas, Nev. They believe the murder could have happened in either Calif. or Nevada and the torso may have been ditched while the killer was in transit between states. If you believe you know something that may aid cops in their investigation or if you've seen suspicious activity in the areas surrounding Amboy Road, please call our hotline at 1-800-CRIME-TV.

Henderson Woman Arrested For 2006 Murder

KLAS-TV - Las Vegas,NV,USA

Henderson police arrested a 46-year-old woman Monday in connection with the death of her husband. The Henderson woman's husband was found murdered in a California desert in 2006.

Stephanie Thomas was held on $1 million bail on conspiracy to commit murder, murder and accessory to murder charges. She is accused of helping to plan the murder of Lawrence Thomas, 47, also of Henderson.

Lawrence Thomas was found dead in the Mojave National Preserve, west of Interstate 15, near Baker, Calif. in May of 2006.

Shawn Pritchett, a friend of Stephanie Thomas, was arrested in connection with the murder on Feb. 11. He's accused of killing Lawrence Thomas and hiding his body. Hikers discovered Thomas' body on May 14, 2006.

A San Bernardino Sheriff's Coroner Division pathologist conducted an autopsy on Thomas and determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma.