Sgt. Dostie, Death Valley National Park and the Freedom of Information Act

Hi Guys,

I was up at the Barker Ranch today with a crew filming for the History Channel. It was 114 degrees out!

The Park Service had an armed ranger and the administrative assistant to the superintendent listening to every word I said. I wish I had taken a picture! They have a new rule written especially for me. No dog is allowed off of an established road. They let me walk from the parking area in 25 feet the front gate and we were turned around because we were off the road and in the front yard! That's it! What do you think they are afraid of? It was very interesting that the Park Superintendent sent her Administrative assistant to watch over us. Needless to say the last thing they wanted on film was Buster alerting on all the sites. I have never heard of a dog rule like this in a National Park. We could walk around the front yard and to the sites but Buster was not allowed to.

The Administrative Assistant is also the Death Valley National Park FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) officer. I filed a complaint on the Superintendent, Sarah Craighead, over a year and a half ago, that she is ignoring and covering up that there are several murder victims buried in the park she manages. There was a lot of interoffice emails and emails between the chief ranger and the sheriff. I have filed several FOIA requests and I have close to 3,000 pages of Emails and other documents. The administrative assistant to the Superintendent, Cheryl Chipman, redacted everything that I want! You can imagine how fair that is when I filed a complaint against her boss who writes her evaluations and decides on promotions.

I have appealed the redactions to the park service who rules on the park service. Guess how that turned out? After much research and talking to experts, I found out FOIA is a big joke. The only way you get what you want is to go to federal court and sue them. The vast majority of the time, the judge will rule in your favor. I simply cannot afford to hire an lawyer to put the case on in federal court. I am looking for a smart law student to put the case on with me, pro bono. The case would be in Sacramento.

I offered Cheryl Chipman two cold bottles of water to tell me what she redacted. She laughed and thought that was pretty funny. They got me good. But in reality, they are doing a great dis-service to the families of the missing. They very much enjoy exercising their power and showing who is in charge.

When I was there with you guys, if you posted pictures of Buster on the sites, I bet I would have been charged since they would have the evidence.

Also, myself and two Ph.D's, a Forensic Anthropologist and a former high ranking Archeologist who worked for the US Forest Service, now retired, applied for a permit from the Park Service to conduct scientific forensic excavations of the two burial sites on Park Service land. Park Superintendent Sarah Craighead refused to grant us a permit.

On a side note, they fixed Golar Wash so you can drive right up now. You can't even tell where the waterfall was located. We think it was the Myers family who fixed the road, not sure though. That part of the road is on BLM land.

Paul