Pupfish numbers decline in Devils Hole

Posted on26 October 2012.
Special to the Pahrump Valley Times

AMARGOSA VALLEY — A September population survey of the endangered Devils Hole pupfish produced a count of 75 fish, a drop from 119 counted in the fall of 2011.

This number is considered to be an indicator of the actual population size based on a methodology that has been in use for 40 years. The iridescent blue, inch-long fish’s only natural habitat is in the 93-degree waters of Devils Hole, which is a detached unit of Death Valley National Park.

Biologists conduct surveys of the Devils Hole pupfish, Cyprinodon diabolis, twice each year, in the fall and spring.

The short-lived species has a lifespan of approximately one year and experiences a natural high and low cycle, with the population in the fall being greater than that in the spring due to natural die-off during the winter months.

“We continue to be concerned about the status of the population, which has generally been declining since 1997,” said Ted Koch, state supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The good news is, the fish the biologists saw appeared to be quite healthy.”

In the fall of 1997, the population surveys started to indicate a downward trend for unknown reasons, reaching an all-time low of 38 fish in the spring of 2006 and 2007. The Devils Hole pupfish was listed as endangered in 1967. Although the cavern is over 400 feet deep, the pupfish are believed to have their greatest spawning success on a shallow rock shelf just beneath the water’s surface.

While biologists will not speculate about the cause of the population decline, they believe the count might have been influenced by three natural events that took place this year. Violent pressure waves occurred in Devils Hole in March 2012 from an earthquake in southern Mexico measuring magnitude 7.4, and a magnitude 7.3 quake in El Salvador in August.

Also in August, heavy rains washed a substantial amount of dirt, rocks, and other debris onto the shallow shelf and deeper into the hole. Although these are natural events, they occurred in a short time frame and created unique conditions that were possibly stressful for the pupfish.

Nonetheless, biologists have observed increased spawning behavior after such disturbances. Earthquakes have the tendency to remove material from the shallow shelf that is important for feeding. Conversely, floods bring much needed nutrients into the ecosystem.

Devils Hole is a detached unit of Death Valley National Park located on the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. It is managed by the National Park Service, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nevada Department of Wildlife coordinate with NPS in the protection of and recovery efforts for the Devils Hole pupfish. The main objective of the agencies is a continued focus on the native population and its ecosystem.

Original Article Here

Thanks to Grump for the tip!

Bobby Beausoleil's invention - the "Syntar"

Bobby Beausoleil plays his invention, the syntar. The synthisizer/guitar was made while he was in CMC prison. He was convicted of the murder of Gary Hinman and was an associate of Charles Manson. ©2010 Doug Parker/Telegram-Tribune published 12-13-1984

Read more here: http://sloblogs.thetribunenews.com/slovault/2010/04/bobby-beausoleil-arrested-on-cuesta-grade/#storylink=cpy

On Dec. 13, 1984, a story was published of a cheerful looking Beausoleil playing a synthesizer/guitar invention he called the syntar. His circuit designs were featured in a nationally published electronic music magazine, "Polyphony."

"I would give anything to someday be known as something other than a murderer, " he said in the Dec. 13, 1984, story.

A year later, allegations of child pornography surfaced after CMC officials discovered drawings and stories Beausoleil had written about spanking and had planned to mail to his wife Barbara. She then lived in Arroyo Grande and published newsletters "Sassy Bottoms" and "Domestic Discipline Digest" according to a Dec. 3, 1986, story. A postal inspector later said the material was not categorized as child pornography.

Prison reports from the 1980s described the convict as intelligent and having a good prison record, but the specter of Charles Manson is in the room at every parole hearing. In a Dec. 10, 1987, story, he said, "I feel like every time I come to one of these hearings, I have Mr. Manson sitting next to me," he said.

"I despise what the man represents … If I had known about what the man was about then, I wouldn’t have associated with him."

Info above was obtained here.

Satans Slaves Motorcycle Club

Weve had the question asked in the past about what may have happened to the Satans Slaves Motorcycle Club. This question normally has come up when discussing Joe Dorgan. Well, it looks like we finally know:

Thank you for visiting our website. Hells Angels SFV was founded Jan 1st of 1978. We are very proud of our heritage as this charter was originally the Satans Slaves M/C. We still have active charter members in SFV that go back in the Slaves as far as the mid 60's.

http://www.hamcsfv.com/ 

Thanks to Trilby for the tip

Eviliz Manson Tour 2013!!

Coming Back This Spring As A Result of Popular Demand…

Eviliz Manson Tour 2013

Now accepting ideas/thoughts/promises in the dark…

 Tentatively April 25 - 30  2013!!

 

Email Saint Circumstance with interest and suggestions at your convenience

The Tex Tapes - New News or Same Old Story ??

 View Here  

This is a good, brief, summary for those who are not exactly sure what all the hype is about regarding the “Tex Tapes." This will fill in the blanks. Casey Jordan seems to be more capable of having a reasonable conversation about this subject than most I have heard in a major media interview.  I don’t think that there will be anything new on these tapes personally, but if I am wrong?? Information which could have made a difference, and given some answers to people who have been desperately searching for them- would have been right there locked away all these years??

Dream a Little Dream of Me

I am currently reading a biogaphy on Cass Elliot called "Dream a Little Dream of Me".
It was written by a British author by the name of Eddi Fiegel in 2005:

In contrast to the TV show, the Bubblegum album was a hit, but Cass's enjoyment of its success was to be short-lived. On August 9, 1969,Cass's friend actress Sharon Tate and three of her friends were savagely murdered at the house Tate and her husband Roman Polanski had been renting on Cielo Drive, just minutes away from Woodrow Wilson. The bodies were riddled with one hundred and two stab wounds and were found surrounded by vast reservoirs of blood. Cass had known Sharon and all three of the other victims: celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, Woytek Frykowski, an old school friend of Polanski's, and Frykowski's girlfriend Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune. (I guess this author forgot about poor Steven Parent, the fourth victim) The openness of Hollywood society at the time had led to a previously unprecedented crossover between the film and rock communities; if you were successful and hip in either one or the other or at least good friends with someone who was, you were just as likely to end up at a film star's house for the evening as  rock star's. Cass's prominence in the upper eccelons of the Los Angeles social scene meant she was friends with rock stars such as Crosby, Nash, Stills, Eric Clapton, plus assorted Beatles and Stones, but also Warren Beatty, Roger Vadim, Jane Fonda, Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, Mike Sarne, Dennis Hopper, and Peter Fonda.

(I am skipping around, because a lot of it is long-winded and repetitive, but I will add in the parts that were relevant to the Manson thing)

The murders therefore certainly came as just a shock to her. "It scared the hell out of her," remembers Lee Kiefer. "It scared the hell out of all of us cause it was happening right next to us and it pretty much shook up the whole Hollywood scene."

Having regularly played host to some of the less decorous characters on the scene, Cass was subjected to particularly intensive questioning by the police. Apart from having known the victims-Cass was further implicated by association. When the bodies of the victims had been discovered, the police had found the word PIG blurrily scrawled on the wall of the house in blood. John Phillips had informed the police of the widely circulating theory that what had been written was in fact PIC--in reference to Pic Dawson. Some believed this could directly point to his guilt. (I skipped again, because this author didn't have her facts straight, and she goes on to state that Folger and Frykowski used to pick up young guys on Sunset Strip, blah, blah, blah) NEXT...

Eventually, after months of rumor an speculation, both Doyle and Dawson were cleared of suspicion and Charles Manson, a thirty-five-year-old ex-convict, fraud, pimp, and conman with a Jesus fixation, and his "family" of (mostly young and female) followers were revealed as the murderers. (Just to note, this author never mentions Tex) Manson had a talent for attracting the young and dispossessed and he had somehow manage to brainwash his acolytes into accompanying him on his nihilistic quest for supposed salvation and power through murder. Manson and his followers had been frequent visitors to Cass's house, taking advantage, like so many others, of the plentiful food, drugs, and generally laid-back, hospitable atmosphere. But Cass was not the only one who played host to him and his acolytes, unaware of what would ensue. Although in the aftermath of the murders, few woud admit to any link, many prominent figures in the Los Angeles rock community had not only socialized with Manson and company--particularly his harem of young women, who made themselves readily available to anyone who was interested--but developed closer associations with them. As Neil Young later remembered, "A lot of pretty well known musicians around L.A. knew Manson, though they'd probably deny it now. The girls were always around too. They'd be right there on the couch with me, singing a song."

Who was in Mendocino on or before October of 1968?

We've discussed a little about who can be definitively placed in the Ukiah area on or before October of 1968. Deb mentioned this in the previous thread and sent me these articles to support it.

This Ukiah Daily Journal article from March 26, 1968 placed Dean Moorehouse in the area:

Ok, so this thing for me at least has just taken a turn for the weird with this article. It's the Ukiah Daily Journal from May 10, 1968. It places Brooks Poston in Mendocino County during that time in the company of... Reverend Jim Jones. Yes, THAT Reverend Jim Jones...

(This is the Poston section of the article cropped for easier reading):

The third article is about the attorneys assigned to the girls in Mendocino County. It says that Ella Jo Bailey aka Ella Beth Sinder was released on her own recognizance to have surgery. Interestingly, the attorney representing her was Tim O'Brien, the same attorney that months later represented Don Dulaney.

Barbara Beausoleil Obit

Salem - Barbara Ellen Beausoleil, 65, was born in Mineola, NY, to John and Jane Baston, one of 2 children. Her family lived for a time in Rhode Island, Texas and Long Island, settling in Woodstock, NY, in 1961. She later lived and raised her children in Connecticut.

Barbara was loved and cherished by all who knew her, and left this world suddenly and unexpectedly. She was an amazing mother, sister, wife and grandmother, but those were only some of her outstanding attributes. Beyond that, she was a consummate artist. She received her BFA from Boston University and was a very talented painter. Barbara also loved music, teaching herself the guitar and piano. Another source of great joy was dancing, which she began to explore when she lived in Connecticut. After studying the art of tribal style belly dance, she joined a dance troupe in California, where she lived from 1979 - 2000. One of her other accomplishments while in California, was achieving journeyman status as a carpenter when working on the restoration of the neoclassical state capital where she displayed her talents as a skilled craftsperson.

After settling in Oregon in 2001, she began teaching dance and eventually started her own dance troupe, Raks Sarama. Barbara also excelled at drumming for this style of dance. Gardening, beekeeping, sewing and knitting were all passions, and her love of animals was an intrinsic part of her nature. Her family was very proud of all her accomplishments, and anyone who knew her was impressed with all the special qualities that encompassed the beautiful soul that was Barbara.

She had a profound influence on friends, family and even casual acquaintances. Barbara was and always will be a shining example of how a person can live in peace, harmony, and freedom. She gave more than she took, she loved more than she feared, and she nurtured everything and everybody around her. We will remember Barbara as a woman of strength, courage, compassion, and wisdom – a true Mother Goddess, treading softly yet powerfully upon this Earth.

She is survived by: husband, Robert Beausoleil, Salem; sons, Eben Freeman, California and John (Nicole) Freeman, Salem; daughter, Rachel (Drew) Fox, Silverton; grandchildren, Willow and Avery; sister, Kathryn (Kurt) Baston Godiksen, Connecticut.

A celebration of Barbara's life will be held next summer on the Summer Solstice, her favorite time of year. Arrangements by Unger Funeral Chapel.

Thanks Trilby & Sheila!

2008 Mendocino County article discussing the Dulaney/Warren murders

The first half is about another murder totally unrelated to the Warren Dulaney case.

On the rainy morning of October 14th, 1968, six miles south of Ukiah, a seven-year-old boy ran out of his trailer home and found his mother dead in the wet ground outside the front door. The boy ran for his grandmother's trailer nearby. She was dead too, garroted like the boy's mother with a pair of long leather boot laces.

The dead women were Nancy Warren, 64, and her granddaughter, Clyda Jean Dulaney, 24, wife of CHP officer, Don Dulaney.

Clyda was eight months pregnant.

The seven-year-old was Johnny Ussery whose younger brothers Lane, 5, and Brett, 4, were still asleep. The three boys were from Clyda's first marriage to a logger named John Ussery of Eugene, Oregon. Clyda had left Ussery for Don Dulaney, a Ukiah-based CHP officer twice her age. She was pregnant with Dulaney's child when she was murdered.

Clyda's former husband was quickly eliminated as a suspect when it was verified that he'd been in Medford, Oregon at the time of the murders.

Finding his mother and his grandmother dead, Johnny had calmly returned to his trailer to get his younger brothers dressed, then, his two little brothers in tow, the three boys trudged south to the home of Don Torell where Johnny told Mr. and Mrs. Torell that "Mommy and Grandma are dead."

A swarm of deputies led by Sheriff Reno Bartolomie was soon on the scene.

The sole witness to the previous night's mayhem, which occurred in a driving rain that obliterated the footprints assumed to have surround Clyda Dulaney's outdoors corpse, was Mrs. Warren's miniature dachshund.

The two dead women were fully clothed. They'd both been brutally beaten about the face before they'd been strangled with brand new hightop leather boot laces, two turns of which had been pulled tight around the neck before the laces were knotted in back.

Mrs. Warren operated Nancy's Antique Sales on Highway 101 south of Burke Hill o the two-lane portion of the highway about where the strawberry fields and sales stand are today.

Clyda Dulaney was a graduate of Ukiah High School who, only months before, had left her husband for officer Dulaney, 49, a man several years older than her father.

Clyda's former husband had been engaged in a bitter custody dispute with Clyda for his three boys. Mr. Ussery said Clyda had deserted him and the boys for Dulaney, evidence, he insisted, that Clyda was unstable and therefore not a fit mother.

Robbery was the apparent motive. A metal cash box had been rifled and left on a table although a plastic box and glass jar containing approximately $300 in cash rested in plain sight in a closet of the older woman's trailer.

Officer Dulaney lived in Ukiah with a teenage daughter from his previous marriage while Clyda and her children lived on her grandmother's property at the south end of Burke Hill. Dulaney said they lived apart while he looked for a house in the Ukiah area that would accommodate him, his pregnant new wife Clyda, her three boys and his daughter. When Clyda gave birth to their child, Dulaney would be supporting a family of seven, and he said he wanted a house big enough for all of them.

Dulaney was in Sacramento for a special CHP training course when his new wife and her grandmother were found dead. The investigative assumption from the beginning was that the two women were murdered after he was either in Sacramento or on the road there.

The CHP officer told the Sheriff's office that he dropped his wife and stepchildren at Nancy's Antique Shop at 9:30 the previous night with the intention of continuing on to Sacramento. But, he said, he'd forgotten his uniform, so he returned to his Ukiah apartment, picked up the uniform and continued on to Sacramento via Highway 20 east where he signed in at the Academy at 1:45am.

A neighbor said she saw a blue pickup truck leaving an orchard near the antique shop about 8:15 the morning the women were found. She said fiver persons "wearing hippie-type clothing" were in the vehicle.

Dulaney, 49, who was described as genuinely distraught by investigators, quickly returned to Ukiah.

"The only information I had was what I had read in the newspapers," Dulaney told the Ukiah Daily Journal at the time. He said he and his expanded family had been watching The Wonderful World of Disney at Dulaney's Ukiah apartment before he, Clyda and the boys headed south for Clyda Dulaney's trailer six miles to the south. The family had left Ukiah about 8:45. Dulaney said he dropped his wife and the three boys off at their temporary home and headed for Sacramento where he was scheduled to begin a CHP refresher course the next day, Monday morning. Dulaney said that he had reached Highway 20 before remembering that he had failed to bring his uniform. He then returned to Ukiah, picked up his uniform, and resumed his trip to Sacramento where he logged in at 1:45am.

Dulaney hired Timothy O'Brien, a Ukiah attorney who often represented law enforcement people. O'Brien, who soon afterwards became a superior court judge, said that Dulaney had been "deeply concerned over any false impression which might have been gained regarding his cooperation with the Sheriff's Department following the death of his wife and child."

O'Brien helped Dulaney with his statement for the police.

"When the statement was completed, I signed it," Dulaney said. "There was no lack of consideration."

Sheriff Bartolomie said he interviewd 35 suspects, referring in one newspaper account to "the hamstrings of the Warren Court" which, the Sheriff suggested, had prevented him from detaining a trio of roaming purse-snatchers who'd robbed a Ukiah matron in the days prior to the Burke Hill nurders. The Sheriff thought the three transients could well have murdered the two women, but lacking evidence to hold them, sent them on their itinerant way.

A year later, in 1969, following the gruesome killings of Sharon Tate and friends in Los Angeles, Bartolomie said he thought the Manson Family may have also been responsible for the unsolved murders of Clyda Dulaney and Mrs. Warren. The Sheriff said both the Tate murders and the two murders south of Ukiah were "in the senseless category."

And the Manson Family had been in Mendocino County at the time of the Dulaney and Warren murders.

Seven persons belonging to a nomadic cult were arrested on drug charges in Navarro in the Anderson Valley on June 22, 1968. Susan Denise Atkins, 19, aka Sadie Mae Glutz, was among those arrested. Additionally, "Several Mansonites were guests of a Ukiah man at his home off Boonville Road," reported the Ukiah Daily Journal.

But there was never any evidence linking the Manson Family or Dulaney or Clyda Dulaney's former husband to the crime.

Someone or someone's came in off 101 in the night, took the money they could see, strangled the two women they found there, and continued their journey to whatever unlucky destination called them.

(Research by Deborah Silva.)

The Pluses and Minuses of the Suspects in Warren/Dulaney

The triple murder of Nancy Warren, Clyda Dulaney and her unborn child has captivated my interest ever since I learned of it. I research unsolved murders mainly from the late'60's into the '70's. I have done research for authors, news reporters and a documentary maker since I retired a few years ago. I don't do the research to make a living at it, that's for sure, but do it to help finance the non-paying research that I do. My focus is awareness, some of these old unsolved cases can't be solved unless people are aware the murders have never come to a resolution. Somebody, somewhere, knows something about each one of the unsolved cases but if they think that a case has already been solved or that it's been so long that nobody cares they are not going to come forward. Today's forensics make it possible to take a fresh look at the evidence. Many older cases have been solved across the nation, I have hopes that these cases, too, will be solved.

There are two main known suspects in this case, Donald Dulaney and the Manson Family. These murders could have been committed by someone else entirely, of course, but we can only consider these two at the moment.

Don Dulaney as a suspect is not unreasonable. There are pros and cons with him, the main con, I believe, would be that he was a cop. Would a cop kill his wife and child plus her grandmother just to get out from under any responsibility to them? Seems like an awfully big chance for him to take. Why kill Clyda's grandmother, too, if what he wanted was to rid of Clyda?

I've never been able to locate a marriage record for Dulaney and Clyda and don't think they were really married. She did use his last name but she was pregnant and living in small town Ukiah with family in the community. It may have been less of a stigma to say they were married. If they weren't married the most Dulaney would have been on the hook for is child support if he were to break the relationship off.  I have been able to locate other marriage related records for Dulaney, his divorce from his first wife and his Nevada marriage to a woman about three years after Clyda died. I could find no marriage for Clyda and Dulaney though.

Johnny felt that Dulaney may have wanted to get rid of his mother because she had three young boys that he didn't want to support. In 1972 Dulaney married a woman who was 19 years his junior with three young daughters so I don't think that the children were an issue and told him so. He did not know about that.  I asked Johnny if he remembered living with Dulaney and he said no he does not believe they ever did.  He only remembers living at the grandmother's trailer after his parents divorced. That to me is also a clue that they may not have been married.

On the other hand, Dulaney's alibi for that night and subsequent later actions absolutely suck! But wouldn't a cop come up with a better alibi than the one he gave or have planned the murder for a time when he was not expected to be in Sacramento where dozens of other cops were suppose to be and where he would not be required to sign in so as to be able to give himself a little more wiggle room in the timeline?

Dulaney delayed speaking with detectives after the murders and lawyered-up almost immediately. He also took his time signing his statement to law enforcement once it was typed up. There was no mention of marks or scratches on Dulaney in the newspaper reports. It was reported, however, that Nancy Warren put up the fiercest struggle of the two women and that she had "physical evidence" under her fingernails.

Some members of the Manson Family were in the right place at the right time to have committed these murders. Later actions have demonstrated that that they were not above killing a pregnant woman. It would be in keeping with the Family not to kill the children. Two male Does and one female Doe were named in the civil suit filed by the Warren family, an odd combination at a time when not many females were thought to be aggressors in concert with males in crimes involving murder. The Manson Family sure changed that line of thinking. The civil suit was filed just before a one year statutory deadline to file such cases, before there was a hint of any Manson Family involvement in the Tate LaBianca murders.

Bugliosi's prosecution of Manson depended on him showing the jury that the others, Watson, Krenwinkel, Van Houton and Atkins acted under the direct influence of Manson. If murders were committed by the Family outside of Manson's direct influence, Bugliosi's case against Manson may not have gone so well. Could the Warren Dulaney murders have been swept under the rug to insure Bugliosi's prosecution of Manson?

Mendocino County Sheriff  Bartolomie made an immediate connection to the possibility of the Family involvement as reported in the December 4, 1969 Ukiah Daily Journal once he learned of their activities in Southern California. He asked for samples of leather thongs be forwarded to him in the event any were found to be in the possession of Family members. As reported in a October 14, 1969 Press Democrat article the leather thongs used to kill the women were both exactly 36 1/2 inches long with a particular oil on them. That length of thong was unusual, the article states, and not an off the rack size for a bootlace. I seem to recall that the Family was friends with a leather maker in the San Jose area, Victor Wild, who I believe made Manson's leathers. Could the thongs have come from him?

I know that police reports are far better than newspaper articles when trying to figure out the who, what when, where and why of a murder case but it looks like articles are all we have to work with right now.  What are some of your thoughts about who committed these murders?