Dig begins for bodies on Charles Manson ranch

Spooky rumors have persisted for decades that there may be clandestine graves at a secluded ranch used as a hideout by the Charles Manson clan after a 1969 killing spree.

On Tuesday, Inyo County Sheriff’s investigators and scientists packing portable ground-penetrating radar, magnetometers and shovels will convoy to the Barker Ranch on a mission to confirm or put to rest such speculation.

The search at the property, which is at the southern end of Death Valley National Park in country so rough it can only be reached by four-wheel-drive vehicles, was expected to continue through Thursday.

Wild-eyed career criminal Manson directed the gruesome forays that resulted in the massacre of Sharon Tate, three friends and a teenager in the pregnant actress’ Benedict Canyon home, and the slaying of a couple in Los Feliz the next night.

A member of the so-called Manson family later suggested that bodies were buried at the Barker Ranch.

In February 2007, cadaver-sniffing dogs led by a black Labrador named Buster displayed tell-tale agitation at two sites on the decrepit ranch, tucked in an arid canyon in the Panamint Range. Buster is owned by Mammoth Lakes Police Department detective Paul Dostie, a small-town investigator with a penchant for recruiting anthropologists, geneticists and geophysicists for his cases.

Subsequent searches by cadaver dogs were inconsistent, as were analyses of soil samples. Facing mixed results, Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze authorized four days of exploratory excavation.

But on the eve of what has come to be known in these parts as “The Big Dig,” locals are criticizing the effort as a waste of time and money in a sparsely populated county that can ill afford it.

Rock Novak, proprietor of a country store in the isolated ghost town of Balarat, said, “I’ve heard so many stories over the years about Barker Ranch. Some say there’s 30 bodies out there; some say 24. Some say none at all. We won’t know until they dig it up.”

 louis.sahagun@latimes.com