Public’s Help Sought in Manhunt : Lawmen Ask Public’s Help in Dragnet for Killer

Weary lawmen combing the bleak Owyhee Desert of northern Nevada for escaped killer Claude Dallas reported little progress Thursday and appealed for more help from the public.

Pursuers and blood hounds that earlier this week found traces of the outlaw-frontiersman in tiny Paradise Hill, north of here, were still concentrating on the desolate, 10,000-square-mile badlands where Idaho, Oregon and Nevada meet, a region Dallas knows well.

But Humboldt County Sheriff James Bagwell said that Dallas ---- almost certainly aided by confederates ---- could be far away by now.

Meanwhile, the Ada County, Ida., Sheriff’s Department, serving as command center for the manhunt, released flyers bearing this description of Dallas: 36 years old, 5 feet, 10 inches, weighing 180 pounds, with brown hair, brown eyes and spectacles. A 24-hour hot line--(208) 376-1644--was designated to take information from the public.

Dallas, an accomplished outdoorsman, hunter and trapper, killed two game wardens in January, 1981, at his remote Owyhee Desert camp when they tried to arrest him on a charge of poaching. He eluded the law for 14 months before he was wounded in a shoot-out and captured.

Dallas, who claimed that he shot the wardens in self-defense, had been serving a 30-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter at Idaho State Correctional Penitentiary until his escape Easter Sunday.