Posse Presses Search for Escapees in Montana

Residents of this little town stuck close to their sidearms Wednesday as 100 law enforcement officers searched rugged mountain country for a pair of heavily armed California prison escapees--both convicted murderers--and a female accomplice who eluded a dragnet on Monday after a fierce gun battle.

“All Wolf Creek, everybody on the lake, is packing a gat,” said Thelma Grunwald, a widow who was rousted by deputies from her cabin on picturesque Holter Lake after the shoot-out.

After three days of the search, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Chuck O’Reilly said the army of officers under his command was bracing for a possible ambush. The fugitives were believed to be toting a duffel bag full of weapons and ammunition through the craggy brush, pines and canyons of the Big Belt Mountains along the Missouri River.

Carrying ‘Elephant Gun’

Included in their cache is a .454-caliber rifle, described by O’Reilly as “an elephant gun,” which the suspects used Monday from a range of 450 yards to blast a police cruiser bringing reinforcements and supplies to deputies pinned down in the four-hour firing rampage. O’Reilly also said the fugitives are believed to be carrying topographical maps of the region, which could aid their flight.

He said librarians at the Helena library in the state capital recognized pictures of the convicts from newspaper reports in recent days and said they had copied the maps in their facility recently.

O’Reilly said officers, including deputy U.S. marshals, FBI agents and federal firearms agents as well as local authorities, were using three tracking dogs, professional human trackers and aircraft with heat sensors in their search.

“It’s a tough, really rough area,” he said. “There’s a lot of loose rocks and shale and timber and brush.”

California prison authorities have identified the escapees as Steven Miller, 34, and John (Doc) Whitus, 36, who slipped out of the state prison hospital at Vacaville on Feb. 21 by hiding under debris in a dump truck while on a work detail. Whitus was convicted in 1972 of two drug-related killings; Miller was convicted in the 1976 slaying of two people, one an Ontario police officer.

Colorado Couple Slain

Authorities also have implicated the pair in the execution-style slaying of a Colorado couple whose bodies were found at their home in Byers last weekend. Whitus and Miller were believed to have stolen a large store of weapons from their victims, who were survivalists, as well as a pickup truck. Deputies found the truck, overturned, on a country road near here just before Monday’s shoot-out. Police believe the suspects had lived with their victims for several weeks prior to the slayings.

Deputies in the shoot-out said they came under attack from more than two snipers during the battle, which took place in a campground. O’Reilly said one of his deputies was certain he saw a female sniper, and he said authorities in Wyoming later identified her as a woman from Rock Springs, Wyo. The sheriff refused to disclose her name but said she apparently was a girlfriend of one of the fugitives.

He said the fugitives appeared to be contained in an area of several thousand acres but may be trying to break out into surrounding populated communities. However, he indicated that the dogs had uncovered fresh tracks Wednesday morning only one mile from the site of the original fire fight. He also said he did not believe the three had any food with them.

O’Reilly has been reluctant to discuss details of the search, arguing that the suspects might have a radio and could be tipped to police tactics by news reports.

Sheriff Criticized

The atmosphere down at dusty Wolf Creek, where evacuees from the cabins in the search area gathered on the stools at the Oasis Bar, crackled with talk of the manhunt--much of it critical of O’Reilly and his men for allegedly bungling the initial confrontation. “His crew couldn’t trail an elephant through a snowdrift with a nosebleed,” complained Reese Infanger, an out-of-work construction worker.

Frenchy Forgette, nursing a drink beside Infanger, said he and other patrons were huddled in the Oasis for a “Wolf Creek lunch,”--a can of beer and a loaded gun--and Paul Schulte, the proprietor, had indeed stocked the counter with a pistol.

Forgette also told fellow patrons that he had left his keys in his parked pickup truck, hoping the fugitives would take it and drive far away.

“Yeah, you’d let ‘em take your pickup but I bet you didn’t leave the keys in your Cadillac,” Infanger said with a smirk.

Residents Clearly Nervous

Despite the banter, residents who rarely even lock their doors at night are clearly nervous. Grunwald said when she heard a knock on the door of her cabin Monday night, “I grabbed the thirty-ought-six, which I had loaded earlier, and said: ‘What do ya want?’ ” It was sheriff’s deputies asking her to leave the area.

Several residents said they had seen Whitus and Miller in the area over the weekend, but did not know who they were. Paul Otto, who runs the Exxon Station and convenience store, said one of the fugitives came in on Sunday and inquired about fishing tackle, but did not buy any.

Otto said his daughter was behind the cash register on Monday--before the shoot-out--when another of the escapees came in and bought some beers from the cooler. Authorities searching for fingerprints later confiscated several other beer cans from the cooler, Otto said.

Stolen Pickup Traced

Later that day, sheriff’s deputies found the overturned pickup stolen from Colorado and traced it through witnesses to the campground where the fugitives had been staying.

When a squad of five deputies arrived at the campground, snipers opened fire. None of the deputies were wounded, but two campers were hospitalized with injuries from flying glass. Deputies said they think they heard one of the snipers cry out in pain during the battle.

O’Reilly said deputies saw Whitus and Miller lugging the duffel bag of arms during the fire fight. Searchers had yet to come across the bag and presume the men still have it, O’Reilly told reporters Wednesday morning.

While he did not know exactly what the pair had in their arsenal, he said no evidence had been found yet that they had used anti-personnel weapons such as hand grenades, which they may have taken from the Colorado couple, authorities believe.