San Francisco Chronicle
October 15, 1969
The last survivors of a band of nude and long-haired thieves who
ranged over Death Valley in stolen dune buggies have been rounded up, the
sheriff‘s office said yesterday. A sheriff‘s posse, guided by a spotter plane,
arrested 27 men and women members of the nomad band in two desert raids.
Deputies said eight children, including two babies suffering from malnutrition,
were also brought in. Some of the women were completely nude and others wore
only bikini bottoms, deputies said. All the adults were booked at Inyo county
jail for investigation of charges which included car theft, receiving stolen
property and carrying illegal weapons. Six stolen dune buggies were recovered,
deputies said.
Deputy Sheriff Jerry Hildreth said the band lived off the land
by stealing. He said they traveled in the stolen four-wheel-drive dune buggies
and camped in a succession of abandoned mining shacks. The band previously
escaped capture by moving only at night and by setting up radio-equipped lookout
posts on the mountains, he said. "It was extraordinary the way they covered up
their tracks and would make dummy camps to throw us off," Hildreth said. "They
gave us a merry chase. . . . This is probably one of the most inaccessible areas
in California."
