Three bodies unearthed

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33063, 2 November 1972, Page 15

Three bodies unearthed

tN.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

UKIAH (California), November 1.

Police have unearthed three bodies on a sheep ranch near Ukiah and are searching for more, suspecting it might be a burial ground for victims of the Hell’s Angels motor-cycle gang.

The grim find recalled the macabre “orchard of death” case in which the bodies of 25 migrant workers were dug up last year in pear and peach orchards along the Feather River in central California.

A labour contractor, Juan Corona, is at present on trial for those murders. The three bodies on the ranch were discovered on Monday in a well and police said that two of the victims were believed to have been murdered by several members of the motor-cycle gang. The California AttorneyGeneral (Mr Evelle Younger) reinforced the reports of local police by telling reporters:

“The search was started in response to rumours that the area was being used as a Hell’s Angels burying ground.” Mr Younger said that similar well holes on the 153-acre ranch were being searched, but added: “We do not have specific information about additional bodies.” The Mendocino County Sheriff (Mr Reno Bartolomie) himself mentioned the orchard murders when he announced the grim sheep ranch finds yesterday. His statement was carefully worded and. he refused to answer questions in an apparent attempt to avoid the confusion and prejudicial statements that have marked the Corona case. But almost immediately contradictions began to develop. Mr Bartolomie said in his statement that police in tho east San Francisco Bay area of Contra Costa County, where the Hell’s Angels have their headquarters, had issued arrest warrants for several members of the gang. But later a spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office said: “That is an erroneous report. No arrest warrants have been issued.” United Press International reported a district attorney’s investigator as saying that an attempt was being made to determine whether there was a link between the three

deaths and the Hell’s Angel president, Ralph (Sonny) Barger, aged 34, of Oakland, California.

The investigator said that a deputy district attorney had talked with Barger’s lawyer.

Barger, with three other members of the motor-cycle club is on trial in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland on charges of murdering a suspected narcotics dealer and trying to bum his body in a bathtub.