The Nation - News from April 1, 1986

Guards with bloodhounds searched the bleak Owyhee River back country for Claude Dallas, 36, a self-styled mountain man who cut his way out of the Idaho State Penitentiary, where he was serving a 30-year sentence for gunning down two game wardens in 1981. Dallas slipped out of the prison after dark on Easter Sunday, cutting his way through two fences and disappearing into the surrounding desert outside Boise. Authorities in Wyoming, Washington and Montana were alerted in case Dallas made for Canada. “It’s hard to tell if he’s going to the hills--the place he knows best--or if he’s going to leave the country,” said Warden Arvon Arave. “Of all the people I hate to lose, he’s at the top of the list.”