St. George • Hikers who allege they have been threatened by a 71-year-old Ivins man while walking their dogs off leash say Washington County sheriff’s investigators have done a haphazard job of investigating the incidents.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office announced earlier this month it was dropping the investigation into an incident in which the man, whose identity is being withheld, allegedly threatened to shoot a woman and her off-leash dog on a Bureau of Land Management trail in the Santa Clara Reserve.
“Based off of the interviews and evidence collected, the deputies did not have sufficient evidence to bring charges against anyone at this time,” sheriff’s investigators stated in a Dec. 20 news release, while reminding residents that countywide leash laws require dogs to be leashed on state and federal land.
St. George resident Jaden Turner and others who have had run-ins with the man are not impressed, and argue the sheriff’s office has not done enough.
Especially galling to them is that the Ivins resident — whom they say is armed with a machete and pistol, patrols the trails in hiking shorts, a warmup jacket emblazoned with a Second Amendment patch and a floppy hat reminiscent of the one actor Bob Denver wore on the sitcom “Gilligan’s Island” — has a history of allegedly threatening violence against dog owners in two states, Utah and Wyoming.
“The sheriff’s [office] has taken a very serious and scary offense and turned it into a discussion about leash laws,” Turner lamented.
Turner said she encountered the man while walking her dog Baz off-leash on Dec. 5, not far from the Tukupetsi Trailhead. She says she recalls watching him crest the hill in front of her, begin to swear at her while pulling out a pistol and threaten to shoot her and the dog if she did not put a leash on Baz.
She said she never heard back from two sheriff’s investigators despite supplying them with leads about other incidents. St. George resident Lance Snarr, who told The Tribune about his two encounters with the same man on trails in the Red Cliffs Reserve area, has also never heard from investigators.
Upon witnessing the man verbally assault a young woman a few months ago as she walked her dog off-leash, Snarr was convinced the alleged leash-law vigilante posed a grave threat to public safety. He said the same man verbally harangued and threatened him for having his dog off leash momentarily on the Paradise Rim Trail several weeks ago.
“The sheriff’s office has not contacted me nor, to my knowledge, made any attempt to,” Snarr said in a text to The Tribune, which he added was “very troubling.”
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment.
Sheriff’s investigators were able to locate and interview the suspect about the Turner incident, which they characterized as a case of “he said, she said.” But after The Tribune’s Dec. 15 article about the incident and other altercations, the sheriff’s office told Fox 13 News the following day that it was reopening the case due to others who had similar encounters coming forward. Four days later the investigation was closed again.
In their interviews with the Ivins resident, sheriff’s investigators said he told them that he felt threatened by Turner’s dog, “retrieved his firearm and held it in front of him, but pointed [it] downward towards the ground to protect himself if the dog began to attack him.” He denied pointing a gun at Turner and threatening her, according to the Dec. 20 news release.
There was nothing in the news release about any of the other alleged incidents in the St. George area. Nor was there any mention made of several altercations involving the man at his other place of residence in Star Valley Ranch, Wyoming.
Wyoming complaints
The Tribune, which is not disclosing the identity of the man since no charges have been brought against him, learned he has been involved in at least two altercations with Star Valley Ranch residents, one of which involved dogs being off-leash.
On June 27, 2022, according to Star Valley Ranch special municipal officer Jim Rogers, the man was out walking when two dogs that were off-leash ran out of a garage and began barking at him.
“A couple of little dogs kind of went out to the road to say hi to him,” Rogers said. “They are not vicious. I know that person’s dogs.”
According to reports Rogers compiled, the man threatened to kill the two dogs and, with a machete in his hand, began yelling and walking toward the pets’ owner, who was in his driveway. At this point, according to the reports, a neighbor heard the commotion, saw the man advancing toward the dogs’ owner with a machete and felt he needed to intervene.
“He came out with a pistol and told the man to drop [the machete] or I’ll drop you,” Rogers said. “So the guy [with the machete] just walked away.”
That same day, the man filed a report with the town and later with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, claiming he was attacked by two large dogs.
“Luckily, I had my machete with me and was able to ward off the dogs,” he said in the complaint, adding that he wanted the dogs’ owner and the neighbor who drew a gun on him prosecuted.
In interviewing the complainant, Rogers said the man told him and has told others that he is a former federal agent who worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA’s national office in Virginia did not respond to a request to confirm the man’s claims.
Another incident in Star Valley Ranch — this one involving the man and his neighbor, Terry Martin — occurred in September. Martin alleges he was threatened by his neighbor when the two got sideways over some work the man wanted Martin’s brother to do on his property.
When Martin told his neighbor that his brother declined to help, he said the man “went ballistic and started cussing and yelling at me and calling me a liar. Then he told me, ‘If you step on my property, I’m going to take you out.’ He really has gone off the deep end. He walks around [Star Valley] Ranch in his goofy-looking Mickey Mouse outfit and carries a machete and a 9mm pistol.”
Martin did not press charges but was concerned enough to call the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office to make deputies aware of the threat.
Lincoln County Sheriff Shane Johnson knows about the incident and confirmed that his office investigated the June altercation between the man, the dog owner and his neighbor but decided not to bring charges.
In talking with the man Johnson said he told him that the neighbor saw him wielding the machete, perceived a threat and acted accordingly by pulling a gun to end the threat.
“He had the opinion that we sided with the guy who pulled the gun …,” Johnson said. “And he left in a huff and called me crooked.”
Lincoln County sheriff’s officials learned about the Utah incidents involving the man when Star Valley Ranch officials saw a TV news report on the Turner incident and forwarded the information to them.
To the best of his knowledge, Johnson said, Washington County sheriff’s deputies have never contacted anyone in his office to discuss the man’s altercations in Wyoming. Rogers said Star Valley Ranch officials have not heard from Utah investigators, either.
Report request denied
The Washington County Sheriff’s office has denied The Tribune’s public records request for the deputies’ report on the Turner incident and other altercations involving the Ivins man. The Tribune has appealed that denial.
The sheriff’s office is promising to deploy four deputies to patrol trails in rural areas to allay concerns about public safety. But Turner said such assurances mean nothing because four deputies were already assigned that task before the altercations took place.
Despite the promise of patrols, Ivins resident Sedona Arabella is still concerned enough about her safety that she plans to carry a GoPro camera when she hikes area trails. As for Turner, she said she just purchased a $7 machete.
“Just for kicks,” she said.
