Exclusive Interview/Background Info
July 6, 2000
A jury finally started hearing the gruesome details
today, almost two years after two Duchesne County
ranch workers were murdered and then blown to
pieces.
Rancher John Pinder faces life in prison if he's
convicted. News Specialist John Hollenhorst has details.
The battle lines in this case have been
clear for almost two years. And now the two sides are
digging in for weeks of combat in the courtroom.
It's a
real whodunit... in a subculture that John Pinder's
lawyer called today "one of the last vestiges of the
Wild West". Even John Pinder's lawyer calls him
"somewhat eccentric."
The Duchesne County rancher
and his most-trusted ranch-hand once took his African
lion on a joyride to the 7-11 in Vernal, without a
leash. Now, Pinder and that ranch-hand, Philomeno
Ruiz will square off in a courtroom, each accusing the
other of one of Utah's most gruesome
double-murders.
Former ranch workers Rex Tanner
and June Flood were kidnapped, beaten with baseball
bats, and shot to death. Lawmen found bits and
pieces of their bodies scattered by a huge explosion
on a remote section of Pinder's ranch.
As the victims'
relatives gathered to see justice done, the prosecutor
told the jury Ruiz will testify Pinder was the
mastermind and the killer, and that Ruiz helped him
dispose of the bodies.
Pinder's lawyer Ron Yengich
will try to turn the tables. He says Ruiz did the killing
all by himself, and frightened his own boss into helping
dispose of evidence.
Yengich set the stage for a
sordid trial. The Pinder Ranch is a place where people
lived hard and worked hard, he said, and where drug
use, alcohol abuse and illegal weapons were a daily
part of life.
He also portrayed Pinder as an
undercover drug agent. Yengich says the
drug and alcohol culture at the Pinder ranch is nothing
out of the ordinary, but an everyday part of life in the
rough and tumble Uintah Basin.
But why the murders?
The defense offered no motive for Ruiz. But the
prosecution says Pinder's motive was anger because
he believed the victims had stolen from his ranch.
