Jack Lee Harelson
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
insurance agent, best known for desecrating
Desecration
Desecration is the act of depriving something of its sacred character, or the disrespectful or contemptuous treatment of that which is held to be sacred or holy by a group or individual.-Detail:...
and looting a Paiute
Paiute
Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
Indian burial site in the Black Rock Desert
Black Rock Desert
The Black Rock Desert is an arid region in the northern Nevada section of the Great Basin with a lakebed that is a dry remnant of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan...
of Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
.
Biography
Jack Lee Harelson was an insurance agent in Grants Pass, OregonGrants Pass, Oregon
-Rogue River:The Rogue River runs through Grants Pass.-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 23,003 people, 9,376 households, and 5,925 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 9,885 housing units at an average density of 1,303.3 per square mile . By 2008,...
. In 1995, one of his former business partners in an opal
Opal
Opal is an amorphous form of silica related to quartz, a mineraloid form, not a mineral. 3% to 21% of the total weight is water, but the content is usually between 6% to 10%. It is deposited at a relatively low temperature and may occur in the fissures of almost any kind of rock, being most...
mine tipped off police that Harelson had been looting Amerindian sites. In exchange for immunity from prosecution, Harelson's ex-wife Pamela Ralph led police investigators to an Elephant Mountain Cave in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. She stated that she and Harelson had dug and collected American Indian treasures in the early 1980s. She had photographs of the cave that had significantly grown after three years of digging. Harelson had built a wall to hide a dirt pile. Digging had totally destroyed the site, which had included various artifacts, including those from the Paiute
Paiute
Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
tribe.
Oregon State Police
Oregon State Police
The Oregon State Police is the main state law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of Oregon. They have been charged to enforce all of Oregon's criminal laws and to help local law enforcement agencies with their duties...
recovered over 2,000 artifacts from Harelson's home in Grants Pass, including 10,000-year-old sandals. In Harelson's garden, police found two headless bodies
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
of Paiute children wrapped in plastic garbage bags. These bodies were historical, maybe 2,000 years old. The heads were not found. Ralph said that bodies were intact when they were found in two large baskets.
The state prosecutor charged Harelson for looting and desecrating the site. He was charged with aggravated theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
, abuse of corpses, tampering with evidence
Evidence
Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...
and possessing illegal gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
devices. The main witness in the case was Pamela Ralph, but his old business partners also testified.
Harelson admitted only to digging a "test hole" and removing some artifacts and said that he had intended to attract interest of archaeologists and to hand the artifacts over later. He stated that he had reported significant paleontological
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
finds to the Nevada State Museum
Nevada State Museum
Nevada State Museum may refer to:*Nevada State Museum, Carson City*Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas*Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas old facility...
. The museum acknowledged that.
Harelson's defense claimed he was a collector who had bought the Amerindian artifacts and was not involved with dealing them. The defense tried to have charges dismissed on the grounds that the statute of limitations
Statute of limitations
A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...
had expired. The prosecutor successfully argued that continued possession of the items constituted continuation of the crime. Harelson was found guilty of abuse of a corpse and possession of state property. He received a fine of $20,000 and spent 30 days in jail.
Harelson lost his insurance agent's licence and began an online business, called Jack's Outback, selling opals and things like petroglyph
Petroglyph
Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
reproductions and artifact display cases. According to a later police report, he also continued to deal in illegal antiquities and solicited excavation of sites in Oregon and Nevada.
On December 6, 2002, a federal administrative law judge in Oregon fined Harelson $2.5 million for destruction of archaeological resources.
Further investigation unearthed two skulls that may have belonged to the two Paiute corpses. Harelson claimed that he had no money and accused the government of turning him into a scapegoat. Behind the scenes, police investigation about his antique dealings continued.
In January 2003, authorities discovered that Harelson intended to kill police sergeant Walt Markee, who had searched Harelson's home, County Judge Loyd O'Neal, who had presided over the 1996 trial, Harelson's ex-wife and two former business partners. An undercover policeman approached Harelson in the role of a hitman
Hitman
A hitman is a person hired to kill another person.- Hitmen in organized crime :Hitmen are largely linked to the world of organized crime. Hitmen are hired people who kill people for money. Notable examples include Murder, Inc., Mafia hitmen and Richard Kuklinski.- Other cases involving hitmen...
willing to carry out the murders for a price. Harelson paid the policeman $10,000 in the form of opals after the policman showed Harelson a fabricated photograph of the corpse of one of the intended murder victims. The transaction was videotaped, and police later arrested Harelson in his home with the help of a SWAT
SWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
team.
In 2004, the State of Oregon
Government of Oregon
The government of the U.S. state of Oregon, as prescribed by the Oregon Constitution, is composed of three government branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial...
charged Harelson with multiple counts of conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
to commit aggravated murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
and illegal possession of a firearm
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
. He was sentenced to jail without bail
Bail
Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
to await sentencing.
Later in 2004, Harelson's bid to overturn the $2.5 million fine failed.
As of October, 2009, Harelson was serving a 10-year prison sentence in the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution
Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution
The Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution is one of 14 state prisons in Oregon, United States. The prison is located in Pendleton, Oregon. The facility was originally built as a hospital for long-term mental patients, but was converted into a prison in 1983...
in Pendleton, Oregon
Pendleton, Oregon
Pendleton is a city in Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. Pendleton was named in 1868 by the county commissioners for George H. Pendleton, Democratic candidate for Vice-President in the 1864 presidential campaign. The population was 16,612 at the 2010 census...
.