It is one of the rides offered in San Juan County at the annual ATV Safari. It is a beautiful trail that skirts the base of Cedar Mesa southwest of Blanding.

Cedar Mesa is an area estimated to have 56,000 archeological sites. It is sacred to the Pueblo peoples including the Ute, Hopi and Navajo tribes. We stopped at several places in John’s Canyon to view art chiseled into the rock long ago. 

Had we not learned about a dark piece of Wild West history that marks John’s Canyon, we might have ridden this trail blissfully ignorant of events in 1935. Knowing the story made a difference in how I will remember this ride.

The story begins in Hugo, Oklahoma, with Dillard Garrett, a homeless man, and his 13-year-old daughter Lucile. Lucy lost her mother at the age of 4 and after enduring several foster homes wound up with her father, Dillard Garrett. His situation was not unlike thousands of men rendered jobless by the Depression and the Dust Bowl; he was a gambler and a drifter.

Lynn Blamires, Special to the Standard-Examiner

Clint Palmer was a psychopath and a pedophile. He had just been released from the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, when he came across the pair camped by the side of the road. Palmer was charmed by the girl and determined to seduce her. He convinced them to go with him to Texas.

Palmer decapitated Garrett with an axe after they arrived in Texas, kidnapped his daughter and headed back to Utah. There, Clint became Jimmy, and his now 14-year-old child bride became Lottie or Johnnie Rae. Lottie developed positive feelings toward her captor over time using a coping mechanism known as the Stockholm Syndrome.

Palmer became a sheep herder after murdering two locals who managed 1,500 head of sheep for the trading post in Monument Valley. He found water and the best grazing in John’s Canyon and moved the sheep to feed there.

This was a long-time winter range for the cattle that belonged to brothers William and Harrison Oliver, who didn’t take kindly to this invasion of their range. Despite their frequent clashes, Bill took pity on Lottie and allowed them to move into an old company shack by The Seep – the water source for the canyon.

By now Lottie was pregnant. Complications in the pregnancy put her in Monticello under the care of a midwife. A boy was born prematurely and died seven days later. Palmer took Lottie back to the canyon to a crude dugout he had built in her absence.

Lynn Blamires, Special to the Standard-Examiner

As they entered the canyon, they met Bill Oliver, who was evicting Palmer’s sheep. Tempers flared. Bill lashed out with a rope and Palmer shot him dead. He used Bill’s horse and a rope to drag his body to a cliff, shoving it into the San Juan River Gorge.

Later he found Bill’s grandson, Norse Shumway, at his camp by The Seep. He chopped off his head after shooting him and threw him over the same cliff.

There is a rock monument beside the road marking that spot. We passed it on our ride to the dugout by The Seep where we stopped for lunch.

Palmer took Lottie and ran for Texas, knowing his deeds would soon be discovered. En route to Texas, Jimmy couldn’t help picking up three young girl hitchhikers. He dropped two in Bowie but still had Helen Smith when he reached home.

Texas was waiting for them. The skeleton of Lottie’s father had been found. Missing a head, homicide was suspected. When he realized he was a wanted man, he left for Oklahoma on back roads only to have his car drown out in a water crossing. He was captured the next morning.

He admitted to the Utah murders but denied any part in Garrett’s death. In a spectacular trial, Lottie was the star witness who recounted her ordeal with Palmer and identified the skeleton by a crooked finger she knew her father had.

Palmer was sentenced to 99 years. He denied parole when offered knowing that Utah had the death penalty. Lottie’s story has a happy ending. She got married and had a family.

When you go, take plenty of water and keep the rubber side down. This happened long ago, but it is a sample of what made the West, the Wild West.