The Strange Story of Jack Harelson

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Outside Magazine October 2004

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The Killing Bones (cont.)


	Undercover Brother: informant Brian Doland, with his appearance disguised (James Fee)

The Informant
WALT MARKEE OFTEN THOUGHT about the Harelson case over the next six years, passing time on stakeouts wondering what had become of the skulls. Unsolved cases nag at plenty of cops, but few get a second chance to crack them. Markee got his in 2002, thanks to an ex-con in his mid-forties named Brian Doland.

Like Jack Harelson, Doland was a working-class Grants Pass boy, and he'd always been a magnet for trouble. When he was 12, Doland got the shock of his life when two human heads—sans bodies—popped up next to him while he was splashing in a local swimming hole. (Police later traced the incident to a double homicide.) As a young man, Doland tried to make a career out of crime. He grew pot, passed bad checks, did odd jobs for shady men. After a string of arrests, the cops gave Doland a choice: Do hard time or go to work for them.

After that, Doland, who could pass for a Hell's Angel, had led police to more than 15 meth labs and assisted in the arrest of nearly 60 drug producers and dealers. "I don't know why," Doland told me, "but I can sniff out a lab in any town you put me to."

I interviewed Doland at length in the summer of 2003, and he replayed in detail his version of the events that entwined him in the Harelson case. In early summer 2002, an acquaintance gave Brian Doland some arrowheads. Doland figured he might sell them for some quick cash. A friend in Grants Pass knew just the man to see.

By 2002 Jack Harelson had done the time for his conviction. Originally sentenced to 90 days in jail, Harelson had served just 30 in 1996. Soon after, an appeals court ruled that the statute of limitations had run out on the corpse-abuse charge. But while Harelson had dodged criminal ARPA charges, the civil penalties were still pending. Shortly after his trial, BLM officials charged Harelson with a $2.5 million fine—the highest civil claim for an individual ever attached to an ARPA case.

"We felt the American public deserved some restitution for the destruction of the site," said Pat Barker, the BLM archaeologist in Nevada. It was Barker who came up with the $2.5 million figure, an estimate combining the archaeological value of the cave ($1.75 million) and the cost of restoration and repair ($750,000).

Harelson was confident he could appeal and ultimately overturn the fine. "I was sure I was going to get acquitted, as I hadn't done anything wrong except not having a permit," he stated in a court filing contesting the BLM fine. Nor did his ongoing legal troubles dampen Harelson's interest in artifacts. A few years after getting out of jail, he launched JacksOutback.com, a Web site where he sold arrowheads, opals, and replica Southwestern rock art.

Doland says his arrowheads didn't interest Harelson, since most were too chipped for the discriminating collectors who shopped his Web site. Then Doland mentioned that he owned a backhoe, and he knew how to use it. "That's the way to do it," Harelson told him, sizing up the potential of his new acquaintance. "With a backhoe."

When Doland, who was working on an unrelated drug case for the BLM at the time, mentioned Harelson to his BLM handler, the agent was incredulous.

"Do you have any idea who that guy is?" the agent said.

Over the next few weeks, Markee, the BLM, and Doland hatched a plan. Doland cultivated a relationship with Harelson to draw out the location of the skulls, often duct-taping a recorder and microphone to his beer-keg belly.

Harelson broke the new guy in slowly. He pointed Doland to an old Indian burial site east of Grants Pass. Harelson may have learned some lessons from his brush with the law, but archaeological propriety didn't seem to be one of them: "Shove the trees off to the side and scoop it up," Harelson allegedly told Doland. "Turn that place into a parking lot."

Since Doland couldn't legally dig the site, he says he made up excuses: His backhoe broke down; he had to wait for a part to come in. Then the timing wasn't right; there were complications with the site. "Are there any other good places to go?" Doland asked Harelson.

That's when Harelson told him about a cave in the Black Rock Desert.

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