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NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Murder
Continued from Page A1
camera in one of the recordings,
and a bag of chips blocked the
view in another.
Without the confession,
Carpenter said in the release
the state had only “limited cir-
cumstantial evidence that does
not prove beyond a reasonable
doubt” the Connerys murdered
the Smiths.
“Rather than push forward
and risk jeopardy attaching, the
State will dismiss the murder
and arson cases without preju-
dice,” Carpenter said. “Investi-
gation of the case will continue
and possibly other evidence will
come to light that will allow the
State to proceed.”
The crime
Isaac Connery admitted
in an interview that he took a
handgun from Terry Smith and
shot him during an altercation
at the Smith residence and then
shot Sharon Smith, according
to Carpenter’s release.
“He used gasoline to start
the Smith residence on fire,
then took the (Smiths’) pickup
and left,” Carpenter said. “He
drove to the Boise area where
he parked the pickup, removed
the plates and rejoined his fam-
ily on their travels.”
Carpenter said Isaac Con-
nery later disassembled the gun
and put it in the trash.
The fire totally destroyed
the home, but former Sheriff
Glenn Palmer later discovered
the remains of two people at
the site, Carpenter said.
“Death certificates were
issued for Terry Smith, based
on DNA analysis of human
remains, and Sharon Smith,
based on her disappearance
and the second set of human
remains,” he said. “Sha-
ron Smith’s remains were
burnt so thoroughly no DNA
remained.”
Carpenter said the Con-
nerys “almost immediately”
became suspects.
The Oregon State Police,
Grant County Sheriff’s Office
and Federal Bureau of Investi-
gation jointly investigated.
The interview
Mobley said he and FBI
Special Agent Ben Jones first
interviewed the Connerys in
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Arizona in July 2019, and they
invoked their right to remain
silent.
Isaac Connery was indicted
June 23, 2020, for unlawful use
of a motor vehicle, and a nation-
wide warrant was issued for his
arrest, according to a previous
release from Carpenter.
Mobley, Jones and Grant
County Sgt. Danny Komning
traveled to Albuquerque, New
Mexico, in July 2020 to inter-
view Isaac Connery after he
was arrested.
Judge Vitolins said in the
Feb. 10 hearing, after reviewing
the interview tapes, that Mob-
ley read Miranda rights to Isaac
Connery quickly and did not
ask if he understood those rights
before immediately beginning
questioning. Several minutes
into the interview Isaac Con-
nery requested a lawyer.
On the stand, Mobley said
he is required to stop question-
ing a suspect if they request
a lawyer but is not required to
stop talking to them.
Instead of stopping the inter-
view, Mobley said he told Isaac
Connery how he planned to
proceed, by arresting two of his
siblings and a family friend in
connection to the murders.
“I believed I had probable
cause for the arrests of them,”
Mobley said on the stand.
Mobley said he then told
Isaac Connery during the inter-
view that Oregon was a death
penalty state, which he said he
believed was accurate at the
time.
Mobley said Isaac Connery
Restoration
IT’S JUST A
BAD TIME TO
BE A MULE
DEER IN THE
WEST. PRETTY
MUCH ALL
POPULATIONS
ARE GOING
DOWN, AND NO
ONE HAS FOUND
THAT SILVER
BULLET CURE
TO CHANGE THE
TRAJECTORY.”
Continued from Page A1
Forest partners
Brown said the collaborative’s
focus is on finding common ground
and using the best available science
to plan projects to avoid litigation.
Before joining the collaborative, she
was an environmental attorney who
successfully sued to stop projects on
the Malheur National Forest.
Blue Mountains Forest Part-
ners Executive Director Mark Webb
said, by the collaborative’s forming
in 2006, environmental lawsuits had
reduced logging from over 100 mil-
lion board feet annually to just 10
million. He said, however, the envi-
ronmentalists were beginning to see
that entirely halting projects through
litigation led to forests becoming
clogged with dense undergrowth and
dead trees, which are more prone to
fire.
Pam Hardy, an attorney with West-
ern Environmental Law Center who
works with collaboratives in the
Blue Mountains and Central Oregon,
said although litigation is sometimes
necessary, it often brings disruptive
changes and creates hardships.
When the law center works with
a community, she said the goal is to
come to an agreement each stake-
holder can stand behind.
“A durable agreement,” she said.
“That is the kind of thing that every-
body’s going to really go out and
implement with good faith.”
By building trust among the mem-
bers over many meetings, and endeav-
oring to understand the other parties’
concerns, there are opportunities to
build successful relationships, even
among former adversaries.
Following the science
James Johnston, involved with the
BMFP since 2006, said people want
and expect a lot of different things
from their forests. He said most peo-
ple agree they want wildlife habitat,
old growth trees, recreation opportu-
nities and clean water
Hardy said what has worked so
well with BMFP has been promi-
nent scientists who studied ecosys-
tem dynamics and who were willing
to change their position based on the
science — whether it was what they
thought they were going to get or not.
Brown said the BMFP has brought
in scientists from the University of
Washington and Oregon State Univer-
sity, and they have worked with the
Forest Service’s research branch and
implemented scientific experiments
and applied research.
Johnston, one of those scientists
then told him he would talk but
only if Jones and Komning left
the room. He said the others left,
and Isaac Connery confessed.
Isaac Connery’s attorney,
Geoffrey Gokey, said Mobley
used “deceptive police tactics.”
Carpenter said in his release
that Oregon’s law regarding
Miranda rights is clear, and he
expected the court to rule as it
did.
“We have to deal with the
facts as they exist, not as we
would like them to be,” Car-
penter said. “Connery had the
right to be advised of his rights
in a way that he understood,
and the right to have an attor-
ney present when he requested
one. The police must recog-
nize those rights and proceed
accordingly.”
—Ryan Platt, Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife assistant
district wildlife biologist
Getty Images
Local collaborative leaders say the 21-inch rule for central and Eastern Oregon forests long outlived its usefulness and had
unforeseen implications on the forests’ long-term health.
from OSU, is a fire ecologist. He said
his recent research gauges to what
degree the forest can be restored to its
historical structure and composition
under various diameter caps, includ-
ing the 21-inch rule.
He said what he and his team found
is that, historically, all forest types on
the Malheur National Forest frequently
burned every 10 to 15 years. He said
the data shows the forest has dramat-
ically changed and that there are more
younger trees larger than 21 inches on
the landscape now than there were 100
to 150 years ago.
“We’re moving into a drier and
more fiery future,” he said. “And we’re
not going to build and maintain a for-
est full of young grand fir” which can
grow larger than 21 inches younger
than other species.
He said scientists know that old
growth trees, by definition, last longer
and are more tolerant to fire.
“These are the survivors. To put it in
insurance terms, they are a good risk,”
he said. “Just like a middle-aged fam-
ily person is a better insurance risk than
the teenager overgrown trees.”
He said, however, in unmanaged,
roadless areas of the Malheur, 28% of
old growth trees are dying.
“I’m still digesting the precise
implications of it myself,” he said. “It’s
a pretty shocking rate of mortality.”
Carbon storage
Johnston said the argument against
rolling back the 21-inch rule because
large trees are efficient in capturing or
sequestering carbon is wrongheaded.
He said the research he and other
researchers have done suggests that
large, old ponderosa pine stores car-
bon for an exceedingly long time
frame.
On the other hand, Johnston said
young grand fir trees store carbon for
a shorter time because they rot and
release carbon, and they die.
“It’s just not a very long-lived tree
compared to ponderosa pine or west-
ern larch,” he said.
He said multiple studies show that
the way to achieve more carbon stor-
age is through “judicious use of thin-
ning and fire.”
Johnston said the planet is warm-
ing because of burning fossil fuel.
“For folks that are concerned about
the climate crisis, and they should be,
they don’t need to worry about log-
ging grand fir in Eastern Oregon,” he
said.
‘Work on the ground’
Webb said people opposing the
end of the 21-inch rule are no differ-
ent from climate deniers, who deny
that climate change is occurring, in
that they are ignoring overwhelming
science because of an ideological bias.
He said because the revision came
from someone appointed by former
President Donald Trump, to them,
it seems as if it must be wrong and
misguided.
“I’m not saying they’re con-
sciously aware that they think that,”
he said. “But they’re acting as if they
are relying on science, but they’re not
because the science goes in a different
direction.”
He said what the revision to the
Eastside Screens means is that the for-
est needs a different approach to land-
scape management.
“To the extent that environmen-
tal organizations are against that rule,
either they don’t understand what the
landscape needs, or they’re opposed
to going that direction out of a prin-
ciple opposition to active manage-
ment,” Webb said.
He said another reason conserva-
tionists are opposed to the amendment
is that it takes away a group’s ability
to litigate based on the 21-inch rule.
“It’s very convenient for litiga-
tion,” Webb said.
For her part, Brown said she
expects this decision to be challenged
in court because it was so unpopular
with the conservationists.
But she said she thought the For-
est Service’s environmental analysis
was solid.
“Is it perfect? No. Is it how I would
have written it. No,” she said.
But, according to Brown, the
agency did a good enough job to
where it can defend the decision if it
is challenged in court.
“Hopefully, that means we can
focus on doing what we need to do,”
she said, “which is the work on the
ground.”
Deer
Continued from Page A1
Platt said they are not
sure how the epizootic hem-
orrhagic disease harms does,
but they have suspicions that
it could impact their fawn
productivity or survival.
Prior to 2015, he said
there were about 60 fawns
per 100 does going into win-
ter with about 30-40 fawns
coming out of the season.
Since 2015, there have been
about 40 fawns per 100 does
in the winter, coming out
with 25-35 fawns after the
season.
“That right there indicates
that we don’t have the fawn
recruitment that we need to
sustain a growing population
locally,” Platt said. “Those
are probably the two biggest
impacts of our mule deer
population locally. It’s just
a bad time to be a mule deer
in the West. Pretty much all
populations are going down,
and no one has found that sil-
ver bullet cure to change the
trajectory.”
Platt said the survey
encompasses the East Ore-
gon Winter Range, and they
will work with their counter-
parts in Heppner to complete
the job.
“What the local peo-
ple will see here is us flying
from Izee all the way to Rit-
ter,” Platt said.
GOT INVASIVE ANNUAL GRASSES?
Grant SWCD Weed Control Dept. • Working for You in 2021
Thanks to the Grant County Court and Northeast Oregon Forests Resource Advisory Committee, Grant
Weed Control is able to offer a 25% cost share program for invasive annual grass control on private graz-
ing lands, through a Title II funded Grant Project. This program will provide a maximum $10,000 of invasive annual grass
control services with a $2,500 maximum landowner contribution to qualifying participants. To be eligible for participation,
the treatment property must not be actively irrigated and must be primarily managed for livestock grazing, minimum of
20 acres in size, located within Grant County, and must contain invasive annual grass species. Applications for this limited
weed control assistance opportunity will be ranked and funded on a first-come, first-served basis.
Contact: Grant Soil and Water Conservation District Office at
(541) 575-1554 or visit 721 S. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845
for applications and additional information.
The application deadline for this program is March 12th, 2021.
S230993-1