Tyrannosaurus Sue-- The Extraordinary Saga of the Largest, Most Fought Over T. Rex Ever Found

by Steve Fiffer

  mass extinction. Iridium, rarely found on earth, is m o r e c o m m o n in

  rocks from outer space. The Alvarezes concluded that an asteroid or

  comet as big as M o u n t Everest had struck earth while traveling 100,000

  miles per hour. The impact, they argued, threw up a dust cloud that

  darkened the sky and caused temperatures to fall so low that most liv-

  ing creatures could not survive.

  Much of the scientific c o m m u n i t y reacted to this theory with skep-

  ticism until a huge crater was found in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Still,

  there exist almost as m a n y theories today as in 1964. Bakker, for exam-

  ple, suggests that dinosaurs died off from disease not a cosmic calamity.

  In The Complete T Rex, H o r n e r not only admits that he doesn't know

  what caused dinosaurs to become extinct, he confesses, "I don't really

  c a r e . . . . I'm interested in how they lived." He adds, "Of course, to figure

  out how (they lived), I need the bones of dead dinosaurs." Like Sue's skull.

  Peter Larson awoke early on May 14, 1992, to finish preparing that

  skull for its trip to Alabama. He had just climbed out of the shower in his

  trailer behind the institute when he heard Lynn Hochstafl, one of the insti-

  tute's preparators, call his name. He looked at the clock. It was 7:30 AM.

  "You'd better get out here, Pete. This place is crawling with FBI

  agents," Hochstafl said.

  5 2 TYRANNOSAURUS S U E

  "Are you kidding?"

  Assured that this was no joke, Larson dressed quickly and hurried

  outside. There he saw several m e n and w o m e n wearing blue jackets

  bearing the large yellow letters "FBI." These agents were surrounding the

  institute with yellow police ribbon, with the warning "SHERIFF'S LINE

  DO N O T CROSS" printed in bold black letters.

  Larson moved inside the building to his office, where he was met by

  several m e m b e r s of his confused a n d terrified staff... and dozens of FBI

  agents and Sheriff's officers. "All told there were approximately 35 law

  enforcement officers, all with guns and sour looks," Larson recalls.

  Park Service Ranger Robins was also present. "What are you doing

  here, Stan?" Larson asked. Robins said he was part of the government's

  investigative team. "You m e a n you were spying on us?" Larson asked.

  His Voice betrayed his astonishment. Robins, w h o has since died, looked

  away, says Larson.

  Two agents, William Asbury a n d Charles Draper, approached

  Larson and h a n d e d h i m a federal search warrant alleging criminal activ-

  ity, including felonies of stealing from government land and from trib-

  al land as well as violations of the Antiquities Act of 1906. U.S. District

  Judge Richard Battey had issued the warrant on the basis of affidavits

  sworn by Asbury and Robins. It d e m a n d e d that the institute surrender

  all the fossil remains of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton (com-

  monly referred to as "Sue") . . . and other fossil specimens . . .

  taken from an excavation site on the property of Maurice

  Williams . . . (and) all papers, diaries, notes, photographs,

  including slides, m e m o r a n d a , tape recordings, videotapes,

  maps, butcher paper, a n d samples or other records relating to

  the excavation of the Tyrannosaurus rex ("Sue") and other fos-

  sil specimens.

  "This can be real easy or real hard depending on whether or not you

  are willing to cooperate," Larson recalls Agent Asbury saying.

  The usually calm Republican paleontologist was not quite ready to

  cooperate. "Shaking, I asked t h e m to indulge me for a few minutes, to

  please close their ears if what I was about to say offended them. I then

  proceeded to read t h e m the Riot Act," he writes in The Rex Files.

  Y O U B E T T E R G E T O U T H E R E , P E T E 5 3

  "How can you come into our place of business and seize o u r p r o p -

  erty without due process?" he fumed. "Don't you k n o w the worst thing

  you could possibly to do Sue is move her? Please leave her where she is.

  I'm a law-abiding citizen. I'll give you whatever guarantees you need,

  but please don't move and damage her." Then he called his lawyer.

  By the time Duffy had arrived from Rapid City, virtually everyone

  in Hill City knew that the FBI had raided the institute and was prepar-

  ing to haul Sue away. A sizable portion of the population in this part of

  the country is naturally suspicious of the federal government. "[Its]

  Gestapo attitude doesn't go d o w n well in a small c o m m u n i t y like this,"

  one citizen told the Journal.

  Beyond this philosophical disdain for federal intervention in the

  lives of its citizens, the residents of Hill City had a pragmatic reason for

  wanting to keep Sue at the institute. T h e T. rex promised to make t h e m

  prosperous by attracting tourists. In the weeks since the formal

  a n n o u n c e m e n t of the Black Hills M u s e u m of Natural History, the town

  was on the verge of enacting a "bed and booze" tax, with part of the sales

  tax increase going to purchase the 10 acres overlooking town where the

  institute proposed to build the m u s e u m .

  Unwilling to see their dreams shattered, the local residents quickly

  mobilized. They first asked area loggers to bring in their logging trucks

  to block the convoy of government vehicles parked outside the institute.

  After deciding that such a confrontation would be dangerous as well as

  futile, they resorted to m o r e traditional forms of protest. Bette Matkins,

  the town's former mayor, hastily scribbled a sign reading, "PLEASE

  LEAVE O U R CITY IMMEDIATELY W I T H O U T SUE." She was joined

  in front of the institute by approximately 50 townsfolk carrying signs

  and shouting the same sentiment. Soon children p o u r e d o u t of the Hill

  City elementary school and ran d o w n Main Street to see what was h a p -

  pening to their beloved Sue. Some of the protesters, young a n d old, were

  crying.

  The FBI ignored the tears and the chants. Duffy arrived to find

  them going through the institute's files. " N o corner was safe from these

  people. We felt violated," says Larson. Several paleontologists and stu-

  dents from Larson's alma mater, the South Dakota School of Mines and

  Technology, were also on hand. Their job: to supervise the safe loading

  of the fossils in question.

  5 4 TYRANNOSAURUS S U E

  Larson and Duffy pleaded with Agent Draper to allow the CAT scan

  of Sue's skull to proceed. NASA, Bakker, and editors from National

  Geographic magazine (which planned to p h o t o g r a p h the scan for an

  u p c o m i n g article on Sue) echoed this plea. They all argued that the raid

  was jeopardizing the safety of one of the most i m p o r t a n t finds in pale-

  ontological history a n d delaying i m p o r t a n t research. "Mr. Draper

  seemed sympathetic to o u r plight and spent a great deal of time on the

  telephone talking to the powers that be in an attempt to allow the CAT

  scanning to take place," remembers Larson.

  The primary "power that be" was U.S. Attorney Schieffer. Technically,

  Schieffer was the "acting" U.S. attorney. He had been sworn in with that


  designation about five m o n t h s earlier in December 1991. The appoint-

  ment by South Dakota's Republican U.S. Senator Larry Pressler had

  surprised m a n y in the legal c o m m u n i t y because Schieffer had no federal

  trial experience. Rather, he had served as a legislative aide to Pressler since

  1982. He h a d attended Georgetown University's law school in

  Washington, D.C., at night and earned his degree in 1987.

  Schieffer had not initiated the investigation of the institute's exca-

  vation of Sue and other fossils. The office he took over had been inves-

  tigating fossil collecting in South Dakota for about a year, says Assistant

  U.S. Attorney Bob Mandel. Mandel, w h o headed and continues to head

  the Rapid City office, says that in the weeks before Schieffer's arrival,

  there had been talk of initiating a sting or sending in an operative to

  expose illegal collections and sales.

  T h e institute had actually come to the attention of federal authori-

  ties in the mid-1980s, thanks to Vincent Santucci, a young graduate stu-

  dent in vertebrate paleontology. In 1985 and 1986, Santucci had worked

  part time as a ranger at Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

  D u r i n g his first days on the job, he was shocked to see people engaged

  in what he calls "shopping behavior"—the taking of fossils from park

  lands. "I thought everyone knew you don't do that," he recalls.

  Eventually, Santucci caught an old-timer w h o freely admitted that

  he had been making a living for 25 years taking fossils and selling them

  to rock shops and collectors and leading fossil hunters on gathering

  expeditions in the park. T h e m a n showed Santucci a scrapbook that

  included sales receipts. T h e Black Hills Institute was a m o n g those pur-

  chasing the illegally obtained fossils, says Santucci.

  Y O U B E T T E R G E T O U T H E R E , P E T E 5 5

  Santucci says the old-timer explained that if he didn't take the bones

  they would erode away and be lost forever. "He told me he was rescuing

  the fossils," says Santucci, w h o is n o w the chief ranger at Fossil Butte, a

  small national m o n u m e n t in southwest Wyoming. Nevertheless, the Park

  Service brought charges against him. He was found guilty and fined $75.

  The paucity of the penalty outraged Santucci. "It was a life-changing

  experience," he says. He vowed to devote his career to the enforcement of

  laws preventing the theft of treasures he considered every bit as impor-

  tant and valuable as archaeological artifacts.

  In 1986 Santucci began looking into the activities of the institute.

  He recorded his suspicions in reports to the park service. W h e n Stan

  Robins began working at Badlands National Park, he read the reports

  and talked to Santucci, w h o had moved on to the Petrified Forest.

  Together, the two rangers tried to devise a plan for exposing the insti-

  tute and others w h o m they felt might be engaged in illegal collecting.

  They believed that an arrest of a collector with a high profile might

  deter others from stealing fossils from public lands. "We wanted to

  demonstrate in a public way that we can't accomplish o u r mission when

  people deliberately take fossils from public lands—when they k n o w

  it's illegal and do it for economic gain. We can't protect the public,

  [if] we don't have legislative or regulatory tools in place," says Santucci.

  Although the U.S. attorney's office won't confirm it, it appears that

  Robins had brought the institute to the attention of the FBI and prose-

  cutors before Sue was unearthed.

  Santucci learned of Sue's discovery before the institute even m a d e

  the find public. He was alerted by a commercial collector w h o had vis-

  ited the institute shortly after the bones were brought back to Hill City.

  Having been unable to build a strong enough case against the Larsons

  to date, Santucci's eyes n o w lit up. Sue was a "charismatic T. rex,"

  explains the ranger. Surely the media, the public, and the fossil-collect-

  ing world would have to take note if a "white m a n had ripped off a

  Native American" by taking such a valuable specimen from Indian

  lands. But were they Indian lands? Santucci called Robins, and the inves-

  tigation was under way.

  Robins served on a state committee looking into fossil collecting, as

  did Larson. So, too, did representatives of Native American reservations

  in South Dakota. Soon after Robins heard about Sue from Santucci, the

  5 6

  TYRANNOSAURUS S U E

  Cheyenne River Sioux tribe lodged its complaint with the U.S. attor-

  ney's office.

  "In my first week as the U.S. attorney, I was asked to look into [that

  complaint]," Schieffer later explained. "I did and just approached it

  from an objective viewpoint and went by the law." That viewpoint led

  h i m to authorize the raid.

  On the night before the raid, Schieffer sent out press releases and

  called a press conference for the m o r n i n g of May 14 in Rapid City. As a

  result, several television film crews came to Hill City as the FBI moved

  t h r o u g h the institute. So, too, did Schieffer, a fit-looking, well-dressed

  m a n in his late thirties with short black hair a n d a neatly t r i m m e d m u s -

  tache. Late in the m o r n i n g , he m e t with the press outside the institute.

  T h e n he headed inside.

  Larson and Duffy again pleaded their case. "Let the specimen stay

  where it is and we'll make any guarantees you d e m a n d . Above all, please

  let the CAT scan proceed as planned," Larson remembers saying. Drue

  Vitter, the newly elected mayor of Hill City, m a d e the same request.

  Schieffer t u r n e d t h e m all down. T h e skull was evidence in a criminal

  investigation at that point, Schieffer explains. "Letting it go (to NASA)

  would have been a nightmare from a chain of custody standpoint."

  "Did you see what I saw?" Duffy asked Larson as they walked away

  from Schieffer.

  "You m e a n the television m a k e u p he [Schieffer] smeared all over his

  face?"

  To Larson this was evidence that Schieffer had an ulterior motive:

  Perhaps he planned to r u n for political office in the future a n d felt that

  this case would give h i m the necessary exposure with the electorate.

  Knowing the television cameras would be at the institute, he must have

  wanted to look his best, Larson reasoned. Schieffer would later admit

  that he was wearing pancake makeup, but he said he had put it on for

  an earlier, unrelated television interview. He dismissed Larson's claim

  that seizure of the fossil was to be his stepping stone to elected office.

  Raiding the institute was so u n p o p u l a r that it could only hurt someone

  with political aspirations, he said.

  He adds that he h a d not even intended to go to the institute on the

  day of the raid. He did so only at the behest of the beleaguered FBI

  agents w h o did not want to deal with the media. "It was them or me," he

  Y O U B E T T E R G E T O U T H E R E , P E T E 5 7

  says. "So I bit the bullet." He suspects that the institute or Duffy wanted

  him there in hopes of creating a spectacle for the press. He add
s that

  when Duffy had first called him to ask if a raid was being planned, "I

  didn't know him from Adam," but others in the office did. "All the old

  hands assumed this was gonna be a media event" when they heard that

  Duffy represented the institute, he says.

  The institute staff, NASA, and the residents of Hill City were not the

  only ones surprised by the government's raid. Cheyenne River Sioux

  chairman Bourland said that he was shocked that the federal government

  had confiscated the bones. "The Cheyenne River Sioux tribe is not the

  enemy. We didn't have anything to do with sending these guys in . . . "

  Bourland and Larson and their respective supporters were just as sur-

  prised by Schieffer's p r o n o u n c e m e n t on the day of the seizure: "The fos-

  sil is property of the United States. Period." Not the property of the insti-

  tute. Nor of the tribe. Nor of Maurice Williams. Schieffer explained that

  shortly after buying the land from a white homesteader in 1969, Williams

  had exercised his right to have the property held in trust for 25 years by

  the U.S. Department of the Interior under the Indian Reorganization

  Act passed in 1934. A m o n g other advantages, the act allowed Native

  Americans to avoid paying taxes on the land they put in trust. Putting

  one's land in trust, as Williams had, limited one's ability to sell the land to

  a non-Indian without the permission of the department. Williams had

  neither sought nor received permission from the department.

  Schieffer did not address the question of whether selling dinosaur

  bones was the equivalent of selling land. In fact, the controlling law he

  cited suggested just the opposite. The federal Antiquities Act of 1906

  prohibited the removal of fossils from any land "owned or controlled"

  by the United States without a permit, he said. This included trust land,

  he continued, adding that the institute did not have a permit. Schieffer

  explained that other federal statutes m a d e it "a crime to steal govern-

  ment property and to take property off Indian lands."

  The invocation of the Antiquities Act raised eyebrows in some legal

  circles. Congress's immediate concern in passing the act had been the

  protection of Native American sites in the Southwest. According to

  Schieffer, the act "effectively reserved to the United States all rights in