Looking back: FBI agents shoot, kill man who kidnapped local sheriff

IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 in east Idaho history.

1900-1925

BLACKFOOT — A dog helped find a four-year-old girl who fell 36-feet down an old abandoned well, The Bingham County News reported on Nov. 2, 1911.

The well was located at 409 South Shilling Avenue in Blackfoot. Two houses were also on the property. One home was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Karl P. Brown and the other by Mr. and Mrs. Joe King.

For over a year, the occupants of both houses thought the well was filled up to within about five feet of the surface but they learned that was not the case.

The Kings’ four-year-old daughter, Virginia, was playing in the yard when she suddenly disappeared. At some point, Mrs. King noticed her daughter was missing and began searching for her but no signs of Virginia were found.

Mrs. King then noticed the “peculiar actions of a brindle bull dog.” The dog belonged to the Brown’s but was described as a “constant companion” to Virginia.

The dog was running to and from the well and would look down inside it. Mrs. King went to that part of the yard where the well was and found that instead of a shallow hole there was a deep cave. The mother could hear someone crying so she yelled down and Virginia answered.

“Panic-stricken, the mother rushed to the telephone and called Mr. King, who is a field man for the telephone company,” the article reads. “Other men in the neighborhood were summoned and soon a crowd gathered, but it took the forethought of the father to solve the problem of getting the child from the well, without endangering her life by falling earth and debris.”

Long planks were laid across the top of the well and a rope was secured. Mr. King then walked out on the plank and lowered the rope — which had a loop on one end — down to Virginia. He told her to put the rope over her shoulders and hold on.

“The little girl had fallen into about two feet of water, but had waded around until she had discovered a stone, upon which she climbed, holding onto the wooden well curbing,” the article mentioned.

1951-1975

SALMON — Federal Bureau of Investigation agents shot and killed an “elusive gunman” who had been the center of an intense search through four states for more than a week, the Idaho Falls Post Register reported on Oct. 27, 1965.

The FBI said the gunman was shot down in forested country about five miles north of Gibbonsville in Lemhi County. FBI agent William Sullivan said the man was identified as Paul Ballard, an alias. He said the man’s fingerprints would determine his true identity.

The man was believed to be responsible for a “gun battle” with Nevada Highway Patrol officers near Wells, Nevada, as well as two robberies in Idaho and the kidnapping of a Nevada rancher and Lemhi County Sheriff William Baker, of Salmon.

Sullivan said the shooting happened about five miles from where Baker escaped from the gunman last Thursday. Baker had been forced to drive the gunman to Darby, Montana and back. The sheriff escaped by jumping out of his moving car in the Gibbonsville area.

Over that weekend, the manhunt then shifted to Montana when a man matching the description of the gunman was reported. But the hunt began again in Idaho Monday afternoon after a rancher living near Gibbonsville said a person who looked like the wanted man tried to get into his house.

The rancher, identified as Pearl MacMackin, said the man then fled into a canyon near the ranch, apparently headed in the direction of the Idaho-Montana border.

On Oct. 26, 1965, a fire was spotted in the Twin Creeks Campground area, north of Gibbonsville, so FBI agents and a U.S. Forest Service man went to check it out. That’s when the fugitive was spotted in the rocks and started shooting at the FBI agents.

The FBI agents returned fire and killed the man. Baker said the man was shot in the stomach. It wasn’t clear at the time of publication how many FBI agents were involved in the shooting.

Along with FBI agents, state police from Idaho Falls and Pocatello were also called in to assist with the search.

Mr. King had to swing the rope several times before Virginia was able to catch it. She finally got it, put the loop around her body, held tight with her little hands, and told her dad she was ready.

He pulled her safely to the top and it was discovered that “little injury was done” to her. The rope which was used measured 36 feet, not including the loop at the end of it.

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