Delia D'Ambra

When he was taken into custody, investigators found a .22 caliber handgun and a rifle with him.

They also noticed that the clothing he was wearing was quite dirty.

In addition to arresting Claude, authorities also arrested a 35-year-old man who owned the trailer he'd been staying in and charged that guy with harboring a fugitive.

According to coverage by the Idaho Statesman, the two men had known one another several years before the murders, which I think just goes to show the significance of the point I made earlier, which is that there were some diehard Claude sympathizers in that part of Idaho and Nevada who were willing to aid him, even though they knew he was wanted for two murders.

After being treated at a local hospital for his gunshot wound, Claude was transported to jails in Reno and Sparks, Nevada to await his arraignment in federal court.

During his time on the run, he'd used the alias Jack James Chappell and had actually managed to hold a job at a farm equipment manufacturer in January, February, and March of 1981, which was right after the murders happened.

After leaving that job due to an altercation with a coworker, he disappeared.

The sheriff of Owyhee County told the Idaho statesman that he suspected Claude had likely spent several months traveling all around the country.

But then in the fall of 1981, had made his way back to the Idaho-Nevada border because that's the area that Claude knew best and had the most supporters.

When law enforcement searched the trailer the trapper had been hiding out in, they seized a bunch of ammunition, traps for animals, gun holsters, a shotgun, two rifles, and five handguns, as well as a bunch of other personal items they believed belonged to Claude.

There were also 10 other guns in the dwelling, but those were tied to the owner.

Interestingly, among the firearms suspected of being Claude's, there was a .357 Magnum, a .22 caliber rifle, and a .22 caliber handgun, which were all the same calibers as the murder weapons.

Within days of apprehending Claude and going through all this evidence, the charges for harboring a fugitive were dismissed for the guy who owned the trailer.

I know, big eye roll there.

But I presume since Claude was the big fish that authorities were focused on, nabbing the other man who assisted him just wasn't a huge priority at the time.

Anyway, by May 9th, Claude was in custody at the Canyon County Jail awaiting a preliminary hearing, and reporters had done a lot of digging into his background, which, like it or not, was pretty interesting.

He'd grown up in Ohio but moved around in his youth.

One of his former high school teachers and a classmate described him as a kind of shy, unmemorable, unassuming boy who was really into the outdoors and very interested in moving to the western part of the country one day.

Not long after he'd arrived in Idaho, the government came calling when the Vietnam War draft started.

According to reporting by Charles Ettlinger, Claude dodged the draft and was indicted by a federal grand jury in the summer of 1973.