Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:02:27,439 --> 00:02:30,316
You go out in the field
and you look up in the sky
2
00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:31,651
and you see the stars,
3
00:02:31,735 --> 00:02:35,571
and some of that light
that's coming down to your eye
4
00:02:35,656 --> 00:02:38,574
has been traveling
for millions of years.
5
00:02:39,034 --> 00:02:41,077
So you look up
and you're looking at the past,
6
00:02:41,245 --> 00:02:43,246
and then you look down,
7
00:02:43,497 --> 00:02:45,289
and you're looking at the past.
8
00:02:46,333 --> 00:02:49,669
You know, those dinosaur bones
are millions of years old,
9
00:02:50,045 --> 00:02:52,588
and that light left there, maybe at
the same time that you're looking.
10
00:02:52,673 --> 00:02:55,341
It's just you're kind of
sandwiched in that world,
11
00:02:55,425 --> 00:02:58,928
and it's really... Really a wonderful
place being out in a field.
12
00:03:09,273 --> 00:03:11,482
It was a brilliant story,
13
00:03:11,567 --> 00:03:15,611
I mean, if you didn't have to live it
like the Larsons did.
14
00:03:20,951 --> 00:03:22,326
It's a good American tale.
15
00:03:22,411 --> 00:03:28,457
Unfortunately, it had a bad ending for a
couple of real brilliant paleontologists.
16
00:04:14,004 --> 00:04:16,339
What does that white line mean, Susan?
17
00:04:25,641 --> 00:04:30,186
We'd been digging at the
Ruth Mason Quarry since 1979.
18
00:04:31,063 --> 00:04:35,441
The 1990 season,
I think we were into the third month.
19
00:04:39,196 --> 00:04:40,947
We'd been working north...
20
00:04:41,031 --> 00:04:43,240
Actually not working
at the quarry itself anymore.
21
00:04:43,325 --> 00:04:45,868
We were actually prospecting
and looking for fossils.
22
00:04:45,953 --> 00:04:47,662
We were looking for fossils
on Sharky Williams'
23
00:04:47,746 --> 00:04:51,290
and his brother Maurice Williams' ranch,
24
00:04:51,375 --> 00:04:53,417
and finding some pretty cool stuff.
25
00:04:53,543 --> 00:04:57,797
And we get up on August 12th, look
outside the tent, and it's foggy.
26
00:04:57,881 --> 00:05:01,050
It's kind of a weird thing
to have fog on the prairie.
27
00:05:01,134 --> 00:05:03,302
So we got a little bit later start.
28
00:05:03,387 --> 00:05:05,888
We weren't in any big hurry
because you couldn't see very well,
29
00:05:05,973 --> 00:05:09,266
and then went out to
start loading up the Suburban.
30
00:05:09,393 --> 00:05:11,811
We have a 1975 Suburban,
all rusted out.
31
00:05:12,062 --> 00:05:15,982
And I look and the tire's flat.
32
00:05:16,066 --> 00:05:19,610
So I say, "Oh, crap." Well, almost flat.
Still had a little bit of air in it.
33
00:05:19,736 --> 00:05:23,906
So I go in the back
to get the spare tire,
34
00:05:23,991 --> 00:05:25,950
and the spare tire's flat.
35
00:05:26,034 --> 00:05:28,494
So I pull out the tire pump,
36
00:05:28,704 --> 00:05:31,080
and the tire pump hose is broken.
37
00:05:31,248 --> 00:05:33,666
So we figure,
"I guess we better...
38
00:05:33,750 --> 00:05:35,001
"We better head into town
39
00:05:35,085 --> 00:05:36,961
"while we still have enough
air in the tire to get there."
40
00:05:37,087 --> 00:05:38,713
We decided,
"Well, we're gonna have to go to town."
41
00:05:38,797 --> 00:05:40,840
You know, I'd been out there
for four or five weeks.
42
00:05:40,924 --> 00:05:44,510
Going to town, that's okay. I can take
it easy for half an hour, an hour.
43
00:05:44,594 --> 00:05:47,221
That's fine with me,
but, of course, Susan...
44
00:05:48,098 --> 00:05:52,101
Susan just can't handle that.
You know, that's a waste of time, right?
45
00:05:52,352 --> 00:05:54,353
There was the flat tire. I said, "Great.
46
00:05:54,438 --> 00:05:58,315
"You guys go to town. You don't need me.
I've got this place I want to look at."
47
00:05:59,443 --> 00:06:02,695
Out there, you need landmarks
to find your way around.
48
00:06:02,863 --> 00:06:07,116
And I said, "Okay, it's foggy. You can't
see. Make sure you don't walk in a circle."
49
00:06:07,576 --> 00:06:09,952
And two hours later,
I was right back where I started,
50
00:06:10,287 --> 00:06:11,954
and I could not believe it.
51
00:06:12,039 --> 00:06:15,416
I just couldn't believe it 'cause I was,
like, trying so hard to walk straight.
52
00:06:15,500 --> 00:06:16,667
It was like...
53
00:06:16,752 --> 00:06:18,210
I felt really stupid.
54
00:06:20,213 --> 00:06:22,798
I believe it was the next day when
we went back with the video camera
55
00:06:22,883 --> 00:06:26,802
and just kind of reenacted,
you know, how I found her.
56
00:06:28,138 --> 00:06:30,222
Anybody who had any idea
57
00:06:30,307 --> 00:06:33,559
of what a fossil versus a rock was
would have seen it
58
00:06:33,643 --> 00:06:36,896
'cause there was
a lot of broken bones dribbling down.
59
00:06:37,064 --> 00:06:41,150
About eight foot up the side of the cliff,
there were three articulated vertebrae
60
00:06:41,276 --> 00:06:43,486
and a couple of other pieces
of bone sticking out.
61
00:06:43,612 --> 00:06:46,530
From the debris pile, I picked up scraps
62
00:06:47,157 --> 00:06:49,366
that showed the hollowness
and took it with,
63
00:06:49,576 --> 00:06:51,911
'cause I knew if I went back
to where they were working,
64
00:06:51,995 --> 00:06:53,996
they wouldn't believe me.
65
00:06:54,331 --> 00:06:57,458
We got back after fixing the tire
and we were at the dig site.
66
00:06:57,542 --> 00:07:01,170
We were just finishing up doing stuff,
and Susan comes up.
67
00:07:01,379 --> 00:07:03,255
And she opens her hand,
68
00:07:03,340 --> 00:07:07,343
and she's got
two pretty small pieces of bone,
69
00:07:07,427 --> 00:07:09,553
only about this big, in her hand.
70
00:07:09,805 --> 00:07:12,932
And I'd never seen the inside
of a T-Rex vertebra before,
71
00:07:13,016 --> 00:07:16,268
but I knew exactly that was
what she had in her hand,
72
00:07:16,353 --> 00:07:19,522
and I says, "Is there more of it?"
She said, "There's a lot more."
73
00:07:19,606 --> 00:07:21,899
So we ran, literally
ran back to the site.
74
00:07:32,035 --> 00:07:35,704
I crawl up on the cliff face
and I see three articulated vertebrae,
75
00:07:36,081 --> 00:07:37,414
and from that point on,
76
00:07:37,499 --> 00:07:41,418
I'm absolutely certain this is gonna be
the best thing we ever found
77
00:07:41,503 --> 00:07:43,170
and it's gonna be a complete T-Rex.
78
00:07:43,380 --> 00:07:45,005
He called up and said,
79
00:07:45,090 --> 00:07:48,384
"Neal, I need you to bring
a lot of plaster two-by-fours."
80
00:07:49,010 --> 00:07:50,594
Well, it took me a day
to get everything ready,
81
00:07:50,679 --> 00:07:52,972
and I came up, and I got up
there with all these materials,
82
00:07:53,056 --> 00:07:55,975
and he took me over to this big cliff,
83
00:07:56,059 --> 00:07:58,018
and he said, "Take a look."
84
00:07:58,145 --> 00:07:59,478
And I looked at it, and I looked at him.
85
00:07:59,563 --> 00:08:02,940
I said, "Is that T-Rex?"
He said, "Yes,
86
00:08:03,233 --> 00:08:05,484
"and I think it's all here."
87
00:08:10,407 --> 00:08:12,867
And we haven't started digging
or haven't moved anything around yet.
88
00:08:12,951 --> 00:08:15,494
We've just been looking at it
and taking some pictures
89
00:08:15,579 --> 00:08:17,705
and trying to figure out how to proceed.
90
00:08:17,789 --> 00:08:20,958
There's a real mass of bones here.
Some are caught up in concretion,
91
00:08:21,084 --> 00:08:24,128
but most appear to be
really excellently preserved.
92
00:08:24,546 --> 00:08:28,924
And I believe that the tail's going that
way and the skull is going this way,
93
00:08:30,051 --> 00:08:32,219
but we're just gonna
have to dig it up and see.
94
00:08:32,929 --> 00:08:35,556
Collecting fossils is
something that's very timely.
95
00:08:35,640 --> 00:08:38,684
Fossils are discovered
because they're weathering out,
96
00:08:38,768 --> 00:08:40,936
because the forces of nature,
97
00:08:41,021 --> 00:08:45,024
rain, winds, freezing,
thawing, even snowfall,
98
00:08:45,108 --> 00:08:46,609
have an effect on that fossil.
99
00:08:46,693 --> 00:08:50,571
Every day that it's outside
is a day that it's going to destruction.
100
00:08:53,909 --> 00:08:58,162
We started by picking up all these
thousands of fragments of bones
101
00:08:58,246 --> 00:09:00,623
and bagging them and labeling them.
102
00:09:02,667 --> 00:09:05,669
Well, the plan of attack is to
protect the specimen, first of all,
103
00:09:05,754 --> 00:09:08,672
and then you go above the specimen
and dig down to it,
104
00:09:08,798 --> 00:09:12,927
so that you can get all the way
around it to remove it from the cliff.
105
00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:22,770
We basically used these ditch-digging
tools, picks and shovels,
106
00:09:22,854 --> 00:09:24,438
to dig down that 30 feet
107
00:09:24,522 --> 00:09:28,984
from where I thought
we could get back into the cliff face
108
00:09:29,152 --> 00:09:33,197
far enough to uncover what I thought
would be the limits of that skeleton.
109
00:09:36,993 --> 00:09:39,828
Probably the hardest work
I've ever had to do in my life.
110
00:09:39,913 --> 00:09:45,376
We were doing this all in temperatures
around 115 degrees every day.
111
00:09:49,297 --> 00:09:50,422
It was very hard work
112
00:09:50,507 --> 00:09:54,969
but it was very easy
to put in a lot of energy into it
113
00:09:55,053 --> 00:09:58,514
because we all wanted to see what
the skeleton was going to look like.
114
00:10:00,809 --> 00:10:04,311
Basically, we'd take different sections,
So we weren't in each other's way,
115
00:10:04,396 --> 00:10:08,524
and just kind of worked the specimen
until we could start removing bones.
116
00:10:11,695 --> 00:10:14,280
You know, and every time somebody
found a bone or a fragment,
117
00:10:14,364 --> 00:10:15,656
they just said,
"The 'S' bone."
118
00:10:15,740 --> 00:10:18,200
We wouldn't say, "Skull."
We didn't want to jinx it.
119
00:10:20,120 --> 00:10:21,787
Pretty early on,
120
00:10:21,871 --> 00:10:25,165
I hit something hard, and so I stopped.
121
00:10:28,003 --> 00:10:30,045
"It's the 'S' word," I said,
122
00:10:30,422 --> 00:10:32,172
thinking, "I bet I hit the skull."
123
00:10:40,390 --> 00:10:41,640
When I got down digging,
124
00:10:41,725 --> 00:10:44,351
and then started really
working with the smaller knife,
125
00:10:44,436 --> 00:10:46,353
we found, as we were going down,
126
00:10:46,438 --> 00:10:47,896
is the back of the skull.
127
00:10:50,317 --> 00:10:53,944
And we're getting down
and here's this skull taking shape,
128
00:10:54,029 --> 00:10:55,529
and we get out on the side,
129
00:10:55,613 --> 00:10:57,990
and I put Terry to work
on cleaning the side of the skull
130
00:10:58,074 --> 00:11:00,784
'cause he's really our best preparator.
131
00:11:01,703 --> 00:11:05,414
Pete let me work on part of the skull
in the field, which was amazing.
132
00:11:08,251 --> 00:11:12,254
He's working and uncovering
the teeth one by one by one.
133
00:11:15,467 --> 00:11:17,843
It was spectacular.
134
00:11:17,927 --> 00:11:22,431
Teeth like this
just sticking right out of the skull.
135
00:11:22,599 --> 00:11:26,060
We're going, "Oh, my God.
Look at this thing. Look how huge it is.
136
00:11:26,144 --> 00:11:28,187
"This has gotta be bigger than the one
at the American Museum.
137
00:11:28,271 --> 00:11:30,189
"It's huge. It's wonderful."
138
00:11:41,034 --> 00:11:44,828
We had started a long time ago
naming particular dinosaurs,
139
00:11:44,913 --> 00:11:49,041
and the name Sue, for Susan Hendrickson,
goes down in history,
140
00:11:49,125 --> 00:11:50,542
and I think that's kind of a cool way
141
00:11:50,627 --> 00:11:54,129
to reward those amateurs
who make these discoveries.
142
00:12:02,180 --> 00:12:05,724
We were all experienced diggers. You
know, it was just a total focused effort.
143
00:12:05,809 --> 00:12:10,687
We would just work into the specimen,
remove things that we could,
144
00:12:10,772 --> 00:12:11,980
protect the rest of it,
145
00:12:12,065 --> 00:12:15,567
and then take it out of the ground
and get it back into the laboratory,
146
00:12:15,735 --> 00:12:17,820
where you can have
a more controlled environment
147
00:12:17,904 --> 00:12:19,905
to take care of the specimen.
148
00:12:19,989 --> 00:12:22,116
The amount of new things that we found
149
00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:23,617
and the amount of scientific information
150
00:12:23,701 --> 00:12:26,870
that we discovered while finding Sue
was enormous.
151
00:12:27,122 --> 00:12:29,248
Beautifully preserved,
articulated skull,
152
00:12:29,332 --> 00:12:32,084
articulated vertebral
column up to the pelvis
153
00:12:32,168 --> 00:12:34,753
with the tail and shoulder blade
and all this stuff,
154
00:12:34,838 --> 00:12:37,131
and it's just like, "Holy cow."
And wonderful preservation.
155
00:12:37,215 --> 00:12:42,428
Just fantastic bones that were...
Just beautiful surface on them.
156
00:12:47,684 --> 00:12:49,768
Every time we were
ready to take a bone out
157
00:12:49,853 --> 00:12:51,270
or every time there
was some new discovery,
158
00:12:51,354 --> 00:12:53,063
Pete would take this butcher paper out,
159
00:12:53,148 --> 00:12:55,858
and he mapped each and every bone,
one on one,
160
00:12:55,942 --> 00:12:57,484
that we found that was excavated.
161
00:13:26,764 --> 00:13:29,475
Pete and I had quite a few discussions,
"What would be fair?"
162
00:13:29,559 --> 00:13:33,187
$5,000 is the most that anybody
had ever given anyone for a dinosaur,
163
00:13:33,313 --> 00:13:35,606
for any fossil in the ground.
164
00:13:35,732 --> 00:13:37,065
So Pete wrote a check out for him
165
00:13:37,150 --> 00:13:39,776
and a contract
that he wanted Maurice to sign.
166
00:13:39,903 --> 00:13:42,154
I showed it to him, and he said,
"We don't need to sign anything.
167
00:13:42,238 --> 00:13:44,406
"This is something...
A handshake between friends,
168
00:13:44,741 --> 00:13:47,242
"and the $5,000 is fine.
I'm happy with that."
169
00:13:47,327 --> 00:13:49,953
And, you know, that was the most
that any landowner had ever gotten.
170
00:13:50,038 --> 00:13:54,374
We shook hands, and he was pretty excited
about seeing it set up in the museum.
171
00:14:04,802 --> 00:14:08,138
Last phase of getting
Sue out of the ground
172
00:14:08,223 --> 00:14:13,352
we used, basically, Egyptian techniques
to get this large block.
173
00:14:13,603 --> 00:14:18,732
I mean, one of the blocks weighed
probably something close to 10,000 pounds.
174
00:14:18,942 --> 00:14:22,528
There was probably about 10 ton of
material, total, that we had to load up.
175
00:14:31,287 --> 00:14:34,831
Once we had the skull and pelvic block and
the tail vertebrae and everything else,
176
00:14:34,916 --> 00:14:37,626
we knew we could haul a lot of
the stuff on our Bobcat trailer.
177
00:14:37,752 --> 00:14:40,379
We had no idea how we were going to
be able to get all these other things.
178
00:14:40,463 --> 00:14:45,425
My brother John had built
a tandem-axle trailer earlier that year.
179
00:14:45,593 --> 00:14:47,886
With that and the other
pickup truck that we had there,
180
00:14:47,971 --> 00:14:51,682
we were able to load the fossil up.
181
00:14:53,393 --> 00:14:56,478
After we had built pallets
underneath the fossil,
182
00:14:56,604 --> 00:14:58,689
we were able to scooch
some plywood underneath 'em,
183
00:14:58,773 --> 00:15:01,233
so that we could move it
with chains and come-alongs
184
00:15:01,317 --> 00:15:03,860
and get it into the trailers.
185
00:15:08,283 --> 00:15:12,119
It was and still is
today the most exciting,
186
00:15:12,203 --> 00:15:16,039
the most wonderful excavation
we have ever done,
187
00:15:16,165 --> 00:15:18,834
the most incredible thing
we have ever done.
188
00:16:05,089 --> 00:16:06,340
Dinosaurs, for me, are still
189
00:16:06,424 --> 00:16:09,968
one of the most amazing creatures
ever to have lived on the planet.
190
00:16:10,053 --> 00:16:13,013
You're touching something that was alive
191
00:16:13,139 --> 00:16:16,224
65, 100, or three or more
hundred million years ago.
192
00:16:16,726 --> 00:16:18,727
When you pick up a fossil,
193
00:16:19,062 --> 00:16:22,564
and you're the first ever human being
194
00:16:22,732 --> 00:16:26,234
to touch the remains of that organism,
195
00:16:26,903 --> 00:16:28,528
It's a remarkable feeling.
196
00:16:29,197 --> 00:16:31,031
Dinosaurs are iconic animals.
197
00:16:31,115 --> 00:16:33,408
They represent paleontology in general.
198
00:16:33,493 --> 00:16:34,493
They represent science.
199
00:16:34,577 --> 00:16:38,622
Dinosaurs lived for 150 million years,
and they dominated the world for that long,
200
00:16:38,706 --> 00:16:41,416
and yet humans have only been
around for three, four, or five.
201
00:16:41,834 --> 00:16:46,046
What are our chances? We seem to
be approaching these big problems.
202
00:16:46,130 --> 00:16:47,339
Most of what is to be learned
203
00:16:47,423 --> 00:16:50,717
about the history of life
is yet to be discovered.
204
00:16:50,802 --> 00:16:53,053
What's still out there?
What's still in the ground?
205
00:16:53,137 --> 00:16:56,556
What some kids might find
100 years from now
206
00:16:56,641 --> 00:16:58,809
will contribute to
that greater understanding.
207
00:16:58,935 --> 00:17:01,269
We know nothing about
the history of the planet
208
00:17:01,354 --> 00:17:03,522
unless learning it
through a paleontologist.
209
00:17:03,606 --> 00:17:07,317
And it's that sense of deep time,
real deep time,
210
00:17:07,735 --> 00:17:11,446
that gives you a sense of who you are and
how you fit into the scheme of things.
211
00:17:49,527 --> 00:17:52,320
I first fell in love with fossils
when I was about four years old.
212
00:17:53,531 --> 00:17:58,827
I picked up this small tooth
down on my folks' ranch.
213
00:17:59,871 --> 00:18:04,332
From then on, I just was so fascinated
with fossils. I just couldn't stop.
214
00:18:04,751 --> 00:18:08,086
Every day that the weather was good
and every day that the weather was great
215
00:18:08,171 --> 00:18:09,963
that was on a weekend,
if we were going to school
216
00:18:10,047 --> 00:18:12,132
or in the summertime,
Dad would always say,
217
00:18:12,216 --> 00:18:13,383
"Let's go out rock hunting."
218
00:18:23,728 --> 00:18:25,771
We ended up starting this little museum,
219
00:18:25,855 --> 00:18:28,690
and we'd charge the adults
in our family five cents.
220
00:18:29,358 --> 00:18:30,609
We had little displays
221
00:18:30,693 --> 00:18:32,235
where we set up the things
that we had collected.
222
00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:34,613
Not just fossils and rocks,
223
00:18:34,697 --> 00:18:37,157
but also what we thought were antiques.
224
00:18:37,366 --> 00:18:41,995
We had this horrible hobby that started
to captivate every part of our life.
225
00:18:44,749 --> 00:18:47,918
Eventually I decided to
really get into paleontology,
226
00:18:48,127 --> 00:18:51,254
and so went to the South Dakota School
of Mines and Technology in Rapid City.
227
00:18:55,384 --> 00:18:57,719
Junior year, we went to
the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show,
228
00:18:57,804 --> 00:19:02,098
and really saw how specimens
are purchased by museums
229
00:19:02,183 --> 00:19:03,892
and purchased by private collectors.
230
00:19:06,687 --> 00:19:08,063
And by the time we graduated,
231
00:19:08,147 --> 00:19:10,065
we started this business
called Black Hills Minerals
232
00:19:10,191 --> 00:19:12,150
as this Earth science supply house.
233
00:19:17,156 --> 00:19:18,865
Eventually my younger brother Neal,
234
00:19:18,950 --> 00:19:20,742
who was also a student
at the School of Mines,
235
00:19:20,868 --> 00:19:22,744
and Bob Farrar, one of his classmates,
236
00:19:22,870 --> 00:19:24,746
started working with us as well.
237
00:19:25,581 --> 00:19:27,833
With the three of us all
going to the School of Mines,
238
00:19:27,917 --> 00:19:30,627
we were problems there because
239
00:19:30,711 --> 00:19:34,047
all of us chose not to go into industry.
240
00:19:35,007 --> 00:19:38,552
The first year was terrible,
the second year was not so good,
241
00:19:38,636 --> 00:19:40,929
but it was sort of
turning into a business.
242
00:19:43,432 --> 00:19:46,351
As we kept going, we kept collecting
more and more fossils
243
00:19:46,435 --> 00:19:51,940
and had the idea of, "It probably would
work to sell these as display specimens."
244
00:19:52,608 --> 00:19:56,570
In 1978, we were going pretty strong.
245
00:19:56,654 --> 00:19:58,488
We were selling mostly fossils.
246
00:19:58,573 --> 00:20:01,408
We were going out
and doing geological exploration.
247
00:20:01,534 --> 00:20:04,202
So by 1979,
248
00:20:04,287 --> 00:20:06,204
we created this new entity
249
00:20:06,289 --> 00:20:09,791
called Black Hills Institute of
Geological Research Incorporated
250
00:20:10,042 --> 00:20:11,960
in the center of the Black Hills.
251
00:20:28,561 --> 00:20:31,271
I first met Pete Larson
when I was in Peru.
252
00:20:31,355 --> 00:20:34,149
I was down there visiting
my friend Kirby Siber,
253
00:20:34,442 --> 00:20:39,321
who was about to go out in the field and
collect some fossil whales and, uh...
254
00:20:40,197 --> 00:20:42,991
And he had asked Pete
to come down to do that,
255
00:20:43,284 --> 00:20:44,784
and the three of us went.
256
00:20:52,752 --> 00:20:55,420
I had known Susan
Hendrickson for about 5 years
257
00:20:55,504 --> 00:20:57,756
before she found the dinosaur Sue.
258
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:02,302
And Susan was one of those volunteers
who came to work at the Ruth Mason Quarry
259
00:21:02,386 --> 00:21:05,931
after we had met in Peru
a number of years before.
260
00:21:06,057 --> 00:21:10,685
My attraction to him was his
expertise and his enthusiasm
261
00:21:10,770 --> 00:21:13,396
or passion for fossils, which I shared.
262
00:21:13,522 --> 00:21:16,900
Pete is one of the best
paleontologists around.
263
00:21:17,026 --> 00:21:20,028
There's a few other people
that might be at his level.
264
00:21:20,196 --> 00:21:22,781
There was some romantic
involvement at the time
265
00:21:22,865 --> 00:21:25,867
between Susan Hendrickson and I,
although that was pretty much over.
266
00:21:25,993 --> 00:21:30,372
That was sort of short-lived and we
were, at this point, just friends.
267
00:21:30,539 --> 00:21:34,793
And she was just having
one more season of collecting
268
00:21:34,877 --> 00:21:37,128
before she was moving back to Seattle.
269
00:21:37,213 --> 00:21:39,714
He had this whole other part of him,
which was the Institute,
270
00:21:39,799 --> 00:21:41,257
and he had a lot of responsibilities.
271
00:21:41,342 --> 00:21:42,592
And that part didn't interest me.
272
00:21:42,677 --> 00:21:44,844
I tried to help him, I commended him,
273
00:21:44,929 --> 00:21:47,722
but I didn't want any
part of that in my life.
274
00:21:47,848 --> 00:21:49,724
You know, I kept waiting
for more field time,
275
00:21:49,892 --> 00:21:51,768
and he didn't like it
if I went in the field by myself
276
00:21:51,852 --> 00:21:54,479
'cause he wanted to go so bad.
He didn't want me to go.
277
00:22:07,827 --> 00:22:09,786
We got Sue back to Hill City.
278
00:22:09,870 --> 00:22:12,914
We moved the big blocks
into the warehouse,
279
00:22:12,999 --> 00:22:17,043
actually built a room
around where we had put Sue.
280
00:22:17,128 --> 00:22:19,087
Started working on
this wonderful fossil.
281
00:22:21,549 --> 00:22:22,841
When I was prepping Sue,
282
00:22:22,925 --> 00:22:26,636
I was cloistered like a monk
in the back corner of the back building.
283
00:22:26,721 --> 00:22:29,264
Doing preparation, you just...
"Just leave me alone," right?
284
00:22:29,348 --> 00:22:32,600
But everybody was in there.
There would be school kids in there.
285
00:22:33,144 --> 00:22:34,769
Or another day, there'd be
286
00:22:35,271 --> 00:22:38,023
some scientist guys
coming along in there.
287
00:22:38,107 --> 00:22:39,607
I mean, Pete had, like, 30 scientists
288
00:22:39,692 --> 00:22:42,569
working on a major new monograph
on Tyrannosaurus Rex,
289
00:22:42,653 --> 00:22:45,363
so you got to suck it up.
Pete wants it this way.
290
00:22:45,448 --> 00:22:48,074
He wants this specimen
available to everybody.
291
00:22:48,159 --> 00:22:49,868
It was so beautiful.
292
00:22:49,952 --> 00:22:54,622
Just the preservation was incredible.
It was just, "Wow."
293
00:22:54,707 --> 00:22:56,207
Everybody knew about Sue.
294
00:22:56,417 --> 00:22:59,544
We hadn't made any secret of the fact
that we'd collected her.
295
00:22:59,628 --> 00:23:02,380
We had 2,000 visitors sign
this little guest book
296
00:23:02,465 --> 00:23:05,925
that went way in the back in our
warehouse to see the skull of Sue.
297
00:23:06,635 --> 00:23:09,179
I was just totally flabbergasted
when I saw the specimen.
298
00:23:09,263 --> 00:23:11,556
First of all,
the size is just so imposing,
299
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:13,391
but what I was more amazed by
300
00:23:13,476 --> 00:23:16,144
was what a great job
they were doing preparing the specimen.
301
00:23:16,228 --> 00:23:19,147
I'd heard inklings that
the Black Hills Institute
302
00:23:19,231 --> 00:23:20,774
boys had found something.
303
00:23:20,983 --> 00:23:26,404
One of the first things I saw was actually,
you know, part of the skull of Sue
304
00:23:26,489 --> 00:23:28,740
still encased in matrix.
305
00:23:28,824 --> 00:23:31,201
Sixty-five million years later,
306
00:23:31,285 --> 00:23:33,953
this animal really had the power
to give you goose bumps.
307
00:23:34,038 --> 00:23:36,122
To see the look
on Pete's face and Neal's face.
308
00:23:36,207 --> 00:23:38,083
Those guys were just like proud papas.
309
00:23:38,167 --> 00:23:40,919
They would inform you. They would
go do classes at school for the kids,
310
00:23:41,003 --> 00:23:44,172
so it was very educational for all
of us. I learned a lot from that.
311
00:23:52,014 --> 00:23:55,600
Ever since we created that little
museum on our parents' ranch,
312
00:23:55,684 --> 00:23:58,561
it's always been our dream
to have a museum here in Hill City.
313
00:24:00,106 --> 00:24:04,651
And finding Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex,
here's the anchor for the museum.
314
00:24:06,904 --> 00:24:08,613
The whole town is behind us.
315
00:24:08,697 --> 00:24:10,615
It's going to put Hill City on the map
316
00:24:10,699 --> 00:24:13,034
in a way that it's never
been on the map before.
317
00:24:15,996 --> 00:24:18,790
Didn't matter how many
other projects we had going on.
318
00:24:18,874 --> 00:24:21,417
With Sue, Sue took precedence.
319
00:24:24,421 --> 00:24:27,590
We found out all kinds
of cool things about this dinosaur.
320
00:24:27,675 --> 00:24:29,968
Broken and healed bones
all over the skeleton.
321
00:24:30,052 --> 00:24:33,388
This animal had a terrible life,
a terrible, rough life.
322
00:24:35,224 --> 00:24:37,350
The skull of Sue actually had...
323
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:41,521
The left side of the lower jaw had been
literally ripped out of the socket,
324
00:24:41,605 --> 00:24:43,398
still held together
here at the symphysis,
325
00:24:43,482 --> 00:24:45,900
where the two ends of the lower jaw
come together in the front,
326
00:24:46,026 --> 00:24:48,236
but it's been torn
loose from the socket,
327
00:24:48,404 --> 00:24:50,280
which allows the jaw to open and close.
328
00:24:50,364 --> 00:24:52,448
And the post orbital,
the bone directly behind the eye,
329
00:24:52,533 --> 00:24:56,786
was broken and pulled outwards
and laying at sort of a weird angle.
330
00:24:57,329 --> 00:25:01,749
So I think that she actually died from
the attack ofanotherTyrannosaurus Rex.
331
00:25:07,965 --> 00:25:09,591
That was a big job.
332
00:25:09,675 --> 00:25:12,510
I mean, it took me a year,
literally a year,
333
00:25:12,595 --> 00:25:16,848
just to remove individual bones
from around the skull, and then...
334
00:25:17,516 --> 00:25:21,686
And then to take that, the giant
hip bones, off of the nose.
335
00:25:26,192 --> 00:25:29,944
We finally were able to lift
the pelvis off of Sue's skull
336
00:25:30,029 --> 00:25:31,863
in the beginning of May 1992.
337
00:25:31,947 --> 00:25:33,489
Okay. Let's go.
338
00:25:33,574 --> 00:25:35,325
- Up?
- Let's go.
339
00:25:39,622 --> 00:25:45,793
Taking that hip off of Sue's skull
was critical to doing it right
340
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:47,462
because you don't have a second chance.
341
00:25:48,422 --> 00:25:49,714
- You okay there, Terry?
- Oh!
342
00:25:49,798 --> 00:25:51,049
Okay.
343
00:25:51,133 --> 00:25:53,760
If you think of two big ships, you know,
344
00:25:53,969 --> 00:25:56,137
when you get those kind
of weights going on,
345
00:25:56,222 --> 00:25:58,097
one little movement,
you don't what's going on.
346
00:25:58,182 --> 00:26:00,600
It could be cracking it
all the way through inside.
347
00:26:00,726 --> 00:26:01,935
- Okay, go.
- Go.
348
00:26:02,019 --> 00:26:04,312
Go, go, go, go, go, go.
349
00:26:08,734 --> 00:26:10,735
Yeah. That must be where the weight is.
350
00:26:10,819 --> 00:26:12,153
- Yep.
- Yep.
351
00:26:12,279 --> 00:26:14,822
- Okay, it's looking good.
- We're free here.
352
00:26:14,907 --> 00:26:16,950
- We're free here.
- Oh, God.
353
00:26:17,034 --> 00:26:18,534
What am I down to?
354
00:26:18,619 --> 00:26:20,787
Hey, we're loose in the front finally!
355
00:26:20,871 --> 00:26:22,413
- All right.
- Yeah!
356
00:26:28,420 --> 00:26:31,673
That moment,
when we made that separation,
357
00:26:32,049 --> 00:26:36,678
that was probably
the highest point of my life.
358
00:26:37,513 --> 00:26:39,305
- How was that?
- Champagne.
359
00:26:39,390 --> 00:26:40,932
Hide it.
360
00:26:41,016 --> 00:26:42,725
Hide it.
361
00:26:43,978 --> 00:26:45,687
There has to be a
toast. Who do we toast?
362
00:26:45,771 --> 00:26:46,813
This whole... I don't know.
363
00:26:47,398 --> 00:26:48,856
- Cheers.
- Just, "Cheers."
364
00:26:48,983 --> 00:26:50,692
- You ready?
- Ready.
365
00:26:50,776 --> 00:26:52,402
- To Sue.
- To old Sue.
366
00:26:52,486 --> 00:26:53,820
- Sue.
- Sue.
367
00:26:54,863 --> 00:26:56,489
Yeah.
368
00:26:57,324 --> 00:26:58,866
Yeah.
369
00:27:00,202 --> 00:27:02,203
It's very good champagne.
370
00:27:02,329 --> 00:27:03,663
Look at this.
371
00:27:03,747 --> 00:27:04,831
I know.
372
00:27:10,087 --> 00:27:12,297
We were riding on top of the world.
373
00:27:12,381 --> 00:27:16,342
We had everything going for us.
374
00:27:17,261 --> 00:27:20,346
Less than a week after that,
all hell broke loose.
375
00:27:38,073 --> 00:27:41,576
Bob and I were downstairs.
We were both in the prep lab.
376
00:27:41,660 --> 00:27:42,910
We had a buzzer on our door,
377
00:27:43,245 --> 00:27:46,331
so that if anybody came in,
it would buzz back in the prep lab
378
00:27:46,415 --> 00:27:48,499
and we could go meet them
in the front office.
379
00:27:48,625 --> 00:27:52,086
It was about 7.00 in the morning
when the buzzer went off.
380
00:27:59,678 --> 00:28:01,596
We were met by two FBI agents
381
00:28:01,722 --> 00:28:05,475
with a search warrant to take Sue
and all records belonging to Sue.
382
00:28:05,684 --> 00:28:08,811
They showed up expecting
to seal off the building
383
00:28:08,937 --> 00:28:10,188
and keep anybody from going in.
384
00:28:10,272 --> 00:28:11,773
"Just wait here. We have to get Pete."
385
00:28:11,899 --> 00:28:14,275
They sent me to get Pete,
and I was running.
386
00:28:14,401 --> 00:28:16,402
I lived in a trailer house
behind the Institute.
387
00:28:17,404 --> 00:28:19,906
"The FBI's here.
They're all over the place."
388
00:28:20,532 --> 00:28:23,159
They've got yellow police tape
around the main building.
389
00:28:23,243 --> 00:28:26,162
"Do not cross. Police line.
Do not cross."
390
00:28:26,372 --> 00:28:29,040
It was hard to know what was
really happening at that point.
391
00:28:29,124 --> 00:28:30,541
I go down to the office,
392
00:28:30,626 --> 00:28:32,293
and there's two FBI
agents sitting there.
393
00:28:32,378 --> 00:28:34,087
"You've stolen this from federal land,
394
00:28:34,171 --> 00:28:35,838
"and we're coming here to seize this."
395
00:28:35,923 --> 00:28:40,218
I got a phone call from Peter Larson
because it wasn't just the FBI.
396
00:28:40,302 --> 00:28:42,136
It was personnel from South Dakota Tech,
397
00:28:42,221 --> 00:28:44,263
it was personnel
from other federal agencies,
398
00:28:44,348 --> 00:28:46,724
and it was the National Guard.
399
00:28:48,477 --> 00:28:50,395
The U.S. Attorney at the time,
Kevin Schieffer,
400
00:28:50,771 --> 00:28:53,439
got reporters together
in the Federal Building in Rapid City
401
00:28:53,899 --> 00:28:56,401
and announced that
the seizure was ongoing.
402
00:28:56,485 --> 00:28:59,070
The purpose of our action this morning
403
00:28:59,238 --> 00:29:03,366
is to preserve...
404
00:29:03,450 --> 00:29:07,036
The scientific knowledge
and integrity of these fossils.
405
00:29:07,287 --> 00:29:10,581
Then, of course, the entire press corps
hopped in their cars,
406
00:29:10,999 --> 00:29:13,167
and we drove to Hill City.
407
00:29:15,838 --> 00:29:18,381
They were supposed to take
things related to Sue,
408
00:29:18,507 --> 00:29:19,632
but they took everything.
409
00:29:19,716 --> 00:29:23,886
They went through all of our offices,
all of our desks, all of our mail trays,
410
00:29:23,971 --> 00:29:25,972
taking mail opened, unopened.
411
00:29:26,056 --> 00:29:27,181
Somebody called me and said,
412
00:29:27,266 --> 00:29:30,768
"The FBI's got crime scene tape around
the Institute, and they're taking Sue."
413
00:29:30,853 --> 00:29:33,646
I hung up the phone, and I went as
fast as I could down to the Institute.
414
00:29:33,730 --> 00:29:36,649
I don't know how many agents they had,
30-some people or whatever.
415
00:29:36,733 --> 00:29:37,942
It was just insane.
416
00:29:38,026 --> 00:29:40,695
I didn't even think about it.
I grabbed the tape and I go under it.
417
00:29:40,779 --> 00:29:43,448
I just went to the specimen.
That was my concern.
418
00:29:43,532 --> 00:29:44,866
I could just see these idiots,
419
00:29:45,576 --> 00:29:49,203
you know, just try to pack up my
dinosaur and take it away and ruin it.
420
00:29:49,288 --> 00:29:53,207
How dare they?
How dare these people do this?
421
00:29:53,292 --> 00:29:56,252
Unconscionable. I can't imagine
somebody being able to do this
422
00:29:56,336 --> 00:29:58,629
here in the United States of America,
in a free country.
423
00:30:01,717 --> 00:30:07,305
In order to ensure that this dinosaur
could be carefully packed up, we helped.
424
00:30:07,890 --> 00:30:11,100
It was pretty clear that they
didn't know what they were doing.
425
00:30:11,268 --> 00:30:12,768
These people didn't know anything.
426
00:30:12,853 --> 00:30:15,438
I mean, most of these guys
hardly go out in the field at all.
427
00:30:15,522 --> 00:30:18,900
What do they know about preparing
a fossil or packing it or anything?
428
00:30:18,984 --> 00:30:22,195
The Larsons were trying to do
a little bit of negotiating.
429
00:30:22,279 --> 00:30:26,574
"Put Sue under lock and key
at our place to prevent damage."
430
00:30:26,742 --> 00:30:28,159
I said to Kevin Schieffer,
431
00:30:28,243 --> 00:30:31,370
"You just tell me,
and that fossil won't go anywhere.
432
00:30:31,455 --> 00:30:33,623
"It's not like it's going
to disappear in a briefcase."
433
00:30:33,832 --> 00:30:36,417
That request was denied.
434
00:30:36,585 --> 00:30:39,837
It is clearly a violation
under the Antiquities Act
435
00:30:39,922 --> 00:30:45,468
to remove antiquities
from United States lands
436
00:30:45,594 --> 00:30:47,345
without the permission
of the United States.
437
00:30:47,596 --> 00:30:49,972
The federal government doesn't
show up with the National Guard
438
00:30:51,350 --> 00:30:52,683
and an Assistant or...
Pardon me,
439
00:30:52,768 --> 00:30:55,144
an Acting United States Attorney
in pancake makeup...
440
00:30:56,522 --> 00:31:00,858
...with the intention of working
things out somewhere down the road.
441
00:31:10,410 --> 00:31:13,538
After we got over the initial shock,
442
00:31:13,747 --> 00:31:15,790
those of us who were
packing the dinosaur
443
00:31:15,874 --> 00:31:18,751
kind of went into our packing mode,
444
00:31:18,835 --> 00:31:20,378
but towards the end of the day,
445
00:31:20,462 --> 00:31:24,340
it became obvious that something
was going on with the town.
446
00:31:24,508 --> 00:31:25,967
People around town noticed.
447
00:31:26,093 --> 00:31:29,387
They noticed all the cop cars.
They noticed the police tape.
448
00:31:29,471 --> 00:31:32,056
All of a sudden,
there were people with signs
449
00:31:32,140 --> 00:31:33,516
out in front of our building.
450
00:31:33,642 --> 00:31:36,644
It was clear that people were not
happy with what was going on.
451
00:31:36,812 --> 00:31:40,773
The protest developed very quickly, so
there were a lot of people on the street.
452
00:31:40,857 --> 00:31:42,942
I was working for National Geographic,
453
00:31:43,026 --> 00:31:45,319
and we were gonna take the skull of Sue
454
00:31:45,404 --> 00:31:47,863
and put it into a CAT scan
of what they use for the space shuttles
455
00:31:47,948 --> 00:31:50,366
to see if we could
see inside the skull of Sue.
456
00:31:50,576 --> 00:31:53,327
And Terry Wentz answered the phone
457
00:31:53,453 --> 00:31:55,162
and he said, "Well, I don't think so."
458
00:31:55,247 --> 00:31:59,500
So I got on the next plane I could,
and the place was surrounded by cops.
459
00:31:59,668 --> 00:32:02,753
I mean, you thought that there was a
real T. Rex loose on the property.
460
00:32:04,298 --> 00:32:09,260
The next day in, they brought in
reinforcements, a lot more people.
461
00:32:10,053 --> 00:32:12,513
The idea was that we were
going to load this stuff up
462
00:32:12,681 --> 00:32:15,141
and haul it somewhere.
463
00:32:15,225 --> 00:32:20,104
And when the Director of Military Support,
one of the colonels, got down there,
464
00:32:20,188 --> 00:32:21,647
he called and said,
465
00:32:21,732 --> 00:32:25,401
"Hey, General, this is not what we
expected. This is a media event.
466
00:32:25,736 --> 00:32:27,737
"We got school kids out here.
467
00:32:27,821 --> 00:32:30,698
"We got parents out here.
What should we do?"
468
00:32:30,782 --> 00:32:32,825
And I said, "Well, just go do it."
469
00:32:33,368 --> 00:32:36,287
Save Sue! Don't be cruel!
Save Sue!
470
00:32:36,413 --> 00:32:44,629
Don't be cruel! Save Sue!
471
00:32:44,796 --> 00:32:51,010
Save Sue! Save Sue!
472
00:32:51,094 --> 00:32:55,097
All day long,
the protestors kept arriving.
473
00:32:55,349 --> 00:32:57,266
Protesting about what
the government was doing.
474
00:32:57,517 --> 00:32:59,143
Save Sue! Save Sue!
475
00:32:59,227 --> 00:33:02,355
Save Sue! Save Sue! Save Sue!
476
00:33:02,522 --> 00:33:26,796
Shame on you!
477
00:33:26,922 --> 00:33:29,173
Shame on you! Shame on you!
478
00:33:30,926 --> 00:33:33,511
Kids protesting, adults protesting.
479
00:33:33,637 --> 00:33:36,764
It was not the sort of
public-relations event
480
00:33:37,182 --> 00:33:38,766
that, you know, law enforcement likes
481
00:33:38,850 --> 00:33:41,435
because they're taking
away this T. Rex
482
00:33:41,645 --> 00:33:43,604
from a very small town
that really could use it.
483
00:33:50,278 --> 00:33:51,529
On the third day,
484
00:33:51,613 --> 00:33:55,449
the National Guard had brought up
485
00:33:55,534 --> 00:33:57,535
large equipment,
including forklifts and things,
486
00:33:57,619 --> 00:34:00,037
and the crowd had grown by this time.
487
00:34:00,455 --> 00:34:01,914
Leave our Sue!
488
00:34:01,998 --> 00:34:04,333
Leave our Sue! Leave our Sue!
489
00:34:04,418 --> 00:34:07,044
People were so emotionally involved.
490
00:34:07,462 --> 00:34:10,715
The amazing thing,
to me, wasn't just us.
491
00:34:10,799 --> 00:34:12,133
The whole town...
492
00:34:12,801 --> 00:34:15,136
The entire town of Hill City
493
00:34:15,512 --> 00:34:18,806
was in mourning
when they took that dinosaur away.
494
00:34:25,522 --> 00:34:27,481
Here was a dream that the town had.
495
00:34:27,607 --> 00:34:29,984
It was our dinosaur.
496
00:34:30,068 --> 00:34:34,321
It was our museum. It was our lives
497
00:34:34,406 --> 00:34:37,241
that had been just torn to pieces.
498
00:34:38,076 --> 00:34:40,369
I was in France when they called me.
499
00:34:40,454 --> 00:34:43,330
And, you know, I thought it was a joke.
500
00:34:43,832 --> 00:34:46,500
Couldn't believe it, and I cried.
501
00:34:50,130 --> 00:34:52,006
I was highly emotional,
502
00:34:52,340 --> 00:34:55,134
but from that moment that I heard
that the specimen was going to be taken,
503
00:34:55,302 --> 00:34:57,094
my focus was on the specimen.
504
00:34:57,179 --> 00:34:59,764
Legally and all that other crap,
505
00:35:00,140 --> 00:35:01,849
that's not my concern.
506
00:35:02,184 --> 00:35:05,311
My concern was make sure
that dinosaur was going to transport,
507
00:35:05,395 --> 00:35:06,687
everything was going to be safe.
508
00:35:06,855 --> 00:35:08,814
There's my... My, uh...
509
00:35:09,232 --> 00:35:11,901
...three children that were here also.
510
00:35:12,027 --> 00:35:14,862
That was very hard for
them to understand.
511
00:35:15,489 --> 00:35:19,283
I couldn't explain it to them.
512
00:35:19,493 --> 00:35:24,622
Sue belonged here,
and what happened was not right.
513
00:35:39,304 --> 00:35:42,973
You know, it was like a funeral,
losing a family member.
514
00:35:43,433 --> 00:35:44,892
It just felt like a nightmare,
515
00:35:45,060 --> 00:35:47,895
like it just wasn't
really happening. Just...
516
00:35:48,688 --> 00:35:50,272
The place was a mess.
517
00:35:50,357 --> 00:35:52,691
We, all of a sudden, were a mess.
518
00:35:54,069 --> 00:35:55,736
And they hauled Sue away.
519
00:36:09,209 --> 00:36:11,877
I don't know how Peter did it.
520
00:36:14,589 --> 00:36:19,385
One of the hardest things to watch
and be a part of
521
00:36:21,471 --> 00:36:26,058
was knowing that, literally,
Peter was in love with that dinosaur.
522
00:37:52,896 --> 00:37:55,272
I grew up in Hill City,
523
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,943
and I lived in Los Angeles
at the time Sue was discovered.
524
00:37:59,027 --> 00:38:02,488
In 1992, I was working
at Unsolved Mysteries,
525
00:38:02,614 --> 00:38:04,198
a TV show on NBC,
526
00:38:04,282 --> 00:38:07,034
researching cases
where people convicted of crimes
527
00:38:07,118 --> 00:38:08,661
insist they were innocent.
528
00:38:08,787 --> 00:38:11,121
And that first day the
dinosaur was seized,
529
00:38:11,206 --> 00:38:13,749
Pete called me on the phone
in the middle of it all.
530
00:38:13,959 --> 00:38:19,421
He said the FBI was here,
and it was dramatic and scary,
531
00:38:19,547 --> 00:38:23,550
and he needed coverage,
he needed support.
532
00:38:23,969 --> 00:38:28,055
So I thought, "Well, I'll go
cover the story and take a hiatus
533
00:38:28,223 --> 00:38:30,766
"and maybe move away from LA forever."
534
00:38:30,892 --> 00:38:35,270
I didn't know, but I just packed up
and bailed back to South Dakota
535
00:38:35,397 --> 00:38:38,315
by the end of the year to cover the story
and see what was gonna happen to it.
536
00:38:41,194 --> 00:38:43,487
America's Indian tribes
have fought the white man
537
00:38:43,571 --> 00:38:45,739
over many different issues
through the years,
538
00:38:45,824 --> 00:38:48,450
but the newest fight is over a dinosaur.
539
00:38:53,248 --> 00:38:56,166
It was a big story and
a very unusual story.
540
00:38:56,459 --> 00:39:00,379
To have the federal government
come in and seize Sue,
541
00:39:00,505 --> 00:39:01,588
everything exploded.
542
00:39:01,756 --> 00:39:02,756
Controversy tonight...
543
00:39:02,799 --> 00:39:05,551
Controversy surrounding the Institute
and their most famous discovery.
544
00:39:05,635 --> 00:39:07,761
It may be the custody
battle of the century.
545
00:39:07,846 --> 00:39:09,722
Scientists, Indians,
the U.S. government...
546
00:39:09,848 --> 00:39:13,017
You find any fossils,
the government may take them away.
547
00:39:13,101 --> 00:39:16,520
Not only has he taken this dinosaur away,
but he's taken our research away, too,
548
00:39:16,604 --> 00:39:19,398
every photograph,
every record we had about this dinosaur
549
00:39:19,524 --> 00:39:20,983
and the locality where she was found.
550
00:39:21,151 --> 00:39:23,277
Sue was seized pursuant
to a search warrant,
551
00:39:23,778 --> 00:39:25,487
but there was never a crime charged.
552
00:39:25,655 --> 00:39:29,158
Pat and I talked about filing suit.
553
00:39:29,284 --> 00:39:31,452
We sued the federal government
for return of our property.
554
00:39:34,789 --> 00:39:38,459
The Black Hills Institute said it
purchased the fossil from Maurice Williams.
555
00:39:38,710 --> 00:39:43,505
Originally Maurice Williams said that,
too, but then he changed his claim,
556
00:39:43,631 --> 00:39:47,634
and he said he had not
sold the fossil and that he owned it.
557
00:39:48,053 --> 00:39:49,803
Mr.Williams...
558
00:39:49,971 --> 00:39:54,558
Pete and Neal had made a deal
with Maurice Williams for $5,000.
559
00:39:54,642 --> 00:39:57,561
On that Saturday, the day before we
finished getting Sue out of the ground,
560
00:39:57,645 --> 00:40:01,440
we gave Maurice Williams
a check for $5,000
561
00:40:01,566 --> 00:40:03,984
that said, "For Theropod Sue,"
on the bottom of the check.
562
00:40:04,069 --> 00:40:06,528
Even though $5,000 may
not seem like a lot,
563
00:40:06,654 --> 00:40:09,239
it was a lot of money
for our company to spend,
564
00:40:09,491 --> 00:40:13,535
and no one had ever paid that much
for an undiscovered fossil before.
565
00:40:14,329 --> 00:40:17,206
We had lots of conversations
with Maurice Williams
566
00:40:17,290 --> 00:40:18,749
about what was happening
to the dinosaur.
567
00:40:18,833 --> 00:40:21,293
He knew that we were going to
bring it back to Hill City.
568
00:40:21,377 --> 00:40:23,170
He was completely in favor of that.
569
00:40:23,254 --> 00:40:24,922
He knew about the museum
we were building.
570
00:40:25,006 --> 00:40:27,049
He knew we were going
to be preparing the fossil.
571
00:40:27,175 --> 00:40:28,884
That's about the only ones that we have.
572
00:40:34,808 --> 00:40:36,058
Well, it's not the only one.
573
00:40:36,142 --> 00:40:37,434
- Almost.
- Almost.
574
00:40:37,519 --> 00:40:39,353
And it's not... Not completely...
575
00:40:53,618 --> 00:40:56,411
I had known people who
knew Maurice and Sharky,
576
00:40:56,496 --> 00:41:00,124
and they were colorful and
controversial figures in their own right
577
00:41:00,375 --> 00:41:01,834
on the Cheyenne River Reservation.
578
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:04,795
Numerous people said,
"Had we known you were on his ranch,
579
00:41:04,879 --> 00:41:05,879
"we would have warned you."
580
00:41:14,848 --> 00:41:17,391
There began to emerge some controversy
581
00:41:17,475 --> 00:41:22,688
about Sue being collected from
Indian land and the ownership issue.
582
00:41:42,750 --> 00:41:45,752
You could not have discovered this Rex
583
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:51,925
in a worse and potentially
legally complicated place.
584
00:41:56,222 --> 00:41:59,558
It was discovered
within the exterior boundaries
585
00:41:59,642 --> 00:42:01,768
of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe
586
00:42:01,853 --> 00:42:05,772
on land which was held in trust
587
00:42:05,940 --> 00:42:08,525
for the benefit of Maurice Williams,
the landowner.
588
00:42:08,610 --> 00:42:10,152
It wasn't tribal land,
589
00:42:10,403 --> 00:42:11,820
it wasn't federal land,
590
00:42:11,946 --> 00:42:14,489
it was a really...
591
00:42:15,116 --> 00:42:19,620
Sue came out from
an absolute legal netherworld.
592
00:42:23,791 --> 00:42:26,043
Indian people were given...
593
00:42:26,127 --> 00:42:29,129
Heads of household
were given 160 acres
594
00:42:29,756 --> 00:42:32,090
in what we call the Allotment Acts.
595
00:42:32,342 --> 00:42:33,550
And that was to try
596
00:42:33,635 --> 00:42:36,637
and make people
who didn't understand land ownership
597
00:42:36,721 --> 00:42:39,431
be owners of land,
but they really didn't own the land.
598
00:42:39,515 --> 00:42:43,227
So there became this concept
of trust responsibility,
599
00:42:43,853 --> 00:42:47,356
and nothing ostensibly is
supposed to happen to that land
600
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:49,566
without the approval
of the federal government
601
00:42:49,651 --> 00:42:50,734
through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
602
00:42:53,321 --> 00:42:55,072
On the reservations,
603
00:42:55,156 --> 00:43:00,827
the United States holds that land in trust
for the individual Indian as the beneficiary.
604
00:43:01,079 --> 00:43:06,166
And the United States
has a fiduciary responsibility
605
00:43:06,251 --> 00:43:09,169
to individual Indians
and/or their families
606
00:43:09,379 --> 00:43:11,505
that they get the highest
and best use out of it.
607
00:43:14,926 --> 00:43:20,389
All across the west, it is a patch-work
quilt of laws and regulations
608
00:43:20,473 --> 00:43:25,060
concerning what can and can't be
harvested that's paleontological.
609
00:43:27,981 --> 00:43:30,565
You can be all right in
this quarter section,
610
00:43:30,650 --> 00:43:32,067
but if you get off a little bit...
611
00:43:32,151 --> 00:43:34,069
Remember, this is before GPS.
612
00:43:34,487 --> 00:43:36,280
If you get off a little
bit to the wrong place,
613
00:43:36,364 --> 00:43:39,116
you might be dealing
with a whole other set of regulations.
614
00:43:39,284 --> 00:43:42,828
The tribe claimed that
because Maurice Williams,
615
00:43:43,329 --> 00:43:44,746
being a member of the tribe,
616
00:43:44,831 --> 00:43:49,459
had not purchased a $100
permit to sell something,
617
00:43:49,711 --> 00:43:53,380
the fossil should be forfeited
and therefore they owned the fossil.
618
00:43:53,506 --> 00:43:56,425
And of course the government said
that it was government property
619
00:43:56,509 --> 00:44:00,554
and that, that was
because of the trust land issue.
620
00:44:07,478 --> 00:44:09,813
The seizure and the subpoena
621
00:44:09,897 --> 00:44:14,276
were the brainchild
of Acting U.S. Attorney Kevin Schieffer.
622
00:44:14,402 --> 00:44:17,612
He was a controversial
figure as a U.S. Attorney
623
00:44:17,739 --> 00:44:21,491
because he hadn't had
a lot of experience practicing law.
624
00:44:21,576 --> 00:44:24,369
He had the ability
to drive some people crazy.
625
00:44:24,495 --> 00:44:26,538
I do have a fair amount
of litigation experience.
626
00:44:26,622 --> 00:44:29,583
I have not had courtroom experience.
627
00:44:29,834 --> 00:44:31,168
It's a little unclear
628
00:44:31,252 --> 00:44:35,505
as to why Schieffer decided to seize Sue
629
00:44:35,590 --> 00:44:37,758
or decided to become
interested in this at all,
630
00:44:37,925 --> 00:44:42,012
whether it began with Maurice Williams
or a complaint from the tribe.
631
00:44:42,096 --> 00:44:44,765
Ultimately the decision
was Kevin Schieffer's, though,
632
00:44:44,891 --> 00:44:48,602
to decide that this was something
that they wanted to do.
633
00:44:53,775 --> 00:44:55,817
Also was shocking from
a scientific standpoint,
634
00:44:55,902 --> 00:44:57,819
that anybody would behave so recklessly
635
00:44:57,945 --> 00:45:00,822
with the greatest
paleontological find of all time.
636
00:45:00,990 --> 00:45:03,909
If that dinosaur seizure
wasn't a publicity stunt,
637
00:45:03,993 --> 00:45:05,160
then I don't know what is.
638
00:45:05,244 --> 00:45:07,788
There could have been
a gang in this town
639
00:45:07,914 --> 00:45:09,873
with a warehouse
holding a ton of cocaine
640
00:45:09,957 --> 00:45:11,958
and human bodies hanging
from the rafters,
641
00:45:12,043 --> 00:45:13,502
and the federal government
would not have sent
642
00:45:13,628 --> 00:45:15,670
35 agents and the National Guard.
643
00:45:25,306 --> 00:45:27,391
Just a few of 'em, bumper stickers.
644
00:45:27,475 --> 00:45:28,725
There's some in every vehicle.
645
00:45:28,810 --> 00:45:30,936
We would just like to
gain public support
646
00:45:31,020 --> 00:45:33,980
for our cause
of getting Sue back to Hill City.
647
00:45:34,148 --> 00:45:36,858
When you get the big foot
of the government come in
648
00:45:36,943 --> 00:45:39,069
and do something like that,
you better answer
649
00:45:39,153 --> 00:45:42,239
in a way that people can understand
that this is wrong.
650
00:45:42,448 --> 00:45:44,783
You know, they just protested
for three straight days
651
00:45:44,867 --> 00:45:47,869
in front of the Institute
during the raid.
652
00:45:47,995 --> 00:45:50,580
They weren't done. "We want to protest."
653
00:45:50,665 --> 00:45:52,999
Okay. Let's go protest.
654
00:46:05,471 --> 00:46:07,139
Stay back.
655
00:46:08,141 --> 00:46:09,599
Everyone, stay back.
656
00:46:09,684 --> 00:46:11,893
You'll be thrown to the
ground and arrested.
657
00:46:11,978 --> 00:46:15,147
We got everything under control here.
We don't want any trouble.
658
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:16,815
We had people from all
over the community,
659
00:46:16,899 --> 00:46:18,692
all over the Black Hills
who were trying to help,
660
00:46:18,985 --> 00:46:20,944
and it was amazing,
the support that we had.
661
00:46:21,028 --> 00:46:23,029
We were fighting on every front
that we could think of,
662
00:46:23,197 --> 00:46:24,448
everything that you could think of,
663
00:46:24,532 --> 00:46:29,119
everything from the Sue Freedom Run to
petitions that we took to the state capital.
664
00:46:29,203 --> 00:46:31,955
I would talk in front
of groups anywhere.
665
00:46:32,039 --> 00:46:35,876
Terry was so involved in this case.
I mean, he lived it.
666
00:46:38,045 --> 00:46:40,589
One of the most moving things
in my life to see,
667
00:46:40,673 --> 00:46:42,716
this wonderful group of people here
668
00:46:42,884 --> 00:46:44,509
supported us getting Sue back.
669
00:46:53,561 --> 00:46:57,606
The U.S. Attorney, Mr.Kevin Schieffer,
made a terrible error
670
00:46:57,690 --> 00:47:00,859
in coming that tragic day
on May 14th to Hill City.
671
00:47:00,943 --> 00:47:05,197
The right thing to do in this case would
be to return the dinosaur to Hill City.
672
00:47:07,366 --> 00:47:09,326
Whoo! Yes, yes! Whoo!
673
00:47:09,410 --> 00:47:12,037
We got now over 20,000 signatures
674
00:47:12,121 --> 00:47:15,081
on the one petition,
the first petition to bring Sue back,
675
00:47:15,416 --> 00:47:18,835
and they're from all 50 states
and from 14 other countries.
676
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:20,879
A lot of people didn't have
a lot of money around here,
677
00:47:20,963 --> 00:47:22,881
so they wanted to contribute
any way they could do that,
678
00:47:22,965 --> 00:47:26,384
and so there were a lot of fund-raisers,
parades, buttons, posters,
679
00:47:26,469 --> 00:47:28,929
a show of maybe there's justice,
680
00:47:29,555 --> 00:47:32,015
because, I think, to me,
it was just a huge injustice,
681
00:47:32,099 --> 00:47:33,433
the fact they could even do
what they've done.
682
00:47:33,559 --> 00:47:35,769
The custody battle was in full swing,
683
00:47:35,853 --> 00:47:39,231
and it was very dramatic
and scary for people.
684
00:47:39,690 --> 00:47:43,443
And as I interviewed Pete
and talked with him,
685
00:47:43,528 --> 00:47:46,696
I realized at that time
I'd never met anybody like him.
686
00:47:47,240 --> 00:47:51,201
In his single-minded pursuit
of what he believed was right,
687
00:47:51,285 --> 00:47:54,371
and also, in the flurry of emotions,
688
00:47:54,622 --> 00:47:57,832
I thought that meant that
he was the perfect guy for me.
689
00:47:58,042 --> 00:48:00,877
And so despite the fact
that I was writing about him
690
00:48:00,962 --> 00:48:02,671
and he should be my subject,
691
00:48:02,964 --> 00:48:06,800
I broke the first rule of journalism
and fell in love with my subject.
692
00:48:07,677 --> 00:48:09,427
So we started dating,
693
00:48:09,512 --> 00:48:12,806
and in our emotional ridiculousness,
694
00:48:12,974 --> 00:48:17,143
got married really quite quickly,
within months of my moving here.
695
00:48:17,311 --> 00:48:19,479
But it was okay.
696
00:48:19,647 --> 00:48:21,565
It was okay for what was going on there.
697
00:48:21,941 --> 00:48:24,526
And so we traversed this together,
698
00:48:24,610 --> 00:48:26,736
and I had created for myself
699
00:48:26,821 --> 00:48:28,738
the additional burden
of trying to be a journalist
700
00:48:28,823 --> 00:48:31,783
and separate my personal feelings
from my job.
701
00:48:44,505 --> 00:48:46,464
Two federal courts have
sided with the government,
702
00:48:46,549 --> 00:48:48,091
saying Sue should stay in the box
703
00:48:48,175 --> 00:48:50,969
because there's no proof
the dinosaur is being damaged there.
704
00:48:51,220 --> 00:48:52,679
In another federal court,
705
00:48:52,763 --> 00:48:56,224
they're still arguing over
who actually owns the bones.
706
00:48:56,350 --> 00:49:00,854
The intensity of reaction while the court
case was going on really surprised me.
707
00:49:00,938 --> 00:49:03,356
There were people that I thought
were quite reasonable people
708
00:49:03,983 --> 00:49:06,401
who basically
709
00:49:07,194 --> 00:49:09,571
said things about Black Hills
that just were not true.
710
00:49:09,655 --> 00:49:13,783
There's no question that S.V. P., the
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology,
711
00:49:13,868 --> 00:49:17,537
was aligned against Peter Larson
and the Institute
712
00:49:17,872 --> 00:49:19,497
from the beginning
and all the way to the end.
713
00:49:19,624 --> 00:49:22,792
I had been a member of the Society for
Vertebrate Paleontology since the '70s.
714
00:49:22,877 --> 00:49:27,756
The S.V.P. became very active in it, in that
they actually sent out two different letters.
715
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:30,133
One was fully in support
of the U.S. Attorney's action
716
00:49:30,217 --> 00:49:33,219
in seizing the dinosaur, and the
other one, I think, was saying that,
717
00:49:33,346 --> 00:49:35,555
"Yes, it was kept in a
perfectly good place."
718
00:49:35,723 --> 00:49:38,141
Which, you know, how can you say that
if you've never seen it?
719
00:49:38,225 --> 00:49:39,809
Many of them have very strong feelings
720
00:49:39,894 --> 00:49:43,271
about whether or not the specimen
should be commercially collected or not.
721
00:49:43,481 --> 00:49:44,648
There is a difference
722
00:49:44,732 --> 00:49:48,109
between the academic perspective
723
00:49:48,194 --> 00:49:49,653
of fossil collecting
724
00:49:49,737 --> 00:49:52,113
and the commercial perspective.
725
00:49:52,406 --> 00:49:56,493
There are some people in this profession
that really, truly believe that it is...
726
00:49:56,577 --> 00:49:59,079
There's something morally wrong
with selling a fossil.
727
00:49:59,163 --> 00:50:02,999
I was indoctrinated as an undergrad
728
00:50:03,084 --> 00:50:07,504
that if you don't have a PhD,
you have no right to collect dinosaurs.
729
00:50:07,588 --> 00:50:11,132
I heard about the BHI and Peter
Larson collecting fossils,
730
00:50:11,217 --> 00:50:13,635
and I was told, "These are pirates."
731
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:18,098
And I visited Pete Larson,
and I visited the Black Hills Institute,
732
00:50:18,182 --> 00:50:20,100
and they weren't pirates at all.
733
00:50:20,267 --> 00:50:24,479
They had techniques they taught my crew.
They were better than my crew.
734
00:50:24,605 --> 00:50:27,065
You have academians,
and they have these little fiefdoms.
735
00:50:27,149 --> 00:50:30,235
They built these towers
and they all surround themselves
736
00:50:30,319 --> 00:50:32,612
because they're...
They're dependent on money
737
00:50:32,738 --> 00:50:36,366
from grants and other institutions
to do their work.
738
00:50:36,534 --> 00:50:39,911
And now here's these
really great paleontologists
739
00:50:39,995 --> 00:50:41,246
that don't need that system.
740
00:50:41,372 --> 00:50:44,290
She who sold seashells
on the seashore was Mary Anning.
741
00:50:44,709 --> 00:50:47,544
She sold fossils. She was a dealer.
742
00:50:47,628 --> 00:50:51,715
And she was one of the highest-ranked
ladies in science of the time.
743
00:50:51,799 --> 00:50:54,092
Back in the day,
in the early 1900s,
744
00:50:54,343 --> 00:50:58,680
"commercial collectors" were
filling museums with specimens
745
00:50:59,140 --> 00:51:02,475
and working hand-in-hand
with "academic people."
746
00:51:02,768 --> 00:51:04,436
That was an okay relationship.
747
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:06,813
Around in the '70s and '80s,
that changed.
748
00:51:06,981 --> 00:51:10,525
1980s, we're already seeing this schism
749
00:51:10,609 --> 00:51:13,069
between professional
commercial collectors
750
00:51:13,154 --> 00:51:15,822
versus professional research collectors.
751
00:51:15,906 --> 00:51:19,826
This race to discover the Earth's past
752
00:51:20,369 --> 00:51:23,163
is a very exciting one,
and people want a piece of it.
753
00:51:32,381 --> 00:51:34,758
Through the pendency
of the custody case,
754
00:51:34,842 --> 00:51:38,636
Pete's way of managing
stress was to work.
755
00:51:38,763 --> 00:51:42,515
He also was extremely sad.
756
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:46,060
It was as if, often, he was in mourning.
757
00:51:46,187 --> 00:51:50,315
Sue had become a living entity
to me after all our work in the field
758
00:51:50,399 --> 00:51:52,150
and what we were finding
out about her life.
759
00:51:52,234 --> 00:51:55,528
And I really missed
her when she was gone.
760
00:51:56,322 --> 00:51:58,948
So one way that I was able to
761
00:51:59,408 --> 00:52:02,535
sort of help that was
to go and visit her
762
00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:06,623
and to talk with her through the window,
looking at the container.
763
00:52:06,707 --> 00:52:09,542
So I could see her,
see that, that container's still there,
764
00:52:10,211 --> 00:52:13,421
not moved to some other place
in Timbuktu or something.
765
00:52:13,714 --> 00:52:18,510
And just kind of had
some little conversations with her.
766
00:52:37,696 --> 00:52:40,573
It was precious. It was...
767
00:52:41,367 --> 00:52:42,534
It was sweet.
768
00:52:42,618 --> 00:52:45,578
She was his person,
769
00:52:45,788 --> 00:52:48,373
and later I would realize
she was more of his person
770
00:52:48,457 --> 00:52:53,670
than any other person
has ever been and ever will be.
771
00:52:53,921 --> 00:52:58,716
I got to say that dinosaur and Pete
Larson were made for each other.
772
00:52:59,051 --> 00:53:01,344
And so he had to go talk to her,
773
00:53:01,428 --> 00:53:03,388
and that was what... How it should be.
774
00:53:10,813 --> 00:53:15,024
Mostly I was trying to reassure her that
she wasn't going to rot in that case,
775
00:53:15,109 --> 00:53:16,818
that I was gonna spring her free,
776
00:53:16,944 --> 00:53:18,945
somehow I was going to
get her out of there.
777
00:53:51,312 --> 00:53:54,355
As that whole custody battle unfolded,
778
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:57,734
firstly the tribe lost
its own case in tribal court,
779
00:53:57,818 --> 00:54:02,739
which is pretty surprising,
but evident that it was a bad claim.
780
00:54:02,823 --> 00:54:04,991
The government actually
retracted its claim
781
00:54:05,075 --> 00:54:07,827
because it realized
it couldn't claim trust property.
782
00:54:08,037 --> 00:54:09,829
So then it comes down to two people.
783
00:54:09,955 --> 00:54:12,707
Is it Maurice's fossil, or is it
Black Hills Institute's fossil?
784
00:54:12,875 --> 00:54:15,835
Every single filing the Institute made,
785
00:54:16,378 --> 00:54:20,256
I really believed would win
because it was so clear.
786
00:54:20,424 --> 00:54:24,093
They had purchased it.
He had accepted the check.
787
00:54:24,720 --> 00:54:27,347
He had been on videotape
talking about it.
788
00:54:27,514 --> 00:54:32,060
It was very clear that he thought
he had sold the fossil at the time.
789
00:54:40,778 --> 00:54:43,488
Judge Battey held
790
00:54:43,656 --> 00:54:45,490
that a fossil,
791
00:54:45,574 --> 00:54:48,534
unlike an archeological find,
792
00:54:48,744 --> 00:54:52,413
had become...
The bones had become mineralized.
793
00:54:52,581 --> 00:54:57,001
Therefore, the fossil was land.
794
00:54:57,419 --> 00:55:02,465
An individual Indian cannot sell land
795
00:55:02,549 --> 00:55:04,842
that the government
holds in trust for him
796
00:55:05,094 --> 00:55:06,844
without the permission
797
00:55:07,304 --> 00:55:09,347
of the federal government to begin with.
798
00:55:09,723 --> 00:55:11,391
So that's what ended it.
799
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:12,976
Fossils are land.
800
00:55:23,070 --> 00:55:25,989
Judge Battey said actually in his filing
801
00:55:26,073 --> 00:55:28,074
that the sale was null and void.
802
00:55:28,158 --> 00:55:31,869
The federal government took the position
that he had no authority himself
803
00:55:31,954 --> 00:55:34,414
to enter into an agreement
with the Black Hills Institute.
804
00:55:34,540 --> 00:55:38,876
Peter realized that
he could not have his fossil back.
805
00:55:39,253 --> 00:55:40,378
He was devastated.
806
00:55:40,546 --> 00:55:43,589
The judge decided that
Sue was real estate.
807
00:55:45,551 --> 00:55:47,010
Sue, the fossil, was real estate.
808
00:55:48,929 --> 00:55:51,014
For Peter,
it was uniquely heartbreaking.
809
00:55:51,932 --> 00:55:53,433
Maybe we're done.
810
00:55:54,059 --> 00:55:56,769
Maybe taking
811
00:55:56,895 --> 00:56:00,481
from Peter Larson the sum of all
his boyhood dreams
812
00:56:00,858 --> 00:56:02,567
would be enough punishment
813
00:56:02,693 --> 00:56:06,112
to end everything that
Schieffer had began.
814
00:56:22,629 --> 00:56:25,923
I first got involved in the
dinosaur case, as we called it,
815
00:56:26,300 --> 00:56:31,179
sometime late 1992,
early 1993.
816
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:33,222
Of course they're not gonna
like what we're doing.
817
00:56:33,307 --> 00:56:35,516
That's the nature of what we do.
818
00:56:35,601 --> 00:56:39,520
But, hopefully, in a broader spectrum,
people can look at it and say,
819
00:56:39,646 --> 00:56:43,816
"Well, I'm glad people can't just go out
into the forest or go out onto the parks
820
00:56:43,901 --> 00:56:46,819
"and take these fossils or..."
821
00:56:46,904 --> 00:56:50,490
In this particular case,
"Or steal stuff off some land,
822
00:56:50,574 --> 00:56:51,783
"and somebody's going
to do something about it."
823
00:56:51,867 --> 00:56:53,493
Well, we're the somebody
that does something about it.
824
00:57:01,668 --> 00:57:04,378
After the seizure of the Sue specimen,
825
00:57:04,505 --> 00:57:07,507
we continued to look at this issue
826
00:57:07,591 --> 00:57:10,760
not from a Park Service
jurisdiction perspective,
827
00:57:10,844 --> 00:57:14,889
but more from the circumstances
of business practices
828
00:57:15,015 --> 00:57:17,058
in terms of collecting on public lands.
829
00:57:25,859 --> 00:57:29,862
You really can't do anything
in any kind of a business without money.
830
00:57:30,239 --> 00:57:32,824
What monetary transactions happened
831
00:57:32,908 --> 00:57:36,202
during the time that this enterprise
had that fossil,
832
00:57:36,328 --> 00:57:38,204
and then what did they
do with that fossil?
833
00:57:38,413 --> 00:57:40,581
Sell it? What happened to that money?
834
00:57:40,749 --> 00:57:44,335
And then how we could assemble
the evidence around that fossil
835
00:57:44,461 --> 00:57:47,171
to see whether there's
something there that's wrong,
836
00:57:47,422 --> 00:57:50,133
chargeable,
what more needs to be investigated.
837
00:57:50,217 --> 00:57:51,968
FBI agents arrived here in Hill City.
838
00:57:52,052 --> 00:57:54,595
They presented the Black Hills Institute
with a court order.
839
00:57:54,721 --> 00:57:57,390
That order demanded
the release of more information.
840
00:57:57,474 --> 00:57:59,851
But the people at the Institute
have another name for it.
841
00:57:59,935 --> 00:58:01,102
They call it harassment.
842
00:58:01,395 --> 00:58:02,520
This should not be allowed to happen.
843
00:58:02,604 --> 00:58:04,397
This is the United States of America.
844
00:58:08,235 --> 00:58:11,195
So far, no criminal charges
have been filed in the case.
845
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:13,823
Members of the Institute
say they're innocent
846
00:58:13,907 --> 00:58:15,825
and are hoping that a new administration
847
00:58:15,909 --> 00:58:18,536
will put an end to their
legal fight over Sue.
848
00:58:25,377 --> 00:58:27,587
Institute officials thought
their problems were over
849
00:58:27,671 --> 00:58:29,755
when Kevin Schieffer
was replaced as U.S. Attorney,
850
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:32,508
but apparently they continue to be
the target of the federal government.
851
00:58:32,593 --> 00:58:36,179
We have a federal search warrant
issued by the U.S. District Court,
852
00:58:36,263 --> 00:58:37,597
and we're serving a search warrant.
853
00:58:37,681 --> 00:58:39,849
Enormous amount of money that
the government's spending
854
00:58:39,933 --> 00:58:41,267
to put one person out...
855
00:58:41,435 --> 00:58:44,687
One group of people out of business
that's so vital to a community.
856
00:58:44,771 --> 00:58:48,149
It's been nearly 18 months since
Sue was seized from this warehouse,
857
00:58:48,233 --> 00:58:50,568
and still no charges have been filed
against the Institute.
858
00:58:50,652 --> 00:58:53,070
Allow us some rights.
Charge us with something,
859
00:58:53,155 --> 00:58:55,281
and let's go to court.
Let 12 people decide.
860
00:59:05,459 --> 00:59:07,710
I couldn't give them any information
861
00:59:07,794 --> 00:59:10,838
to help incriminate people
at Black Hills Institute.
862
00:59:10,923 --> 00:59:12,506
They thought I was
going to be able tell them
863
00:59:12,591 --> 00:59:16,010
all sorts of terrible
things the Institute did.
864
00:59:16,178 --> 00:59:17,595
Well, they didn't do anything wrong.
865
00:59:17,679 --> 00:59:18,971
They talked to my attorney about,
866
00:59:19,056 --> 00:59:22,308
"You better get your guy in
and bring him on in,
867
00:59:22,476 --> 00:59:24,977
"or, you know, last chance
happening pretty soon."
868
00:59:25,062 --> 00:59:28,272
And my attorney says, "He just
doesn't have anything to tell you."
869
00:59:28,607 --> 00:59:31,943
For 3 years, I had no
contact with the Institute.
870
00:59:32,152 --> 00:59:34,779
That's horrible. I mean,
I considered them best friends,
871
00:59:34,905 --> 00:59:36,447
and I couldn't call them up.
872
00:59:37,282 --> 00:59:40,743
Sue was probably the impetus
873
00:59:40,827 --> 00:59:45,081
for the government following up
with a criminal prosecution.
874
00:59:45,165 --> 00:59:49,126
Sue wasn't a part of what we were
looking at or what was being looked at
875
00:59:49,211 --> 00:59:51,420
as far as potential criminal violations.
876
00:59:51,505 --> 00:59:53,089
There were so many bones,
877
00:59:53,173 --> 00:59:56,092
so many animals, so many invertebrates
878
00:59:56,301 --> 00:59:58,678
that were taken off from public lands,
879
00:59:58,762 --> 01:00:01,389
taken internationally,
sold internationally.
880
01:00:01,515 --> 01:00:03,432
There was way more than
we could have ever investigated.
881
01:00:03,517 --> 01:00:05,935
The case was never wanting
for not having Sue.
882
01:00:07,771 --> 01:00:11,440
Because so much material
had been seized,
883
01:00:11,525 --> 01:00:16,070
I think everybody thought that
there would be a massive indictment.
884
01:00:16,613 --> 01:00:17,905
Tell me a little bit
about today's indictment.
885
01:00:17,990 --> 01:00:21,409
What alleged activity
are we exactly talking about?
886
01:00:21,493 --> 01:00:24,870
This indictment charges
the theft of fossils
887
01:00:24,955 --> 01:00:27,915
off a number of different types
of federal land.
888
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:32,628
There are also charges in there
that pertain to money laundering,
889
01:00:32,713 --> 01:00:34,714
structuring of currency transactions,
890
01:00:34,798 --> 01:00:38,467
false statements made
to various government agencies.
891
01:00:38,552 --> 01:00:41,012
The indictments were an
avalanche of charges,
892
01:00:41,096 --> 01:00:43,097
and it was just a massive document,
893
01:00:43,223 --> 01:00:46,726
and it looked like
a deathblow to the Institute.
894
01:00:46,935 --> 01:00:49,353
The government went just nuts
or something, you know?
895
01:00:49,438 --> 01:00:50,438
I mean, they tried...
896
01:00:50,522 --> 01:00:53,107
I guess they just threw everything in
and hoped something would stick.
897
01:00:53,358 --> 01:00:55,651
If you add up the time to serve
for each of those counts,
898
01:00:55,736 --> 01:00:58,029
it comes to 353 years for me,
899
01:00:58,155 --> 01:01:03,701
which is longer than Jeffrey Dahmer
was sentenced to prison for,
900
01:01:03,785 --> 01:01:05,995
and he killed and ate,
like, 13 people.
901
01:01:06,079 --> 01:01:07,747
You know, it doesn't make sense.
902
01:01:07,831 --> 01:01:14,170
A lot of these accusations are
things that we know were legal.
903
01:01:14,254 --> 01:01:17,965
Thirty-eight felony indictments
for collecting fossils?
904
01:01:18,258 --> 01:01:21,344
It totally blew me apart.
905
01:01:21,511 --> 01:01:24,680
I'm used to fixing things,
and this was unfixable,
906
01:01:24,765 --> 01:01:26,015
and it was so stupid.
907
01:01:26,099 --> 01:01:28,059
Once you start to
understand the indictments,
908
01:01:28,143 --> 01:01:30,227
basically this is what they said.
909
01:01:30,312 --> 01:01:32,021
Pretend we're in Wyoming
910
01:01:32,105 --> 01:01:34,023
and we're standing
in the middle of the prairie,
911
01:01:34,107 --> 01:01:35,608
and let's assume for a moment
912
01:01:35,692 --> 01:01:37,985
that the fence is in the right place.
913
01:01:38,945 --> 01:01:41,906
You're standing on this side of the fence.
The government says right over there,
914
01:01:41,990 --> 01:01:44,867
on the other side of the fence,
is this fabulous fossil,
915
01:01:44,951 --> 01:01:46,285
and they're basically saying
916
01:01:46,370 --> 01:01:50,206
that Pete and Neal and Bob
and whoever was out there would go,
917
01:01:50,290 --> 01:01:51,791
step over the fence,
918
01:01:52,167 --> 01:01:55,961
wrongly, knowingly pick up the fossil
that they're not supposed to pick up,
919
01:01:56,713 --> 01:01:59,382
carry it back over the fence,
put it in their car.
920
01:01:59,549 --> 01:02:02,134
When they drive from Wyoming
to South Dakota,
921
01:02:02,302 --> 01:02:05,471
they then have conducted
an illegal act, which is called
922
01:02:05,597 --> 01:02:08,891
the interstate transportation
of stolen property.
923
01:02:08,975 --> 01:02:10,684
They get back to the Institute.
924
01:02:10,811 --> 01:02:14,563
They would make a phone call,
send a fax, maybe to Japan, and say,
925
01:02:14,648 --> 01:02:17,024
"We found the thing
that you were looking for.
926
01:02:17,484 --> 01:02:18,901
"Do you want to buy it?"
927
01:02:18,985 --> 01:02:20,694
Well, that's wire fraud.
928
01:02:20,779 --> 01:02:26,075
And then if the Japanese museum
were to purchase that fossil
929
01:02:26,159 --> 01:02:29,370
and the guys would put that money
in the bank, that's money laundering.
930
01:02:29,454 --> 01:02:32,957
So basically the guys
were called conspirators
931
01:02:33,041 --> 01:02:37,628
who were creating
this very elaborate scheme
932
01:02:37,712 --> 01:02:40,965
to intentionally steal things
and sell them illegally.
933
01:02:41,133 --> 01:02:44,301
Mafioso master criminals,
Pete, Neal, and Bob.
934
01:02:47,055 --> 01:02:49,098
Yeah, they tried to paint
a picture that was...
935
01:02:49,182 --> 01:02:51,350
I mean, you know, they're...
936
01:02:51,435 --> 01:02:52,768
Pete and Neal are a couple of kids
937
01:02:52,853 --> 01:02:56,313
that learned how to love fossil
collecting as kids on the ranch.
938
01:02:56,398 --> 01:02:58,190
To think that all of
a sudden they decided
939
01:02:58,275 --> 01:03:01,444
to become thieves or something
is just insane.
940
01:03:18,503 --> 01:03:19,795
As the months went by,
941
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:23,007
things seemed to get darker
and darker and darker.
942
01:03:23,383 --> 01:03:26,719
For quite a while, we'd hoped
that they'll gain their senses
943
01:03:26,803 --> 01:03:28,137
and this'll just go away.
944
01:03:28,221 --> 01:03:31,557
Because it was
so hotly contested along the way,
945
01:03:32,058 --> 01:03:36,479
I didn't think there would be any chance
that this case would settle before trial.
946
01:03:36,563 --> 01:03:40,858
By late summer of '94,
there were serious discussions
947
01:03:40,942 --> 01:03:43,235
that were going on with
the U.S. Attorney's office
948
01:03:43,361 --> 01:03:44,653
for a possible resolution.
949
01:03:44,738 --> 01:03:46,655
I go out on my step one morning
950
01:03:46,740 --> 01:03:48,157
and bring the Rapid City Journal in
951
01:03:48,241 --> 01:03:50,493
and have a cup of coffee,
and right on the front page
952
01:03:50,744 --> 01:03:52,203
is the plea agreement announced.
953
01:03:54,915 --> 01:03:59,126
Somebody spilled their guts
in front of Hugh O'Gara,
954
01:03:59,252 --> 01:04:01,587
and he might as well have taken a gun
and shot us.
955
01:04:01,755 --> 01:04:05,633
The article itself
suggested capitulation
956
01:04:05,717 --> 01:04:06,926
on the part of the government.
957
01:04:07,010 --> 01:04:08,594
You never get a good deal done
958
01:04:08,762 --> 01:04:13,015
if somebody is going to be cast
as having folded their tent.
959
01:04:13,099 --> 01:04:15,518
Anybody who would publish
that should know better.
960
01:04:15,602 --> 01:04:19,438
So I called Hugh O'Gara, and I
just said, "What were you thinking?
961
01:04:20,065 --> 01:04:21,357
"How could you do that?"
962
01:04:21,441 --> 01:04:23,234
And he was near tears on the phone.
963
01:04:23,318 --> 01:04:24,652
He would not answer me.
964
01:04:24,861 --> 01:04:28,572
Hugh would never... Obviously,
would not tell me who that source was.
965
01:04:28,657 --> 01:04:29,823
I wouldn't even ask him.
966
01:04:29,950 --> 01:04:31,158
The next morning,
967
01:04:31,243 --> 01:04:34,245
the judge called
all the attorneys into chambers.
968
01:04:34,454 --> 01:04:37,206
He went down the line
and made each of us say
969
01:04:37,290 --> 01:04:39,917
that we were not
responsible for the leak.
970
01:04:40,126 --> 01:04:43,796
He felt that the principals at least
deserved to go to jail.
971
01:04:43,964 --> 01:04:45,923
He said that he would
not accept the plea.
972
01:04:46,049 --> 01:04:49,969
He had prejudged the case,
and under two federal statutes
973
01:04:50,178 --> 01:04:52,888
a judge is obligated
to remove themselves
974
01:04:52,973 --> 01:04:54,932
from sitting and hearing
the rest of the case.
975
01:04:55,100 --> 01:04:56,475
So we filed immediately
976
01:04:56,560 --> 01:05:00,563
our second recusal motion,
asking the judge to step down.
977
01:05:00,647 --> 01:05:03,107
The thing that seems to
upset Judge Battey the most
978
01:05:03,191 --> 01:05:05,401
is not whether he's fair,
979
01:05:05,485 --> 01:05:07,528
but to be challenged
that he's not being fair.
980
01:05:07,737 --> 01:05:09,363
So he immediately denied that motion.
981
01:05:22,669 --> 01:05:25,337
I knew this case was going to trial
982
01:05:25,755 --> 01:05:30,467
the day the Hugh O'Gara article
was published in the Rapid City Journal.
983
01:05:52,532 --> 01:05:57,036
I'm not afraid of 12 people,
a jury of 12 people of our peers.
984
01:05:57,370 --> 01:06:01,123
I know that they'll look at this case
and they'll see the ridiculous way
985
01:06:01,207 --> 01:06:04,710
in which the government is behaving,
and they will vindicate us.
986
01:06:05,253 --> 01:06:07,546
We're innocent of all the things
that we're charged with.
987
01:06:22,479 --> 01:06:23,520
So in the courtroom,
988
01:06:23,605 --> 01:06:27,775
of course, right in front
is Judge Battey in the bench.
989
01:06:27,859 --> 01:06:31,654
Off to the left is the jury,
12 jurors, two alternates,
990
01:06:31,738 --> 01:06:34,323
a large space in between
where the lawyers
991
01:06:34,407 --> 01:06:36,492
get to pace and walk
and show exhibits and things,
992
01:06:36,576 --> 01:06:41,288
and then we have the prosecution,
which had at times two or three lawyers.
993
01:06:43,166 --> 01:06:45,334
On our side, there was
a lawyer for each defendant,
994
01:06:45,418 --> 01:06:48,420
so there are six lawyers
and five defendants.
995
01:06:48,713 --> 01:06:52,424
The sixth defendant, of course,
being the Black Hills Institute.
996
01:06:52,759 --> 01:06:55,511
Our trial was, and still is,
the largest criminal case
997
01:06:55,595 --> 01:06:56,929
that's ever been tried in South Dakota.
998
01:07:00,100 --> 01:07:03,102
You cannot say the word
"Sue" in the trial.
999
01:07:04,062 --> 01:07:07,022
I mean, the jurors were going,
"What happened to Sue?
1000
01:07:07,107 --> 01:07:10,109
"That's why they got these guys
in the court system, right?"
1001
01:07:10,193 --> 01:07:12,945
The logistics of this trial
were incomprehensible.
1002
01:07:19,619 --> 01:07:22,287
The Institute has collected
maybe a million fossils.
1003
01:07:22,622 --> 01:07:25,374
This indictment
covers 14 of them,
1004
01:07:26,251 --> 01:07:29,586
and those 14 fossils were
collected from seven sites.
1005
01:07:29,796 --> 01:07:31,672
In seven cases,
1006
01:07:31,756 --> 01:07:34,049
in all the years these guys
have been out in the field,
1007
01:07:34,134 --> 01:07:36,468
they are accused of
being in the wrong place.
1008
01:07:36,594 --> 01:07:38,721
The government would simply
have their officials come in
1009
01:07:38,805 --> 01:07:44,226
of whatever agency was going to be
taking the lead for that particular site
1010
01:07:44,644 --> 01:07:47,062
and would say, "I found where
the specimen was collected.
1011
01:07:47,147 --> 01:07:49,148
"I knew, therefore,
it was on government land."
1012
01:07:49,274 --> 01:07:53,235
To me, it just emphasized the
ridiculous nature of this whole thing.
1013
01:07:53,403 --> 01:07:55,237
You know, I mean, if it's 200 feet over
1014
01:07:55,321 --> 01:07:57,656
and you don't know where you are,
it would have been okay?
1015
01:08:02,287 --> 01:08:05,914
His job had been to appraise the fossils
that had been seized in the case,
1016
01:08:06,374 --> 01:08:09,793
and his evaluations
would be incredibly important
1017
01:08:09,878 --> 01:08:14,506
because they determined whether a given
count was a misdemeanor or a felony.
1018
01:08:16,843 --> 01:08:19,720
It was pretty easy in cross-examination
1019
01:08:19,804 --> 01:08:24,308
to discover that the man
had not opened the field jackets.
1020
01:08:24,684 --> 01:08:29,188
He was telling us the values of things
he had not even looked at.
1021
01:08:51,461 --> 01:08:56,298
Pete and I, on one of our trips to Peru,
We were taking $15,000 in cash
1022
01:08:56,382 --> 01:09:00,385
because down there you can't use
credit cards or anything else.
1023
01:09:01,346 --> 01:09:04,223
And he withdrew $15,000 from
the bank, and we split it up.
1024
01:09:04,307 --> 01:09:07,643
Just in case one person got robbed,
at least they wouldn't lose everything.
1025
01:09:07,727 --> 01:09:09,812
Susan Hendrickson carried 8,000
1026
01:09:09,896 --> 01:09:12,856
and I carried $7,000 down
one of the trips, of cash.
1027
01:09:12,941 --> 01:09:16,568
We were building a museum,
paying for the bricks and mortar
1028
01:09:16,653 --> 01:09:18,862
and doing the work ourselves
with our Swiss colleagues.
1029
01:09:27,539 --> 01:09:30,457
In Japan, they..
The museums pay in cash.
1030
01:09:30,542 --> 01:09:34,169
They always have. Didn't want to
carry bundles of cash on the plane,
1031
01:09:34,254 --> 01:09:36,505
so we went to a bank
and put it in traveler's checks.
1032
01:09:36,589 --> 01:09:38,799
They were all restrictively
endorsed traveler's checks,
1033
01:09:38,883 --> 01:09:42,636
all stamped for deposit only, deposited
in the bank. Paid taxes on them.
1034
01:09:42,929 --> 01:09:45,013
Prosecution had four
different witnesses,
1035
01:09:45,098 --> 01:09:48,016
all of whom testified that
restrictively endorsed traveler's checks
1036
01:09:48,101 --> 01:09:49,351
do not need to be declared.
1037
01:09:49,435 --> 01:09:52,354
What struck me about
the prosecution's case
1038
01:09:52,438 --> 01:09:54,022
was how complex it was.
1039
01:09:54,107 --> 01:09:58,902
People had to understand
the arcane ins and outs
1040
01:09:59,070 --> 01:10:02,990
of bringing traveler's checks
into the country
1041
01:10:03,116 --> 01:10:06,451
and latitudes and longitudes
on public lands.
1042
01:10:06,703 --> 01:10:09,246
And I think they did
it in an organized way,
1043
01:10:09,414 --> 01:10:12,291
but it was a very,
very complicated argument.
1044
01:10:17,338 --> 01:10:19,214
When the prosecution rested,
1045
01:10:19,465 --> 01:10:23,051
I felt we had put on
the evidence that we had.
1046
01:10:23,136 --> 01:10:26,179
We had their own pictures
of them taking these fossils.
1047
01:10:26,264 --> 01:10:29,349
We had their own field notes
of them collecting these fossils.
1048
01:10:29,642 --> 01:10:34,813
We had given it 100% of our
effort to show what they did.
1049
01:10:37,609 --> 01:10:39,985
As the defense proceeded to present
1050
01:10:40,069 --> 01:10:42,112
many fewer witnesses to say,
1051
01:10:42,780 --> 01:10:44,156
"Look, it's not that complicated.
1052
01:10:44,240 --> 01:10:47,451
"We were collecting fossils. We
thought we had permission to be there.
1053
01:10:47,577 --> 01:10:49,536
"In this case, we weren't
where you thought we were.
1054
01:10:49,621 --> 01:10:51,914
"In this case, we were.
It's that simple."
1055
01:10:56,669 --> 01:10:59,838
As we were approaching the end
of the trial, Neal and I both felt
1056
01:10:59,923 --> 01:11:02,633
that it was important
for him to testify.
1057
01:11:02,717 --> 01:11:04,301
Three-and-a-half days,
I was on the witness stand,
1058
01:11:04,385 --> 01:11:06,261
and for three-and-a-half days,
1059
01:11:06,346 --> 01:11:11,099
I swore to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
1060
01:11:18,358 --> 01:11:20,233
Pete ended up not testifying.
1061
01:11:20,485 --> 01:11:22,027
State had not proven its case.
1062
01:11:22,320 --> 01:11:26,198
The state doesn't prove their case, your
client doesn't take the stand, period.
1063
01:11:27,241 --> 01:11:30,702
And so on the advice of counsel,
I did not testify.
1064
01:11:49,889 --> 01:11:51,348
The jury came back today
1065
01:11:51,432 --> 01:11:53,642
in the Hill City fossil hunter
federal criminal trial.
1066
01:11:53,726 --> 01:11:56,019
The jury said over and over again
1067
01:11:56,104 --> 01:12:00,399
either not guilty or no unanimous
verdict could be reached.
1068
01:12:00,483 --> 01:12:02,484
Of over 150 charges,
1069
01:12:02,568 --> 01:12:05,237
the jury agreed to
convict only 13 times,
1070
01:12:05,405 --> 01:12:07,823
and five of those convictions
are for misdemeanor crimes.
1071
01:12:08,032 --> 01:12:10,659
So here is how the
convictions break down.
1072
01:12:10,743 --> 01:12:13,078
Pete Larson, co-owner
and founder of the Institute,
1073
01:12:13,162 --> 01:12:15,622
is convicted on two counts
of misdemeanor thefts
1074
01:12:15,707 --> 01:12:18,250
and two felony counts
of illegally transporting money
1075
01:12:18,334 --> 01:12:19,668
in and out of the country.
1076
01:12:19,752 --> 01:12:23,255
Brother Neal Larson found guilty
of one misdemeanor theft.
1077
01:12:23,423 --> 01:12:27,384
The jury either acquitted Neal or couldn't
agree on a verdict for the others.
1078
01:12:27,468 --> 01:12:30,429
Bob Farrar, a third
co-owner of the Institute,
1079
01:12:30,555 --> 01:12:32,097
convicted of two felonies,
1080
01:12:32,181 --> 01:12:34,975
making false statements
to customs officials.
1081
01:12:35,059 --> 01:12:37,269
And the Black Hills Institute
as a corporation
1082
01:12:37,353 --> 01:12:40,313
is convicted of two misdemeanor thefts,
a felony theft,
1083
01:12:40,440 --> 01:12:43,275
and twice making false statements
to customs officials.
1084
01:12:43,359 --> 01:12:45,193
The jury also found the Institute
1085
01:12:45,278 --> 01:12:48,697
guilty of bringing goods into the States
by making a false statement.
1086
01:12:48,948 --> 01:12:53,493
Defendants Eddie Cole and Terry Wentz
were not convicted on any charges.
1087
01:12:58,624 --> 01:13:03,045
As the verdict was announced,
it was almost impossible to believe
1088
01:13:03,129 --> 01:13:05,881
that the defense
hadn't scored a great victory.
1089
01:13:05,965 --> 01:13:11,470
However, there were some
fairly significant felony convictions.
1090
01:13:11,554 --> 01:13:13,972
The expression, "You could have
knocked me over with a feather..."
1091
01:13:15,475 --> 01:13:16,892
You could have
knocked me over with a feather.
1092
01:13:16,976 --> 01:13:19,061
Four times guilty,
1093
01:13:19,145 --> 01:13:20,896
and I'm trying to look and see,
what is Pat saying?
1094
01:13:20,980 --> 01:13:22,147
"Don't look at it." Then he says,
1095
01:13:22,231 --> 01:13:24,941
"You follow me out of this courtroom,
and I don't want you to say one word."
1096
01:13:25,026 --> 01:13:28,236
We got on the elevator,
just me and Pete.
1097
01:13:28,321 --> 01:13:32,532
Hit one. Started to go down.
Pete said, "I'm finished."
1098
01:13:32,700 --> 01:13:35,202
He said, "These convictions
will completely destroy the Institute."
1099
01:13:35,995 --> 01:13:41,458
I opened up my suit and I said, "I got
the best prop in the entire world."
1100
01:13:41,834 --> 01:13:45,837
Duffy, as soon as he hit the door,
had a big ol' cigar in his mouth,
1101
01:13:46,130 --> 01:13:49,132
and as he's kind of
holding fort with the media,
1102
01:13:49,217 --> 01:13:51,093
he's puffing away on his cigar, saying
1103
01:13:51,177 --> 01:13:54,930
that he had won the case,
when he pretty much had to know,
1104
01:13:55,014 --> 01:13:57,057
at that moment in time,
that at least his defendant
1105
01:13:57,141 --> 01:13:59,184
was gonna be going to jail for a time
1106
01:13:59,560 --> 01:14:01,561
and was gonna come away from it
a convicted felon.
1107
01:14:01,687 --> 01:14:03,897
What I think the cigar did
1108
01:14:03,981 --> 01:14:06,983
was just provide a
graphic representation,
1109
01:14:07,068 --> 01:14:10,487
easy for anyone to understand,
that all was not lost,
1110
01:14:10,613 --> 01:14:13,115
that the word "guilty"
did not mean the end of the world,
1111
01:14:13,324 --> 01:14:18,245
and that the town's, you know,
favorite paleontologists were okay.
1112
01:14:42,770 --> 01:14:44,813
I talked to some jurors after the trail.
1113
01:14:44,897 --> 01:14:47,315
Some of them were near tears
1114
01:14:47,400 --> 01:14:50,235
when I interviewed them,
about how they had hoped
1115
01:14:50,319 --> 01:14:52,612
they could acquit on
every single charge.
1116
01:14:52,697 --> 01:14:55,490
I believed they had to have
something to take this to trial,
1117
01:14:55,575 --> 01:14:58,034
and I spend the whole trial
waiting for that something.
1118
01:14:58,327 --> 01:15:00,120
Without a doubt,
1119
01:15:00,204 --> 01:15:03,331
the majority of the jurors
1120
01:15:03,416 --> 01:15:06,001
wanted this whole case
dropped and put away.
1121
01:15:15,219 --> 01:15:17,179
Maurice Williams,
the rancher who found Sue,
1122
01:15:17,263 --> 01:15:20,390
has received at least six offers
to purchase the T-Rex.
1123
01:15:20,516 --> 01:15:24,394
Since the courts determined that the
fossil is part of Williams' trust property,
1124
01:15:24,478 --> 01:15:27,189
any purchase must be approved
by the federal government.
1125
01:15:27,273 --> 01:15:30,317
Since Sue was seized
by federal agents in 1992,
1126
01:15:30,443 --> 01:15:32,777
the fossil has been stored
at the School of Mines.
1127
01:15:32,945 --> 01:15:35,071
My first contact with
Mr.Maurice Williams
1128
01:15:35,239 --> 01:15:38,783
was when he came to Aberdeen
for a series of meetings
1129
01:15:39,243 --> 01:15:45,332
to discuss what he should do
with this fossil.
1130
01:15:45,416 --> 01:15:48,376
The idea that I had was to convene,
1131
01:15:48,461 --> 01:15:51,213
like, a panel of paleontologists
1132
01:15:51,464 --> 01:15:54,341
to do an in-depth study of this fossil
1133
01:15:54,425 --> 01:15:56,885
with the hope that it would end up
in a museum somewhere.
1134
01:15:56,969 --> 01:16:00,055
But in the meantime,
while this was being discussed,
1135
01:16:00,973 --> 01:16:04,392
Mr.Williams decided that
he would rather sell the fossil.
1136
01:16:09,523 --> 01:16:11,816
Maurice Williams had
a stack of proposals
1137
01:16:11,901 --> 01:16:13,944
from all sorts of people
all over the place.
1138
01:16:14,028 --> 01:16:15,111
I mean, everybody wanted it.
1139
01:16:15,196 --> 01:16:16,655
I called up Maurice and I said,
1140
01:16:16,739 --> 01:16:18,740
"I'm going to come out to South Dakota
if you want,
1141
01:16:18,824 --> 01:16:22,577
"and I'll visit with you,"
and he said, "Great."
1142
01:16:22,662 --> 01:16:27,666
And I actually visited the boxes
in which Sue was located
1143
01:16:28,000 --> 01:16:30,085
in the South Dakota School of Mines
1144
01:16:30,169 --> 01:16:33,922
with Maurice's family,
who had never actually been there.
1145
01:16:34,006 --> 01:16:36,341
This was the first time
they'd actually seen Sue.
1146
01:16:36,509 --> 01:16:39,928
What one really saw
inside that sort of garage area
1147
01:16:40,012 --> 01:16:41,680
was this extraordinary,
1148
01:16:41,806 --> 01:16:45,684
almost Citizen Kane vision
of boxes and boxes and boxes.
1149
01:16:46,852 --> 01:16:48,979
Maurice and I had
numerous conversations.
1150
01:16:49,063 --> 01:16:51,439
We talked about the
responsibility involved
1151
01:16:51,524 --> 01:16:54,651
in dealing with this
extraordinary fossil.
1152
01:16:54,735 --> 01:16:56,987
Nothing quite like it
had ever been sold before.
1153
01:16:57,071 --> 01:16:58,863
It had to go to the right place,
1154
01:16:58,948 --> 01:17:03,034
but adjudicating which place
was the right place was complicated,
1155
01:17:03,119 --> 01:17:06,037
and the auction process, in fact,
could help resolve that.
1156
01:17:20,428 --> 01:17:24,264
We're going into court.
We'd already had an indication
1157
01:17:24,348 --> 01:17:28,935
that the judge wasn't too pleased with us
because we asked him to recuse himself.
1158
01:17:29,020 --> 01:17:35,191
It was pretty clear that Judge Battey
was irritated by the defense.
1159
01:17:35,401 --> 01:17:37,319
We had to go back to the same tables
1160
01:17:37,403 --> 01:17:40,864
with our attorneys and sit there,
and then stand up
1161
01:17:40,948 --> 01:17:43,325
as Judge Battey sentenced us.
1162
01:17:43,409 --> 01:17:47,037
He also wanted to hear
that we were sorry for what we had done.
1163
01:17:54,003 --> 01:17:55,420
For Peter Larson,
1164
01:17:55,504 --> 01:17:58,089
recommended guideline range
1165
01:17:58,424 --> 01:18:01,134
for the two felonies
of which he was convicted
1166
01:18:01,218 --> 01:18:02,844
was zero to six months.
1167
01:18:02,928 --> 01:18:07,557
It really looked like the sentence
would be minimal, probably probation.
1168
01:18:07,767 --> 01:18:09,309
When he did come down with his sentence,
1169
01:18:09,393 --> 01:18:12,312
he enhanced it,
so instead of zero to six months,
1170
01:18:13,022 --> 01:18:15,940
he sentenced me to two years in prison
and two years probation.
1171
01:18:27,536 --> 01:18:32,540
To send him to jail, to prison
for two years for this offense
1172
01:18:32,666 --> 01:18:36,294
was absolutely no justification for it.
1173
01:18:36,379 --> 01:18:40,757
Indefensible, ugly behavior.
1174
01:18:40,841 --> 01:18:44,177
This is justice? This is,
you know, the country we live in?
1175
01:18:44,261 --> 01:18:48,139
Every geographic photographer
in the last 30 years would be in jail.
1176
01:18:48,224 --> 01:18:49,891
You know, you're coming
back with $10,000.
1177
01:18:49,975 --> 01:18:51,893
Well, you reported it going in.
You come back out.
1178
01:18:51,977 --> 01:18:53,561
Do you report it?
No, because they're not countersigned.
1179
01:18:53,646 --> 01:18:55,230
The reason the judge did is because
1180
01:18:55,314 --> 01:18:58,733
he had been urged,
he had been convinced by guys with PhDs
1181
01:18:58,818 --> 01:19:02,028
at university museums
that it had to be done,
1182
01:19:02,154 --> 01:19:06,616
for the safety of our science and our
fossils, and that was so totally wrong.
1183
01:19:06,700 --> 01:19:08,993
Peter Larson was made an example...
1184
01:19:10,663 --> 01:19:11,955
...with that sentence.
1185
01:19:12,915 --> 01:19:17,710
I don't have a real good recollection
of those...
1186
01:19:20,172 --> 01:19:22,507
Those next few hours,
I guess you might say.
1187
01:19:22,591 --> 01:19:25,593
A federal judge in Rapid City
today sentenced Peter Larson
1188
01:19:25,678 --> 01:19:28,972
to two years in prison
and a $5,000 fine.
1189
01:19:29,056 --> 01:19:31,182
Larson was found guilty
last year of charges
1190
01:19:31,267 --> 01:19:34,185
connected to his commercial
fossil-hunting business in Hill City.
1191
01:19:34,270 --> 01:19:36,438
It's the final chapter
in the case that began
1192
01:19:36,522 --> 01:19:39,732
with the discovery of Sue,
the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex.
1193
01:20:35,956 --> 01:20:39,501
I was to turn myself in at the gate,
1194
01:20:39,585 --> 01:20:43,171
the same prison that
Timothy McVeigh was and John Gotti.
1195
01:20:43,255 --> 01:20:45,965
And I was using a cane.
I could barely walk.
1196
01:20:46,050 --> 01:20:49,219
Just a few months before that,
broken my leg quite badly.
1197
01:20:49,303 --> 01:20:52,388
When I surrendered at the gate,
they said, "We're gonna take your cane."
1198
01:20:52,473 --> 01:20:55,517
I said, "If you take my cane,
I'm going to fall over."
1199
01:20:55,601 --> 01:20:57,894
Because I really couldn't
stand without my cane.
1200
01:20:57,978 --> 01:20:59,437
And they would say, "Well, let me see."
1201
01:20:59,522 --> 01:21:02,690
And so he's stumbling around,
and it was pitiful.
1202
01:21:02,775 --> 01:21:06,486
It was so insulting.
I just felt so bad for him.
1203
01:21:06,570 --> 01:21:08,321
And I was totally powerless.
1204
01:21:08,405 --> 01:21:09,906
There's nothing you can do.
1205
01:21:09,990 --> 01:21:12,742
She was not next to tears.
1206
01:21:12,826 --> 01:21:14,327
She was way past that.
1207
01:21:15,454 --> 01:21:17,205
I just... It broke my heart.
1208
01:21:18,499 --> 01:21:23,878
There was finally a time when
the man said, "Get out of here."
1209
01:21:23,963 --> 01:21:25,880
So I drove around him,
1210
01:21:25,965 --> 01:21:28,883
and then I couldn't see him anymore.
1211
01:21:28,968 --> 01:21:31,302
And the only choice you have
is to go out the driveway
1212
01:21:31,387 --> 01:21:35,139
and turn on the desolate road
1213
01:21:35,224 --> 01:21:38,142
and drive 10 hours,
1214
01:21:38,227 --> 01:21:40,478
you know, home.
1215
01:21:40,563 --> 01:21:44,232
I think I screamed
for about 10 minutes,
1216
01:21:44,316 --> 01:21:45,900
driving.
1217
01:21:45,985 --> 01:21:49,404
It was wild. I didn't
have any other choice.
1218
01:21:49,488 --> 01:21:52,073
I had to get it out. It was hard.
1219
01:21:54,326 --> 01:21:56,828
It was the hardest thing I ever did.
1220
01:21:56,912 --> 01:21:58,246
Ever.
1221
01:21:58,330 --> 01:22:01,874
The guard who was there
filling out the paperwork
1222
01:22:01,959 --> 01:22:03,376
said, "Have you seen this?"
1223
01:22:03,460 --> 01:22:05,128
And I said, "Seen what?" And he said,
1224
01:22:05,212 --> 01:22:08,131
"Come here."
And he looked at the piece of paper,
1225
01:22:08,215 --> 01:22:13,511
and it said, "Reason for incarceration,
failure to fill out forms."
1226
01:22:13,804 --> 01:22:17,056
And he said, "Man, you must have
really pissed somebody off."
1227
01:22:59,224 --> 01:23:01,976
Prison was very surreal.
1228
01:23:02,061 --> 01:23:03,186
Um...
1229
01:23:04,104 --> 01:23:09,484
The thing about prison
is not the fact that you're in prison,
1230
01:23:09,568 --> 01:23:13,613
so much as you are kept
from your family and your friends.
1231
01:23:13,697 --> 01:23:15,490
After a couple of weeks,
1232
01:23:15,574 --> 01:23:18,034
I said, "I have an idea.
1233
01:23:18,118 --> 01:23:22,121
"They used to have a little thing here
that they called Saturday morning lectures
1234
01:23:22,206 --> 01:23:23,414
"and people who would give lectures.
1235
01:23:23,499 --> 01:23:26,668
"They aren't doing that anymore.
I'd like to start that up again.
1236
01:23:26,752 --> 01:23:28,586
"We've got lawyers. We've got doctors.
1237
01:23:28,671 --> 01:23:30,672
"We've got physical therapists.
We've got realtors.
1238
01:23:30,756 --> 01:23:32,382
"We've got drug dealers, too,
and counterfeiters
1239
01:23:32,466 --> 01:23:34,008
"and all kinds of things like that,
1240
01:23:34,093 --> 01:23:36,010
"but these drug dealers,
1241
01:23:36,095 --> 01:23:39,389
"who've never had
a different job in their life,
1242
01:23:39,473 --> 01:23:41,557
"I think it would be helpful
1243
01:23:41,642 --> 01:23:43,685
"for them to learn
how to do these other things."
1244
01:23:43,769 --> 01:23:45,228
We went down there.
You have to get clearance,
1245
01:23:45,312 --> 01:23:48,022
and, you know, it's like
you're surrounded by all these...
1246
01:23:48,107 --> 01:23:51,484
You know, he's got a uniform with the,
you know, numbers on it and stuff.
1247
01:23:51,568 --> 01:23:54,195
He says, "Well,
I'm leading the debate club,
1248
01:23:54,279 --> 01:23:56,698
"and I have a paleontological club
that I'm working on.
1249
01:23:56,782 --> 01:23:59,534
"They have some great, you know,
minerals around here."
1250
01:23:59,618 --> 01:24:03,037
He was teaching the prisoners
how to, you know, do paleontology
1251
01:24:03,122 --> 01:24:04,372
right there on the prison grounds.
1252
01:24:04,456 --> 01:24:06,207
That's what it's like with Pete.
1253
01:24:06,291 --> 01:24:08,376
I mean, he will find the beauty
in everything around him.
1254
01:24:08,460 --> 01:24:11,295
The other inmates loved him,
1255
01:24:11,380 --> 01:24:13,715
and it was very clear
that they protected him.
1256
01:24:13,799 --> 01:24:17,468
Not like in a movie,
where they beat people up for him,
1257
01:24:17,553 --> 01:24:19,721
but just they took care
of him in some way,
1258
01:24:19,805 --> 01:24:22,557
like they just felt a
proprietary interest
1259
01:24:22,641 --> 01:24:25,435
for him, like he was special,
1260
01:24:25,519 --> 01:24:29,522
and it was very sweet to see
that they saw who he was.
1261
01:24:52,796 --> 01:24:54,297
When finally the day came,
1262
01:24:54,381 --> 01:24:58,009
I'm riding all night long on this
bus that stops every five minutes.
1263
01:24:58,093 --> 01:24:59,260
I couldn't go pick up Pete.
1264
01:24:59,344 --> 01:25:01,304
He had to get on a bus, a public bus.
1265
01:25:01,388 --> 01:25:03,306
'Cause you're still
technically in prison.
1266
01:25:03,390 --> 01:25:05,099
I'm still serving my sentence.
1267
01:25:05,184 --> 01:25:07,018
Riding in the bus,
1268
01:25:07,102 --> 01:25:10,021
even though it was
driving all night long,
1269
01:25:10,105 --> 01:25:11,439
was great.
1270
01:25:15,444 --> 01:25:20,740
It was my first taste of freedom for 1
8 months, where I'm out of this prison.
1271
01:25:21,700 --> 01:25:26,788
And finally, in the morning of
the next day, I arrive in Rapid City.
1272
01:25:26,872 --> 01:25:29,707
Kristin was standing there,
and she just told everybody,
1273
01:25:29,792 --> 01:25:33,461
"Stand back because
this is gonna take some time."
1274
01:25:33,545 --> 01:25:36,506
It was great. It was great.
He was back home.
1275
01:25:36,590 --> 01:25:40,051
I mean, he was under house arrest,
but he was back home. We could see him.
1276
01:25:40,135 --> 01:25:42,512
Eventually I'm released
from the halfway house
1277
01:25:42,596 --> 01:25:45,556
to home confinement,
where I can only go from home to work,
1278
01:25:45,641 --> 01:25:47,600
so I get to walk across
the alley every morning
1279
01:25:47,684 --> 01:25:50,186
and across the alley
back home at night, and that's it.
1280
01:25:51,772 --> 01:25:55,191
When Pete got out of prison, he was
not the person he was when he left.
1281
01:25:55,275 --> 01:25:59,195
He was very reclusive.
He was very withdrawn.
1282
01:25:59,279 --> 01:26:01,656
He had to reorient
1283
01:26:01,740 --> 01:26:04,575
to normal interactions with people.
1284
01:26:04,743 --> 01:26:08,454
The Institute was not the happy place
that it sometimes is.
1285
01:26:08,539 --> 01:26:11,707
Things were a little gloomier.
We didn't...
1286
01:26:11,792 --> 01:26:16,337
Still didn't know how the long-term
effects of this would leave us.
1287
01:26:16,421 --> 01:26:18,840
We just had to keep plugging along
1288
01:26:18,924 --> 01:26:21,384
and try to cope as well as we could.
1289
01:26:37,776 --> 01:26:40,444
While I was in prison,
Sue was also still in prison,
1290
01:26:40,612 --> 01:26:42,154
and there were rumors
1291
01:26:42,239 --> 01:26:44,866
that Sue was gonna be auctioned off
to the highest bidder.
1292
01:26:47,661 --> 01:26:49,787
It really was obvious to me by that time
1293
01:26:49,872 --> 01:26:51,581
that the only way to get her
away from Maurice Williams
1294
01:26:51,665 --> 01:26:53,374
was through Sotheby's.
1295
01:26:53,458 --> 01:26:56,878
All of us were aware that
the auction was taking place.
1296
01:26:56,962 --> 01:26:59,505
It would probably sell
for $1 or $2 million.
1297
01:26:59,590 --> 01:27:03,843
The big fear was that it was going to be
sold to some private individual.
1298
01:27:03,927 --> 01:27:08,598
I know there were a lot of people
concerned that it might be bought
1299
01:27:08,682 --> 01:27:10,224
by an institution in a foreign country.
1300
01:27:10,309 --> 01:27:11,809
That was a big concern with the media,
1301
01:27:11,894 --> 01:27:14,395
was that it was gonna be sold
and lost to science
1302
01:27:14,479 --> 01:27:17,481
and sold and
put in a private room someplace.
1303
01:27:17,649 --> 01:27:22,320
We always felt an extraordinary obligation
to get this fossil to the right home.
1304
01:27:22,404 --> 01:27:26,157
Clearly there were a lot
of really interested parties
1305
01:27:26,241 --> 01:27:28,743
that were hoping
and praying they had a shot.
1306
01:27:28,827 --> 01:27:32,663
We had dreams
after the auction started developing
1307
01:27:32,748 --> 01:27:34,749
that perhaps we could buy her back.
1308
01:27:34,833 --> 01:27:38,252
A wonderful philanthropist
from our area, Stan Adelstein,
1309
01:27:38,337 --> 01:27:40,880
really wanted to help
get Sue back to South Dakota.
1310
01:27:41,173 --> 01:27:45,927
In visiting with Pete,
I was fascinated with the possibility
1311
01:27:46,011 --> 01:27:50,765
that we'd have this fantastic dinosaur
back in the state where she belonged.
1312
01:27:50,849 --> 01:27:54,143
Stan came ready and willing to spend
1313
01:27:54,227 --> 01:27:56,270
1.2 million of his own money.
1314
01:27:56,355 --> 01:27:58,230
I just had hopes we could make it work.
1315
01:27:58,315 --> 01:28:00,441
There's still hope
Sue will make it back home.
1316
01:28:00,525 --> 01:28:03,945
Stanford Adelstein will bid on Sue and
try to bring her home to the Black Hills.
1317
01:28:04,029 --> 01:28:07,198
Sue, the dinosaur that goes
on the auction block tomorrow,
1318
01:28:07,282 --> 01:28:09,492
has traveled a rocky road
since she was found.
1319
01:28:09,576 --> 01:28:11,786
Right now, Larson's heart is broken.
1320
01:28:11,870 --> 01:28:16,332
He's lost his most important find
and cannot even see her sold
1321
01:28:16,416 --> 01:28:18,751
because Larson is under house arrest.
1322
01:28:18,835 --> 01:28:20,211
And I'm still only on work release.
1323
01:28:20,295 --> 01:28:21,671
So they asked me to go out there.
1324
01:28:21,755 --> 01:28:23,714
So they flew me out to New York,
1325
01:28:23,799 --> 01:28:26,884
and I helped them, kind of,
unpack some of the bones.
1326
01:28:26,969 --> 01:28:28,761
So much was still in jackets.
1327
01:28:28,845 --> 01:28:31,305
We left those in jackets.
We thought that was,
1328
01:28:31,390 --> 01:28:33,516
first of all,
the right thing to do scientifically,
1329
01:28:33,600 --> 01:28:37,645
but also it looked fascinating,
absolutely fascinating,
1330
01:28:37,729 --> 01:28:39,689
and, of course,
the centerpiece of it all
1331
01:28:39,773 --> 01:28:43,651
was that astonishing skull,
absolutely amazing.
1332
01:28:43,735 --> 01:28:46,237
Kristin and Stan Adelstein are there.
1333
01:28:46,321 --> 01:28:47,655
They're going to try
to buy the dinosaur for us.
1334
01:28:47,739 --> 01:28:49,365
And Terry Wentz is there, you know,
1335
01:28:49,449 --> 01:28:51,617
the guy who fought
for this dinosaur forever.
1336
01:28:51,702 --> 01:28:52,910
Susan Hendrickson is there.
1337
01:28:52,995 --> 01:28:55,329
Everybody's anticipating this auction.
1338
01:28:55,414 --> 01:28:58,457
I'm thinking, "We have a chance.
We have a chance."
1339
01:29:05,799 --> 01:29:06,799
The day of the auction,
1340
01:29:06,883 --> 01:29:09,343
the place is
just absolutely full of excitement.
1341
01:29:09,428 --> 01:29:12,263
Television cameras everywhere.
1342
01:29:12,347 --> 01:29:14,724
A lot of reporters.
The room was completely full.
1343
01:29:14,808 --> 01:29:17,727
Maurice Williams was in a private room
1344
01:29:17,811 --> 01:29:22,940
up above the auction area,
so he could watch everything going on.
1345
01:29:23,025 --> 01:29:25,526
Sotheby's had arranged
for one of the people
1346
01:29:25,610 --> 01:29:27,361
who would normally be taking bids
1347
01:29:27,446 --> 01:29:29,280
to give me a running
detail on the telephone
1348
01:29:29,364 --> 01:29:31,824
about what was happening at the auction.
1349
01:29:31,908 --> 01:29:33,617
I was at the Institute, too.
1350
01:29:33,702 --> 01:29:35,327
I could not bear to listen to the phone.
1351
01:29:35,412 --> 01:29:37,580
It was too much.
1352
01:29:48,008 --> 01:29:50,843
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,
and welcome to Sotheby's.
1353
01:29:50,927 --> 01:29:54,847
We have for auction today
the fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex
1354
01:29:54,931 --> 01:29:56,474
known as Sue...
1355
01:29:56,558 --> 01:29:59,060
...the property of the
United States of America
1356
01:29:59,144 --> 01:30:03,064
in trust of Maurice Williams
of Faith, South Dakota.
1357
01:30:03,565 --> 01:30:08,694
And now let us,
if we're all ready, begin competition
1358
01:30:08,779 --> 01:30:11,655
for Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
1359
01:30:13,033 --> 01:30:15,451
And I begin with a bid of $500,000.
1360
01:30:15,535 --> 01:30:16,744
Now bidding at $500,000.
1361
01:30:16,828 --> 01:30:18,621
Now bidding at 500... $600,000.
1362
01:30:18,705 --> 01:30:21,624
$700,000. Now at seven, at $700,000.
1363
01:30:21,708 --> 01:30:23,542
Now bidding $800,000. Now bidding eight.
1364
01:30:23,627 --> 01:30:25,086
$900,000. Now bidding at nine.
1365
01:30:25,170 --> 01:30:27,463
At $900,000. Now bidding at nine.
1366
01:30:27,547 --> 01:30:29,340
At $900,000 now.
1367
01:30:29,424 --> 01:30:30,883
Two bids at $1 million,
1368
01:30:30,967 --> 01:30:32,510
one in the center, one in the back.
1369
01:30:32,594 --> 01:30:33,886
It's in the center halfway up
1370
01:30:33,970 --> 01:30:35,763
at $1 million.
Now bidding at one million.
1371
01:30:35,847 --> 01:30:37,932
At $1 million.
Now bidding at $1 million.
1372
01:30:38,016 --> 01:30:40,768
Now 1.1 million...
1373
01:30:40,852 --> 01:30:42,353
...on the telephone up here.
1374
01:30:42,521 --> 01:30:47,608
At 7.4.
1375
01:30:47,692 --> 01:30:50,486
Is there any advance over 7.4?
1376
01:30:50,570 --> 01:30:54,323
$7,400,000 on the
telephone up front then.
1377
01:30:55,617 --> 01:30:58,035
$7,400,000 then.
1378
01:30:58,120 --> 01:30:59,662
Fair warning.
1379
01:30:59,746 --> 01:31:01,163
- Seven million...
- 7.5.
1380
01:31:09,798 --> 01:31:11,841
$7,500,000.
1381
01:31:13,760 --> 01:31:16,387
$7,600,000.
1382
01:31:19,015 --> 01:31:20,432
Seven million, six.
1383
01:31:20,517 --> 01:31:22,393
$7,600,000.
1384
01:31:22,477 --> 01:31:23,811
Fair warning then
1385
01:31:23,895 --> 01:31:27,064
at $7,600,000 up here.
1386
01:31:28,650 --> 01:31:30,568
$7.6 million.
1387
01:31:35,740 --> 01:31:38,576
Once the bidding was done,
you didn't know immediately who it was.
1388
01:31:38,910 --> 01:31:41,120
Everybody's looking around, saying,
"Okay, who's gonna come forward?"
1389
01:31:41,413 --> 01:31:43,622
The bidding was exciting
1390
01:31:43,707 --> 01:31:47,418
despite the fact that I was horrified
that it was happening.
1391
01:31:47,502 --> 01:31:49,962
Raised my paddle twice,
and then I was out of it.
1392
01:31:50,213 --> 01:31:52,214
There it went. Pssh.
1393
01:31:52,299 --> 01:31:53,424
Completely shocking.
1394
01:31:53,508 --> 01:31:57,052
Sue sold that fast
and the price went that high.
1395
01:31:57,137 --> 01:31:58,846
I wasn't shocked that it went that high.
1396
01:31:58,930 --> 01:32:01,098
I think it's worth more than that.
1397
01:32:01,349 --> 01:32:04,185
It's the most by far
any fossil had ever sold for,
1398
01:32:04,269 --> 01:32:07,938
and although I'm sad,
I'm very sad we couldn't get it,
1399
01:32:08,023 --> 01:32:10,441
I'm thinking, "Okay, this...
1400
01:32:10,525 --> 01:32:14,028
"This is a statement about
Black Hills Institute and the people.
1401
01:32:14,279 --> 01:32:16,572
"You guys did a good job."
1402
01:32:16,656 --> 01:32:19,783
...your new home
on the shores of Lake Michigan.
1403
01:32:19,868 --> 01:32:21,827
That is, of course, in Chicago
1404
01:32:21,912 --> 01:32:24,496
at the renowned
Field Museum of Natural History.
1405
01:32:25,790 --> 01:32:27,374
Sue's bones went on the auction block
1406
01:32:27,459 --> 01:32:29,210
at Sotheby's auction house in New York.
1407
01:32:29,294 --> 01:32:31,212
Bidding started at 500,000
1408
01:32:31,296 --> 01:32:35,174
and ended at 7.6 million,
but totaled 8.4 million
1409
01:32:35,258 --> 01:32:37,218
after a fee to the auction house.
1410
01:32:37,302 --> 01:32:40,054
McDonald's and the Walt Disney Company
helped foot the bill,
1411
01:32:40,138 --> 01:32:43,224
and the Field Museum of Natural History
reaps the benefits.
1412
01:32:43,308 --> 01:32:45,768
South Dakotans say she
should have stayed here.
1413
01:33:05,121 --> 01:33:07,790
Maurice Williams was
there in the building,
1414
01:33:07,874 --> 01:33:12,503
and I glanced up at him, this man,
supported by our government
1415
01:33:12,587 --> 01:33:15,089
in receiving seven-point-whatever-it-was
million dollars,
1416
01:33:15,173 --> 01:33:20,261
but that fossil should have stayed
in her hometown museum.
1417
01:33:20,679 --> 01:33:22,763
If she wasn't going
to be in Black Hills,
1418
01:33:22,847 --> 01:33:25,933
where she morally should be,
Field Museum was a good place.
1419
01:33:26,017 --> 01:33:28,811
This was just the kind of place
1420
01:33:28,895 --> 01:33:32,022
that we felt Sue had to go to.
1421
01:33:32,107 --> 01:33:35,025
My reaction was relief that,
that specimen
1422
01:33:35,110 --> 01:33:38,779
wound up where the public and the
scientific community will have access to it.
1423
01:33:39,197 --> 01:33:42,241
I think it's, you know, probably the
second-best place she could have been.
1424
01:33:42,325 --> 01:33:44,451
It's going to go where millions
of people will see her.
1425
01:33:44,536 --> 01:33:46,912
She's not gonna be in prison anymore.
1426
01:33:46,997 --> 01:33:49,290
Sue is free, and people can see her,
1427
01:33:49,374 --> 01:33:52,167
and they can get the same
excitement that I have for her
1428
01:33:52,252 --> 01:33:54,211
and they can love her just like I do.
1429
01:34:09,269 --> 01:34:11,270
To me, that dinosaur still
belongs in Hill City.
1430
01:34:11,354 --> 01:34:13,564
Pete's the kind of guy that can go out
1431
01:34:13,648 --> 01:34:15,899
and then find another
half-a-dozen more T. rexes,
1432
01:34:15,984 --> 01:34:17,693
but there was only one Sue.
1433
01:34:17,777 --> 01:34:20,821
In your lifetime, you don't hope
to find something that good,
1434
01:34:20,905 --> 01:34:24,616
but we did, and it's
still unbelievable to me.
1435
01:34:37,839 --> 01:34:41,717
It was time for Sue's unveiling finally,
which, of course, you can imagine,
1436
01:34:41,801 --> 01:34:47,139
Pete's most exciting moment,
to be able to be reunited with Sue.
1437
01:34:47,223 --> 01:34:48,974
He wasn't invited.
1438
01:34:56,274 --> 01:34:59,526
Six, five, four, three,
1439
01:34:59,611 --> 01:35:01,362
two, one!
1440
01:35:10,330 --> 01:35:13,749
We go through what happened
and the negative of that,
1441
01:35:13,833 --> 01:35:15,959
but there's another negative.
1442
01:35:16,044 --> 01:35:19,630
It's the negative of what never happened
and what could have happened,
1443
01:35:19,714 --> 01:35:21,965
and it's a damn shame.
1444
01:35:22,133 --> 01:35:25,386
Chicago has a wonderful dinosaur.
They love it, but they don't love it
1445
01:35:25,470 --> 01:35:28,639
the way South Dakotans would
have loved that dinosaur.
124907
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.