Cold Case Murder Squad Investigating Three Local Indian Tribes
News Channel 3 has learned three local indian tribes are under investigation for possible involvement in a 1981 Rancho Mirage triple murder.
The three tribes under investigation are the Cabazons, the Santa Rosa, and the Torres Martinez. They are suspected of setting up secret experimental weapons testing deals in the 1980s. Three people who reportedly knew too much were murdered “execution style” in 1981.
Riverside County Cold Case Detectives believe the documents revealed we’re revealing now are what they died for.
The Inter-office memos reveal how local indian tribes were involved in bringing large caliber weapons testing to the coachella valley.
Riverside county sheriff’s department cold case detectives are looking into whether former Cabazon Indian Vice Chairman Fred Alvarez, girlfriend Patty Castro and friend Ralph Boger was murdered in 1981 to keep these weapons deals secret.
Documents show a 1980’s business partnership between the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians and security contractor Wackenhut Services to form Cabazon Arms.
An experimental electromagentic weapon called a “railgun” was on the testing list. It was at Santa Rosa Mountain, near Highway 74, where the secret weapons testing was supposed to take place.
Newly uncovered documents (Documents 1, 2) show the Santa Rosa Band of Indians was working with the Cabazon Indians. They planned to build the experimental weapons in the mountains south of Pinyon Pines.
To find out more about railguns, we talked to U.C. Riverside physics professor Dr. Harry Tom.
“A railgun is an electric operated gun. It uses only a battery and you send electricity through the projectile itself and you make it propel,” explained Dr. Tom.
Recently unclassified video from U.S. Navy weapons testing shows how gunpowder is not needed to hurl a giant bullet at supersonic speeds. It is the future of artillery, but it’s so hard to perfect, its been tested for 30 years.
We asked the Santa Rosa Band of Indians if pursuing weapons testing requiring enormous amounts of electricity and environmental dangers fits in with its promise to protect the natural resources of soverign tribal land. The tribe has not responded.
Additional documents show the Torres Martinez Tribe granted Cabazon Arms Company the right to test large scale weapons on 30,000 acres near the Salton Sea. Torres Martinez tribal leadership have also not responded to our questions.
Considering the Indian tribes have moved on with their large casinos, experimental weapons testing deals 28 years ago may not seem to matter anymore.
But three people were murdered 28 years ago in Rancho Mirage. They left behind family members that search for their killers to this day.
Many of the small scale weapons testing were later used for the Nicaraguan Contra guerillas that became the focus of the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980’s.
Wackenhut Corporation withdrew from doing business locally for a while, but it is back. On September 16th, they won the contract for jail security in Desert Hot Springs.
The crimes of decades past are being investigated once again by local detectives, looking into whether three people died to bury the secrets now finally coming to light.
