At one point, Buster the dog alerted Sgt. Dostie of a possible shallow grave, which the searchers marked with a flag. Similarly, Vass and Wise, utilizing a hand-held device that is shaped somewhat like a gun, detected fluorinated hydrocarbon compounds in other areas and pointed out that such compounds are emitted during decomposition, in part due to the fluoridated water drank by the victims which is released during the decomposition process. The device has the ability to detect human remains that have been buried for decades and enables the searchers to rule out animal bones which, of course, would not be emitting the same chemical compounds as humans. They also conducted soil probes in conjunction with their other equipment.
"We’re getting the highest hits here, where the ground is soft," Wise said, offering the information to an Associated Press reporter who also went on the desert trek. "There’s definitely something down there. We just can’t know yet exactly what until we dig."
They gathered soil samples from the suspected sites, which they would take back to the laboratory to analyze with much more sophisticated equipment. Similarly, Larson used a magnetometer that could "see" 12 feet deep, and took more than two-thousand readings within a 20-by-26-foot grid. He was looking for evidence that the earth had been moved or disturbed, and would have to return later to use ground-penetrating radar.
"What I am looking for is the pit, not the bones," Larson explained.
When all was said and done, the searchers indicated that they had uncovered sufficient evidence of decayed human remains at the site to warrant additional testing, including an excavation of Barker Ranch. However, if any decomposed bodies are found, it doesn’t appear likely that there would be additional prosecutions, according to Patrick Sequeira, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney in charge of Manson family parole hearing in recent years. Manson and the main murderous culprits are serving life prison terms and will likely never be released.
"You have to tie them to someone who has disappeared, and there were a lot of people floating in and out of the family environment who were runaways, or hiding out," Sequeira said. Nonetheless, Sequeira encouraged the work being done at Barker Ranch, and said that he would "love to see" the team put something together to allow further prosecutions, a nearly insurmountable task to determine who killed the victims (assuming that additional victims are even found and identified). Investigators would also have to be able to show where any additional victims were killed, and they would have to determine who could, or would, testify to the matter in court.
Nonetheless, regardless of how the work at Barker Ranch turns out, ID will continue to follow the search efforts there and will report any new findings and determinations when they occur.
