Wendover, a border town in Nevada, became a brief refuge and turning point in the fugitives’ escape after the murders in American Fork. Ron Lafferty, Dan Lafferty, Ricky Knapp, and Chip Carnes reached the state line around six in the evening, rented a bungalow at a cut-rate motel, and tried to make their flight less conspicuous. The stop offered shelter, but not security: they were tired, traveling in a car with mechanical problems, and still carrying the consequences of the crime with them.

The motel stop

Dan rinsed the men’s clothes in the bathtub. Then all four walked to a small gambling parlor that also served as a convenience store, buying beer and hot dogs to take back for dinner. The ordinary details of the evening sit uneasily beside their circumstances: the men had crossed out of Utah after a killing, yet their immediate routine was to clean up, eat, and rest in a motel room.

A roadside encounter

At about eleven that night, Ron abruptly decided they should leave. They packed the Impala and drove off with Ricky Knapp at the wheel. A Nevada Highway Patrol officer soon pulled them over. Knapp got out to speak with him while the others stayed in the car, armed and prepared to shoot if they thought the officer had recognized them as fugitives. He had not. The officer told Knapp that the taillights were out and the car was leaking gas, then instructed him to take it back across the Utah line and out of the officer’s jurisdiction rather than risk it catching fire in Nevada.

After the patrol car left, the four men replaced the taillight fuse, but it blew again when they switched the lights on. They returned to the motel to wait for daylight. Ron and Dan went to sleep, leaving their belongings in the car; Knapp and Carnes, too shaken by the encounter to rest, left the room to buy cigarettes.

The brothers left behind

By the following morning, Knapp and Carnes had disappeared with the Impala and everything inside it. Ron and Dan awoke with little beyond the clothes they were wearing and no money. Dan did not blame the two men and considered the brothers’ deep sleep a possible sign that events were meant to unfold that way. Ron proposed that they separate, hitchhike across Nevada, and meet near Reno at a casino they had visited earlier that summer.

Wendover therefore marks the point where the group’s escape divided. The motel had been a shared stop, but the failed car, the police encounter, and the disappearance of Knapp and Carnes ended that arrangement. Ron and Dan continued on foot and by rides from strangers, while Wendover remained the place where they lost their vehicle and possessions.