HUNTERS' SHOOTING BAFFLES OFFICIALS - BOY, FATHER MAY HAVE STUMBLED ON POT PATCH It was supposed to be a family outing, a deer hunt in the rugged forests of El Dorado County where Bill Hunt and his relatives have owned property for years. By the time it ended Sunday, Hunt was in serious condition and his 8-year-old son in critical condition from gunshot wounds, and authorities were trying to determine whether the pair had stumbled across a marijuana garden being grown secretly on their land. El Dorado County sheriff's officials announced Monday that they had found recently harvested marijuana plots on the property and were searching for two mysterious men who were in the area at the time of the shootings. However, officials cautioned that they still were not certain whether the shootings were drug-related. "Some of the facts don't make sense," said El Dorado County Undersheriff Jeff Neves. In fact, investigators still did not know Monday exactly where the shootings took place or what kinds of weapons might have been used. Interviews with authorities and family friends indicated that the incident began Sunday morning several miles from Georgetown, where Bill Hunt, 42, was on an outing with his 8-year-old and 4-year-old sons and his brother, Donald, 34. "They've hunted for generations," said Christopher Hipkin, a friend of the Hunt family and a forest consultant for them. "This was like a father-and-son bonding thing where you take your boys out and teach them gun safety and wilderness skills." The shootings occurred around 10 a.m. Sunday after the party set off in search of deer on the Hunts' 470-acre property near the Blodgett Experimental Forest. Bill Hunt, a dairyman from the south Sacramento County community of Herald, was carrying a .307-caliber hunting rifle and was with his boys walking in the forest when they came across two men who were carrying a shotgun, according to an account the 4-year-old gave authorities. Neither boy's name was released. The 4-year-old told investigators that the two men led him to a bushy area and told him to stay there to be safe from attack by bears or mountain lions. They walked away, and the boy heard two gunshots. The boy then saw his father and brother returning, both with gunshot wounds, and the two men helping the pair. The two men led them to the family truck and helped them inside. Meanwhile, Donald Hunt, who was hunting in a separate area, heard Bill Hunt's truck horn blaring. Donald Hunt raced back to find Bill Hunt and his 8-year-old son suffering from gunshot wounds. The elder Hunt had been shot in the abdomen, his son in the face. The wounded pair and the 4-year-old were in the truck, with Bill Hunt leaning on the horn to signal for help. Outside the vehicle, two unidentified men were trying to unhitch a trailer the Hunts used to haul their all-terrain vehicles. Authorities believe the men were trying to remove the trailer to help the Hunts drive faster, but the men vanished after that, and officials have no idea who they are or whether they are connected to the shootings. Donald Hunt was driving the truck, using his cellular phone to summon help, when they came across a Georgetown Fire Department truck returning from a false alarm. "If they hadn't been there, Donald would have had to drive all the way to Georgetown for help," Hipkin said. Instead, emergency technicians with the fire crew were able to administer oxygen and call for helicopter transport. Bill Hunt was taken to Sutter Roseville Medical Center in critical condition and was upgraded to serious condition Monday. His son was taken to the UC Davis Medical Center, where he was in critical condition late Monday. Family members at the hospitals declined to be interviewed, but friends said the Hunts are a friendly and generous family who treasured time spent with their children. Bill Hunt is a volunteer firefighter, and his wife volunteers in an area school library. "They're wonderful people, always helping others," neighbor Shirley Grannell said as she choked back tears. Investigators had little to go on Monday to explain the shootings, but they believe there is a possibility the hunting party unwittingly came upon a guarded marijuana plot. The steep, rugged terrain of heavy forests is largely uninhabited, with much of it belonging to a large family trust and the University of California's Blodgett tract. Authorities are trying to determine whether the two men who helped the wounded Hunts into their truck were marijuana guards who shot the pair and then decided to help them. Sheriff's officials said that they found 50 to 75 marijuana plants in a small plot Sunday night, and that they discovered additional plants Monday that had been harvested in the past couple of days. However, they were unable to pinpoint the site of the shootings or determine how far from the marijuana fields the attack may have taken place. They also could not say whether the pair had been wounded by someone firing at them or from a booby trap set to protect the marijuana. Shootings in marijuana gardens are rare, officials say, and the use of booby traps has declined from the early to mid-1980s, when they were common. The only shooting in recent memory involving a marijuana field was several weeks ago, when state authorities joined with Madera County officials to raid a marijuana field and ended up shooting and killing a guard who opened fire as they approached, officials said. "Certainly, the folks tending these large gardens will protect them," said state Department of Justice spokesman Mike Van Winkle. "We've made 130 raids this year, but that's the only violence in the gardens. "Most of the time, these folks are out there for a month or two at a time and they get to know the territory real well. They get to know where they can go to hide where nobody's going to find them." Van Winkle said there have been no state marijuana raids in recent years in El Dorado County. But Neves, the undersheriff, said that in the past month sheriff's officials had discovered two separate marijuana gardens -- one with 1,000 plants, the other with 1,700 -- on property adjoining where the shootings took place. One fully mature plant can yield a pound of high-grade marijuana that can wholesale for as much as $5,000, Van Winkle said, and state raids so far this year have turned up 25 weapons at such sites, including fully automatic rifles. Past raids have turned up booby traps that included shotgun shells placed at face height and triggered by trip wires, he said. State Attorney General Bill Lockyer warned last year of the dangers to innocent people from such marijuana fields, Lockyer spokesman Nathan Barankin said Monday. "That does occur," Barankin said. "This is potentially a large danger for hikers and campers and hunters." Because authorities had been unable to find the mysterious pair by late Monday, they planned to interview the 4-year-old again. Investigators are perplexed that neither of the men who helped the wounded Hunts into their truck apparently had blood on their clothing, and by the fact that Bill Hunt's rifle was not recovered. "There are any number of sequences of what happened," Neves said. "We have no information on which we can draw conclusions." Staff writers Ted Bell, Andy Furillo, Ralph Montano and Jennifer K. Morita contributed to this report.
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