Dummar feeling vindicated

Melvin Dummar has logged tens of thousands of miles in recent years, delivering meat in rural Utah and Nevada. But no journey has been longer than the road back from humiliation and defeat at the hands of a jury that didn't believe him.

For more than 25 years he's been called a liar, a forger and a crook because of his seemingly improbable claims about the late, eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes.

So, when former FBI agent Gary Magnesen handed Dummar a copy of his new book, "The Investigation," Magnesen said, "It's been a long, tough road. But we've made it. The truth is now out."

"It's been a long time," Dummar said. "I've taken a lot of harassment and criticism through the years. Hopefully now this will help."

Magnesen admits he was skeptical of Dummar's story when he began his investigation three years ago. "I thought he was a little on the kooky side," Magnesen said, "because it's a fantastic story." But the veteran organized-crime investigator now believes he's found enough new evidence to make an airtight case on Dummar's behalf.

He says the evidence conclusively shows Dummar really did find Howard Hughes lying bloody and injured in the Nevada desert in 1967. Magnesen says his investigation also convinced him that Hughes really did intend to reward Dummar for his act of kindness.

After Hughes died in 1976, a handwritten will supposedly written by Hughes was found in Salt Lake City, leaving his fortune to Dummar and 15 other beneficiaries. A one-sixteenth share of Hughes' fortune was said to be worth $150 million.

Magnesen believes a Las Vegas jury was wrong when it declared the will a hoax.

With tears in his eyes, Dummar said, "I wish that I'd have had someone like Gary on my side while we were going through the trial. I think we would have had a much different outcome."

Magnesen's most startling new evidence comes from former Hughes pilot Bob Deiro, who says he flew the billionaire to a remote brothel in late 1967. After Deiro fell asleep at the brothel, he says, Hughes disappeared. Magnesen believes Dummar found Hughes that same night, seven miles away from the brothel, after the billionaire was beaten and robbed.

"Howard was there," Magnesen said. "We know why he was there. We know the condition he was in when he was there. And Melvin saved his life, and that's why he was trying to reward Melvin."