Tales from the Timber: When Hikes Turn Harrowing

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
My name is Andrew. I'm thirty three years old, and
I've been living in Idaho for the last three years.
For transparency's sake, I didn't write up this account specifically
as a submission for your channel, but after it popped
into my recommended feet and I saw you taking submissions,
I figured that I'd found the perfect home for the
warning I'm about to give you and your viewers. Although

(00:35):
I have no doubt that what you're about to read
might frighten or disturb you, I can assure you that
it's not by design. My only wish is that you
and your subscribers take heed to what I'm about to say.
You see, I think there's some one living off the
grid up here in the Beaverhead Dear Lodge National Forest,
and I know for a fact that this person is very,

(00:57):
very dangerous. Part of the and I moved up to
Boise from my native California. Aside from all the financial reasons,
is that there is a total of ten National forests
within driving distance of the city. I was a boy
scout growing up. My dad and uncles used to take
my cousins and me during summer vacations, and I found
a group of fellow college students to hike with when

(01:19):
I was at U C Irvine. So when it came
time to choosing a place to start a new life,
Boise climbed my wishless pretty damn quickly once I realized
that it combined urban amenities, a low cost of living,
and the kind of natural beauty that made southern California
feel more like Manhattan than Malibu. During that first year

(01:41):
in Idaho, I spent a lot of time hiking Bois
National Forest and the Snake River Conservation areas right on
our doorstep too. But then as time went by, I
started to travel a little further afield with each trip,
just to get a feel for all the different forests
in the region. I drove over to Sawtooth one time,
went up to pay At for a weekend, then went

(02:02):
as far as bitter Root, Salm and Shaley, and eventually
Beaverhead Deer Lodge. I made multiple trips to each of
the previously mentioned parks. I mean, you don't truly get
to know a place after just one or two hikes,
but I only ever made one trip to Beaverhead, And
if I ever do get over my fear of the place,
you can bet your ass, I'm staying the hell away

(02:23):
from the hills between Maverick and Stuart Mountains, and if
you value your life, so should you. Now In the
southern portion of Beaverhead Forest lies the valley between Maverick
and Stuart Mountains. At its westernmost point, where two creeks meet,
the valley is open and treeless. But then travel further

(02:44):
east and the trails taper off into what I can
only describe as a capillary system of narrow trails. It
kind of reminded me of one of those old hedge mazes,
like the kind from The Shining, just on a much
bigger scale. All the trails look pretty much idea, with
wide open grass trails and pine covered hills obscuring your
view on either side. You can't really get lost these days,

(03:08):
not if you're armed with the correct skill as an equipment.
But if there was ever a place I felt slightly
disoriented by the lay of the land, it was there.
You'd make a couple of turns, think that you were
back on the main strip again, and then boom, the
trail would narrow off and you'd find yourself at a
dead end. I guess to a less experienced hiker. That
might have been a cause for concern, but for me

(03:30):
it was almost nostalgic. I hadn't been even close to
loss for coming up on fifteen years by that point,
so for me there was something almost thrilling about it.
It's been years since I've felt that same sense of
adventure while out on a hike. I also enjoyed them,
but I'd long since lost that sense of child like
awe and wonder, so to have it back that was

(03:52):
really something. I kept on exploring for about an hour
or so, just wandering up and down the trails to
try and familiarize myself with that part of the valley. Then,
as I was moseying down this one particular stretch of trail,
I began to smell something that smelled a lot like
camp fire smoke. For quite a while now, I've been
in the habit of introducing myself to any fellow hikers

(04:14):
and campers I might run into. Some might call that
intrusive or even bothersome, but to me, those are big
city ideas. I understand where my critics are coming from,
but at the risk of sounding melodramatic, the woods aren't
the kind of place that you want to go unnoticed.
Part of it's just being friendly, shooting the breeze with
some kindly strangers. But there's a practical side of it too.

(04:37):
I do a lot of solo hiking, and as much
as I take all the necessary precautions, I'm still much
more vulnerable than most. I like folks knowing I'm there,
and I like knowing just a little about who I'm
sharing a trail or park with. That way, if I
detect even the slightest of bad vibes, I can make
myself scarce before trouble so much as toots and the wind.

(05:00):
And so I smell the camp fire smoke, and I
suspect it's coming from up the hill to my right.
I wander up the slope a little, and then lo
and behold. The smell of smoke gets more and more
intense the further I walk, And so off I went,
following the smell like some human bloodhound, until eventually the
pines thinned out and I reached a kind of treeless

(05:21):
shelf on the hill side. It was almost completely hidden
from view, and just as I was thinking this is
flat enough to build on, I realize someone already had
about fifty yards away some one had built would look
like a small, two room cabin, complete with the beginnings
of a little vegetable garden out front and a short

(05:42):
weaved fence marking the property's boundary. My first thought upon
looking at it was this camp be legal, because as
much as many national parks and forests might encourage overnight campers,
any kind of permanent dwelling is strictly prohibited. When at
the same time, this person's dwelling was an impressive piece
of work, and it obviously wasn't constructed overnight, in which case,

(06:06):
how had he managed to stay up there for so
long without getting himself into trouble with the forest Service.
All this is going through my head, and I'm just
sort of staring at the little cabin in amazement, when
all of a sudden, the cabin's front door swings open
and outsteps a bald guy of around forty to fifty
years of age, wearing a dirty wife beater and a

(06:27):
pair of blue jeans. Now, his cabin had a pair
of windows, complete with what looked to be hinged shutters,
but he hadn't looked out of them before exiting his home,
So the moment he sees me, I see this startled
look come over his face, and he does not look
please to see me. I figured i'd obviously gave him
a bit of a jump scare, So first thing I

(06:48):
think to do is raise a hand and wave, just
to let him know that I didn't have any ill intentions.
He doesn't return the wave. He just walks back into
his little cabin, then emerges seconds let armed with what
appeared to be a bolt action hunting rifle. I just
want to make it clear that I did not step
into this man's property, and the word property is quite

(07:10):
purposely in quotation marks I'm writing here now. Neither was
I bearing any kind of weapon or trekking pull with
me when he saw me. All the guy saw was
a four eyed, overweight dork with a floppy hat and
a patchy beard, and his first move was to go
grab his rifle. The second I saw it, I turned
on the spot and started walking back down the hill

(07:31):
towards the tree line. And then as I walked, I
shouted back, all right, mister, I get the message. I'm leaving.
Hindsight is always twenty twenty, I guess, and I guess
I should have just ran as fast as I could
but in the moment, I figured running would be the
loudest way to announce my guilt. Run off through the trees,

(07:52):
and he thinked that it was up to no good.
Maybe fire off a shot at me and that'd be all,
she wrote. But if I walked, hands in the air,
not going for my own weapon, and just trying to
de escalate, then maybe everything would just be fine. I
was armed by the time, by the way, nothing too big,
just a handgun in case of bears and what not.

(08:14):
But then the last thing I wanted to do was
potentially start a gunfight in the middle of the woods.
If I pulled out my weapon, that constituted a serious escalation.
And the more this guy believed that he was in control,
the less likely he was probably to shoot me. Or
rather that's what I mistakenly believed at the time. I
remember giving in a second round of I'm going okay,

(08:36):
I don't want any trouble, and in reply, all I
heard was you stay right where you are. Have you
seen those new Doom movies. There's a thing in it,
something they call the voice. It's like a magical power,
and you speak and people will obey, whether they want
to or not. And I'm telling you, it was like

(08:58):
that guy had the voice. He spoke, and suddenly my
feet were in cement blocks. I wanted to keep walking. Hell,
I just wanted to run the second I saw his rifle,
but whatever kept him feeling in control in his fingers
off the trigger felt like my best course of action
in the moment. I also literally cannot overemphasize how little

(09:19):
I wanted to shoot this guy and turn a relaxing
afternoon's hike into one of the single darkest chapters of
my entire life. So he tells me to stop, but
I obviously want to face the guy as I'm talking
to him, so I start to turn around. Big mistake.
The guy raises his rifle, works the bolt to force

(09:39):
around into the chamber, and then points it at me
so aggressively that I could practically feel it. He was
ready to fire by that point, like my life was
in serious danger. But all that was going through my
head as I had my arms way up in the air,
was like, please don't peel your pants, Please don't pee
your pants. I didn't. And before you all go thinking hah,

(10:01):
what a baby, I cannot overstate how fast your mind
works in those sort of situations. I was so scared.
I felt like I could taste the air, My arms
and legs felt like they were encased in concrete, and
I was sweating in places I didn't know that you
could sweat from. So having all those irrational thoughts like that,

(10:21):
not running when I had the chance, it all seems
like part and parcel of all that raw, primal fear
that I was feeling in the moment. Like I said,
I started turning to face him, but he racked his
rifle and then started yelling things like did I tell
you to move? Did I move another muscle? And watch
what happens. All I could think to say was all

(10:42):
the same stuff I repeated already, stuff about me wanting
to leave, about how I just stumbled across his place
and was nothing more than just curious. He looked me
up and down for a second and then asked me
if I was from the government. I told him no,
that it was just a hiker, and an attempt to
reinforce that I wasn't some kind of fed I told

(11:03):
him I worked for a financial firm back in Boise,
which was the truth. I told him the name of
the place, my position, and then added that he could
call them right then and there if he didn't believe me,
because the office was open on weekends. I only told
him all that because he quite clearly had a problem
with cops or rangers and probably just about anyone in

(11:24):
a position of authority that. And once I got talking,
I found it unusually difficult to stop. I was still
talking when he told me to shut up, and then,
after a few seconds what looked like thinking, he asked
me a question that had me once again questioning whether
I was about to pee my pants or not. The
guy lowered his rifle just a little, which was kind

(11:47):
of reassuring, but not by much, and then he asked me,
do you believe in God? Make no mistake, I am
not prejudiced against religious type. I had a very Baptist
grandmother who volunteered with the church until just months before
she passed, and she was just about as saintly of

(12:08):
a person as it's possible to meet. Any other context,
that question would have provoked anything except an honest answer,
But in light of the rifle I had pointed at
my stomach, I presume it gave the question a hell
of a lot of weight. On another day, I might
have just spoken my mind and told him I consider

(12:28):
myself something of an agnostic. I feel like there's something
going on in terms of creation and evolution, whatever you
want to call it. I just don't think we can
so easily put a label like God on it and
imagine him up there as this big, old, friendly white
guy with a beard of clouds and sunny demeanor. But then,
having considered my position, I decided honesty almost certainly wasn't

(12:51):
the best policy. So instead of the truth, I lied
and I told him sure, I believe in God. I
thought that might have got me out of the woods,
purely metaphorically, of course, But then he asked me which God.
My gut told me that saying anything apart from Protestant

(13:13):
Christian would have probably been bad news for me, and
so I went with my instinct and told him that
I was Baptist, just like my grandma. When I saw
him give me this little nod of approval, I felt
so relieved that my knees almost buckled. But unfortunately the
guy wasn't through with me just yet. Starting and stopping

(13:35):
as he tried to find the right words, he began
to explain how only two people in the world knew
that he was up there, and he couldn't tolerate a third.
I think he must have seen the terror in my face,
because he went on to explain that he didn't actually
want to shoot me. I guess he intended that to
be reassuring, but somehow it was not. And that's the

(13:56):
point where things turned back to why he'd asked me
if I believed in God. He needed to know that
I believed in something so he could make me swear
on my life that I wouldn't tell anyone i'd seen him.
Right away, I told him, I swear to God, I
won't tell anyone I saw you. And I did it
so promptly because I very naively believed that he might

(14:16):
actually let me walk away. But just the words alone
weren't good enough for him. Holding the rifle to his hip. Now,
the guy pointed at me just a little more directly
and then tells me to get on my knees. All
I remember is saying please, But all that did was
make him raise the gun all the way up so
he could aim down the sights at me. He then

(14:39):
repeated himself and told me to get on my knees,
and from that moment I was convinced that I was
going to die. And I'm honestly not sure if I
dropped my knees deliberately or simply because they just gave
out altogether. I thought that any second I'd simply go
from being wide awake and terrified to just darkness. Yes,

(15:01):
he blowed my brains out with a single shot of
that rifle, and it had switched me off like a light.
You know. I literally remember thinking to myself, at least
it'll be quick. But then instead of pulling the trigger,
he spoke again. The guy told me to swear again
to God. I mean that I'd never tell another living

(15:21):
soul that I'd seen him, or where he was living,
or what we talked about. So I did. I put
my hands together like it was praying, but I didn't
dare close my eyes. Then I swore out loud that
never in a million years would I ever tell another
of God's creations about anything that had occurred that day.
I don't think I said it quite like that, but

(15:43):
you get the idea. When I was done, he just
said again louder, and I did what I was told.
Then once again, once I was finished, he starts yelling
something like swear on your family, tell him to strike
you down dead if you breathe word to anybody. I
wasn't in a position to refuse him, and as much

(16:05):
as I probably could have lunged for his rifle or something,
I'm also not an idiot, so I didn't even consider
that an option at the time. Instead, I just tried
my best to ensure that he kept that sense of control,
because the moment he lost it, the chances of me
getting switched off increased exponentially. I swore on my whole
extended family that I'd never ever speak of our encounter

(16:28):
for as long as I lived. I told him, and
God and anything else listening for that matter, that I
would happily bury my loved ones if I broke my
record and bond, and not just that, but I'd happily
follow them to hell afterwards if I ever breathed the
word of our encounter. I said just about anything and
everything that came to mind. But once I really thought

(16:50):
about my mom and dad and how devastated they'd be
to hear about my body being found up there in
that hill, That's when I felt myself starting to well up.
I guess That's what really satisfied him in the end,
seeing me get sort of emotional like that, not just scared,
but sad or broken. Only then did he lower the rifle,

(17:12):
and only then did he let me find my feet,
And only then was I allowed to walk back down
the hillside towards the trail. He yelled a reminder through
the trees after me, reminding me of my promises, and
so naturally, the first thing I did once I got
some real cell phone signal was to report the entire
goddamn thing in excruciating detail to the Beaverhead County Sheriff.

(17:37):
Like I said, I'm not religious in the traditional sense,
and even if I was, I wouldn't have let that
guy manipulate my faith in such a way. This also
is in some made up story where I'm going to
keep the guy secret, or one in which I'm so
scared that he'll come after me that I remained silent.
I'm willing to admit that I was terrified at the time.
I was shaking like a leaf as I walked down

(17:58):
that hill, But the time I got back to my car,
I was just about angrier than I'd ever been in
my entire life. The mood I was in when I
was pacing back and forth calling nine one one, I
could have ended that mother effort three times over, but again,
that would not have been the right play to make.
The grown up responsible thing to do would be to

(18:18):
let the law enforcement handle it, and that's what I
tried to do. The only trouble was after about a
week of haranguing the sheriff into dealing with our potential fugitive,
I realized that nothing was being done regarding my complaint.
First off, piles of red tape meant that the sheriff
was forced to inform Beaverhead's contingent to force rangers of

(18:40):
the situation, who in turn took the task off his
hands after insuring him they'd be in touch regarding their
search of the area. The day before I called the
sheriff for a third time, the rangers had informed him
that they'd been unable to locate any such cabin in
the valley beneath Maverick Mountain. Naturally, I told the sheriff
that was impossible, since I had seen the cabin and

(19:02):
its occupants with my own two eyes. I then went
to the effort of providing him with at least what
I believe, or the exact coordinates denoting the cabin's location
forty five degrees twenty eight minutes thirty point nine seconds
north and one hundred and thirteen degrees twelve minutes forty
one point one seconds west. After that, the rangers promised

(19:28):
to send out a second search party, and although this
one actually found the guy's cabin, the man himself was
nowhere to be found, and the structure appeared to have
been unoccupied for quite some time. I was furious, to
say the least. I have a lot of respect for
people that choose to serve this country, no matter what
form that service may take, but the ineptitude of the

(19:51):
part of the authorities in allowing a dangerous fugitive to
slip through their fingers is as staggering as it is
frightening to me. I don't know for certain whom I
encountered up in Beaverhead that day, but I'd think that
ninety percent of you would agree that the man was
most probably some kind of criminal, and that in all
likelihood he was using that cabin and valley as covered

(20:15):
a hide from law enforcement. That or he was just
kind of a psychopathic doomsday prepper. Who took pleasure in
terrorizing just some kindly stranger, And either way, the idea
of a second encounter filled me with a dread so
intense I'm not sure that I could put it into words,
and that's why I haven't been back to Beaverhead since.

(20:37):
And then if I did happen to visit those parts
in the future, i'd stay the hell away from Maverick Mountain.
Regardless of that sadistic old prick's motives, I guess he
figured that I wasn't going to be true to my word, because,
as I said, when the rangers finally did make it
out to his cabin, the man who almost shot me
was long gone. But then, in turn takes me all

(21:00):
the way back to the beginning of this email, when
I said it wasn't so much a campfire story, but
rather a grave warning to anyone planning on hiking in
southwestern Montana north of Idaho. I think that guy is
just still out there, living off the grid. In fact,
I'm certain of it. My only concern is that the

(21:21):
next person who stumbles across him won't be as fortunate
as I was. And rather than just being asked, do
you believe in God? I'm scared they'll be sent to
meet him. I've been going on long distance hikes in

(21:45):
one form or another for just about as long as
I can remember. My dad was an army vet and
his brother was always crazy into bow hunting, so most summers, myself,
my father, my uncle, and my cousins would all head
out into the woods south of Abbeville, South Carolina for
a few days of hiking and camping. After he passed,

(22:06):
I found that trips into the forest helped me feel
closer to him, even if it was just a few
hours of hiking on a Sunday afternoon. So at least
once or twice a month, I'd gear up and then
head out into the wilderness to burn off the stresses
of everyday life. I was living down in Augusta when
he died, and although there was a nice patch of
woods out near Audubon's Bluff, I found the areas between

(22:28):
Stephens Creek and the Hamilton Branch State Park to be
much more like the woods that I'd hike through as
a child. Also, for accuracy's sake, I'm referring to Stephen's
Creek up in South Carolina, not the neighborhood in North Augusta.
Just in case anyone is confused. You could walk for
miles and miles and not see any one but the
occasional fisherman, And so for about ninety percent of the

(22:50):
time it was just you, the creek and the trees,
peaceful and serene. But then one time, after driving up
from Augusta in a Sunday afternoon, I was about two
miles into my hike along Stephen's Creek when I saw
an odd shape in the woods off to my left.
As it could imagine, I was used to seeing nothing
but trees in the odd squirrel on the side of

(23:12):
the creek, so seeing this big, dark lump caught my
attention almost right away. I stopped in my tracks, turned
to give it a good look over, and saw that
some one had constructed a kind of makeshift shelter out
of old dead wood by stacking it at an angle
against a tree. I actually thought it was pretty cool

(23:32):
at first. I mean, it had this slightly creepy, almost
witchy vibe to it, but it was still kind of
impressive to see that some one had been out there
practicing survival skills or whatever. I carried on walking through
the woods for another five or ten minutes. Then up
ahead I suddenly saw another one of those makeshift shelters.
That one was a little bigger than the other, and

(23:54):
someone had clearly put a lot more work into binding
some of the larger pieces together, so the whole thing
did just collapse. I'd never seen anything like it on
any of my previous hikes, and although they looked a
little creepy, I wasn't worried about running into the person
who constructed them. I mean, maybe one of the fishermen
I saw sometimes brought their kids along the previous day,

(24:15):
and they'd made the two shelters as a way of
keeping themselves occupied while Dad tried to land a big one.
But then, shortly after that thought crossed my mind, I
spotted someone up ahead of me working on one of
the same shelters I'd just been looking at. As I
got a little closer, I realized the guy looked to
be in his fifties or sixties, around the same age

(24:36):
as my dad when he passed. He had thin gray
hair pulled back into a ponytail, and he was overweight,
and he wore an array of colorful hiking gear. As
I approached, he saw me coming so he stopped what
he was doing for a moment, waved and wished me
a good afternoon. We talked for a little while about
this and that, but long story short, he said that

(24:58):
his name was Ron, and that he was pretty much
doing exactly what it looked like, practicing the construction of
impromptu shelters. He was actually doing so with the idea
of camping out there one night, just him, his shelter
and a canopy of stars above him. I joked that
he might end up looking up at nothing but rain
drops if he doesn't master as shelters before the fall,

(25:21):
and then after we shared a few chuckles, I carried
on with my hike. My usual routine was once I
had reached the area near Hamilton Beach, i'd turned back
on myself and then retraced my steps along the creek.
I thought I might see Ron on the way back,
but I didn't. He must have moved on by the
time I got back to a shelters. I must have

(25:41):
made two or three more trips to Stephen's Creek that summer,
and although I didn't see any more of Ron, I
did see more of his handiwork every time I went
for a hike, there would be one or two more shelters,
some larger than the others, but always more skillfully constructed.
It sometimes felt like me and Ron were engaged in
a sort of wordless conversation. Every time I went for

(26:02):
a hike, I get to see how much he'd improved.
It is rather strange, but wholesome new hobby. I always
hoped that i'd bump into him again, if only to
find out how his survival camping adventure had gone. And
that's why, during one particular hike in early September, I
didn't feel frightened when I got the feeling that some
one else was in the woods with me. I actually

(26:24):
felt kind of excited. I recall walking through the woods
just parallel to the creek, and then quite literally hearing
the snap of a stick behind me, which made me
stop and turned my head. I figured it might be
Ron working away on a new shelter, so I turned
back and started walking off in the direction i'd heard
the sound. I walked for about a minute or two.

(26:48):
When I realized that Ron was nowhere to be seen,
I stopped dead in my tracks and started back up again.
If it wasn't him that had made the twig snap,
then something else clearly had and that something else might
not be nearly so friendly as I said. I backed
up to my original path, then carried on walking along

(27:09):
the creek via my usual route. I turned my head
every so often to take a look behind me, just
to make sure no mountain lions or bears were following.
But other than that, I stayed on my route. I
always carried some bear mace and a pistol with me,
Like I'm not one of those people who very naively
believe that bear mace is enough to keep you safe.

(27:29):
I mean, aside from the fact that the odor will
actually attract all the bears you did in mace directly,
it's not always just the wild life you're going to
be afraid of. And so by the time I had
reached the outskirts of Hamilton Branch, I was convinced that
someone or something was stalking me through the woods. I'm
not just saying that out of my misguided sense of paranoia, either,

(27:52):
nor had I managed to freak myself out by allowing
my mind to play tricks on me. When a predatory
animal was in your vicinity, everything goes deathly quiet. Birds
don't sing, insects don't chirp. It's like every living thing
hushes themselves into silence while some hungry killer slips through
their midst Like you know in the movies when someone

(28:14):
says it's quiet two quiet, That's exactly where it comes from,
when everyone and everything is too scared to make a noise.
So when I tell you that I knew something was
following me that day, please don't think that I'm just
some anxious person who can talk themselves into a tizzy.
I know something was stalking me, and I know it
one hundred percent. I must have been about a half

(28:37):
a mile from the Modoc trailhead when I stopped, took
off my backpack, and then rummaged through it for the
Torus eight fifty six that I always carried with me.
Being a thirty eight special and a cool sixteen ounces unloaded,
it packs just enough punch to theoretically put down a
wild animal while being light enough to not be a
literal burden. Wherever I carried one, it always gave me

(28:59):
this residtionsual feeling of safety. But that was the first
time I'd ever gotten it out of my pack with
the expectation of potentially using it, yet I wasn't fearful
of actually having to pull the trigger. I was fearful
of what I might have to aim it at, be
it a bear, a mountain lion, or one of my
fellow human beings. I loaded it with the speed loadeder

(29:20):
that I kept with me, so within just seconds of
reaching into my pack, I was locked and loaded and
ready to defend myself. After that, I just stood there
for a few moments, watching the woods and the trail,
just waiting to see if whatever had been following me
was impatient enough to reveal itself. About a minute went by,
then I found myself yelling off into the trees, Ron

(29:43):
is it you. I guess that was nothing but wishful
thinking on my part, just kind of hoping that Ron was,
I don't know, maybe playing a trick on me, or
something that would be creepy and inappropriate. But as sure
as hell beat a wild animal or some other stalking
me through the woods. I stood in the same spot

(30:03):
a little longer than I don't know if I did
this out of practicality or just to assuage my own nerves,
but I called out something like, if there's anyone following me,
youd better stop now I'm armed and I know how
to use this thing. See y'all, better stop before someone
gets shut But nothing moved, nothing stirred, but I could

(30:28):
still feel eyes on me. At this point, I was
faced with something of the conundrum. I could divert from
my intended route, walk two miles into Modoc, and then
walk in a big loop back on myself until I
reached my car, which was parked down near Clark's Hill.
Or I could save myself at least an hour's extra

(30:49):
hike and walk back the way I came while remaining
doubly vigilant and alert. Now this was a Sunday, Like
I said, and back then, Sundays meant that I was
on a pretty tight schedule. Not tight enough that I
couldn't devote an entire hour for walking along the creek,
but tight enough that I couldn't really afford to throw
an extra ninety minutes to two hours on to my hike. Obviously,

(31:10):
when it comes to personal and physical safety, an extra
two hours is nothing. But I had my mace, I
had my gun, and I had all my experience, the
ladder of which was telling me that although there was
a bad feeling in the air. I was still safe
enough to walk back along the creek side so long
as I kept my wits about me, and so off
I went. About half way along the route, I see

(31:33):
this pair of fly fishermen setting up at the edge
of the creek. I said high as I walked past,
and then stopped and politely asked if they'd seen any
one else walking the trail as they'd hiked out to
their spot. They told me yes, they had seen some one,
but they were walking the opposite way, meaning that some
one had one hundred percent been behind me on the

(31:54):
trail and had turned back at some point before I'd
seen them. I asked what this person look like, thinking
that they might go on to describe Ron, but they didn't,
and the person they ended up describing didn't sound like
Rawn at all. They also mentioned how after wishing the
hiker a good afternoon, the fishermen didn't receive any kind

(32:14):
of reply. Apparently this hiker returned nothing but an awkward
mumble and then carried on their business. The two fishermen
then started asking why it seemed so concerned and so
just I straight up told them that I was worried
about someone following me. Not like an accident either, where
they just so happened to be behind me on the trail.

(32:35):
It was like someone was there and just didn't want
to be seen. That's when the two fishermen shared these
very nervous looks before telling me that the man that
they'd seen was wearing camouflage but didn't have any kind
of hunting weapon with him, and wasn't wearing any kind
of safety orange jacket or anything like that. This hadn't
given any pause for concern for me at first. I mean,

(32:58):
people are entitled to walk through the woods wearing old
army issues, but in the context of me thinking that
I'd been followed, they obviously found the detail as chilling
as I did. As a precaution, I told the two
freshmen where I was headed and where my car was parked,
and then wished them a very pleasant afternoon and headed off.
But on the drive back to Augusta, I couldn't help

(33:20):
but wonder if they'd really been as innocent as I
first expected. I guess this kind of does constitute paranoia
on my part, but the idea that it was one
of the fishermen that had been stalking me only to
back off when I started acting tough. That was somehow
even creepier than anything else. Someone playing nice only to
have sinister intentions, like someone out of a horror movie

(33:43):
or whatever. It was enough to make my skin crawl.
And I decided there and then that I'd give Stephens
Creek a very wide berth for a while, at least
for a month or two, so I could go back
to see what progress Ron had made. Only that never happened,
and I don't plan on ever going back to star
Evens Creek. And the story of how that came to
pass started with a phone call I received just a

(34:05):
few weeks later. I just got home from work when
I heard my phone ringing from inside my purse. I
didn't recognize the number, and assuming it was a sales call,
I almost hit the red button to decline it. But
then I don't know. It was like something in my
head just said answer it, and when I did, I
heard it was a deputy calling from the McCormick County

(34:27):
Sheriff's Department up in South Carolina. My first thought was
that I'd committed some kind of traffic violation or something
around Clark's Hill, which was usually where I parked my
car whenever I went hiking around Stephen's Creek. But the
call was not about any kind of traffic violation. The
call what's about my friend Ron. The deputy didn't refer

(34:50):
to Ron as Ron, not at first anyway. He simply
asked if I had ever encountered an individual building survival
shelters up near Stephens Creek. This deputy had already spoken
to the fishermen that I'd bumped into on the day
that I'd been stalked, which was how they'd traced me
to Clark's Hill via a security camera which watched the

(35:10):
parking lot that I'd used. The fisherman must have mentioned
that I was a regular hiker there, which ended up
making me a potential witness for something I was yet
to be informed of. My first thoughts were that Ron
had gotten hurt somehow, or it may begone missing, so
I was very forthright about my interaction with him. But

(35:31):
then the deputy made some allusion to human remains being
found out near the creek, and I felt my heart
slowly sinking into my chest. I remember this feeling of
absolute horror, thinking the same thing that had stalked me
had gotten raw instead. He must have been working away
on one of his shelters, completely oblivious to the woods

(35:52):
around them, and then bam, the most painful death you
can imagine, without a soul around to ever hear him die.
I remember asking if it was an animal attack, if
they found Ron, if he had any family, But there
wasn't much the deputy was willing to tell me at
that stage, and to be honest, I'm still uncomfortably ignorant

(36:14):
on what actually happened out there. That being said, this
is what I do know. There wasn't just one set
of human remains found out there. There were two, and
neither of them belonged to any one called Ron. Then,
seeing as the two bodies were found in one of
the shelters out there by Stephens Creek, the person calling

(36:35):
themselves Ron was in fact the case's number one suspect.
On the insistence of the deputy. This prompted me to
search my memory for any instance of Ron mentioning places
or people or things, just about anything they could use
to pin down his whereabouts. I had nothing. Our exchange
had been brief and unexciting, so with regret, I informed

(36:59):
the deputy that I could no longer really assist them,
and that was literally the last thing I had heard
about the bodies that were found out near the creek.
Every so often in the years that have passed, I've
searched the web in the hopes of finding something, anything,
to help enlighten me on what exactly happened out there.
But every time I've tried to practice the not so

(37:21):
ancient art of google foo, as I've heard it referred to,
I've come up short. I think I'm just fishing for details,
pieces of information to fill in the blanks. But deep down,
I think I understand what happened to me that day
up by Stephen's Creek. I think I narrowly avoided falling
victim to someone terrible, not a bear or a mountain lion,

(37:45):
a man. And I think someone was walking the woods
that day when I got that creepy feeling, someone who
ended up making victims out of two innocent people. And
I think, only by the grace of God did I
avoid that very same fate. Way back in May of

(38:11):
nineteen ninety five, a twenty nine year old truck driver
named Devon Eugene Williams was living in Americas, Kansas with
his wife and three young children. Having just moved into
a brand new family home. Devon's wife would later say
it was the happiest point in their marriage, but beneath
the surface, something terrible festered and unfurled. Devon was described

(38:35):
by friends as a patient and good natured young man,
but just weeks after beginning an exciting new chapter in
his life, he disappeared without a trace. On Sunday, May
twenty eighth of nineteen ninety five, a forty eight foot
ten ton eighteen Wheelers semi truck hurtled through Arizona's Tonto

(38:55):
National Forest. The roar of its engine was so loud
that two campers named Lynn and Jack Errington temporarily halted
their height to see what all the commotion was. They
approached the nearest highway, then seconds later spotted a speeding
eighteen wheeler recklessly careening back and forth along a stretch
of road it was most certainly not suited for, and

(39:18):
all at break neck speed, so fast it sent a
shiver down the Yarrington Spines. Another group of hikers, this
one traveling by car, suffered a hair raisingly close call
when the same eighteen wheeler drove head on at them
Following a chance encounter on the highway. The hikers were
able to swerve out of the truck's path and each

(39:38):
avoided sudden and violent deaths, but later stated that the
truck's mustachio driver had remained disturbingly expressionless despite narrowly avoiding
his own complete annihilation. Later on that day, a group
on their way to a picnic spotted the stationary truck,
which by that point had swerved off the road and

(39:58):
become stuck in a fee After stopping their vehicle, one
of the picnic group climbed out of their car and
asked the truck driver if he needed any help. The
driver's reply was as chilling as it was confusing. They
made me do it, he said, as if answering a
question that hadn't been asked the Good Samaritan. A man

(40:20):
named Charles Hall reportedly asked the truck driver, who made
you do what, to which the driver replied in a
panicked voice, No, you can't help, No one can. I'll
never get it out of there. I'm going to jail.
When Charles heard the word jail being thrown around, he
realized that he might have stumbled across something deeply sinister.

(40:42):
He agreed to leave the truck driver alone, but later
contacted the local sheriff's department, speaking to a Deputy Wells
regarding the man's suspicious demeanor. Much like the campers, the
deputy was confused as to why such a large vehicle
would drive along unsuitable forest roads and went to investigate.
Upon his arrival, he discovered the semi stuck in deep

(41:05):
mud within a meadow not far from Forest Service Road
one thirty seven in the Buck Springs area. Once Deputy
Wells looked inside the truck, he discovered the cargo within,
undisturbed and intact, twelve hundred boxes of lettuce and strawberries,
with a refrigeration still running. The vehicle appeared completely abandoned,

(41:27):
and the cab had been firmly locked. Deputy Wells checked
as National Crime computer and learned that there were no
reports submitted for either a missing truck or a missing driver.
He also later stated upon peering through the window of
the truck's cab, he noted the interior was well kept
and there was no indication that any foul play had

(41:47):
taken place. Later that day, Lynne and Jack Errington were
driving along Forest Service Road three twenty one when they
came upon a man standing among some trees at the roadside.
According to the Yearringtons, they stopped their car only to
see that the man was kneeling on the ground, staring
at a tree and appeared to be mumbling to himself.

(42:08):
The couple said it was impossible to make out exactly
what he was saying, and after Jack asked if the
man needed any assistance, he replied simply, I've got to
light the grill. Moments later, Jack watched as the stranger
produced a twenty dollar bill from his shirt pocket. The
stranger then picked up a rock, held the bill to

(42:29):
the ground, and began striking it with a stone as
if attempting to spark a flame. Deeply alarmed by what
they were seeing, the Harringtons returned to their car, only
to have the stranger scream unintelligibly before he hurled the
rock in their direction. He then appeared to stumble into
the Errington's direction, prompting them to immediately flee the scene.

(42:52):
Only later was the strange man confirmed to have been
the truck driver Devon Williams, and sadly it marked the
last last time he was ever seen alive. When he
failed to stick to his delivery schedule and confident in
the belief that he'd never willingly abandoned a shipment, Devon's
co workers reported him missing. Investigators began to track Devon's

(43:15):
movements leading up to his disappearance and learned he'd left
his home on May twenty third, heading west on a
route that he'd taken many times before. He successfully delivered
his hall to California, reloaded his truck for his trip
back to the Midwest, and then had a brief conversation
with his boss, Tom Wilson. Wilson later stated that everything

(43:37):
seemed fine and that Devon wasn't acting out of the ordinary.
He was punctual, seemed lucid, and gave no indications that
anything was wrong. A few nights later, on the evening
of Saturday, May twenty seventh, Devon arrived in Kingman, Arizona.
He would call his boss for the second and final time,
ensuring him that he'd make it to Kansas City on schedule,

(43:58):
but added an eerie addend them when he complained of insomnia.
As boss reportedly asked if he'd be able to complete
his journey, but Devon once again assured him that he'd
be fined, Yet according to police reports, Devon never even
made it out of Arizona. Arizona Missing person's detective Bruce

(44:19):
Cornish would later state that he and his team were
completely flummixed when it came to Devon's potential fate. He
was neither a criminal nor a drug user, and had
no history of mental health problems prior to his disappearance,
meaning easy explanations were hard to come by. This led
many to theorize that Devon's disappearance was entirely voluntary, with

(44:41):
some pointing to the fact that certain personal items had
been removed from the truck. Nevertheless, authorities mounted a large
scale search for the missing trucker, utilizing foot patrols, search dogs,
off road vehicles, and dozens of civilian volunteers. Search teams
were told to look for scraps of clothing and even

(45:01):
bone fragments, but despite days of searching, not a single
trace of Devon Williams was ever found. This also made
for a chilling anomaly, as up until that point, the
Scottsdale based search and rescue team charged with recovering his
remains had yet to come up short in the course
of a long term search, Devan's disappearance marked the first

(45:23):
time that they'd failed to bring home a missing person,
either dead or alive, which to many was as eerie
as it was perplexing. Two years later, on May second
of nineteen ninety seven, two hikers were tracing the bottom
of HeLa County's muggy on Rim when they stumbled upon
the remains of a human skull. Dental records will later

(45:44):
confirm what many had first feared. The skull belonged to
the missing trucker Devon Williams. Although the skull had been damaged,
A coroner determined that it was impossible to conclude if
this was the result of a deliberate violent act or
the result of skal avengers consuming a corpse following an
otherwise accidental death. Some suggested the erratic behavior Devon displayed

(46:07):
was the result of a diabetic episode. Others argue sleep
deprivation or mental illness were to blame. Some even purport
that Devon was the victim of a slow form of
carbon monoxide poisoning following a leak in his truck's cabin,
but to date, no such theory has been irrefutably confirmed.
Devon's wife, Mary Lou Williams still longs for a day

(46:30):
when explanations of her husband's fate will be beyond dispute,
but she also stated that with each passing year, the
hope of seeing such a day slowly and painfully decreases.
Mary Lou has said that back when her husband was
listed as a missing person, the lack of conclusive answers
cost her children terrible suffering. Yet the discovery of Devon's

(46:53):
skull brought only a sliver of morbid closure to the family,
as many questions still remained, For example, what caused Devon's
stray so far from his intended route, and if his
state of mind was affected, what exactly caused such a
catastrophic mental break. However, some suggest that Devon was well
within his right mind when he swerved his truck off

(47:15):
the road, as prior to his abandonment, he ensured the
cab was locked. Unless Devon suffered some kind of rapid
mental break down in the space of just two to
three hours, then something frightened him so badly that he
did things that most would consider to be highly an
unhealthily irrational. Some safear can drive a man to madness,

(47:37):
in which case, what was Devon Williams so deathly afraid
of and could possibly explain why his broken skull was
found just a few years later, less than a mile
away from the spot where he disappeared. Hey, friends, thanks
for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of

(47:59):
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(48:19):
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(48:43):
now just went through puperty