In June 2007, a female climber went missing in the mountains of Colorado.

She was 29 years old, experienced and knew the roots.

3 months later, tourists found her body frozen in a block of ice that had slid down from a stream.

When the ice melted, they discovered horrific details.

A broken cheekbone, fabric from her own jacket stuffed into her mouth, her hands tied with a cord from her own equipment, a bruise on her forehead, the mark of a blow from a rock.

Cause of death, strangulation.

The police classified the case as a murder.

The killer has not been found to this day.

The FBI believes it may be linked to two other similar disappearances in the Colorado mountains.

This is the story of how a solo climb turned into a nightmare and how one of the most beautiful corners of America became the scene of a crime that remains unsolved to this day.

Emily Carson lived in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver, renting an apartment on the second floor of an old Victorian house on Pennsylvania Avenue.

She worked as a graphic designer for a small advertising company called Peak Creative Group.

Her colleagues described her as calm, reserved, and professional.

She had few friends.

After work, she usually went to the gym or the climbing wall.

She spent her weekends in the mountains alone.

Mountaineering was her only passion.

Since the age of 18, when she moved to Colorado from Minnesota, Emily had climbed dozens of routes.

She started with easy trails in Rocky Mountain National Park, then moved on to technical climbs a few years later.

By the age of 29, she had climbed more than 40 peaks, including several 14ers, Colorado peaks over 14,000 ft high.

On Thursday, June 21st, 2007, Emily finished work around 6:00 in the evening.

She came home and packed her backpack.

She planned to leave early the next morning for Maroon Bells, a mountainous area near the town of Aspen, 180 mi west of Denver.

Maroon Bells are two peaks, North Maroon and South Maroon, 14156 and 1456 ft high, respectively.

They are among the most dangerous mountains in Colorado.

The rocks are made of sedimentary rock, sandstone, shale, conglomerate, which crumbles easily.

Rockfalls are constant.

The weather is unpredictable.

Sun in the morning, snow at noon, thunderstorms in the evening.

Local rescuers have nicknamed the area Maroon Creator.

Maroon the corpse maker because of the number of accidents.

Since 1975, more than 10 people have died there.

Emily knew this.

She had been to Maroon Bells three times before, always successfully.

She planned to take the North Maroon route.

technically difficult with sections of class three and four climbing on the Yoseite decimal rating system.

Class three means you need your hands for balance, but a rope is not required.

Grade four, easy climbing, rope recommended for safety.

A fall could be fatal.

The route takes 8 to 12 hours round trip depending on pace and weather.

On the evening of June 21st, Emily called her parents in Minneapolis.

The conversation lasted 10 minutes.

Her mother, Linda Carson, later told the police that her daughter sounded calm, said she was planning to climb North Maroon, would leave early in the morning, and return on Saturday evening.

Linda asked why she was going alone.

Emily replied, “It’s easier that way.

I don’t have to wait for anyone.

I can go at my own pace.

” Her mother asked her to be careful.

Emily promised.

They said goodbye.

On Friday, June 22nd, Emily left Denver around 5:00 a.

m.

Her car was a 1999 Subaru Outback, dark green, with Colorado license plates.

She filled up at a station in Georgetown and bought coffee and a sandwich.

The cashier, a girl named Kayla, remembered her.

She was wearing hiking clothes and had a backpack in the back seat.

She smiled, said thank you, and left.

Just a regular customer.

Around 8:30 a.

m.

, Emily arrived at the start of the Maroon Lake Trail, 10 miles from Aspen.

The parking lot at Maroon Lake is a popular spot with dozens of cars there in the summer.

Emily parked in the far corner away from the others.

The parking lot attendant, a man named Tom Rivers, who had worked there for four seasons, later confirmed that he had seen her around 9 in the morning.

She registered her route on the board at the entrance.

She wrote, “Emily Carson, North Maroon, planned to return by 5:00 p.

m.

I asked if she was going alone.

She nodded.

” I said, “Be careful.

The forecast promises a thunderstorm in the afternoon.

” She replied, “I know.

I’ll make it before the storm.

She left.

Emily began her ascent around 9:15.

The first three miles of the trail go through the forest, then come out onto an open slope.

The elevation gained to the summit is about 4 1/2,000 ft.

Several other climbers were also on the trail that morning.

Two men, Mark Evans and Jason Wade, students at the University of Colorado in Boulder, saw Emily around 10:30 at an elevation of about 12,000 ft.

She was walking fast, confidently.

We stopped to rest.

She passed by and nodded.

We didn’t talk.

This was the last confirmed sighting of Emily Carson alive.

By noon on June 22nd, the weather began to change.

The clouds thickened and the temperature dropped.

By 100 p.

m.

it began to snow, a rare but not impossible occurrence in Colorado in June at an altitude of over 13,000 ft.

Mark and Jason, who had not reached the summit, turned back.

They descended through a blizzard.

Visibility dropped to 50 m.

By 300 p.

m.

, the snow turned to rain, then stopped.

By 5:00 p.

m.

, the sky had cleared.

But Emily had not returned.

Tom Rivers, the caretaker, checked the registration board at 6:00 p.

m.

Emily had not signed in to indicate her return.

He checked the parking lot.

The Subaru was still there.

Tom began to worry.

He waited until 7 p.

m.

Emily did not show up.

He called the Pitkin County Mountain Rescue Service office in Aspen.

The coordinator on duty, David Thorne, took the call at 7:20 p.

m.

He registered the report of a missing climber.

Standard protocol, wait until morning.

Most missing people are simply delayed.

They lose their way, spend the night on the slope, and return in the morning.

But given the weather and the danger of the route, Thorne decided not to wait.

At 8:00 p.

m.

, a small group was assembled.

Four rescuers, experienced and knowledgeable about the area, they set out for the trail head at 8:30 p.

m.

A night search in the mountains is a dangerous and ineffective endeavor.

Darkness, limited visibility, the risk of getting lost yourself.

The group climbed the trail with flashlights, shouting Emily’s name and shining their lights to the sides.

There was no response.

They reached an altitude of about 12,500 ft where the trail becomes technically difficult.

It was dangerous to continue further at night.

They returned to the trail head at 2:00 a.

m.

and decided to resume the search in the morning.

On Saturday, June 23rd, the search operation began at 6:00 in the morning.

The group was expanded to 12 people.

A medical evacuation helicopter was added which patrolled the slopes from the air.

The weather was clear, visibility was good.

The group split into three teams.

The first team took the main route to the summit.

The second team checked the side ridges and kulwars, places where it is easy to lose your way.

The third team searched the area below the main ridge where rockfalls or climber falls are possible.

By noon, the first team had reached the summit of North Maroon.

There was no sign of Emily.

The second team found several bootprints in the snow at an altitude of 13,000 ft, but it was impossible to determine who they belong to.

The third team searched several kulwars filled with snow and scree.

Nothing.

The helicopter made several flyovers using thermal imaging to search for heat signatures.

Nothing was found.

The search continued for 4 days.

June 23rd, 24, 25, and 26.

The group was expanded to 20 people.

Tracking dogs were added.

All the main routes, all the kulawars, all possible crash sites were searched.

No traces, no personal belongings, no body.

Emily Carson seemed to have vanished into thin air.

On Wednesday, June 27th, the official search was called off.

The reasons: lack of leads, danger to rescuers, low probability of finding her alive.

David Thorne, the operation coordinator, held a press briefing.

He said, “We did everything we could.

We searched every square meter of accessible territory.

The weather conditions on June 22nd were difficult.

The most likely scenario is that Emily was caught in a rockfall or fell in one of the kulwars and her body is buried under snow and debris.

Unfortunately, we cannot continue the search without any concrete leads.

Emily’s parents, Linda and Robert Carson, flew to Aspen on June 24th.

They attended the briefing.

Linda cried.

Robert demanded that the search continue.

They explained to him that it was technically impossible, too dangerous, and pointless.

Without new information, Emily’s parents took her car, a Subaru, back to Minnesota.

The case was classified as mountaineering accident, body not found.

Emily Carson was officially listed as missing.

3 months passed, summer ended, and September began.

Temperatures were dropping in the mountains and the snow on the high slopes began to melt during the day and freeze at night.

On Sunday, September 9th, three tourists from Denver, Brian Miller, his wife Jessica, and their friend Steve Harris went on a day hike in the Maroon Bells area.

Not to the summit, but along one of the side trails that runs alongside a stream flowing from the glacier field to Maroon Lake.

The trail is scenic, easy, and popular with families and photographers.

Around 11:00 a.

m.

, at an altitude of about 10,000 ft, the group stopped to rest by the stream.

The stream is narrow, about 2 m wide, flowing fast, the water icy.

Higher up the slope, about 50 m from the trail, Brian noticed something strange.

A large chunk of ice about a meter in diameter, lay on the bank of the stream, partially in the water.

The ice was cloudy with flexcks of dirt and stones.

But inside, under a layer of ice about 20 cm thick, something dark was visible.

Fabric.

Brian moved closer.

He looked closely.

Inside the ice was a body, a human body curled up in a fetal position.

You could see the back, bent legs, part of the head, clothes, a dark jacket, pants, long dark hair.

Brian jumped back and yelled to his wife.

Jessica ran up, saw it, and screamed, too.

Steve took out his cell phone and tried to call.

There was no signal.

Too high up, out of range.

The group quickly descended to the parking lot.

There, Brian called emergency services.

At 11:45, the rangers arrived.

At 12:30, the Pittkin County Sheriff and two detectives arrived.

The group climbed back up to the site of the discovery.

The ice block was still lying on the shore.

The rangers examined it and confirmed that there was a body inside.

They called the mountain rescue service and the forensic team.

By 300 p.

m.

, a full team was working at the site.

The problem was how to extract the body without damaging the evidence.

The ice was too thick to simply break.

They decided to transport the entire block down to the road, then to the morg, where the ice would be melted under controlled conditions.

The operation took 6 hours.

They used a canvas stretcher, ropes, and 10 people.

The block weighed more than 200 kg.

They carried it slowly and carefully.

By 900 p.

m.

, they had brought it to the road, loaded it into a refrigerated truck, and taken it to the morg of the district hospital in Aspen.

On Monday, September 10th, the thawing process began.

The block was placed in a special room with a controlled temperature.

The temperature was gradually raised and the ice melted slowly.

By evening, the ice had become thinner and the body was more visible.

Clothing, dark blue jacket, black pants, boots.

The jacket had a Patagonia logo.

The county medical examiner, Dr.

Ellen Rose, supervised the process.

By midnight, the ice had melted enough to remove the body.

The body was that of a woman of average height with dark hair, approximately 30 years old.

It was well preserved.

The cold had preserved the tissue and prevented decomposition.

The skin was pale and waxy, but the facial features were distinguishable.

Dr.

Rose immediately noticed the injuries.

The right cheekbone was fractured.

The bone pushed inward.

It was the mark of a strong blow.

There was a round bruise on her forehead about 3 cm in diameter.

It looked like the mark left by a stone or other blunt object.

But the most shocking thing was something else.

Her hands were tied behind her back.

The cord was about 5 mm in diameter, nylon, green in color.

The knots were simple but strong.

Her hands were tied tightly.

Her wrists blew from the pressure.

There was a piece of cloth in her mouth.

It was part of the lining of her jacket, about 10 by 15 cm, orange in color, stuffed deep into her mouth, almost to her throat.

The cloth was soaked with saliva and blood.

Dr.

Rose immediately called the sheriff.

Pitkin County Sheriff James Wallace and Chief Detective Tom Baker arrived.

They examined the body.

Wallace said, “This is not an accident.

This is murder.

” On September 11th, a full forensic examination began.

Dr.

Rose performed an autopsy.

The findings were as follows.

The cause of death was suffocation.

The cloth in the mouth blocked the airways and the victim suffocated.

The time required for death by suffocation with the airways completely blocked is 3 to 5 minutes.

The victim was alive when the cloth was stuffed into her mouth.

This was confirmed by signs of a struggle.

Scratches on her wrists under the cord, abrasions on her knees, dirt under her fingernails.

Her right cheekbone was fractured by a blow from a blunt object.

The blow was strong, but not fatal.

It was probably intended to stun the victim and make it easier to control her.

The bruise on her forehead is also a sign of a blow.

Its shape and size correspond to a stone about 3 cm in diameter.

The blow was also not fatal, but painful and could have caused disorientation.

No other serious injuries were found.

There were no signs of sexual assault.

There were no knife or gunshot wounds.

Her clothes were undamaged except for the lining of her jacket, part of which had been torn out and used as a gag.

Her personal belongings were missing.

No backpack, no equipment, no documents, but she was wearing a silver compass-shaped pendant around her neck engraved on the back.

Emily with love, mom and dad, 2003.

Identification took several hours.

The description was compared with the missing person’s database.

Emily Carson, 29 years old, disappeared on June 22nd in the Maroon Bells area.

Dental records confirmed that it was her.

Her parents were notified on the evening of September 11th.

Linda Carson fainted when she received the news.

Robert demanded an immediate investigation.

On September 12th, Sheriff Wallace held a press conference.

He announced that Emily Carson’s body had been found and her death classified as a homicide.

A criminal investigation was launched.

The case was transferred to the Pittkin County Sheriff’s Homicide Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which handles cases occurring on National Forest and Parklands.

Detective Tom Baker led the investigation.

The first question was, “Where exactly was Emily killed?” The body was found at an altitude of 10,000 ft frozen in the ice near a stream, but the murder could have taken place higher or lower on the slope.

A team of forensic scientists and rescue workers returned to the site on September 12th.

They examined the surrounding area.

The stream originates from a glacier field at an altitude of about 13,000 ft, flows down a steep slope, and then levels off at an altitude of 10,000 ft where the ice block was found.

Upstream at an altitude of about 11,500 ft.

They discovered a place that could have been the scene of the crime.

It was a small area protected by rocks near the stream.

There were signs of a struggle on the ground, trampled grass, displaced stones, and blood stains on one of the stones.

The blood was sent for analysis and matched Emily’s.

Several items were found near the area.

Emily’s backpack, black Osprey brand, partially dismantled, contents scattered.

Inside a bottle of water, food scraps, a map, a compass, a first aid kit.

An ice ax lay about 10 m from the backpack stuck in the ground.

One trekking pole was broken in half.

A piece of green nylon cord about a meter long was tied to a tree.

It was the same cord that had been used to tie Emily’s hands.

Obviously, it was the remnant of the SCE used by the killer.

The picture began to come together.

Emily had been climbing the route on June 22nd.

Somewhere near this spot, she had met someone.

A struggle ensued.

She was struck on the head and face with a rock, knocked unconscious, her hands were tied, and a gag was stuffed into her mouth.

She was killed.

Then her body was thrown into the stream.

On that day, June 22nd, it snowed in the afternoon, then rained.

The temperature dropped.

By evening it was below zero.

The stream was partially frozen.

The body which had fallen into the water got stuck between the rocks and the water around it froze forming a block of ice.

Then during the summer the ice slowly melted and drifted downstream.

By September the block had broken off and slid about 1,000 ft downstream where it was found by tourists.

The question, who killed Emily? Detective Baker started with the obvious.

He checked the alibis of everyone who was in the Maroon Bells area on June 22nd.

Mark Evans and Jason Wade, students who saw Emily around 10:30 a.

m.

were questioned.

Both confirmed that they saw her, did not talk to her, continued their climb, then turned back because of the weather, descended to the parking lot around 3:30 p.

m.

, and drove back to Boulder.

Their alibis were checked and confirmed.

They are not suspects.

Everyone who signed in on the board at the trail head on June 22nd was checked.

A total of eight people, including Emily.

Seven returned.

All were questioned.

No suspicious connections to Emily.

Alibis checked, confirmed.

The criminal database was checked.

Were there any people in the Aspen or Maroon Bells area with convictions for violent crimes? It turned out there were.

Three men with convictions for assault, robbery, and domestic violence lived in Pitkin County.

All three were questioned.

One was at work in Aspen on June 22nd.

Alibi confirmed.

The second was in Denver and his alibi was confirmed.

The third, a man named Randy Cole, 42, had no alibi.

He claimed he was home alone watching television.

Detective Baker asked for permission to search his home and car.

Cole agreed.

The search yielded nothing.

No traces of blood, no personal belongings of Emily, no clues.

Cole passed a polygraph test, showed no signs of deception, released, but remained under surveillance.

Next version, someone living or hiding in the mountains, a vagrant, a fugitive, a criminal.

In remote areas of Colorado, it is not uncommon to encounter people who live off the grid without documents, without a permanent place of residence, hiding from the authorities.

Some live in tents or makeshift shelters for months.

Baker checked to see if there had been any reports of suspicious persons in the Maroon Bells area in the summer of 2007.

It turned out there had been.

In May, two hikers reported seeing a man camping illegally about 3 mi from the main trail at an altitude of about 9,000 ft.

The man was described as thin, bearded, and wearing dirty clothes.

Rangers checked the site.

The camp had been abandoned, but traces indicated that someone had lived there for several weeks.

Baker organized a search for this man.

He asked local rangers, guides, and residents of Aspen.

Several people confirmed that they had seen such a man in various places during the summer.

No one knew his name.

They called him the ghost.

He appeared and disappeared.

In August, he was seen in the Carbondale area, 30 mi from Aspen.

They tried to detain him, but he disappeared into the forest.

He never reappeared.

Baker put forward a theory.

This ghost could have met Emily on the slope on June 22nd.

Perhaps he tried to rob her to take her equipment or food.

She resisted.

He hit her, tied her up, and killed her.

He took her gear and disappeared.

The theory was plausible, but unprovable.

The ghost was not found.

There were no witnesses who saw him near Maroon Bells on June 22nd.

The FBI joined the investigation at the end of September.

Agent Lisa Morris, a violent crime specialist, arrived in Aspen on September 25th.

She reviewed the case files.

She suggested checking for similar unsolved cases in Colorado or neighboring states.

An analysis was conducted.

Two cases were found.

The first July 2005.

A young woman, Christina Day, 24, disappeared while hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park near the town of Estis Park.

Her body was never found.

She was last seen on a trail leading to a lake.

The search lasted a week, but nothing was found.

The case was closed as accidental death, body not found.

Second, August 2009.

A woman, Melissa Grant, 31, disappeared while hiking solo in the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado.

A month later, her backpack and boots were found by a stream.

Her body was never found.

The case was closed as an accident.

Agent Morris saw a pattern.

All three cases, single women, the mountains of Colorado, the summer months, bodies not found or found under strange circumstances.

Morris suggested that there might be a serial killer operating in the mountainous areas preying on female climbers.

The theory was controversial.

Detective Baker objected.

Too little data, too large a time, and geographical gap.

Morris insisted the first two cases needed to be re-examined.

In October 2007, the FBI reopened the day and grant cases.

They requested materials and reinterviewed witnesses, but no new leads emerged.

Christina Day and Melissa Grant remained missing, their bodies never found.

No evidence.

The investigation into the murder of Emily Carson continued until the end of 2007.

Detective Baker and Agent Morris interviewed more than a 100 people.

They checked thousands of hours of surveillance camera footage from roads, gas stations, and stores in the Aspen area.

They analyzed Emily’s phone records, bank transactions, and social connections.

Nothing suspicious.

Emily was an ordinary woman with no enemies, no debts, and no dark past.

Physical evidence was scarce.

The cord used to tie her hands was ordinary nylon sold in thousands of stores across the country, impossible to trace.

The fabric stuffed in her mouth was part of the lining of her own jacket with no additional DNA or fingerprints.

The blood on the rock was hers with no other biological traces.

The shoe prints at the alleged crime scene were blurred and unsuitable for identification.

In January 2008, the case was classified as unsolved.

It remains officially open, but active investigation has been suspended.

The reason, no leads, no suspects.

Sheriff Wallace held a press conference on January 13th.

He said, “We did everything we could.

We checked every lead.

Unfortunately, Emily Carson’s killer has not been found.

The case remains open and if new information comes to light, we will immediately resume the investigation.

We ask anyone who was in the Maroon Bells area on June 22nd, 2007, or who has any information to contact us.

Emily’s parents, Linda and Robert, returned to Minnesota.

Linda fell into a deep depression, unable to work, spending her days at home looking at photos of her daughter.

>> >> Robert tried to hold on, but his health deteriorated.

In 2010, he had a heart attack.

He survived, but became disabled.

Linda took care of him.

In 2014, they gave an interview to a local newspaper in Minneapolis.

Linda said, “We will never know who killed our daughter.

It has destroyed our lives.

I think about her every day.

I imagine how she suffered, how she was afraid, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

It’s the worst feeling in the world.

Emily Carson is buried in a cemetery in Minneapolis.

Her gravestone is engraved with the words, “Emily Carson, beloved daughter, forever in the mountains.

” The murder of Emily Carson remains one of Colorado’s most mysterious unsolved stories.

Over the years, several theories have emerged.

Some are plausible, some are speculative.

The most common version is that Emily encountered someone dangerous on the slope.

A vagrant, a fugitive, a mentally ill person.

Perhaps the ghost who was seen in the area in the summer of 2007.

He tried to rob her.

She resisted.

He killed her.

He took her equipment and disappeared.

Why wasn’t he found? The Colorado mountains are huge, wooded, and difficult to traverse.

A person can hide for years if they know how to survive.

This is the theory of FBI agent Morris.

Perhaps there is a serial killer in the Colorado mountains who prays on female climbers.

Three similar cases in 5 years.

Day, Carson, Grant, all women, all alone, all in the mountains, all in the summer.

A pattern or a coincidence? The problem? The bodies of Day and Grant have not been found.

It is impossible to determine the cause of death.

It is impossible to compare the methods of murder.

The FBI continues to monitor similar cases, but so far there is nothing new.

Less likely, but possible.

Someone from her circle, a colleague, ex-boyfriend, neighbor, followed her to the mountains and killed her.

Motive: Jealousy, revenge, mental disorder.

Problem: Everyone Emily knew has been checked.

Alibis confirmed.

No suspicious connections.

If the killer is someone she knew, they covered their tracks very well.

The most conspiratorial.

Some Aspen locals believe that the authorities know more than they are saying.

That the killer has been found, but the case has been hushed up.

Why? Perhaps the killer is an influential person, a politician, a businessman with connections.

or the killer is a federal agent, a military man, someone with immunity.

There is no evidence to support this theory.

Detective Baker and Agent Morris have publicly refuted it, calling it absurd fiction.

More than 15 years have passed since Emily Carson’s murder.

The case remains unsolved.

The killer is still at large.

Perhaps he is still in Colorado.

Perhaps he has moved to another state, another country.

Perhaps he is dead.

We don’t know.

What we do know for sure is that on June 22nd, 2007, Emily Carson was climbing North Maroon.

She met someone that someone killed her, tied her hands, gagged her, strangled her, threw her body into a creek.

The ice preserved her for 3 months.

Tourists found her.

The police investigated.

The killer was never found.

Maroon Bells is still popular with climbers.

Every summer, hundreds of people climb these peaks.

Beautiful, dangerous, deadly.

Maroon, creator of corpses.

Emily Carson became another name on the long list of victims.

But unlike the others, she did not die from a rockfall, a fall, or hypothermia.

She was murdered by someone who walks among us.