In August of 2012, a couple, Alex and Sophia Marlo, set out on a two-day hike in Jefferson Park in the heart of the Willilamett National Forest in Oregon.

They were to return in 2 days.

Six years later, in the upper reaches of Opel Canyon, they accidentally found an old treehouse hidden among the spruce trees.

What they saw inside made the investigation begin again.

On August 15th, 2012, Alex and Sophia Marlo went on a two-day hike on the Jefferson Park Trail in the Willamett National Forest, Oregon.

They lived in Portland, both worked in design, and often spent their weekends traveling.

This time their goal was the Jefferson Park area, a high elevation area with meadows, streams, and views of the aonomous peak that locals call Sacred Mountain.

That morning, Alex stopped the car at the Whitewater Creek trail head parking lot.

Surveillance cameras recorded their car at 7:00 42 minutes in the morning.

The footage shows them checking their equipment, two backpacks, a camera, and a thermos.

They looked calm with no signs of haste.

According to their friends, the route was familiar to Alex.

He had already hiked it several years ago.

The last person to see the couple alive was a tourist from Salem, Jonathan Clark.

He met them near Russell Lake on the same day around 2:00 in the afternoon.

According to him, Sophia was taking pictures of flowers and Alex was laughing, complaining about the steepness of the climb.

They looked happy and confident, Clark said.

It didn’t seem like anything was wrong.

This encounter was the last confirmed sighting of Marlo.

When they didn’t return on Sunday, August 19th, friends notified the Marian County Police.

A search operation was launched the next morning.

It was joined by National Forest Service Rangers, volunteers from the Willilamett Search and Rescue Unit, and several local residents.

A helicopter flew between Russell Lake and Jefferson Pass, but found no signs of the camp, smoke, or human movement.

Search teams with dogs worked on the ground.

They checked trails, creek beds, and mountain slopes.

The tracks of two people found near the lake broke off a few dozen yards away.

The dogs were losing direction, as if the scent was just disappearing, explained the team leader.

We checked everything around, but the forest was empty.

The search lasted for 3 days without interruption.

The volunteers set up camp near the Whitewater Creek parking lot.

In the evening, the weather deteriorated, the wind broke, it started to rain, the temperature dropped, and some of the roots had to be temporarily closed.

Despite this, the volunteers continued their work.

They used thermal imagers, examined gorges, and checked areas where avalanches could have occurred, but they found no trace of the couple’s presence.

The Marlo arrived in Oregon 2 days after the operation began.

Sophia’s mother recalled standing by the tape that blocked the entrance to the trail and repeating, “They knew these places.

They couldn’t just disappear.

” Her words were captured in a report by a local TV channel which showed footage of the rescue camp and a helicopter circling the mountains.

On the fourth day, the operation was scaled back.

The helicopter made one last flyover of the area after which the search was put into a passive phase.

A representative of the sheriff’s office told reporters, “After so many days without communication and without any trace of the people, there is almost no chance of finding them alive.

” Marlo’s car remained in the parking lot.

The inside was in order, phones, documents, a camera, and a first aid kit.

In the trunk was a folded tent, and a supply of water.

This meant that they did not plan to spend the night off the route and had to return the same day.

The police report states no signs of a break-in or struggle were found.

After the active phase of the search officially ended, volunteers continued to return to the Jefferson Park area.

They marked new areas on maps, checked crevices, and hung brightly colored ribbons on trees to keep them on track.

But the forest was silent.

Over time, the story of the couple who disappeared among the shadows of Willamett turned into a local legend.

In the coffee shops of Bright Food or Stoion, people would talk for a long time about how the young people just disappeared into the mountains.

For the police, it remained an open case.

And for the locals, it was a reminder that there are places in these forests where it is better not to go, even during the day.

The search for Alex and Sophia Marlo continued for several more weeks, but to no avail.

Every day, their hope melted away.

In the fall of 2012, the case was officially classified as open but inactive.

For the locals, this meant only one thing, another disappearance in the mountains, which were becoming more and more numerous in Oregon.

For the families, it was the end of their normal lives.

Alex’s father, a former forester from the town of Eugene, could not accept it.

He knew these places better than anyone and did not believe that his son was simply lost.

Over the next few years, he returned to Jefferson Park many times.

In winter, in an old SUV, in summer on foot with a backpack and maps, he drew himself based on topographic data.

He was often seen by rangers, a lone figure with binoculars, stopping at the edge of the forest, peering into the depths of the spruce gloom.

He would come even when the trails were closed due to flooding, recalled one of the rangers, sitting by the car for hours, as if he was waiting for his son to come out of the forest on his own.

Sophia’s mother kept a diary where she recorded all the calls to the police, volunteers, and even the forensic department.

She asked for every unidentified female corpse within a 100mile radius to be checked, but not a single match was confirmed.

Short notes appeared several times in Portland newspapers under the headlines missing in Marian County.

Over time, they disappeared from the pages.

In 2013, the families hired a Portland private investigator, Richard Phelps, a former police officer with the missing person’s unit.

He reviewed the case from the beginning.

Phelps was known for his meticulousness.

He printed copies of reports, gathered statements, and reviewed Marlo’s phone and bank records.

There were no anomalies.

All card transactions had stopped on the day they disappeared.

The phones were last connected to the network at 9:00 in the morning near the parking lot, and never again.

The detective had three possibilities: an accident, an animal attack, or a crime.

The first two were ruled out.

There was no body and no signs of a struggle.

The third remained only a hypothesis because no evidence of a crime was found.

Phelps spent several days in the local archives.

There he came across an old report about the disappearance of a hunter back in the late ‘9s in the same area.

The man was not found, but his belongings contained photos of the same trail that Marlo had been walking.

The detective noted this in his report, but the police did not attach any importance to it.

According to Phelps, the only clue came when he met with a local hunter named Harold Whitley.

The man said that on the same August weekend when the Marlo disappeared, he was hunting near Russell Lake.

It was late afternoon, he recalled.

The sun was setting and I heard a scream in the depths of the forest.

It sounded like a woman’s scream, but it didn’t sound like a cry for help, more like something short, broken, like a fright.

Whitley thought it was an echo or an injured animal, and didn’t tell anyone.

Only a few months later, when he heard about the disappearance, did he remember the sound.

The recording of his testimony was included in the case, but it did not develop.

Phelps wrote in his report, “A scream that lasted a few seconds in a dense forest cannot be considered evidence.

” Over the years, the case faded.

No new witnesses came forward.

Every year on August 15th, relatives would come to the Whitewater Creek trail head parking lot, leave flowers at the trail head sign, and hold a short ceremony.

The police archive was filled with only reminders of the next inspection with no results.

Meanwhile, rumors began to spread in the local villages.

Some said that strange lights were seen in the mountains at night.

Others said that the rangers had several times come across abandoned camps with things that did not belong to anyone.

However, none of these reports were officially confirmed.

By the end of 2017, Marlo’s story had become another legend of the Willamett forest.

Quiet, elusive, and uncertain.

For the police, it remained a case without prospects.

For the families, it was a burden that made it impossible to move on.

Alex’s father still went there every summer.

He would stop at the same parking lot, turn off the engine, and sit in silence, listening to the silence.

And the forest, just like 6 years ago, was silent in response.

August of 2018.

6 years have passed since the Marlo couple disappeared into the woods of Willilamett.

They were hardly talked about anymore, and the case was filed in the archives among dozens of similar ones.

Open, no action.

But it was then that an accident brought Marlo’s name back to the pages of police reports.

That summer, Opel Canyon attracted the attention of a small group of climbers.

They were looking for new roots among the rocks where no tourist had ever set foot.

These people had nothing to do with the search for the missing.

They were just experienced climbers who wanted to make a new route for training.

There were three of them, all from Portland.

Opel Creek Canyon is a place both picturesque and dangerous.

The old coniferous trees there are so dense that even in the daytime it is semi- dark under them.

The slopes are steep, covered with stones and moss.

The water below makes a constant noise.

the hum emanating from the rocks and seeming to be the voice of the depths themselves.

The locals rarely go further than a few hundred yards, the paths are blurred and phone signals disappear immediately.

The group set off at dawn.

They plan to climb to the western slope, which was not marked on sports maps.

The weather was calm.

A light fog hung between the fur trees.

The wind moved the tops of the trees from time to time, and it seemed that the forest was breathing.

Around noon, they came to a narrow ledge that stretched along a cliff.

It offered a view of a dark green ocean of crowns.

One of the participants, according to a later report, noticed an abnormal shape among the branches, something rectangular, not like a natural structure.

At first, they thought it was a hunting platform or the remains of an old bridge.

But when they got closer, they could see the outline of the structure.

Among the dense spruce trees stood a tree older than all the others.

A massive Douglas fur, its trunk several feet in diameter.

High up among its branches barely visible through the fog and moss, was the silhouette of a hut.

The structure looked as if it had merged with the tree.

The lower part of the trunk was braided with old ropes, and under the roots were dark traces of a former staircase.

At first, they did not dare to come closer.

Even from below, it was clear that the structure had been there for decades.

The boards had turned gray with moisture, and the roof was covered with a green carpet of moss.

The windows were covered from the inside, so it was impossible to see anything.

But something else caught my eye.

The tree under the hut looked like it had been burned.

The bark was darkened in several areas as if from an old fire and charred fragments of branches lay around.

Under one route, the climbers found the remains of a rope ladder that once led up.

It was rotting, but the knots were expertly made in a double sealoop method used by loggers and experienced rescuers.

This proved that the hut was built by someone who knew how to survive at altitude.

One of the members of the expedition, Mark Brown, took several pictures with his phone.

The photos show a dark structure among the green branches looking more like a forest guard house than a children’s house.

It looked like an orphanage, but who’s, he later recalled, in a conversation with the police.

They did not risk climbing.

The tree seemed too old, and the boards might not support their weight.

In addition, the fog was thickening and every rustle seemed like footsteps.

The group decided to return to camp and report their discovery to the rangers.

Before leaving, Mark walked around the tree in a circle.

Under a layer of fallen leaves, he noticed a piece of fabric, pale blue, like a fragment of a jacket or tent.

The fabric was damp and brittle from time to time.

As they descended, clouds covered the peaks and the light began to fade.

The forest was quickly darkening and the canyon was filled with the dull sounds of water.

The wind swayed the treetops and the hut disappeared for a moment in the movement of the branches as if it lived with the tree.

That evening, the climbers did not tell anyone about the discovery.

Only a few days later, when they returned to Portland, did one of them pass the coordinates of the structure to the Forest Service.

The following week, an official inspection was to go there.

But no one knew then that this old hut would become the most horrific discovery in the history of these mountains.

August 2018.

A week after the climbers report, a group of rangers and representatives of the Willamett National Forest went to Opel Canyon to check out the information about the strange tree structure that the tourists had accidentally found.

According to the protocol, such structures were often discovered by hunters or explorers, the remains of old shelters, observation posts, or children’s huts.

But this time, the description of the photos aroused interest.

The structure stood too high, had a clear geometry, and according to eyewitnesses, looked unnaturally integrated into the tree.

The team consisted of four people.

The ranger leader, Jason Reed, had 20 years of experience in the Oregon forests.

He was accompanied by two younger staff members and a forensic photographer who was invited to document the discovery.

They arrived at the site in the afternoon.

The weather was dry, but the sky was overcast, and the air was heavy with resin.

The tree on which the hut stood was truly gigantic, an old Douglas fur, which according to foresters could have been growing here for over a hundred years.

The trunk was so massive that two adults could not have hugged it at the same time.

The trace of an old campfire was darkening under the roots and charred pieces of boards and rope were lying around.

At a height of about 20 ft, a dark rectangle of a structure could be seen among the branches.

The ascent was organized carefully.

The ladder left behind by the climbers was too old, so the rangers used new ropes and blay systems.

Jason Reed was the first to climb.

He lifted the lantern and peered through the narrow window, but the darkness inside absorbed the light.

The door opened with a distinctive creek, and a pungent odor immediately filled the air, a mixture of mold, dust, and what looked like burnt wood.

The hut was no more than 6 ft wide.

It was silent inside.

On the floor was a thick layer of dust that had settled over the years.

An old wooden table without a leg stood along the wall with scattered cans of food next to it.

There were no things on the walls, no traces of life.

But from the very first moments, everyone felt a strange sensation, as if the space in the hut was not empty, but had retained something of the people who had once been there.

When the lantern illuminated the far wall, Reed noticed dark stains.

At first, he thought it was smoke or moisture.

But as he looked closer, he saw that the lines formed a pattern.

Someone had burned a schematic image into the wooded tree with branched roots with two tiny human figures intertwined below as if in a net.

The drawing was rough, primitive, made with charcoal or burnt logs.

The photographer took several pictures.

Later, the report stated, “The visual impression is that of a child’s drawing.

The psychological effect is disturbing.

The symbolism is unclear.

” Under the table, Reed noticed something wrapped in a tarpolin.

Unwrapping it, he found a small backpack the color of clay.

Inside were small things, a toothbrush, a pencil, and a checkered notebook.

There was a name embroidered on the inner flap, S.

Marlo.

Everyone looked at it in silence.

After 6 years without a single clue, finding an item that belonged to one of the disappeared meant a new stage in the case.

The notebook was immediately handed over to the photographer for the photo and then carefully packed away.

Some of the pages were wet, but some of the entries were preserved.

When they were read in the laboratory, it turned out to be Sophia Marlo’s diary.

The first entries are dated August 2012, the period when the couple disappeared.

The handwriting is even and confident, but towards the end, the letters become sweeping and broken.

The diary consisted of several short entries like an attempt to record events day by day.

We are trapped.

He won’t let us talk.

He said we desecrated his land.

He’s wearing a bark mask.

His voice is deaf as if through the ground.

We are in a hut.

He ties us up when he leaves.

I don’t understand the time.

It’s dark.

Further, the recordings became even more chaotic.

Sophia described the man who kept them in captivity.

She did not know his name.

He always wore a mask made of bark and moss and called himself the stand.

According to her, he believed that they had desecrated his sacred grove by camping in a forbidden place.

One entry reads, “He feeds us.

He says the forest will decide who is guilty.

I don’t know what day it is.

” Another excerpt, “He was silent all day.

He only put stones by the door.

He said he was choosing a tree.

The handwriting in the last lines changes.

The pencil traces are shaky.

Some words are crossed out.

He said that the tree would decide who was first.

Then there is a blank page.

And after that, several sheets are blurred with water and fuzzy as if a raindrop or tear had fallen on them.

Experts in document analysis confirmed the authenticity of the handwriting.

It matched the records from the college where Sophia studied.

Traces of blood were found on the pages, and the DNA matched the material taken from her mother back in 2012.

For the investigators, this was the decisive proof that the couple was not lost, but victims of a crime.

But the main question remained unanswered.

Who was Stoka? The regional sheriff’s office created a temporary team to reinvestigate.

At a press conference, Reed said, “We’re dealing with an isolated subject who may have been living in the woods for an extended period of time.

His mental state is suspicious, but we are not ruling out a deliberate crime.

Journalists called him the ghost of Jefferson Park.

But for the Marlo family, it was not a legend, but a terrible confirmation of what had happened.

The cabin was sealed.

Access to it was forbidden.

The tree stood in the fog as if guarding its secret.

And among the physical evidence was a notebook, a small notebook with blurred handwriting and the last line that experts have repeatedly reread in the silence of the archive.

He said that the tree would decide who was first.

The discovery of the hut in the upper reaches of Opel Canyon changed everything.

After the discovery of the diary and items belonging to Sophia Marlo, the area was fenced off and forensic scientists from Salem were brought in.

A few days later, experts from the forensic science department conducted additional excavations at the foot of the old Douglas fur tree.

The soil was slightly dried out, but in the lower layers, it was different in color, darker, wet, with a clear shovel mark.

Human remains were found at a depth of several feet.

Nearby were remnants of fabric, a metal belt buckle, and a fragment of a hiking boot.

Later, the laboratory confirmed that these were Alex and Sophia Marlo.

Examination of the bones showed signs of violent death.

Alex had fractured ribs and cracks in his skull, and Sophia had neck injuries characteristic of strangulation.

The forensic examination clearly established that this was not an accident.

When these results reached the Marian County Sheriff’s Office, the case was officially reclassified from a disappearance to a double homicide.

A temporary team of investigators was formed under the leadership of Detective Noah Grayson.

It was he who several years ago worked on another case, the mysterious disappearance of a hunter near Jefferson Park in 2005.

No traces were found then either, and the body was never found.

The first analysis of Sophia’s diary gave an unexpected direction.

The words man in a bark mask and sacred grove coincided with ancient local legends.

The Forest Service documents of that period contained records of an unknown hermit seen by rangers back in the ’90s.

He appeared near old trails, disappeared into the thickets, and never communicated with people.

He was described as a tall man in a dirty cloak with his face covered with a cloth or scarf.

Among the locals, there was a story about the forest madman, a man who lived alone among the trees and considered himself a guardian of the mountains.

He was accused of attacking animals, damaging campsites, and disappearing several hunting dogs.

The police never found any evidence of his existence, but the legend persisted for years.

Detective Grayson revisited an old case about a hunter who had disappeared 13 years earlier.

His name was George Ellis, a resident of Detroit, Oregon.

He went into the woods in late November of 2005, and never returned.

His abandoned pickup truck was found 10 mi from where the cursed Douglas fur now stands.

The report at the time stated that the search lasted 2 weeks, but there was no sign of him, no body, no belongings.

Grayson carefully reread the report and noticed a detail.

One of the searchers mentioned strange totems made of branches placed in a small clearing in the forest.

At the time, they didn’t pay much attention to it, thinking it was a childish prank.

But now, these figures resembled a drawing from a hut, a tree with branches branching downward, entangling something alive.

In the weeks that followed, investigators interviewed old residents of small settlements along Willetta’s eastern border.

Some recalled hearing as children about a man who talked to the woods and allegedly lived alone near Opel Creek.

He was seen several times from a distance, always dirty, with a heavy gate, a long beard, and a stick wrapped in ropes.

No one knew his name, but the children scared each other with stories about the one who listens to the trees.

Detectives reviewed all known disappearances within a 30 mile radius over the past 20 years.

Some of them could have been coincidental, but several coincidences were striking.

Almost all of the victims disappeared near river ravines or deep depressions where radio signals did not work.

Not once could the dogs pick up a stable trail.

A psychological profile compiled by an FBI consultant described the possible perpetrator as a person with long-standing isolationist tendencies, possibly a former forestry worker who left society after trauma or loss.

Such individuals often develop their own belief system related to nature.

The case of Stoka is a classic example of this type of thinking.

Ritualistic actions, symbolic drawings, and the deification of trees.

In an interview, Detective Grayson told reporters, “This is not just a hermit.

This is a man who has made the forest his home and his god, and everyone who came here became trespassers for him.

” Despite an active investigation, no traces of a living person were found in the area of the hut.

Surveillance cameras placed on several trails recorded nothing but animals.

However, some volunteers reported hearing impacts in the distance at night as if someone was hitting a trunk with a rock.

Others reported hearing whistling in the dark as they walked back to camp.

Detective Grayson’s report includes a short entry.

The area gives you the feeling of being watched.

At that time, no one could say whether Stoka was a man, a fanatic, or just a shadow that was left behind.

But his presence was felt in every tree, in every sound that came from the depths of Opal Canyon.

And for those investigating the case, it became increasingly clear that the forest was not just hiding its secrets.

It was protecting someone who considered himself a part of it.

After several months of work, the investigation team finally had a name.

Calvin Moss, a former logger from the small town of Redmond in central Oregon.

His file was kept in the archives of the Forest Service Department.

Old records of an employee who left his job in the mid ’90s.

In the reason for leaving column, there was one word, personal circumstances.

Detective Noah Grayson came across the name by accident.

While checking old documents, he found a report on a fire in a logging camp in 96.

Among the victims was Calvin Moss, 32 years old, a logger.

The note says that he lost his wife and young son that day.

Their house on the edge of the forest caught fire from lightning.

The bodies were found next to each other.

After the tragedy, Moss quit his job, sold his property, and left in an unknown direction.

Then his trail disappeared for decades.

Only occasionally did he appear in police reports, either as a witness or as a person who was seen near forest areas without permission.

The last time he was mentioned was in 2009 when rangers met a hermit who lived near Opal Creek.

He introduced himself as Calvin and said that he watches over the trees because they are his family.

At the time, no one saw anything strange in this.

When a cabin was found in the upper reaches of the canyon in 2018, Moss’ name came up again.

The similarity of the descriptions was too striking.

A tall man, a recluse, a tendency to silence, a habit of wearing a dust mask or bandana to avoid inhaling tar.

All of this matched the image of the rack, which was reconstructed based on the testimony of old hunters.

Detectives contacted Moss’ sister, Allison, who lived in Sisters an hour and a half away from the Jefferson Park area.

She confirmed that the brother did exist, but hadn’t made himself known for several years.

Calvin wasn’t a bad guy, she said.

It’s just that after the fire, something broke in him.

He believed that the forest was alive and that trees could judge people.

According to the sister, her brother would occasionally visit her in the winter, bringing her dried mushrooms or cones that he considered amulets.

At home, he was silent, slept on the floor by the fireplace, did not touch appliances, and never watched TV.

He said he heard noise in the city that the forest drowned out, Allison recalled.

The last time she saw him was in the spring of 2018.

Calvin came in late at night, left his backpack in the garage, and asked for water.

He was wearing an old cloak soaked in smoke and carrying an axe.

He said that it was time to go home.

In the morning, he was gone.

He left a piece of paper on the table with a pencil writing, “The forest is standing.

I must stand with it.

” Since then, Moss has not been in touch.

The search for him lasted for several weeks, but to no avail.

The police then declared him missing.

Only now, after the hut was found, did detectives realized that the timing was almost exact.

He had disappeared several months before the climbers came across the building among the branches.

Detective Grayson and FBI experts went to the sister’s house.

They examined the garage and storage room where Moss had left his belongings.

In the boxes, they found hacksaws, bark fragments, and old notebooks with sketches of trees and short phrases.

They whisper when it’s cold.

The roots know what we did.

Whoever falls, the forest takes him.

These entries were messy, but they had an obsessive quality to them, as if Moss really believed he was part of the forest.

Psychologists have called this isolated ritualistic thinking, a condition where a person creates his or her own belief based on symbols of nature.

At the same time, investigators checked all the testimonies over the past 10 years about an unknown man who had been seen near Opel Creek.

Rangers, hunters, and even tourists described him almost identically, a loner among the trees, running away from the light, leaving behind the smell of smoke and tar.

One of the witnesses said that he came across him in the fall of 2017.

Moss was standing near a fallen tree, putting his hand on the trunk and whispering something under his breath.

When the man noticed that he was being watched, he silently walked deeper into the forest without turning around.

It all seemed too much of a coincidence for the police.

The name, the past, the behavior, the geography, everything pointed to the fact that Calvin Moss could be the man Sophia described in her diary.

But when the detectives arrived at the sister’s house to formally question him, it turned out that he had already disappeared.

The only things left in his sister’s house were his belongings and the notebooks.

Moss’ disappearance a few months before the discovery of the cabin created a strange symmetry.

It seemed that the man who had been searched for 6 years had disappeared into the same forest that had once swallowed up the Marlo couple.

Although no evidence of his guilt was found, Detective Grayson’s report summarized the situation.

The forest may have just gotten back the man who took its silence.

The search for Calvin Moss continued long after the official investigation had lost momentum again.

Several expeditions went to the Opal Canyon area, but the result remained the same.

No trace.

All possible routes were checked.

Every ravine and stream was mapped, but no one came across either the body or the remains of the camp.

It seemed that the man had disappeared into the very forests where he may have lived and hid for years.

The Federal Bureau officially removed him from the wanted list in 2019, noting in the database a short wording, probably dead in the wilderness.

But for the investigators who were working on the case, this mark made no difference.

Detective Noah Grayson wrote in his final report, “We found answers, but not the truth.

” Some people disappear because they want to be found.

Others disappear because they cannot do otherwise.

For the families of Alex and Sophia Marlo, the discovery of the bodies was a painful but final conclusion to a story that had been going on for 6 years.

The funeral took place in the fall in Portland.

The urns with ashes were buried nearby in a small cemetery near the old church where they had once been married.

On the tombstone were engraved words chosen from one of Sophia’s recordings.

We are in the forest and the forest is ours.

After the funeral, both families avoided the press.

They did not give interviews or respond to journalists letters.

Everyone who knew them before said that these people grew old overnight.

From then on, their names appeared only in police archives and on forums discussing mysterious disappearances in national parks.

Meanwhile, the story of the stand began to take on a life of its own.

Forest rangers said that after the case was made public, the number of tourists who wanted to see the treehouse increased.

Some came at night to take pictures of it in the light of lanterns.

Others tried to find the same tree, but none of them could point out the exact location.

The hut has been officially dismantled, but according to locals, sometimes a dark silhouette can still be seen in the depths of the canyon among the branches.

The search volunteers told of strange experiences during their regular expeditions.

One of them, an experienced climber, recalled that at night he heard someone quietly following him through the branches, although there was no one around.

Another said he saw a light between the trees, like a fire that went out as soon as you got close to it.

These stories never made it into official reports, but they remained in the oral memory of the forest for a long time.

The locals now call this area by a different name, the place where the tree stands.

Although it is not marked on maps, everyone in the area understands what they are talking about.

Tourists avoid that part of the trail, especially in the evening when the fog descends and the tree trunks appear larger than they really are.

They say that if you walk alone and stop, you can hear branches crackling somewhere above, as if someone is watching from above.

Some journalists have tried to figure out whether Moss was really the killer or whether his name was just a convenient explanation for an old legend.

Officially, the police did not press charges.

No body, no evidence, no witnesses.

But for the public, everything was clear.

The stand was Oregon’s new ghost, the personification of the dark side of the wild.

When Detective Grayson retired a few years later, he was asked in an interview what the case meant to him.

He answered briefly.

Some stories don’t end, they just go silent.

Today, if you drive along the old road to Jefferson Park, you can see a sign with a warning.

Caution, dangerous area.

No leaving the trail.

Below it are small letters written by an unknown person.

The forest remembers everything.

This is how the story of Marlo ended.

Two ordinary people who went to the mountains to see the beauty of nature and became part of its shadow.

And somewhere in the depths of the will among the tall spruce trees and fallen trunks, there is a tree that keeps silence.

And in this silence they say you can still hear the footsteps of someone who never left his forest.