In October of 2012, a young couple from Eugene, Agnes Ashdown and Lionel Blackmore, went on a weekend hike in Three Sisters Wilderness and never returned.

Their car was found near the trail head, but they were not.

The search lasted for weeks and ended in failure.

10 months passed.

In August, a hunter from Bend came across two large bags filled with feathers in the woods.

They were inside.

In October of 2012, 23-year-old artist Agnes Ashdown and 25-year-old geology graduate student Lionel Blackmore left Eugene, Oregon, intending to spend 2 days in the mountains.

They set off early in the morning to reach the Three Sisters Wilderness Area, a popular destination for hikers and photographers.

The fall of that year in Oregon was mild with wet mornings, clear air, red maple trees, and the smell of smoke from distant fires.

According to their friends, it was their vacation together before winter, a time when Agnes was planning a new series of landscapes, and Lionol was about to complete his dissertation on the volcanic formations of the Cascade Mountains.

They were seen in a coffee shop on the outskirts of Eugene at about 8:00 in the morning.

The owner recalls that they were sitting by the window.

Lionel was flipping through a map.

Agnes was scribbling in a notebook and laughing.

They left a few dollars as a tip and continued on the highway to the north.

The next time they were captured by a surveillance camera at the Summit View gas station in the town of Sisters was the same morning around 9:20.

On the recording, they look carefree.

Lionel is carrying a gas can and bottles of water, and Agnes is holding a small bag of groceries.

The cashier, who was later interviewed by investigators, recalled, “They were laughing, arguing about music.

They didn’t look like people in a hurry at all.

” After that, the couple headed toward Lake Linton.

There, in the parking lot at the Linton Lake trail head, they parked their white Hondas and by all accounts, packed their backpacks.

It was from there that Agnes made her last phone call.

Her mother still has a recording on her answering machine.

a short message in which the girl says that everything is fine, that they have just arrived and plan to return on Sunday evening.

Her voice sounds calm, even cheerful.

This was the last confirmed contact with the couple.

Their route was only partially recovered.

In the visitors log near the trail, someone wrote down the name Blackmore and the date of departure, but not the date of return.

The signature, according to the handwriting, belongs to Lionol.

From that moment on, according to other hikers who went up to the lake that day, neither Agnes nor Lionol was seen again.

One man, who was walking the same trail later, recalled in a conversation with the police that he saw a young couple with an art easel and maps near the stream, but did not attach any importance to it.

The weather changed dramatically in those days.

It rained during the night and most of the campers went down into the valley.

On Sunday evening, Agnes did not answer the phone.

At first, her mother thought the children had simply lost contact.

Cell coverage is unstable in that area.

However, by Monday morning, her anxiety grew.

Agnes always communicated changes of plans, even when it was only a day’s delay.

when it turned out that Lionel hadn’t shown up for work at the university and his supervisor confirmed that he was supposed to be back yesterday.

Mrs.Ashdown called the Dashuites County Sheriff’s Office.

At 11 in the morning, an officer on duty drove to the Linton Lake trail head parking lot.

It was as if time had stood still.

A white car was parked at the edge of the trail with a thin layer of damp leaves on the hood, a few bottles of water in the cabin, a folded map, and a gas station receipt thrown on the floor.

No signs of struggle or tampering.

The keys were missing, and the doors were locked.

On the ground near the trunk, they noticed the prints of two pairs of boots leading in the direction of the trail and disappearing into the forest.

On the same day, the police began to draw up the first report.

It reads, “The whereabouts of the persons are unknown.

Possible disappearance during a hike.

The sheriff’s office prepared a message for the rescue team, but due to the bad weather and short day, it was decided to start the official search at dawn.

Drivers passing by on the highway near Sisters later recalled seeing fog descend over the forest and rain falling lightly on an empty parking lot where a lone car stood in the headlights.

So far, nothing pointed to a crime.

The couple simply did not return in those mountains.

This happened more than once.

People got lost on the trails, broke a leg, stayed to wait for help, and found themselves a day or two later.

But in this story, as one of the officers later noted, there was something else.

Too much silence.

No one heard any screams, saw any footprints, or found any belongings.

It was as if the forest had swallowed them without a trace.

That night, at the sheriff’s headquarters, they were mapping the area and agreeing on an action plan.

On the wall under the lamp hung their photographs.

Two smiling young people against the backdrop of Green Hills.

Agnes with a brush in her hand.

Lionol in dirty field pants.

They seemed to be looking straight into the lens, not realizing that this image would become material for a police dossier.

Everyone was waiting for dawn when they could start the route.

There was a thick fog over the forest and only drops of rain were falling from the roofs of the cars on duty at the control center.

The forest was preparing to be silent for a long time.

The search operation began at dawn the next day after the report of the disappearance was received.

Officers from the Dashutes County Sheriff’s Office, local volunteers, and several experienced rescuers from the Oregon Rescue Association gathered in a parking lot near the Linton Lake Trail.

The night’s rain had subsided, but a fog hung over the mountains, lingering between the treetops of the pines.

The air was filled with the smell of wet bark and fuel from the generators that were working near the temporary headquarters.

two tents, folding tables, maps, radios.

The search coordinator, a 30-year veteran of the service, later recalled that that morning the forest was strangely quiet, as if it was waiting.

Several groups were formed, some to check the route from the parking lot to the lake, others to go around the surrounding trails, including Green Lakes and those leading to the slopes of Mount Washington.

The first to enter the woods were the sniffer dogs.

Their instructor explained later that the scent taken from Agnes’ belongings was clear and fresh, so they hoped for a quick result.

The dogs confidently led the rescuers deeper into the forest about 2 km from the trail, but then the trail disappeared near a small river that flowed into the lake.

The usual situation for such conditions is that the water washes away the odor.

According to one of the searchers, where the dogs started circling, there was an old branch on the bank, ragged and scratched by their souls.

This could mean that the couple had indeed crossed the water, but no further signs were found.

No footprints on the opposite bank.

No belongings.

An air team was working in parallel.

A Coast Guard helicopter flew over the area three times a day, flying over the lake, rocky spurs, and forest clearings.

From the air, the area looked impenetrable.

A solid green blanket of spruce and Douglas fur covered in haze.

No bright spots, no movement.

By the end of the first day, the radio airwaves were filled with short messages, position codes, coordinates, requests for water.

Volunteers said that with each passing hour, the silence around them became heavier.

In the evening, Agnes’s mother arrived at the headquarters.

She sat in the car and looked at the map pinned to the board.

One of the officers later said, “She didn’t cry.

She just watched us put red flags.

” The next day, the search was expanded.

Volunteers from Bend.

Geology students and several locals who had known the trail since childhood were involved in the operation.

Everyone was given a compass, radio, and plastic bags for fines.

They were required to record even the smallest details.

A piece of cloth, a wrapper, a piece of plastic.

The documents later stated that the search area was more than 30 square kilm.

On the second day, one of the groups reported a possible find.

On a branch of a young spruce tree from the root, there was a pink thread that looked like a fiber from clothing.

It was handed over to experts, and the next morning, Agnes’ mother confirmed that the color matched the sweater her daughter had last been seen wearing.

This created a wave of hope.

The headquarters focused resources on this sector.

However, no other trace was found.

Rescuers described that period as a struggle with space.

The forest, though not mountainous in the usual sense, was full of gorges, fallen trees, and rock slides.

Every ravine seemed the same.

Every stream disappeared under the rubble.

One of the volunteers, a former forester, told reporters, “You can walk several hundred yards away from a person and not hear them, even if they were screaming.

” When the search went into its fourth day, horse patrols and another helicopter were brought in.

Even old forest roads that had once been used by loggers were explored.

The reports mentioned that an old site near an abandoned stone quarry, a place where gravel and garbage used to be dumped, attracted attention.

However, everything was clear there, too.

Information about the disappearance quickly spread in the press.

Local newspapers printed photos of Agnes and Lionel, and TV channels showed drone footage.

friends created a page on social media where they updated the search every day.

People sent hundreds of messages from eyewitnesses to psychics who had seen them in visions.

Everyone checked them, but none of them were confirmed.

On Friday, the sixth day, the weather conditions deteriorated sharply.

A cold front descended from the mountains and sleet fell over the area.

Visibility decreased and the helicopter landed.

The rescue teams returned to the base.

The coordinator told the press that the active phase of the operation was suspended.

According to official terminology, this is called switching to a passive search when all the main routes have been checked and further actions depend on new data.

This was a turning point for the family.

Agnes’s mother stayed in sisters for several more days, coming to the parking lot at the trail head every day.

According to her, she just wanted to visit the place where her daughter’s car was last parked.

Some volunteers continued to search the area on their own, but the organized operation was curtailed.

The investigation materials include a protocol from the last visit.

The area has been checked.

No traces of a struggle or accident were found.

The location of the persons is unknown.

This was followed by signatures, sector coordinates, and weather notes.

The document was dated October 19th.

After that, the area was covered with snow.

The tourist season was over and the trails were empty.

Near the edge of the forest, where the white car had been parked, there was now an even layer of snow through which the dark wheels could be seen.

The wind whirled the small flakes, and it seemed that the forest did not hide them, but simply took them in, as it does every autumn shadow that enters its depths without permission.

10 months had passed since the search in the mountains had stopped.

The forest has had time to overwinter, hide its wounds under the snow, and come back to life.

For the people of Oregon, the story of the missing couple has become a part of the past.

But in August, when the heat descended on the valleys again, one man accidentally touched what the forest had been hiding all along.

Elijah Carter, a hunter and former game warden from the town of Bend, had 40 years in the area.

He didn’t consider himself a hunter in the usual sense, but rather an observer.

In August, he set out alone to the old neighborhood near Mount Washington, just to walk the familiar trails.

His old sheep dog, Remy, ran ahead of him, sniffing scents out of the air.

Carter walked down to an abandoned quarry where gravel used to be quarried.

The place seemed dead, overgrown birches, moss, and frozen air.

He was walking slowly when the dog suddenly became alert, stopped, and began digging near a small, leveled area.

At first, Carter thought it was a deer carcass.

The ground gave way easily, as if it had been dug recently.

When he pulled the dog away and stuck a stick in the ground, a piece of dark polyethylene appeared under the layer of leaves.

One, then another.

Two large bags were lying next to each other, sprinkled with earth, tied tightly.

Carter decided to check what was inside and cut the edge with a knife.

Air rushed out of the bag, and a cloud of small feathers rose up.

It whirled around, covering everything around him, the grass, his pants, the dog’s fur.

Among the feathers, something pale glittered, and he saw a hand, a human hand.

Carter backed away and stood still for several minutes while the dog whimpered softly beside him.

He took a satellite phone from his backpack and dialed the sheriff’s office.

The dispatcher later said that the man’s voice was shaky and that he repeated only one thing.

Two people in bags.

They’re filled with feathers.

Carter waited for officers for almost an hour.

He sat on a tree stump, keeping his eyes on the clearing.

The feathers settled to the ground, slowly falling onto the branches and his boots.

Later, he admitted that he was afraid to leave, as if the forest might close again what he had opened.

When the first patrol officers arrived, Carter looked devastated.

One of them recalled, “He couldn’t take his eyes off the ground.

He sat there like a man who had just seen a ghost.

” The area was immediately cordoned off.

Forensic experts were called in and all roads were closed.

The next morning, the news was broadcast on local radio stations.

The report was brief.

Two bodies were found in the woods near Mount Washington.

The police did not specify details, but rumors spread faster than official reports.

People talked about feather bags, about a strange burial, and that these were probably the same missing persons.

For several days, there were ribbons with the words, “Do not cross.

” at the place where Carter made his terrible step.

The feathers continued to fly around, white and light, as if the forest didn’t know what to do with them.

The wind blew them along the branches and streams, and according to one of the rescuers, it seemed like the trees were breathing them.

That August, for the first time in a long time, the forest spoke again, but its speech was as quiet as the rustle of wings.

A reminder that what is buried does not always want to stay underground.

The area of the discovery turned into a temporary camp for investigators.

In the morning, when there was still fog over the tops of the spruce trees, forensic scientists from Bend, a forensic expert, and an anthropologist arrived.

They worked slowly, silently, turning the clearing where Elijah Carter stood into a methodical investigation site.

Step by step, each square of land was marked with plastic markers, photographed, and measured.

The feathers that were still on the grass were collected with tweezers.

Hundreds of samples, each in its own bag.

Experts said they had never seen anything like it.

The bags were densely filled with small bird feathers, mostly feeasant feathers.

They looked whitish on the outside, but under the microscope, they clearly showed natural shades of bronze and black stripes.

Later analysis confirmed that these were wild feeasants, which are abundant in the surrounding forests.

The amount of feathers was impressive.

There were so many that they created an almost hermetic environment.

And that is why the bodies inside were better preserved than usual after such a long time.

When the bags were opened, the expert noted that there were two bodies inside, one male and one female, laid side by side.

The soil, moisture, and coolness preserved some of the tissue.

The clothes matched the description provided by relatives of the missing couple from Eugene.

hiking pants, a thermal jacket, and boots.

A waterproof case was found in the woman’s backpack, which contained a small notebook stuck with moisture, but not completely destroyed.

It was immediately sent for examination.

The man did not have any personal belongings on him, which could have complicated identification.

The work lasted all day.

The photographers documented everything from the position of the bodies to the structure of the soil around them.

The footage shows an anthropologist leaning over an open bag with a white container next to it labeled soil sample sector north.

Jock G.

Investigators described this scene as a strange contrast between the silence of the forest and the mechanical precision of human work.

Preliminary examination showed that the death was caused by multiple stab wounds.

At least 10 on the man’s body and a little less on the woman’s.

The marks pointed to a sudden emotional attack.

The direction of the stabs varied as did the force.

The forensic expert noted in his report that the attacker was someone who did not have anatomical knowledge but acted with a strong impulse.

The weapon was a hunting knife with a wide blade.

Immediately afterwards, dental impressions were taken and the data was sent for comparison.

2 days later, experts received a match.

Dental records confirmed that the bodies belong to Agnes Ashdown and Lionel Blackmore.

Relatives were officially informed through a sheriff’s representative.

Witnesses said that Agnes’s mother was silent for a long time, then thank them and hung up.

In Eugene, where they lived, neighbors saw two candles lit on the porch of their home that evening.

The identification moved the case to a different category.

Files that had previously been labeled missing persons were now classified as double homicide.

The sheriff’s office officially transferred the investigation to the homicide department.

Detective Mark Redell, a 40-year-old investigator with experience in cases that required not only evidence but also patience, became the new leader.

His colleagues described him as attentive and dry in his communication with the look of a man who was used to listening more than talking.

Redell arrived at the site the next morning.

He walked slowly, stopping at every flag.

Service reports mentioned that the first thing he focused on was the feathers.

Not the fact that they were there, but the way they were used.

According to one of the forensic scientists, he said at the time, “This is not an attempt to hide.

This is a message.

” His colleagues did not write down the exact words, but this phrase later appeared in the protocol.

On the same day, experts officially confirmed the origin of the feathers.

Some of the samples contained small residues of organic resins.

It looks like it could have been collected by hand, dried, or stored.

This meant that the person who filled the bags had access to a large amount of bird material, probably a hunter or collector.

The report states, “The feathers are tightly compacted.

The goal is not to disguise, but to create a certain composition.

” This wording raised many questions that have not yet been answered.

In the meantime, the laboratory continued to process the material evidence.

Fibers were removed from the clothes.

DNA traces from feathers and microparticles that could indicate the place of origin were removed from the ground.

The anthropologist noticed that the position of the bodies was too orderly, arms folded, heads turned to one side.

It didn’t look like a chaotic crime concealment.

Someone had acted methodically, almost calmly after the attack.

Redell looked at the photos on the monitor in his office.

Among the dozens of images, Agnes’ notebook caught his eye.

small black in a transparent bag.

It lay next to the bag like a silent witness.

He made a note in his office notes.

Awaiting examination may contain timestamps.

The investigation had just begun, but the detective already had several versions.

One of them about a possible ritualistic overtone was discussed in the sheriff’s office.

the feathers, the order of the bodies, the calmness with which everything was done.

All of this suggested that the killer had acted with purpose.

However, other experts believe that the symbolism could be an accidental consequence of a mental disorder or personal obsession.

Redell took his time.

He sat at his desk looking through reports and photographs and according to a colleague looked like he was listening to something that was barely audible.

He was interested not only in what had happened but why.

The forest which had been silent for 10 months now spoke in the language of details.

Feathers, knife marks, empty hands.

And among all these fragments of silence, he was looking for one answer.

Who hid them in the feathers and why? The diary came to Detective Redell a few weeks after the examination.

Its pages, wrinkled with moisture, retained the smell of earth and a faint trace of ink.

The cover was scratched and the edges of the sheets were twisted, but the entries were readable.

The forensic experts dried the pages in the lab and packed them in a transparent bag with a mark on it.

Physical evidence.

Careful.

The paper is partially fragile.

This diary was not a travel journal or a travel notebook.

Agnes wrote by hand, small and even, using a black pen, sometimes adding pencil strokes, sketches of mountains, branches, and bird outlines.

The content was more of a personal confession than a travellog.

The first pages described ordinary things.

The drive from Eugene, the autumn sky, conversations with Lionol about rocks, the smell of coffee at a gas station.

In a few lines, she mentioned how everything seems bright and new, even when we are silent.

Redell read the pages in his office, making pencil notes in the margins.

A staff report states that he read the entire notebook in one night.

What at first seemed to be ordinary observations gradually revealed another level, a deep fear, and at the same time a fascination with the world around him.

Agnes wrote about the feeling of fragility.

How sometimes all living things look like they are waiting to be found.

Among the last entries made during the hike, one passage caught my eye.

The date was blurred, but the text was preserved.

Today, we met a strange man by the stream.

He spoke quietly, as if he was afraid to frighten someone invisible.

I thought he looked like a bird that had lost its nest.

He asked us if we had seen a small silver hair clip in the shape of a bird.

We said no.

Then he thanked us and looked after us for a long time.

There was something painful about him, as if he was looking for a memory, not a thing.

This fragment became the first real clue in the case after a long stagnation.

Redell compared the date of the tentative entry with the search team’s report.

There was indeed another visitor on the tourist register that day, an amateur burer from Eugene named Arthur Pembbrook.

He had already been interviewed immediately after the couple’s disappearance, but he had only said that he had been birding near Linton Lake and had not seen anyone.

Now, this explanation seemed incomplete.

The detective went to the archive and looked at Pemrook’s first interrogation report.

A man in his 50s, no criminal record, a researcher at the university library.

In the behavior column, there was a brief remark.

Calm, polite, but the detective found this characterization too flat.

Redell went to see him again.

The sheriff’s secretary testified that the visit was unofficial and unannounced.

The report states that Pembroke lived alone in a house with a narrow garden with bird feeders and several cages.

Neighbors described him as a quiet, slightly [snorts] strange, but safe man who knows the names of all the birds, even the nocturnal ones.

During the second visit, Riddell said he again behaved calmly, although his eyes betrayed tension.

He didn’t deny the encounter at the creek, but instead admitted, “Yes, I saw them.

They were walking along the path and stopped by the water.

I was really looking for a clasp that belonged to my brother.

He got it from his mother and he lost it during one of our trips.

” He went on to explain that he did not report this during the first interview because he did not think it was important.

They just said hello and moved on.

A note appeared in the police file after this meeting.

Possible concealment of information.

Re-examine Pembroke’s actions after October 16th.

The detective found it strange that a person as meticulous as this ornithologist could forget about a chance conversation with a couple whose photographs later appeared in all the newspapers.

The same day, the laboratory continued to analyze the physical evidence.

Lionel’s watch, which had long been considered missing, was sent for testing.

The report on the results came back late in the evening.

Fingerprints that did not belong to either Lionel or Agnes were found on the case of the watch.

This match was the first real signal that the disappearance story was not a coincidence.

Redell was sitting in his office looking through his notes.

In front of him lay Agnes’ open diary where the last words were blurred in spots of rain.

Next to it was a photograph of the site and a brief report on the bird watcher from Eugene.

According to his colleague, that evening the detective stared out the window for a long time and repeated aloud, “Bird clasp, strange man.

” He didn’t draw any conclusions, just marked a new line of inquiry in his notebook.

Pembroke clasp silver.

The results from the lab came back a few days after Arthur Pembroke was reintered.

The report indicated that the prints found on Lionel Blackmore’s watch belonged to a man named Eric Vogel, a Redmond resident who had a history of petty theft from cars.

He was described by the sheriff’s office as a typical streetwise opportunist with no violence but a chronic penchant for petty crime.

Redell ordered Vogle to be brought in for questioning.

He did not resist.

He agreed immediately, frightened by the very fact of his involvement in a high-profile case.

According to the investigators, he looked exhausted, spoke quickly, breaking down.

Vogle said he had nothing to do with the murder.

According to him, he found the watch by accident about a week after the news reports of the couple’s disappearance appeared in the news.

He was walking along a road near Linton Lake when he saw a shine in the grass.

The watch was a little scratched and missing a strap.

He picked it up and wore it until he heard about the discovery of the bodies.

His words were partially confirmed.

Vogle had an alibi for the day of the murders.

That week, he worked at a car wash in Redmond where he was seen by his colleagues.

A check showed that he had not left the city.

He could not be charged with a crime, but the fact that the watch was found revealed something else.

Someone, the real killer, could have left the things in the woods and later picked them up by strangers.

Detective Redell, analyzing the materials, decided to use this as the basis for a search warrant at Arthur Pembbrook’s house.

His logic was simple.

If the crime was related to Pemrook, then traces could remain in his home.

And if not, this would allow him to be ruled out completely.

The bird watcher’s house was on the outskirts of Eugene small, tidy, with walls covered with photographs of birds.

Everything looked orderly.

Shelves of encyclopedias, a collection of binoculars, dozens of jars with feather samples labeled by species.

In the kitchen, there was a kettle, two cups, and neatly stacked dishes.

Nothing that could indicate violence.

But in the garage, the picture changed.

It was darker, colder, smelled of dust and old paints.

One of the investigators noticed a wooden chest pushed under a pile of old magazines.

When they opened it, inside was a broken pair of binoculars with a dark spot on the metal bridge.

The expert took a sample, blood that had dried long ago.

Next to it, among the crumpled papers, was a small silver hair clip in the shape of a bird.

According to eyewitnesses, Pembroke turned pale at this point, and his hands began to tremble.

He tried to explain that the binoculars were old, that the blood was from an accidental cut during repair, and that he had allegedly found the clasp in the woods, but was afraid to turn them into the police in order not to be drawn into the case.

The words did not sound convincing.

He was taken to the sheriff’s office for official questioning.

During the conversation, according to the detective, Pembroke was confident at first, but with each question, he lost control.

He repeated that he was innocent, that he was just bird watching that day and happened to come across a couple near a stream.

Then when the detective asked why he followed them a second time, Pimbrook went silent.

Only after several hours, according to the report, did he start talking again.

His speech was fragmentaryary.

He said that he really followed the trail to ask for help in finding the clasp again.

When he reached the turn of the trail, he heard screams.

He was scared but came closer.

And then, as he said, I saw something I shouldn’t have seen.

His further words are recorded in the report almost verbatim.

I saw Harry do it.

So, when the detective asked him who Harry was, he replied, “My brother.

My younger brother.

” The documents drawn up that night indicate that Pembroke looked extremely depressed, as if he had recognized not only the fact, but also the inevitable catastrophe behind those words.

His breath was ragged, and he repeated his brother’s name several times, as if hoping it would not be recorded.

This statement changed the course of the investigation.

Detective Redell now had not just a witness, but a person who might have been hiding the real culprit.

And for the first time ever, a new name appeared in the double death case, the shadow behind Arthur Pembroke.

Her name was Harry.

After a night of sleeplessness, Detective Redell sat down across from Arthur Pembroke again.

According to official protocol, the interrogation began at 8:00 in the morning.

The office was quiet with only the sound of the air conditioner interrupting the silence.

Pembroke looked exhausted.

His shirt was crumpled, his hands were constantly shaking, and his eyes were scattered.

At first, he denied knowing where his brother was, but with each question, he repeated one word more and more often.

Harry.

After several hours of tension, he broke down.

Investigators recorded the moment when Arthur began to speak non-stop as if freeing himself from the burden he had been carrying for years.

He said that his younger brother Harry had been a strange child since childhood.

Family archival records obtained later confirmed that Harry had indeed been under the supervision of a psychiatrist as a teenager.

His obsessive love of birds bordered on obsession.

He collected feathers, kept observation notebooks, and could sit for hours at a feeder watching crows.

Arthur called him the son of the wind.

But over time, this hobby took on a disturbing depth.

Harry grew up, but his behavior remained unpredictable.

According to his brother, he often said that people spoil nature, destroy nests, and make birds angry.

Arthur perceived this as a strange philosophy until he saw Harry once catch an injured Jay and instead of treating it bury it with rights as if it were a human being.

From then on he realized that his brother lived in his own system of beliefs where birds had not just symbolic but sacred significance.

On the day Agnes and Lionel disappeared, Harry went to the forest with Arthur.

According to his older brother, he wanted to help him with his observations.

They parted ways near a stream.

Arthur went further along the trail while Harry stayed to hear the singing.

Later, Arthur heard screams, but did not attach any importance to them.

He thought it was hunters or animals.

It was only when he returned to the same area and saw traces of a struggle that he realized what had happened.

His testimony is recorded in the protocol with numerous stops and starts.

He said, “I saw them.

They were lying down and he was standing next to them.

He had a knife.

I couldn’t even scream.

” Then he added that Harry looked at him as if he were a witness to God’s punishment.

In that brief scene, all his fears came together.

The brother he had spent his life trying to protect and two innocents who happened to be in his way.

Arthur did not deny that he helped hide the bodies.

According to him, Harry was in a state of complete alienation after the attack.

He didn’t cry.

He didn’t run away.

He just collected feathers and put them on them.

Arthur explained that collecting feathers was a way for his brother to make amends.

At the same time, he decided to cover up the crime, not out of a desire to save himself, but to keep Harry out of prison.

The detective’s notes indicate that he remained silent for a long time after these words.

Then he asked how they had buried the bodies.

Arthur replied that it was his idea.

He said that the birds would take their souls.

I just helped so no one would find them.

Further stories were chaotic, but the sequence of events was restored.

After the murder, Arthur took his brother to the family cottage near Lake Hawome.

This place belonged to their parents and had been abandoned for several years.

Harry stayed there all this time.

Arthur brought him food and medicine and did not allow him to go out.

He explained that his brother was completely detached from reality, talking to birds, hearing their orders.

The report states that while telling this story, Pemrook repeated one phrase several times.

I wanted it to be over, but I couldn’t turn him in.

His words were accompanied by a nervous smile, the kind of smile often seen in people who are relieved and ashamed at the same time.

After the interrogation was over, Redell went out into the corridor.

He asked for a search warrant to be prepared immediately for the lake cottage.

The report for that day states that he assembled a task force around noon.

The location of the house was confirmed by old property documents.

In the evening, the patrol cars were already moving along a narrow road through a pine forest.

The sun was setting behind the horizon, and the light was turning crimson.

The officers described the trip as unreal.

Everything was silent, and the only sounds in the air were the sounds of birds flying from the trees as the headlights approached.

When the group arrived, they saw an old cottage with a wooden porch and closed shutters.

From inside, as recorded in the report, a strange noise was coming.

Not voices, not music, but bird song that poured from the depths of the house as if the forest itself had penetrated it.

The officers set up positions, checked the perimeter, and prepared for action.

Redell stood off to the side holding a copy of the protocol signed by Arthur Pembroke.

There was a sentence in that sheet that he read over and over again.

I only wanted him to stop hurting any more birds.

Birds did indeed circle over the officer’s heads among the branches like shadows of those whose voices were coming from within.

And while the first beam of the search light fell on the door, there was a feeling in the air that nature itself was holding its breath.

The team entered simultaneously through the door and the back window.

Inside, it was semi dark and the air was filled with the smell of dust.

dampness and something organic.

Feathers crunched underfoot as they lay in layers like a layer of snow covering the floor, furniture, and shelves.

The whole room resembled a chaotic sanctuary.

On the walls hung photographs of birds, falcons, owls, feeasants, jays, but most of them were defaced.

symbols, eyes, spirals, strange phrases like returning to the nest and the body is awake were drawn in ink over the images.

The speakers of an old tape recorder found near the table played a recording of bird song.

The tape jammed from time to time and the sounds were distorted, turning into a horse croak.

On the table were several cups, moldy fruit, and a notebook with small handwriting.

The report states that the officers moved cautiously as the entire space seemed to be a trap.

In the corner of the living room, among feathers and scattered things, a man sat.

His age was difficult to determine.

His face was thin, his eyes were empty, and his hair was tousled.

He was holding a stuffed jay on his lap and whispering softly.

An old skinning knife stood next to him.

When the officers approached, the man looked up, and as they later recalled, he was not even surprised.

He did not scream, did not run away, did not try to defend himself.

He just said a few phrases, the meaning of which remained unclear.

That’s how Harry Pemb was detained.

According to the participants in the operation, he looked completely detached from reality, as if he lived in a world where logic no longer applied.

His hands were covered with scratches and ink, and his shirt had feathers glued to it with an adhesive substance.

They put him on the floor and handcuffed him, but he offered no resistance.

One of the soldiers later admitted that it was the quietest operation in his career.

After the detention, the house was examined.

In the kitchen, they found several plastic containers with leftover food, notebooks with drawings of birds and jars of bones and eggs, all signed with dates.

In the bedroom, there was a disassembled bed with a bag of feathers instead of a pillow.

The most important thing was on the desk, a leatherbound notebook that Harry had been keeping for the past months.

This notebook, according to experts, contained dozens of pages written in phrases that resembled a confession.

He wrote about people stomping on nests, purification through giving back to the birds, and souls that need to be set free.

Among the entries were dates that coincided with the day Agnes and Lionel disappeared.

At the end was a sentence that forensic experts marked with a red marker.

I did it because they destroyed the house of the bird soul.

In the far room, they found a knife, the same hunting tool the expert had mentioned.

On the blade were traces of blood, later identified as human.

Under the bed, they found remnants of fabric that looked like part of a jacket and a box of feeasant feathers.

All this became the final evidence in the case.

When Harry was taken out of the house, he was looking straight ahead, not responding to anyone.

Reports indicate that he was smiling, not crazily, but rather calmly, like a man who has fulfilled his duty.

Subsequently, psychiatrists determined that he was in a deep psychotic state.

The court declared him insane and he was sent to a strict regime clinic.

His brother Archer was arrested for complicity and concealment of the crime.

He did not resist, only asked permission to give Harry his old books about birds.

When he was refused, he said he won’t know where the light is without them.

Detective Redell was given permission to close the case.

In his report, he noted that the investigation did not bring a sense of closure.

Two photographs remained on his desk, one of Agnes and Lionol smiling and alive and the other taken during the arrest.

Harry sitting among feathers as part of his own bizarre altar.

A few weeks later, Riddell came to the places where it all began.

He walked along the Linton Lake Trail, listening to the dry leaves rustle underfoot.

He stopped at the stream where Agnes was last seen.

The water was clear, and the sun was breaking through the branches.

A feeasant stood at the edge of the forest, calm, proud, and bright.

It looked at the detective without fear, and then spread its wings and took off.

Redell watched him fly away and felt that the forest had regained its silence.

Not like oblivion, but like the calm after a storm.

There was no victory in this silence, only the memory that human obsession can become an extension of nature if given too much freedom.

And the forest, which had once been silent, was now simply breathing.