On June 14th, 2018, 22-year-old Haley Ford and 21-year-old Clare Martin flew from Seattle to Anchorage, the capital of Alaska.

Both were students at the University of Washington, studying ecology and had been hiking enthusiasts since their teenage years.

Over the past 3 years, they had completed dozens of trails in the national parks of Washington, Oregon, and California.

Alaska was their dream destination.

wild nature, bears, eagles, endless forests and mountains where you could spend days without meeting a single person.

They planned a week-long hike in Chugich State Park, one of the largest parks in the United States.

Nearly a million acres of untouched nature, mountains, glaciers, rivers, dense forests of spruce and hemlock.

The park is known for its harshness and unpredictability.

The weather changes within hours.

Grizzly bears are a regular sight and trails are often washed out by rain or blocked by fallen trees.

Hikers must be experienced, wellprepared, and equipped to survive in extreme conditions.

Haley and Clare were prepared.

The equipment lists they showed their friends before leaving included a four-season tent, sleeping bags rated for temperatures down to -10° C, a camping stove, 10 days worth of food, a first aid kit, bear spray, signal flares, a Garmin GPS navigator with pre-loaded park maps, and a portable solar charger.

Both were in good physical shape, regularly running and climbing.

Their parents and friends weren’t worried.

The girls knew what they were doing.

On June 15th, they registered at the entrance to Chugach Park and filled out a route form.

They planned to hike the Black Ridge Trail about 50 mi with overnight stops at five points.

Their final destination was the summit of Wolverine Mountain, which offers views of Anchorage and Cook Inlet.

They planned to return on June 22nd.

The ranger at the entrance, a 50-year-old man named Dan, later told investigators that the girl seemed confident and cheerful.

He gave them standard advice.

Keep food in bear containers.

Don’t walk at night without flashlights and report any problems via satellite phone.

They did not have a satellite phone, only GPS and cell phones that worked only in areas with cell phone coverage.

Dan advised them to rent a satellite phone, but they refused, saying they would stick to trails where there was occasional cell phone coverage.

The first three days went according to plan.

Haley and Clare sent text messages to their friends and parents every evening when they stopped for the night.

Photos were attached, the girls against the backdrop of mountains by streams in the forest, smiling, happy.

On the evening of June 17th, Clare sent her last message to her sister, Emma.

The text was short.

At the summit, almost no signal.

We’ll camp by the stream.

See you in a week.

A photo was attached.

A panorama from the summit.

Green valleys below.

Snowy peaks in the distance.

The time of sending 9:04 p.m.

After that, communication was lost.

On the 18th, 19th, and 20th of June, there were no messages.

Her parents began to worry, but they didn’t panic yet.

They thought that the girls simply had no network coverage, that they were deep in the park, far from cell towers.

On June 22nd, when the girls were supposed to return, they were not there.

The parents called the park office.

Dan, the ranger at the entrance, checked the records.

Haley and Clare had not signed out.

He tried to contact them using the GPS coordinates they had left on the route form, but the GPS trackers were either turned off or not transmitting a signal.

On June 23rd, a search and rescue operation began.

A team of eight rangers and 10 volunteer hikers set out on the Black Ridge Trail, following the plan the girls had left behind.

The weather was changeable, rain, fog, and occasional clear skies.

Visibility was low and the trails were muddy and slippery.

The group covered the first half of the route in two days, checking every campsite and every stop where the girls could have set up camp.

They found traces of their stay.

Fire pits, trampled grass, energy bar wrappers, but there were no signs of the girls themselves.

On the fourth day of the search, June 26th, the group reached the summit of Wolverine.

It was from here that Clare sent her last message.

They searched the surrounding area and descended to a stream in the valley below the summit.

They found traces of a camp, trampled grass, stones stacked in a circle for a fire, but no fire, no tents, no equipment, no personal belongings.

It was as if the girls had stopped here, then packed up and left without leaving anything behind.

The search party expanded its radius.

They checked side trails, thickets, ravines, and stream banks.

They used tracking dogs that had been brought in by helicopter from Anchorage.

The dogs picked up the scent from the girl’s clothes provided by their parents and tried to trace their route.

The dogs led the group from the summit down to the stream, then to the forest on the eastern slope.

The trail ended in a thick spruce forest.

The dogs began to circle and whine, unable to determine the direction.

The dog handler said that this behavior occurs when the scent is washed away by water, or when something happens that drastically changes the situation.

The victims were picked up and carried away, loaded into a car, although there could not have been any cars in the park in that area as there were no roads there.

The search continued for 2 weeks.

The number of participants increased to 40 people.

They used helicopters with thermal imaging cameras and drones with cameras combing through hundreds of square miles of territory.

They checked every cave, every ravine, every area where the girls could have fallen, gotten stuck, or taken shelter from the weather.

Nothing.

Haley Ford and Clare Martin had disappeared without a trace.

On July 9th, the search was officially suspended.

The operation coordinator held a press conference and explained that the team had searched the entire area within a 20m radius of the girl’s last known location using all available resources, but had not found them.

The case was classified as a missing person in the wild.

It was assumed that the girls could have gotten lost, strayed from the trail, fallen into a hard-to-reach place where their bodies could not be found, or they could have been attacked by a bear.

Grizzlies are common in the park and there have been cases of fatal attacks.

Their bodies could have been eaten or dragged into a den.

The parents refused to accept that their daughters were dead.

They organized their own search, hired private investigators, and offered a $100,000 reward for information.

They put up posters in Anchorage, posted appeals on social media, and gave interviews to local TV stations.

Months passed without any news.

On September 12th, 2018, 3 months after their disappearance, two Canadian tourists, a man and a woman in their 30s, were walking along a littleknown trail in the eastern part of Chugich Park, about 15 mi from Haley and Clare’s last known location.

The trail was not marked on official maps, an old hunting road, overgrown and rarely used.

They walked, guided by GPS, looking for a secluded place to camp.

Around 3:00 in the afternoon, the woman smelled something.

A strong, disgusting smell of decay.

She thought it was a dead animal, a moose or a deer killed by a predator.

They walked a few more meters and the smell grew stronger.

The man suggested they stray from the trail to see what was there, thinking it might be an interesting find for a photo.

The woman didn’t want to, but agreed.

They walked about 30 m off the trail, making their way through the bushes and low branches of the fur trees.

They came out onto a small clearing surrounded by trees.

And then they saw it.

Two naked human figures were tied to a thick spruce tree standing in the center of the clearing.

Both were women, both standing with their backs to the tree trunk, facing in different directions, their hands behind their backs and tied around the trunk.

Their legs were also tied with ropes attached to the tree roots.

The bodies were in terrible condition, dried out, partially mummified by the dry Alaskan air and cold, and partially damaged by wild animals.

The skin was dark brown, stretched over the bones, the eyes and soft tissues eaten by birds or small predators.

The hair was preserved, long and dark on one, light on the other.

There were no clothes on the bodies.

They were completely naked.

The poses were eerie, as if they had been placed there deliberately, demonstratively for display.

The Canadian tourists stopped in shock, unable to move for several seconds.

The woman screamed, turned away, and began to sob.

The man took out his phone, and called the rescue service, even though there was no cell phone reception there.

He tried to take a photo of the scene, but his hands were shaking.

They returned to the trail and quickly walked back to the nearest point where there was reception about 5 miles away.

They got there in the evening and called the Alaska State Police.

A team of investigators and forensic experts arrived at the scene the next morning by helicopter.

They cordined off the area and began a thorough examination.

The bodies were carefully cut from the ropes and packed into bags for transport to the morg.

The ropes and straps that had bound the victims were collected as evidence.

They photographed every inch of the clearing, looking for traces, shoe prints, hair, fabric, any clues.

The bodies were sent to the morg in Anchorage.

A forensic expert performed an autopsy.

Identification was difficult.

The bodies were badly damaged, their faces almost unrecognizable.

DNA samples were taken and compared with samples from Haley and Clare’s parents.

They matched.

It was them.

The examination revealed the following.

Both victims died of suffocation, probably from having their necks compressed with a rope or hands.

Traces remained on their necks, deep grooves characteristic of ligature strangulation.

Death occurred approximately 2 to 3 months before discovery which coincided with the time of disappearance.

But there were additional injuries.

Clare had a fracture at the base of her skull, a linear fracture running through the occipital bone.

This type of injury is caused by a strong blow to the back of the head with a blunt object.

The injury was sustained before death because there were signs of bleeding around the fracture, which means that the heart was still beating when it happened.

Traces of burns were found on Haley’s body, not from fire, but from something chemical.

Small areas of skin on her stomach, thighs, and arms were burned with skin missing in places exposing the subcutaneous tissue.

The expert suggested that it could have been caused by acid or alkali, but without analyzing the chemical residues, it is impossible to determine for sure.

The burns were also sustained before death.

Multiple rib fractures were found in both victims.

Haley had five broken ribs on her left side and Clare had four on her right.

The fractures were fresh, having occurred shortly before death.

Such fractures can be caused by blows with fists, feet, a stick, or by severe compression of the chest.

An important detail is that there were no signs of sexual assault.

Examination of the pelvic organs and tests revealed no traces of semen or injuries characteristic of rape.

This ruled out one of the common theories in cases involving the abduction of women.

The bodies were emaciated.

Muscle mass was significantly reduced with signs of muscle atrophy characteristic of prolonged starvation or lack of movement.

The expert estimated that the victims had spent at least two to three weeks in conditions of malnutrition and possibly restricted mobility before their death.

This meant that they had been held captive, possibly tied up or locked up somewhere and fed minimally or not at all.

Analysis of the contents of their stomachs revealed traces of plant-based food, berries, possibly roots, grass, nothing cooked, no traces of the normal food they had taken with them on the hike.

It was as if they had been forced to eat whatever they could find in the forest or given no food at all and had tried to survive by eating whatever they could find.

Forensic experts worked at the site for 3 days.

The clearing was thoroughly examined.

No traces of the killer’s shoes were found.

The ground under the trees was covered with a thick layer of pine needles and moss, which does not retain footprints.

The ropes used to tie up the victims were sent for examination.

One of the ropes was a hiking strap similar to those used to attach equipment to backpacks.

The second was a regular polyropylene rope sold in any store.

The third was a piece of paracord, a braided cord used by the military and hikers.

Different types, different origins, as if the killer used whatever was at hand.

No fingerprints were found on the ropes.

Either the killer wore gloves or time and weather destroyed the traces.

DNA analysis of the ropes showed the presence of Haley and Claire’s DNA, but no foreign samples.

The killer was careful.

The girl’s clothes were completely gone.

Nowhere in the clearing or within a 100 meters of it was a single piece of fabric, shoe, or anything else found.

The only thing found was two pairs of sneakers neatly placed next to the tree to which the bodies were tied.

The sneakers were clean, unlaced, and placed neatly parallel to each other.

It looked demonstrative, like part of a ritual or a message.

300 meters from the clearing to the east, investigators found an old hunting cabin, it was a small building about 3×4 meters, made of wood with a corrugated metal roof and a hinged door without a lock.

Inside it was empty, bare walls, a dirt floor, an old hearth in the corner, and a shelf with several rusty cans of food.

There were no signs of recent occupancy.

There was a thick layer of dust on the floor.

No one had been here for months, maybe years.

The forensic team examined the hut anyway, took dust samples, and checked the walls and floor for blood or biological traces.

They found nothing.

But the fact that the hut was so close to the crime scene gave them an idea.

Perhaps the killer had used it as a temporary hideout, kept the girls there, then killed them and tied them to a tree.

But why did the hut look untouched? Maybe he had carefully removed all traces, swept the floor, and wiped away fingerprints.

Or maybe he had used a different location, and the hut was just a coincidence.

The investigation began to develop theories.

It was clear that this was a murder, a planned and brutal one at that.

Someone kidnapped the girls, held them captive for several weeks, tortured them, beatings, chemical burns, starvation, then strangled them, and put their bodies on display, tying them to a tree in a pose that looked ritualistic or demonstrative.

The motive, not sexual.

There was no violence, not robbery.

The girl’s equipment and valuables were missing, but the murder was too complex for a simple robbery.

That leaves the theory of murder for murder’s sake, for pleasure, for control, to satisfy the psychological needs of a serial killer or psychopath.

Who could have done it? Investigators started with local residents.

About 2,000 people live within a 50-mi radius of Chugach Park, most of them in small villages, farms, and isolated houses.

Many are hunters, fishermen, and hermits who prefer to live far from civilization.

Among them could be people with criminal pasts, mental health issues, or aggressive tendencies.

The police compiled a list of suspects.

They checked all men between the ages of 20 and 60 who lived in the area, had access to the park, and knew the terrain.

Particular attention was paid to those with convictions for violence, sexual offenses, and assault.

Three people stood out as the most likely suspects.

The first was Lewis Cannor, 53 years old, a former gamekeeper at Chugich Park.

He worked there from 2001 to 2014, then was fired for assaulting tourists.

The official reason for his dismissal was abuse of authority and aggressive behavior.

The details of the case were that Lewis caught a group of tourists building a fire in a restricted area, attacked one of them, punched him several times, and broke his nose.

The tourists filed a complaint.

Lewis was fired and he avoided criminal prosecution by compensating the victim.

After his dismissal, Lewis lived alone in a cabin 30 m from the park, hunted, and sometimes worked as a guide for hunters.

Neighbors described him as withdrawn, sullen, and sometimes aggressive, especially when drunk.

The police knew him.

They had picked him up several times for fights in a local bar and once for threatening a neighbor across the property line, but he had no serious crimes on his record.

The second suspect is Jonathan Green, 38, a former military man who served in the Marine Corps and participated in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He returned to Alaska in 2010 with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

He lived in a trailer 40 m from the park, worked odd jobs, and suffered from alcoholism.

He was known to have outbursts of rage, and the police were called several times by neighbors who heard shouting and sounds of fighting.

On one occasion, Jonathan threatened his ex-girlfriend with a knife, but she did not file a report.

The third suspect is Walter Sims, 61, a longtime resident of the area who has lived in the woods 20 m from the park for 40 years.

He is a hunter, trapper, and almost a complete recluse.

He rarely appears in the village, buys supplies once a month, and spends the rest of his time in the woods.

Neighbors said he was strange, avoided people, and sometimes talked to himself.

One woman said she saw animal skins hanging on the walls of his house and it looked creepy, but Walter had no criminal record and had never been arrested.

All three were called in for questioning.

Lewis Caner came with a lawyer, behaved calmly, and answered questions in monosyllables.

He was asked where he was in June 2018.

He said he was at home alone with no witnesses.

Was he working in the park at the time? No, he had been fired four years ago and had no access.

Did he know about the missing girls? Yes, he had seen the news but was not interested.

The investigators asked for permission to search his home and car.

Lewis agreed and did not object.

The search of the house yielded nothing.

A typical country house, old furniture, hunting rifles on the wall, deer and bear skins, the standard hunter’s kit.

In the garage, an old Ford pickup truck, dirty with hunting equipment.

They checked the car for traces of blood and biological material.

They took samples of dirt from the wheels and fibers from the seats.

Nothing suspicious, no DNA from Haley or Clare was found.

Jonathan Green was more nervous.

He fidgeted, sweated, and avoided eye contact.

They asked him where he was in June.

He said he was working on a construction site in Anchorage and living in a worker’s dormatory there.

They checked.

His alibi was partially confirmed.

His employer said that Jonathan did indeed work from May to July, but there were days when he didn’t show up, saying he was sick.

Could those days coincide with the days the girls were kidnapped? Possibly.

They asked him to provide a DNA sample for comparison.

Jonathan reluctantly agreed.

The results came back two weeks later.

His DNA did not match anything found at the crime scene.

Walter Sims did not respond to the summons.

The police went to his home.

The house was deep in the woods, accessible only by a dirt road, then a halfmile walk.

It was an old log house with a mosscovered roof surrounded by a garbage dump, old traps, and animal skins hung on ropes between trees to dry.

Walter met them on the porch with a rifle in his hands.

He wasn’t aggressive, just holding it.

He asked what they wanted.

The investigators explained that they wanted to ask a few questions about the missing girls.

Walter said he didn’t know anything, didn’t go to the park, and didn’t see any tourists.

They asked to come inside the house.

Walter refused, saying he wouldn’t let them in without a warrant.

The investigators did not have a search warrant.

There were insufficient grounds.

They asked Walter to come to the station for an official interrogation.

He refused, saying he was busy, that he had not violated any laws, and that they should leave him alone.

The investigators left, but kept Walter under surveillance.

They organized covert surveillance of his home, checking to see if he went anywhere or met with anyone.

Walter led a normal life.

He hunted, fished, and went to town once a month for supplies.

Nothing suspicious.

A month later, they obtained a search warrant for Walter’s house based on circumstantial evidence and his refusal to cooperate.

They arrived with a team of six people, including forensic experts.

Walter did not resist this time and opened the door.

Inside, it was chaos.

Old furniture, books, animal skins on the walls and floor.

the smell of dog and smoke.

They searched every corner.

They found a collection of knives, axes, traps, but all of that is normal for a hunter.

They checked for blood.

All of it was animal blood, deer, and moose.

No traces of human blood, no hair from Haley or Clare, nothing that would link Walter to the crime.

They checked the basement and the attic.

The basement was empty with a dirt floor and a few boxes of supplies.

The attic was cluttered with old things, boxes, old clothes, tools.

Forensic scientists took samples of dirt from the floor and checked for biological traces.

Nothing.

Walter was released, but remained on the list of suspects.

None of the three had been completely ruled out, but there was no evidence against them either.

Investigators expanded their search.

They checked footage from cameras on the highways leading to the park for June 2018.

They looked for suspicious cars that could have been transporting the kidnapped girls.

They found hundreds of cars and checked each one by its license plate number.

Nothing concrete.

They interviewed tourists who were in the park at the same time as Haley and Clare.

They found several through the registration records at the park entrance.

Everyone said they hadn’t seen the girls, heard screams, or sounds of a struggle, or anything suspicious.

The theory that the girls had been held captive for several weeks meant there had to be a place where they were hidden.

The cabin in the woods was one possibility, but it looked untouched.

Investigators searched for other possible locations.

Abandoned buildings, caves, old mines, bunkers.

There were several abandoned mines from the gold rush era in the park area and they checked them all.

Nothing.

The case had reached a dead end.

The evidence was minimal.

There were suspects but no proof.

An analysis of the killer’s behavior conducted by an FBI profiler revealed the following.

The criminal is most likely a man between the ages of 30 and 50.

A loner familiar with the area and survival in the wild.

He may have military or hunting experience and knows how to cover his tracks.

Psychologically, he is a satist who enjoys control and inflicting pain.

The display of the bodies indicates a desire to shock, send a message, and possibly enjoy the public’s reaction to his work.

The motive is unclear.

Perhaps it is territorial behavior.

The killer considers the park his territory and kills those who intrude.

Perhaps it is a ritual or fantasy that he is trying to fulfill.

Perhaps it is simply the pleasure of killing.

The profiler predicted that if this is a serial killer, he may repeat the crime.

We must be prepared for new victims.

But from September 2018 to the present, there have been no new disappearances in Chugich Park similar to the cases of Haley and Clare.

The girl’s parents are devastated.

Haley and Clare were buried in Seattle next to each other as they were friends in life.

Haley’s mother never recovered from the loss, fell into depression, and died of a heart attack a year later.

Clare’s father continues to demand justice, writing letters to the police, the FBI, and Congress, demanding that the investigation be reopened and the killer found.

The case remains open.

From time to time, investigators review the evidence and check new leads, if any.

Several times, anonymous calls reported suspicious people in the park area, and each time they checked, but found nothing.

In 2020, one of the detectives working on the case retired.

In a farewell interview with a local newspaper, he said that the case of Haley Ford and Clare Martin was the most terrifying and mysterious of his career.

He believes that the killer is still somewhere nearby, possibly living a normal life, working, interacting with people, and no one suspects what he has done or living in isolation in the woods, avoiding people, waiting for the next opportunity.

The detective said he couldn’t sleep peacefully, knowing that the killer was still at large and that somewhere there were families waiting for answers they might never get.

Chugotach Park remains a popular destination for tourists.

Thousands of people visit every year to enjoy nature, the mountains, and the forests.

Most are unaware of Haley and Cla’s story.

Those who are aware try to travel in groups, stay on the trails, and exercise caution.

A memorial plaque has been installed on the Black Ridge Trail in memory of the girls.

It reads, “In memory of Haley Ford and Clare Martin, who loved these mountains.

Walk safely.

come home.

But questions remain.

Who killed them? Why so brutally? Where is he now? And will he do it again? Investigators don’t know the answers.

There is little evidence.

Time is running out and witnesses memories are fading.

The case may remain unsolved forever.

Another tragedy in the long list of unsolved murders in America’s wilderness.

But somewhere out there in the forests of Alaska, there may be a man who knows the truth.

Someone who remembers the faces of Haley and Clare, their screams, their fear.

Someone who knows why he did it and how he felt as he tied their dead bodies to a tree, arranged their shoes neatly beside them, and walked away, leaving them to be consumed by time and animals.

He knows.

And as long as he remains silent, the truth remains buried deep in the forest, in the darkness between the trees, where no light penetrates and where justice cannot reach.