It all started with a car in an empty parking lot.

The silver sedan had been sitting there for 3 days straight, covered in morning dew and fallen pine needles, and it wasn’t until the lot attendant noticed that the Washington license plates hadn’t changed since Monday that he contacted the authorities.

It was September 2002, and the first cold nights of the season were just beginning in the Coupin National Forest.

The site was located in northwestern Montana near the Canadian border and covered more than 2 million acres of wild trails where roads were lost between ridges and valleys and some old trails had not been updated in decades.

Joshua Clayton was a writer working on a book about abandoned places in the Pacific Northwest.

He was 34 years old, lived alone in Seattle, rented a studio on the outskirts of the city, and was described by his friends as a quiet man who preferred solitude to noisy company.

In early September, he told his editor that he was taking 10 days off and heading to a littleknown area of Montana, where he wanted to explore old forest rangers cabins and write a chapter about how nature reclaims buildings.

He chose a route along the Granite Lake Trail, which began with a dirt road and went deep into the forest for 20 km, winding between lakes and rocks.

The route was not popular.

Tourists hardly ever came here, and only two old huts, which were still in use in the middle of the last century, were marked on the maps.

He left Seattle early in the morning on Tuesday, September 9th, and reached Montana by evening.

According to the entry in the log book at the park entrance, he signed in at p.m.

wrote down his details and planned return date, September 18th.

In his backpack, he had a camping tent, a sleeping bag, a week’s worth of food, a water filter, a camera, a notebook, and a set of maps.

He wore a solo hiking boots, a dark green jacket, and a black cap with the logo of an independent bookstore.

He had no companions and left his phone in the car because there was no cell service in that part of the forest.

He was last seen at a gas station in the town of Libby where he bought batteries and a bottle of water.

The cashier remembered him because he asked about the weather for the week and she replied that it would be cold at night but no rain was forecast.

When three days had passed since his planned return, his sister from Portland called the park office and said that her brother was not in contact and had not returned home.

The rangers checked the parking lot and found his sedan in the same spot where it had been since the 9th.

The door was locked and inside were his phone, documents, a spare jacket, and an empty grocery bag.

There were no signs of a struggle, damage, or anything unusual.

just a car that had been waiting for its owner for almost two weeks.

The search party set out the next morning.

It consisted of six people, including two rangers, volunteers from the local hiking club, and a dog handler with a dog.

The weather was clear, the temperature was around 15°, and visibility was good.

They covered the first 8 km without finding anything, checked the first hut, which stood by a stream and was completely empty.

The floor was rotten, the roof was leaking, and only old tin cans and scraps of tarpollen remained inside.

There were no traces of Joshua’s presence.

The dog picked up a scent at about the 10th kilometer at a fork in the trail, where the ground was soft after recent rains.

The trail led away from the main route up a slope where the trees were denser and the trail had almost disappeared under a layer of pine needles and moss.

They followed the dog for another two hours, climbing over rocky areas and crossing streams.

But the trail ended at a rocky ridge where the ground was hard and dry.

No footprints, no broken branches, no objects.

The search continued for another 4 days.

They combed the area within a 30 km radius of the parking lot, checked all the old huts marked on the maps, and flew over the areas along the lakes and valleys by helicopter.

nothing.

No tent, no backpack, no clothes.

It was as if the man had dissolved into the forest, leaving no material trace.

By the end of September, the search was called off.

The case file stated that the hiker had probably strayed from the route, ended up in a difficultto-reach area, and either been injured or lost his way, and died of hypothermia.

His body could have been carried away by an animal, fallen into a crevice, or drowned in one of the lakes.

The family insisted on continuing the search, but there were not enough resources, and the chances of finding a living person after 3 weeks in the forest were zero.

The case remained open, but no further active measures were taken.

From time to time, when tourists found something suspicious, the information was checked, but nothing related to Clayton ever surfaced.

Several years passed, the case was moved to the archives and it was almost forgotten.

In the summer of 2019, a group of rangers was tasked with inspecting old buildings in the park.

This was a routine procedure that was carried out every few years to update maps, record the condition of abandoned structures, and determine which ones needed to be demolished or preserved.

The list included foresters huts, old observation towers, and sheds that remain from the days of logging.

They used topographic maps from the 1980s, which marked all known structures.

In 2 weeks of work, they inspected more than 20 objects, most of which were dilapidated or completely overgrown with bushes.

On July 23rd, they reached a remote area in the northeast of the park where the map showed a group of old buildings that had once been used to store equipment.

The terrain was hilly, covered with dense spruce forest.

The trails were almost invisible, and the nearest dirt road was about 7 km away.

They found three dilapidated sheds inside which only rusty tools and pieces of rotten wood remained.

While surveying the area, one of the rangers noticed something strange about 200 m from the main group of buildings.

There, behind a thick wall of fur trees, was a sloping roof almost completely hidden by branches and moss.

The structure was not marked on any of the maps and looked as if it had been deliberately camouflaged.

As they got closer, they saw a small log cabin about 4×5 m in size with a single window that was boarded up from the inside.

The door was locked with an old padlock covered in rust.

The roof was covered with a layer of fur branches that looked fresher than one would expect from an abandoned building.

Tall grass grew around it, but the area in front of the entrance was trampled, as if someone had recently walked there.

One of the rangers photographed the building, recorded its coordinates, and tried to open the lock.

After a few blows with a crowbar, the lock broke and the door opened with a quiet creek.

Inside was a single small room with a dirt floor, a wooden table against the wall, two chairs, and a roughly nailed shelf.

The air was musty, smelling of dampness, and something sour like vinegar.

On the shelf were about 10 glass jars of various sizes closed with metal lids.

Inside the jars were dark objects floating in a cloudy liquid.

At first, the rangers thought it was canned meat or mushrooms, but when one of them brought a flashlight closer, it became clear that these were human organs, liver, lungs, something resembling a heart.

All the jars were labeled with black marker, but the inscriptions were blurred and smudged.

A human skull lay on the table.

It had been completely stripped of soft tissue.

The bone was white with yellowish spots.

In several places, small holes had been cut into the skull, neat, as if made with a tool.

Next to it lay a leatherbound notebook, several pencils, and a folding knife with a wooden handle.

One of the rangers immediately went outside and contacted the base by radio to report the discovery.

The others remained outside and no one else entered the hut until the investigation team arrived.

When the specialists arrived, they discovered a hatch in the floor that led to a small basement.

Going down, they found a wooden box containing wet hiking clothes, a dark green jacket, black trekking pants, and one a solo boot.

right size 42.

The boot was covered in mud and mold, but the shape and logo were recognizable.

Next to the box was an old kerosene lamp, several empty tin cans, and a coil of rope.

The notebook on the table was covered in small handwriting.

The pages were filled with notes that looked like instructions or observations.

There were descriptions of cutting procedures, tissue preservation, notes on temperature and storage times.

One of the phrases read, “Best after 5 days.

Men are tough, but if cooked properly, the meat becomes softer.” The examination began immediately after the materials from the hut were delivered to the laboratory.

The organs from the jars were in a condition that allowed for analysis, although the preservation fluid was homemade and contained a mixture of formalin, alcohol, and some plant additives.

Specialists extracted tissue samples from three jars and sent them for genetic testing.

The process took several weeks because the material had been damaged by prolonged storage.

But at the end of August 2019, the first results came in.

DNA from one organ, which turned out to be a fragment of the liver, matched a sample taken from Joshua Clayton’s father.

The probability of a match was 99.8% which virtually ruled out any error.

The skull was sent for dental examination.

Joshua had a medical record that included X-rays of his teeth taken a year before his disappearance.

When the structure of the jaw, the shape of the roots, and the location of the fillings were compared, the match was confirmed.

It was him.

He had been listed as missing for 17 years, and his remains had been in a camouflaged hut all that time, a few kilometers from where his car was parked.

The initials in the notebook were the first clue in the search for the person behind it all.

Experts took fingerprints from the cover, the pages, the cans, and the skull.

Most of the prints were smudged or too old, but several clear samples were obtained from the knife handle and the lid of one of the cans.

They were run through the database and 2 days later, a match came up.

Thomas Randall, 53 years old, former ranger of the Coutin National Forest.

He had worked for the park service from 1989 to 1997.

First in the area near Libby, then transferred to a remote station in the northeast of the territory where he monitored trails and checked the condition of old buildings.

His personnel file was found in the archives.

It contained several complaints from tourists who said that Randall behaved strangely.

One woman wrote that he followed her group for most of the day, keeping his distance but constantly appearing in the distance as if he were studying them.

Another tourist complained that Randall asked too many personal questions, whether he was traveling alone, whether he had a family, where he was staying for the night.

Another entry dated back to 1996 when a colleague reported that Randall kept strange items in his office, animal skins, bones, homemade cutting tools.

At the time, this was attributed to a hobby related to hunting, but after several conflicts with colleagues who accused him of being secretive and aggressive, he was fired in March 1997.

The official reason was failure to meet job requirements and violation of internal regulations.

After his dismissal, he disappeared from view.

He was not registered in any employment database, did not pay taxes, and did not register at a new address.

The last known information about him was related to a trailer he rented in the small town of Troy, 40 km from the park’s border.

The lease was in his name until 2000, but the owner of the site said he had last seen him in 1999.

After that, the trailer stood empty.

The water and electricity bills were not paid, and in the end, the owner simply closed the facility, unable to contact the tenant.

When investigators arrived at the scene, the trailer was still there.

It was boarded up.

The windows were covered with plastic and the door was locked.

Inside, it smelled musty and of mice.

The main room contained old furniture, a table, a bed, and several chairs.

Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.

But in the attic, they found something that changed the picture.

There in the corner under the rafters lay a second notebook just like the one in the cabin.

It was thicker with about 150 pages and almost entirely filled with notes.

Some of them were like a diary where Randall described his thoughts, plans, and observations.

The other part was root maps with notes.

Trails were drawn on them.

Areas of forest, lakes, and huts were marked.

And next to some places there were short comments.

suitable type, alone, without a companion, cautious, trusting.

One of the maps matched the Granite Lake route that Joshua Clayton had taken.

It had a cross marked on it roughly where the camouflaged cabin was located.

Next to it was the date, September02, and a short note, writer, alone, 10 days, calm, suitable.

Below was another note made later.

left on the fifth day.

Good material.

Keep samples.

In addition to the notebook, a metal barrel burnt on the inside was found in the attic.

When it was opened, there were charred bones, several pieces of fabric, and the remains of something resembling skin inside.

Experts took samples for analysis.

Next to the barrel were rolled up sleeping bags, two old backpacks, and several pairs of shoes of different sizes.

One backpack had a patch with the logo of a California hiking club and the other had a name tag that read Emily Carter.

They checked the name against the missing person’s database and found a match.

Emily Carter, 28 years old, disappeared in August 2001 while hiking on the Coupin trails.

Her car was found in a parking lot, but she herself did not return.

The search lasted 2 weeks and yielded nothing.

The case was closed as an accident.

Deeper in the trailer, under the floorboards in the bedroom, they found a hiding place.

There were three old film cameras and several boxes of film.

Some of the film had been developed, some had not.

Experts sent everything to be developed and scanned.

When the images became available, it became clear that they were photographs of people.

Most of the pictures were taken in the dark using a flash and showed people tied up, sitting or lying on the dirt floor.

The faces in the photos were contorted with fear, their mouths gagged with cloth, their hands tied behind their backs.

Some of the photos showed fragments of the same log cabin that had been found in the forest, the same wooden shelf, the same table.

One of the photos showed a man in a dark green jacket sitting on the floor with his hands tied.

The quality of the photo was poor.

The face was blurred, but the jacket matched the one found in the basement of the hut.

None of the bodies in the photos were ever found.

Judging by the number of photos, there were at least five or six people, but only two could be identified by their clothing and accessories, Joshua Clayton and Emily Carter.

The rest remained unknown.

Perhaps their remains were in that burned barrel or somewhere else in the forest, but there was no concrete evidence.

The search for Randall himself began immediately after his identity was established.

He had not been listed in any official database for the past 20 years, had no bank accounts, owned no real estate, and did not use medical services.

It was as if he had erased himself from the system.

But in November 2019, information came in from a neighboring state.

In Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, local police arrested a man for a minor offense.

He had tried to steal food from a store.

When his documents were checked, it turned out that he was living under the name Wayne Barlo, but his fingerprints matched those of Thomas Randall.

He was taken into custody and handed over to federal investigators.

He lived in an old house on the outskirts of town, a few kilometers from the city in a wooded area.

The house was small, one-story, with no neighbors nearby.

When they arrived to search it, the inside was clean, almost empty, minimal furniture, no personal belongings, no photographs.

But in the basement, they found a freezer.

It was working.

And inside were plastic containers with frozen tissue samples, muscle, skin, something resembling internal organs.

All the containers were labeled with numbers and letters, but no names.

Next to the freezer, an old map of Montana hung on the wall marked with red crosses.

There were eight of them in total.

Three of them roughly coincided with the places where tourists had disappeared in different years.

Besides Clayton and Carter, there was another cross near the Yak River Trail where a man named David Holmes disappeared in 1998.

His car was found, but he himself was not.

The other crosses did not correspond to known cases of disappearances or information about them had not been preserved.

Randall was brought in for questioning.

He was tall, thin, with gray hair and deep wrinkles on his face.

He was over 70 and looked like an ordinary elderly man who could have been someone’s grandfather.

But when he was put in the interrogation room, he didn’t say a word.

The investigators asked questions, showed him photos of the hut, notebooks, and camera footage.

He looked at everything expressionlessly, did not react, did not answer.

He remained silent for hours.

After several days of attempts, his lawyer announced that his client refused to testify and would remain silent throughout the investigation.

The investigation continued without his help.

Experts analyzed everything they found.

Notebooks, maps, photographs, fabric samples.

Gradually, a picture of how he operated began to emerge.

After leaving the park service, he did not go far.

He knew the area better than anyone.

Knew every trail, every old hut, every secluded spot.

He built or found that log cabin, camouflaged it, and began to use it as a base.

According to his notes, he chose his victims from among lone tourists who were walking on unpopular routes.

He watched them from a distance, assessed whether they were suitable, and if so, followed them, and waited for the right moment.

How exactly he took them remains unclear, but he probably used his knowledge of the area, lured them into traps, or simply attacked when the victim was vulnerable at night in a tent by the fire.

Once a person was in his power, he kept them in his hut for a while.

The records mentioned 5 days and that the material must be fresh.

Then he killed them, cut up the bodies, preserved the parts he wanted to keep, and either burned the rest or buried it somewhere in the forest.

He kept the skulls as trophies and the organs as a collection.

Why he did this remains a mystery because he himself did not explain his motives.

The investigation lasted more than a year.

Experts returned to the forest and combed the area around the hut within a radius of several kilometers.

They used dogs, ground penetrating radar, and metal detectors.

They found several places where the ground had been disturbed.

At two points, they discovered buried remains, fragments of bones, skulls, and scraps of clothing.

One of the finds was identified as the remains of David Holmes, the man who disappeared in 1998.

He was identified by his dental records.

The second remains belonged to a woman estimated to be about 30 years old, but her identity could not be established.

Neither her DNA nor her teeth matched any missing person’s case.

Perhaps no one reported her disappearance, or she was from another state, or the case never made it into the federal database.

The cabin was searched more thoroughly.

The floorboards were removed, and the walls and ceiling were checked.

Behind one of the boards on the wall, they found a narrow crack where the victim’s personal belongings were hidden.

Emily Carter’s passport, David Holmes’s driver’s license, an engraved silver bracelet, several rings, a watch, and a lighter with initials.

All of this was neatly stacked in a metal box like a collection.

There were also notes, several pieces of paper with names, dates, and brief comments.

One of them read, “Emily, August 01 talked too much, but the meat is good.” Another, “David, October 98, resisted.

Had to act quickly.

Material is average.

” It was difficult even for experienced investigators to read.

Genetic testing was performed on all samples from the freezer in Randall’s house.

Another victim was identified, a man named Kevin Marshall, who disappeared in 2004 while fishing in the Cabinet Lake area.

His family had been searching for answers for years, and now at least they had confirmation that he was dead.

The remaining samples did not match any database.

There were 11 containers in the freezer, but the identities of most of the victims remained unknown.

When all the evidence had been gathered, the case was handed over to the prosecutor’s office.

The prosecution spent several months preparing the case, piecing together all the evidence into a coherent chain.

Randall was charged with four murders.

Joshua Clayton, Emily Carter, David Holmes, and Kevin Marshall.

He was also charged with illegal possession of human remains, cannibalism, concealment of crimes, and several other counts.

Based on circumstantial evidence, investigators believed there were more victims, possibly as many as eight or 10.

But it was impossible to prove this without bodies or direct evidence.

A psychiatric examination was conducted twice because the defense tried to prove that Randall was insane.

The first commission found him sane.

He understood what he was doing, planned his actions, covered his tracks, and led a double life under a different name.

All of this indicated that he was in control of himself and aware of the illegality of his actions.

The second examination confirmed the findings of the first.

He was found fit to stand trial.

The victim’s families attended all the hearings.

Joshua Clayton’s father, who was already in his 80s, sat in the courtroom every day and looked at Randall, who never once turned in his direction.

Emily’s sister told reporters that they had lived in uncertainty for 17 years, hoping that she was alive somewhere, perhaps having lost her memory or simply decided to start a new life.

Now, that hope was gone, but at least there was clarity.

Kevin Marshall’s mother did not live to see this moment.

She died 2 years before his remains were found.

His father came to the trial alone, holding a photograph of his son.

The trial itself began in the spring of 2022.

Randall never spoke.

He sat at the defense table staring ahead, unresponsive to the testimony of witnesses, experts, and photographs of evidence.

When the judge read the charges, he did not move.

The lawyers tried to build a defense on the fact that there was no direct evidence of the murder itself, that most of the evidence was circumstantial, and that it was impossible to determine exactly who committed the crimes and when.

But the amount of evidence gathered was too great.

Fingerprints, DNA, the victim’s personal belongings, notebooks with his handwriting, photographs, maps with notes.

All of this created a picture that was impossible to dispute.

The trial lasted almost 3 months.

Every day, dozens of people were in the courtroom.

Relatives, journalists, local residents, activists.

Many wanted to understand how this could have gone on for so long.

Why no one noticed, why there were no checks.

Questions were asked of the park service, which had failed to track that the former employee continued to live on the territory and use the old huts.

The management admitted that the control system was inadequate, that after Randall’s dismissal, no one checked where he was or what he was doing.

They promised to carry out reforms, strengthen monitoring of abandoned buildings, and improve coordination with the police.

But for the victim’s families, this changed nothing.

The verdict was handed down in June.

The jury found Randall guilty on all counts.

The judge read out the sentence.

four life sentences without the possibility of parole to be served consecutively.

Formally, this meant that he would never be released.

When the verdict was announced, there were quiet sobs in the courtroom.

Joshua’s father covered his face with his hands.

His sister, Emily, hugged her husband and cried quietly.

Randall’s face remained expressionless.

He stood up when asked and allowed the guards to lead him out of the courtroom without saying a word.

After the trial, investigators officially announced that they were continuing to work on identifying the remaining victims.

Descriptions of the items found, a bracelet, rings, a watch were published in the hope that someone would recognize the belongings of their missing relatives.

Several families responded, but none of the matches were confirmed.

The eight crosses on the map remained a mystery.

Perhaps some of them were simply places Randall had planned to use but didn’t have time to.

Perhaps there were other victims that no one knew about.

Joshua Clayton never finished his book about abandoned places.

His manuscripts, which remained in his apartment in Seattle, were donated by his family to the local library archives.

They included chapters about old lighouses, abandoned logging camps, and deserted schools.

The last entry in his notebook was made the day before he left for Montana.

He wrote that he wanted to find something truly forgotten, a place that nature had completely reclaimed.

He found such a place, but it turned out to be a trap.