In August 2017, a group of hunters searching for wild donkeys in the New Mexico desert stumbled upon an old shelter half buried in sand and forgotten among the rocks.

Inside, leaning against the wall, sat two people.

Their bones were still held together as if their bodies had simply fallen asleep side by side.

But their faces, both of them, were covered with pieces of faded fabric.

A pink fragment of a sleeping bag, lay in the dust.

Later, experts confirmed that they were Billy Reeves and Linda Kelly, a couple who had disappeared 5 years earlier during a short trip to the desert.

October 2012 was unusually calm for southern New Mexico.

The air above the desert shimmerred with heat and the sky seemed bottomless, so clear that the sun found no respit anywhere.

It was during these days that Billy Reeves and Linda Kelly set off on a trip that was supposed to be a short escape from the city routine, but turned into a story that is now whispered about.

They lived in Albuquerque in a small apartment on the outskirts of the city.

Billy worked as a civil engineer and was practical and precise in everything he did from drawing up blueprints to planning weekend trips.

Linda, a young elementary school teacher, was passionate about photography and often said that the stars shine differently in the desert as if closer to the earth.

For her, this trip was a romantic adventure.

For Billy, it was another chance to show her the places he had once explored as a student.

The preparations took several days.

They bought a new map of the area, checked their equipment, and stocked up on water, canned food, and fuel for the stove.

According to a saleswoman at the store on Central Street, where the couple bought their camping gear, Billy jokingly called himself a tour guide, and Linda laughed and asked him not to forget the coffee.

That same evening, Linda called her mother and said they were only going for two days until Sunday.

She mentioned that Billy had given her a new sleeping bag, bright pink, so it wouldn’t get lost even in the sand.

That was the last call she made.

Early Saturday morning, they left home.

A camera at a gas station near the highway captured their dark blue SUV.

The gas station owner, Harry Moreno, later told the police that the couple seemed calm and cheerful.

They bought water, several energy bars, and a can of gasoline.

He asked about the road conditions to the east, and she photographed an old gas station as if it were something interesting, he recalled.

Then they disappeared.

On Monday, when Linda did not call her mother as promised, her mother contacted the police.

A few hours later, a search party found their car in a parking lot at the start of the trail leading to Santa Fe Canyon.

The car was locked.

Inside were wallets with cash, IDs, cell phones, a change of clothes, and food.

There were no signs of a struggle or haste.

The keys were in the glove compartment, as if they were about to return at any moment.

Investigators immediately ruled out the possibility of an escape or a staged disappearance.

There was no evidence that the couple had planned to disappear.

It looked as if they had simply walked toward the canyon and never returned.

The search operation began the next day.

National Park rangers and volunteers combed the desert using quadcopters and service dogs.

According to Officer Edward Mendoza, the dogs confidently picked up the trail from the campsite, but lost it less than half a mile away.

The tracks led off the main trail and then suddenly disappeared as if they had been cut off.

There weren’t even any shoe prints in the sand, Mendoza noted in his report.

A helicopter flew over the area for several days in a row.

Searchers found many similar canyons, dry rivereds, and stone terraces where even an experienced traveler could easily get lost.

But there was not a single item belonging to the couple.

Not a trace of a campfire, a piece of cloth, or even food packaging.

Three main versions were considered.

The first was disorientation.

Although Billy knew the area well, the desert quickly changes its appearance.

After sunset, the landscape becomes monotonous and landmarks disappear.

Perhaps they lost their way and went deeper into the desert.

The second was an accident.

They could have fallen into a crevice or become exhausted from the heat.

But as the rescuers pointed out, in such cases, items are always left behind.

A backpack, a camera, or at least a piece of equipment.

The third is criminal.

However, the police found no evidence of violence.

There were no reports of suspicious persons, and the couple had no enemies.

The investigation lasted 3 weeks.

Every day the temperature exceeded 90° Fahrenheit during the day and dropped sharply at night.

In such conditions, it is difficult to survive even a few days without water.

But even the bodies, the main evidence of the tragedy, were not found in the desert.

In the fourth week of the search, the head of the operation, Captain Lawrence Becker, announced a temporary suspension of active operations.

We’ve covered everything within a 20 m radius.

If they’re still there, nature has hidden them very well, he told reporters.

For the Reeves and Kelly families, this was the beginning of many long years of waiting.

Linda’s mother did not miss a single anniversary of their disappearance, sending candles and flowers to the park.

Billy’s friends from work set up a small website with photos of the couple and a map of the area where they were last seen.

Volunteers returned to the canyon from time to time, but to no avail.

Local residents began to call the area the path of no return.

Tourists reported hearing strange sounds at night, as if someone were walking among the rocks.

Others saw an old pink piece of fabric that the wind seemed to carry along the bed of a dry creek.

The police did not confirm any of these testimonies, but the story became firmly rooted in local legends.

A few months later, the case of Billy Reeves and Linda Kelly was officially classified as missing under mysterious circumstances.

The police database contained a dry note.

Last contact, October 20th, 2012.

But for those who were looking for them, it was not a date, but a boundary between the past, where something could still be changed, and the future, which no longer held any promise.

August 2017.

In the southern part of the Chihuahua Desert, the heat was so intense that even the wind felt hot.

The sun scorched everything around, and only occasionally did thorny bushes sprout from among the gray rocks.

Human feet rarely tread in these places, too far from the main roads, too even for adventure seekers.

It was here that three mule hunters who had set out on a multi-day raid stumbled upon an old shelter that even local geologists did not know existed.

According to one of them, Luis Garcia, the structure stood on a hill among the rocks, half buried in sand with cracks in the walls and almost no roof.

“We thought it was an old ranch or a miner’s hut,” he recalled in a conversation with reporters.

The door wouldn’t open, so I looked through the window.

What they saw made the men retreat.

Inside, in the shadows, sat two people, motionless, leaning against the wall.

They seemed to be asleep until it became clear that they were just bones held together by time.

The hunters did not immediately understand what they were looking at.

At first, they thought they were homeless people who had died from the heat.

But the silence, the absence of any signs of life, and the strange posture of the bodies were horrifying.

One of the men, Juan Mendez, admitted that at first he couldn’t even dial the emergency number.

His hands were shaking.

Only when the others were convinced that there were indeed human remains inside did they call the sheriffs from the nearest county of Dogga.

Two local officers were the first to arrive at the scene.

They described the shelter as a narrow concrete building with no doors and a window without glass through which light was coming in.

Inside there was a dry smell of dust and bone powder and nearby were two skeletons leaning against the wall.

The most disturbing detail was that both faces were covered with pieces of fabric.

One was a dark blue shirt, the other a gray sweater.

The fabric was partially preserved, but its placement left no doubt.

Someone had deliberately placed it on their heads after death.

Next to the remains lay the remains of a pink sleeping bag and a damaged backpack with torn straps.

The faded manufacturer’s logo was still visible on it.

Next to the backpack was an empty but closed water bottle, several rusty can lids, and the remains of plastic packaging.

Nothing had been looted and there were no signs of outside intrusion.

A temporary perimeter was quickly established at the site.

A forensic team from Santa Fe County was called in.

Detective Alejandro Ramirez, the same one who had once led the search for Billy Reeves and Linda Kelly, arrived with them.

When his car stopped near the stone hut, he got out silently.

Colleagues recalled that the detective stood at a distance for a long time, staring at the structure as if he couldn’t believe that the desert had finally given back what it had taken 5 years ago.

The experts began their work before sunset.

Every inch of the building was recorded in photos and videos.

The skeletons were not moved until the coroner gave official permission.

According to preliminary analysis, they belonged to a man and a woman.

There were no signs of violence, no broken bones, fractured skulls, or signs of a struggle.

It seemed that both had simply sat down by the wall and never got up again.

But the fabric on their faces changed everything.

The forensic scientist working at the scene noted in the report, “The fabric was placed carefully without knots or ties.

This is not an accidental fall of clothing, rather a deliberate act.

This fact immediately shifted the discovery from the category of death from natural causes to possible murder.

No traces were found around the hut.

The sand, which moves during storms, erased everything that could have once led to the shelter.

Experienced trackers noted that the road here was extremely difficult.

Even in its current state, it was only possible to get here by SUV and then walk almost a mile between the rocks.

So, the question of how two people ended up here, alive or dead, remained unanswered.

Inside the shelter, several old items were found.

A collapsed metal shelf, pieces of rusty wire, and an empty tin can, which was probably used as a candlestick.

On the wall closer to the ceiling, someone had once written the word help with a charred stick, but experts were unable to determine when exactly this inscription appeared.

The officers involved in the investigation described the atmosphere of the place as frozen.

It was so quiet inside that even the sound of a camera seemed out of place.

One of the technicians who examined the find later said it seemed as if the two were still waiting to be found.

After the initial documentation was completed, the bodies were carefully transferred to special bags.

Each skeleton was placed separately under the supervision of an expert.

The material covering the heads was removed with gloves and immediately packed into sealed containers for further examination.

Each item was given its own number.

It was already getting dark outside when two black morg vehicles left the scene.

Detective Ramirez stayed at the shelter for a few more minutes.

behind him.

The wind stirred the sand, erasing the fresh traces of people and tires.

A brief message came over the radio.

Confirmation found, probably the same ones.

For the locals, this was the end of the legend of the path of no return.

But for the police, it was only the beginning of a new case.

In Ramirez’s report submitted the next morning, there was a line.

Both individuals, according to preliminary evidence, died in isolated conditions.

The cause of death is unknown.

External influence has been established.

Possible intentional abandonment.

And among all the evidence recorded, it was the cloth placed over the face that remained the main mystery.

There was something deeper than a simple gesture in it, as if someone was trying to hide not the bodies, but the gaze.

Several days passed after the desert shelter was placed under guard.

The remains of the man and woman were taken to the New Mexico State Forensic Science and Medical Laboratory in Santa Fe.

For most of the staff, it was just another case.

But for Detective Ramirez, it was a continuation of a story that had haunted him for 5 years.

The identification process began in the morning.

The bones laid out on metal tables and marked with letters and numbers were carefully cleaned of sand.

Anthropologists determined that the man was about 30 years old and the woman was 25.

The structure of the skulls was identical to the data in the medical records of Billy Reeves and Linda Kelly.

Final confirmation came from dental records preserved in the archives of a clinic in Albuquerque.

A few days later, DNA analysis officially confirmed the conclusion.

The news was communicated to the families by telephone and in writing.

For Linda’s parents, it was the final blow.

They admitted that deep down they were still hoping for a miracle.

Billy’s mother declined to comment, telling reporters only, “At least now we know.” For the detective, these words meant the end of the search, but not the end of the questions.

Forensic expert Dr.

Helen Rose conducted the autopsy.

Due to the complete decomposition of the soft tissues, it was impossible to determine the exact cause of death.

However, the bones told a story that the desert could not erase.

Linda’s skeleton showed multiple small fractures in the bones of her feet, characteristic of prolonged walking on hard rock ground without rest.

These injuries occur when a person walks many miles in a state of exhaustion.

The expert’s conclusion was clear.

The woman had been walking for a long time, possibly under duress or in search of a way out, already exhausted.

There were no similar injuries on Billy’s bones.

His body was better preserved with no signs of fractures, wounds, or blows to the joints.

This ruled out sudden violence.

No traces of gunshots or stab wounds were found either.

These findings indicated that the deaths of both individuals were not caused by physical impact, but by external circumstances, most likely dehydration.

Pieces of fabric found on their faces were examined separately.

They were dried and the fibers and dust residues were analyzed.

The results of the analysis were surprising.

They were the couple’s own belongings.

Billy’s shirt and Linda’s sweater.

Microtraces of sand were found on the fabric which had settled after death.

So, the experts concluded that the fabric had been placed after the bodies were already immobile.

The forensic report states, “The position of the items is not accidental.

The purpose is to hide the face or cover the eyes.” The examination of the items provided several more clues.

Empty plastic water containers were found near the bodies, all closed with lids and with no traces of moisture inside.

This meant that the water had run out long before death.

Several cans with food leftovers were found nearby.

The cans had been opened carefully with no signs of forced entry.

All the waste was piled in one corner of the shelter as if someone had tried to keep things tidy.

There were no signs of panic or struggle.

Traces of small cuts were found on the surface of Billy’s backpack as if the straps had been cut with a knife.

But the knife itself, like the flashlight and first aid kit, was not among the belongings.

These missing items became the first big mystery.

Why were they taken and who did it? Laboratory experts analyzed the dust from the floor of the shelter.

The dust consisted of a mixture of quartz, micica, and gypsum fragments, typical for this region.

But something else had settled in the upper layers.

Tiny particles of soot as if a fire had once been lit in the hut, even though there was no stove or chimney in the room.

This gave reason to believe that people had been there for several days and had tried to keep warm or create a signal.

Detective Ramirez looked through the photos of the discovery in a circle.

Each one showed the same scene.

Two people side by side, cloth over their faces, their belongings nearby.

He looked closely at the details, the position of their hands, the angle of their bodies, even the shadows left by the sun through the ruined roof.

The way they sat seemed unnaturally calm, as if they had accepted the end.

Based on all the data, the experts reconstructed the scene.

The couple, who had disappeared 5 years ago, did not end up in the old shelter by accident.

They were either brought there or forced to go.

They spent several days there, gradually losing strength without water.

There were no signs of resistance.

Money, documents, personal belongings, everything remained with them.

This ruled out robbery.

There was no motive for revenge either.

According to police records, the couple had no enemies.

So, someone didn’t just take their lives, but did it differently, leaving them alone in the desert, knowing they wouldn’t make it out.

This way of dying doesn’t need a weapon, just cold calculation.

This thought struck Ramirez the most.

In his internal report, he formulated a new version.

Both victims did not enter the shelter voluntarily.

They could have been accompanied or forced to stay.

Death was caused by prolonged exposure to environmental factors, heat, dehydration, exhaustion.

The absence of violent injuries, and the presence of personal belongings indicate that they were deliberately left in isolation.

The last point in the report was a detail that could not be explained.

The cloth.

None of the experts could logically explain why it was placed over the faces of the dead.

Some considered it a sign of pity, others an element of a ritual common among residents of the southern states when the deceased’s eyes are closed so that they do not look at the world of the living.

But who made this gesture in a lonely shelter in the middle of the desert remained unknown? The detective looked long and hard at the enlarged photo from the scene where the edge of a pink sleeping bag was visible in the shadows.

“She didn’t die at the hands of a murderer,” he later told a colleague.

“She was simply doomed.” “And perhaps it was this difference between murder and abandonment that was the key to who did it.” Several weeks had passed since the bodies of Billy Reeves and Linda Kelly had been officially identified.

The case was officially reclassified from missing to unlawful imprisonment resulting in death.

For Detective Alejandro Ramirez, this meant one thing, starting over, this time without assumptions.

In August, he and two officers traveled to the area around Santa Fe Canyon where the couple disappeared 5 years ago.

They visited small towns, farms, gas stations, and motel.

Many had already forgotten about the story, but with the new circumstances, the conversation took a different turn.

Now, it was not just an investigation into missing persons.

It was a murder.

And the main lead that emerged after reanalyzing the evidence concerned a white van that several people had mentioned back in 2012.

Police reports mentioned that at that time, not far from the parking lot where Rivs’s car was found, someone had seen an old van without license plates.

No importance was attached to this.

There is a lot of abandoned equipment in the desert.

Now, however, this clue became central.

Ramirez ordered a check of traffic violation archives and traffic inspection reports for that year.

Several records of violations were found that mentioned a white van, but they all concerned other areas.

The detective understood that real evidence often lies not in official reports, but in the memories of those whom no one listened to.

A few days after the rein began, a woman named Grace Copeland contacted the police.

She worked as a saleswoman in a small grocery store on the highway between Gallup and Carlsbad.

Her testimony was what moved the case forward.

Grace recalled that about a week before the couple disappeared, an old white van had stopped at the store.

She noticed it because the driver bought an unusually large amount of water and canned food, paid for everything in cash, and didn’t say a word.

“He looked right through people,” she told the detective, as if he wasn’t really there.

According to her, the man had a thick gray beard, wore a camouflage jacket, and a worn hat with a wide brim.

He could have been around 60.

An important detail was something she only mentioned at the end.

In the front seat of the van was an old map of the desert, all wrinkled and stained.

“I thought he was a hunter or a geologist,” the woman explained.

“But there was something disturbing about him.” With this description, Ramirez contacted the state’s vehicle search department.

A request was sent out for all registered vans of the corresponding type, and the owners were checked one by one.

However, each check ended in a dead end.

Some owners had long since died, while others had confirmed alibis.

At the same time, the police began checking archived photos from highway surveillance cameras stored by private companies.

It was a long and tedious task.

Old images, blurred license plates, dust, and desert shadows made it impossible to find a clear match.

Ramirez returned to the maps and reports reviewing them in a circle.

On one of the old documents, he noticed a record from 2013, a complaint filed by a hunter with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department.

The man reported that he had come across a broken down white van standing in the middle of a dry riverbed deep in the desert.

The complaint was deemed irrelevant at the time.

The vehicle posed no danger, so it was not evacuated.

This detail seemed too important for the detective to ignore.

He obtained a copy of the report which included the approximate coordinates of the location.

Ramirez immediately organized a small expedition.

In September, when the heat had subsided a little, three SUVs set off east of the old road.

The terrain was almost inaccessible to ordinary vehicles.

Loose sand, washed out riverbeds, and rocks that looked the same from all sides.

After several hours of searching, they saw a metallic glint among the dry bushes.

In front of them stood a van.

Its white color had faded to gray.

The body was covered with rust and the tires were flat and cracked.

There were no license plates.

The windows were broken and the doors were wide open.

Inside it was empty.

The interior was dusty but not destroyed.

On the floor lay a broken plastic canister, several rusty cans, and an old tarpollen rolled up in the corner.

The experts examined the vehicle carefully, avoiding unnecessary contact.

Fragments of fingerprints remained on the metal parts, but time and heat had done their work.

Most of them had been erased.

On the floor under the driver’s seat, they found a piece of rope similar to the kind often used to secure luggage and remnants of fabric, white fibers resembling linen.

One of the officers at the scene later told reporters the van was parked as if it had been abandoned in a hurry, but it’s strange that nothing was broken and there were no signs that anyone had searched inside.

It looked like it had been frozen in time.

Detective Ramirez carefully examined the interior.

Handprints were preserved on the dashboard under a layer of dust.

There were shoe prints on the rear door.

All this indicated that the vehicle had been used for a long time, possibly as a mobile shelter.

After a detailed inspection, the van was documented and it was decided not to transported immediately.

The site became part of the new perimeter of the investigation.

One thing was clear, the car had been here for many years, and whoever had been using it had either died in the desert or was still hiding somewhere nearby.

In his report, Ramirez noted briefly, “A vehicle has been found that matches the description in the testimony, presumably belongs to a person who had contact with the victims.

No direct evidence inside, but the nature of the abandonment indicates deliberate concealment.

When the expedition set off back, the sun was already setting.

The desert around them remained as silent as it had been 5 years ago when it first swallowed Billy and Linda.

But this time it had returned another fragment of their story.

A rusty van that could be the key to the person who considered himself the master of this land.

A few days after the van was found, the expedition returned to the desert.

This time with forensic scientists, soil experts, and an anthropologist.

The task was simple on paper.

Examine the vehicle and find any evidence that would help determine who had been using it.

Detective Alejandro Ramirez personally led the team.

His report written that same day began with the words, “This van is not just a vehicle.

It is someone’s home, someone’s sanctuary, and perhaps someone’s truth.” The van was still where it had been left, in the middle of the dry bed of an old river among rocks that protected it from the wind.

Inside, it smelled of dust and metal.

The floor was covered with a thick layer of sand that had blown in through the broken windows.

The forensic experts worked slowly, almost ritually.

They brushed away the sand with brushes and photographed every detail.

Everything was recorded, even things that seemed insignificant.

At first glance, the van was empty, but a careful examination revealed some strange findings.

Several bright pink fibers were found in a crack in the old seat.

They seemed insignificant, but when the samples were compared with material from items found in the shelter, the match was complete.

It was the same synthetic fiber material used to make Linda Kelly’s sleeping bag.

In the glove compartment was a crumpled map of New Mexico covered in stains and tears.

Some places were marked in pencil, especially an area with no marked roads where there were no tourist routes or settlements.

Ramirez ordered the coordinates to be transferred to the map and the area to be checked.

In addition to the map, a metal helmet, a pickaxe with a broken handle, and several empty tin cans were found in the cabin.

All of this pointed to a person who was familiar with hard physical labor.

In the dust on the floor, they found footprints, old, worn, but identical in shape with wide treads typical of work boots.

No hair or blood that could identify the owner remained.

On the rear door of the van, forensic experts found scratches resembling numbers or symbols made with a knife.

Some of them resembled letters, others chaotic lines.

They were recorded, but their meaning remained unclear.

The next day, the search team set off in the direction marked on the map.

They made their way through the rocks, where even the wind seemed old.

A few hundred meters from the van, in a natural depression among the rocks, they came across traces of a camp.

The sand under their feet was compacted, and there were scorched traces of soot on the rocks.

There, under a stone canopy, stood what had once been a home.

a makeshift canopy made of tarpollen tied with ropes to the rocks, a pile of empty water bottles, the charred remains of a campfire.

Nearby was a box of nails, several rusty tin cans, and an old bag used to store trash.

At first glance, it was clear that people had lived here for a long time, not a few days, months, maybe years.

Someone had attached newspaper clippings to one of the rocks under the canopy.

They were held in place by stones wedged into the cracks.

The clippings were about government projects, exploration of mineral resources, construction of roads and aqueducts.

One article was titled new water pipeline to connect the south of the state with industrial areas.

The date was 2011.

Someone had written a note in pencil in the margins of the newspaper.

They’re lying.

They’re digging deeper.

Several sheets of paper were found under a large rock wrapped in a plastic bag.

They did not contain text, but rather chaotic notes, diagrams, arrows, and symbols.

Among them, several phrases stood out, written more clearly than the others.

Don’t touch my land.

They are all spies.

Purification by fire.

The handwriting was nervous.

The letters were of different sizes, sometimes merging into one another.

Experts noted that these notes resembled those of a person with mental disorders, possibly of a paranoid type.

One of the sheets had a primitive map of the surrounding area drawn on it, with several places marked with crosses.

In particular, the shelter where Billy and Linda were found.

Next to the ruins were work tools, a pickaxe, a shovel, and a helmet.

All of them showed signs of wear, but had no markings or serial numbers.

They looked as if they had been used everyday.

This suggested that the owner had a past connected with construction or the mining industry.

When the experts laid out all the findings on a makeshift table, the picture began to come together.

Someone had been living here, hiding from people, convinced that the desert belonged to him.

This person kept watch over the surrounding areas, gathering information about any work being done nearby.

Newspaper clippings and maps were evidence of intrusion to him.

Detective Ramirez wrote in his report that the place made a strange impression, both planned and chaotic.

Every item was placed deliberately, but everything around it exuded instability.

This is not just a hideout, he noted.

It’s a trench.

He was preparing for a war that only he could see.

Analysis of the materials allowed them to compile a psychological profile of the owner, an older man with construction experience, lonely with deep signs of distrust of the authorities.

Probably a paranoid who believed that the government was planning to destroy his land or take away the desert’s resources.

For him, any stranger was an enemy.

In this logic, Billy, a civil engineer, could have become the embodiment of a threat, a scout sent to survey the territory.

And Linda, with her camera, his assistant.

If this person really did meet them in the desert, he did not see tourists in front of him.

He saw an invasion.

The phrases in the homemade diary were like a cry from within.

They walk with lanterns.

Don’t look into their eyes.

It all sounded like a mixture of fear and anger.

And among these pages, there was not a single word of remorse.

Ramirez stood by a rock where an old tarpollen swayed in the wind, holding the found sheets of paper in his hands.

He understood that he was not dealing with just a murderer.

This was a person who had created his own world, where every outsider was an enemy, and every step in the sand was evidence of a conspiracy.

The last line of his report sounded dry and emotionless.

The person who was in the camp is probably still alive, may consider himself the guardian of the territory, potentially dangerous.

Several weeks had passed since the team of forensic experts had completed their examination of the camp among the rocks.

All the items found had been sent to the state public safety department’s laboratory.

Among them was a pickaxe on the handle of which experts noticed a barely visible imprint of letters.

Under a layer of rust was the logo of Western Construct Incorporated.

This construction company had been involved in the construction of the aqueduct mentioned in the newspaper clippings found in the camp.

It was this detail almost imperceptible that became the first clue to the name of the person who could have lived in the desert for years.

Together with forensic experts, Detective Alejandro Ramirez set about checking the company’s archive documents.

Requests to the city’s labor department yielded a list of employees who had participated in the construction project from 2010 to 2013.

Among the hundreds of names, one immediately caught the eye.

Ronald Greer, a surveyor who was fired in 2012 for aggressive behavior and failure to follow management orders.

An official memo noted that after his dismissal, Greer refused to return his work equipment, maps of the area, and measuring instruments.

Management decided not to file a lawsuit, believing that he was simply mentally exhausted.

Copies of official reports were also kept in the company’s archives.

One of them contained a complaint from a colleague who wrote that Greer had become obsessed and often expressed the belief that the aqueduct project had nothing to do with water supply.

According to him, a secret military facility was being built underground.

When the project manager, Jeremy Carter, tried to convince him that it was just routine engineering work, Greer called him a traitor and publicly accused him of conspiring with the government.

A few weeks after the incident, he was fired.

Carter’s name reappeared in the records found at the camp.

In a homemade diary, it was circled several times in thick pencil.

Next to it were the words, “He sent them and traitor.” After receiving this information, Ramirez turned to the driver’s license database.

The photo that appeared on the screen matched the eyewitness descriptions.

a middle-aged man with a thick gray beard, deep set eyes, a weatherbeaten face, and hard features.

The photo was dated 2011, the very time when the construction of the aqueduct was in full swing.

Ronald Greer was born and raised in Nevada.

A surveyor by profession, he had an impeccable reputation until his last years of work.

He was not married.

After his dismissal, he sold his small house in Carson City, withdrew cash from his bank account, and disappeared.

His sister, his only living relative, said during a brief phone conversation that her brother was always withdrawn and stubborn.

She added that she last saw him more than 10 years ago when he came to pick up an old field map that their father, a builder, had once used.

Detectives made contact with two former employees of Western Construct.

One of them, Larry Andrews, who managed the technical team, confirmed that Greer was a man of the system until he started talking about underground passages and secret sensors.

According to him, the engineer changed dramatically after one of the workers died during the work.

Since then, he refused to work near the equipment, claiming that it emitted signals.

His colleagues initially joked about it, but then began to avoid him.

Another former employee, technician Jonathan Hayes, said that Greer came to the construction site several times after he was fired.

He stood at the gate, demanded to see Carter, and shouted that they are destroying the earth, and that the desert will not forgive.

The police were not called at the time.

Security simply escorted him off the premises.

The security log contains the following entry.

August 20th, 2012, Greer came again, threatened to set fire to the equipment, said that we were all under surveillance.

When Ramirez reread the reports, he noticed the same rhetoric in them as in the camp records.

The phrases were almost identical.

They are taking the land.

They are watching us.

They must disappear.

All this painted a picture of a man who had gradually lost touch with reality.

An analysis of the sheets found in the camp confirmed this hypothesis.

Experts determined that the handwriting belonged to an older man with a tremor in his hand.

Many letters and symbols were repeated from his signatures on work documents.

The comparison matched.

It was indeed Ronald Greer.

The investigation revealed that after his disappearance, Greer had lived for several years in remote areas of New Mexico, moving between abandoned mines and mountain valleys.

One of the local farmers later recalled seeing a man with a white van who traded scrap metal for water and fuel.

He described him as an old man who doesn’t look people in the eye.

For the detective, everything fell into place.

Greer, fired and embittered, left civilization, settled in the desert, which he considered his own territory, and turned his paranoia into an ideology.

In his twisted vision, Billy Reeves and Linda Kelly became enemies sent by Jeremy Carter, the same man who had once humiliated him.

Billy, a builder by trade, seemed to be a scout, and Linda, an assistant with a camera.

Psychiatric experts called in to analyze the notes concluded that the author of these notes probably suffered from persecutor delusional disorder.

In his mind, the line between the past and the present had blurred.

He continued to defend the desert from imaginary enemies.

Detective Ramirez looked long and hard at the photo from the database in which Greer was looking straight into the camera.

His eyes seemed empty but focused like those of a person who is convinced of his own righteousness.

In the police report, Ramirez wrote briefly, “Person connected to the crime identified.

Ronald Greer, former surveyor for Western Construct, probable motive, delusional belief in a conspiracy against him, potentially armed, high level of survival skills.

may consider his actions an act of self-defense.

For the first time in 5 years, a name appeared in the case.

And this name did not belong to a random traveler or an unknown criminal.

It came from the past where it all began.

The fall of 2017 was dry and stifling.

Dust hung over the desert, rising in the morning with the slightest breath of wind and hanging in the air in the evening, mixing with the hot twilight.

That was when what the Department of Homeland Security officially called the search for a particularly dangerous recluse began.

For Detective Alejandro Ramirez, it was more than just an operation.

He was looking for a man who had been hiding in plain sight for 5 years.

Everything that could be mobilized within the state was brought in to help with the search.

Rangers, local police, volunteers, even an aviation team with thermal imaging.

The search area covered 50 m around the site where Greer’s camp was found.

It was a vast, almost endless territory.

Canyons, dry riverbeds, rocky plains where even landmarks seemed elucory.

Ramirez directed the search from a field headquarters set up in the middle of the desert.

On the tables lay maps marked with red and blue marks, each representing a day’s work, a square combed through or a trace found.

In the early days of the expedition, everything went according to plan.

The group slowly advanced, examining caves, abandoned ranches, and ruined water towers.

On the third day, the first traces appeared.

12 mi from the camp, fresh burn marks were found.

The scorched stones were still hot.

Nearby lay a tin can and a plastic bag of rice.

According to experts, it looked as if someone had left the place less than a day ago.

Footprints led to a mountain spur, but after a few hundred meters, they disappeared in the sand.

The next day, another group stumbled upon a hiding place among the rocks.

There, in a hollow, were neatly stacked bottles of water, several empty canisters, and bags of dried meat.

On a rock near the entrance was a stone tower shaped like an arrow pointing north.

Such signal markers are used by those who know the area well.

For Ramirez, this was confirmation.

Greer was not just surviving in the desert.

He was living there by his own rules.

A week later, the search led to an abandoned ranch near a dry well.

Inside the barn, they found the remains of an old bed, several newspapers, and charred sheets of paper.

The newspapers were fresher than those in the camp dated the current year.

The articles were about the construction of a new tourist route near the search area.

In some places, the newspapers had pencil inscriptions.

They’re back.

They’re opening doors that should have been locked.

This meant that Greer was still following events and remained in his paranoid world.

Among the items in the shed, they also found several rappers from food bars and a pack of used batteries.

Evidence that he had electronic devices, possibly an old radio or flashlight.

Several plastic bottles of water, only half full, were neatly arranged on the shelves.

This distribution of supplies indicated a person who knew exactly how long he could survive without reinforcements.

On the fifth day of the operation, one of the tracking teams came across a new trail, clear bootprints leading west.

They followed them for over 3 hours until the ground changed to a rocky surface.

Then nothing.

The track simply disappeared.

Tracking experts said this was a typical tactic of an experienced traveler.

He deliberately chose hard ground to confuse his pursuers.

“He knows we’re after him,” one of the rangers said at the time.

“And he’s playing with us.” That same night, a police camp guard reported a strange sighting.

According to him, during his shift, he saw a human figure on a rock rising above the camp.

It stood motionless for several minutes, illuminated by the moon.

When he raised his binoculars, the figure disappeared.

The next morning, the group climbed the rock and indeed found fresh bootprints.

All of them matched the size and pattern of the soles of the boots they had found earlier.

Ramirez had no doubt Greer was watching them.

He knew where they were and was probably moving in a circle around the main perimeter.

In a later interview, he admitted, “It felt like we were hunting a ghost, but the ghost was breathing right next to us.

” Days passed and the search yielded no results.

The desert, which at first seemed silent, began to affect people.

The same temperature, the same colors, the deafening wind that erased all traces.

Every morning the maps were covered with new dots and in the evening they had to be crossed out.

Survival experts involved in the operation explained that a person who has lived in the desert for years has an advantage over any pursuer.

They know where to find water, how to move so as to leave a minimum of traces, and how to listen to the space.

There was almost nothing left of Greer except for indirect signs.

the smell of smoke, pieces of ash, scratches on stones, scattered stone pyramids marking routes.

At the end of November, the search was officially extended for another 2 weeks.

All known caves, old mines, and water intakes were searched, but not a single living soul was found.

In the last few days, a helicopter with a thermal imager flew over the desert at night.

Once the thermal imager detected a faint source of heat among the rocks, but when ground teams arrived there, only ashes remained from the fire.

At headquarters, there was a map torn from pins and marks.

Each line represented a day of work.

Each circle a place where Greer could be found, but all these points remained dead.

Ramirez stood over the map and watched as the rangers removed the marks one by one.

The desert had once again become an empty space where anything could be hidden, even a person.

In his official report, he wrote, “The subject has probably not left the state, able to move around at night, has a system of hiding places and supplies, navigates using natural landmarks, high level of adaptability.

After several weeks of fruitless searching, the official part of the operation was suspended.

But for the detective, that didn’t mean it was over.

Greer continued to exist somewhere nearby in the endless silence.

He didn’t run away.

He just disappeared into the environment he considered his home.

And then Ramirez thought for the first time that to find a person living in the desert, you had to stop thinking like a cop and start thinking like someone who sees the sand not as endlessness, but as shelter.

Several years have passed since the federal archives added a new line to the case number that began with the abbreviation for the state of New Mexico.

Formally, it remained open, but the active search was stopped.

The report stated, “Ronald Greer is wanted.

He is likely living in seclusion or has died of natural causes.

” This phrase became the official end to a story that had no real ending.

After the last operation in the desert, no new clues emerged.

All soil samples, tissue remnants, and prints found in the search area were examined and stored in the department’s archives.

They provided no answers, only confirming that someone had indeed lived there for a long time among the sand and rocks and had disappeared as quietly as they had lived.

Detective Alejandro Ramirez retired 2 years after the active phase of the investigation was closed.

His colleagues said he never came to terms with not finding Greer.

In his apartment on the southern outskirts of El Paso, there were boxes of files, newspaper clippings, and photographs showing the shelter, the van, and the camp among the rocks.

Sometimes he would return to them, laying out the materials on the table as if he were preparing to go back to the desert.

In private conversations, he admitted, “If he’s alive, he can see us from there, and maybe he’s smiling.” The families of Billy Reeves and Linda Kelly, having received the remains of their children, held a funeral in Albuquerque.

The ceremony was modest, attended only by the closest relatives.

The words, “Together even after the road,” were engraved on the tombstone.

A few months later, the parents created a small charitable foundation that funds educational programs for tourists and rescue services.

The goal is to prevent disappearances in wild areas.

For them, it was a way to make sense of what had happened.

As for Ron Greer, he was never found.

He is still listed as extremely dangerous in FBI databases.

In the years since his disappearance, there have been several reports from travelers and rangers who claimed to have seen a lone bearded man in the desert.

Some said he lived in an old mine, others that he slept among the rocks and left strange marks on the stones.

Each time the checks yielded nothing.

Every trace disappeared into the dust just like its owner.

Some locals believe that Greer died during the search and that his body has long been buried under the sand.

Others insist that he simply moved on to the uninhabited areas on the border with Arizona, where it is still possible to disappear forever.

It is unknown whether his grave exists, but the desert never lacks space for those who want to become part of its silence.

Journalists have returned to this story several times, calling it the case of the couple with covered faces.

For some, it is just another criminal mystery.

For others, a reminder of how easily a person can disappear in a world that seems boundless.

One phrase is repeated in every report.

The desert remembers everything, but speaks only with the wind.

Over the years, the shelter where Billy and Linda were found has been completely buried by sand.

Its concrete walls have cracked and the roof has collapsed.

Tourist maps do not mark this place, but sometimes explorers who accidentally come across old landmarks find remnants.

A piece of metal, a rusty door hinge, a piece of fabric that still retains its color.

None of them can explain why there is a silence there that muffles even footsteps.

A few miles to the north, among the rocky outcrops, the wind scatters the remains of Greer’s camp.

The old tarpollen has turned to dust and metal objects have become embedded in the ground.

Nature is gradually absorbing what was once evidence of his existence.

Only a few stone pyramids remain in place, signal markers pointing into the void.

Every year, the Department of Public Safety updates its reports on unsolved cases.

In the Southwest region section, the case of Billy Reeves and Linda Kelly is listed among those marked as suspended.

According to procedure, it can only be reopened if new evidence is found, but there is none.

The wind erases everything faster than people can find it.

For the detective who once sought the truth among the rocks, this story remains a personal defeat.

But he knows that some cases have no ending.

They simply fade into silence.

The same silence as the desert that absorbs every sound.

And somewhere out there among the endless waves of sand, perhaps there is still a bearded man who once called himself the guardian of his land.

He no longer hides.

He simply lives as part of this landscape where there is no crime, no punishment, only silent existence.

In the federal archives, the case is marked suspended.

But for those who have seen this desert, it will never be closed.

Because where the wind erases traces in a few hours and stones keep secrets for centuries, the past does not disappear.