In midepptember 2013, 30-year-old Leah Robinson and 24year-old Jerry Fletcher crossed the Yellowstone Parkway checkpoint at an 11:40.

They had planned a short trip but disappeared without a trace into the wilderness.

Over a year later, in October 2014, hydraologists came across an abandoned shelter in the middle of the forest.

Inside, they found Leah, feral, exhausted, in rags.

She did not want to be rescued.

She was sitting in the dark, stroking a human skull, lying on her lap, and whispering gently to it.

You will find out what happened on the mountain ridge and why she turned her beloved into a doll in this video.

The events in this story are presented as a narrative interpretation.

Some elements have been altered or recreated for storytelling purposes.

On September 14th, 2013, when the Wyoming autumn sun was still deceptively warm, but the nights were already turning icy, a dark gray Ford Escape crossover pulled up to the northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

30-year-old architect Jerry Fletcher was driving and his girlfriend, 24year-old graphic designer Leah Robinson was in the passenger seat.

Surveillance cameras at a checkpoint near Cook City, recorded their entry at exactly 11:40.

The footage shows Jerry holding out his hand with a pass to a ranger while Leah, hiding her eyes behind sunglasses, searches for something in the glove compartment.

It was the last documented moment they were seen together alive.

The couple was heading deeper into the reserve to the remote Lamar Valley, often referred to as the American Serengeti because of its abundance of wildlife.

According to later testimony from car rental workers in Bosezeman, Jerry rented a car for a week, planning to return it on September 21st.

In the trunk was professional camping equipment, a tent, sleeping bags designed for sub-zero temperatures, and a gas burner.

They did not look like amateurs.

This had to be a planned trip.

Their destination was Slow Creek Campground, an isolated spot far from the park’s main tourist arteries.

This place attracts those looking for absolute silence and the opportunity to observe wolves in the wild.

According to the park’s electronic database, Jerry and Leah had not booked a specific place to spend the night in advance, which is allowed in the low season.

However, their plan was more ambitious than a simple picnic.

A map they found later indicated that they were going to hike the challenging Specimen Ridge Trail, a trail that stretches 17 mi along a ridge known for its petrified trees and open windy plateaus.

The alarm was raised only 5 days later.

On September 19th, during a routine patrol of the area, Ranger Michael Thorne spotted a familiar gray crossover on a gravel lot near the beginning of the Specimen Ridge Trail.

The vehicle was covered in a layer of dust and fallen leaves, indicating that it had been parked there for at least a few days.

A check of the license plates confirmed that the lease had expired and the owners had not been in touch.

Inspection of the car raised more questions than answers.

The car was locked with a central lock.

When the rangers opened it, the inside was in perfect order.

On the back seat were packed bottles of water that would last for a week.

In the center console, hidden from the direct sun, were two cell phones, Jerry’s iPhone, and Leah’s Samsung.

Their wallets with cash, credit cards, and driver’s licenses were found nearby.

Leaving communication devices, and documents in the car before embarking on a challenging 17-mi route in a wilderness area where grizzly bears are found seemed absurd and violated all safety rules.

There was a printed map of the park on the passenger seat.

on it.

A red marker circled the specimen ridge area and a bold cross stood at one of the high points about 4 miles from the trail head.

This was the only clue.

The search operation began on September 20th at 6:00 in the morning.

It became one of the largest in the park that year.

More than 50 volunteers and professional rescuers lined up in a chain combing every square foot of the area along the Lamar River.

A helicopter equipped with a thermal imaging camera was sent into the sky and circled the deep ravines and forested areas for hours.

Canine teams with sniffer dogs picked up the trail from the car door.

The dogs confidently walk the first three miles up the trail, overcoming the steep climb to the ridge.

But at a stretch of rocky scree where the soil gives way to hard volcanic rock, the dogs began to behave erratically.

They circled in place, losing their scent.

The trail ended suddenly, as if Jerry and Leah had just vanished into thin air.

On September 22nd, the weather deteriorated sharply.

The temperature dropped to -40° F, above 40 below zero, at night.

Cold winds of 30 mph made it impossible for aviation to operate.

Rescuers on the ground continued to work, but the hope of finding the couple alive was melting away with each passing hour.

Volunteers found tracks of deer, coyotes, and even bears.

But not a single trace of hiking boots, not a single lost piece of clothing or garbage.

According to the Park County Sheriff’s report, over the course of 2 weeks, search teams surveyed more than 40 square miles of difficult, rugged terrain.

All known caves and canyons within a 5mi radius of the trail head were checked.

Dozens of tourists who were in the area from September 14th to 19th were interviewed.

Not a single witness saw the couple on the route.

They drove into the park, left the car, and disappeared.

On October 5th, 2013, the park authorities officially announced the suspension of the active phase of the search.

A massive snowstorm was approaching which promised to cover the plateau with a 2-ft thick layer of snow.

Continuing the operation was dangerous for the rescuers themselves.

Jerry and Leah’s parents put up posters with photos of the missing on information boards near the campsites for a while, but soon the wind tore them down as well.

The Lamar Valley plunged back into silence, hiding its secret under the white blanket of winter.

On October 16th, 2014, a year and a month after the disappearance of Jerry Fletcher and Leah Robinson, a group of scientists from the United States Geological Survey was conducting routine fieldwork in the eastern part of Yellowstone.

They were a team of three hydraologists tasked with checking groundwater level sensors in a remote area known as the Mirror Plateau.

This area, located at an altitude of over 8,000 ft above sea level, is closed to ordinary tourists due to the high activity of grizzly bears and the lack of marked trails.

Access is allowed only with special scientific passes.

Around 2:30 in the afternoon, while moving through a dense forest of twisted pine, the team leader, Dr.

Mark Evans noticed an anomaly on the ground.

Among the wild vegetation and fallen trunks was a narrow but clearly trotten path.

It didn’t resemble an animal trail.

Bison or elk tracks are usually wide and chaotic, but this path was monotonously trotten by human feet, although it looked like it had been used by someone who was trying to walk carefully footprint by footprint.

The trail led deep into the thicket in the opposite direction to the installed sensors.

Guided by the safety instructions, the group decided to check where this trail led, suspecting that it might be the work of poachers.

After walking about 400 yd, they came to a small rocky clearing hidden behind a wall of rocks.

In the middle of it stood a dilapidated structure, an old geodessic shelter.

According to the park’s archival data, this structure was built in the early 70s for temporary residence of cgraphers, but was written off and abandoned more than 30 years ago.

It did not exist on modern maps.

The building was a low wooden frame covered with rotten plywood and remnants of roofing material.

The roof had partially collapsed under the weight of the snow of the past winters, and the window openings were blocked with pieces of bark and dirt.

As Mark Evans approached the entrance, he gestured for his colleagues to stop.

A sound came from inside.

It wasn’t an animal growling or the rustling of the wind.

It was a human voice.

It was a quiet, monotonous, rhythmic sound, like a quick muttering or prayer.

The voice did not break.

It sounded mechanical without any emotional intonation which looked unnatural and threatening.

In the empty forest, one of the hydraologists turned on a powerful tactical flashlight and the group cautiously peered inside through the warp door.

A beam of light cut through the gloom, snatching from the darkness a picture that was later described in a report to the rangers as the most terrifying sight in the park’s history in decades.

In the far corner of the room, where the roof was still intact, a den was set up.

A person was sitting on a pile of dirty rags mixed with the dried skins of small animals, probably hairs and marmets.

It was a woman, but her appearance had undergone catastrophic changes.

She was emaciated to the point of extreme cachexia.

Her skin, covered with a layer of dirt and soot, covered her bones so tightly that the anatomical structure of her skull and joints were visible.

Her hair was stuck together in one giant hard tangle that resembled felt and fell over her shoulders in a dirty mass.

Her clothes were torn into shreds of indeterminate color, tied together with ropes and strips of leather to keep her warm.

It was Leah Robinson.

However, she did not react to the bright light of the lanterns shining in her face.

Her pupils were dilated, her gaze glassy, and focused on one point.

She was sitting with her back to the entrance, slightly turned sideways, and rocking back and forth rhythmically.

Her attention was focused on the object lying in her lap.

It was a human skull.

In contrast to the dirty surroundings and the woman herself, the bone was perfectly clean, yellowish in color and polished to a shine.

It was clear that this object had been taken care of with manic care.

Leah held the skull with both hands, her fingers with long broken nails gently stroking the parietal bone and empty eye sockets.

She leaned down so low that her lips almost touched the skull and continued her endless monologue.

The words merged into a continuous stream of whispers which was impossible to make out from a distance of 10 ft.

From time to time, she would stop talking, lean back, and let out a soft, dry laugh that sounded like a cough, and then fall back to the bone, continuing the conversation.

The smell inside the shelter was heavy.

a mixture of mustustiness, unwashed body, and the specific smell of dried meat hanging on ropes from the ceiling.

The scientists, shocked by what they saw, did not dare to go inside or call out to her.

They slowly backed away, keeping the lights on, and once they were at a safe distance, used a satellite phone to make an emergency call to the park’s rescue service.

In the call log recorded by the dispatcher at 2:45, Dr.

Evans voice was shaky.

He reported the coordinates and added only one phrase that did not fit into the official protocol.

We found her, but she’s not here anymore.

She’s talking to a dead man.

The group remained on guard at the entrance, watching the woman from afar.

During the two hours of waiting for the helicopter with the rangers to arrive, Leah Robinson never changed her posture or let go of her eerie discovery, continuing to whisper into the emptiness of the forest.

The evacuation of Leah Robinson began on October 16th, 2014 at 17 hours and 15 minutes immediately after the arrival of the National Park Service rescue helicopter.

What had been planned as a standard medical evacuation of an exhausted woman instantly turned into a chaotic and dangerous scene of struggle.

According to the paramedics reports, for the first few minutes, Leah did not react to the presence of outsiders, continuing to sway monotonously.

However, the situation changed dramatically when one of the paramedics trying to lift her onto a stretcher tried to gently take her skull from her hands to secure the patient with seat belts.

At the same second, the woman let out an inhuman, piercing scream that the helicopter pilot later compared to the sound of a wounded animal.

She clung to the bone with a deadly grip, biting the medic’s hands and kicking them.

Her physical strength, despite the obvious muscle distrophe, was abnormal.

It was a state of effect caused by a frantic release of adrenaline.

She was screaming incoherent phrases among which the rescuers could only clearly hear, “Don’t touch him.

He’s sleeping.” For her, it was not an object, but a living being.

Due to the threat of injury to both the patient and the staff, the senior medic of the group decided to apply forced sedation.

Only after an intramuscular injection of a double dose of tranquilizer did Leah’s muscles relax and her fingers opened.

The skull, wrapped in a sterile evidence bag, was placed separately.

Leah, who was already in a semic-conscious state, was secured on a stretcher and lifted on board.

The helicopter took off at 17 hours and 40 minutes, leaving a group of Federal Bureau of Investigation forensic scientists on the lawn, who arrived on a second flight to examine the crime scene.

On October 17th, at 8:00 in the morning, the investigative team began a detailed description and analysis of the shelter that allowed the city girl to survive the harsh Wyoming winter.

The old geodisic shelter resembled a primitive man’s lair from the inside, adapted to modern realities.

The walls through which the sky used to shine through were carefully cockked with a mixture of clay, pine resin, and a thick layer of spagnum moss.

This natural insulation laid down in several layers created a thermos effect keeping the heat inside the small space.

Dozens of strips of jerky hung from the ceiling on improvised wire hooks.

Forensics would later determine that these were the remains of squirrels, hairs, and muskrats.

Leah, who had been a vegetarian before she disappeared, learned to hunt and process her prey using primitive traps found here among the junk of the 70s.

What was most striking, however, was the amount of industrial goods.

In the far corner of the room, investigators found a real warehouse.

48 empty cans of canned beans, soup, and stew, as well as several packs of batteries, gas cylinders, and warm fleece blankets with park logos.

The markings on the cans matched the batches of goods that were delivered to the stores at the Towerfall and Canyon Village campgrounds.

This became the key to solving a series of petty thefts that were recorded by rangers during the winter of 2013 to 2014.

At the time, these disappearances were attributed to staff negligence or brazen raccoons.

Now, it has become obvious Leah had become the park’s shadow.

She traveled dozens of miles at night, sneaking into warehouses and tents to steal food, and returned without leaving a trace.

The analysis of her movements also explained how she did not freeze to death in January when temperatures dropped to minus30°.

The shelter was only half a mile from an active geothermal zone where the ground stays warm all year round.

Probably on the coldest nights, she warmed herself near the steam springs, risking hydrogen sulfide poisoning, but choosing warmth over safety.

The centerpiece of the interior, which silenced even the most cynical FBI agents, was the so-called altar located near the eastern wall.

The large flat stone that served as a table was in perfect surgical order in stark contrast to the dirt and chaos of the rest of the room.

Here were Jerry Fletcher’s personal belongings.

His Casio wristwatch was lying with the dial facing up.

The hands were frozen at 320, probably the moment when the battery died.

Next to it, in a neat pile, were his clothes, a blue fleece jacket, and the t-shirt he had worn on the day he disappeared.

The clothes had been washed as much as possible in the forest, and carefully darned with coarse threads pulled from another fabric.

There was not a single speck of dust on the stone.

This place looked not like a warehouse of a maniac’s trophies, but like an imitation of a family life.

The arrangement of the objects showed that Leah interacted with them on a daily basis.

She arranged them, took care of them, creating the illusion that Jerry had just left for a minute and would soon return to put on this clean t-shirt.

On the side of the clothes were two spoons and two bowls.

One of them had dried remnants of berries in it.

She continued to share meals with him even a year after his death.

This discovery finally confirmed the profiler’s version.

For Leah Robinson, time had stopped.

And in her distorted reality, she and Jerry were still living together in that cursed forest.

On October 18th, 2014, at 9:00 in the morning, a special Gallatin County Coroner’s Transport delivered the sealed containers of evidence to the morg in Bosezeman, Montana.

The contrast between the wild, dirty reality of the forest where the remains were found and the sterile cleanliness of the sectional room was stark.

Under the bright light of operating lights, what remained of 30-year-old architect Jerry Fletcher was laid out on a stainless steel table.

The skull removed from Leah Robinson’s hands and a set of scattered skeletal bones that forensic scientists had dug from a shallow hole camouflaged by rocks 300 yd from the geodic shelter.

The identification procedure was conducted by the county’s chief medical examiner, Dr.

Thomas Wayne in the presence of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.

The first step was DNA testing.

A bone marrow sample taken from the preserved part of the femur was compared to genetic material obtained from Jerry’s toothbrush, which his parents had provided to the investigation a year earlier.

The result obtained after 48 hours left no room for doubt.

The probability of a match was 99 and 9/10%.

It was Jerry.

Officially, the status of missing was changed to dead.

However, the pathologist’s main task was not to identify, but to determine the cause of death.

Dr.

Wayne’s attention was focused on the skull.

Unlike the rest of the skeleton, this part of the body was abnormally well preserved, but had one fatal flaw.

In the right parietal area, just above the temporal bone, the expert found a clear, deep oval-shaped dent measuring approximately 2×3 in.

A computed tomography scan of the skull made it possible to build a three-dimensional model of the injury.

The experts conclusion was categorical and instantly changed the qualification of the case.

The nature of the injury, a so-called depressed fracture with concentric cracks spreading like a web from the center of the impact, indicated the impact of a heavy blunt object with a small area of damage.

It could not have been the result of a fall from a height or an impact with stones while sliding down a slope.

When falling, the skull bones usually crack in a linear fashion or receive diffuse damage at the base.

In this case, the impact was pointed, purposeful, and delivered with enormous kinetic energy.

The angle of entry of the force indicated that the attacker was behind and slightly to the right of the victim.

Jerry Fletcher did not see the blow coming.

He did not defend himself.

He was killed instantly in one powerful swing.

In the cause of death column, Dr.

Wayne wrote, “Cranio cerebral trauma incompatible with life due to blunt force trauma, homicide.” The second part of the report dealt with the condition of the bones, and it was even more gruesome than the fact of murder.

The examination revealed a striking difference between the skull and other parts of the skeleton.

The bones found in the pit under the stones, ribs, vertebrae, pelvic bones, had numerous traces of environmental impact.

They had deep furrows from the teeth of small rodents and predators such as coyotes or wolves, which probably pulled the body part apart in the fall of 2013.

They were darkened by contact with moist soil covered with microscopic traces of mold and plant roots.

The skull looked like it was a museum piece.

There were no traces of animal teeth on it.

It was perfectly cleaned of soft tissue, not by insects or time, but by mechanical means.

Under a microscope, the expert saw thousands of micro scratches characteristic of friction with rough cloth or skin.

Chemical analysis of the bone surface revealed a high concentration of lipids, the fats that make up human sebum.

This was direct evidence that the skull was constantly in contact with human hands.

It was touched, stroked, and held in the palms of hands for hours, days, and months.

The surface of the parietal and frontal bones was literally polished to a dull shine by Leah Robinson’s fingers.

The report also noted the condition of the eye sockets and nasal cavity.

They were cleaned out with surgical precision, probably with a sharp instrument, which coincided with the confiscation of the hunting knife from the hideout.

Microscopic residues of organic matter that did not belong to Jerry were also found on the lower jaw and cheekbones.

Traces of berry juice and chewed food.

This confirmed the investigator’s crazy guess.

Leah was trying to feed the skull by rubbing food into the bone.

This contrast between the mutilated animal torn skeleton in the pit and the well-groomed, well-loved skull painted a terrifying picture of the woman’s psychological state.

She had killed him in cold blood with a stab from behind, allowed wild animals to eat his body, but kept his head as a fetish, turning the evidence of a brutal crime into an object of worship.

Now, it was not just a case of disappearance or even just a murder.

It was a story about the abyss of the human psyche that opened up in the silence of Yellowstone.

On October 20th, 2014, 2 days after Jerry Fletcher’s violent death was confirmed, the investigative team at Bosezeman Police Headquarters returned to a seemingly long-examined piece of evidence.

On the senior detectives desk was a report from the cyber crime unit dated back to September of 2013.

It was a detailed analysis of the contents of the victim’s cell phone, a fifth model iPhone, which was found in a locked car at the beginning of the search.

Back then, a year ago, it took tech experts less than 4 hours to bypass the lock password.

What they found in the messaging app seemed important to the investigation, but not fatal.

Jerry’s phone had an active correspondence with a contact signed as Sarah work.

The nature of the messages left no room for ambiguity.

It was a classic office romance that grew into something more serious.

The last message from Sarah came the day before the trip on September 12th.

Will you tell her this weekend? I can’t wait any longer.

Jerry’s response was short and decisive.

Yes, I’ve made up my mind.

After this trip, we’re breaking up.

I promise.

In 2013, the detectives interpreted this data through the prism of a voluntary disappearance.

They assumed that Jerry, feeling pressured and guilty, could have staged the situation to escape from both women, or that the couple had an emotional argument on the route after which they split up.

No one at the time considered the fragile, creative Leah to be a threat.

This mistake cost the investigation a year of time.

The correspondence was perceived as a motive for breaking off the relationship, not as a motive for murder.

Now that there were photos of the fractured skull on the table, those old text messages sounded completely different.

The police needed to understand one thing.

Did Leah know about Sarah before they got into the car? The answer to this question could reclassify the crime from a state of passion to coldblooded premeditated first-degree murder.

25-year-old Caitlyn Vance, Leah’s best friend since college, held the key.

A year ago, during the first interrogation, Caitlyn was crying and frightened.

Her words are recorded in the protocol of 2013.

They were the perfect couple.

Leah adored him.

They went there to celebrate their anniversary.

She claimed that she did not notice any warning signs.

On October 21st, 2014, Caitlyn was called back to the interrogation room.

This time, the conversation was tough.

The detective put the pathologist’s report in front of her, and asked her directly if she was ready to cover up for the killer.

Under the pressure of new horrific circumstances, the news that Leah had been living with her lover’s head for a year, Caitlyn broke down.

She asked to turn off the recording, but the detective refused.

Her new testimony dramatically changed the picture of events.

According to the new protocol, 2 days before the fatal trip, on the evening of September 11th, Leah came to Caitlyn’s apartment.

She didn’t cry, scream, or look broken.

On the contrary, Caitlyn described her state as an eerie, glassy calm.

Leah pulled out of her bag, not her phone, but a print out of her cell phone provider’s call detail, which she had somehow ordered through a joint family account.

Sarah’s number appeared dozens of times.

Caitlyn recalled trying to calm her friend down, suggesting that she pack her things and leave her trader, but Leah just shook her head.

She sat in the kitchen, stared at one point, and according to the witness, said a phrase that now sounded like a sentence.

I know he wants to leave me.

He thinks he decides everything.

But I will arrange a trip for us that we will never forget.

We will be there together forever.

No one will take him away from me.

Back then, a year ago, Caitlyn took those words as a desperate attempt to save the relationship with a romantic gesture.

She decided that Leah wanted to surprise Jerry to remind him of their love in the wilderness.

That’s why she lied to the police.

Afraid that these words would cast a shadow of suspicion on her missing friend, she believed that they were simply lost.

But now, in the light of the found altar and the fractured skull, the meaning of the phrase to be together forever was revealed in all its horrifying directness.

It was not a metaphor for eternal love.

It was a direct declaration of intent.

Leah had no plans to return from that hike.

She wasn’t taking Jerry to Specimen Ridge to make up or work things out.

She was taking him to be executed.

This confession was the last link in the chain of evidence.

It linked the old information about the affair to the brutal murder.

Leah Robinson got into her car on September 14th, already knowing that Jerry was not coming home.

Her calm on the CCTV cameras at the entrance to the park was not the relaxation of a tourist, but the concentration of a predator who had lured the victim into a trap.

She had planned every step except for one, her own survival in the world of madness that gripped her after what she had done.

The final reconstruction of the events that took place on September 15th, 2013 became possible only thanks to the painstaking work of forensic scientists and most importantly the decoding of Leah Robinson’s diary.

This small leatherbound notebook found in a backpack among the junk in a geodic shelter became the blackbox of this tragedy.

Its pages, written in different inks and sometimes simply scratched out with a pencil, have become a chronicle of a person’s rapid fall into the abyss of absolute madness.

Leah’s handwriting, which was neat and rounded on the first pages, changed beyond recognition by the middle of the notebook.

The letters became sharp, torn, and the pressure on the paper was so strong that it tore through the pages.

Based on the analysis of shadows on satellite images and entries in the diary, investigators established the exact time and place of the murder.

It happened around 2:00 in the afternoon at one of the highest points on Specimen Ridge.

This place, open to all winds, is known for its unique petrified trees, remnants of ancient forests that volcanic ash turned to stone millions of years ago.

It offers panoramic views of the Lamar Valley which stretches thousands of feet below.

It was here that Jerry Fletcher decided to make a halt.

According to the reconstruction of the events by Federal Bureau of Investigation profilers, he chose this spot for a reason.

The majestic view and isolation seemed to him the perfect setting for the difficult conversation he had been rehearsing in his head.

Jerry didn’t realize that his every gesture and look was being recorded by the inflamed mind of Leah, who already knew about Sarah and was just waiting for the denum.

The diary describes this moment not as a dialogue, but as a set of dry, hateful facts.

Leah wrote it down later in short, chopped phrases that convey cold rage.

We stopped.

He took off his backpack.

He started talking about how we were different.

He said that he needed space and time to understand himself.

Cliches, just cliches.

He didn’t even look at me when he was destroying our lives.

Jerry made a fatal mistake, typical of a person who feels guilty, but wants to end an unpleasant scene as soon as possible.

He avoided eye contact.

While he was talking about taking a break from the relationship, his eyes were riveted on the open map of the park.

He moved his finger along the route, planning the descent.

In his imagination, he was already down there in the car on his way to the city to Sarah to a new life without Leah.

For him, Leah had already become the past, a problem he had almost solved.

For Leah, it was a signal.

She interpreted the fact that he was looking at the map as the final proof of his betrayal.

He was planning to escape.

The moment Jerry stopped talking for a second and turned away to fold the map and put it in the side pocket of his backpack, Leah acted instinctively.

She didn’t look for the weapon beforehand.

Her eyes fell to her feet.

Specimen Ridge is dotted with fragments of petrified wood.

It’s not just wood.

It’s stoneheavy, hard as granite with sharp edges.

Leah picked up a piece of rock that fit perfectly in her palm.

She did not hesitate.

There were no screams, no warnings, no tears.

She took one step forward and struck.

It was a single blow.

It landed squarely in the right parietal region of Jerry’s head.

The force of the blow, multiplied by the weight of the stone, and the suddeness of the attack instantly knocked the victim unconscious.

Jerry Fletcher fell to the rocky ground like a man crippled, not even realizing what had happened.

He did not scream.

Only the dull sound of stone hitting bone and the rustling of his body falling to the ground broke the silence of the Highlands.

What happened in the following minutes shocked even the most experienced criminal psychologists working on the case.

The usual reaction of a person who has committed a murder in a state of effect is panic, an attempt at resuscitation or immediate flight.

Leah Robinson did the opposite.

She sat down next to her lover’s body.

The diary contains an entry made, judging by the uneven, trembling handwriting and dirt stains on the paper directly at the crime scene while Jerry’s body was still cold.

These lines became the manifesto of her new reality.

Silence.

Finally, he is silent.

No more words about space.

Now he won’t go anywhere.

He will not look at the map.

He will stay here with me.

Sarah will not take him away.

He’s mine.

She did not try to hide the crime.

She did not run down the trail.

Leah spent several hours on the plateau just sitting by the body and watching the sun sink below the horizon.

As the dusk began to thicken and the temperature plummeted, an unnatural adrenalinefueled strength awoke in her.

A frail girl who weighed less than 120 lbs was able to single-handedly drag the body of a grown man weighing over 180 pounds.

She dragged him not along a path, but through bushes and rocks deep into the bush, away from public view.

Investigators found drag marks at the crime scene that showed incredible stubbornness.

She fell, got up, and continued to drag her property into the darkness of the forest.

She was not hiding it from the police.

She was hiding it for herself.

That night was the first night of their eternal union which she had dreamed of.

The period from October 2013 to October 2014 in the history of the disappearance of Jerry Fletcher and Leah Robinson remains the most eerie page that investigators had to restore, literally bit by bit.

The main question that survival experts asked themselves was how a city girl, a graphic designer with no experience in extreme tourism, could survive one of the harshest winters in Wyoming when temperatures dropped below 40° F.

The answer provided by psychiatrists was unequivocal.

It was not her skills that saved her, but a combination of unlocked animal instincts and deep psychotic mania.

Leah spent the first weeks after the murder in the woods next to the body, but nature took its toll.

Decomposition and the activity of scavengers such as coyotes and wolves, which began to circle the crime scene, forced her to act.

She could not protect her entire body from wildlife.

According to the reconstruction of events based on the marks on the bones, it was then in late October that she decided to save Jerry in her own way.

Using a fixed blade hunting knife that belonged to Jerry, she performed a procedure to separate the head from the body.

Forensic experts noted that the nature of the cuts to the neck vertebrae did not indicate rage or aggression, but methodicality.

She was not mutilating the body.

In her distorted reality, she was conducting a rescue operation.

After taking the head, she left the rest of the body to the beasts and moved to an old geodic shelter she had found, which became their new safe home.

With the onset of winter, the national park became empty, but life in it did not stop.

During November and December of 2013, strange entries began to appear in the log book of the Rangers on duty at Tower Junction.

Employees recorded petty thefts from outuildings and warehouses located on the periphery of tourist areas.

Specific items disappeared.

Canned beans, soups, packages of biscuits, batteries, warm woolen blankets, and even paraffin candles.

Initially, these incidents were attributed to large rodents or bears waking up from hibernation.

But the nature of the break-ins was too neat.

Locks were not picked but cunningly opened, windows carefully removed.

Leah turned into a ghost of the park.

She moved exclusively in the dark during snowstorms when visibility was zero and surveillance cameras could not capture her silhouette.

She walked for miles in the deep snow dressed in layers of stolen clothes guided only by a maniacal goal to bring food for herself and him.

But the most terrifying events took place behind the closed doors of her hiding place.

Leah’s diary, which she continued to keep throughout the winter, revealed the details of her life with the skull.

For her, he was not dead.

She believed that Jerry was just sick, weak, and in need of her constant care.

She thoroughly cleaned the skull from the remains of flesh using snow and rags, polished it to a shine to make it look neat.

The examination revealed traces of fat and berry juice on the bones in the area of the jaws.

This became physical evidence of the diary entries about the meals together.

Leah tried to feed him.

She would mash berries she found under the snow or fat from stewed meat and rub this mixture into the teeth of his skull.

She would sit opposite him at an improvised table with two bowls and conduct long monologues.

In the notebook, there are notes.

Tonight’s dinner is beans.

Jerry is not very hungry, but I persuaded him to eat.

He is so pale.

I have to warm him up.

She read aloud to him.

Since she didn’t have any books, she would read the texts on the labels of cans, the ingredients of food, the instructions for batteries, turning it into a bedtime story.

She believed that he was listening.

Her mind had completely supplanted the fact of his death, replacing it with the illusion of Jerry’s complete dependence on her.

The nights were the most terrifying part of this adil.

Leah slept on a pile of skins and stolen blankets, clutching her skull tightly to her chest.

She warmed the cold bone with the warmth of her own body, whispered words of love to it, convinced that she had finally achieved what she had been seeking, absolute indivisible intimacy.

In this snowy cutff shelter, she created the perfect version of their relationship.

There was no Sarah, no work, no talk of breaking up.

There was only Jerry, who was silent and listening, and she, his sole caretaker.

When the food supply ran out, she would go hunting again to the trash cans near the ranger stations, risking being caught or dying of cold.

But every time she returned because she knew he was waiting for her.

This mania became the fuel that kept her alive in conditions where an ordinary person would have given up in a week.

She did not survive for her own sake.

She survived to continue this grotesque game of family that lasted for 12 long months until a chance event brought the hydraologists to her door.

The trial in the case of State of Montana versus Leah Robinson began on February 10th, 2015 in the District Court of Helena.

At the request of the defense and with the consent of the prosecutor’s office, the trial was held in camera.

The judge explained this decision by the need to protect the defendant’s medical privacy as well as the unprecedentedly horrific details of the case, the publication of which could traumatize the families of both parties.

There was no press in the room, only the lawyers, the prosecutor, the judge, and Jerry Fletcher’s parents, who sat in the front row dressed in black.

The hearing lasted only 3 days.

The key moment was the speech of the chairman of the forensic psychiatric commission, Dr.

Alan Richards.

He presented the court with a 150page report based on 4 months of observation of Leah in a medical type detention center.

The commission’s conclusion was unanimous.

The defendant was not sane.

According to the minutes of the meeting, Dr.

Richard stated, “We are dealing with a classic manifestation of paranoid schizophrenia which has probably been latent for years but was triggered by an acute psychotic episode.

The catalyst was the emotional trauma of the news of her betrayal and breakup.

At the time of the crime and over the next year, the patient was not aware of her actions.

She created an alternative reality where the murder was an act of salvation.

On February 12, 2015, the court delivered its verdict.

Compulsory treatment in a closed psychiatric institution with a maximum level of security for an indefinite period.

Leah Robinson, who was present in the courtroom, took the verdict with absolute indifference.

Witnesses, including a baiff, noted that she did not even look at the judge.

All the time she sat staring at her hands, folded in her lap in a characteristic cup-shaped gesture.

She was transferred to the state psychiatric hospital in Warm Springs, where she remains to this day.

Medical staff reports describe her as a quiet patient.

She does not show aggression, takes her medication diligently, and follows her daily routine.

However, therapy has not been able to erase that year in the forest from her memory.

In their reports, the intensive care unit nurses constantly record the same behavioral anomaly.

Leah spends hours sitting in a chair by the window or on her bed, holding her hands in front of her as if she were holding a rounded object weighing about 5 lb.

Her fingers are tense, the muscles in her forearms contracted, mimicking a weight that doesn’t exist.

She is looking into the void between her palms and continuously moving her lips.

If you get closer, you can hear a soft, rhythmic whisper.

She continues to talk to Jerry.

She reads invisible labels to him, tells him about the weather outside, and promises that no one will separate them.

For her, the skull hasn’t disappeared.

It has just become invisible to others.

Jerry’s parents, having received permission from the prosecutor’s office, took their son’s remains in March 2015.

The cremation ceremony took place in a closed format in his hometown.

Only the bones that could be found were placed in the coffin, and the skull, which had previously undergone special sanitization, was placed separately.

In April of the same year, the Fletcher family filed a civil lawsuit against the US National Park Service, accusing Yellowstone management of criminal negligence and inadequate monitoring of remote areas.

The family’s lawyers insisted that the rangers should have noticed smoke or traces of a person in the Mirror Plateau area much earlier.

However, in June of 2015, a federal court dismissed the lawsuit, citing that the area was a wilderness area where the park was not responsible for total control of every square foot.

The final point in this story was the fate of the geodessic shelter itself.

After the investigation was completed and the police tapes were removed, the place began to attract unwanted attention.

Internet forums dedicated to serial killers and mysticism began to post the coordinates of the House of Leah.

The park’s management, fearing an influx of so-called dark tourists and vandals, made a radical decision.

On September 14, 2015, exactly 2 years after the couple entered the park, a group of technicians arrived by helicopter.

In accordance with order number 404, the old structure was dismantled to the ground.

The rotten wood was burned on site in a controlled fire and metal parts and debris were removed by cargo nets.

The foundation was covered with earth and sewn with seeds of local grasses to restore the natural landscape.

Today, there is nothing left on that lawn to remind us of the human presence.

Tall grass grows there and bison graze there again.

Tourist maps still ignore this area.

But among the veterans of the Ranger Service, there is an unspoken rule that is passed on to newcomers in a whisper.

If while patrolling the eastern sector of the plateau, you hear a sound that sounds like a person muttering or laughing softly in the noise of the wind wandering between the pines, do not stop.

Do not try to find the source of the sound.

Just turn up the volume on your radio and keep going.

They say it’s just the wind getting tangled in the branches, but none of them want to check it out alone.

The silence has returned to Yellowstone, but it will never be empty