In June of 2011, Saul and Velma Paul, hikers from Arizona, went for a walk on the closed Tamarak Flat Road in Yoseite.

Both of them had a controplasia, a disease that made long hikes difficult, but did not stop them from traveling.

The ranger saw them for the first and last time at 15 minutes.

A leisurely couple, light backpacks, a few miles of hiking.

Nothing risky.

They disappeared the same day, leaving their car, phones, and map in the parking lot.

4 years later, a group of geologists exploring the scre near the abandoned big oak flat road noticed a dark rectangular outline between the granite blocks.

A suitcase wedged so deeply that it looked like someone had tried to hide it in the stone itself.

No one had ever guessed that inside lay the answer to one of the most mysterious disappearances in Yoseite.

June 2011.

The morning air above Tamarak Flat was dry, filled with the smell of warmed pine needles.

This campground in northwestern Yoseite was considered one of the quietest spots in the park, remote, hidden among dense pines with a narrow road that Serpentine up to the old Big Oak flat road.

It was at this spot that a blue SUV with Arizona license plates drove into the park that day.

28-year-old Saul Paul and his 25-year-old wife Velma had a chondroplasia, a disease that limited the length of their limbs and required certain adaptations in their daily lives.

But despite this, the couple traveled extensively following a simple principle.

Choose routes where uneven terrain was compensated for by flat sections of old service roads.

Their car was equipped with extended pedals and the trekking poles were shortened to fit their height.

An entry in the campsite entry log recorded their arrival at about 15 minutes in the morning.

This was confirmed by the ranger who checked the passes that day.

He recalled that the couple looked focused but in good spirits.

They took pictures of the pine trees growing along the road and looked at a map of the route to the viewpoint at El Capitan for a long time.

According to the ranger, Saul asked about the condition of the upper section of the old road, and Velma checked to see if there were any steep slopes that could make the climb more difficult.

The Paul’s plan was simple.

Walk a few miles on the old asphalt, which was preserved in some places after the road was closed.

Go to the viewpoint, take photos for the family album, and return to the booked room in the town of Elportal.

They were traveling only for a day without heavy equipment.

Their backpacks contained water, sandwiches, a first aid kit, and a camera.

According to Velma’s sister, who spoke to her on the phone the day before, the woman was excited about the trip.

It was to be their first full-fledged hike in the Highlands in the last year.

Yoseite’s old roads have an atmosphere all their own.

The cracked asphalt, gently pressed by pine roots, areas where there used to be car traffic.

But now there is only silence and a few tourists.

The Tamarak Flat Road is especially like this.

It stretches through the thicket, passing into halfworn out sections that disappear into the forest.

Rangers often called this area a blind alley.

It’s easy to navigate as long as you stay on the road, but once you take a few steps to the side, the terrain immediately masks everything around you.

Saul and Velma disappeared unnoticed.

so much so that their absence did not cause alarm at first.

They were expected that evening at the Sierra Granite Lodge Motel.

The manager mentioned in his report that he knocked on their room around p.m.

and saw that the key had not been taken at the front desk.

The next morning, he tried to call them, but both phones were turned off.

It was only in the afternoon when the couple did not show up that he notified the police in the town of Elportal.

Rangers were the first to arrive at the scene.

A Blue Ford Escape was parked in the lot at the trail head, neatly parked with no signs of damage.

The doors were locked.

Inside were two bottles of water, a folded map of the park, and phones, which still didn’t get a signal in this area.

The rers’s technical report stated that the interior looked quite normal with no signs of a hasty exit or struggle.

This was the first unpleasant marker.

Experienced hikers usually take at least one phone with them as a watch or camera, but neither device was taken.

The search began a day and a half after the disappearance, a formal period that was still considered acceptable for adult tourists.

However, it was obvious from the first hours that this was not a standard case.

The dogs that had been let loose from the parking lot quickly picked up the trail, but it broke off at an old asphalt stretch of road 2 mi from the car.

It was a flat, highly visible segment where it was impossible to pass unnoticed or leave so few tracks.

Ranger reports dated the first and second day of the search stated, “No signs of movement, trail undisturbed, only old windmills around.” Over the next few days, the park was overrun by volunteers.

They were combing Tamarak Creek, inspecting the stream beds near Cascade Creek, checking out little known rockout croppings.

Helicopters lifted spruce branches with air currents, trying to find the color of clothing or a glint of metal.

But not a single clue, not a single scrap of cloth, not a single reflected stone or footprint to suggest a fall or struggle.

The investigation tried to recreate their path.

The couple with a controplasia could have moved slower, stopped more often, avoided steep sections, but the old road itself was safe and predictable, smooth with as little risk as possible.

The case file indicates that Soul had good physical fitness as his work as a restorer required endurance and concentration.

Velma as an archivist spent a lot of time behind a desk but regularly attended hiking training in their town.

There was nothing to suggest that anything health related could have happened on the route.

The theories came up quickly.

An emergency landslide, but there were no fresh landslides on the road.

An attack by a wild animal.

The park’s fauna experts immediately rejected this.

There were no traces of fur, blood, or torn fabric.

Did I fall off the trail? But the terrain was such that any fall would have left noticeable changes in the vegetation.

On the 15th day of the search, the first pessimistic entry appeared in the official report of the head of the operation.

Possible third-party interference.

This version was not voiced publicly because there was no evidence.

However, the absence of physical traces indicated something completely atypical for accidents in the mountains.

A month later, active search operations were curtailed.

The couple from Arizona became one of those Yoseite stories that are whispered about people who walked onto a simple trail and disappeared as if nature had dissolved them without a sound.

But there was one detail in this story that haunted both the family and the rangers.

Saul and Velma chose the route because it was safe.

For a couple with physical limitations, the old trails were the most predictable part of the park.

Yoseite knew the answer, but it was hiding it very deeply.

August 2015.

California was experiencing one of the driest summers in decades.

The streams that used to feed the lower slopes of Yoseite had turned into thin threads of water or disappeared altogether, exposing the stone beds.

The air temperature during the day was high, and the slopes of the old big oak flat road were strewn with small landslides.

During this period, a group of amateur geologists from the town of Sonora decided to explore a stone curle located in an inaccessible part of the slope below the abandoned roadway.

According to them, this area has long attracted attention because of the unusual geometry of the boulders which lay on top of each other forming deep cavities and cracks.

The place where they were climbing that day was known only to experienced landscape researchers.

Tourists didn’t go there.

The path ran down a steep slope from an old road where the root system of the pines cut through the soil so tightly that one could only move slowly and carefully.

According to one of the group members, they were just about to finish the inspection when the sun’s ray reflected off something artificial between two massive granite blocks.

At first, it seemed to be a piece of metal or a piece of hiking equipment wedged in a crack during some ancient rockfall, but the shape was too regular and the color was unnatural for the local landscape.

A geologist who came closer described the find as follows.

a regular rectangular outline that looked like it was being buried as deep as possible.

It was a large brown suitcase, rigid with characteristic rounded corners similar to the models of the 70s.

It was tightly wrapped with construction tape that had cracked from time and sun.

The way the suitcase was wedged between the stones could not be attributed to a natural phenomenon.

It could not have been there by accident, let alone in a position where it was almost completely hidden by the thickness of the rubble.

The group members immediately reported the discovery to park rangers.

Due to the complexity of the terrain and the danger of further landslide, a special technical team with experience in hard-to-reach areas of the park was called to the site.

According to the head of this team, the suitcase was located so low and deep that it was impossible to reach it without climbing equipment.

The slope could slide down at any moment, and so recording every movement became critical.

The work lasted several hours.

The suitcase was weighted from below, secured with safety ropes, and carefully shifted.

Later, they managed to lift it to the surface.

The rangers were immediately concerned about the appearance.

Despite decades in the open air, the structure was well preserved, but some places were flattened as if the suitcase had been pressed by a significant load.

The lock was sealed with tape, probably to prevent anything from falling out during transportation.

During the opening of the suitcase, all those present had to move to a safe distance.

A tang knife cut the damaged tape, and the lid was slowly lifted.

According to one of the experts, the smell was old, dry, but distinctive.

Inside were bones.

They were stacked in a jumble.

Ribs, armbbones, pelvic fragments, two skulls, unnaturally close together.

They had not just been put in a suitcase.

They had been tamped down as if they had limited space.

The skeletons belonged to two adults.

The experts quickly noticed the characteristic features.

The femurss were shorter than those of people without genetic growth disorders and the humorry I had a typical curve.

This indicated a controplasia, the same pathology that Saul and Velma Paul had.

At this stage, no conclusions were made, but the first coincidences were very telling.

Among the bones were several items that had survived the humidity and pressure.

The first was a wristwatch with a round case with a worn out engraving.

The letters SP could be read on the inside of the clasp.

Saul Paul’s relatives later confirmed that he wore a watch with a personalized engraving, a gift from his brother.

The second item was a thin chain with a pendant, a typical female accessory.

The third was a digital camera made by Nikon Coolpick.

The case was scratched, the battery was missing, and the memory card was stuck in the slot and apparently damaged by moisture.

However, park service experts noted that data recovery might be possible if the file structure was not completely destroyed.

Another thing was important.

None of the items found in the suitcase were on the official list of lost items from other tourists in the area in previous years.

Everything clearly matched what Saul and Velma had on them on the day they disappeared, according to the family’s descriptions and entries in the campsite log.

After the initial inventory, the site was placed under quarantine.

The landslide remained unstable and experts restricted access for outsiders.

The rescue services report stated that the suitcase was hidden purposefully with the use of significant physical force.

All the boulders around the area looked as if they had been moved by hand or pushed with a heavy object before they finally got stuck in the scre.

Special attention was drawn to the absence of any clothing in a structured form, only disintegrating fabric fibers.

This could indicate that the bodies had been placed in the suitcase immediately after death, but without any attempt to preserve the order or integrity of the items.

The discovery shocked not only the Pol family, but also the park administration.

4 years after the disappearance, there was no hope for such material evidence.

However, the most important thing about that day was something else.

For the first time, there was a real physical inescapable trace of what happened to the couple who had gone out one morning to a safe trail and never returned.

They did not know what the damaged camera showed at the time.

But even without it, it was obvious that the suitcase had not ended up in the scree by accident.

Someone had made an effort to hide it exactly where nature itself was supposed to erase human presence.

Yoseite revealed a part of the truth again and at the same time raised new questions.

September of 2015.

The remains recovered from a rocky outcrop near the abandoned big oak flat road were taken to the Sacramento Medical Examiner’s Office.

The work of the experts lasted several days.

The bones were cleaned of mineral layers, photographed, and compared with samples received from the Poles family.

The official conclusion was brief but unequivocal.

Both skeletons belonged to Saul Paul and Velma Paul.

For the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office, this meant one thing.

The disappearance case, which had remained in the hopeless section for years, was being turned into a deliberate double murder.

The first thing that caught the expert’s eye was the nature of the damage to the skulls.

The occipital parts of both had depressed fractures of almost the same shape.

The forensic analyst noted in his report that the deformities were consistent with a blow from a massive metal object with a limited impact area.

The list of possible tools included a tire iron, a heavy wrench, or a steel hammer for construction work.

The document also emphasizes that the force of the blows was such that death occurred almost instantly or in a very short time.

The injuries were mirror-like, indicating consistent controlled actions by one person rather than an accident or a fall.

The second important finding concerned the position of the bones in the suitcase.

Anthropologists noted that the limbs of both bodies were bent in an unnatural way, presumably after death.

In order to fit the two bodies into the limited space of a rigid suitcase, they had to be folded at angles that were physically unattainable for a living person.

The report retained the wording.

There were no signs of decomposition during life.

The placement was carried out by an unauthorized person for the purpose of concealment.

This was decisive evidence of foul play.

At the same time, the technical team worked on the suitcase.

Despite decades of age, the barcode label on its exterior was partially worn off.

All the stickers were covered with dust and rock fragments, but the most important fragment was legible.

It belonged to the Gold Rush Pawn and Trade Pawn Shop in Modesto.

The internal records of that year were extremely fragmentaryary, but the very presence of the barcode meant that the suitcase had been purchased by someone in the recent past.

It was not an item that was lost by accident.

It had been chosen.

Another piece of evidence was a digital camera found among the remains.

Its memory card was severely damaged by water and stone pressure, but experts managed to recover some of the data.

In total, they recovered several dozen files, mostly pictures of landscapes taken in the morning of the day of the disappearance.

The pictures showed the familiar contours of Yoseite.

Pine thickets near Tamarak Flat, fog over the gorge, a section of an old path with broken asphalt.

But the last file was different.

At 43 in the morning, the time was set by a digital timestamp.

The camera captured a random shot.

The lens was pointed downward as if the photo had been taken in passing while the device was hanging from a strap.

The image was blurry but quite informative.

On the left, in the lower part of the frame, a white surface was readable, a car wing or bumper.

On the right, a fragment of a man’s hand was visible, wearing a work glove with a reinforced palm.

The fingers are holding the van door open.

In the background, there is an asphalted section of an old road and a shadow that covers most of the frame.

This shot became a turning point for the investigation.

The Mariposa County ruling states, “The picture was allegedly taken at the time of contact with a third party.

The fact is that the couple, according to information from their family, had no acquaintances in the area, had not arranged to meet other tourists, and did not plan to use vehicles during the route.

Any appearance of the van on a closed road required either a special pass or official permission.

The experts also paid attention to the glove.

It was not a climbing or trekking model.

The glove was categorized as a construction or technical glove, such as those used by mechanics, road repairmen, or utility workers.

It was impossible to recognize the brand, but the characteristic light seam on the knuckles indicated several brands that are most often purchased for contract work.

The case file contains a memo with an interesting note.

The couple had limited physical capabilities, so they could not suddenly change the route or go far from the trail in a short time.

The appearance of the van at that moment does not seem to be accidental.

The footage reinforced a theory that had previously been raised only in passing, that a stranger could have picked them up, offering help or warning them of a problem ahead.

The poles were cautious but not distrustful as their family described them.

The forensic team also noted the presence of microtraces of paint flakes on the inside of the suitcase.

The paint was light gray with splashes of metal shavings.

This could indicate that the suitcase had been transported in the cargo hold or luggage area of the vehicle.

The color matched the typical paint for service vans used by construction crews and road contractors.

After receiving all the medical and technical data, the Mariposa County Investigative Bureau officially reclassified the case as a premeditated double murder with concealment of the body.

On the same day, a separate investigation was opened into the origin of the suitcase and possible transactions at a Modesto pawn shop in the months before the couple’s disappearance.

The information from the camera became the basis for the analysis of all vehicles that could have been on the closed roads of Tamarak Flat that morning.

In September, the bureau received a result that left no room for doubt.

The poles did not die because of a natural incident.

Someone had stabbed them with the clear intention of killing them, then transported their bodies in a suitcase and tried to hide them as deep as the landscape allowed.

The open questions were only beginning to multiply, but the investigation finally had a foothold, a trail that could not be explained other than by human action.

October 2015.

The investigation, which had been moving with minimal momentum for several months, received a new impetus after a detailed analysis of the last image from Velma’s camera.

The shot itself, taken around midm morning on the day of the disappearance, was blurry, but digital experts at the Sacramento lab were able to extract hidden details by enhancing contrast algorithms.

The key was the van’s side mirror, which took up part of the right side of the photo.

At first, the reflection in its glass seemed to be a random spot, but after correction, an orange sticker appeared.

a category C contractor’s pass.

Such passes were not issued to tourists, but only to contractors who performed technical work in closed areas of Yoseite.

This detail immediately changed the logic of the investigation.

The old old Big Oak flat road where the Pauls were last seen was not open to regular traffic.

Access to it was limited by a metal barrier with a padlock, the key to which was held only by rangers and contractors working on approved applications.

It was impossible to get there by accident.

You had to either specially obtain a key or illegally use an official pass.

Detectives turned to the park administration’s archive located in Yoseite Village.

Since the old journals were kept on paper and stored in storage boxes, most of them were already being prepared for disposal.

However, the box for June 2011 was accidentally left intact.

Among the hundreds of records of inventory, chainsaws, tool kits, and special keys, there was one that matched the date of the disappearance.

The special equipment log stated that at 15 minutes in the morning, key number 42, which opened the Big Oak flat sector barrier, was issued against signature to a representative of the contractor.

The purpose of the visit column read urgent repair of drainage pipe mark 4.

There was an allegible signature next to it, but the clarification Sierra Road maintenance could be read.

This was the first documentary evidence that service vehicles were working on the road at the time Saul and Velma were on it.

And with the camera capturing the van and the log book confirming the contractor’s presence in the closed area, the circle of potential suspects was significantly narrowed.

The police contacted Sierra Road Maintenance, a company that was performing minor repairs in Mariposa County at the time of the disappearance.

The company’s accounting records for 2011 contained way bills confirming that on the day the Pauls left for their hike, a white Ford Y250 van with license plate number 14 was sent to a facility on Big Oak Flat Road.

The driver of this vehicle was Arthur Kaine, a technician who had been with the company for a little over a year.

Clarifying the time of the van’s return was particularly important.

According to a dispatcher who worked for the company in those years and agreed to look for old records, Cain returned to the base much later than usual that day.

The memo attached to his shift read, “Shovel and sledgehammer were lost while leaving.” He explained that the tools had gotten lost in the woods during his descent.

The dispatcher recalled that the management considered the explanation dubious at the time as both items were large, heavy, and unlikely to simply disappear during the course of work.

Cain was reprimanded, and two weeks later, he was fired for absenteeism and conflicts with colleagues.

Detectives reviewing the company’s old personnel records noticed several important details.

Cain worked only on seasonal contracts, often changed crews, avoided joint trips, and repeatedly got into disputes with the foreman.

The company’s materials documented a case when Cain left the work site without warning, explaining that he could not stand the noise.

It was also noted that he used the cargo compartment of the van for personal belongings, which other employees were not allowed to do.

After establishing these facts, the detectives returned to the photo.

The white van in the picture was a perfect match for the Ford i250 model.

The characteristic shape of the bumper, the ribs on the doors, and even part of the black plastic cover on the handle matched the vehicle registration certificate assigned to Kain.

They also noticed the glove in the photo.

Its design was similar to the standard gloves for road crews issued by Sierra Road Maintenance in those years.

The glove had light colored reinforcements on the knuckles, a detail confirmed by the company’s old photo instructions.

Next, the mechanism for obtaining the keys to the barrier came under investigation.

In a conversation with the park administrators, this information was documented in the form of memos.

An important rule emerged.

Keys were issued only to those employees whose applications were approved in advance.

And although the log book bore Cain’s signature, the administrator himself could not remember if he had actually seen the man that morning.

Two employees claimed that the key was often passed through the technician who delivered tools to the crews, but no one remembered the crew that was supposed to be on the four tag on that date.

This led to speculation that either Cain had taken the key himself under the guise of performing work or he had taken advantage of a lapse in control in the issuance system.

Either way, he definitely had access to the road where the poles were last seen.

The clues began to converge.

A photo, a category C pass, a key log, the van’s license plate number, the nature of the glove, and the strange loss of tools.

On the same day, the investigation, which had been stalled for a long time, for the first time received a name that could be directly related to what happened on the old mountain road near El Capitan.

November of 2015.

The investigation, which had just gained a clear trajectory with the identification of the contractor, returned to the very first piece of material evidence, the Samsonite suitcase found in the scre below Old Big Oak Flat Road.

The detectives realized that if Arthur Kaine was indeed involved in the crime, the suitcase itself could tell them much more than they had initially thought.

Despite years under granite blocks, damage, sun, and snow, its plastic panels retained invisible traces that only now began to take on obvious significance.

The technicians at the Sacramento lab worked on the suitcase for several days.

The back wall of the case was scratched and deformed, but an adhesive label remained near the bottom edge, a seemingly insignificant fragment that could have been a remnant of transportation or something accidental.

However, the partially readable barcode indicated that the sticker had been applied after the factory.

Preliminary analysis showed that it belonged neither to the airline nor to the hotel, but to the internal accounting system of the thrift store.

Reconstructing the digital sequence took several hours.

Using the magnification and restoration of damaged codeline segments, the forensic experts were able to obtain an approximate batch number.

It corresponded to the format used by small pawn shops in California in 2011.

The very next day, detectives identified the likely place of sale, a thrift store in Modesto called Valley Pawn and Secondhand.

The store was located in an old brick building next to a parking lot.

The owner was an elderly man who, according to him, never trusted computers and ran his business exclusively on paper.

He kept duplicates of all transactions not only for the current year but also in old boxes in the basement.

The detectives having recorded his consent went through the archives for the entire month of June 2011.

It was there among the faded papers and yellowed copies that they found a receipt that became critically important.

The date was June 2nd.

In the description of Goodsfield, it read Brown Samsonite suitcase, hard case.

The price was ridiculous, just a few dollars in change.

The receipt didn’t have the buyer’s name on it, which was typical of those who paid in cash and didn’t want to leave any traces.

But the most valuable thing was not in the main text of the receipt.

The shopkeeper used to make short notes in pencil on the back of the receipts if a customer seemed suspicious, nervous, or bargained too aggressively.

On the back of this receipt, he once left a description.

Redhead, scar above the eyebrow, smell of diesel fuel, uniform of a road worker.

This pencil note, which had nearly been erased over the years, suddenly became the key to the chronological connection between the suitcase and the person who had access to Yusede’s closed roads on the day the Paul’s disappeared.

Detectives compared this note to Arthur Ka’s profile from Sierra Road Management.

A photo in his personnel file taken several years earlier clearly showed red hair and a scar over his left eyebrow, the result of a bar fight that had been mentioned in old disciplinary records.

It was also known that Cain often worked with diesel tools and returned to the base with a pungent odor of diesel fuel, which caused him to repeatedly have disputes with his colleagues.

Investigators contacted the pawn shop owner again, who after reviewing several photos, confirmed that he had seen something similar in his shop that day.

He couldn’t say for sure, but according to him, the man looked like a road worker and was nervous because he was in a hurry.

In the report, the detectives emphasized that the testimony was not an identification, but it was consistent with Kane’s description and professional activities.

Next, the experts considered the timeline.

The purchase of the suitcase took place a week before the disappearance of Sola and Velma.

At the time, he gave the keys to the contractors in the morning of that day.

Cain had been in possession of the suitcase for several hours.

At least that was assumed based on the receipt.

The suitcase was large enough to hold two short people, but compact enough to be transported in a van without attracting too much attention.

A separate item was the assessment of intent.

If Cain had purchased the suitcase in advance, it could indicate preparation for future actions.

There was nothing in the materials to suggest that the choice of the day or route of the fields was accidental, but too many elements matched.

Access to the road, the company van, the purchase of the suitcase, the scar above the eyebrow, the note in the key log, the loss of tools on the day the couple disappeared.

It was also important that the suitcase was the type of product Cain could afford to buy.

Cheap, fast, no paperwork, no questions asked.

And the way the suitcase was hidden, wedged between rocks in a place where landslides occur regularly, looked not like improvisation, but a deliberate decision by someone who knew the local terrain.

The chain was forming more and more clearly.

The suitcase made of scre, the barcode from Modesto, the signature in the key log, the white van, the glove in the photo, the service pass.

C.

All of these fragments converged on one point.

Arthur Kaine was the only person who could simultaneously own the suitcase, have access to the road, and be at the location where the Pauls were last seen alive.

December 2015, after establishing the chain of events that led Arthur Kaine to the closed Yoseite Road on the day of the Paul’s disappearance, detectives focused on finding the man himself.

However, it became clear almost immediately Cain had disappeared from official records long before the case was reopened.

Sierra Road Maintenance’s archives confirmed that he had been fired in the summer of 2011 for losing work tools that the company considered high-risk property.

A sledgehammer and a shovel, which Cain reported as lost, were the last entry in his personnel file.

After that, the man left Mariposa without explanation, and none of his former colleagues knew where he went.

The federal social security database showed two indirect pop-ups of his number.

The first in Oregon in 2013 and the second in Nevada the following year.

Both times were short unconfirmed fixations.

Cain worked for cash, probably on construction crews or in small auto repair shops that did not require formal employment.

None of these jobs left a documentary trail except for the general tax registry which recorded his number as probable inactive.

Detectives decided to follow the trail of his former addresses.

One of them, a house in the town of Gley Hill, was the most promising since it was there that Cain spent a significant part of 2011.

This house was occupied by his then roommate who agreed to talk after a formal request.

All of the testimony below is recorded in the Mariposa County record with the words hearsay.

The woman described Arthur as quiet but explosive.

She said that in June of that year, he returned home late one night in the company van, something he had never done before, as the company strictly controlled the return of equipment.

He looked agitated and tense, constantly looking around.

And when he entered the house, he was holding a tightly folded wad of cash.

When asked where the money came from, he grunted that he had won the lottery, although according to his roommate, he had never played lottery tickets or gambled.

The next morning, she witnessed strange behavior.

Arthur started washing the inside of the van with bleach, diluting it in a metal bucket.

The smell was so pungent that she went out into the yard to avoid suffocating.

When she asked him, he said that he had spilled oil and needed to get rid of the smell, even though oil does not smell like chlorine.

And their yard, as she noted in her testimony, was spacious enough to leave the van to air out rather than rub it down to the metal.

Cain then lit a barrel in the yard and burned the clothes for half an hour.

The witness recalls the smell of rubber, the kind of aroma that remains when size appropriate shoes with thick soles burn.

She recognized his work overalls and old heavy boots in the fire.

When she tried to ask what happened, Cain started screaming.

She decided not to break the boundaries.

Detectives recorded this phrase in the case file as it indicated his tendency to react aggressively in situations of stress.

According to his roommate, a few weeks after these events, Arthur disappeared.

He didn’t leave a note, didn’t tell us about his plans.

He just packed his things and left.

A further trail led investigators to Reno, Nevada.

In this city, information about Cain appeared sporadically.

The unofficial registers kept by the administration of cheap hotels indicated that a man called AJ was staying at the Silver Sage Motorin Motel.

The description matched.

Red hair, short stature, a gate with a slight skew, typical of people who work long hours with heavy tools.

The motel owner, according to his testimony, did not see AJ regularly.

He would leave at dawn and return late at night, sometimes with soiled clothes and always wearing work gloves, even when going to the coffee machine.

He paid for his stay in cash, extending his room several days in advance.

The administration protocol states, “The guest was almost inaudible, but he always looked tired and alert.” Detectives were able to establish the approximate location of his work thanks to the testimony of two mechanics from a nearby auto repair shop.

According to them, in 2014, a man called Aried for them for some time.

He was repairing the chassis, unscrewing bolts with excessive force as if to release aggression.

He said almost nothing about himself.

Both mechanics recalled that Aries hands were covered with scars.

Old healed scars, but scars that remained after being hit or working with heavy tools.

And although none of the witnesses could say for sure that these people had seen Arthur Cain, the features, mannerisms, interstate travel, and habit of paying in cash were consistent.

It is also important that Cain never left behind any official trace.

No rented housing, no fixed jobs, no health insurance.

Everything pointed to a person who deliberately avoided documenting his life.

At this point, the investigators came to a conclusion.

Cain knew how to disappear between states without attracting attention.

He chose places where there were many seasonal workers, low levels of control, and cash payments were the norm.

The desert outskirts of Nevada, repair garages in Reno, areas where physical labor is valued and no questions are asked, provided the perfect backdrop for someone who doesn’t want to be found.

However, this very model of movement also meant another thing.

Anyone who moves chaotically sooner or later leaves a trail.

And Arthur Kane’s trail, though blurred, led through states, through hotels, through casual contacts to points where investigators were beginning to feel that he was not just hiding, but trying to forget something.

February 2016.

After several months of searching, analyzing circumstantial evidence, and reconstructing Arthur Kane’s movements, the Mariposa County Investigative Team, in conjunction with the Reno Police Department, finally received confirmation of his current location.

The man, who had been hiding under the name Jim, worked at the Nevada Mountain and Excel Auto Repair Shop on the southern edge of the city.

The workshop was located in a secluded area among industrial warehouses where the hum of engines and the sound of metal hitting metal hid any outside sounds almost around the clock.

This was the perfect atmosphere for a person who wanted to avoid attracting attention.

The car repair shop was under surveillance for a week.

The operatives recorded when Jim came to work, how he behaved, and with whom he communicated.

The recorded habits were consistent with Cain’s known profile.

He kept away from other employees, avoided unnecessary conversations, never left the workplace during his shift, and always wore gloves, even when they were not required.

The mechanics who worked alongside him remembered him as a quiet but intense man who focused exclusively on repairs and didn’t look people in the eye.

The arrest warrant was issued on the basis of accumulated evidence, a log entry for the issuance of keys to the barrier, a recovered receipt from a pawn shop in Modesto, and the testimony of a former roommate who described the night Cain returned in June 2011.

According to a senior detective in Mariposa County, this was enough to indicate reasonable suspicion of premeditated murder with concealment of bodies.

The arrest took place on February 12th at lunchtime.

The police gave the signal when Cain left the boxing room and headed for the dumpster with the parts.

He was detained without a struggle.

The man did not even have time to turn his head.

According to one of the officers, he looked exhausted, empty, as if tired not of being detained, but of life itself.

When the detectives entered his motel room, it became clear that Cain had long been preparing to escape or to quickly change his place of residence.

The room was minimal.

A few t-shirts, tools, a razor, a bag of groceries, and a travel bag.

The only thing that stood out from this aesthetic set was an old cardboard shoe box hidden under the bed.

The box was found during a search recorded in a Reno police report.

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary mess.

A few cheap lighters, small jewelry, rings of unknown origin, and several driver’s licenses that clearly did not belong to Cain.

However, at the very bottom of the box was an object that became the key evidence in the case.

It was a small specialized tool, steel tweezers for repairing watch movements with a thin and elegant shape.

The handle was engraved with the words SP209.

Saul Paul’s relatives had previously told the investigation that he always carried a pair of working tweezers in his breast pocket, a gift to him for his professional anniversary.

This tool was individual, rare, and belonged to the category of items that watch makers value so much that they never let go of it while working.

The fact that it was among Kane’s belongings could mean only one thing.

The killer took it as a trophy.

The forensic technician who examined the box noted in his report.

The tweezers show no signs of active use after 2011.

It was kept as a personal souvenir.

It was this wording that was decisive for the Mariposa County prosecutors.

When Cain was brought to the Reno station for his first official interview, he behaved indifferently, answered all questions in a monotone, and kept asking for a glass of water.

He denied knowing the Pauls, claimed that he had never been on that stretch of road, and that the suitcase had nothing to do with him.

The turning point occurred when the detective put two items in front of him.

a printout of the Yoseite Park key log and a pair of found tweezers engraved with SP.

Interrogation witnesses recalled that Cain changed dramatically.

He stopped blinking, stopped keeping his hands on the table, and his facial expression became tense.

The report reads, “After reviewing the evidence, the suspect stopped denying and agreed to give an explanation.

His confession was not emotional, remorseful, or detailed, rather technical.

He said that in the morning of that day, he was indeed repairing a drainage pipe on the closed old Big Oak flat road.

When he saw the couple on the road, he first assessed the situation and then decided to use the barrier and the absence of people in the area to his advantage.

The confession recorded verbatim states, “They look trusting, small, easy.” He went on to say that he stopped the van, introduced himself as a park maintenance worker, and said that there was a rockfall ahead.

According to him, the couple agreed to get into the van to help them back to the parking lot.

After that, according to Cain, he struck them with the same sledgehammer that he later lost.

He then took several hundred, their equipment, and a map.

He loaded the bodies into a van, and in the evening, he packed them into a suitcase that he had bought earlier to hide the tools, but needed them for other purposes.

His testimony was dry, without chronological details, but sufficient to form the legal basis of the prosecution.

The most important thing, as noted in the report of the investigation team, was not the confession itself, but the total coincidence of this description.

With all the evidence collected after the discovery of the shoe box and Arthur Kane’s confession, the picture of the crime became clear.

He not only took the couple’s lives, but also tried to cover his tracks while keeping his personal trophies as if the crime was not a tragedy for him, but an event to be remembered.

July of 2016, Mariposa’s court was crowded every day, although the case itself had long since lost its aura of mystery.

Arthur Kaine had admitted to the murder, and the evidence collected built up a chronology of events with almost documentary precision.

Nevertheless, the prosecutor insisted that the jury hear every detail, every piece of evidence, and every fragment of the chain that led from the moment the PS disappeared to the lifting of the suitcase from the rocky outcrop.

The trial lasted only 3 weeks, but it was intense.

The prosecutor, according to the court records, based the prosecution’s case on a consistent and inevitable timeline.

He repeated it over and over again to make the jury understand that this was not an accidental tragedy, not an impulsive act, but a calculated crime that took advantage of the isolation of the park, the physical characteristics of the victims, and official access to a closed road.

The chronology presented by the prosecutor included key time points.

At 15 minutes in the morning, Arthur Kaine receives the key to the barrier of the Big Oak Flat sector according to the issuance log.

At 15 minutes, the ranger at Tamarak Flat records the PS as alive for the last time.

At 43 minutes, Velma’s camera captures a shot of the van, the driver’s glove, and a display of the service pass.

At noon, with a slight deviation, according to the memo, Cain returns to the base without two tools, later described as lost.

These dots were connected in a line that did not allow for alternative versions.

The jury had before them specific dates, signatures, photographs, examinations, and technical reports.

The defense had to either deny the obvious or try to explain the defendant’s actions by psychological factors.

Kane’s lawyer chose the latter.

In his speech, he tried to convince the jury that the defendant was acting under the influence of insurmountable internal conflicts, that his life before the arrest was a series of traumas, social defeats, and alcohol problems.

However, this line of defense seemed weak against the facts revealed during the investigation.

The prosecutor cited photographs of the suitcase, the location of the bones in it, tweezers found in the motel room engraved with SP, and the testimony of a former roommate who described the night Cain returned with money, the smell of diesel fuel, and aggression.

According to the official minutes of the proceedings, the key moment came when the forensic scientist who examined Velma’s camera showed an enlarged frame of the last picture.

Only fragments were visible on the screen.

The white edge of the metal, a worker’s glove, and the shadow of an opening door.

However, for the jury, this became a symbol that the Pauls had not just disappeared.

Their last seconds had been captured by the victim herself accidentally and unintentionally.

After the parties finished presenting their evidence, the jury retired to deliberate.

It didn’t take them long to reach a verdict.

In the conclusion announced by the judge, they unanimously found Arthur Kaine guilty on both counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

The sentence included two life sentences without the right to parole.

The prosecutor’s comments included in the case file stated, “The cold-bloodedness of the defendant’s actions and the storage of trophies for years indicate full sanity and lack of remorse.” After the trial ended, the Poles decided to return to Yoseite.

This time, not to look, not to ask, not to hope.

In the fall of that year, they installed a small memorial plaque on a bench near Glacier Point.

The couple had planned to visit this place on the day of their disappearance, but were unable to because of an encounter with a man who used their trust and physical disabilities for his own benefit.

The parks administration responding to the investigation’s findings has implemented several changes.

All contractors working on its territory now underwent stricter background checks.

Security cameras and motion sensors were installed on old service roads where there used to be only silence.

Key issuance logs were digitized and backed up to eliminate the situation where a single box of documentation determines the success of an investigation.

Park Service reports in subsequent years repeatedly mentioned that the Yoseite suitcase case was a turning point in security policy.

Tourists who came to Glacier Point and saw the small plaque with the names of Sola and Velma rarely knew the full story.

But for those who worked in the park, it was a reminder that even on the safest looking road, even where only wind and footsteps are heard, human cruelty can find a Hey.