In the autumn of 1991, a father and his 12-year-old son left Portland, Oregon, for a weekend camping trip to watch the Percied meteor shower.

They never came home.

For 32 years, their disappearance remained an unsolved mystery.

A case that haunted investigators and destroyed a family.

Then in October 2023, a mine collapse at an abandoned facility revealed something that had been hidden in absolute darkness for over three decades.

What investigators found in that sealed chamber would shatter everything the family believed about that final weekend and expose a truth more horrifying than anyone could have imagined.

A truth about cages in the darkness.

A truth about a predator who hunted in the shadows of forgotten places.

and a truth about the one person who escaped and spent 30 years running from a monster who never stopped hunting.

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You won’t want to miss what happens next.

The last photograph ever taken of Marcus Jun and his son David showed them standing beside their beaten up blue Honda Accord in the driveway of their modest home in Northeast Portland.

It was 5:47 in the morning on August 10th, 1991.

The sky was just beginning to lighten with that particular quality of dawn that promises a beautiful day ahead.

Marcus had his arm around David’s shoulders, and the boy held up a peace sign for the camera, his smile bright with a kind of pure anticipation that only children possess.

Behind them, you could see the camping gear packed into the trunk, the telescope case, the sleeping bags, the cooler filled with sandwiches and fruit that Linda Chun had prepared the night before.

Linda had taken that photograph with their Kodak camera, the one they used for special occasions.

She’d kissed them both goodbye, told them to drive carefully on the mountain roads, and reminded Marcus to call her as soon as they reached the campsite at Crater Lake National Park.

She’d waved as they backed out of the driveway, watching until the blue Honda disappeared around the corner of their quiet residential street.

That was the last time Linda Chun saw her husband and son alive.

Marcus Chun was 38 years old that summer.

A beloved high school science teacher at Franklin High School in Portland.

He’d been teaching for 14 years, known for making physics accessible and exciting to students who thought they hated science.

His classroom was filled with experiments and demonstrations.

Students would talk years later about the time Mr.

Chin built a working hovercraft in the gymnasium or when he brought in liquid nitrogen and made ice cream during a lesson on states of matter.

He was the kind of teacher who stayed late to help struggling students who wrote college recommendation letters on weekends who genuinely believed that every kid could succeed if someone just took the time to show them how.

At home, Marcus was a devoted father and husband.

He’d met Linda at Portland State University when they were both 22, and they’d built a quiet, happy life together.

Nothing extraordinary or dramatic, just the steady accumulation of shared moments that make a marriage work.

Weekend breakfast with too much coffee and the Sunday Oregonian spread across the kitchen table.

Trips to Powell’s books where they’d browse for hours.

teaching David to ride a bike in Laurel Hills Park.

The ordinary magic of a well-lived life.

David Chun had just turned 12 at July.

He was a quiet kid, thoughtful and curious, the kind of boy who preferred books to video games and spent his allowance on science kits from the museum gift shop.

He loved astronomy with a single-minded passion that 12-year-olds bring to their interests.

His bedroom walls were covered with glow-in-the-dark stars arranged in actual constellations.

He had a poster of the Hubble Space Telescope above his bed.

His bookshelves held everything from children’s astronomy guides to college level textbooks on astrophysics that he didn’t fully understand, but read anyway, absorbing what he could.

David was a member of Franklin High School’s junior astronomy club.

Even though he was still in middle school, Marcus had gotten special permission for him to join.

Every other Thursday evening, David would sit with the high school students, listening to lectures about stellar formation and cosmic radiation, asking questions that sometimes stumped the older kids.

His dream was to work for NASA someday.

He’d already written them a letter explaining that he was 12 and wanted to know what classes he should take to become an astronaut.

Someone at NASA had actually written back a kind response encouraging him to study hard and never stop being curious about the universe.

David had that letter pinned to his bulletin board.

The camping trip to Crater Lake had been planned for months.

The perceived meteor shower was expected to peak on the night of August 11th, and Marcus had promised David they’d find the darkest spot they could, far from city lights, to watch the sky put on its annual show.

David had been preparing like he was going on a scientific expedition.

He’d packed his trip 4 days early, checking and rechecking his supplies.

New hiking boots that he’d worn around the house to break them in, leaving scuff marks on the kitchen lenolium that Linda had pretended to be annoyed about.

A flashlight with extra batteries.

His meteor observation notebook carefully labeled on the cover in his neat handwriting.

Percied meteor shower observation log.

David Chin, future astronomer.

Inside that notebook, David had drawn detailed charts where he planned to record the time, trajectory, and brightness of every meteor he spotted.

He’d written down the scientific names of the constellations where the meteors would appear to originate.

He’d included a section for notes about atmospheric conditions and whether cloud cover might affect visibility.

For a 12-year-old, it was remarkably thorough.

He’d shown it to his mother the night before they left, explaining his entire methodology while Linda smiled and tried to follow along, understanding about half of what he said, but loving every second of his enthusiasm.

Marcus had been just as excited, though he tried to play it cool.

This was their thing, the special bond between father and son.

Marcus had taken David to his first planetarium show when the boy was four years old, and he’d watched David’s eyes grow wide in the darkness as the artificial stars appeared on the dome ceiling.

From that moment, astronomy had become their shared language.

They’d spent countless nights in the backyard with a basic telescope, marking the phases of the moon, finding Jupiter’s moons, tracking the International Space Station as it passed overhead.

This trip to Crater Lake was supposed to be the culmination of all those backyard sessions.

The darkest sky David had ever experienced.

The most meteors he’d ever seen.

A weekend that would become a core memory.

One of those perfect father-son moments that gets retold at graduations and weddings and becomes part of family legend.

Linda had stood at the kitchen window that Saturday morning, watching the dawn light spread across their neighborhood and felt nothing but happiness for them.

A tiny flicker of the usual parental worry, of course.

Drive safe.

Watch out for deer on the highway.

Make sure David wears sunscreen, but mostly just gladness that her husband and son had this time together.

This shared passion, this weekend adventure that they’ve been anticipating for so long.

The camping trip was supposed to last 3 days.

They’d planned to leave Portland early Saturday morning, drive the 4 and 1/2 hours to Crater Lake, set up camp, hike some of the rim trails during the day, and then spend Saturday night watching the meteor shower.

Sunday would be another day of hiking and exploring, maybe a rangerled talk about the geology of the caldera.

Monday morning, they’d pack up and head home, arriving back in Portland by dinnertime.

Marcus had to be back for a faculty meeting on Tuesday.

David had soccer practice on Tuesday afternoon.

Normal life was scheduled to resume the way it always does after a weekend away.

But Monday evening came and went with no phone call.

No blue Honda pulling into the driveway.

No excited 12-year-old bursting through the front door to tell his mother about everything he’d seen.

Linda tried not to worry at first.

Maybe they decided to stay an extra night.

Maybe they’d lost track of time on a hike.

Marcus wasn’t always the best about checking in.

She’d tease him about it before, how he’d get absorbed in something and forget the rest of the world existed.

By Monday night, when there was still no word, Linda’s mild concern began shifting into something sharper.

She called the Ranger Station at Crater Lake.

No answer at that hour.

She tried Marcus’ pager, entering their home number followed by 911, their code for call me right away.

No response, she told herself there were plenty of innocent explanations.

Dead battery in the pager.

No signal in the back country.

They were fine.

They had to be fine.

Tuesday morning, Linda called the ranger station as soon as they opened at 8.

She explained that her husband and son had been camping over the weekend and should have checked in with their permit but never came home.

Could they check if the permit had been used? The ranger was professional and calm, the voice of someone who’ dealt with worried family members before.

He took down the information.

Marcus Chun, David Chun, permit number, campsite number.

He put Linda on hold.

And those 3 minutes felt like 3 hours.

When he came back on the line, his voice had changed slightly.

Become more careful, more concerned.

No, sir.

There’s no record of them checking in.

The permit wasn’t used.

The campsite was never occupied.

Linda felt her stomach drop.

She asked if they could check if the car was in the parking area.

The ranger said he’d radio the field staff and call her back.

She sat by the phone, staring at it, willing it to ring with good news.

When it did ring 20 minutes later, the news wasn’t good.

No blue Honda Accord in any of the Crater Lake parking areas.

No sign of them at all.

By Tuesday afternoon, Linda had filed a missing person’s report with the Portland Police.

By Wednesday morning, search and rescue teams from three counties were mobilizing.

The initial search focused on the route between Portland and Crater Lake, the logical path they would have taken.

Highway 26 through the Mount Hood National Forest, then south on 97 toward Crater Lake.

Search teams drove every mile of that route looking for signs of an accident.

A car off the road, skid marks, broken guardrails, anything that might indicate where they’d gone.

They found nothing.

It was as if Marcus and David Chun had simply dissolved into the August air.

Then on Friday afternoon, 5 days after the Chens had left Portland, a Forest Service employee found something.

The Blue Honda Accord was parked on an abandoned logging road 87 mi off their intended route, deep in an area known as the Whispering Ridge Mining District.

The vehicle was unlocked, keys still in the ignition.

The camping gear was undisturbed in the trunk.

David’s telescope was still there, carefully packed in its case.

There was no sign of struggle, no obvious evidence of what had happened, but there were details that troubled investigators from the very beginning.

Fresh scratches on the exterior of the rear passenger door handle as if someone had frantically clawed at it.

The telescope lens cap was found on the ground about 15 ft from the vehicle, lying in the dirt as if it had been dropped by someone running.

And when forensic technicians processed the vehicle, they found something even more disturbing.

On the inside of the rear door panels, there were scratch marks, deep gouges in the plastic, tool marks on the lock mechanism made from the inside, as if someone had tried to force the door open while trapped in the back seat.

The discovery of the vehicle raised more questions than it answered.

Why were they 87 mi off their planned route? The Whispering Ridge area was in the opposite direction from Crater Lake.

There was nothing there but abandoned mining facilities and dense forest.

No campgrounds, no hiking trails, no reason for anyone to be there unless they were specifically seeking out the old mining sites.

Had they gotten lost? That seemed unlikely for Marcus, who was meticulous about navigation and had mapped out their entire route.

Had they been forced off their intended path? By whom? And why? Most troubling of all, where were Marcus and David? If the car was here, why weren’t they? Had they left the vehicle and gotten lost in the surrounding forest? Had they been taken somewhere? The area was searched intensively.

Tracking dogs were brought in, following scent trails that went nowhere.

Helicopters scanned the dense canopy.

Ground teams walked grid patterns through the forest.

For 3 weeks, hundreds of volunteers combed every square mile within a 20 mile radius of where the Honda was found.

They found nothing.

No clothing, no camping gear beyond what was still in the trunk.

No human remains, no trace of two people who had simply vanished.

The investigation continued for months, slowly losing momentum as leads dried up and resources were allocated to newer cases.

Detectives interviewed everyone who knew Marcus and David, colleagues from Franklin High School, David’s teachers and classmates, neighbors, family members.

They were looking for any connection to the Whispering Ridge area, any reason Marcus might have gone there.

No one could provide one.

Marcus had never mentioned the place.

He wasn’t interested in mining history.

He’d never talked about exploring abandoned facilities.

Every person they interviewed said the same thing.

This made no sense.

Marcus and David were exactly where they should have been, doing exactly what they planned until they weren’t.

Linda Chen’s life became a waiting room.

She kept working her job as a librarian at the Multma County Library, going through the motions because she didn’t know what else to do.

She kept the house exactly as it had been.

David’s room remained untouched.

His meteor observation notebook still sat on his desk, unopened to the page where he would have recorded his first sighting.

His science fair project from the previous spring, a papache volcano, still occupied a corner of his bedroom, gathering dust.

His clothes stayed in his dresser, his toothbrush in the bathroom holder.

Linda couldn’t bring herself to change anything because changing things would mean accepting that they weren’t coming back.

And she couldn’t accept that, wouldn’t accept that.

Every August 10th on the anniversary of their disappearance, Linda would renew the missing person’s report.

The law didn’t require it, but she did it anyway.

Walking into the Portland Police Bureau and sitting across from whichever detective currently handled cold cases, and she would ask the same question.

Is there any news? And the answer was always the same.

No, ma’am.

I’m sorry.

We haven’t forgotten about Marcus and David.

We’re still looking, but there’s no new information.

Linda attended support groups for families of missing persons.

She found some comfort there among other people who understood the specific torture of not knowing.

The way every phone call might be the call.

The way you scan crowds for a face you know you won’t see but can’t help looking for anyway.

The way holidays become minefields of grief.

The way you exist in a permanent state of terrible hope because hope is all you have left and giving it up feels like a betrayal of the person you’re waiting for.

Years passed.

The calendar pages turned relentlessly forward while Linda’s internal clock remained stuck.

In August of 1991, David’s classmates graduated from middle school, then high school, then college.

They got jobs, got married, had children of their own.

Marcus’ students became adults, some of them becoming teachers themselves, occasionally reaching out to Linda to tell her how much Mr.

Chun had influenced their lives.

Linda would thank them and try not to think about all the other students Marcus would have taught if he’d had the chance.

All the lives he would have touched.

All the difference he would have made.

Lyndon never remarried.

Never even dated.

How could she? She was still married.

Marcus was still her husband somewhere.

David was still her son.

Missing wasn’t the same as dead, even though Washington state law allowed her to have them declared legally dead after seven years.

She refused.

Signing those papers would be giving up.

And she promised herself she would never give up.

She developed rituals to mark time.

Every Sunday, she’d go to their favorite bookstore and buy a book she thought David would have liked.

She had a whole shelf of them now.

books for a 12-year-old boy who was theoretically 44 years old if he was still alive somewhere.

Every Father’s Day, she’d visit the spot where the Honda had been found, now marked only by her memory of the location.

She’d stand there in the forest listening to the wind in the trees, and talk to Marcus, tell him about her week, about changes in the neighborhood, about how much she missed him, about how she was still here, still waiting, still hoping.

The case files grew dusty in the archives of the Portland Police Bureau.

New detectives would occasionally pull them, review the evidence, see if fresh eyes might spot something that had been missed, but there was nothing to spot.

The investigation had been thorough.

Every possible lead had been exhausted.

Marcus and David Chun had vanished without a trace.

And after enough years passed, the case became one of those unsolved mysteries that occasionally appeared in local news retrospectives.

Whatever happened to segments? True crime podcasts would sometimes cover it, speculating about what might have occurred.

The theories ranged from reasonable to absurd.

Animal attack, abduction by a serial killer, voluntary disappearance, witness protection, alien abduction.

None of the theories had evidence, and none of them brought Linda any closer to knowing what had really happened to her family.

32 years is a long time, long enough for the world to transform completely.

When Marcus and David disappeared, the Soviet Union still existed.

People still used payoneses and film cameras.

The internet was barely a thing.

By 2023, the world had changed so dramatically that it was almost unrecognizable.

But Linda’s grief remained constant, a fixed point in a universe of change.

She was 65 years old now, retired from the library, living alone in a small apartment in Southeast Portland.

She’d sold the house 10 years ago because maintaining it alone was too much, both physically and emotionally.

Too many memories in every room.

Too many ghosts.

She’d kept David’s room intact, though.

Everything from his bedroom was now carefully packed in storage waiting.

His books, his telescope, his meteor observation notebook, his science fair volcano.

All of it preserved in boxes because someday there might be answers.

And when there were, Linda wanted David’s things to be there.

Evidence of the boy he’d been.

Proof that he’d existed, that he’d mattered, that he’d been loved.

until the autumn of 2023 when the earth itself decided to give up its secrets.

The whispering ridge mining complex sat at the end of a deteriorating access road 94 mi east of Portland, hidden in dense forest of Douglas fur and western hemlock.

The facility had been one of dozens of small-scale copper mining operations that dotted the Oregon Cascades in the midentth century.

It had operated sporadically from the 1940s through the 1980s, never quite profitable enough to justify major investment, but not quite and profitable enough to abandon completely.

The copper yields had always been modest, barely worth the expense of extraction.

And when the price of copper collapsed in the early 1980s, the parent company had limped along for a few more years before finally shutting down operations in 1985.

Since then, the Whispering Ridge facility had sat empty, slowly being reclaimed by the forest.

The buildings had collapsed gradually, roofs caving in, walls succumbing to rot and weather.

The entrance to the mine itself had been officially sealed with concrete barriers, though time and weather had degraded even those.

It was too remote to attract developers, too contaminated with decades of mining runoff to be useful for anything else, too expensive to properly remediate.

The county technically owned it after the mining company dissolved, but no one wanted to spend the money to do anything with it.

So, it just sat there forgotten by everyone except the occasional adventurous teenagers who would drive out there to explore the ruins and tell each other ghost stories about the miners who died in cave-ins.

October of 2023 brought unusually heavy rains to Oregon.

Week after week of storms, the kind of persistent deluge that saturates the ground until it can’t absorb any more water.

The Whispering Ridge area with its network of old mining tunnels and chambers, had always been prone to water infiltration.

For decades, groundwater had been seeping into the abandoned tunnels, pooling in low spots, gradually eroding the structural supports that had been installed in the 1940s and50s.

On October 18th, 2023, exactly 32 years to the day after Marcus and David had disappeared, a large section of the Whispering Ridge facility collapsed.

The sound echoed through the forest, a deep rumbling that sent birds scattering from the trees and startled a group of hikers two miles away.

When the dust settled, what had been a seemingly solid hillside now had a gaping hole where the earth had simply fallen away, revealing the tunnel system beneath.

A geological survey team from Oregon State University was in the area the following week conducting a routine assessment of abandoned mining sites to evaluate environmental contamination risks.

When they arrived at Whispering Ridge and saw the collapse, they knew they needed to document it carefully.

Cave-ins at abandoned mines were serious business.

They posed risks to anyone who might wander into the area, and they could potentially release contaminated water into nearby streams.

The team’s leader was a graduate student named Michael Torres, 26 years old and working on his master’s thesis about heavy metal contamination in Oregon’s abandoned mining districts.

Michael approached the collapsed site carefully, using ground penetrating radar to map the extent of the damage and evaluate whether the surrounding area was stable or at risk of further collapse.

What the radar showed him made no sense at first.

There was definitely a large chamber that had been exposed by the collapse.

But according to the historical maps of the Whispering Ridge facility, there shouldn’t have been a chamber in that location.

The survey maps from the 1950s and60s showed nothing but solid rock in that area.

Michael spent 3 hours mapping the anomaly, running the ground penetrating radar over and over, checking his equipment, making sure he wasn’t reading it wrong.

But the results were consistent.

There was a chamber approximately 18 ft x 25 ft, roughly 380 ft below the surface, and the radar was picking up a large metallic object inside it.

Too large and too regular to be mining equipment.

The shape was wrong.

It looked almost like a vehicle.

That seemed impossible.

How would a vehicle get 380 ft underground in a sealed mining chamber that shouldn’t exist according to any official map? But Michael had been doing geological surveys long enough to know that reality didn’t care what seemed possible.

He was looking at data and the data said there was something down there that needed to be investigated.

He called his faculty adviser who told him to contact the county.

This was beyond the scope of a student research project.

If there was an accessible chamber in an unstable mine, that was a safety issue that required official intervention.

Michael called the Clackamus County Engineering Department, explained what he’d found, and sent over his radar data.

Within 2 hours, county engineers were on site.

Within 4 hours, they confirmed Michael’s findings and begun the process of determining whether it was safe to access the chamber.

It took 3 days to bring in the necessary equipment and personnel.

Structural engineers evaluated the stability of the surrounding rock.

A mining safety consultant reviewed the historical records of the facility to understand the tunnel layout.

The Oregon State Police were notified because anytime you’re dealing with abandoned mines and unknown chambers, there’s a possibility you might find human remains.

People had been known to fall into old mine shafts.

Homeless individuals sometimes sought shelter in abandoned facilities.

The possibility that someone had died down there and never been found was real enough that law enforcement needed to be present.

On October 24th, a team, including county engineers, the mining consultant, and two state police detectives carefully descended into the Whispering Ridge facility.

They entered through the collapse site, using climbing equipment and temporary supports to ensure their safety.

The air in the tunnels was cold and damp, smelling of minerals and earth.

Their flashlights cut through darkness that had been absolute for decades.

Water dripped constantly from the ceiling, echoing through the passages.

It felt like descending into another world, a place that existed outside of normal time.

380 ft down, they found what Michael Torres’s radar had detected.

A sealed chamber hidden behind what appeared to be a natural rock face.

But when the mining consultant examined it closely, he realized it wasn’t natural at all.

Someone had constructed a false wall using lumber, concrete, and carefully selected rocks to make it blend seamlessly with the surrounding tunnel.

From a casual glance, it looked like the tunnel simply deadended at solid rock.

But up close, you could see the seams, the places where concrete met natural stone, the edges of wooden framing beneath the facade.

This had been deliberately built to conceal what lay beyond.

Someone had spent considerable time and effort to hide this chamber to make sure no one would ever think to look here.

The team carefully documented everything before beginning the process of opening the wall.

They photographed the construction, took samples of the concrete for analysis, measured the dimensions.

Every detail was recorded because this was clearly more than just an abandoned mine.

This was something else, something intentional.

It took most of the day to safely dismantle enough of the false wall to access the chamber beyond.

And when they finally broke through and shined their lights into that hidden space, they found what Michael Torres’s ground penetrating radar had detected, a blue Honda cord, license plate visible even under the layer of dust that covered it.

The detectives immediately ran the plate.

It came back registered to Marcus Chun of Portland, Oregon.

Reported missing in August of 1991.

For 32 years, the answer to what happened to Marcus and David Chun had been hidden 380 ft underground, sealed behind a false wall in an abandoned mine.

And now, finally, that answer was about to come to light.

But the answer would prove to be so much worse than anyone could have imagined.

The call came to Linda Chen’s apartment on a Thursday afternoon in late October.

The sky outside her window was gray with typical Pacific Northwest autumn rain.

Linda was making tea, going through the familiar motions of her daily routine.

When her phone rang, she almost didn’t answer it.

A known number, probably a spam call, but something made her pick up.

Maybe after 32 years of waiting for news, you develop an instinct for the call that matters.

The voice on the other end identified herself as Detective Sarah Morrison with the Oregon State Police Major Crimes Unit.

Linda’s hand tightened on the phone.

Major crimes.

That wasn’t a division that handled routine matters.

The detective’s voice was carefully professional, the tone of someone who’d been trained to deliver difficult news.

Mrs.

Chun, we found something that may be related to your husband and son’s case.

I’d like to meet with you in person to discuss it.

Would you be available this evening? Linda felt the room tilt slightly.

32 years of calls and meetings and updates and she developed the ability to read the subtext in how officials spoke to her.

The phrasing mattered may be related meant they were fairly certain but needed confirmation.

In person meant the news was significant and probably difficult.

This evening, Manda couldn’t wait that whatever they’d found required immediate action.

“What did you find?” Linda asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I’d prefer to discuss the details face to face, ma’am.

This is sensitive information, and I want to make sure you have support available when we talk.” That phrase, sensitive information.

In all the years of dealing with police and investigators, no one had ever suggested Linda might need support.

They’d been sympathetic, certainly professional, but this was different.

This was a detective trying to prepare her for something terrible.

I’ll be here, Linda said.

When can you come? 2 hours later, Detective Sarah Morrison arrived with a younger officer introduced as Deputy James Park.

They sat in Linda’s small living room surrounded by photographs of Marcus and David.

The walls were covered with them.

Marcus holding an enormous salmon on a fishing trip from 1989.

David at his 12th birthday party in July of 91, grinning in front of a cake decorated with stars and planets.

The three of them together at the Oregon coast, wind blown and happy.

Every surface held frozen moments of the life Linda used to have.

Detective Morrison was in her early 40s with dark hair pulled back in a professional bun and eyes that held the particular exhaustion of someone who’d seen too much tragedy.

She pulled out a tablet and opened a photo, then paused before showing it to Linda.

Mrs.

Chun, 3 days ago, there was a structural collapse at an old mining facility in the Whispering Ridge area.

Are you familiar with it? Linda shook her head.

That’s where they found the car where Marcus and David’s car was found, but I’ve never been there.

The police searched the area extensively back in ’91.

They didn’t find anything.

The collapse revealed a previously unknown chamber deep in the facility.

A storage area that had been deliberately concealed, hidden behind a false wall constructed to blend with the natural rock.

Morrison paused, choosing her words carefully.

Inside that chamber, we found a vehicle.

A 1989 Honda Accord.

Blue license plate 732 MKB.

Linda’s breath caught.

That was Marcus’ license plate.

She’d memorized it decades ago, worn it into her memory through sheer repetition of hope.

We ran the VIN.

The vehicle is registered to Marcus Jen.

It’s definitely your husband’s car.

But they already found the car, Linda said, confused.

In ‘ 91, they found it on a logging road.

Detective Morrison shook her head gently.

I’ve reviewed the case file extensively.

The car found in ‘ 91 was on a Forest Service road about 2 mi from the mining facility.

We believe your husband’s vehicle was moved after that initial discovery.

Someone went to considerable effort to retrieve it and hide it in a much more secure location.

The chamber where we found it had been deliberately sealed.

This wasn’t an accident or a random hiding place.

Someone spent significant time and resources concealing the vehicle 380 ft underground.

The room seemed to tilt around Linda.

For 32 years, she’d assumed the car had been found and processed and stored in some evidence facility somewhere.

She’d never thought to question it, but now the detective was telling her that the car had been found twice.

Found and then hidden again.

found and then sealed in a tomb of rock and concrete where no one was meant to discover it.

“Why,” Linda whispered.

“Why would someone do that?” “We’re treating this as a criminal investigation,” Morrison said carefully.

“The concealment of the vehicle indicates intentional action.

Someone didn’t want that car to be found.

Someone went to extraordinary lengths to ensure it would remain hidden, possibly forever.” Linda felt tears starting to form.

Are they? Did you find Marcus and David in the car? The vehicle has been transported to our forensics facility.

We’ve begun processing it for evidence.

So far, we haven’t found human remains in the vehicle itself, but we have found evidence that suggests your husband and son were in that car after it was moved to the mine.

What kind of evidence? Morrison glanced at her partner before continuing.

The vehicle’s interior was extensively cleaned.

We’re talking professional level cleaning, industrial chemicals, everything wiped down.

Whoever did this knew what they were doing and was trying to eliminate forensic evidence.

But no one is perfect.

We found organic material in the seams of the back seat, hair follicles, and skin cells.

We’re running DNA analysis now, but given the context, we believe they belong to Marcus and David.

Linda closed her eyes.

The image forming in her mind was unbearable.

Her husband and son in the back of their own car being taken somewhere against their will.

The professional cleaning meant someone had spent time methodically erasing their presence.

It meant planning, calculation.

It meant whatever had happened to Marcus and David wasn’t random or impulsive.

Someone had done this deliberately.

There’s more, Morrison continued, her voice even more gentle now.

We found damage to the rear cargo area, deep scratches in the plastic paneling, consistent with someone being trapped back there and trying to escape.

There are tool marks on the locking mechanism of the rear door.

Someone forced it from the inside trying to break out.

Linda made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob, wasn’t quite a scream.

Somewhere between grief and rage.

The image of David locked in the back of their Honda, scratching at the door, trying to get out.

12 years old and terrified, or Marcus trying desperately to break through the lock to protect his son, or both of them trapped together, fighting uselessly against metal and mechanisms that wouldn’t yield.

They were alive, Linda said.

When they were taken there, they were alive and trying to escape.

The evidence suggests so.

Yes.

Linda felt something shift inside her.

For 32 years, she’d lived with uncertainty with a terrible not knowing that was both a curse and a strange kind of blessing.

Because as long as she didn’t know, she could imagine scenarios where Marcus and David had survived somehow.

Where they’d lost their memory and were living different lives somewhere, where they’d been taken but were still breathing, still existing in the world, even if she couldn’t find them.

Those fantasies had been thin comfort, but they’d been something.

Now that comfort was gone, replaced with a certainty that someone had done this to them.

Someone had intercepted them on what should have been a happy weekend.

Someone had imprisoned them.

Someone had cleaned their car with industrial chemicals and hidden it in an underground tomb.

Someone who was still out there who had been out there for 32 years walking free while Linda’s life remained frozen in that August morning when she’d waved goodbye.

Who did this? Linda asked.

Her voice was steadier now, hardened by rage.

Do you know who did this? We’re investigating several leads.

Morrison pulled up another image on her tablet.

In the weeks before your husband and son disappeared, did Marcus mention any changes to their plans? Any reason they might have altered their route to Crater Lake? No.

He was set on Crater Lake.

They’d been planning it for months.

David had the meteor shower all mapped out.

There was no reason to go anywhere else.

Did Marcus know anyone in the Whispering Ridge area? Any friends, colleagues, anyone who might have had connections there? Linda thought hard, reaching back through decades of memory.

Not that I can recall.

Marcus worked at Franklin High School.

His world was Portland, teaching and family.

He didn’t have any connection to mining or that part of Oregon.

What about David? Did he have any friends whose families might have had property in that area? David was 12.

His friends were neighborhood kids and boys from his astronomy club.

None of them had family out in the mountains that I knew of.

Morrison made notes on her tablet.

I know this was a long time ago, Mrs.

Chun, but I need you to think carefully.

In the weeks before the trip, did anyone take particular interest in Marcus’ camping plans? anyone who asked about the route or the timing or where exactly they’d be.

The question hit Linda like cold water because it implied something she hadn’t fully processed yet.

That Marcus and David hadn’t been random victims.

That someone had specifically targeted them.

Someone who’d known they’d be vulnerable on that road alone in a car traveling through remote areas where they could be intercepted without witnesses.

I don’t I can’t remember anyone like that, but it was 32 years ago.

There might have been conversations I forgotten.

That’s understandable.

Morrison assured her.

Memory is challenging, especially given how much time has passed.

We’re also pulling the original case file from 91.

All the witness interviews, the investigation records, everything.

We’ll review all of it with fresh eyes.

Deputy Park spoke for the first time.

his voice quiet.

“Mrs.

Chun, is there anyone from that time period who behaved strangely after Marcus and David disappeared? Anyone who seemed overly interested in the investigation, or who perhaps distanced themselves from you unexpectedly?” Linda considered this after Marcus and David had vanished.

Her house had been full of concerned neighbors, casserles, condolences, people who wanted to help but didn’t know how.

Eventually, most of them had drifted away, not out of malice, but because her grief was too heavy for them to carry alongside their own lives.

That was normal.

That was what happened when tragedy struck.

People meant well, but they had their own families, their own problems.

They couldn’t maintain that level of support indefinitely.

But there had been a few people whose departure felt different, more abrupt, more like escape than natural drift.

There was Marcus’ department head at Franklin, Linda said slowly.

Robert Vance, he was the head of a science department.

He came by the house a few times right after they disappeared, asking if I needed anything, if there was anything the school could do.

But then he just stopped completely.

And when I ran into him at a grocery store maybe 6 months later, he could barely look at me.

Hurried away like I made him uncomfortable.

Do you know if Robert Vance is still in the Portland area? I have no idea.

I haven’t thought about him in years.

We’ll look into him, Morrison said, making a note.

Anyone else? There was a neighbor, Paul Hendris.

He lived three houses down from us.

He’d sometimes talk to Marcus about hiking and camping.

They chat over the fence about trails and gear.

After Marcus and David disappeared, Paul moved away.

didn’t say goodbye, just left.

His house was on the market one week and sold the next.

I always thought that was strange.

Why leave so suddenly? Do you remember when he moved? Maybe 6 or 8 months after.

I’m not certain of the exact timing.

We’ll track him down, Morrison said.

Anyone else you can think of? They continued for another hour.

Morrison asking detailed questions about Marcus’ work, David’s school, their routines and relationships, and the mundane details of their daily lives.

By the time the detectives left, Linda’s head was swimming with resurrected memories and new fears.

She stood at her living room window, watching their car pull away and felt the weight of 32 years pressing down on her.

Somewhere out, there was someone who knew what had happened to Marcus and David.

Someone who had hidden their car in an abandoned mine and kept that secret for more than three decades.

Someone who had walked free all this time while Linda’s life remained shattered.

She returned to the sofa and picked up the photograph that sat on the end table.

The last image of her family together.

Marcus’s smile.

David’s peace sign.

The morning missed in the background.

The telescope case visible in the trunk.

Everything about that moment spoke of anticipation and joy.

A father and son embarking on an adventure, a weekend that should have become a cherished memory.

“What happened to you?” Linda whispered to their frozen faces.

“Who did this?” The photograph as always offered no answers.

But for the first time in 32 years, Linda felt the possibility that answers might actually exist.

that the questions that had haunted her for three decades might finally finally be resolved, that justice, however delayed, might still be possible.

She didn’t know yet just how terrible those answers would be.

She didn’t know about the cages waiting in the darkness.

She didn’t know about the other victims, the pattern of predation that stretched across years and states.

She didn’t know about the methodical monster who had built his kingdom in forgotten places.

But she would learn the Earth had given up one secret.

Soon it would give up the rest.

And when it did, the truth would be more horrifying than Linda Chen’s worst nightmares.

Detective Sarah Morrison stood at the entrance to the Whispering Ridge Mining Complex, watching forensic technicians maneuver portable lights into position.

The November morning was cold and damp, fog hanging in the trees like tattered curtains.

It had been 4 days since they’d found Marcus Chen’s Honda sealed in that underground chamber, and now the investigation was expanding in ways Morrison had never anticipated.

The forensic analysis of the vehicle had confirmed their worst fears.

DNA from the organic material found in the car matched Marcus and David Shun.

Both of them had definitely been in that vehicle after it was moved to the mine.

The scratches and tool marks told a story of desperate attempts to escape.

The professional level cleaning told a story of calculated concealment.

Everything about the scene spoke of premeditation and control.

But the vehicle was just the beginning.

When structural engineers had continued mapping the tunnel system to assess safety and determine if there were other areas at risk of collapse, they found something that made Morrison’s blood run cold.

Another sealed chamber deeper than the first, 400 ft underground in a section of the mine that had been marked as closed off since the 1960s due to water infiltration problems.

The ground penetrating radar showed that chamber was larger than the first one, approximately 15 ftx 20 ft.

And unlike the first chamber, this one showed multiple metallic objects arranged in a specific pattern.

The radar couldn’t identify what the objects were, but their regular spacing and identical size suggested they’d been deliberately placed.

Not random mining equipment, something else, something organized and intentional.

Morrison had spent the last 2 days coordinating with mining safety experts and structural engineers to determine if it was safe to access that second chamber.

The news wasn’t good.

The entire section was unstable, riddled with water damage and questionable support structures that were decades past their safe operational life.

Opening the chamber posed serious risk of triggering a larger collapse.

But they had to see what was inside.

If there was any chance that chamber contained evidence about what had happened to Marcus and David Chun, they had to take that chance.

The team descended carefully following a path marked by temporary lighting strung along the tunnel walls.

Morrison wore a hard hat and climbing harness connected by safety rope to the structural engineer leading the descent.

The air grew colder as they went deeper, their breath forming clouds in the flashlight beams.

Water dripped constantly from the ceiling, the sound echoing through the passages with an almost rhythmic quality that was oddly unsettling.

400 ft down, they reached the false wall that concealed the second chamber.

Like the first one, it was expertly constructed.

Someone had built a frame and filled it with rock and concrete to match the surrounding tunnel surface.

From even a moderate distance, it looked like natural stone.

Only close inspection revealed the seams, the places where human construction met geological formation.

The team carefully cut through the false wall, working slowly to avoid destabilizing the surrounding rock.

It took hours.

Morrison waited with growing tension as the opening gradually widened.

Finally, when the gap was large enough to see through, she stepped forward and shined her light into the chamber beyond.

The first thing she saw were the cages.

Three of them arranged against the far wall.

Each one was constructed of heavy steel bars approximately 4 feet high and 6 feet long.

Too small for an adult to stand up in, too short to lie down comfortably.

Prison cells designed to cause maximum discomfort and prevent any possibility of escape.

Morrison felt her stomach turn.

She’d been a detective for 19 years, had worked homicides and sex crimes, and the worst humanity had to offer.

But there was something particularly evil about those cages.

The deliberate cruelty of their design.

The premeditation required to build them and transport them 400 ft underground.

Someone had planned this in detail.

Someone had built this chamber specifically to imprison people in cages where they’d suffer before they died.

The team finished opening the wall and Morrison stepped into the chamber.

Her flashlight beam swept across the cages, and she saw what the ground penetrating radar had detected.

Two of the cages contained skeletal remains.

The third cage stood empty, its door hanging open.

Morrison approached the first occupied cage slowly, documenting everything with her camera.

The skeleton inside was small, child-sized.

The bones were fully articulated, suggesting the body had decomposed in place.

Whoever this was had died in this cage, unable to escape, left to slowly succumb to dehydration and starvation in absolute darkness.

The second occupied cage held larger remains.

An adult, like the first, the skeleton was complete and positioned in a way that suggested death had occurred here.

The person had been sitting against the bars as if they’d spent their final moments reaching towards something or someone.

Morrison’s throat tightened as she realized what she was seeing.

The two cages were positioned close enough that someone in one could reach through the bars and touch the hand of someone in the adjacent cage.

The scratches on the bars confirmed it.

Deep gouges in the metal where fingers had repeatedly grabbed and pulled.

These two people had been imprisoned side by side.

Able to touch but unable to save each other.

Able to communicate but unable to escape.

Father and son Morrison thought.

Marcus and David Chun brought here and locked in cages and left to die while they could hold hands through the bars but do nothing else to help each other.

She forced herself to maintain professional composure and moved to examine the third cage.

This one was different.

The door stood open, the padlock completely missing.

The bars showed extensive damage, scratches and dents from repeated impact.

Someone had worked at this lock obsessively, desperately until they’d finally managed to break it or force it open somehow.

Dr.

Patricia Wong, the forensic anthropologist, stepped into the chamber and immediately began her preliminary examination.

She photographed the scene from multiple angles, then carefully approached the first cage.

After several minutes of inspection, she turned to Morrison, adult male in the second cage.

she said her voice professional but strained.

Based on the pelvis structure and skull features, I’d estimate age 35 to 45 at time of death.

The first cage contains a juvenile male approximately 11 to 13 years old.

Both have been deceased for at least 20 to 30 years based on the complete decomposition and bone condition.

Can you determine cause of death? Dr.

Wong examined the bones more closely using a small flashlight to inspect every detail.

No obvious trauma to the bones themselves.

No fractures, no marks from weapons.

Given the context, the imprisonment in cages with no access to food or water.

I’d say death was from dehydration and starvation.

It would have taken approximately 7 to 12 days depending on various factors.

Morrison felt sick.

7 to 12 days.

Marcus and David had been conscious and aware in this darkness for up to 12 days, slowly dying of thirst and hunger, able to touch each other, but unable to escape.

The horror of it was almost incomprehensible.

Can you tell if the remains are Marcus and David Chin? I’ll need to extract DNA for definitive confirmation, but the agent’s eyes are consistent with their descriptions.

I’ll have results in a few days.

What about the empty cage? Can you tell who was in there? Dr.

Wong moved to the third cage and examined it carefully.

There’s dried blood on the bars here where someone cut themselves while working on the lock.

I can collect samples for DNA analysis.

There are also hair fibers caught in the door mechanism.

We should be able to extract a profile.

Morrison photographed the empty cage from every angle, trying to understand what had happened here.

Someone had been imprisoned with Marcus and David.

Someone who’d managed to escape.

But who? And why hadn’t they reported this? Why hadn’t they come forward and told police about two people dying in cages underground? Unless they hadn’t made it out of the mine alive.

The tunnels were a labyrinth.

Dark, dangerous, easy to get lost in.

Even if someone escaped the cage, they might have wandered in the darkness until they died of exhaustion or fell down a shaft or became trapped in a cave-in.

“We need to search the entire mine system,” Morrison told her team.

“Every tunnel, every chamber, every shaft.

If someone escaped from that cage, their remains might be somewhere else in this facility.” The forensic team spent the next several hours carefully documenting the chamber and preparing to remove the skeletal remains for transport to the lab.

Morrison climbed back to the surface, needing fresh air and time to process what she’d seen.

The November sky was gray and heavy with incoming rain.

She sat in her SUV with the heat running, trying to organize her thoughts.

Two cages with victims who died in place.

one empty cage with evidence of escape.

The implications were staggering.

This wasn’t just a murder.

This was torture, psychological and physical.

Whoever had built this chamber had wanted their victims to suffer.

Had wanted to exercise complete control over their lives and deaths, had wanted to play God in an underground kingdom where no one could see or judge or interfere.

Her phone rang.

It was Amy from the forensics lab with preliminary results from the Honda Accord.

Detective Morrison, I’ve been processing the vehicle for additional evidence.

I found something you need to know about.

Go ahead.

We recovered several unidentified hairs from the carpet fibers under the driver’s seat.

Short, dark hair, possibly male.

We’re running them through Cody’s now.

But that’s not the interesting part.

We also found microscopic traces of soil embedded in the carpet.

Very specific mineral composition.

Volcanic ash and minerals consistent with regions near Mount Hood.

That soil doesn’t match the geology of the whispering ridge area at all.

Morrison felt her pulse quicken.

What does that mean? It means the vehicle was somewhere else before it was brought to the mine.

Somewhere in the Mount Hood region, the soil was tracked in probably on someone’s shoes and then transferred to the carpet.

Can you narrow down the location? I’m working with a geological consultant to try to identify the specific area.

Mount Hood is a big region, but this particular combination of minerals and volcanic ash might help us pinpoint a more precise location.

I’ll have more information in a few days.

After the call ended, Morrison sat in silence, piecing together the timeline.

Marcus and David had disappeared on route to Crater Lake.

Their vehicle had been found on a logging road near Whispering Ridge.

But at some point before the vehicle was hidden in the mine, it had been somewhere in the Mount Hood region, somewhere with very specific soil composition.

And then someone had driven it to the mine, cleaned it extensively, and sealed it in an underground chamber.

Why move them around? Why take them to multiple locations? Unless the person who’ done this had multiple sites, multiple hiding places where they could imprison victims.

Unless this wasn’t about a single crime, but a pattern of behavior that spanned years and locations.

Morrison pulled out her laptop and opened the FBI’s missing person’s database.

She ran a search for cases matching specific parameters.

Pacific Northwest disappeared in remote areas.

Vehicles found but bodies never recovered.

Cases from the 1980s and 90s.

The results made her breath catch.

17 cases.

17 people who’ vanished near wilderness areas in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California.

Cases where vehicles or campsites had been found, but the people themselves had disappeared without a trace.

Most of the cases had gone cold within weeks.

Most had been classified as probable hiking accidents or voluntary disappearances.

But now Morrison was looking at them with new eyes, looking for the pattern beneath the surface, and she found it.

Every single case was near an abandoned mining facility or similar industrial site.

Every single case involved isolated victims, solo hikers, couples, fathers with children, people who were vulnerable and wouldn’t be missed immediately, people who could vanish without generating immediate massive searches.

Morrison felt a chill that had nothing to do with the November cold.

This wasn’t one crime.

This was a serial predator who’d operated for at least a decade, possibly longer.

Someone who used their knowledge of abandoned infrastructure to hunt and hide victims.

Someone who’d built cages in underground chambers and imprisoned people there to die slowly in the darkness.

And that person was still out there because whoever had done this hadn’t been caught, hadn’t been stopped, had successfully hidden their crimes for 30 plus years behind false walls in forgotten places.

Morrison started making calls.

FBI behavioral analysis unit, missing persons task forces in Washington and California, geological surveys of abandoned mining sites.

She was going to find every hidden chamber this monster had created.

She was going to identify every victim.

And she was going to find whoever had done this, no matter how long it took.

Because Marcus and David Chun deserve justice.

and so did the other victims whose families were still waiting, still wondering, still suffering through the special torture of not knowing.

The hunt had just begun, and Morrison was determined to see it through to the end.

3 days later, Dr.

Patricia Wong called with the DNA results.

The skeletal remains from the cages were definitively Marcus and David Chun.

Forensic analysis confirmed they died approximately 7 to 10 days after being imprisoned from dehydration and starvation.

The evidence of connection between the cages, the scratches where they’d reached through to touch each other, suggested they’d maintained contact until very near the end.

The DNA from the empty cage told a different story.

The blood and hair samples didn’t match anyone in Cody’s, but they’d extracted a complete profile, female DNA.

When they ran that profile through expanded databases, they got a hit from an assault case in Eugene, Oregon from 1993.

The assault victim’s name was Katherine Novak.

She’d been 28 years old when she reported being attacked in a parking garage.

She told police that a man had tried to strangle her, but she’d fought back and escaped.

She described her attacker in detail.

tall, slender, dark hair, wire- rimmed glasses, approximately 40 years old.

She’d said he called himself Dr.

Westfield.

But here was the most significant detail.

Catherine had told the investigating officers something they’d dismissed as trauma-induced confusion.

She’d said her attacker told her, “You should have stayed where I put you.” She’d said he acted like they’d met before, like she’d somehow escaped from him at some point.

The officers had filed the report, but hadn’t taken that part seriously.

It sounded like the kind of thing someone said when they were confused or frightened.

Now, it made perfect, terrible sense.

Katherine Novak had been in that third cage.

She’d been imprisoned with Marcus and David Chun in August of 1991.

She’d managed to escape the cage, had somehow gotten out of the mine, had survived, and made it back to civilization.

but she’d been too traumatized to report what happened or she had reported it and hadn’t been believed.

Either way, her captor had found her again in 1993, had tried to kill her to eliminate the one witness who’d escaped his underground prison.

Morrison ran Katherine Novak’s name through every database available.

Credit reports, DMV records, employment history, utility bills, anything that might indicate where she’d gone after the 1993 assault.

The trail was sparse.

Catherine had used her credit card sporadically through late 1994, mostly in the Eugene area.

Then in December of that year, she’d closed her bank account, surrendered her driver’s license, and disappeared from all official records.

She’d gone completely off-rid, erased herself as thoroughly as someone could in the pre- internet age.

Morrison understood why.

After the 1993 attack, Catherine had realized her captor was alive and hunting her.

She’d realized that using her real name made her findable, so she’d done what she had to do to survive.

She becomes someone else and disappeared into the margins of society where official records didn’t reach.

The question was whether she was still alive 30 years later and if so where she was.

Because Katherine Novak was the only person who’d survived an encounter with this killer.

She was the only one who could identify him, describe him, possibly lead them to him.

Morrison made a decision.

She’d go public with the case, hold a press conference, show photographs of Marcus and David Chun, describe what had been found at Whispering Ridge, and make a direct appeal to Katherine Novak if she was out there, if she was watching.

You’re not in trouble.

You’re not a suspect.

You’re a witness and a survivor.

Please come forward.

We need your help to find who did this.

We need your help to make sure no one else suffers what you suffered.

The press conference aired on every major news outlet in the Pacific Northwest.

The story went national within hours.

Missing father and son found in cages 32 years later.

Evidence of a serial predator, a survivor who’d been hiding for three decades.

It was a kind of story that captured public attention, that generated thousands of tips and leads, 99% of which would be useless, but 1% of which might matter.

Morrison waited, screening calls, following up on anything remotely credible, hoping that wherever Katherine Novak was, whatever name she was using, she’d see the news and find the courage to come forward.

3 days after the press conference, Morrison’s phone rang.

Unknown number.

She almost sent it to voicemail, but something made her answer.

The voice on the other end was quiet, careful, worn down by years of fear.

My name is Catherine.

I saw the news about the mine, about the cages.

I need to talk to you, but I need guarantees.

I need protection because if I come forward, he’ll know.

And he’s still out there.

He’s still hunting.

Morrison’s hand tightened on the phone.

We’ll protect you, Catherine.

I promise.

Tell me where you are.

And Catherine Novak, who’d spent 30 years running from a monster, finally stopped running and started talking.

and what she told detective Sarah Morrison would break the case wide open and reveal the true scope of horror that had been hidden in the darkness for more than three decades.

But that’s a story that will have to wait because right now in that moment, Linda Chun was receiving a phone call that would finally answer the question that had haunted her for 32 years.

Finally give her the truth about what happened to Marcus and David on that August morning when they drove away to watch meteors and never came home.

the truth that would destroy her and the truth that would eventually set her free.

If you want to know how this investigation concludes, if you want to learn about the monster who built cages in forgotten places and the survivor who finally brought him to justice, subscribe to Ultimate Crime Stories because this case is far from over and the darkest revelations are still to Um,