Emily Carter disappeared in the Appalachian Mountains on September 23rd, 2005.

She was 24 years old, worked as a nurse in a small hospital in Richmond, and had planned to spend the weekend hiking alone on the Blue Ridge Trail.

5 years later, hunters found her remains under the roots of a century old oak tree 20 m from the last place she was seen alive.

Emily grew up in a family of avid hikers.

Her father, John Carter, worked as a rock climbing instructor for many years, and her mother, Susan, taught biology at a high school and regularly took her students on nature expeditions.

The family spent every weekend in the mountains.

And by the age of 18, Emily knew the Appalachians better than most local guides.

After graduating from college, she moved to Richmond, but continued to return to the mountains every month.

In September 2005, Emily was working in the intensive care unit.

Her colleagues remember that she looked tired after a series of difficult shifts.

On Wednesday, September 21st, she took 2 days off and told her friend Rachel Thomas that she was going hiking.

Emily did not specify the exact route, saying only that she planned to follow a familiar trail in the Sky Meadows Pass area.

On the morning of September 22nd, Emily loaded her backpack into her red Honda Civic and left Richmo nd at 700 a.m.

Gas station cameras recorded her car at a.m.

in the town of Front Royal.

She filled up her tank, bought a bottle of water and an energy bar.

Cashier Mark Davis remembers her because Emily asked about the weather conditions in the mountains, and bought extra batteries for her flashlight.

At a.m.

, Emily parked her car in the parking lot at the start of trail number four, which leads to the Stony Man Overlook.

The visitor log book contains her entry, indicating a planned return on Sunday, September 25th.

Next to her signature is the time, a.m., and a note that she is hiking alone.

Trail number four is considered a moderately difficult route.

The climb to the lookout point takes about 3 hours and the descent back down takes about 2 and 1/2 hours.

The total length of the road is 8 1/2 miles.

In September 2005, the weather was changeable with frequent rain in the afternoon and fog in the morning.

Emily was last seen by hiker David Riggs at 200 p.m.

on September 23rd.

He was hiking the trail with his wife, Carol, when he encountered Emily about a mile from the lookout.

Rigs recalls that she was descending and appeared calm.

She was wearing a dark blue jacket, jeans, and brown hiking boots.

She had a medium-sized gray backpack on her back.

They exchanged greetings and went their separate ways.

When Emily didn’t show up for work on Monday, September 26th, her boss, Barbara Cole, contacted Rachel Thomas.

Rachel said Emily was supposed to return from her hike the night before, but she wasn’t answering her phone.

Barbara tried to call Emily’s parents in North Carolina, but they were away.

Rachel went to Emily’s house on Tuesday morning.

There was no car in the driveway.

The mailbox was full and the neighbors said they hadn’t seen anyone since the weekend.

Rachel contacted the Richmond police, but they initially refused to file a missing person report, citing that less than 48 hours had passed.

It was not until Wednesday, September 28th, that the police began their search.

Officer James Wilson contacted the Shannondoa National Park Service.

Ranger Michael Stone found Emily’s car in the parking lot at trail number four.

The car was locked with sunglasses, several CDs, and an empty water bottle on the front seat.

A search party of eight rangers and four volunteers began work on Thursday morning.

They walked the entire trail twice and checked side trails and ravines within a two-mile radius of the main route.

At the Stony Man overlook, they found a wrapper from an energy bar of the same brand that Emily had bought at the gas station, but it was impossible to establish a connection.

On October 5th, a group of volunteer rescuers from Paige County, led by Tom Harris, joined the search.

They used tracking dogs, but the animals were unable to pick up a clear scent.

The rains at the end of September had washed away most of the scents on the trails.

Emily’s parents, John and Susan Carter, returned from their trip on October 7th and immediately came to Shannondoa.

John Carter, who had 30 years of hiking experience in the area, joined the search.

He suggested that his daughter might have turned off the main trail to one of the waterfalls they often visited together as children.

The search continued until October 20th.

Teams checked 17 m of trails, searched four waterfalls, three caves, and numerous crevices in the rocks.

Rangers used a helicopter to survey hard-to-reach areas, but to no avail.

The air temperature began to drop below freezing at night, and park management officially ended the search operation.

Emily Carter’s case was reclassified as a missing person.

Detective Robert Clark of the Virginia State Police took control of the case.

Clark interviewed Emily’s colleagues, neighbors, and acquaintances.

Everyone described her as a responsible and cautious person.

She had no debts, no problems with the law, and no conflicts at work.

The detective also examined Emily’s phone records for the month before her disappearance.

Most of the calls were workrelated or concerned her family.

One number caught his attention.

The calls were from a Brad Morrison with whom Emily had been communicating throughout August.

Clark determined that Morrison worked as a guide for a tour company and had met Emily during one of her hikes.

Brad Morrison, 27, lived in the town of Lure, an hour’s drive from where Emily disappeared.

He worked for Blue Ridge Adventures, a company that organized hiking and biking tours in the Appalachian.

His colleagues described him as an experienced guide who knew the area better than most rangers.

During his first interview, Morrison said he met Emily in late July when she joined a weekend group tour.

After the hike, they exchanged phone numbers and met several times.

Morrison claimed that their relationship was friendly with no romantic undertones.

Detective Clark checked Morrison’s alibi for the weekend of September 24th and 25th.

The guide said he had led a group tour to Dark Hollow Falls, but company records showed that the tour had been cancelled due to bad weather.

When Clark pointed out this discrepancy, Morrison changed his story, saying he had spent the weekend alone at home.

Clark obtained a search warrant for Morrison’s home and car.

Nothing suspicious was found in the house, but stains that could have been blood were found in the trunk of his pickup truck.

The samples were sent to a state laboratory for analysis.

The results came back 3 weeks later.

The blood belonged to a deer.

Morrison explained the stains by saying that he had helped a friend transport a carcass after hunting a month ago.

His friend Kyle Johnson confirmed this version of events.

The detective did not have sufficient grounds for arrest and was forced to release Morrison on his own recgnizance.

The winter of 2005 and spring of 2006 passed without any new leads.

Detective Clark periodically contacted Emily’s parents, but no new leads emerged.

The case gradually faded into the archives of unsolved crimes.

In the summer of 2006, a woman resembling Emily was seen several times in the mountains.

Witnesses called the police, but each time it turned out to be other tourists.

One such call came from Ranger Michael Stone, who claimed to have seen a girl in a blue jacket on the trail near Lewis Falls.

When the search party arrived at the scene, no one was there.

Meanwhile, Emily’s parents hired private investigator Samuel Hart from Washington.

Hart specialized in missing person’s cases and had a good reputation.

He reintered all the witnesses and studied the case files.

Hart noticed that Morrison worked as a guide in the very area where Emily disappeared.

The private investigator began to gather information about Morrison’s past and discovered some interesting facts.

In 2003, a tourist named Jessica Wright filed a complaint with the police accusing the guide of harassment during a hike.

The case did not go to court due to lack of evidence.

Private investigator Hart found another complaint against Morrison.

A girl named Linda Rogers said that a year ago, Brad persistently invited her on a private tour, even though she preferred group hikes.

When she refused, he called her home for several weeks and showed up at her workplace.

Linda did not go to the police, but told her friends about it.

Hart presented the information he had gathered to Detective Clark.

Clark agreed to rein Morrison, but the guide suddenly disappeared.

The owner of Blue Ridge Adventures reported that Brad had not shown up for work in a week and was not answering his phone.

No one answered the door at his house and neighbors said they had not seen his car in several days.

The police issued a warrant for Morrison’s arrest.

His pickup truck was found 3 days later in a parking lot at a shopping center in the suburbs of Rowenoke, 100 miles from Lure.

The car was locked and the keys were under the driver’s mat.

Brad’s personal belongings were left in the car, including his wallet with documents and money.

The search for Morrison continued for a month, but to no avail.

Detective Clark suggested that the tour guide might have committed suicide, realizing that his arrest was inevitable.

The Emily Carter case was at a dead end again, but now the police were sure they knew the name of the killer.

Emily’s parents did not agree with the suicide theory.

John Carter believed that the guide was simply in hiding and would turn up sooner or later.

Susan insisted on continuing the search for her daughter, hoping to at least find her body for a proper burial.

Hart continued to work on the case for another 6 months at his own expense.

He searched numerous abandoned buildings within a 50-mi radius of Emily’s disappearance.

The private investigator checked old mines, hunting cabins, and even abandoned cars in the woods.

All efforts were in vain.

Three years passed.

The Emily Carter case was finally classified as cold.

Detective Clark retired and was replaced by a young investigator, Daniel Walker, who only formally reviewed the old files.

The girl’s parents came to terms with their loss and stopped actively searching for their daughter.

Brad Morrison never showed up.

He was entered into the missing person’s database, but the active search was called off after a year.

His co-workers assumed that he had left the state and was living under a false name somewhere far away.

In the fall of 2010, exactly 5 years after Emily’s disappearance, an event occurred in the Shannondoa Mountains that brought the case back to life.

Local hunters Rick and Dave Patterson were tracking a wounded deer and wandered into a remote part of the forest about 20 m from the trail where Emily was last seen.

The deer disappeared behind a huge oak tree that was clearly several hundred years old.

The tree grew on a small hill, its roots forming a natural shelter the size of a small room.

Rick Patterson looked under the roots, hoping to find the deer, and saw something completely different.

Under the roots lay human bones, partially covered with earth and leaves.

Next to the bones, the brothers noticed the remains of clothing and a backpack.

The synthetic fabric of the jacket was preserved well enough to distinguish its dark blue color.

Rick immediately remembered the story of a missing tourist that had been reported in the local newspaper several years ago.

The brothers did not touch the find and immediately called the police.

A team of forensic experts led by Detective Walker arrived at the scene.

The experts photographed the remains in the position in which they were found, then carefully removed the bones and all items that could be relevant to the case.

Dental records confirmed the identity of the deceased.

It was indeed Emily Carter.

Relatives were notified of the discovery, but they declined to comment on the situation to reporters.

John and Susan Carter simply wanted to finally bury their daughter.

Forensic experts carefully examined the site where the remains were found.

The position of the bones indicated that the body had been placed under the tree roots intentionally.

Natural decomposition processes and animal activity could not have resulted in the remains being found in this position.

Someone had clearly used the root system of the oak tree as a natural crypt.

Medical examiner Dorothy Lang examined the bones and discovered a strange detail.

Several ribs and the skull showed thin cuts made with a sharp instrument.

The nature of the damage did not correspond to an animal attack or accidental injury.

The cuts looked deliberate and neat.

An even more puzzling discovery was a thin metal wire found among the bones of the hands.

The wire was wrapped around the wrist bones in such a way that if the victim had been alive, it would have meant that their hands were tied behind their back.

Lang suggested that the victim had been held in this position for quite some time.

The remains of clothing also contained clues.

Forensic experts found traces of vegetable glue, which is used to make traps on the jacket.

The glue was applied to the fabric in several places, forming a strange pattern of stripes and spots.

Experts could not explain the purpose of this pattern.

Some personal items were found in Emily’s backpack.

Her driver’s license, credit card, and a photo of her parents remained in a plastic wallet, but her cell phone and money were missing.

Also missing were a first aid kit and a compass, which according to her parents, Emily always took with her.

The strangest find was a small wooden object lying next to the skull.

The object resembled a roughly carved animal figure, possibly a deer or a dog.

The carving was primitive, made with an ordinary knife.

No fingerprints were found on the figure, but experts determined that the wood had been cut recently, shortly before Emily’s death.

Detective Walker re-examined all the materials from 5 years ago.

The story with Brad Morrison now looked different.

Perhaps the guide was not hiding from justice, but had become the second victim of the same killer.

Walker decided to resume the search for Morrison, but now as a potential victim, not a suspect.

Experts tried to determine the time of Emily’s death based on the condition of her bones and clothing remains.

Judging by the degree of decomposition, the girl died around the time she disappeared.

This meant that the killer had kept her somewhere else and placed her dead body under the tree roots.

The place where the remains were found was far from any tourist trails.

It could only be reached on foot through a dense forest, and the journey would take several hours, even for an experienced hiker.

This indicated that the killer knew the area well and could navigate the forest in the dark.

Local ranger Tom Barkley, who had been working in the area for 15 years, told Detective Walker that there was only one animal trail leading to the old oak tree.

It was occasionally used by experienced hunters who knew the forest like the back of their hand.

Barkley named several local residents who might know the way to the tree.

Among those names was Charles Murphy, a 60-year-old hunter and former lumberjack.

Murphy lived in a small house 10 mi from where the remains had been found.

Neighbors described him as a reclusive man who rarely socialized and spent most of his time in the woods.

Walker decided to visit Murphy.

The old man greeted the detective wearily, but agreed to talk.

Murphy confirmed that he knew the location of the old oak tree and had been there many times.

He also said that 5 years ago he had seen signs of someone else’s presence in the area.

Broken branches, footprints, and the remains of a campfire.

The detective asked why Murphy hadn’t reported this during the search for Emily.

The old man replied that he hadn’t thought it was important as other hunters sometimes went there.

Besides, he didn’t know about the missing tourist as he didn’t read the newspapers or watch the news.

Murphy voluntarily agreed to take a lie detector test.

The results showed that he was telling the truth.

The detective also took DNA samples from the old man to compare with evidence found at the crime scene.

The analysis revealed no matches.

Meanwhile, forensic scientists continued to study the strange wooden figurine.

Carving expert Margaret Cole determined that the object was carved from maple burl, a rare growth found only on old trees.

This material is highly prized by carvers and is expensive.

Cole also noted the carving technique.

The figurine was made by a left-handed person using professional tools.

Despite its primitive appearance, the work required a certain level of skill.

The experts suggested that the creator of the figurine had experience working with wood.

Detective Walker compiled a list of all wood carvers within a 100m radius of the crime scene.

There were 23 people on the list.

Most of them had alibis for the time of Emily’s disappearance, but three could not be found.

They had either died or moved to other states.

One of these people attracted particular attention from the investigation.

Walter Hines, 42 years old, worked as a wood carver and lived near Lure.

He specialized in making souvenirs for tourists and knew the Shannondoa Mountains well.

According to his neighbors, Hines was left-handed and often went into the woods to gather materials for his work.

Hins disappeared from town at about the same time as Brad Morrison.

His workshop was locked.

His tools were still there, but no one had seen the craftsman himself for several years.

The owner of the house that Hins rented said that the tenant had simply stopped paying rent and disappeared without explanation.

Walker obtained a search warrant for Hinn’s workshop.

The premises were a large shed cluttered with pieces of wood, tools, and finished products.

On the workbench lay several animal figurines very similar in style to the one found near Emily’s remains.

Forensic experts found traces of blood on one of the workbenches in the workshop.

Analysis showed that the blood belonged to a human, but due to the age of the sample, it was not possible to determine the DNA.

Several hairs were found near the table that could have belonged to a woman with light hair like Emily’s.

Another important find was a map of the surrounding area hanging on the wall of the workshop.

Several points in the forest were marked with red crosses on the map, including the place where Emily’s remains were found.

Next to each cross were initials and dates.

Next to the cross at the site of the discovery were the letters EK and a date corresponding to the time of the girl’s disappearance.

Other marks on the map intrigued the investigators even more.

One of them was located in the area where Brad Morrison’s car was found.

Next to the cross were the initials BM2.

Other marks corresponded to places where tourists had disappeared at different times, but their bodies were never found.

Detective Walker organized a search of the locations marked on the map.

Teams of forensic experts and rescue workers with dogs searched every spot.

At the location marked with Brad Morrison’s initials, male bones and clothing remnants were found under the roots of another old tree.

Dental records confirmed that these were the remains of the missing guide.

The condition of Morrison’s bones was similar to what they found with Emily.

The same strange cuts on the ribs, the same metal wire around the wrists.

Next to the skull lay another wooden figure carved in the same style.

This time it depicted a bear.

At two other locations marked on the map, search teams also found human remains.

The first belonged to a middle-aged man whose identity could not be established due to the lack of documents.

The second remains were female, presumably belonging to a tourist who had gone missing 3 years ago in a neighboring county.

All four victims were killed in the same way.

Medical examiner Lang determined that the cause of death in all cases was slow exanguination through multiple shallow cuts.

The killer used a very sharp knife, making neat incisions on the victim’s arms and legs.

The wire used to bind the hands of all the victims was found to be ordinary steel wire used to make snares.

Such wire was sold in hunting stores throughout the state.

It was impossible to determine where it had been purchased.

The plant glue found on the victim’s clothing was used to make traps for small animals.

Analysis showed that the glue was made from the sap of local trees using an ancient technology known only to experienced hunters and foresters.

The search for Walter Hines continued for 6 months.

The police checked all the states where he could be hiding and interviewed relatives and acquaintances.

The craftsman seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Detective Walker suggested that Hines might have committed suicide, realizing that he was about to be caught.

The case was officially closed with Walter Hins recognized as a serial killer.

The relatives of all four victims received the bodies for burial.

Emily Carter’s family was finally able to say goodbye to their daughter.

Although many questions remained unanswered, the motives for the crimes remained unclear.

Hines did not take money or valuables from his victims, nor did he commit sexual crimes.

Psychologists suggested that the killer enjoyed the process of killing itself, using his victims as material for a peculiar ritual involving wooden figures.

Local residents still avoid the places in the forest where the remains were found.

The old trees under whose roots Hins buried his victims have come to be seen as cursed.

Tourists steer clear of these areas and experienced hunters tell newcomers scary stories about the Carver killer.

Emily Carter’s story serves as a warning to anyone who goes on solo hikes in remote areas.

Even the safest trails can hide deadly dangers.

And the beauty of the wilderness can sometimes be a trap for the unwary.

Dear listeners, this concludes our story about the disappearance and mysterious death of Emily Carter.

It is a reminder that evil can lurk even in the most beautiful places on our planet and that some secrets are only revealed many years after the tragedy.