In May of 2014, 22-year-old biology student Chris Flynn set out on a lone expedition to the Humbult Toyab Mountain Range in Nevada.

He wanted to photograph a rare lizard that he dreamed of writing a research paper on, and he was due back in 3 days.

6 years have passed.

In August of 2020, a group of mushroom pickers came across scattered human bones in a remote part of the forest.

Forensic experts determined that these were the remains of a young man.

Several of the bones had clear carved marks made with a sharp instrument.

Some were made during his life, others after his death.

The symbols could not be deciphered and had no known analoges.

Kish Flynn left his home in Reno, Nevada, and set out on a journey from which he never returned.

He was a quiet and reserved guy who lived in a small apartment near the university.

His colleagues at the department described him as a man of rare focus.

If Krish took on a task, he would see it through to the end.

His dream was to become a herptologist, a scientist who studies reptiles.

It was for this reason that he spent most weekends in wild places photographing lizards, snakes, and small amphibians.

That morning, he left early before sunrise.

On the back seat of his old silver Honda Civic were a tent, a sleeping bag, a camera, a field diary, and a small supply of food.

According to surveillance footage, he pulled into a Silver State Fuel gas station in Carson City at 40 minutes later.

The cashier, Amber Rollins, later told police that he bought two bottles of water, a package of energy bars, and batteries for his camera.

She remembered his words.

He spoke calmly without fuss, but it was clear that his mind was not here anymore.

When I asked him where he was going, he said to the mountains to look for a rare lizard.

At , Kish left the gas station, got in his car, and headed toward Lake Tahoe.

The road led up to the Humbult Toyab National Forest, where a trail called Wolf Ridge is located.

It was a sparsely populated trail about 10 mi long, rarely visited by tourists because of its remoteness and difficulty.

Locals said that communication was often lost there, and in the evenings, a thick fog would rise over the mountains, eating away the sound.

At and 20 minutes, Krisha’s car was seen parked at the entrance to the forest.

This fact was confirmed by a recording from a surveillance camera installed on the information board of the National Forest Service.

He got out of the car, checked his equipment, and made a brief entry in the visitor’s book.

Flynn, Reno, Nevada.

Started on May 15th, planned return on the 18th.

The handwriting is even, clear, and shows no signs of haste.

The weather that day was changeable.

According to the Lake Tahoe weather station, the temperature reached 70° F during the day, and in the afternoon, the sky became overcast and it began to rain briefly.

The witness, who later became a key player in the case, recalled seeing Kish about 3 miles from the parking lot on a narrow stretch of trail where the slopes rose sharply and a mountain stream ran between the pines.

His name was Daniel Brown, a 40-year-old engineer from Reno who often hiked that route after work.

When interviewed, Brown said, “I saw him around noon.

He was walking toward me, had a big backpack, and was holding a camera in his hand.

We exchanged a few words about the weather.

I joked that we would be hit by a thunderstorm by the evening, and he replied that he hoped to take some pictures before the rain.

He seemed quite calm.

This was the last confirmed evidence that Flynn was on the route.

Then his path was cut short.

That evening, only his car remained in the parking lot, locked with no signs of damage.

The trunk contained a spare gas can, a first aid kit, a set of maps, and a box of lenses.

In the cabin was his favorite jacket, which he always wore on hikes.

The driver’s door was clean without any fingerprints.

There were no keys inside and no signs of haste or panic.

The next day, it started to rain and mountain streams burst their banks.

According to the Forest Service, some of the trails in the Wolf Ridge area became dangerous to walk on.

But even in bad weather, an experienced hiker could wait a few hours and return.

The fact that Flynn did not do so already caused concern among his family.

On May 19th, when he did not show up for work at the Wild Habitat pet store, the owner, Mary Taylor, tried calling him.

No answer.

In the afternoon, she called his mother, Linda Flynn.

In the evening, the family contacted the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

According to the report, the officer on duty, Michael Dalton, took the statement at 2045 and immediately turned it over to detectives.

That evening’s report states, “The last confirmed contact with Chris Flynn was on May 15th around 12 noon.

” According to a tourist, Daniel Brown, a vehicle registered in the name of the missing person was found.

There were no signs of burglary or criminal activity.

Local residents recalled that that week there was a strange haze over the mountains that lasted even after the rain.

One of the foresters on duty nearby said that that evening he heard short echoes of whistling or screaming that echoed between the rocks and died away.

Later this episode was included in the case, although it was officially recognized as unconfirmed.

For the next few days, Krish’s car remained in the parking lot as if waiting for its owner.

The silence of the forest seemed even thicker than usual.

And somewhere in the darkness between the old pines, there was an invisible trail that now led not only into the depths of the mountains, but also into the depths of mystery.

The search operation began on May 20, 2014 at in the morning.

It involved representatives of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, rescuers, volunteers, and dog handlers with search dogs.

A temporary headquarters was set up on the lawn at the beginning of the Wolf Ridge Trail.

Maps were laid out in the open air.

A generator, several tents, and a field table were set up where the operations coordinator, Sergeant David Lawrence, worked.

He had more than 20 years of experience in mountain searches and did not hide the fact that the situation looked strange from the start.

The first teams moved deep into the forest with dogs trained to detect human scent even after several days.

They walked confidently along the trail, repeating the same route that Kish had reportedly chosen.

At the third mile, the trail suddenly broke off near a rocky area.

The dog spun around, lost their direction, and sat down as if the scent had disappeared into the air.

One of the handlers, a veteran from Carson City, wrote in his report, “The scent stopped abruptly without transition.

The wind was steady and it wasn’t raining.” This is what happens when an object is lifted into the air or moved across water.

This phrase will later become one of the most discussed in the case.

On the same day, a helicopter flew over the site, but the thermal imaging camera did not show any traces of a camp or fire.

The area is quite open with small hills and sparse trees, so the absence of any signs of human presence seemed inexplicable.

The next morning, the search continued over a wider area.

About 4 miles from the parking lot, one of the volunteers, Ray Thompson, came across items that were later confirmed to belong to Crash Flynn.

It was his backpack, half empty, lying not on the trail, but under a bush, as if someone had deliberately hidden it from view.

Inside was a folded tent, a change of clothes, a few notebooks with notes, and a set of spare batteries.

The only things missing were food, water, and a camera.

Thompson admitted that he felt a strange premonition when he saw the backpack.

In his words recorded in the report, “There is a line.” He seemed to have left his belongings in a hurry, but he wasn’t running away.

Everything was neatly folded.

A few meters away, another volunteer, a young forester named Nate Barlo, came across a pocketk knife.

The blade was open, and the knife itself was lying among the rocks, glistening in the sun.

It was an expensive model that Flynn had bought a few months before he disappeared.

His initials were still on the handle.

No traces of blood were found.

Searchers looked through every ravine, every clearing within a radius of several miles.

The forest area did not look dangerous.

Gentle slopes, shallow streams, no cliffs.

But there were no signs of a struggle or pieces of equipment.

One of the detectives who worked at the site said in a private conversation with a journalist, “It looks like he just disappeared.

If it had been a bear, there would have been some remains of things.

If it had fallen, they would have found at least scraps of fabric.

But here, there is nothing.” All attempts to find a further trail failed.

The dogs led the group again and again to the same rocky area where the smell disappeared.

The Forest Service checked for underground passages or old mines that could explain the disappearance, but there were no such facilities in the area.

A week after the search began, experts from the Reno Rescue Center joined the case.

They analyzed Flynn’s trajectory on a topographic map.

According to their conclusion, he was walking in a straight line without deviations, which indicated confidence in the route.

The report states no signs of disorientation or chaotic movement were found.

This meant that he was not lost.

At the same time, the police checked the personal life of the missing man.

Relatives and friends confirmed that Kish had no conflicts, debts, or mental disorders.

His father during the first interrogation said he was too smart to do something stupid and too careful to die because of an accident.

This phrase was quoted in all the local newspapers.

When the first month of searching was fruitless, the sheriff’s office began to formulate an official version.

There were two of them.

The first was an accident.

They said Flynn could have fallen into an invisible crack or into a natural cave that could not be visually inspected.

The second was a voluntary disappearance.

However, this version was quickly rejected.

Everyone who knew the guy emphasized that he lived only for science.

In addition, the items found contradicted the logic of the escape.

Why leave a knife behind if you plan to survive in the wilderness? At the end of June, the search was cut short.

The helicopter was no longer raised and the headquarters was closed.

Flynn’s case was officially labeled temporarily suspended.

For the police, this meant no new information.

For the family, it was the beginning of many years of uncertainty.

Near the parking lot where it all began, there was only an old information board and a car that was taken away only a week after the operation was closed.

On its hood, someone left a piece of paper with a short inscription.

We looked for him everywhere.

A year has passed since the disappearance of Chris Flynn, and the case has gradually lost its priority.

at the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

It was officially transferred to the archives under the label closed until further notice.

The cover of the file bore the date of July 17th, 2015.

The commission’s conclusion was brief.

Probable accident or death due to natural causes.

The body was not found.

A wording that neither explained nor denied anything.

The headquarters, which once buzzed with the voices of volunteers and the crackle of radio stations, was dismantled in the fall.

In the parking lot near the Wolf Ridge Trail, only a stone pedestal with a map of the route remained on which someone had once marked a red cross with a pencil, the place where Flynn disappeared.

Over time, this cross was almost erased, and the story gradually turned into a legend.

Locals rarely mentioned Kish, but were eager to tell rumors.

The most popular was the story of the forest hermit, an unknown man who allegedly lives deep in the mountains, feeds on hunting, and watches over those who wander too far.

This legend was told in tourist bars near Lake Tahoe.

Someone claimed to have seen the light of a lantern among the trees at night.

Someone claimed to have heard human footsteps behind the camp when there was not a soul around.

The newspapers did not print these stories, but the discussions continued on tourist forums.

One user wrote that in 2016, he saw a figure in a dark cloak on the opposite bank of the stream where Krish’s backpack had once been found.

Another claimed to have come across old mine tunnels filled with wooden beams and heard the echo of footsteps inside.

Officially, all of these testimonies were considered unverified, but they gave rise to a new local mythology, one that allows people to talk about fear without mentioning death.

The investigators themselves, interviewed later by journalists, admitted that the case left an unpleasant feeling.

One of them, Detective Thomas Wade, said in an off thereord interview, “We’re used to bodies, but there was nothing here.

not a single thread to pull.

His words were quoted by several local publications after which the topic disappeared from the newspapers again.

In 2017, the sheriff’s office received a new report.

A logger from the small town of Genoa named John Marsh reported that around the same time the student disappeared, he saw a khaki SUV with no license plates at night.

The car was traveling on a narrow forest road with its headlights off.

According to Marsh, the driver seemed to know the area so well that he drove without lights.

The man did not report the incident earlier because he did not connect what he saw with the disappearance of the tourist.

Hunters often avoid official patrols in the mountains.

The detectives went to the place indicated by the witness, but 3 years later, the traces had long disappeared.

There were no surveillance cameras or tire tracks left.

The report stated, “The information is not verifiable.

The probability of reliability is medium.” This wording did not change the status of the case, but it was the first mention of the possible involvement of third parties.

Despite the official termination of the search, the Flynn family did not give up.

Linda and Richard Flynn, Krisha’s parents, continued to send inquiries to the police, contacted journalists and charitable organizations that were searching for missing persons.

In 2018, they hired a private investigator from Carson City, Michael Graves, a former federal agent who specialized in hopeless cases.

Graves reviewed all the materials, photo reports, and interrogation protocols.

He personally hiked the route of the Wolf Ridge Trail and spent a night in the same area where the dog’s trail disappeared.

In his report, he wrote, “The forest has strange acoustics.

Sounds get lost and then return from the other side.

This place distorts distance and direction.

A person, even an experienced one, can get confused, not realizing that they are standing in the same place.” Despite this, the detective did not find any evidence to explain the sudden loss of the scent or disappearance without a trace.

Graves drew attention to one detail in the materials.

The photos of the backpack found by searchers showed no mud stains even though it had rained after the disappearance.

This could mean that the backpack was not under the bush all the time or that it was moved later.

But there was no evidence for this.

After several months of work, the private detective admitted that all possible versions had already been worked out by the police.

In a letter to the family, he wrote that the case had a supernatural emptiness.

No act, no witnesses, no logic.

For the parents, these words were another blow.

Gradually, disappointment gave way to silent expectation.

Every May they would come to the trail head, lay flowers where his car had been parked and leave a note in the visitor’s book.

We remember sometimes tourists would pass by and ask who they were looking for.

Linda would answer briefly, “Our son.” The forest took him away.

By the end of 2019, the case of Kish Flynn’s disappearance had finally turned into a story that everyone knew, but no one hoped to solve.

In the police archive, it stood on the shelf at number 142 among dozens of others with the same word on the cover.

Unknown.

On August 17th, 2020, three local residents from the small town of Bridgeport went to the woods to pick mushrooms.

It was an ordinary Sunday morning, uneventful, but their hike went much further than planned.

They hiked into a remote part of the Humbult Toyab National Forest 30 mi from the Wolf Ridge Trail to a place where there were no longer any official trails.

Local hunters called the place where they found themselves the Dead Belt, a land between hills where only twisted pines and moss grew due to the wet soil and constant fog.

Around in the morning, one of the mushroom pickers, Harold Mason, saw a white fragment that looked like part of a branch among the fallen leaves.

When he bent down, he realized that it was not a tree, but a human bone.

At first, the men thought they had found an old grave, but as they were digging up the ground, they came across the remains of several more bones scattered in a chaotic manner.

They immediately called the police.

A team of forensic scientists from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the scene, joined by experts in forensic anthropology from the University of Reno.

The area was cordoned off, a tent was set up, and every detail was photographed and labeled.

Forensic experts noted that the bones had been lying in the open for at least 5 years.

Some of them were eroded by rain, others were carried away by animals.

However, they managed to collect an almost complete skeleton.

The discovery was not immediately linked to the disappearance of Chris Flynn.

The report only stated male 20 to 25 years old, time of death, 5 to 7 years ago.

But when the pathologists began to describe the bones, details emerged that no one had expected.

On the surface of several ribs and the humorous, traces of carvings were clearly visible.

They did not resemble scratches from stones or animal tracks.

The lines were straight, parallel, with clearly defined angles.

On one of the bones, they could see a sign that looked like intertwined triangles, and on the other, something like a spiral.

The experts immediately realized that this was not a natural injury.

After closer examination, the anthropologists concluded that some of the symbols had been applied after death, but two ribs showed signs of bone healing, which meant that some of the carvings had been made while the victim was still alive.

In his report, the chief forensic expert wrote, “The marks show signs of deliberate manipulation.

They are formed by a sharp metal object, probably a knife or scalpel blade.

The time of formation is different.

Some symbols are lifelike.

This discovery shocked even experienced forensic scientists.

In the first hours, they considered dozens of versions from participation in an occult ritual to the victim’s mental disorder, but the most probable one remained.

They were looking at the body of a person who had been tortured.

For two days, they combed the site with metal detectors, looking for any additional items.

Under a layer of leaves, they found the remains of a fabric, a fragment of gray synthetic material similar to a tourist jacket.

A part of the sports brand’s logo was preserved on the zipper.

It was this coincidence that later led to the first assumption.

The jacket was identical to the one worn by Chris Flynn on the day he disappeared.

The following week, the laboratory received the results of the preliminary analysis.

The forensic anthropologists determined that the man was about 6 ft tall.

His bone structure was consistent with the Caucasian type, and his age of death was between 20 and 25 years old.

There was only one case in the sheriff’s office archives that matched these parameters.

For final confirmation, dental records obtained from Flynn’s family were compared.

The jawbone had a filling made of a rare composite that had been placed in a Reno clinic 6 months before his disappearance.

The match was complete.

After that, all that was left to do was wait for the results of the DNA test.

3 weeks later, when the analysis was completed, the department received an official notification.

Identification confirmed.

The remains belong to a citizen, Kish Flynn, a native of Reno, who disappeared on May 15th, 2014.

The case, which had been in the archives for 6 years, was immediately reopened, this time under a different heading.

Murder with particular cruelty.

A separate group of experts examined the carvings on the bones.

They involved linguists, cryptographers, and experts in the history of religions.

None of them could find similar symbols in known writing systems, mythologies, or ritual practices.

One of the consultants described the signs as a pseudo writing system, an artificial system created by someone with their own logic.

In the FBI’s later report, these symbols were classified as objects of unknown semantics.

The case file contained another detail.

The shape of the cuts showed that they were made slowly with precision as if the perpetrator had professional skills, either medical or artistic.

No traces of metal or paint were found, so it was assumed that an ordinary knife made of highquality steel was used.

The official statement from the sheriff’s office sounded dry, but it was full of anxiety.

The remains found are consistent with a violent death and possible torture.

The investigation is ongoing for the Flynn family.

The news was both confirmation of the worst and the end of years of suspense.

The press reacted immediately.

The headlines in local newspapers read, “The Wolf Ridge mystery revisited.

” The prosecutor’s statement was heard in TV reports.

“This is no longer a case of a missing tourist.

This is a case about a killer who left a signature on the bones.” When the police completed the first stage of examinations, the main question became obvious.

What the symbols meant and who could have carved them.

But the answer they were waiting for remained beyond human understanding in that very remote part of the forest where nature and time erase everything but horror.

After the official confirmation of the identification of the remains, the case of Krish Flynn became a federal case.

In August of 2020, photographs of the bone carvings were sent to Washington DC where they were studied by linguists, cryptographers, and religious historians.

Each of them initially assumed that the signs might have a cultural or ritual origin, but none of the known writing systems had even remotely similar forms.

The report of the National Center for Forensic Studies states, “The signs are not the result of accidental damage.

They have structure and repeatability but do not correspond to any known language or symbolic system.

The analysis used methods commonly applied to ancient inscriptions such as computer classification by repeated elements and line frequency.

But the result was surprising.

The symbols did not form a sequence.

Their logic was not linear but rather cyclic as if each sign were a separate self-contained message.

One expert suggested that it was a personal code created by one person for his own purposes.

Another wrote in his conclusion, “If this is a language, it is not for communication but for action.” Among the researchers, a version of the occult connotation emerged.

It is known that in the mountainous regions of Nevada and California, there were small communities that combined religious rituals with esoteric practices.

Investigators checked the sheriff’s archives for the last 20 years, looking for similar findings, missing people, remains with symbols, unusual incidents.

In several old cases, they found references to abandoned camps where triangular signs were carved into trees.

But the examination confirmed that these were axe marks, not deliberate carvings.

No direct matches were found.

The local press immediately picked up the story and the police received dozens of calls.

People reported seeing strange hermits in the woods, nighttime bonfires, and unexplained sounds.

All these statements were checked, but none were confirmed.

The detectives focused on witnesses connected to the initial investigation.

Among them was a logger named John Marsh, who had seen an unmarked SUV at one point.

During the second interrogation, he mentioned another detail.

A large metal container similar to a field box was visible in the trunk of the car.

This fact was not previously included in the case.

Another witness, a local hunter who often visited the area, said that in the summer of 2014, he came across a camp that looked abandoned, but the fire was still warm.

He did not pay much attention to it, but now he is sure that he heard footsteps behind him.

Investigators recorded his words in the report, but found no evidence.

At the same time, the FBI invited behavioral analysis experts.

In a few weeks, they drew up a psychological profile of the alleged killer.

It stated, “The perpetrator is organized, acts methodically, has a clear understanding of the process, and controls the environment.

His actions are not impulsive.

Symbols are not just a signature.

They are a central element of a ritual that has a deep meaning for him.

Experts assume that the man who did this knew the human body well and had medical or anatomical knowledge.

The manner in which the cuts were made showed precision of movement and a complete lack of haste.

There is one more detail in the report of the behavioral department.

He operates in areas where he feels invisible.

His space is the forest.

His method is silence.

Psychologists have called such cases controlled murders.

When the perpetrator is trying to leave a message, not evidence.

He carves this message not for others but for himself to confirm his own power over the victim.

Meanwhile, the investigation has recovered all of Flynn’s contacts, checked his email, social media, and online shopping lists.

Nothing suspicious was found.

His life looked normal and predictable.

The only thing that stood out was his passion for remote places where he could photograph reptiles.

It was this trait that made him an easy target, a victim that no one would see or hear.

Forensic biologists were involved in the investigation.

They re-examined the remains, but found no traces of unauthorized DNA.

Even the soil particles on the bones were of the same type as the place of disappearance, which meant that the body could have been brought here after death.

In September, the police received the results of spectral analysis of metal microparticles found on the rib.

These were remnants of high-end stainless steel.

Such alloys are used in surgical instruments and professional knives for cutting skin.

This gave rise to the theory that the killer might be a former doctor or taxiderermist.

This detail did not make it to the press, but it became an internal reference point for the agents.

In the fall, when the rumor wave began to subside, the chief investigator of the Reno department summarized in a memo.

We have a body, the signs, and no insight.

The person who did this wanted us to look, but we didn’t.

The symbols carved into the bones remained a mystery.

Only one thing was clear.

They were not accidental.

Someone had created them with intent, cold and precise, as if turning death into a language that only they could understand.

In November of 2020, the case of Krish Flynn had been at a standstill for several months.

The symbols on the bones could not be deciphered.

No traces of foreign DNA were found, and there were no suspects.

That’s when a detective from the Reno District Office, David Rosco, decided to look through old archives of unsolved disappearances in neighboring states.

He was only interested in those cases that had common features: lone tourists, remote areas, and no robbery motive.

In the California Department’s database, he came across a case dating back to March of 2011.

It was about the discovery of remains in the Inyo National Forest near Tyogga Pass.

According to local press reports, a hunter had found human bones in a gorge near an old mining camp.

The case was not publicized.

The cause of death could not be determined, and the bones had been lying in the open air for at least several years.

The only thing that surprised the forensic experts at the time was the small carved notches on the ribs.

They were thought to be post-mortem injuries, possibly from tools used to extract the meat of the animal that had devoured the body.

The report called this detail insignificant.

Rosco requested copies of the photographs from the California archive and compared them to Flynn’s case file.

At first glance, the match seemed ghostly, but after several hours of study, he noticed that some of the marks had the same structure.

two crossed lines with a small circle in the middle.

In both cases, they had the same proportions and the same angle of inclination.

The detective handed over the materials to forensic anthropologists who confirmed that the shape of the cuts, the depth of the carving, and the nature of the lines matched.

A few days later, a comparative examination gave an official conclusion.

Some of the symbols from the California case are identical to those carved on the bones of Krish Flynn.

Others are similar in style as if they were part of the same set.

One of the experts wrote in his report, “When viewed as a system, these signs function like a language where each symbol is a word or syllable.

We are not looking at two separate cases but a continuation of a single process.” This was the first real breakthrough.

The police suspected that they were dealing with a serial killer who had been active for at least 9 years.

The FBI’s involvement was needed to officially confirm this.

The Federal Bureau opened its own investigation and Flynn’s case was transferred to the Sacramento office where a special task force was created.

Agents began checking data from the database of missing tourists in the western states.

According to preliminary estimates in Nevada, California, and Oregon alone, more than 200 people have disappeared in mountainous or forested areas over the past 15 years.

Most of them have been found, dead or alive, but about 20 cases remained unsolved.

Among them, there are several surprisingly similar cases.

single men in their 20s and 30s, all experienced hikers who disappeared in places where there is no stable connection and almost no tourists.

FBI analysts created a map of the disappearances on it.

They marked locations with red marks, Lake Tahoe, Inyo Forest, Mono County, and part of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The line between these points formed a conditional arcuate belt, a territory that experts called the zone of silence.

It was in this region that people had been disappearing for a decade and no one could explain why.

At the same time, researchers from the forensic laboratory began analyzing the micro cuts on the bones of both victims.

It turned out that the blade used to make the cuts had the same width and profile.

Its shape corresponded to a rare type of tool, a knife for precision bone carving used by restoration artists or medical technicians.

This coincidence was considered statistically unlikely.

So, the experts concluded that both crimes were committed by the same person or someone who used the same set of tools.

Investigators also reviewed the materials on the identification of the victim from the Inyo forest.

They did not even find a name.

The body was too damaged to identify.

Only one photograph of a skull fragment with the same carving lines as Flynn’s survived.

This confirmed the hypothesis.

The killer left a signature on his victims.

The FBI began to build a profile.

In terms of his handwriting and the level of organization of the crimes, he was not typical of traveling killers or religious fanatics.

He was a man with high intelligence, practical anatomy skills, and survival experience.

He knew how to disappear without a trace, left no biological evidence, and operated in places where police rarely work.

An internal report described him as a hunter who turns killing into a ritual of observation.

While investigating the disappearances, the agents noticed another coincidence.

In most cases, the bodies or belongings of the victims were found near water, streams, lakes, or swamps.

This fact gave grounds to believe that the perpetrator deliberately chose places where water could wash away traces.

At the press conference, an FBI spokesperson made a brief comment.

We have reason to believe that there are similar cases in the Flynn case in several states.

The investigation is ongoing.

The public did not know the details, but inside the agency, they understood that for the first time, it was possible to connect the individual fragments into a single scheme.

The Inyo archive case opened the door to a past that no one had connected with the present.

And now the investigators were faced with a new question.

How many more such victims does the forest hide? and whether all this is the work of one man who has remained invisible among the trees for almost a decade.

In the winter of 2020, a special FBI task force created after comparing the cases of Flynn and the John Doe from the Inyo forest began to form a geographic profile of the killer.

Analysts mapped all the places where bodies had been found over the past 15 years.

All the points were concentrated along a conditional arc between eastern California and western Nevada, an area locals call the shadow zone.

It covered the Inyo National Forest, part of the Mojave Desert and the mountainous areas north of Death Valley.

The area was almost deserted, but densely riddled with old dirt roads once used by miners and ranchers.

The picture was clear.

The perpetrator operated within a single vast but familiar space.

He never left a 50-mi radius, always choosing places near old roads or canyons where he could hide a car.

This pattern indicated that he knew the area well, lived nearby, and had his own vehicle capable of traveling on difficult mountain roads.

While the analysts were working on the map, the forensic experts took up the physical evidence found back in 2014.

During the re-examination of Krish Flynn’s rain jacket, several fibers that had gone unnoticed before were found under the microscope.

These were thin, slightly twisted threads of wool, colored dull brown and green gray.

Based on the results of chemical analysis of the dying, the experts found that natural pigments of plant origin were used, a method typical of handw weaving, not industrial production.

The material did not belong to any known sports fabric.

Experts speculated that these fibers could have remained on the jacket through contact with a blanket or rough handmade clothing.

Such products are usually found in small communities where traditional spinning methods are still used.

For example, in some religious communities or among hermits living outside of civilization.

This result led the agents to look further.

They contacted textile specialists working with local producers in Nevada and California.

One of the consultants, an artist and handw weaver from Bishop said he had seen a man selling wool blankets with an unusual texture at farmers markets several times.

According to him, the man appeared irregularly, usually in the fall, and always arrived in an old sandcoled pickup truck.

He did not give his name, spoke little, took money and cash, and often disappeared suddenly when sales were slow.

The master remembered another detail.

The blankets had a special pattern, straight weaves that formed sketchy shapes that looked like triangles, the same geometric motif that appeared in the photographs of the symbols on the bones.

This coincidence alerted the agents.

Based on the witness’s description, a sketch was drawn.

a man in his 60s, tall, thin, with a thick beard and deep set eyes.

He was dressed simply in a woolen shirt, worn pants, and old shoes.

The records of the market guard contain references to an unnamed trader who appeared at fairs in the towns of Lee’s Vining, Bishop, and Long Pine.

He did not stay at any of them for more than a day.

The task force checked vehicle registries.

All of the old khaki pickup trucks registered in Mono and Inyo counties passed muster.

But one entry stood out.

An old 70s Ford with no official owner spotted on farm roads several times in recent years.

It was seen near the driedup channel of Glass Mountain Canyon where the remains of old ranches were previously found.

Using satellite imagery, analysts investigated the canyon area.

One of the photos taken in the spring of that year shows a small building with a metal roof and several outbuildings.

They looked abandoned, but there was a fresh car track near the gate.

Nearby, there were traces of a small vegetable garden and a square plot of land paved with stones.

It was hard to see what exactly was there from a height, but for the agents, it was the first real landmark.

A series of non-public surveys were conducted at farmers markets.

Several vendors recognized the man described.

One of them, the owner of a small farm, said that the hermit from the canyon, sometimes brought not only blankets, but also wooden items roughly carved with a knife.

On some of the items, he saw engraved symbols that looked like ancient signs.

When asked about their meaning, the man answered briefly, “These are old formulas.

” This phrase was included in the operational report and almost verbatim repeated the words recorded in the Flynn case.

Signs that act like formulas.

This coincidence could not have been accidental.

After several weeks of checking, the agents narrowed the search to one canyon in Mono County.

The images showed the remains of electric poles and an old well, indicating that a ranch had indeed once existed there.

Official documents dated back to the middle of the last century.

The owners had long since died and the territory was considered abandoned.

In January, the FBI developed a surveillance plan.

Agents were ordered to act without publicity to install cameras, track car movements, and confirm whether someone actually lived at the ranch permanently.

The area was so remote that the only way to get there was through a dried up creek bed.

The operation was scheduled for the first days of February when the weather was supposed to stabilize.

In the meantime, the reports contained only a brief description.

The likely suspect is an elderly man, isolated, skilled in handwaving, living in a remote area, may be connected to a series of ritualistic murders in the western United States.

Thus began the surveillance that was to confirm that the man who had remained a shadow in the desert for years did indeed exist and perhaps still looked at the world through the narrow window of his lonely hut.

In March of 2021, the FBI task force working on the marks on the bones case began the final phase of the operation.

For three weeks, the agents quietly monitored a remote ranch in a Mono County canyon accessed only by a narrow dirt road among the rocks.

Surveillance cameras were installed a few hundred yards from the house and an observation post was set up on a ridge overlooking the entire area.

The first days confirmed that there was indeed a man living there who fully matched the description of the unknown market trader.

He would leave the hut early in the morning to work in the small garden, then work for hours at a wooden workbench that looked like an old loom.

There was no light in the house, but at night a lamp or candle flickered inside.

An old sand colored pickup truck was parked near the house, its body covered with a layer of dust.

On the passenger seat, several rolledup skans of wool were visible.

During the surveillance, the agents noticed a strange detail.

a series of stone mounds stretched along the backyard, each no more than half a meter high.

At first, they thought they were pet burials, but the drones spotted carved symbols on the tops of the stones, the same ones found on the victim’s bones.

Then, it became clear that this was not a coincidence, but the place where the killer lived and worked.

When the evidence was sufficient, the federal prosecutor’s office issued an arrest warrant.

The morning of March 19th was chosen on purpose.

The weather was forecast to be clear, making it easier for helicopters to operate.

Eight agents of the special unit were involved in the operation.

They entered the canyon from two sides, blocking possible escape routes.

At in the morning, the assault team approached the gate.

They expected resistance, but the man who came out to meet them made no move.

He stood barefoot wearing a rough woolen shirt holding a wooden bowl of chicken feed.

His name was Ezra Cfield.

He was about 65 years old at the time.

The arrest took place without a single shot being fired.

During the search of the hut, the agents found a large number of homemade fabrics, dozens of skes of wool, old knives, blades, and metal alls.

In the pantry, there was a table with an open book on it, a thick leatherbound diary.

It was this book that became the main piece of evidence.

In it, Cfield described his work for decades.

Each entry was accompanied by symbols similar to those he carved on the bones of his victims.

He called them purification formulas.

The pages were dated to the early 2000s.

One of them contained a detailed description of the process of liberating the soul through the sign on the rib.

Another contained the phrase, “Some people are born with rottness.

They must be released so that they do not infect the earth.” There was no remorse in the texts, only cold confidence.

In the hut, they also found wooden plaques with carved figures, which he said he made in memory of those who were purified.

A small basement closed by a heavy door was found under the house.

Inside there was a wooden table with metal fasteners, empty glass jars, pieces of rope, and rusty tools.

On the walls are the same symbols scratched with a knife.

Forensic experts confirmed that some of the marks on the tools matched the type of damage found on the bones of Krish Flynn.

During the interrogation, Cfield did not deny his involvement in the murders.

According to the agents, he spoke calmly, even with a certainy satisfaction.

He explained that he was healing people who had lost touch with the earth.

This is how he referred to lonely travelers whom he considered wandering souls.

He would follow them along the forest trails, select those who were traveling alone, and bring them to him.

When asked about Flynn, Cfield said that the boy was looking for the wrong thing.

According to him, he had been watching him for several days.

He saw him taking pictures of lizards near a stream.

His eyes were looking down.

He said he saw only the flesh, not the spirit.

After that, he decided to free him from the weight of the earth.

Experts who studied Cfield’s mental state concluded that he was sane.

Despite his religious delusions, he clearly understood his actions and planned them carefully.

The investigation found that he had been living alone for over 20 years without electricity, communication, or the help of civilization.

The only things he took out of the canyon were his cloths, which he sold to buy salt and flour.

Several stone-covered animal burials were also found on the ranch.

Some of them contained bones with the same markings as human remains.

This confirmed that Caulfield’s rituals were systematic, honed over the years.

In June, a court in Bishop City found Ezra Caulfield guilty of a series of premeditated murders with extreme cruelty.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the right to be pardoned.

In his speech, the prosecutor emphasized that the defendant turned suffering into a language and murder into a right of passage.

For the family of Krish Flynn, this news was the end of a long wait.

Their son, who had been missing for 6 years, was finally named among those found.

His remains were rearied in Reno.

Linda Flynn told reporters that the truth is bitter, but it’s better than nothing.

When the agents left the canyon, the symbols carved by Cfield’s hand remained on the stones for a long time.

They were not washed away by rain or wind.

And even after the area was cleared, locals said that at night they could hear the soft creek of a loom there, as if someone was still working in the silence of the desert.