In 2000, a park ranger in Olympic National Park found an unusually large antill deep in the forest.

When he began to examine it, he discovered human bones inside.

An examination revealed that they were the remains of a tourist who had disappeared 5 years earlier.

The investigation led to one of the strangest cases in the history of US national parks.

Emily Carter disappeared on August 23rd, 1995.

She was 22 years old.

She had come from San Diego, California to spend a week in Olympic National Park in Washington State.

Emily had just graduated from college and was working as an assistant at a veterinary clinic.

She dreamed of becoming a biologist and studying wildlife.

The trip to Olympic was her gift to herself before starting her full-time job.

Emily arrived at the park alone.

She registered at the visitor center in Port Angeles on August 21st.

The ranger who checked her in remembered the girl.

She was cheerful and energetic.

She asked about the best routes for wildlife viewing.

The ranger recommended the Hall of Moss’ trail and the Ho Rainforest Valley.

These were popular and safe routes.

Emily rented a small room in a motel in the town of Forks about an hour’s drive from the park.

The motel owner, Mrs.

Jenkins remembered Emily as a polite girl who got up early and returned late in the evening.

Emily spent whole days in the park.

She photographed trees, moss, and streams.

Dozens of photos were later found in her camera.

On August 23rd, Emily left the motel early in the morning around .

Mrs.

Jenkins saw the girl loading her backpack into her car, an old red Honda Civic.

Emily said she planned to spend the whole day on the Quinnalt Lake Trail and would be back in the evening.

It was her last day in the park.

The next morning, she was supposed to drive back to California.

When Emily didn’t return in the evening, Mrs.

Jenkins wasn’t worried.

Tourists often stayed in the park longer than they planned.

But the next morning, August 24th, Emily’s room was still empty.

Her belongings were untouched.

Mrs.

Jenkins called the park service office.

Rangers checked the parking lot at the Quinnalt Lake Trail.

Emily’s red Honda Civic was still in the same spot.

The car was locked.

Nothing inside had been touched.

The girl’s backpack was missing.

This meant that she had gone on the trail and not returned.

The park service immediately organized a search operation.

20 rangers, volunteers from the local community, and the Jefferson County Search and Rescue Team participated in the search.

They combed the forest along the Queen Lake Trail and surrounding areas.

They used search dogs.

A helicopter flew over the area.

The search continued for 5 days.

They found several clues, bootprints on a muddy trail, an energy bar wrapper, but Emily herself was nowhere to be found.

The Grace Harbor County Police joined the investigation.

Detective Robert Hill took charge of the case.

He interviewed everyone who had seen Emily in recent days.

Tourists who had met the girl on the trails said she was alone and seemed calm.

No one noticed anything suspicious.

One couple of tourists remembered an important detail.

On the morning of August 23rd, they saw Emily at the beginning of the trail.

A middle-aged man dressed as a ranger was talking to her.

The couple did not hear the conversation, but it seemed normal.

The man pointed toward the forest as if giving directions.

Emily nodded and smiled.

Then they parted ways.

The girl walked along the trail and the man headed for the parking lot.

Detective Hill checked all the rangers who were working that day.

None of them remembered talking to Emily on the morning of August 23rd.

What’s more, there were no rangers on duty in the Quinnalt Lake area that morning.

The nearest station was 15 mi away.

This meant that the man in the ranger uniform could have been an impostor.

The police published a description of the suspicious man.

He was tall, about 6 ft, thin, aged 40 to 50, with short graying hair, and wore a park ranger uniform.

But no one responded.

The couple of tourists couldn’t remember any more details.

They had seen the man from a distance and didn’t remember his face.

By early September, the search for Emily Carter had been called off.

The police classified the case as a missing person under suspicious circumstances.

The girl’s parents came from California.

They begged for the search to continue.

They distributed flyers with their daughter’s photo throughout Port Angeles and Forks.

They offered a $10,000 reward for information, but no leads appeared.

Emily’s car was returned to her parents.

Her belongings from the motel were also taken.

A diary was found in her room where the girl had recorded her impressions of the trip.

The last entry was from August 22nd.

She wrote about the beauty of the park and how she dreamed of returning there again.

There were no signs of anxiety or fear in the entry.

The case of Emily Carter’s disappearance remained open, but the active investigation was discontinued.

The police had no evidence.

There were no witnesses.

There was no body.

Detective Hill continued to periodically review the materials, but no new information emerged.

Every year, on the anniversary of her disappearance, Emily’s parents came to Olympic and walked the trails, hoping to find some trace of their daughter.

For 5 years, the case remained unsolved.

Olympic Park continued to welcome millions of tourists every year.

Most of them had never heard of Emily Carter.

Only experienced rangers remembered the missing girl.

Sometimes they mentioned her story to newcomers as a reminder that even in national parks, bad things can happen.

Mark Collins began working as a park ranger in Olympic in 1988.

He was 29 years old.

Before that, he served in the army, then studied forestry at the University of Washington.

Mark loved nature and wanted to work outdoors.

The position of ranger was perfect for him.

Mark worked in the western part of the park in the rainforest area.

His duties included patrolling trails, assisting tourists, monitoring wildlife, and checking remote areas for violations or problems.

It was physically demanding work, but Mark enjoyed every day.

In June 2000, Mark was assigned to check the northwestern sector of the park.

It was one of the most remote and least visited areas.

There were no marked trails leading there.

Tourists rarely ventured so deep into the park.

Rangers visited the area about once every 6 months to make sure everything was in order.

Mark set out early in the morning on June 15th.

He took a backpack with provisions for 2 days, a tent, a GPS navigator, and a walkie-talkie.

The plan was simple.

Walk through the sector, check the condition of the forest, photograph any changes, and return to base in a day.

The weather was good, sunny, and warm.

Mark walked along a barely visible animal trail, making his way through the thick undergrowth.

The forest was quiet.

Only birds and the rustling of leaves could be heard.

After several hours of walking, Mark came out onto a small clearing.

That’s where he saw it.

In the center of the clearing stood a huge pile of earth and branches.

It was conicle in shape and reached about 6 or 7 ft in height.

The diameter of the base was about 10 ft.

Mark immediately realized that it was an antill, but he had never seen one this size before.

The ranger moved closer.

The surface of the mound was swarming with large black ants.

They moved in organized columns up and down the embankment.

Mark crouched down and began to watch.

The ants were carrying pieces of leaves, small twigs, and something white.

Mark looked closely.

The white pieces looked strange.

They were too clean to be natural material.

Mark took out a stick and carefully touched the edge of the antill.

The insects reacted immediately.

Hundreds of ants poured out to the place of contact.

Some climbed onto the stick.

Mark quickly pulled his hand back.

These ants were aggressive.

The ranger decided to photograph the unusual antill for his report.

He took out his camera and took several pictures from different angles.

Then he noticed something strange at the base of the hill.

A small object was sticking out of the ground.

Mark bent down and looked closely.

It was a button, an old metal button from clothing.

Mark found a long branch and began to carefully dig up the ground near the button.

The ants were becoming more and more aggressive.

They crawled along the branch and tried to climb onto his boots.

Mark stepped back and put on gloves.

He continued digging.

After a few minutes, he came across something hard.

Mark removed more soil and saw fabric, faded blue fabric, partially decomposed.

He pulled on the edge of the fabric.

It tore in his hands.

Underneath the fabric was something white.

Mark realized it was bone.

The ranger stopped immediately.

He moved away from the antill to a safe distance and took out his radio.

He contacted the park’s main office.

He reported his find.

The dispatcher asked him to stay where he was and not touch anything else.

Help would arrive within a few hours.

Mark set up his tent a 100 yards from the antill and waited.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the huge mound.

What was inside? Whose bones were they? How long had they been there? The questions kept him awake.

By evening, a group of four people had arrived.

Head Ranger David Thompson, his two assistants, and Grace Harbor County Sheriff John Mitchell.

They inspected the site.

Thompson immediately understood the seriousness of the situation.

He called for additional help via radio, forensic experts, and a medical examiner.

The next morning, eight more people arrived at the clearing.

They brought equipment, protective suits, and insecticides.

The plan was simple.

Destroy the ants, carefully dismantle the antill, and remove everything inside.

The forensic experts sprayed a powerful insecticide around and on the antill.

Thousands of insects died within an hour.

Then they began to carefully remove layers of soil and branches.

The work was slow and painstaking.

All the evidence had to be preserved.

After 3 hours of work, it became clear that there was a human skeleton inside the antill.

The bones were clean with no traces of flesh.

The ants had completely gnawed away the soft tissue.

The skeleton lay in a contorted position as if the body had been placed there by force.

The forensic experts continued their excavation.

They found the remains of clothing, blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and a jacket.

All the items were badly damaged by time and insects.

They also found a backpack almost completely decomposed.

Inside the backpack was a plastic water bottle, a compass, and a driver’s license.

When the expert read the name on the license, everyone fell silent.

Emily Carter.

Date of birth, March 23rd, 1973.

Address in San Diego, California.

The photo on the license showed a smiling young woman with brown hair.

Sheriff Mitchell immediately contacted Detective Hill.

He rushed to the scene 2 hours later.

Hill remembered the Emily Carter case.

For 5 years he had periodically reviewed the materials, hoping to find a clue.

Now the girl had been found, but under terrible circumstances.

The remains were carefully packed and sent to the county morg.

The forensic examination began the next day.

Experts confirmed that the skeleton belonged to a young woman of Caucasian race, aged 20 to 25, 5′ 6 in tall.

Everything matched Emily’s description.

DNA analysis took a week.

The results confirmed the identification.

It was indeed Emily Carter.

The girl’s parents were informed of the discovery.

They came to Washington to collect their daughter’s remains.

After 5 years of waiting and hoping, they finally had an answer.

But it was the answer they feared most.

The cause of death was difficult to determine due to the condition of the remains.

But experts found a crack in Emily’s skull, a trace of blunt trauma to the back of the head.

Someone had struck the girl from behind with a heavy object.

The blow was strong enough to cause serious brain damage or instant death.

Detective Hill resumed the investigation with renewed vigor.

Now it was a murder case.

He returned to the testimony of a couple of tourists who had seen Emily with a man in a ranger uniform.

He was the prime suspect.

Someone had pretended to be a ranger, lured the girl to a remote area of the park, killed her, and hidden her body inside an antill.

Hill began checking everyone who lived near the park in 1995.

He was particularly interested in people with criminal records or strange behavior.

The task was difficult.

Thousands of people lived around Olympic Park.

Many worked with tourists.

They owned motel, shops, and were tour guides.

The detective also checked who could have had access to a park ranger uniform.

The official uniform could only be purchased through specialized stores, but similar green clothing was sold in regular army stores and online.

It was impossible to track purchases.

Hill decided to focus on the area.

The location of the discovery was very remote.

The person who brought the body there must have known the park well.

It couldn’t have been a random tourist.

Most likely, it was a local resident or someone who visited the park frequently.

The detective studied the park maps and realized one important thing.

The location of the discovery was about 3 mi from the Kult Lake Trail where Emily was last seen, but there was no direct route there.

One would have to know the forest very well to navigate through the thick undergrowth without getting lost.

This narrowed down the circle of suspects.

Hill requested a list of everyone who had worked for the park service or forestry department in the 1990s.

He also checked hunters and fishermen with licenses for the area.

There were 47 names on the list.

The detective began checking each one in turn.

Most of the people had clean records, but one name caught his attention.

Walter Grayson, 53 years old, lived in a small house on the edge of the park on the Queen Lakeside.

He had worked as a lumberjack until 1992.

Then he injured his back and went on disability.

Since then, he had lived alone and rarely appeared in town.

Grayson had a criminal record.

In 1985, he was arrested for assaulting a woman in Portland, Oregon.

He spent 3 years in prison.

After his release, he moved to Washington and tried to keep a low profile.

Neighbors said Grayson was a strange man.

He avoided people.

He often went into the woods for days at a time.

Hill decided to visit Grayson.

He arrived at his house with two officers on June 27th, 2000.

The house was old and dilapidated.

The roof had partially collapsed.

The windows were dirty.

There was trash and old tools lying around.

Grayson opened the door on the third knock.

He was a tall, thin man with long gray hair.

He was wearing an old flannel shirt and worn jeans.

His eyes were cloudy and suspicious.

When Hill introduced himself, Grayson tried to close the door.

The detective stopped it with his foot.

Hill said he wanted to ask a few questions about a missing tourist.

Grayson reluctantly agreed to let them in.

Inside the house was dirty and messy.

It smelled musty and moldy.

The furniture was old and broken.

Maps of the forest with lots of markings hung on the walls.

The detective asked if Grayson remembered August 1995.

The man shrugged.

He said he didn’t remember.

Hill showed him a photo of Emily Carter.

He asked if he had seen this girl.

Grayson looked at the photo for a long time.

Then he shook his head.

He said he had never seen her.

Hill asked about clothing.

Did Grayson have a park ranger uniform or similar clothing? The man said no.

He only had lumberjack work clothes.

The detective asked for permission to search the house.

Grayson refused.

He said he wouldn’t let anyone in without a warrant.

Hill had no grounds for obtaining a warrant.

There was insufficient suspicion.

The detective recorded Grayson’s statement and left.

But he was not going to give up.

He put Grayson’s house under surveillance.

Officers periodically drove by and recorded when the man left and where he was going.

Two weeks later, Hill received a call from one of Grayson’s neighbors.

An elderly woman, Mrs.

Clark, told him something interesting.

At the end of August 1995, she saw Grayson burning something in his backyard.

The large fire burned for several hours.

The smoke was black and thick.

Mrs.

Clark thought at the time that he was burning trash, but when she saw the news about the missing tourist, she became suspicious.

She wanted to report it to the police, but she was afraid.

Grayson was a strange man and she didn’t want any trouble.

Hill thanked Mrs.

Clark for the information.

Burning the victim’s clothes was a common way to destroy evidence.

If Grayson had killed Emily, he could have burned her backpack and belongings.

But the backpack was found in an antill.

That meant he hadn’t burned everything.

Perhaps he had kept something as a trophy.

The detective began to dig deeper.

He checked Grayson’s financial records.

Bank statements showed that in September 1995, the man had withdrawn a large amount of cash, $500.

For a person on disability, that was a lot.

What did he spend the money on? Hill also found medical records.

Grayson suffered from mental disorders after a head injury in prison.

He was prescribed antiscychotic drugs, but he stopped taking them in 1993.

The psychiatrist noted in the chart that the patient exhibited aggressive behavior and sociopathic tendencies.

This information was sufficient to obtain a search warrant.

The judge signed the document and 3 days later the police returned to Grayson’s home.

This time with a full team.

Six officers, Detective Hill, and forensic experts.

Grayson tried to resist, but he was quickly subdued and taken out of the house.

The search began immediately.

The police combed every corner.

In the bedroom, they found a box under the bed.

Inside were personal items that clearly did not belong to Grayson.

Women’s jewelry, photographs of unfamiliar girls, several driver’s licenses.

One of the licenses belonged to Emily Carter, but it wasn’t the one they found in the antill.

It was a copy that the girl apparently carried separately.

They also found a bracelet engraved with Emily in the box.

Her parents later confirmed that it was a gift they had given their daughter for her 18th birthday.

The box also contained items belonging to other women.

Three pairs of earrings, two necklaces, several photographs.

The police began checking these items against the missing person’s database.

Two names matched.

Sarah Mills, 24 years old, disappeared in June 1993 in the Mount Reineer National Park area.

Jennifer Hall, 28 years old, disappeared in September 1996 in the woods near Forks.

Grayson was arrested on suspicion of murdering three women.

He was questioned for 3 days straight.

At first, he denied everything.

He said he found the items in the woods, that the photographs had accidentally fallen into his possession.

But when the detective showed him the evidence and witness statements, Grayson broke down.

He confessed to killing Emily Carter, he said he had been following her for several days.

He saw her walking alone on the trails.

He decided she would be easy prey.

On the morning of August 23rd, Grayson put on an old green jacket that looked like a rers’s uniform and approached Emily in the parking lot.

He said he had seen a bear on the trail and that it was better for tourists not to walk there alone.

He offered to guide her along a safe route through the forest.

Emily believed him.

They left the trail and went deeper into the forest.

After an hour of walking when they were far away from people, Grayson took out a rock and hit the girl on the back of the head.

Emily fell unconscious.

He hit her several more times to make sure she was dead.

Grayson knew about a large antill in a remote area.

He had stumbled upon it by accident a few years ago and noticed that the ants there were very aggressive and large.

He thought it would be the perfect place to hide the body.

He dragged Emily’s body there, partially dismantled the antill, placed the body inside, and covered it with soil again.

The ants did the rest.

Grayson also confessed to the murders of Sarah Mills and Jennifer Hall.

Both were tourists traveling alone.

He lured them in a similar manner, killed them, and hid their bodies in different locations in the forest.

The police began searching for the remains of the two other victims.

Walter Grayson’s trial began in March 2001.

The trial lasted 2 months.

The prosecution presented all the evidence.

DNA analysis confirmed that the hair found on Emily’s clothes belong to Grayson.

His confession was recorded on video.

Witnesses confirmed his strange behavior.

The jury found Grayson guilty of three counts of first-degree murder.

The judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Grayson was sent to the highsecurity Wall-W wall prison in Eastern Washington.

Sarah Mills’s remains were found in October 2001 in a forest near Mount Reineer.

Jennifer Hall’s body was discovered in November of the same year near Forks.

Both families were finally able to bury their loved ones.

Emily Carter’s parents cremated their daughter’s remains and scattered her ashes in the ocean near San Diego.

It was her favorite place.

A small memorial plaque was installed in Olympic Park in memory of the three victims.

It bears their names and dates of disappearance.

Mark Collins continued to work as a park ranger.

He never forgot the day he found the antill.

It changed his outlook on his work.

Now he was always on the alert, paying attention to anything strange or unusual in the forest.