On October 23rd, 2010, a woman in a state of extreme exhaustion was admitted to a small hospital in Bryson City, North Carolina.

She was brought in by a local farmer who found her on the side of Highway 19 leading out of the Nantala National Forest.

The woman was barefoot, wearing dirty, torn clothes, emaciated with matted hair and deep scars around both ankles.

She was conscious but had difficulty speaking.

her voice as if she had not spoken in a long time.

When the emergency room nurse asked her name, the woman whispered, “Claire Hudson.” The nurse wrote down the name mechanically without paying any attention to it.

But the doctor who was examining the patient happened to hear the name and froze.

Clare Hudson.

He had heard that name before, five years ago.

the story of two school girls who disappeared on a hiking trail in the mountains.

A story that everyone in the area remembered.

The doctor immediately called the police.

An hour later, Swain County Sheriff David Parker and two detectives arrived at the hospital.

They questioned the woman.

She confirmed that she was Clare Hudson, who had disappeared in the summer of 2005 along with her friend Molly Pierce.

She was 16 at the time.

Now she was 21.

They took a DNA sample and sent it for urgent analysis.

The results came back two days later, a 100% match.

It really was Claire Hudson, the girl who had been presumed dead for 5 years.

And the first thing she said to the detective when she was able to speak coherently was, “Molly’s there in the woods.

He doesn’t let anyone go alive.

He killed her.

He kept us for 5 years.” One of the most shocking investigations in Appalachian history began.

The story of two school girls who went on a short-day hike in the summer of 2005 and disappeared.

The story of a ranger who kept them in a concrete basement under his office for 5 years, raping, beating, and controlling their every breath.

The story of one girl’s death and the other’s incredible escape.

This documentary investigation is based on criminal case materials.

Clare Hudson’s testimony, interrogation records, forensic reports, and interviews with those involved in the events.

The story began on July 13th, 2005.

It was a hot summer day in the small town of Franklin, North Carolina.

Clare Hudson and Molly Pierce had been best friends since childhood.

They were both 16 years old.

They went to the same school, lived on neighboring streets, and spent almost all their time together.

They were typical American teenagers.

They loved music and movies and dreamed of college and the future.

Clare was a tall, athletic girl with brown hair, captain of the school basketball team.

Molly was more petite with red hair and freckles, interested in photography, dreaming of becoming a photojournalist.

Both loved nature, hiking in the mountains, and camping.

On that July day, the girls got their parents’ permission for a short one-day hike.

The route was simple, a section of the Appalachian Trail in the Nantala National Forest, a popular tourist destination, safe with marked trails and a ranger station nearby.

They plan to walk about 10 km to a picturesque waterfall, have lunch there, take pictures, and return in the evening.

Their parents weren’t worried.

The girls were experienced hikers, had been hiking since childhood, and knew the safety rules.

They had backpacks with food, water, a first aid kit, a map, a compass, and whistles in case of an emergency.

They took their cell phones even though they knew that reception in the mountains was poor.

On the morning of July 13th, Clare and Molly drove to the trail head in Clare’s father’s car.

They parked in the official parking lot near the information board.

It was around in the morning.

Several other hikers were also preparing for the hike.

The girls put on their backpacks, checked their equipment, and took a photo in front of the sign with the root map.

This information board was the last place they were seen alive.

A witness, an elderly couple from Georgia, later recalled seeing the girls talking to a man in a ranger uniform.

The conversation seemed normal.

The girls were smiling and the ranger was explaining something and pointing to a map.

The witnesses did not think anything of it and continued on their way.

This was the last time anyone other than the kidnapper saw Clare Hudson and Molly Pierce alive.

By in the evening, the girls had not returned.

Clare’s father began to worry and called their cell phones, but there was no answer.

By in the evening, when it was dark, he called the police.

The county sheriff organized a search party.

On July 14th, the next day, a large-scale search began.

Dozens of volunteers search and rescue teams, dog handlers, helicopters with thermal imaging cameras.

They combed the forest square by square.

The Appalachian Trail in that area runs through dense deciduous forest, numerous streams, rocky areas, and crevices.

It is easy to get lost if you stray from the trail.

On the third day, they found the first clue.

The girls backpacks were neatly stacked by a small stream about 3 km from the trail head.

The backpacks were closed, and inside all the food, water, and the girl’s belongings were untouched.

Their phones were inside, dead.

There were no signs of a struggle, no traces of blood, just two backpacks, as if the girls had taken them off to rest and left, forgetting to take them back.

Forensic experts examined the site.

The girls footprints led from the trail to the stream where they disappeared into the rocky bed.

No signs of a struggle, resistance, or strangers were found, or they couldn’t find any.

Three days had passed and there had been several rains.

The search continued for three weeks.

Hundreds of square kilometers of forest were searched.

All gorges, crevices, and water bodies were checked.

Dogs were used, but they lost the trail at the stream.

Helicopters scanned the forest with thermal imaging cameras.

Nothing.

By the beginning of August, the search was called off.

The sheriff announced at a press conference that the girls had presumably gotten lost, strayed far from the trail, died of hypothermia at night, or drowned in one of the mountain streams.

Their bodies could have been carried away by the current, or dragged away by wild animals.

The forest is huge, and it may be impossible to find the remains.

The families refused to believe it.

They continued to search on their own, hired private investigators, distributed flyers, and offered rewards.

But months passed and there were no leads.

In 2007, the case was officially closed as an accident.

Clare Hudson and Molly Pierce were legally declared dead.

Two memorial services were held.

Symbolic gravestones were placed in Franklin Cemetery.

The parents tried to move on with their lives, but the pain remained.

Clare’s mother fell into depression and began drinking.

Molly’s father divorced his wife, unable to cope with the stress.

The families were destroyed.

But the girls were alive at that time.

They were a few kilometers away from where they were being searched for.

In a concrete basement under a ranger service house, chained to the walls.

In the dark, in the cold, in hell.

According to Clare’s statement to investigators at the hospital in the fall of 2010, this is what happened on that July day 5 years ago.

She and Molly were walking along the trail, talking, laughing, enjoying nature.

The weather was perfect, sunny, and warm.

After a couple of hours, they reached a stream and decided to take a break and have a snack.

They took off their backpacks, sat down on the rocks by the water, and took out their sandwiches.

And then he appeared.

A man dressed as a park ranger, green pants, gray shirt, badge on his chest, wide-brimmed hat.

He was about 45 to 50 years old, strongly built, with dark hair, and a mustache.

He looked official and authoritative, and did not arouse suspicion.

He greeted them, asked how they were doing and where they were going.

The girls replied politely.

He nodded, then said, “Girls, I’m afraid I have bad news.

The section of the trail ahead is temporarily closed.

There was a rock slide yesterday.

It’s dangerous.

You need to turn back or take a detour.” Clare and Molly were upset, but not surprised.

These things happen.

They asked where the detour was.

The ranger took out a map and showed them.

He said, “The detour is long, about 15 km.

You won’t make it back before dark.

I can offer you another option.

I have a service cabin not far from here.

You can spend the night there and go back tomorrow morning.

Call your parents and tell them you’ll be late.” The girls hesitated.

A stranger, even if he was a ranger, offering to let them spend the night in his cabin.

It sounded strange, but he looked serious, professional.

He showed his ID card.

His name was RobertQincaid, a forest service ranger with 18 years of experience.

He said, “I understand you’re cautious and rightly so.

But it’s safe here.

It’s an official cabin.

Rangers on duty usually spend the night there.

I won’t be staying there.

My shift is over.

I’ll be leaving.

You’ll spend the night alone and come back in the morning.” This reassured the girls.

They tried to call their parents, but there was no connection.

Their cell phones couldn’t get a signal in the mountains.

The ranger said, “There’s a radio in the cabin.

You can use that to contact them.

” Clareire and Molly agreed.

They followed the ranger.

He led them not along the trail, but through the forest along a barely noticeable path.

He said it was a service road used only by rangers.

They walked for about 40 minutes.

The girls began to get tired and asked how far they had to go.

The ranger replied that they were almost there.

They came out onto a small clearing.

There was a wooden house, old one-story, with a porch, a typical Forest Service house.

It looked abandoned.

The windows were dirty.

The paint was peeling.

The ranger said, “Here it is.

It’s cleaner inside than outside.

Come in.” He opened the door with a key.

The girls went in.

It was dark inside and smelled musty.

There was one room with a bed, a table, chairs, and an old stove.

The ranger followed them in and closed the door behind him.

He clicked the lock.

Clare felt uneasy.

She asked, “Why did you lock the door?” The ranger turned to them.

His expression changed.

No longer friendly, but cold and harsh.

He took a gun out of his pocket.

He said calmly.

Now you will do everything I say.

If you resist, I will shoot one of you.

Understood? The girls froze in terror.

Molly began to cry.

Clare tried to talk, to beg, to plead with him to let them go.

The ranger didn’t listen.

He ordered them to take off their shoes, hand over their cell phones, watches, everything in their pockets.

They obeyed, their hands shaking.

He took their belongings and put them in a bag.

Then he ordered them to go to the corner of the room where there was an old carpet.

He pulled the carpet back.

There was a hatch in the floor underneath.

He opened the hatch.

There was a staircase leading down into the darkness.

He ordered them to go down.

The girls climbed down the rickety wooden staircase into the basement.

The ranger turned on his flashlight and illuminated the space.

The basement was small, about 4×5 m, with concrete walls, a concrete floor, and no windows.

Metal rings were embedded in the walls.

On the floor lay two thin mattresses, blankets, and a plastic bucket.

The ranger took two pairs of handcuffs with long chains out of a box in the corner.

He ordered the girls to lie down on the mattresses.

They lay down, sobbing.

He put the handcuffs on Clare’s wrists and attached the chain to the ring in the wall.

Then he did the same with Molly.

The chains were about 2 m long.

They could move within the confines of their mattresses, reached the bucket, but not the stairs or the exit.

He went upstairs and closed the hatch.

They could hear him moving furniture, placing something heavy on the hatch.

Then silence.

The girls were left alone in the dark.

That’s how their life in the basement began.

a life that lasted five years.

The first few days were a nightmare of panic and horror.

Clare and Molly screamed, called for help, cried, and tugged at the chains.

No one heard them.

The house was in a dense forest several kilometers from the nearest trail.

The basement was underground, soundproof.

The ranger came once a day.

He opened the hatch, descended with a flashlight, and brought food, usually canned goods, bread, and bottles of water.

He would place it on the floor next to the mattresses.

He would take away the bucket toilet and bring back a clean one.

He didn’t talk, didn’t answer questions, ignored their pleas and cries.

He did his job in silence, left and closed the hatch.

The only light in the basement was when he opened the hatch and came down with a flashlight.

The rest of the time it was completely dark.

The girls didn’t know if it was day or night, how much time had passed.

They lost track of the days.

The first week they hoped for rescue.

They thought their parents were looking for them, that the police would find them soon.

They listened to every sound, hoping to hear the voices of rescuers, helicopters, dogs, but nothing.

Only silence and periodic visits from the ranger.

After 2 weeks, their hope began to fade.

They understood that if anyone was looking for them here, they would have found them already.

The cabin was hidden from the trails.

No one knew about it.

The ranger had planned it in advance.

He began to come, not only with food.

He started coming down at night, raping them one by one.

First Clare, then Molly, then Clare again.

The girls resisted, screamed, scratched.

He beat them, choked them until they stopped resisting.

He was a strong, trained man in his 50s, and they were fragile 16-year-old girls.

They didn’t stand a chance.

The rapes became regular two or three times a week.

The ranger would come, rape one or both of them, and leave.

He never said anything personal, never explained why he was doing it.

He just used their bodies like objects.

The girls tried to support each other.

They whispered in the dark, held hands as much as their chains allowed, and cried together.

Clare, being physically stronger, tried to protect Molly, asking the ranger to take her instead of her friend.

Sometimes he agreed, sometimes he ignored her.

The months turned into a routine of horror.

Food once a day, rape several times a week, complete darkness, cold in winter, stifling heat in summer.

They were dirty.

There was nowhere to wash.

Only occasionally did the ranger bring wet rags for them to wipe themselves with.

Their clothes rotted away, and he brought them old T-shirts and pants that didn’t fit.

They lost weight and grew weaker.

Clare tried to exercise as much as her chains allowed so that her muscles wouldn’t atrophy.

She made Molly do the same.

They talked about the past, their families, and their dreams to keep from going crazy.

They sang songs and whispers.

They told stories, anything to stay sane.

Ranger never talked about the outside world.

He didn’t say whether anyone was looking for them or what their parents thought.

Complete isolation.

The girls knew nothing.

Maybe they were still being searched for.

Maybe they had long been presumed dead.

A year passed, then another.

Clare and Molly went from being cheerful teenagers to broken, emaciated young women.

Claire turned 18 in the basement.

So did Molly.

No celebrations, no congratulations, just darkness and chains.

In the third year, something terrible happened.

Molly fell ill.

She started coughing and it didn’t go away for weeks.

Then she developed a fever and weakness.

Clare asked the ranger to give her medicine and call a doctor.

He ignored her.

He brought aspirin, but nothing else.

Molly got worse and worse.

Her cough got worse and she started coughing up blood.

Clare screamed and begged the ranger to help.

He came down, looked at Molly, and left.

He did nothing.

In February 2008, after 2 and 1/2 years of captivity, Molly died.

She lay on the mattress, coughing up blood, suffocating, holding Clare’s hand.

She whispered, “Don’t give up.

Escape.

tell everyone.

And then she died.

Claire screamed, sobbed, shook her friend’s body, but Molly wasn’t breathing.

She was dead.

17 years old, she died in the basement, chained from an illness that could have been cured with antibiotics.

The ranger came down a few hours later.

He saw Molly’s dead body.

He took off her handcuffs, threw her body over his shoulder, and carried her upstairs.

Clare screamed, “What are you going to do with her? Where are you going to bury her?” He didn’t answer.

He carried the body away and closed the hatch.

He returned an hour later without the body.

He brought a rag and told Clare to wipe the blood off Molly’s mattress.

He took the mattress, Molly’s blankets, everything that belonged to her, as if she had never existed.

Clare was left alone in the basement, alone with chains on her wrists, in complete darkness, in despair.

She thought about suicide.

How could she kill herself while chained up? Smother herself with a blanket? Smash her head against the concrete wall? She thought about it seriously.

But then she remembered Molly’s last words.

Don’t give up.

Break free.

Tell everyone.

She swore to herself, “I will survive.

I will break free.

I will tell everyone what he did to us.” Molly will not die in vain.

Two more years passed.

Clare held on.

She exercised every day to stay strong.

She ate all the food the ranger brought her so she wouldn’t die of exhaustion.

She endured the rapes by shutting down her mind and thinking about something else.

She survived.

The ranger continued to come regularly.

Food, violence, cleaning the bucket.

Routine.

He had aged in 5 years.

His hair had turned gray.

He moved more slowly.

He was already over 50.

But he was still strong, still in complete control of her.

Clare watched him, studied his habits.

He always came at the same time in the evening after work.

He stayed for an hour or two, then left.

He never stayed overnight.

So he lived somewhere else.

This was his secret little house.

She waited for an opportunity.

Waited for a mistake.

The mistake happened on October 23rd, 2010.

Ranger went down to the basement in the evening as usual.

He brought food and put it on the floor.

Clare noticed that he looked tired, sick.

He was coughing.

His face was pale and sweaty, a cold or something worse.

He began to climb the stairs, holding on to the railing.

Halfway up, he stumbled and almost fell.

He dropped a bunch of keys from his pocket.

The keys fell onto the concrete floor of the basement with a clatter.

Ranger stopped and looked down.

The keys were lying 2 m away from Clare.

He started to climb back down to pick them up.

Clare acted instinctively.

She lunged for the keys and grabbed them.

The chain on her wrists stretched to the limit, but she got them.

She clenched the keys in her fist.

The ranger understood, jumped off the ladder, and rushed toward her.

Clare twisted, punched him in the face with her fist holding the keys, hitting him in the eye.

The sharp edge of the key dug in.

The ranger screamed, grabbed his face, and backed away.

Blood flowed between his fingers.

Clare wasted no time.

She began to rumage through the keys with trembling hands, trying to insert them into the handcuff lock.

The first key didn’t fit.

The second.

The third.

The ranger got up, walked towards her, clutching his wounded eye, cursing.

The fourth key.

The lock clicked and the handcuffs opened.

Clare threw off the handcuffs and jumped to her feet.

Her legs could barely hold her.

5 years in chains had atrophied her muscles.

But adrenaline gave her strength.

The ranger grabbed her by her t-shirt.

She broke free, tearing the fabric.

She ran to the stairs.

The ranger caught up with her.

She ran up the rickety stairs and pushed the hatch.

The hatch was heavy and wouldn’t budge.

There was furniture on top of it.

Clare pushed with all her might and the hatch opened slightly, shifting something on top of it.

She squeezed through the gap and climbed into the room.

The ranger climbed out after her and grabbed her leg.

Clare kicked him, hitting him in the face with her foot.

He let go.

She jumped up and ran to the door.

The door was bolted.

She slid the bolt back and yanked the door open.

The door swung open.

She ran out onto the porch, jumped down, and ran across the clearing into the forest.

It was night, dark, cold.

She was barefoot, wearing a torn t-shirt and old pants, emaciated, weak, but she ran without looking back.

Behind her, the ranger was shouting.

He ran out of the cabin, yelling, “Come back.

You won’t survive in the woods.

Clare didn’t stop.

She ran through the bushes and trees, stumbling, falling, getting up, and running on.

She didn’t know where she was running.

Just away from the cabin, away from him, away from the nightmare.

She ran as long as she had the strength.

Then she walked.

Then she crawled.

She walked all night.

She saw lights in the distance and walked toward them.

The lights turned out to be a farmhouse by the road.

She reached the road and fell onto the shoulder.

She lay there unable to move.

In the morning, a farmer driving down the road found her.

He stopped and saw a woman who looked like a skeleton dressed in rags, dirty, with scars on her wrists and ankles.

He thought she had escaped from a mental hospital or a cult.

He put her in his pickup truck and took her to the hospital in Bryson City.

That’s how Clare Hudson returned to the world after 5 years of captivity.

When the detectives heard her story, they immediately organized an operation to capture RobertQade.

They checked the database.

He had indeed worked as a ranger in the Nantala National Forest for 18 years.

He lived in the town of Robinsville, 20 km from the forest.

He had never been married and lived alone.

His colleagues described him as withdrawn, unsociable, but professional.

On October 24th, the day after Clare’s escape, the police raided Concincaid’s house in Robinsville.

He was not there.

Neighbors said they had not seen him since the previous evening.

The police organized a manhunt.

They found Concincaid’s work pickup truck abandoned by a trail in the forest.

They began combing the woods.

At the same time, a group of detectives searched for a cabin in the woods based on the coordinates Clare had given them.

They found the cabin in the evening.

It was an old wooden cabin in a clearing just as Clare had described.

The door was open and the inside was empty.

They found a trap door in the floor.

They went down into the basement.

What they saw confirmed the horror of Clare’s story.

A concrete basement, metal rings in the walls, handcuffs with chains on the floor, a dirty mattress, a bucket toilet.

The smell was appalling.

Years of human waste, sweat, blood.

Forensic experts took samples.

They found hair, blood, and bodily fluids.

DNA testing later confirmed that it was the hair and blood of Clare Hudson and Molly Pierce.

They found the girl’s personal belongings, the backpacks he had taken on the first day, their phones, watches, and Molly’s camera.

Everything was hidden in a box in the corner of the basement.

Evidence of the kidnapping.

Clare told detectives that the ranger had taken Molly’s body somewhere in February 2008.

The police began combing the woods around the cabin.

They used dogs trained to search for remains.

They found a burial site a kilometer from the cabin, a shallow grave under a tree.

They exumed the remains, the skeleton of a young woman approximately 17 to 18 years old.

Clothing, the remains of a t-shirt and pants, the same as Clare wore.

DNA testing confirmed it was Molly Pierce.

The medical examiner determined the cause of death to be tuberculosis complicated by pneumonia.

Without treatment, it led to pulmonary hemorrhage and death.

If she had received medical attention, she would have survived.

But the ranger did not help her.

He effectively killed her by his inaction.

Robert Conincaid was searched for a week.

He was found on October 29th.

He had hanged himself in the woods a few kilometers from the cabin.

He left a note.

I knew this would end someday.

I don’t want to go to prison.

Goodbye.

No explanation as to why he did it, no apologies, just a statement of fact and suicide.

The investigation lasted several months.

They studied Quincaid’s life and looked for other victims.

They checked all the cases of missing women in the area over the past 20 years.

They found three cases, three young women aged 20 to 30 who disappeared without a trace on the Appalachian Trail in the ‘9s and early 2000s.

The cases were closed as accidents.

The police dug up the entire forest around the cabin.

They found two more graves.

The remains of two women buried 10 and 15 years ago.

DNA testing identified them as Jennifer Collins, 23 years old, who disappeared in 1996.

Emily Thomas, 28 years old, disappeared in 2001.

Both disappeared on the Appalachian Trail.

Both were considered accidental deaths.

Robert Concincaid killed at least three women, Molly Pierce, Jennifer Collins, and Emily Thomas.

There may have been others whose bodies were never found.

He kept them in his basement, raped them, and used them until they died of disease or despair.

But he did not live to see the trial.

He hanged himself, escaping responsibility.

The case was formally closed in March 2011.

RobertQincaid was postumously found guilty of kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, rape, and three murders.

No sentence was handed down.

The defendant was dead.

Clare Hudson underwent a long rehabilitation.

Physically, she weighed 38 kg when she returned.

Her muscles atrophied, her teeth ruined, multiple infections, scars on her wrists and ankles from handcuffs and chains.

Psychological rehabilitation was also necessary.

She suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, panic attacks, and a fear of enclosed spaces, darkness, and men.

She spent 6 months in the hospital, then a year in a rehabilitation center.

Her parents supported her as best they could, but the relationship was complicated.

They had changed.

She had changed.

And 5 years had separated them.

Today, Clare is 36 years old.

She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

She is married with two children.

She works as a counselor for a nonprofit organization that helps victims of violence.

She still goes to therapy and struggles with the effects of trauma every day.

She says in an interview, “I survived, but part of me died in that basement.

Molly died there.

Jennifer and Emily died there.

We will never be the same.

But I am alive.

Every day is a victory over what he tried to do to me.

He wanted to break me, to destroy me.

But I am here.

I am speaking out.

I remember Molly and I will fight to make sure this never happens to anyone else.

Claire Hudson’s story is one of horror, but also one of incredible strength of spirit.

Five years in captivity, in darkness, in chains, witnessing the death of her best friend.

But she didn’t give up.

She waited for an opportunity.

And when the opportunity came, she took it.

She escaped.

She survived.