In August of 2010, when the heat was so hot that the air above the sand shivered like coals, two sisters from Phoenix, 32-year-old Vera Witkim and 27-year-old Odet Winslow, set out on a 3-day hike in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona.

Their goal was to photograph the sunrise at Weaver’s Needle, a place locals call the heart of the curse.

Surveillance cameras captured their silver SUV in a parking lot off the Peralt Highway at in the morning.

At , Vera’s entry appeared in the visitor log going to the Ravens Trail.

We’ll be back on Sunday.

No one saw them alive again.

Three years later, in November 2013, three cavers from Tucson stumbled upon an abandoned quarry a few miles from the tourist trails.

In a deep attit flooded and covered with a layer of dust, stood two metal barrels.

Inside, in a thick technical liquid were two female bodies.

At the bottom of one of the barrels was a silver bracelet engraved with the letters OV.

and in the other was a stopped wristwatch, the hands of which were frozen at .

This is how the Superstition Mountains returned to the world what was taken from them.

But they did not say who put these women there and why.

In August of 2010, the heat dried the stones of Superstition so that they cracked underfoot.

The air stood still like a breath held, and the smell of dust was thick with a bitter metal flavor.

That morning, the sisters from Phoenix, 32-year-old Vera Witkum and 27-year-old Odet Winslow, arrived at a parking lot off the Peralt Highway.

Vera was driving her silver Toyota 4Runner, and the engine shut off immediately as if it had sensed the heat.

They were to hike the trails to Weaver’s Needle Spire for 3 days, photograph the sunrise, and return on Sunday.

In the visitors log, which lay on a wooden table under the canopy, there was a short entry in Vera’s careful handwriting.

We are going on the Raven’s Trail.

We’ll be back on Sunday.

Expect incredible photos.

The time next to the signature is 15 minutes in the morning.

The ranger on duty would later recall that they seemed calm and well equipped, although the younger one, Odet, was acting uncertain, often asking about water and shade along the route.

Vera looked experienced with a professional camera and tripod over her shoulder.

The sun was high when they left the parking lot.

The surveillance cameras captured two figures in light colored clothing walking down the path leading toward Weaver’s Needle.

After that shot, the horizon is empty.

When they did not return on Sunday, Beer’s husband, Mark Witkim, was not initially concerned.

Cell phone service in those parts is weak, and the sisters often stayed a day or two late.

But on Monday morning, he started calling the park at dawn.

None of Vera’s numbers were answered.

At in the morning, he arrived at the visitor center and saw a familiar SUV covered in red dust.

The door was locked and inside there was a bottle of water, tourist maps, and a charger.

It looked like they had just left and were about to return.

The Panol County search and rescue team began work that day.

A helicopter with a thermal imager soared over Perolt Canyon.

The air was shivering with heat and dust was kicking up in a cloud with every movement of the blades.

The first day yielded no results.

At dawn on the second day, the dogs lost their trail on a narrow mountain path leading to an abandoned quarry marked on old maps as Flintstone.

It was there among the fragments of rocks that they found a broken Nikon camera strap.

Mark recognized it as a wedding anniversary gift.

Rescuers expanded the search radius to 10 m.

Patrols combed dry riverbeds, checked caves, gorges, even abandoned mines.

The weather was unbearable.

Daytime temperatures reached over 100° Fahrenheit, with nights only slightly cooler.

The water in the jerry cans was running out faster than the gasoline in the generators.

One of the rangers wrote in his report, “No signs of struggle, no belongings, as if the ground had swallowed them up.

” By the end of the week, more than 40 people were involved in the search.

Volunteers, police, even a few local hunters.

The helicopters flew over the mountains again, but no heat signals were detected.

On Friday, the dogs left the operation because their paws were burned on stones.

The official version, voiced by the sheriff’s representative at a press conference on August 22nd, sounded dry.

probably an accident, possibly a fall or overheating.

But journalists standing near the Peralt Highway wrote differently about another disappearance in the Ghost Mountains.

Locals recalled old stories about Apache Gold and that superstition only takes those who go there without permission.

A week later, the rescuers found another piece of evidence.

A camera lens lying at the bottom of a dried up creek bed half a mile from where the trail disappeared.

The surface of the glass was cracked, but a thin strip of brown dried liquid remained on the focus ring.

The sample was sent for examination.

The laboratory report dated September 5th showed traces of human blood.

Group unknown.

DNA could not be extracted due to overheating and dust.

After that, the work stopped.

The search was officially terminated on September 27th.

The protocols were transferred to the archive as missing in action in the mountains.

At home in Phoenix, Mark Witam left his wife’s voice on his answering machine for a long time.

He told reporters, “I don’t believe this is an accident.

Vera has never been wrong about her roots.

Someone was there.

The mountains were silent.

Only an old information stand near the Peralt Trail had their inscription on it, darkened by the sun, but still visible.

Hiking the Raven’s Trail.

Here is a revised version of the chapter with a correction.

In November of 2013, as the desert cooled after a long summer, a group of amateur cavers from Tucson set out for the eastern slopes of superstition.

They were looking for abandoned mines that had been rumored since the gold rush.

The group’s leader, Ray Clark, a 35-year-old energy company technician, would later say that they accidentally stumbled upon a narrow dirt path that was not marked on modern maps.

It led deep into a rocky ravine with the remains of concrete pillars and a destroyed trolley track.

The quarry, once called the silver vein, looked dead.

narrow addents, warped beams, deep pits filled with muddy water.

The walls were covered with a layer of rust and the air smelled of metal and old lubricant.

According to Clark, they had walked several hundred yards when they heard a distinctive dripping sound and spotted two large metal barrels in a remote tunnel covered with rusty rings.

Their lids were tightly nailed shut, and the surface was covered with a thick layer of dust and salt crystals.

When Clark touched one of the barrels, it made a dull sound, as if something was heavy and dense inside.

His friend, former firefighter Sam Blake, smelled a pungent odor, a mixture of oil, decay, and chemicals.

They decided not to open anything on their own.

Clark called the Pineal County Sheriff’s Office and reported the discovery, giving them the coordinates.

Two sheriff’s deputies, a forensic scientist, and a medic arrived at the scene.

According to the official report drawn up the same day, the first barrel was opened at about 16 hours and 30 minutes.

The lid was lifted carefully to avoid leaking liquid.

Inside, immersed in a dark brown oily substance, were human remains.

The body was bent like a spell.

The skin peeled off, but the fabric of the clothes remained almost intact.

The colors were faded, but it was possible to distinguish a woman’s cut.

Pants made of lightweight tourist material, a checked shirt, and boots for mountain hiking.

In the pocket, a thin silver bracelet with an engraving was found.

OV.

The second barrel was opened a few hours later.

Inside was another body as if preserved in a thick liquid.

On the left wrist is a watch stopped at 47 minutes in the morning.

The fabric of the shirt bears the name of the manufacturer which coincided with the brand that according to the family was worn by the older sister Vera Witkim.

Later the forensic expert would state in his report the degree of preservation of the bodies does not correspond to the period of 3 years.

The viscous technical fluid prevented oxygen from entering and slowed down decomposition.

Only people with technical knowledge can create such conditions.

Penal Sheriff Craig Nelson gave a brief comment to local media.

His words were quoted by all Arizona TV channels.

We are not dealing with an accident.

This is not the elements.

Someone has deliberately done everything to ensure that these women are never found.

The next day, the silver load quarry was cordoned off with yellow tape.

The work was coordinated by forensic scientists and technicians from the Phoenix Medical Examiner’s Office.

Two barrels, liquid samples, and rock fragments were removed from the mine.

A temporary laboratory was set up at the base of the mountains for testing reports indicate that traces of lubricating oil and shoe prints that did not belong to the rescuers were found in the upper layers of soil.

The prints were blurred and unidentifiable, but the size was male, approximately a 43 on the American scale.

When the information about the discovery leaked to the press, journalists recalled the case of the Winslow and Witam sisters who disappeared in 2010.

The family arrived for identification 2 days later.

Mark Witam, Vera’s husband, recognized his wife’s watch as a gift for their fifth year of marriage.

Odet’s sister was wearing a silver bracelet with her own initials found in the first barrel.

The identification was confirmed by dental records.

It was officially announced that the remains belonged to the women who had disappeared 3 years earlier.

The case was reclassified from missing persons to double murder.

At a press conference held at the Pineel County Sheriff’s Office, a department spokesman said, “We have indications that point to a planned act.

The quarry is not random.

Whoever hid the bodies knew the area and had access to industrial facilities.

The journalists found old archival documents.

The Silver Vein Quarry belonged to a small construction company that went bankrupt in 2005.

After the company closed, the property was taken over by a bank and then sold at auction.

However, none of the owners were engaged in the development of the field.

The place remained untouched, an ideal storage facility.

At the end of the month, an examination confirmed that the chemical in the barrels was old industrial lubricating oil with silica gel impurities.

There were no residues of documents, fabric, or foreign objects other than the bodies.

The report of the medical department states, “The bodies were submerged after death.

The probable cause of death is mechanical asphyxiation or head injury.

The bones show no signs of animal damage or natural decay.

Only a few days have passed since the barrels were opened, and the story has already become a major topic for all Arizona TV channels.

Reporters stood at the entrance to the canyon filming the collapsed beams and dark openings of the attit.

People brought flowers and photographs to the gate where a sign now hung.

The area is closed.

The investigation is ongoing.

The mountains were silent again, but this time their silence had the smell of oil and iron.

After the victim’s identities were officially confirmed, the case of the Winslow and Wickham sisters was transferred to the Pinal County Major Crimes Unit.

The investigation was led by Detective Roger Delaney, a former Phoenix investigator known for his meticulousness and penchant for technical details.

According to him, the primary task was to understand how two women who had disappeared on a hiking trail ended up preserved in barrels on the territory of a former industrial facility.

Delaney started with documents.

The archive of the subsoil use department showed that after the bankruptcy of the company that owned the silver vein in 2005, all assets, including the quarry, were transferred to the son of Arizona bank.

Two years later, the property was put up for auction, but the buyer refused to develop it due to environmental restrictions.

In between these events, the quarry was illegally visited several times by unauthorized persons, as evidenced by old police reports on metal thefts.

The area had been abandoned since then.

The detective ordered copies of old personnel records.

There were more than 30 names on them, drivers, technicians, mechanics.

Most of them had moved away.

Some had already died.

However, five still lived in Arizona.

Among them was Luke Granger, a former mechanic who had worked at the quarry for the last 2 years before it closed.

In the old records, his name was marked with a pen without comment.

At the same time, the detective took up the sister’s personal lives.

He met with Mark Witkum, who had moved to his mother’s house in Phoenix after his wife’s funeral.

The man looked exhausted but agreed to testify.

It was then that he first mentioned a phone conversation that Vera had had a few days before the hike.

According to him, she was sitting in the living room with Odette next to her.

Vera was telling someone on the phone that we need to clarify the route near Weaver’s Needle and that this person knows those places well.

Mark remembered his wife saying after the call, “Everything will be fine.

I talked to a pro.

Back then in 2010, it didn’t seem suspicious, but now the detective noticed a detail.

Vera used a landline phone and call records were stored in the provider’s archive.

After a request, the company provided a list of numbers for the last 2 weeks before she disappeared.

Among them, there was one that was repeated twice, a short call lasting 7 minutes, and another one lasting almost 20 minutes.

The number was registered to a private individual in Phoenix, Luke Granger.

Delaney checked his background.

Open databases indicated that Granger was born in the vicinity of Tucson, had a high school technical education, and had never been prosecuted.

After the closure of the Silver Mine, he worked for several years in small auto repair shops, and since 2008, he has worked in the transportation department of the Sunrise Construction Company.

His professional description is disciplined, non-conlictual, and a jack of all trades.

In his official notes, the detective noted, “A person with technical skills familiar with industrial facilities has potential access to remote areas.” It was then that a hypothesis arose that one of the former employees could have used the abandoned quarry, knowing its structure and underground passages.

Confirming the connection between Gringanger and the sisters was key.

The detective asked the analytical department to check the data of mobile operators to determine whether their routes intersected during the period of disappearance.

Although the signals from Vera and Odet’s phones disappeared on the first day of the hike, the records of Phoenix’s base stations were preserved.

And it turned out that in the morning of the same day the sisters left the city, Grers’s phone was active in the same area.

near the highway.

They were heading to parole.

Journalists did not know about this discovery at the time, but police reports stated, “The time coincides within 1 hour.

There is no direct evidence of a meeting, but the probability of an accident is low.

” While analysts were checking other coincidences, Delaney turned to the archives of the bank that temporarily owned the quarry.

In the books, he found several receipts for equipment maintenance and security dated after the company’s bankruptcy.

One of them was signed by the same Granger as a contractor hired to repair the generator.

It was a year after the quarry was officially closed.

The detective concluded that the person had keys to the territory and knew how to get to the underground addits.

The report of December 2013 states, “A possible connection between the victims and a former quarry worker has been established.

It is necessary to conduct interviews and check the alibi.

The investigation was entering a phase when every detail of the past began to take on new meaning.

The quarry, which had been silent for decades, suddenly found itself at the center of a crime.

And among the names that had been erased by the dust, one Luke Granger sounded especially clear now.

In early January of 2014, Detective Roger Delaney met Luke Granger for the first time in person.

He was 45 years old, a lean, trim man with a straight posture and shortcropped hair that was already graying at the temples.

At work, he was known as a meticulous mechanic who was never late, never drank, and never said too much.

His colleagues at Sunrise Construction described him the same way.

A man who does his job and then just goes home.

He had no family and lived alone in a small house on the southern edge of Mesa where he was seen mostly in the yard fixing up an old pickup truck.

Delaney arrived at the construction site of the Canyon View Plaza Shopping Center in Scottsdale where Granger was in charge of the equipment fleet.

According to eyewitnesses, he was not surprised to see the police, but simply took off his gloves, wiped his hands with a cloth, and calmly listened to the questions.

When asked to speak separately, he gave a short answer.

Sure, if you need to.

The conversation lasted about an hour in the cabin of an old trailer that served as a temporary office.

Granger confirmed that he had indeed spoken to Vera Whitam on the phone a few days before she disappeared.

He said she had reached him through friends.

She knew he had worked in the Weaver’s Needle area and was wellversed in the roots there.

She wanted advice on how to approach the lookout point safely.

Granger claimed to have given general advice.

Take extra water.

Avoid dry ravines.

Do not take shortcuts leading to old mines.

That was the end of the conversation.

They say the interrogation report reads, “The interlocutor’s tone is calm.

His answers are clear.

He does not show emotions.

He repeated several times that he had not seen or heard the woman after the call.

The detective asked about the events of that August weekend when the sisters disappeared.

Granger gave a detailed answer.

According to him, he had been working 7 days a week that week at the Canyon View Plaza Shopping Center.

The project was at a critical stage, installation of ventilation systems and launch of generators.

The management demanded that the work be accelerated, so part of the team stayed on site even on Saturday.

Granger said he arrived around in the morning and stayed until Sunday evening.

He named five co-workers as confirmation.

Electrical technician Rick Bowen, foreman Carlos Menddees, forklift driver Brian Hayes, site security guard Tim Keller, and shift foreman Josh V.

On Saturday night, Granger said they ordered pizza, ate out on the site, sitting on cable boxes, and watched baseball on a small TV.

He then spent the night in a trailer near the warehouse because he had to take a delivery of parts the next morning.

Delaney verified this information.

All the employees named confirmed that Luke was indeed there.

Security guard Keller recalled seeing him several times over the weekend, and Foreman Menddees stated, “If he had disappeared, I would have noticed.

He’s always around the equipment.” The department’s report notes that the duty schedules and payroll records for those days also match.

Granger was paid double time for overtime.

When the detective asked if anyone could confirm his presence at the facility on Saturday evening, a time that preliminary estimates suggest could coincide with the sister’s disappearance.

Granger answered without hesitation.

Yes, we were all together.

We even took a picture with the foreman’s phone.

He was testing a new camera at the time.

Delaney verified this fact.

The photo did exist, showing four men sitting near a trailer with pizza boxes.

The files metadata indicated the time, 21 hours and 42 minutes, Saturday, August 14, 2010.

At the end of the conversation, Delaney made an official note.

Testimony consistent, logical, behavior is calm, no aggression or nervousness detected.

Probably not involved.

However, there was a feeling that the story was too clean.

All the details matched.

Every word was confirmed.

The alibi looked solid.

When the detective returned to his office, he reviewed the case files.

Of all the former quarry workers, only one had a connection to the victims.

The one who knew about the abandoned tunnels could have gotten to them unnoticed and had an ironclad defense.

Being present at a large construction site among dozens of people.

The police report from February is brief.

The verification of Granger’s alibi is complete.

The data has been confirmed.

No traces of involvement have been found.

For the press, the case looked frozen at the time.

Journalists wrote that investigators were considering new versions and do not rule out the possibility of an outsers’s involvement.

In reality, the department was at a dead end.

Among all the people involved in the investigation, Luke Granger remained only a shadow, silent, tidy, exemplary, a man who had a perfect alibi.

In April 2014, Detective Roger Delaney returned to the case of Luke Granger.

Formally, the investigation had almost stopped, but he could not help but feel that there was a crack in his perfect alibi.

In his notes, he wrote, “A story that is too clean is always a signal of a lie.

People are wrong about little things if they are telling the truth, and they remember every little thing if they are lying.” He started by re-checking the work schedules.

Sunrise Construction’s accounting department confirmed that Gringanger had been paid for the weekend.

However, there was a strange detail in the fleet’s fuel usage reports.

On Saturday, the diesel consumption of one of the generators dropped sharply.

This meant that the equipment was idle.

At the same time, the time sheet showed that Gringanger was working with this particular unit.

Delaney went to the construction site where the surveillance camera archives were kept.

The company had installed the video surveillance system 6 months before the sister’s disappearance and was working around the clock.

Some of the recordings had already been erased, but thanks to a backup copy at the central office, he was able to find the dates in question.

On a recording from a camera aimed at the employee parking lot, the detective saw an old sand dustcoled pickup truck arrive at in the morning on Saturday.

Granger got out, picked up a tool, and walked toward the warehouse.

A few hours of normal work followed.

mechanics passing by, someone smoking near the trailer, someone carrying boxes of parts.

But at exactly 15 minutes past 00, the same pickup truck pulls out of the parking lot.

The camera captures its license plate number and the dust kicked up by the wheels stays in the air for a few seconds.

The next time the car appears is at 23 hours 07 minutes.

A dark blur of headlights pulling into the parking lot.

The driver gets out, but the camera shows only a silhouette.

The next morning, he is back at work on the site as if nothing had happened.

This video was the first major discrepancy with the previous shows.

Colleagues claimed to have seen Granger all day, but the tape said otherwise.

Delaney again summoned technician Rick Bowen, one of those who confirmed the alibi, for questioning.

He was nervous and confused about the details.

He could not say exactly when they ordered the pizza and who stayed until the evening.

When the detective mentioned the video from the cameras, the man was silent for a long time, then admitted that Luke had asked him to say he was there.

According to Bowen, Granger explained it simply.

He did not want to get in trouble because he was away from the facility during his shift.

He promised to pay $100 for silence, but never gave the money.

After this interrogation, other employees also changed their testimony.

Security guard Keller said he saw Granger only in the morning and not in the evening.

Foreman Mendes admitted that he could not remember exactly when he returned.

Delaney recorded everything in the report.

Witness testimony is contradictory and the preliminary alibi cannot be considered reliable.

Then one more thing came to light.

The old bank report seized after the bankruptcy of Shribor Jiva contained several names of contractors who had access to the territory even after the closure.

One of them is Luke Granger.

His signature stood under the act of technical inspection of the gates and locks dated April 20, 2006.

This meant that he still had the key to the gate and there was no control over its use.

The bank that owned the quarry confirmed that the territory was not guarded all the time.

Only a few people had access and their names were kept in documents.

Most of them returned the keys, but Granger was not mentioned in the list of returns.

The detective compared this to the chronology of the sister’s disappearance.

The place where their bodies were found was a few miles off the main route in the same part of the mountains where the quarry had once been operating.

A person who knew about the addict could only get there by car through an old technical path that ended at a gate.

It was this gate that according to the documents was opened with the key used by Gringanger.

The conclusion of the report was concise.

The subject had the physical ability to enter the facility during the period of the victim’s disappearance.

The previously stated alibi is not supported by the video footage.

Delaney reviewed the collected materials.

All the roads converged on one point.

A person who knew how to hide the traces and was able to do so in a place where no one had looked for years.

The only thing missing was to understand why.

In June of 2014, after several months of preparation, the district court issued a search warrant for Luke Granger’s home.

The reason was data that refuted his alibi and confirmation of access to the territory of the former quarry.

The operation was carried out by officers of the Pel County Sheriff’s Department together with forensic technicians.

According to the official protocol, the search began at in the morning.

The house stood on the outskirts of Mesa, a one-story structure with a tin roof and a small yard overgrown with dry time.

Neighbors described the owner as quiet, never talking to anyone.

The light was rarely on in his windows.

The workshop occupied a separate outbuilding, a garage with a metal door locked with an old padlock.

Inside, it smelled of grease, iron, and solvent.

There were neatly hung tools on the walls and jars of screws, wire, and grease on the shelves.

An ordinary workplace of a person accustomed to order.

However, the experts attention was drawn to items that were not directly related to car repair.

An old pharmacy scale, plastic bags with silica gel, and several metal canisters with the remains of a thick dark brown liquid.

All this was seized for analysis.

The laboratory report dated the next day stated, “The liquid from the canisters is chemically identical to the samples of lubricating oil taken from the metal barrels where the bodies of the victims were found.

The silica gel has the same particle size distribution as that found in the liquid.

Thus, a direct technical match was established.

In a box under the workbench, the forensic team found a hardcover notebook with traces of grease on the pages.

It mostly contained records of repairs, part numbers, and generator wiring diagrams.

But towards the end, there was a page that was different from the others.

The date was a few days before August 2010.

In the middle of the page were two names, Vera and Odet.

Next to them was a set of numbers later deciphered by experts as GPS coordinates.

When the investigators plotted them on a map, they coincided with the area of the spur near the Raven’s Trail, the exact spot where Vera’s camera strap was once found.

In the same notebook, they found several short notes: volumes, density, storage temperature.

These were technical calculations that corresponded to the parameters of the liquid in which the bodies were found.

The detective’s official report states, “The entries are systematic in nature, made in the same hand as Gringers’s other notes, and may indicate deliberate planning.

” As the experts were finishing their examination of the workshop, another investigator was looking through the cabinets in the house.

Between yellowed safety instructions, he found a folder with old documents.

Among them was a court transcript dated in the mid90s.

The bankruptcy case of Arizona Development Corporation.

The document states that the main shareholder was a businessman named Arthur Winslow, the father of the sisters Verera and Odet.

After the company’s bankruptcy, the assets, including the Silver Load Quarry, were sold off.

Some employees lost their jobs without compensation, including Luke Granger.

This coincidence was a turning point.

The notes to the search warrant were clarified.

The probable motive is personal revenge of the family of the former owner of the company as a result of whose actions the suspect suffered financial losses.

An envelope with yellowed newspaper clippings was also found in the closet.

The articles date from the late ‘9s, a series of reports on the litigation between Winslow and local labor unions.

Short notes are written in ink in the margins of several clippings.

They just destroyed everything.

Their children are no better.

The handwriting matched that of the notebook.

The experts also noted another detail.

In the workshop, they found the remains of small fragments of rubber and fibers that looked like ceiling rings from metal barrels.

They were sent to the laboratory for examination.

The first result confirmed that the material was compatible with the seals of the samples found in the quarry.

When the investigators compiled a complete list of the seized items, it took up several pages.

Technical oil, silica gel, a notebook, old documents, maps, newspapers, parts of barrel rings, metal gate keys similar to those used at industrial facilities.

All the evidence was sent to a forensic laboratory in Phoenix.

According to the report received 2 weeks later, not a single detail could be accidental.

There were too many coincidences, chemical, technical, and documentary.

There was a clear line in the case that connected the crime scene, the victims, and the suspect.

On the same day, Detective Delaney made a brief note in his office log.

The motive is outlined.

It remains to prove that this is not just an obsessive memory of the past, but an action planned to the last detail.

In early July of 2014, after several weeks of coordination with the prosecutor’s office, the Pineal County Sheriff’s Department received an arrest warrant for Luke Granger.

The document stated, “The suspect is technically trained, may be armed, and has knowledge of the area and tool skills.” It was decided to conduct the operation near his place of work to avoid the risk of resistance or attempts to destroy evidence in the house.

The morning of July 2nd was a typical day in the Phoenix industrial zone.

Hot, filled with the hum of engines and the smell of oil.

At the gate of the sunrise construction fleet, trucks were parked in a row and mechanics were already getting ready to work.

At , a familiar light rustcoled pickup truck pulled into the lot.

Granger was driving.

When he got out of the cab, two plain clothes men approached him simultaneously, followed by a patrol car.

One of the detectives introducing himself said he had an arrest warrant.

Witnesses who were on the premises that day recalled that he did not even flinch.

According to eyewitnesses, Luke only briefly glanced at the police and nodded.

He did not argue, ask questions, or show fear or irritation.

One of the officers later told reporters he looked like it was inevitable for him, like a person waiting for a bus that finally arrived.

During a personal search, they found only a wallet, a folding knife, and a bunch of keys.

The patrol car drove off in the direction of the department, and the rest of the employees continued to work, although they said the atmosphere that day was depressingly quiet.

At the department building, Granger was seated in an interrogation room with Detective Roger Delaney, who had been on the case from the beginning, watching through the glass.

He would later say, “He didn’t behave like a guilty man, but like a man who had been through it all.

The first minutes of the interrogation were recorded on video.

It shows a man with a straight back, his hands folded on the table, his face calm.

When he was read his rights and informed about the evidence found, liquid notebook coordinates, he only nodded.

When the detective asked if he could explain their origin, Granger answered quietly.

I knew that one day these barrels would be found, but I didn’t think anyone would realize who was in them.

This was the first confession recorded officially.

He went on to say that he had met the sisters by chance at the entrance to the route near the Peralta Highway.

They stopped to ask for directions and he recognized Vera by her voice.

She said she had called a few days earlier and he advised a shortcut to the observation deck.

According to the suspect, he had a day off that day and decided to drive there himself to check out the old road to Weaver’s Needle.

When he saw their SUV on the side of the road, he stopped.

In his version, everything looked like a chance meeting.

He allegedly offered to take them to a place where they could see the canyon because the trail is difficult and it would be safer for the women.

Granger described how they walked together to a crossroads where, according to him, he and his older sister got into an argument.

Vera, he said, reacted sharply and he lost control.

He did not give any further details.

When asked what happened after that, he was evasive.

He only added that he did not plan the murder, that everything went wrong, and then that he had to fix it somehow.

The detectives interpreted these words as a partial confession, but he categorically refused to explain what exactly fix meant.

When the investigator asked him about the metal barrels, Granger fell silent.

He sat motionless for several minutes, then said, “I’m not talking without a lawyer.

” The interrogation was interrupted.

The protocol states, “The suspect is calm, speaks briefly, does not show emotion.

He did not express direct denials of involvement.

The statement should be taken as a partial confession.” After that, he was transferred to a temporary detention center.

in the corridor.

He stopped at the window and according to the guard looked at the sun rising over the industrial roofs for several seconds.

No words, no gestures, just a short sigh of relief.

The trial of Luke Granger began in February 2015 in the Phoenix District Court.

A man of average height wearing a light gray suit with short hair and the same calm face that his colleagues had seen sat in the dock.

The room was silent.

Even the journalists who filled the front rows did not click their cameras.

In his opening remarks, the prosecutor called the crime an act of revenge carefully thought out and executed with technical precision.

He spoke of the suspect’s coldbloodedness, the skill with which the traces were hidden, and that the whole story must have been born not in a fit of passion, but in a mind that turned pain into calculation.

Granger’s lawyer, on the other hand, argued that his client did not intend to kill.

He explained Luke’s actions as a psychological breakdown caused by years of depression after losing his job and home.

But this time, the prosecution had evidence that was missing at the beginning of the investigation.

A notebook with names, coordinates, a chemical match, testimony from colleagues, and video recordings.

Every detail added up to a clear picture.

During the third hearing, Granger’s lawyer read out his client’s statement.

It contained an attempted explanation, calm and devoid of emotion.

According to Gringanger, he had learned who the sisters were before the hike.

He had saved old clippings about the Winslow company and realized that their father was the businessman who had closed the quarry in the9s, dismissing his employees without compensation.

For Luke, it was not just the end of his job, but the end of everything he called life.

He spent more than 10 years at the Silver Load Quarry and considered it his home.

When the company was sold off and the equipment was cut up for metal, he was left with nothing.

In a statement, he wrote, “I did not want to kill.

I wanted them to feel what it was like to have your place taken away.

I knew that people disappear in these mountains.

I wanted them to just disappear.” The prosecutor declared these words not an excuse, but a confirmation of premeditation.

In the following testimony, one more detail was mentioned that finally confirmed the motive.

According to a psychological expert present at the trial, the defendant perceived the quarry not as an enterprise but as a symbol of his life.

That is why he chose the burial site, an addit that he had once repaired himself.

At one of the hearings, the prosecutor read out an excerpt from the expert report.

The use of grease, technical containers, and silica gel indicates a desire to create an artificial environment without a schedule.

a symbol of maintaining control.

For the suspect, it was a way to leave everything in order.

During the testimony, it turned out that at the moment he met the sisters on the highway, the plan already existed.

Granger knew how to lure them closer to the spur, which he called his place.

According to him, things didn’t go according to plan when Vera mentioned that their father never regretted closing the quarry, calling it unprofitable garbage.

Then according to Luke, he was overcome with the same emptiness that once remained after his dismissal.

The lawyer tried to present these confessions as an emotional outburst, not a conscious decision.

But the court panel saw differently.

Years of preparation, precise calculations, chemical experiments, records of coordinates, choice of location, access to keys.

All of these elements were indicative of planning.

Judge Judith Carson read the text monotonously without raising her voice.

She said that this crime was committed without effect, without compassion, with the logic of a technician repairing a broken machine.

The court found Luke Granger guilty of firstdegree premeditated murder and sentenced him to life in prison without parole.

The courtroom scene benefits from its coldness.

As he was being led away, Granger looked back only once at the light from the window falling to the floor.

Similar in color to the sand that once covered the Superstition Trails.

A few months later, the case was closed.

Vera and Odet’s family came to the mountains for the last time and laid flowers near the sign that read, “Remember those who were not found immediately.

” The air was filled with the smell of dry stones and dust which was breathed by everyone who was looking for answers there.

The Superstition Mountains received another legend, but this time without mysticism.

There was no Apache gold, no ghosts, no curses.

There was only a human hand that turned pain into mechanical justice.