The morning of August 23rd, 2006 in Redwood National Park, California, began as usual with fog rolling between the giant sequoas, seagulls crying over the ocean a few miles to the west, and the smell of pine needles and damp earth.

Camp Evergreen, located in the northern part of the park, was finishing up its last session of the season.

The teenagers were packing their things, exchanging email addresses, and promising to write to each other.

Although most would forget about it within a week.

The counselors checked the grounds, making sure nothing had been left behind, that all the trails had been cleared of trash, that the fire pits had been filled with water.

Among the counselors was 19-year-old Cody Miller, a sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, studying ecology, working at the camp for the second summer in a row.

He was a favorite among the teenagers.

The kind of person who could connect with even the most difficult kids, who knew the names of all the plants and birds in the park, who could build a fire in the rain, and who told stories that had everyone listening with baited breath.

Cody was a lively, smiling guy with curly dark hair and a tan face who loved these woods more than the city and returned here every summer as if it were his home.

That morning around , Cody told the camp’s chief coordinator, a woman named Jennifer, that he was going to check the far trail, a 3 km path that led through the dense forest to a small waterfall.

Some teenagers had been there the night before, and Cody wanted to make sure no one had accidentally left anything behind and that the trail was clear.

He took his walkietalkie, said he would be back in an hour, an hour and a half at most, and went into the woods.

That was the last time anyone saw Cody Miller alive.

When he hadn’t returned by , Jennifer tried to contact him on the radio, but there was only silence in response.

She assumed he had gone too far beyond the reception area or that his battery had died.

But when another hour passed and Cody was still missing, she began to worry.

She sent two other counselors on that trail to look for him.

They walked the entire trail to the waterfall and back, finding no one, no trace of Cody, only an empty trail covered with pine needles and fallen leaves.

They returned to camp and reported that he was missing.

Jennifer checked Cody’s tent.

All his things were there, his backpack with his phone, wallet, car keys, a change of clothes, everything in place.

He had left wearing only what he had on.

a t-shirt, jeans, hiking boots, and nothing else.

By evening, when it became clear that Cody wasn’t just late, but actually missing, Jennifer called the park office, and they contacted the Humbult County Sheriff.

An official search operation for the missing person began.

By nightfall, a group of 30 volunteers had been assembled, park rangers, camp staff, and local residents who knew the woods.

They combed the area with flashlights and dogs, calling Cody’s name and listening for a response.

But the forest was silent, only the wind rustling in the crowns of the sequoas that towered above them like columns of a natural cathedral.

The search continued for a week.

They used helicopters with thermal imaging cameras, sniffer dogs, and divers to check rivers and waterfalls where Cody could have fallen and drowned.

They checked every meter of the trail, every ravine, every crevice in the rocks.

They interviewed all the teenagers and counselors who were at the camp trying to determine if anyone had seen anything strange, if there had been any conflicts, if anyone had threatened Cody.

Nothing.

No signs of a struggle, no witnesses, no clues.

Cody Miller had disappeared as if he had vanished into thin air, swallowed up by the forest he loved so much.

Cody’s parents, David and Carol Miller, flew in from Sacramento where they lived and joined the search.

They handed out flyers with a photo of their son, appealed to the media, begged anyone with information to come forward.

But days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and hope faded.

By the end of September 2006, the official search was called off.

The police classified the case as a suspected fatal accident.

assuming that Cody might have fallen somewhere in a hard-to-reach place or been attacked by a wild animal.

There were black bears and cougars in the park and that his body had been carried away or eaten.

The case was transferred to cold status and although it remained formally open, no further active investigation was conducted.

For Cody’s parents, this was unbearable.

They could not accept that their son had simply disappeared, that they had no body to bury, no place to come and honor his memory.

Carol fell into a deep depression, took anti-depressants, and was unable to return to work.

David visited Redwood National Park several times a month, and walked the same trails where Cody had disappeared, calling his name, even though he knew it was pointless.

Cody’s friends and classmates held a memorial service at the University Chapel in Berkeley, where hundreds of people gathered to honor the memory of a young man who had left a mark on the hearts of many in his short life.

Autumn turned to winter, winter to spring.

Life went on.

Camp Evergreen closed for the winter season as usual and planned to reopen the following summer.

The story of Cody Miller’s disappearance gradually faded from the news, becoming one of those mysteries that sometimes happen in large national parks, where nature takes its toll and does not give back what it has taken.

On December 23rd, 2006, exactly 4 months after Cody’s disappearance, a wildlife photographer named Robert Chen, a 38-year-old man from San Francisco, was conducting a photo shoot in the northern part of Redwood National Park.

He specialized in photographing mushrooms and insects and was working on a project about the biodiversity of old growth forests.

That day he ventured quite far from the main trails to a place where tourists rarely go in search of rare species of mushrooms that grow only on rotting wood.

Around noon, he noticed an unusual cluster of insects at the base of a huge sequoia tree about 5 m in diameter and probably over a thousand years old.

A swarm of flies and beetles was circling the roots.

And Robert, being a professional, became interested in what had attracted so many insects.

He moved closer and smelled it.

a heavy Swedish disgusting smell of decay that could not be confused with anything else.

Robert stopped, his heart beating faster.

He took out his flashlight.

It was a cloudy day and dark at the base of the tree, and shown it on the roots.

The sequoia was partially hollow, as often happens with old trees.

The core rots away, but the tree continues to live, feeding through the outer layers.

At the base of the trunk was a large cavity, the entrance to which was partially covered by bark and moss.

But if you looked closely, you could see that there was space inside.

Robert shone his light inside and saw something that made him recoil with a cry.

Inside the hollow of the tree, in the dark, damp space, lay a body curled up in a fetal position.

A human body partially decomposed, covered with maggots and mold, but still recognizable as human.

Robert dropped his flashlight, stumbled backward, tripped over a route, and fell.

He lay there for a few seconds, unable to move, then jumped up, took out his phone, and called emergency services.

The police and park rangers arrived an hour later.

They cordined off the area and called in a medical examiner and forensic experts.

Removing the body was difficult.

The cavity was narrow and the body was stuck deep inside.

So, they had to pull it out with ropes and special equipment.

When the body was finally removed and placed on a tarp, it was possible to conduct a preliminary examination.

The deceased was a young man wearing jeans and the remains of a t-shirt that had almost completely rotted away.

He was wearing Morell hiking boots.

Based on the description of the clothing and boots, one of the rangers who had participated in the search 4 months earlier immediately said, “It’s Cody Miller.” The body was taken to the morg in Eureka, the administrative center of Humbult County.

Identification was made using dental records.

After 4 months in the forest, the face had decomposed so much that visual identification was impossible, but the teeth were preserved.

It was confirmed it was indeed Cody Miller, a 19-year-old camp counselor who disappeared on August 23rd, 2006.

But it was not an accident.

The medical examiner, Dr.

Lisa Fernandez, an experienced specialist with 20 years of experience, immediately saw signs of violent death.

Cody’s hands were tied behind his back with a plastic cable tie, the kind used by electricians or for securing cables.

The tie had cut into the skin of his wrists, leaving deep grooves.

There was a piece of cloth in his mouth, a gag pushed deep inside so that the victim could not scream.

There were signs of multiple blows to the face and head with a blunt object, broken cheekbones, skull fractures, and bruises that remained on the soft tissue despite decomposition.

The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head, leading to bleeding in the brain.

Cody did not fall accidentally, nor was he mauled by an animal.

He was beaten to death, tied up, gagged, and stuffed into a tree cavity like trash.

The cold case instantly turned into an active murder investigation.

Humboldt County Sheriff Michael Torres took personal control of the case.

He reviewed all the evidence gathered during the initial search, re-interviewed witnesses, and retrieved surveillance camera footage from the park entrances for the period from August 22nd to August 24th.

Forensic investigators examined the site where the body was found, the hollow in the sequoia tree, looking for any clues that might have been left behind.

And they found a clue that changed everything.

In Cody’s jeans pocket among the decomposed remains of fabric and paper, they found a small piece of fabric, a clothing tag with the name S Hardy written on it in marker.

It was the kind of tag that parents or schools sew into children’s uniforms or clothing so that they don’t lose their belongings.

The tag had been torn from some item of clothing.

There were threads and tear marks around the edges.

Someone had torn off the tag and put it in Cody’s pocket or it had gotten there during the struggle, caught on something.

In any case, it was a lead.

Detective Torres ran the name S Hardy through databases related to Camp Evergreen.

He checked the lists of all camp participants for the past few years, the lists of staff, volunteers, everyone who had anything to do with the camp.

And he found a match.

Simon Hardy, a 17-year-old teenager from the town of Arcada, 30 kilometers from the park, had attended Camp Evergreen in 2004 when he was 15.

He attended the camp for one session and never returned.

But there was a note from the camp administration in the records.

Do not allow to return.

Behavioral issues.

Torres requested details.

It turned out that during that session in 2004, Simon Hardy had exhibited strange behavior.

He was obsessed with one of the counselors, followed him everywhere, and wrote him notes that were too personal and inappropriate for a teenager.

That counselor was Cody Miller, who was just starting to work at the camp at the time and was 17 years old.

Cody tried to be friendly and understanding, but when Simon’s behavior became too intrusive, the camp administration spoke with the boy’s parents and advised them not to send him to camp again, suggesting psychological help instead.

Torres took Simon Hardy’s case further.

In school records, he found a disturbing history.

Simon had been expelled from Arcada High School in 2005 at the age of 16 after a series of incidents involving aggressive behavior and threats to other students.

Psychological reports in the file described him as a teenager with signs of attachment disorder, obsessive thoughts, and difficulty forming normal social relationships.

After being expelled from school, he was transferred to homeschooling, and little was known about him for the past 2 years.

Torres drove to the Hardy family home in Arcada.

It was a small one-story house on the outskirts of town with an overgrown yard and peeling paint on the facade.

The door was opened by Simon’s father, a man in his 50s with a tired face and the smell of alcohol.

Torres introduced himself, showed his badge, and said he wanted to talk to Simon.

The father was wary and asked what it was about.

Torres did not reveal any details, saying only that it concerned an investigation related to the national park.

Simon came out of his room.

He was a thin, pale teenager with long, unwashed hair, wearing a black t-shirt and worn jeans with dark circles under his eyes, which looked at the detective with an expression that Torres couldn’t quite place.

Either fear or defiance.

Torres asked permission to ask a few questions and the family agreed.

He started from afar asking Simon about his connection to Camp Evergreen if he remembered that summer in 2004.

Simon nodded silently.

Torres asked if he remembered a counselor named Cody Miller.

Simon’s face twitched.

Something flashed in his eyes and he nodded again.

Torres continued cautiously, asking what Simon had been doing that summer in August, whether he had been anywhere near the park.

Simon replied monotonously that he hadn’t gone anywhere, that he had stayed at home all summer, playing computer games, and occasionally going for walks in the city.

He had no alibi, but there was no direct evidence linking him to the crime yet, except for that tag with his name on it.

Torres understood that one tag was not enough for an arrest.

It could have gotten to Cody in any number of ways, and it did not prove that Simon had been at the scene of the crime.

More was needed.

Torres returned to the office and obtained a search warrant for Hardy’s home.

Early in the morning on December 27th, 2006, a team of six officers conducted a search.

Simon’s parents were present, depressed, and confused.

Simon sat on the sofa in the living room.

silent, his face blank, watching as the police turned his house upside down.

They found what they were looking for in Simon’s room.

Under the mattress of his bed were notebooks, thick, ordinary notebooks filled from the first page to the last.

Torres began to read, and his hair stood on end.

Page after page, notebook after notebook, the same name, the same obsession.

Cody.

Cody should have chosen me.

He belongs only to me.

If I can’t be with him, no one can.

He laughs with others, but he is mine.

Only mine.

I’ll make sure he stays with me forever.

Hundreds, thousands of phrases written over and over again, like a mantra, like an obsession turned into madness.

There were drawings, portraits of Cody drawn from photographs cut out of camp brochures or downloaded from the internet.

There were maps, maps of Redwood National Park with trails marked with crosses in some places, including the area where the body was found.

There were lists, camp work schedules, counselor shifts, trail routes.

Simon prepared, planned, and studied every detail in order to get to Cody and be alone with him.

Clothes were found in the closet, a camp evergreen uniform, a t-shirt, and shorts with the camp logo, which were worn by counselors and staff.

Where did Simon get this uniform if he was a camper, not a staff member, and it was 2 years ago? An examination showed that it was a fake.

The uniform had been bought or custommade so that Simon could pretend to be a staff member and sneak into the camp unnoticed.

records were found, diaries in which Simon described his trips to the park in the summer of 2006.

He took the bus there several times, wandered around the camp, and watched from a distance.

In his entry for August 22nd, he wrote, “Tomorrow is the last day, the last chance.

I have to talk to him.

He has to understand that we have to be together.” And on the next page, dated August 23rd, there was only one word written in large letters, done.

With this evidence, Simon was arrested that same day.

He was charged with first-degree murder.

During his first interrogation, in the presence of his lawyer and parents, Simon remained silent, answering none of the questions, just staring at the table with empty eyes.

But 2 days later, when he was transferred to the juvenile detention center in Eureka, where he was to await trial, he asked to see Detective Torres.

Torres arrived and Simon, sitting at a table in the interrogation room without his lawyer.

He had refused his presence, which was his right, though unwise, began to talk.

He spoke monotonously, without emotion, as if reading something written by someone else.

He told how he had fallen in love with Cody that summer of 2004.

How Cody was the only person who treated him kindly, who didn’t laugh at him like the other kids at camp.

Simon decided it was love, that Cody felt something for him, too, and that they should be together.

When he was not allowed back into camp, Simon was devastated.

He tried to contact Cody online, searched for him on social media, sent messages, but Cody did not respond or responded with short, polite phrases, clearly not understanding the depth of Simon’s feelings.

This fueled his obsession.

Simon began following Cody driving to Berkeley where he was studying, standing outside the student dormatory watching.

He saw Cody interacting with friends and girls, and it made him jealous, burning him up inside.

In the summer of 2006, Simon learned that Cody was working at Camp Evergreen again.

He decided it was a sign that fate was giving him one last chance.

He sewed himself a uniform similar to that of the camp staff, studied the schedule and roots, and on August 22nd, the day before the end of the shift, he sneaked into the park.

He hid in the woods, watched the camp from afar, and waited for the right moment.

On the morning of August 23rd, he saw Cody walk alone on a distant trail.

Simon followed him at a distance, waiting until he was far enough from the camp that no one would hear him.

When Cody stopped at one of the sequoas, checking something on the trail, Simon approached him.

Cody turned around, recognized Simon.

He remembered him from camp two years ago and smiled, asking what he was doing there.

Simon began to speak incoherently, passionately about how they should be together, how Cody should leave with him, how they could start a new life.

Cody was confused and scared.

He tried to calm Simon down, saying that he was wrong, that there could be nothing between them, that Simon needed help, that he needed to talk to his parents and a doctor.

These words were like a slap in the face to Simon.

The rejection he feared most had happened.

Something broke inside him.

He grabbed a heavy branch lying on the ground and hit Cody on the head as he turned to leave.

Cody fell stunned, tried to get up and Simon hit him again and again and again until he stopped moving.

When Simon came to his senses, Cody was lying on the ground covered in blood, not breathing.

Simon realized what he had done and panic seized him.

He tied Cody’s hands with the plastic zip ties he had brought with him.

He had planned to use them to tie Cody up and take him away if he refused to go willingly.

But now that was pointless because Cody was dead.

He stuffed a gag into his mouth, a piece of his sweater with the name tag torn off so that no one would hear if Cody moaned even though he was no longer breathing.

Simon looked for a place to hide the body.

He couldn’t leave it on the trail where it would be found quickly.

He remembered the hollow trees that were plentiful in this forest and found one nearby, a huge sequoia with a cavity at its base.

He dragged the body there with difficulty because the cavity was narrow and Cody was heavy.

He pushed the body as deep as possible and covered the entrance with moss and branches to hide it.

Then he picked up Cody’s walkie-talkie, which was lying on the ground near the scene of the attack, turned it off, and threw it somewhere into the bushes.

He wiped the blood from the trail with leaves and scattered pine needles to cover his tracks.

Then he left, returned to the bus stop on the highway, and drove home as if nothing had happened.

He thought the body would never be found, that it would rot in the hollow of a tree, become part of the forest, and no one would ever know.

He thought that now Cody would be his forever in some twisted sense, that if he couldn’t have him alive, at least Cody’s death was at his hands, that this would bind them together forever.

After August 23rd, new entries appeared in the notebooks.

Now he’s mine.

Forever mine.

No one will take him away from me.

Torres listened to this confession, writing down every word.

And inside him, professional detachment and human revulsion at what he was hearing fought each other.

When Simon finished, Torres asked if he understood what he had done, if he regretted it.

Simon looked at him and said, “I did what I had to do.

He belonged to me.” There was no remorse in his voice, only emptiness.

Simon was transferred to a solitary confinement cell and a court hearing date was set.

The case was ironclad.

The confession, the evidence, the motive, everything was in place.

The prosecution was preparing to seek the maximum penalty.

Even though Simon was a minor, only 17 years old, and under California law, could not be sentenced to death, but could receive life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

But the case never went to trial.

3 weeks after his arrest on January 14th, 2007, early in the morning, a guard found Simon Hardy dead in his cell.

He had hanged himself with a sheet tied to the ventilation grill under the ceiling.

Next to him lay a note written on a scrap of paper.

I’m going to him now.

We’ll be together forever.

Simon’s death shocked everyone.

An internal investigation was launched at the juvenile detention center to determine how he had been able to access the means to commit suicide and why there had been no increased surveillance of a teenager accused of such a serious crime.

Protocol violations were found.

Several employees were fired, but this did not bring Simon back to life or give Cody’s parents the satisfaction of seeing their son’s killer behind bars.

Simon’s funeral was quiet with almost no guests.

His parents, crushed by shame and grief, left Arcada shortly thereafter and moved to another state, trying to start a new life where no one knew their name.

The house where Simon lived was sold, and the new owners demolished it and built a new one on the site, as if trying to erase any trace of the tragedy.

Cody Miller was buried in Sacramento in the family plot of the cemetery next to his grandfather and grandmother.

The funeral was attended by hundreds of people, friends, classmates, campmates, people whose lives he had touched in his short 19 years.

His parents established the Cody Miller Foundation, which works to improve safety systems at summer camps and teen programs.

They pushed for changes in California law requiring mandatory background checks for all participants in teen programs, including checks of psychiatric records and histories of violent behavior.

The law, informally known as Cody’s Law, was passed in 2008 and has since helped prevent several potentially dangerous situations.

Camp Evergreen closed permanently in 2007.

No one wanted to send their children to a place where such a tragedy had occurred.

The camp buildings were dismantled and the land returned to the national park.

Now the forest is growing back and there is nothing to remind us that children once laughed here and that a young man named Cody Miller who loved these woods once worked here and died at the hands of someone he was simply trying to support and understand.

The sequoia tree in whose hollow Cody’s body was found still stands in the forest.

Park rangers have placed a small plaque on a nearby trail in memory of Cody, but they have not indicated the exact location where the body was found.

They do not want to turn this place into an object of morbid curiosity for tourists.

Sometimes Cody’s parents come there, walk along the trail, stand in silence under the canopy of giant trees, and cry for their son whose life was cut short by the obsession and madness of a teenager who couldn’t tell the difference between love and unhealthy attachment.

The story of Cody Miller and Simon Hardy is a story about how misdirected unhealthy attachment can turn into obsession and obsession into tragedy.

It is a reminder of the importance of mental health in teenagers, of the need to notice warning signs and act before it is too late.

It is a story about how sometimes a kind smile and an attempt to be understanding can be misinterpreted by someone whose mind is distorted by illness and that not everyone can be saved by kindness alone.

Redwood National Park still welcomes thousands of visitors every year who come to admire the ancient trees, breathe the clean air, and walk the trails among giants that remember times long before humans existed.

And somewhere in these forests, in the hollow of one of the old trees where Cody Miller’s body lay for 4 months, insects now live, moss grows, and the life of the forest flows, indifferent to human tragedies, which has been here for thousands of years and will remain for thousands more after we are all gone.

Leaving only stories that we tell each other to remember, to learn, and to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.