In October 2003, three loggers working under contract in a restricted area of Yellowstone National Park stumbled upon a discovery that would become one of the most gruesome crimes in the history of American national parks.

What they discovered 200 m from a logging road made experienced investigators question human nature.

A young woman had spent the last weeks of her life locked in a homemade cage welded to a tree, completely isolated from civilization.

Her kidnapper visited her, fed her, gave her water, and slowly watched her die.

This is the story of Allison Marx, a 24year-old student from Colorado who went on a solo hike and disappeared without a trace.

It is a story about how one man turned a piece of wilderness into his own personal prison.

And it is a story about an investigation that took three months of intense work and ended with the arrest of a man who had already been involved in a similar case 14 years earlier.

Allison Marx arrived in Yellowstone on July 19th, 2003.

She was a senior at the University of Colorado in Boulder, studying ecology and wildlife.

Allison traditionally spent her summer months hiking.

It had been her passion since she was a teenager.

Friends described her as an experienced hiker, cautious and wellprepared.

She never went on a trip without planning it out first and always told her parents about her plans.

This time, Allison planned to spend a week in the Lamar Valley area, one of the most scenic and relatively secluded parts of the park.

She registered at the park entrance, got a camping permit, and talked over her route with a park ranger.

She planned to follow well-known trails, set up camp by one of the streams, and spend a few days observing wildlife for her research project.

She sent her last message to her parents on the evening of July 19th, saying that she had arrived at her destination, set up camp, and that everything was fine.

She was supposed to check in again on July 20th, as agreed with her parents.

There was no contact.

Her parents waited until evening, then called the park administration.

The rangers took the report seriously.

A delay of more than a day without contact was considered cause for concern.

On the morning of July 21st, a search operation began.

A group of six rangers went to the area where Allison had planned to set up camp.

They found the spot quickly near Slaw Creek about 3 mi from the nearest hiking trail.

The camp was there, but its condition was alarming.

The tent was still standing, but the entrance had been torn open.

It had not been cut neatly with a knife, but torn open.

The fabric was roughly ripped, the zipper torn out.

Inside the tent, there was disorder.

The sleeping bag was crumpled, personal belongings scattered.

The backpack was found 50 m from the camp in the bushes, partially open.

Some of the contents, clothes, a map, a compass were lying nearby.

There were no signs of a struggle at the campsite.

The ground around the tent was not disturbed.

The vegetation was not trampled, and no blood was found.

It looked as if Allison had either suddenly left the camp or had been carried out of it without resistance.

The rangers immediately expanded the search and brought in dog handlers with dogs.

The dogs picked up the trail from the tent, but lost it after about half a mile.

The trail ended on a rocky area.

By the evening of July 21st, the search party had grown to 30 people.

A helicopter with a thermal imager was brought in.

They combed the area within a 5mm radius of the camp.

They checked all the streams, ravines, and rocky outcrops, places where a person could fall, get stuck, or be injured.

They checked for signs of bears and other predators.

Attacks had occurred in Yellowstone, albeit rarely.

They found nothing.

Allison Marks seemed to have vanished into thin air.

The search continued for a week.

Every day between 20 and 40 people participated in the operation.

Volunteers, local residents, tourists, many joined the search.

Allison’s parents came from Colorado and begged them not to stop.

Her father, Robert Marx, a retired military man, organized a group of volunteers and combed the forest from morning until nightfall.

Her mother, Susan, handed out flyers with her daughter’s photo at all the park entrances, in nearby towns, and at gas stations.

By the end of July, the official search was called off.

The area was huge with countless places to hide.

Rangers believed that Allison had either died in an accident in a remote location or been attacked by an animal and her body carried away.

Her parents refused to believe it.

They hired a private investigator and offered a reward for information.

But summer passed, autumn came, and there were no traces.

On the morning of October 23rd, 2003, three workers from a logging company, Michael Dennis, Carl Peterson, and Jose Garcia, were working in a section of Yellowstone that was closed to tourists.

They were conducting sanitary logging under contract with the park administration, removing trees damaged by a small forest fire that had occurred in August.

They had been working for 3 weeks, and the area was remote and deserted.

The nearest road was 2 mi away.

Around a.m., Dennis smelled something.

It was strong, Swedish, recognizable, the smell of decay.

He called his partners and they stopped working.

At first, they thought it was the carcass of an animal, a deer or moose that had died naturally or been killed by predators.

But the smell was too strong, too concentrated.

They decided to check it out, walking in the direction of the wind.

They walked about 200 m into the forest away from their work site.

The area was densely overgrown with undergrowth and young trees.

The smell grew stronger.

Garcia was the first to notice something glinting in the sun between the trees.

Metal.

They came closer and saw a structure that should not have been in the forest.

It was a cage, homemade, welded from metal rods about a meter 20 high, a meter wide, and long.

The cage was welded to the trunk of a thick spruce tree.

The rods encircled the tree.

The fastenings were solid.

The entire structure was overgrown with vines and wild grapes as if nature was trying to hide it.

The cage door was locked with a padlock.

Inside lay a body.

Dennis, a Gulf War veteran, had seen dead people before, but even he was shocked by this sight.

The woman was lying on her side in a fetal position, her knees pulled up to her chest.

Some of her clothes remained intact, the remains of a t-shirt and denim shorts.

The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, but mummified by the dry autumn air.

Her skin was dark and stretched tight over her bones.

Her hair was dark blonde, long and tangled.

Her arms were stretched out in front of her, her fingers clenched.

Peterson radioed the company dispatcher and reported the find.

The dispatcher contacted the county sheriff.

40 minutes later, the first officers arrived on the scene.

Deputy Sheriff James Caldwell and National Park Ranger David Hunter.

Both had experience working at crime scenes, but they had never seen anything like this.

Caldwell immediately called for backup and a forensic examination.

The area was cordoned off and a perimeter was established.

By evening, a full investigative team was working at the scene.

Photographers documented the scene from all angles.

Forensic experts collected evidence.

Medical examiner Patricia Holmes examined the body without removing it from the cage.

The situation was unusual for everyone.

The body was in a cage that was welded to a living tree.

To remove the remains, it was necessary to cut the metal or saw down the tree.

They decided to cut the metal.

While the equipment was being prepared, forensic experts examined the surrounding area.

They discovered several significant details.

3 m from the cage lay a metal bowl, army style, darkened by time.

Nearby was a 5gallon plastic canister, empty with traces of water at the bottom.

Partially covered by fallen leaves, they found pieces of cable, cliff bar, energy bar wrappers, and an empty plastic water bottle in the ground.

Everything indicated that someone had been here regularly.

There were marks on the cage itself that horrified the investigators.

The inner surface of the bars was scratched, deep, numerous, chaotic scratches.

The scratches were on all the bars, especially dents near the door and on the back wall adjacent to the tree.

Experts immediately determined that these were fingernail marks, human fingernails.

The victim had scratched the metal, trying to get out, trying to do something.

The scratches were fresh and old, layered, indicating a long period of confinement.

The cage was opened with a grinder at around in the evening under the light of spotlights.

The body was carefully removed and placed in a transport bag.

Holmes conducted a preliminary examination.

The woman was between 20 and 30 years old, about 165 cm tall.

Death occurred approximately 3 to four weeks ago, judging by the condition of the tissues.

The cause of death was to be determined at the autopsy.

No visible injuries, fractures, wounds were found.

Some of her clothing remained intact, but the labels were illegible.

The victim’s identity was established the next day through dental records.

It was Allison Marx, who had been reported missing on July 20th, 3 months ago.

If death occurred 3 weeks ago, that meant she had spent more than two months in that cage, alive, alone, in the woods, several miles from civilization.

The information about the discovery was immediately relayed to her parents.

Susan Marks fainted when she heard the news.

Robert Marx demanded a meeting with the investigators.

The FBI took over the investigation because the crime occurred on federal land in a national park.

The operation was led by special agent Mark Sutton, a veteran with 20 years of experience in murder and kidnapping cases.

Sutton assembled a team of 10 people, agents, forensic scientists, and profilers.

The first thing they needed to do was figure out who did it and why.

The autopsy was performed on October 24th at the Park County Morg in Livingston, Montana.

Medical examiner Dr.

Robert Schmidt, a pathologist with 30 years of experience, led the procedure.

The results were horrific.

Allison Marx died of dehydration and exhaustion.

Remains of food were found in her stomach.

Pieces of energy bars which matched the packaging found.

There were signs of severe dehydration in her tissues.

Her body weight at the time of death was about 40 kg with a height of 165 cm.

During her lifetime, Allison weighed about 58 kg.

Other findings compounded the picture.

Traces of abrasions and bruises, both healed and fresh, were found on her wrists and ankles.

This indicated that she had been periodically tied up or had tried to free herself, causing herself injuries.

Her fingernails were broken and worn down to the flesh, confirming that she had scratched at the bars of her cage.

Her skin had multiple insect bites which were infected and partially festering.

Her body had firstderee burns from the sun.

The cage was located in an open area where the sun shone on it for several hours a day.

The psychological profile of the perpetrator was compiled by FBI agent Jennifer Low, a specialist in serial crimes.

She analyzed the crime scene, the method of restraining the victim, and the perpetrator’s behavior.

Her conclusions were as follows.

The perpetrator was a man between the ages of 40 and 70.

Physically strong and familiar with the area.

He did not kill the victim immediately, but held her captive for a long time, which indicates a need for control and observation.

He fed and watered her, but not enough for her to survive.

He enjoyed watching her slowly fade away.

The cage was welded to a tree in a remote location which required tools, welding skills, and planning.

The perpetrator was prepared and knew what he was doing.

The cage was found 2 and 1/2 m from the nearest road and 5 m from the location of Allison’s disappearance.

She had been transported, most likely by force using threats or physical force.

The trail from the camp ended at a rocky area, probably where she was put into a car or SUV.

Agents checked the park’s checkpoint records for the period from July 19th to 21.

Hundreds of cars entered and exited.

They filtered out SUVs and pickup trucks.

There were about 50 of them.

At the same time, they examined evidence from the crime scene.

The metal bowl and canister were sent to the lab for DNA and fingerprint analysis.

Partial fingerprints were found on the bowl, blurred, but usable for comparison.

DNA was found on the rim of the bowl and on the handle of the canister.

The samples were entered into Cotus, the FBI’s national DNA database.

The result came back in 3 days.

A match.

The DNA belonged to Thomas Harley, 61 years old, a former hunter and guide who lived in Gardener, Montana, 30 m from Yellowstone.

Thomas Harley’s name was familiar to investigators.

In 1989, he had been involved in a kidnapping case.

A woman named Carol Anne Simmons, 32, had disappeared in the gardener area.

2 weeks later, she was found.

She had escaped from the basement of a house rented by Harley.

Simmons claimed that he had kidnapped her when she was walking along the highway after her car had broken down, offered her a ride, then knocked her out, and locked her in the basement.

He kept her tied up, fed her once a day, and raped her.

She managed to free herself when he left for a few days, and escaped through the basement window.

Harley was arrested and charged with kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and rape.

But the case fell apart.

Harley’s lawyer proved that there was insufficient physical evidence.

No signs of violence were found in the basement.

Simmons could not accurately describe where the house was located and the medical examination did not reveal any clear signs of rape.

Simmons admitted that she had used drugs in the past which cast doubt on her testimony.

The jury acquitted Harley.

He was released, moved to another house, and continued his life.

Now his DNA has been found at the place where Allison Marks spent the last months of her life.

Sutton obtained an arrest warrant.

On the morning of October 28th, the SWAT team left for Gardener.

Harley lived in a small house on the outskirts of town, a one-story building with a porch surrounded by woods.

His 1988 Ford F-150 pickup truck was parked outside the house.

Agents surrounded the building and called Harley on a loudspeaker.

He did not come out.

They broke down the door.

The house was empty.

Harley had disappeared.

A search of the house yielded results.

In the garage, they found a welding machine and remnants of metal rods of the same type used for the cage.

In the bedroom, a map of Yellowstone hung on the wall with several places marked with crosses.

One of the places coincided with the location where the cage was found.

In the closet, they found clothes that based on their size and style could have belonged to a woman.

a t-shirt and jeans.

Later, an examination confirmed that the clothes belong to Allison Marx.

Her DNA was found on them.

In the basement of the house, which Harley had equipped as a workshop, they found even more gruesome things.

On the workbench lay tools and a notebook.

The notebook contained entries, dates, and short notes.

Experts would later decipher them as a diary of observations.

Harley recorded when he visited the cage what he gave the victim and what she looked like.

The entries began on July 21st and ended on September 25th.

The last entry read, “Not moving anymore.

Probably all over.” A description of Harley was sent out to all states.

His photo was shown on the news.

The border with Canada was reinforced.

Bus stations, airports, and motel were checked.

Harley was an experienced survivalist, knew the woods, and could hide for a long time.

But he made a mistake.

On November 3rd, a surveillance camera at a gas station in Bgrade, Montana, captured his pickup truck.

He was filling up and paying in cash.

The information was passed on to the police and 20 minutes later, a patrol car intercepted him on Interstate 90.

Harley did not resist.

He got out of the car, raised his hands, and allowed himself to be handcuffed.

Thomas Harley was charged with aggravated kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment resulting in death, and first-degree murder.

The trial began in March 2004 in the US District Court for the District of Wyoming in Cheyenne.

The prosecutor was Assistant US Attorney Daniel Craig, who specialized in high-profile cases.

The defense was represented by Margaret Wilson, an experienced lawyer known for her work on difficult cases.

Harley refused to admit guilt.

At the preliminary hearings, he remained silent and did not testify.

Wilson based her defense on the fact that the evidence was circumstantial.

DNA on the bowl could have gotten there for a variety of reasons.

The notebook could have been forged.

No one saw Harley with Allison.

No one saw him holding her.

But the prosecution presented so much evidence that the defense’s version fell apart.

Forensic experts determined that the metal bars from Harley’s garage were identical in composition and cross-section to the bars of the cage.

The welds on the cage matched the technique used on other items in Harley’s workshop.

Every welder has their own signature style.

The entries in the notebook were checked by handwriting experts.

It was Harley’s handwriting.

Allison’s clothes in his house contained not only her DNA, but also Harley’s DNA, which indicated contact.

The investigation reconstructed the chronology.

On July 20th, Harley was most likely patrolling the Lamar Valley area in his pickup truck using forest roads accessible to off-road vehicles.

He knew the area thoroughly, having worked as a guide and hunter for over 40 years.

He saw the camp of Allison, a lone woman.

He may have watched her for some time.

In the evening or at night, he approached the tent.

He may have introduced himself as a ranger or someone in need of help.

Allison opened the tent.

He grabbed her, knocked her out, or threatened her with a weapon, and dragged her to the car.

He transported her to a pre-arranged location.

The cage had been welded and installed in advance several weeks before the abduction.

This suggests planning.

Harley was prepared.

He may have chosen his victim and waited for the right moment.

Ellison happened to be in the right place at the right time.

He locked her in the cage and left her with minimal supplies of water and food.

According to the notes, he visited her daily during the first few days.

He brought her bars and water.

He watched her.

The diary entries were brief but eloquent.

July 21st brought her.

Everything is ready.

She screams loudly, but there is no one here.

July 23rd, she doesn’t eat, only drinks, asks to be released.

July 27th, she started eating.

She is weak.

August 3rd, she scratches the cage, her hands are bloody.

I wonder how long she will last.

August 10th, quiet, lies most of the day.

August 20th, gave her only water.

Food is gone.

We’ll see.

September 5th, very thin, hardly moves.

September 15th, gave her water, but not much.

September 25th, last entry.

Expert psychiatrist Dr.

Alan Graham testified about Harley’s psychological profile.

In his opinion, the defendant is a classic satist with a need for control.

He did not enjoy quick violence or murder.

He needed the process, slow, total domination over his victim.

watching her suffer helpless and desperate.

He could have killed Allison immediately, but he didn’t.

He wanted to see her die slowly from hunger and thirst in complete isolation.

The defense tried to have Harley declared insane, but a psychiatric evaluation showed that he was fully aware of his actions, planned them, and took steps to cover his tracks.

This ruled out insanity.

Wilson tried to seow doubt in the minds of the jury, but the evidence was irrefutable.

Allison’s parents attended all the hearings.

Robert Marx sat motionless, clutching his wife’s hand, staring at Harley with an expression of icy anger.

Susan Marks cried quietly, especially when entries from the diary were read aloud, or photos of the cage were shown.

Once during a break, Robert approached the barrier behind which Harley was sitting and said quietly so that only he could hear.

You’re going to rot in prison and I’ll know about it every day until I die.

Harley did not respond.

Did not even look at him.

The trial lasted 3 weeks.

It took the jury 4 hours to reach a verdict.

Guilty on all counts.

Judge William Harrison announced the sentence.

two life sentences without the possibility of parole to be served consecutively.

This meant that Harley would spend the rest of his life in prison.

He was 62 years old at the time of sentencing.

Harley never made a statement, expressed remorse, or explained his motives.

Even in prison, he remained silent.

Psychologists tried to interview him for research purposes, but he refused.

He simply served his sentence silently and withdrawn.

In 1999, after his acquitt in the Simmons case, he faded into obscurity and lived quietly.

Perhaps he was planning a new crime.

Perhaps there were other victims who were never found.

The FBI reviewed unsolved cases of missing women in the region over the past 20 years, but found no direct links.