The abandoned wooden chapel in the Smoky Mountains was a peaceful, quiet place until rescuers opened two coffins at the altar and found what they had been searching for for 3 years.

Two skeletons neatly dressed as if someone had prepared them for eternal sleep.

They were David and Joanna Allison, a young couple who had disappeared during a routine weekend hike.

But how they ended up in those coffins and who arranged their gruesome funeral turned a routine investigation into one of the most chilling cases in Tennessee history.

If you’ve ever wondered how thin the line is between saint and madman, between faith and fanaticism, this story will give you the answer.

Stay tuned until the end and be sure to write in the comments.

How far can a person go in the name of their beliefs? Where is the line between religiosity and obsession? Gatlinburgg, Tennessee, spring 2003.

A small town at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains, surrounded by dense forests and misty peaks.

A place where people come to escape the hustle and bustle of big cities, breathe clean air, and feel part of nature.

Here, everyone knows each other by sight.

The local coffee shop opens at in the morning and the church bell counts down the time with the same regularity as the changing seasons.

On March 29th, David and Joanna Ellison arrived in Gatlinburg.

He was 28, she was 26.

They were from Nashville.

Both worked in technology and both loved the mountains.

David, tall with dark curly hair and thin rimmed glasses, worked as a systems analyst.

Joanna, a slender blonde with short hair and a bright smile, was a web designer.

They had been dating for four years and had only recently announced their engagement.

This trip was their way of celebrating a new phase in their lives, spending some time alone together before the upcoming hustle and bustle of the wedding.

They stayed at the Mountain View Motel on the outskirts of town, a modest two-story building with green shutters and a porch covered in ivy.

The motel owner, Dolores Parker, a woman in her 60s with gray hair and kind eyes, remembered them as a lovely, loving couple.

Joanna asked her which routes were best for a two-day hike, and Dolores recommended the Alam Cave Trail, a scenic route of moderate difficulty popular with experienced hikers.

The morning of March 30th was cloudy.

Gray clouds hung low over the mountains, but no rain was forecast.

David and Joanna had breakfast at a local diner called Dennis Diner.

Pancakes with maple syrup and coffee.

Waitress Carol Briggs later recalled that they seemed happy discussing their plans for the day with Joanna showing David something on the ma p.

At a.m., they left the diner, got into their silver 1999 Honda Accord, and headed for the trail head.

They were last seen around a.m.

in the parking lot at the entrance to the Alam Cave Trail.

Ranger Thomas Wilson noticed their car as he drove by in his service Jeep.

He waved to them and they waved back.

David carried a large green hiking backpack on his back while Joanna carried a smaller red one.

They disappeared into the thicket and no one ever saw them alive again.

That same evening, they were supposed to call Joanna’s parents as they had promised before leaving.

The call never came.

Her parents decided that perhaps they had no cell phone reception in the mountains and did not worry.

But when the next day, March 31st, David did not show up for work and did not answer any calls, his colleagues became concerned.

By evening, the parents of both families had contacted each other and panic began to grow.

On April 1st, when it became clear that something was wrong, David’s parents called the Gatlinburgg police.

Sevier County Sheriff Roy Henderson, a man with military bearing and 30 years of experience in law enforcement, personally took control of the case.

By the evening of April 1st, a search party had been organized.

Rangers, volunteers, police officers, about 40 people in all, combed the Alam Cave Trail and surrounding areas.

Around noon on April 2nd, the searchers stumbled upon the first clue.

The Silver Honda Accord was still in the parking lot.

The car was locked and nothing inside had been touched.

Two bottles of water, a bag of nuts, and a road map lay on the back seat.

David had his keys with him.

The police opened the car.

No signs of a struggle, blood, or anything suspicious.

Just a parked car waiting for its owners.

The search parties went deeper into the forest.

The Alum Cave Trail stretches for 15 km through dense thicket, past rocky cliffs and babbling brooks.

In places it is barely discernable, lost among roots and rocks.

The searchers shouted David and Joanna’s names, combed through the bushes, and checked every ravine.

The weather worsened.

It started to rain, turning the trail into slippery mud.

On April 3rd, about a kilometer from the parking lot, they found their first clue.

Joanna’s red backpack lay at the foot of a large oak tree, slightly covered by fallen leaves.

The backpack was unzipped, and inside were clothes, a first aid kit, and a package of granola bars, but nothing of value was missing.

What was strange was that the backpack looked as if it had been carefully placed there, not thrown down in a hurry.

There were no signs of a struggle, broken branches, or trampled ground nearby.

Sheriff Henderson held a press conference.

Standing in front of the cameras, he urged anyone who had been in the area on the weekend of March 30th to come forward with any information.

David and Joanna’s parents made tearful pleas for help.

Joanna’s mother, Linda Foster, said in a trembling voice, “My daughter is a good person.

If anyone knows anything, please help us find her.

Days turned into weeks.

Search teams worked from dawn to dusk.

They used service dogs, thermal imaging cameras, and drones.

They combed through an area with a radius of 20 km.

They checked all abandoned buildings, caves, and ravines.

Nothing.

David and Joanna seemed to have vanished into thin air.

The police began to investigate other possibilities.

Maybe it wasn’t an accident.

Maybe someone had deliberately attacked the couple.

Detectives immersed themselves in the Allison’s lives, studying every detail.

Their financial records revealed nothing suspicious.

No large debts, strange transfers, or hidden accounts.

David and Joanna led a normal middle class life.

A mortgage, a car loan, modest savings.

Their colleagues, friends, and relatives all agreed that the couple had no enemies, no conflicts at work, no quarrels with neighbors, no exes with a motive for revenge.

But during the investigation, a name came up that caught the detectives attention.

Mark Davenport, David’s 33-year-old colleague.

Several employees mentioned that Mark had shown interest in Joanna when she visited the office.

He always tried to strike up a conversation with her, invited the couple to a barbecue, and once even gave Joanna a book on web design.

David didn’t think much of it, considering Mark to be just friendly.

Detectives summoned Mark for questioning.

He came voluntarily, looking nervous, but willing to cooperate.

Mark admitted that he found Joanna attractive, but never made any inappropriate advances, respecting their relationship.

On the weekend of March 30th, he was at home in Nashville watching basketball with friends.

His friends confirmed his alibi.

Phone records showed that Mark had not left the city.

The detectives let him go, but his name remained on the list of persons of interest.

Another suspicious moment arose when the police learned about Joanna’s ex-boyfriend, Kyle Raymond.

They had been together for 3 years and broke up 6 months before Joanna met David.

The breakup was difficult and Kyle couldn’t come to terms with it for a long time.

He tried to get Joanna back, writing her letters and calling her.

Joanna was adamant and eventually Kyle backed down.

Kyle was found in Memphis where he worked as a manager in an electronic store.

He was shocked by the news of Joanna’s disappearance.

During questioning, he admitted that he still had feelings for her, but had long since come to terms with the fact that she was happy with someone else.

On the weekend of March 30th, he was working at the store.

CCTV footage and his time sheet confirmed this.

Kyle was removed from the list of suspects.

The investigation had reached a dead end.

There was no body, no witnesses, no motive, only a red backpack by a tree and an abandoned car in a parking lot.

The months dragged on in agonizing uncertainty.

David and Joanna’s parents never stopped searching.

Linda Foster printed flyers with photos of her daughter and posted them all over Tennessee.

David’s father, Robert Allison, hired a private investigator who rechecked all the police leads, but also found nothing.

Gatlinburgg, usually quiet and peaceful, was gripped by fear and suspicion.

Tourists were afraid to walk the trails alone.

Locals locked their doors at night, even though many had never locked their homes before.

Rumors spread.

Some said the couple had run away together, staging their disappearance.

Others claimed to have seen them in a neighboring state.

One person even claimed that Joanna had been kidnapped by a cult operating in the mountains.

>> >> The police checked every version, but all of them turned out to be false.

By the fall of 2003, the Ellison case had gone cold.

Officially, the investigation was not closed, but the active search had ceased.

Detectives moved on to other cases.

Sheriff Henderson, retiring in 2004, told reporters, “This case haunts me.

I think about them every day.

Somewhere out there in those mountains is the answer.

but we couldn’t find it.

Years passed.

The parents did not lose hope.

But with each passing day, it grew weaker.

In 2005, Linda Foster organized an annual memorial service at a church in Nashville, where friends and relatives came to honor the memory of David and Joanna, even though they were not officially declared dead.

On June 23rd, 2006, on a clear summer morning, an event occurred that turned the whole case upside down.

A group of rescuers from the National Park Service was conducting a routine inspection of remote areas of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

It was a standard procedure, checking abandoned buildings, assessing the condition of the trails after winter, removing fallen trees.

The group consisted of four rangers, Jason Cole, Emily Reed, Tom Sanders, and Martha Kelly.

Around noon, as they were pushing through thick underbrush about 5 m from the Alam Cave Trail, they stumbled upon an old wooden chapel.

The structure was hidden behind a wall of intertwined branches and moss, almost invisible from the trail.

The chapel had been built in the 19th century by settlers, used by the local community until the early 20th century, then abandoned and gradually falling into ruin.

The roof had partially collapsed.

The walls were covered with mold and cracks, but the structure was still standing.

The rangers decided to look inside to assess the extent of the damage and decide whether the building should be demolished for safety reasons.

Jason Cole, a young ranger of 29, was the first to enter the chapel.

Inside, it was dark and smelled of decay.

Streaks of light filtered through holes in the roof, illuminating the dust covered floor.

To the right stood old benches eaten away by termites.

Ahead near the altar stood two objects that made Jason pause.

Two wooden coffins, closed, standing side by side as if waiting for a funeral procession.

Jason’s heart beat faster.

He called the others.

Emily, Tom, and Martha followed him in, and they all froze, staring at the coffins.

Martha Kelly, a woman with 20 years of experience in the park service, said what everyone was thinking.

What the hell is going on here? Jason took out his flashlight and cautiously moved closer.

The coffins were simple, made of pine boards with no decorations or inscriptions.

There were dark spots on the lids, maybe dirt, maybe something else.

Jason tried to lift the lid of the first coffin, but it was tightly closed.

He looked back at his colleagues.

“We need to call the police,” Tom said.

Emily had already taken out her walkie-talkie.

The reception in the mountains was poor, but she managed to get through to the park service dispatcher.

An hour later, the Sevier County police arrived on the scene.

The new sheriff, Douglas Carter, a man of about 45 with graying temples and a serious expression, arrived with his team.

He was accompanied by forensic scientists, photographers, and a medical examiner.

The chapel was cordoned off.

The work began.

Using crowbars, the police carefully opened the first coffin.

Inside lay a skeleton.

The clothing was partially decayed, but fragments of blue jeans and a red jacket were still visible.

Next to the bones were the remains of a backpack, sneakers, and thin framed glasses.

The second coffin contained another skeleton, also dressed and neatly laid out.

dark jeans, a green t-shirt, women’s boots.

Medical examiner Dr.

Susan Lang immediately began a preliminary examination, the bones were almost completely devoid of soft tissue, indicating that the bodies had been there for at least 3 years.

Judging by the bone structure and clothing sizes, they were a young man and a young woman.

Dr.

Lang found a crack on the man’s skull, possibly from a blow with a blunt object.

There were no signs of violent death on the woman’s bones, but that did not rule anything out.

Sheriff Carter immediately contacted the cold case archives.

Given the age of the remains, the clothing, and the location, he remembered the Ellison case.

Photographs of the clothing were compared to descriptions provided by the parents 3 years ago.

David’s red jacket and blue jeans, Joanna’s green t-shirt.

The match was too exact.

The remains were taken to the morg for a full examination.

DNA analysis confirmed what everyone already knew.

These were David and Joanna Ellison.

The couple who had disappeared 3 years ago had finally been found.

But the questions only multiplied.

Who had placed them in the coffins? Why? How had they died? And who knew about the existence of this abandoned chapel? Forensic investigators thoroughly examined the crime scene.

The chapel was isolated, surrounded by dense forest with no trails leading to it.

The perpetrator must have known the area well to find this place or lived nearby.

Fingerprints were found on the coffins.

They were blurred by time and moisture, but forensic scientists were able to recover several partial prints.

These prints were run through the national database.

The result came back 2 days later.

The prince belonged to Chester Hales, a 59-year-old man with a criminal record.

Chester Hails was known to the local police.

In the 1980s, he was arrested for assault.

In a fit of religious fanaticism, he attacked a woman he accused of witchcraft.

He served 3 years, was released, and had been living as a recluse ever since.

The last known information about him was that he lived somewhere in the mountains of Sevier County, led a secluded lifestyle, and avoided contact with people.

The police began searching for hailes.

They questioned local residents, rangers, and hunters.

One hunter, Bill Connor, remembered seeing an old man in the woods a few years ago, living in a small hut about 5 km from an abandoned chapel.

Bill didn’t think much of it.

There were plenty of people in the mountains who preferred isolation.

On June 27th, a police squad accompanied by rangers went to the indicated area.

After 2 hours of searching, they found the hut, a small log structure surrounded by trees.

The roof was made of old rusty metal and the windows were covered with rags.

Next to the cabin was a pile of rubbish, a homemade hearth, and traces of a fire.

Sheriff Carter gave the signal.

The police surrounded the cabin.

Carter shouted loudly, “Chester Hails, this is the police.

Come out with your hands up.” Silence.

Then the creek of a door.

A man came out of the hut.

He was tall and bony with long gray hair and a tassled beard.

He was dressed in torn jeans, a dirty shirt, and homemade sandals.

His eyes were deep set and burned with a strange fanatical gleam.

Chester Hails stood silently staring at the police officers.

His hands were shaking.

Suddenly, he raised his hands to his face, and before anyone could react, tried to stick his fingers into his eyes as if trying to gouge them out.

The police rushed towards him, grabbed his arms, and threw him to the ground.

He resisted, shouting incoherent words, quotes from the Bible, curses.

They handcuffed him and forced him into a police car.

The hut was searched.

Inside they found very few things.

A worn Bible, candles, a homemade cross, a few tin cans, and some old clothes.

On the walls were scratches and words written in charcoal.

Sinners, purification, salvation through death.

In the corner were half-rotten remains of food and scattered tools, including a hammer and a saw.

But the most terrifying find was a diary.

It was a worn notebook with a leather cover filled with clumsy handwriting.

The detectives began to read and were horrified.

Chester Hail’s diary was the confession of a madman.

The pages were filled with religious ravings, distorted quotations from the Bible, descriptions of visions and voices that according to him spoke to him.

The entries began several years before the Allisonens disappeared.

Chester wrote about his mission to rid the mountains of sinners who desecrated holy places.

He believed that the abandoned chapel was a sacred place where God spoke to him.

Anyone who approached or entered the chapel, in his opinion, was a sinner deserving of punishment.

On March 30th, 2003, Chester wrote, “Today, two people desecrated the holy place, a man and a woman.

They entered the chapel, laughed, and touched the altar with their dirty hands.

God told me they must be cleansed.” I followed them when they left the chapel.

They did not suspect that I was nearby.

In the forest, I hit the man on the head.

He fell.

The woman screamed, but no one heard her.

I tied them up and brought them back to the chapel.

The following entries described how Chester kept David and Joanna in the chapel for several days.

He preached to them, trying to cleanse their souls.

According to him, David died from a head injury on the second day.

Joanna tried to escape, but Chester caught her and strangled her.

He described this without emotion as if he were carrying out God’s will.

Chester then made coffins himself using boards he found in the woods.

He carefully placed David and Joanna’s bodies in the coffins as if preparing them for burial.

In his opinion, he had saved their souls by giving them a righteous burial.

Detectives read these notes with disgust and horror.

This was not just a murderer.

This was a man completely detached from reality, living in his own twisted world where murder was an act of mercy.

Chester Hails was taken to the county jail.

During his first interrogation, he refused to speak, only muttering prayers and curses.

The lawyer appointed to him by the court attempted to mount a defense based on insanity.

But a psychiatric evaluation showed that although Hails suffered from serious mental disorders, he understood the illegality of his actions.

He was found sane and fit to stand trial.

The trial began in November 2006.

Gatlinburgg was flooded with journalists, activists, and onlookers.

The courtroom was packed to capacity.

David and Joanna’s parents sat in the front row holding hands, pale and exhausted.

The prosecution presented irrefutable evidence, fingerprints on the coffins, Hails’s diary, and forensic analysis of the remains.

Witnesses described Chester’s character, his religious fanaticism, isolation, and previous incidents of violence.

A medical expert confirmed that the crack in David’s skull could have been the cause of death, and that Joanna had died of suffocation.

There were signs of a fracture on her hyoid bone.

The defense tried to portray Hails as a sick man incapable of controlling his actions.

A psychiatrist testified that Chester suffered from paranoid schizophrenia with religious delusions.

But the prosecution countered that Hailes was conscious enough of his actions to hide the bodies, make coffins, and avoid detection for 3 years.

The jury deliberated for 2 days.

On December 7th, 2006, they returned a verdict.

Guilty on two counts of first-degree murder.

Guilty of kidnapping.

Guilty of desecrating remains.

The judge sentenced Chester Hails to two life sentences without the possibility of parole.

When the sentence was announced, Chester showed no emotion.

He just stared into space, moving his lips in silent prayer.

After the trial, David and Joanna’s parents were finally able to bury their children.

The funeral was held in Nashville in the small church where they had both grown up.

Hundreds of people came to say goodbye.

Friends, colleagues, neighbors.

Linda Foster, holding a photo of her daughter said, “We can finally let them go.

” For 3 years, we lived in uncertainty, hoping that they were alive somewhere.

Now we know the truth.

It’s a terrible truth, but it’s closure.