In July of 2013, 28-year-old environmental engineer Ava Campbell set out on a short field trip to the forests of Lolo National Park, Montana.

She knew the place well.

The steep slopes, the deep gullies, the old fur trees standing in rows like sentinels.

Her goal was to collect data on the deer population in the northern part of the park where several cases of poaching had already been reported this summer.

A year has passed, and when the private investigator hired by her family came across an old illegal logging camp in a remote valley, he did not know that a few hundred yards away, he would find the most gruesome discovery in the history of these forests.

A circle of tires soaked in oil and a body burned inside.

Saturday, July 13th, 2013, began calmly.

It was a clear morning over Missoula with the fur trees barely making a sound.

At in the morning, Ava Campbell locked the door of her small house on Brook Street, put her hiking backpack, laptop, and two metal water cans in the trunk of her Ford Ranger pickup.

She was planning a short trip, 2 days, in Lolo National Park, where she was to collect data for a study on seasonal changes in the deer population.

Her neighbors saw her leaving the yard.

One of them, farmer Thomas Green, later recalled that Ava looked familiar, wearing a worn khaki jacket and her hair in a tight braid.

He said she greeted him and added that she was going further than usual this time.

These words would later become an important detail for investigators.

At , she pulled into a Mountain View gas station along Highway 12.

Surveillance cameras captured her buying a bottle of water, several energy bars, and a pack of batteries for her GPS unit.

The cashier, a young woman named Marley Sloan, later testified that Ava was calm and focused, like someone who knew exactly where she was going.

Her face showed neither fear nor excitement.

At approximately 11 hours and 17 minutes, Ava sent a short message to her friend Jenny Rose.

I’m leaving on the route.

There will be no service.

Don’t worry, I’ll call you Sunday night.

It was the last confirmation that she was alive.

She parked her pickup at the beginning of the trail, which the locals call Cedar.

This route is considered one of the least visited in the northern part of the park, then begins the zone where the connection to the network disappears and the forest is closed by a wall of branches and humid air.

When Ava didn’t get in touch on Sunday, July 14th, her friend didn’t think much of it at first.

She knew that signals in the mountains often go out.

But on Monday morning, Jenny, concerned about the silence, contacted the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

A missing person’s report was filed the same day at in the morning.

The search operation began in the afternoon.

Eight volunteers, two foresters, and a dog team participated.

By the evening, they found Ava’s pickup truck parked neatly at the edge of the forest in the same parking lot where she had left it during previous trips.

The car was locked and the keys were not found.

Inside was a backpack with equipment, a notebook, a laptop, and a phone.

No money, no personal documents, but no signs of a fight.

There was a folded map of the route on the front seat, and a thermos and an unopened bottle of water on the passenger seat.

Lieutenant Douglas Bane, a senior investigator with the sheriff’s office, later noted in a report, “It looked as if the person had just gone for a walk and plan to return.

” It was this orderliness that alerted the researchers.

In most cases, disappearances in the mountains are accompanied by chaos.

Things scattered, signs of haste, torn belts.

There was a strange calmness here.

A helicopter and two sniffer dogs were involved in the search.

They combed the woods along the Cedar Trail, but did not detect any scent.

After a few hundred yards, the trail broke off as if the woman had simply vanished into thin air.

The questioning of family and friends continued throughout the week.

Ava’s mother, Martha Campbell, said that her daughter was working on a report for the Department of Natural Resources.

Her task was to record the locations of unauthorized waste burning and logging.

Jenny’s friend confirmed that Ava had repeatedly mentioned illegal dumps in the vicinity of the park in recent weeks.

She was too persistent, sometimes even harsh, in her complaints, writing letters to local publications and contacting environmental inspectors.

These testimonies became the first clue.

The police came up with a working version.

The disappearance could have been related to a conflict rather than an accident.

Perhaps Ava came across people who were engaged in illegal waste disposal and they did not want witnesses.

Sheriff Richard Howard called a press conference on July 15th.

He said that Campbell’s disappearance was being investigated as a case with a potential criminal component.

Journalists were allowed to film the area around the trail, but without details.

The reporters only showed footage of a car, yellow tape, and a blurry forest road leading off into the distance.

The days went by.

Helicopters flew over the treetops, and search teams replaced each other.

The dogs picked up the scent from the car seat, but each time they lost it a few dozen yards from the parking lot.

There were no shoe prints, no scraps of fabric.

Even the bird nests remained undisturbed as if the forest itself had hidden all traces.

After 5 days of active searching, the operation was scaled back.

Officially, it was transferred to observation mode.

Ava’s family disagreed with this decision and began their own search, but the results were just as negative.

Local residents talked about a black hole in the forest, a place where animals have been disappearing for several years in a row, and hunters hear a rumble at night that sounds like a distant engine.

These conversations seemed like superstition to the police, but for many residents of the county, Ava Campbell’s story has become a new legend.

Reports indicate that the last traces of her whereabouts, pickup tire tracks, and a bootprint by the door, remained until late summer.

Then the rains washed them away.

That was the end of the first week of the search.

The Lolo forest regained its silence and the case of the young environmentalists disappearance turned into another unsolved mystery with no body, no answer, and not even a direction to look in.

A few weeks passed after the search operation in the Lolo Mountains was officially called off.

August in Missoula was dry and hot, but the silence at the sheriff’s office was as cold as the air.

The Ava Campbell case was reclassified from active to open investigation with no results.

This meant that the search was suspended, but the investigation was formally ongoing.

Detectives now worked at desks, not in the woods.

In the evidence room was her laptop taken from the pickup truck, neatly packed in a transparent bag.

The phone was next to it.

Both devices showed no signs of forced entry.

When the investigators opened the laptop, they saw tables of animal observations, root maps, and drafts of environmental reports.

On the desktop, there is a folder called landfills.

It contained photographs of logged areas and spots of black liquid that showed through the grass near stream beds.

The metadata indicated dates taken a few days before the disappearance.

No hint of correspondence that might explain what she was looking for that day.

Her last emails are short messages to the Department of Natural Resources with photos attached.

The tone is dry and official.

No traces of pressure, threats, or conflict were found.

Bank statements show only the usual purchases: fuel, groceries, an online store with tourist equipment.

However, they found something interesting in the browser history.

A few days before she disappeared, Ava attended forums of environmental activists, read about illegal logging in mountainous areas, and about companies that, according to participants, were hiding toxic waste in abandoned quaries.

For the investigators, this was the first hint of a possible motive.

She could have stumbled upon something dangerous.

However, to verify this version, they needed someone who might have had a connection to her outside of work.

The name of such a person emerged in late August when a short note appeared in the report on the interview of relatives.

Ex-boyfriend Mark Simmons works as a mechanic, Lolo Peak Auto Service Center.

They broke up 6 months before she disappeared.

Jenny’s friend said that the breakup was tumultuous and that Mark tried to get back together several times afterward.

He was also known at the local bar, the Grizzly Tap, where he once got into a fight with a patron.

The police archive contained a report, a misdemeanor, a fine, and an official warning.

So, when Detective Steven Dalton invited Simmons in for questioning, he already knew he was a person of interest in the case.

According to the detective himself, Mark behaved nervously, often looked at his watch, and denied any contact with Ava.

He said that he last saw her in the spring when she took her things from his apartment.

His explanation sounded mundane, but something about his behavior didn’t add up.

He couldn’t pinpoint exactly where he was on the day of July 13th.

A few days after the interrogation, the investigators received a court order to search his house.

Mark’s house was located on the outskirts of the city next to a garage he rented for work.

During the search, they seized several items.

Work gloves, bottles of oil, and old tires.

All of this could have been ordinary mechanics junk.

No traces of blood, no personal items of Ava Campbell.

The report states that he remained calm during the search, even joking.

However, when the experts were examining his old van, the man became aggressive, demanding that they stop the search without reason.

His behavior was recorded, but no direct evidence was found.

After several days of verification, Mark’s alibi was partially confirmed by his colleague at the car repair shop, a technician named John Rowley.

He said that on July 13th, they stayed after work in the shop drinking beer and listening to music until late in the evening, but he did not remember the time, somewhere around midnight.

The security cameras in the service did not work because the video surveillance system was malfunctioning.

Thus, the alibi remained questionable, but not enough to press charges.

The prosecutor’s office refused to open criminal proceedings.

The official position is insufficient evidence to prosecute.

For Sheriff Howard, this was another disappointment.

He told reporters that the case is on hold, but not closed.

Ava’s parents were living between Missoula and Helena at the time, traveling to the sheriff’s office on a regular basis.

Martha Campbell tried to talk to detectives in person, bringing printouts from online forums where people wrote about strange trucks they had seen near the park’s borders.

The police responded politely but cautiously.

None of the witnesses confirmed the stories.

In early September, the family hired a private investigator, Bob Carter, a former department employee from Billings.

He took on the case without an official contract with the police, but with the sheriff’s permission, he reviewed all the reports.

His notes would later include the phrase, “Something about this story doesn’t add up.

To clean a car, to empty a backpack, and to silent a guy, fall brought cold, and hope faded.” Magazine stopped writing about the disappearance, and the news no longer mentioned Ava Campbell’s name.

In the police file, her photo was moved to the unsolved cases section.

The house on Brook Street, where she lived, was empty.

According to her neighbors, the porch light was still on at night.

It hadn’t been turned off since the day she disappeared.

Martha Campbell couldn’t bring herself to flip the switch.

The case file was reviewed several more times, checking dates, roots, contacts, but each thread broke off in the same place.

At the beginning of the Cadrova trail, the traces ended where deafening silence began.

3 months passed like that.

Ava remained on the list of missing persons and her name remained in the daily reports that no one read aloud anymore.

The investigation gradually turned into a cold case with every document marked no new information.

And only one person, a detective from Billings, continued to believe that the truth was still somewhere in the mountains under the shade of fur trees from where it had never returned.

August 2014.

A year has passed since the last time Ava Campbell’s name was in the news.

For the police, the case had long since passed into the cold case category.

But for private investigator Bob Carter, this year has been an endless circle of dead ends and conversations that led nowhere.

He was a former investigator from Billings, a man with a dry manner and a habit of taking notes even when nothing was happening.

He had been commissioned by Ava’s parents the previous fall when the official investigation had stalled.

Since then, Carter has traveled to all the villages, farms, and campgrounds adjacent to Lolo National Park.

He talked to hunters, foresters, seasonal workers, anyone who had ever been to the area.

But a year later, his diaries remained empty of facts.

“All I find are traces of nature,” he said in a conversation with a local newspaper reporter when he asked if there was any news.

Carter spoke cautiously without detail, but inside he couldn’t let go of the story.

There was something that kept nagging at him.

Maybe the calm photo of the woman with short hair looking directly into the camera.

Maybe the orderly way she left her pickup truck as if she were deliberately giving a sign.

In early August, he set out on another trip southeast of Missoula, where he says, “The forest looks older than time itself.

” In that wilderness, there was no cell phone reception, and the roads looked more like carved tire tracks in the damp soil.

It was there, near an abandoned hunter’s cabin, that he met a man no one had ever mentioned before.

His name was Henry Jones, a 70-year-old recluse who lived in a wooden cabin 20 m from the nearest settlement.

Carter would later say that he stumbled upon him by accident.

He saw smoke and followed the smell of a fire.

Henry was cautious but not hostile.

According to Carter, he agreed to talk after a few minutes of silence.

His story is written in the detective’s notebook in simple words.

That summer, I saw people in the woods.

They were not local.

They had a white van.

They were cutting trees without permission.

The camp was in a land where there were old tracks from the time of the fire.

It smelled like oil and smoke.

Carter asked if he saw anyone who looked like Ava Campbell.

Henry shook his head.

There were no women there, only men.

But once I heard a scream, not human, but not animal.

Then there was a lot of smoke.

For the former investigator, this was enough to feel that familiar inner chill that meant he was finally getting a direction.

A few days later, Carter followed the old man’s lead.

He managed to find that very land.

It was hidden behind dense spruce trees where the tourist roots did not reach.

There were distinct spots on the ground darker than the soil stretching in a strip between the trees.

The smell was heavy like machine oil even a year after the rain.

Then there were the remains of metal barrels torn apart by the fire and a few charred tires partially buried in the ground.

He took pictures of everything, took measurements, and marked the coordinates.

Back in the city, Carter contacted a chemist he knew who worked at the University of Missoula lab.

The soil samples showed high levels of heavy metals and residues of motor oil, the type used in heavy trucks.

This confirmed that machinery had indeed been operating at the site.

Next, he checked the lists of logging permits.

There was no registered activity in that area during the summer of 2013.

This meant only one thing.

the work was being done illegally.

Bob Carter went back to Henry again to clarify the details.

He recalled that the van had a worn door with a logo that once depicted a mountain and the word peak.

The old man couldn’t read everything because the paint had worn off, but he remembered the smell.

A mixture of fuel and burnt tires.

The detective wrote the word in his notebook in capital letters.

Peak.

There were several businesses in Missoula with a similar name, but the closest was Lolo Peak Auto.

It stood next to the road to the west, a 15-minute drive from the city center.

Carter knew that Mark Simmons, Ava’s ex-boyfriend, worked there.

This coincidence seemed too direct to be coincidental, but he did not jump to conclusions.

In his memo, he noted traces of oil, the remains of burnt tires, and metal barrels were found in the camp area.

Presumably, the place was used for waste disposal.

There is reason to believe that the victim may have come across individuals engaged in illegal activities.

After that, Carter contacted the local police, provided coordinates and photos.

However, the case remained a private investigation as there was not enough evidence to open a criminal investigation.

The sheriff’s report stated that the area was checked.

No facts directly indicating a crime were found.

But for Bob, that was enough to keep going.

He began tracking the supply of fuel and lubricants to workshops around Missoula, looking for anyone who was buying large quantities of used oil or disposing of it illegally.

He came across a familiar name in one supplier’s records, Lolo Peak Auto.

He could not prove anything, but the chain was beginning to form.

Although the case remained officially unresolved, Carter summarized it succinctly in his report.

A trail of grease is all I have, but it leads to people who don’t like to be looked at.

He did not know that this phrase would become prophetic, for it was this trail, the smell of oil, the burning tires, and the silence of an abandoned camp that would lead him to what would later be called the darkest chapter in Missoula’s history.

But back then, in August 2014, he was just a lone man with a notebook in his pocket, following the smell of oil deep into the woods, looking for a woman the forest would not let go.

The end of August 2014, the morning air in the mountains was cold and damp, and the sky above Lolo was covered in a gray haze.

A few days after his first trip, Bob Carter returned to the camp of illegal loggers he had found this time not alone.

He was accompanied by three local volunteers, former firefighters who had agreed to help on their day off.

They all knew these forests well, and Carter knew the rules of the search.

He did not believe that the discovery of the old hunter was an accident.

There were too many coincidences.

Oil stains, burnt tires, silence, as if something unfinished had frozen.

The camp looked like it had been left in a hurry.

There were scattered barrels, burnt plastic bags, and empty oil cans.

Some items were covered with rust, others still retained the smell of gasoline.

Under a canopy were the remains of wood burnt around the edges.

Carter moved methodically, meter by meter, marking every object on the map that might indicate human activity.

His attention was drawn to the stains on the ground, dark like frozen oil, stretching deep into the forest.

The volunteers, divided into two groups, combed the area around them, looking for tire tracks.

They converged in several places, forming loops as if the cars were driving in a circle, returning to the same point.

This alarmed Carter in a report he wrote later.

The movement of vehicles was deliberately concentrated in a limited area, presumably to destroy or disguise evidence.

During the third hour of the search, one of the volunteers noticed a strange patch of soil.

The ground there was unnaturally compacted, as if someone had trampled it with heavy objects.

Carter knelt down and ran his hand over the surface.

The sand was mixed with ash and small pieces of rubber.

He could smell the oil, heavy and sweet, which could not have been left behind by an ordinary fire.

He followed the smell, and soon the forest opened up into a narrow clearing.

In the middle of it, surrounded by brown trunks, was a circle of car tires.

There were a dozen of them, old, cracked, charred.

They lay perfectly flat, forming a dark ring about 3 yd in diameter.

Inside the circle, the ground was a different color, gray and white, like rainwashed ash.

Carter crouched down and touched the surface with his glove.

Under the layer of leaves and soil, a fragment of bone glistened.

At first, he thought it was an animal, but when he picked at the ground with his knife, the outline of a human skull became visible.

The detective retreated a few steps.

The wind brought the smell of metal, which he recognized instantly.

burnt grease, the same kind that leaves a thick film on mechanic’s hands.

Carter immediately realized that this was no accidental fire.

Someone had deliberately set up a stove right in the woods using tires as fuel.

He ordered the volunteers to stand back and not touch anything.

Then, taking out a radio, he contacted the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

His message recorded in his office log sounded flat.

Probable crime scene, human remains.

Area needs to be cordoned off and forensically examined.

Before the investigators arrived, Carter photographed the scene from four directions and marked the coordinates.

Nearby, he found the remains of a metal barrel that once stood on a tripod.

Inside were the frozen remains of a dark liquid.

This confirmed the version of deliberate burning.

Someone had mixed motor oil with fuel, set it on fire, and left it when the fire had done its job.

When the first authorities arrived at the scene, the lawn had already been fenced off with yellow tape.

Forensic experts worked carefully.

Each fragment of bone was dug up separately, marked with red flags.

On the surface, they found a metal clasp, a wedding ring with a damaged stone, and remnants of khaki fabric.

According to the expert, the fabric matched the model of hiking pants worn by Ava Campbell.

Comparison of dental data confirmed the worst.

The remains belonged to her.

The police report states that the body was burned completely, but some parts were preserved due to the moist soil.

The skull had cracks formed, not from trauma, but from high temperature.

The analysis showed traces of heavy metals, the residue of engine oil that had soaked the bones.

A forensic expert who worked at the scene called what he saw one of the most thorough ways to destroy a body he had ever seen.

Tires, grease, and open air are the perfect combination for prolonged burning.

But the mistake of the perpetrators was that they did not take into account the rains.

The ashes washed into the soil, leaving bone fragments and burn marks that later led the detective to them.

The found objects, a burnt-out canister, a metal lid, and glass fragments, were later seized as material evidence.

All of them had imprints of mineral substances that matched the oil used in the car service stations.

This fact did not yet prove guilt, but it clearly outlined the direction of the investigation.

Police logs recorded.

Following official >> >> identification, Campbell’s case was reclassified from a disappearance to a murder.

For Bob Carter, it was the end of one search and the beginning of another.

His notebook, which he had kept with him from day one, was replenished with a short entry.

A circle of tires, fear inside.

They burned to erase it, but they left the smell.

That evening, he stood on the edge of the clearing for a long time while the experts packed the last bags of evidence.

The forest, which had been silent for a year, seemed to exhale again.

Light smoke from the traces of burning rose above the crowns, the smell of oil was still in the air.

And although night was falling on Lolo now, everyone who passed this road knew that the forest was no longer silent.

It revealed what it had been hiding for a whole year.

September of 2014 began with showers and short autumn fogs.

The sky was heavy over Missoula and the smell of wet earth reminded us of the very woods where Ava Campbell’s remains were found a few weeks ago.

After her death was officially confirmed, the case was reclassified as a murder.

And with that, a new line of investigation.

The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office turned into a hub of activity.

Detectives were spreading out crime scene photos on their desks, comparing them with previous materials.

The main source of information was the report of private investigator Bob Carter.

His version, which had previously seemed like a guess, now had documentary evidence, tires, oil, and the method of burning the body.

Everything pointed to the fact that the crime was connected to people who had access to technical fluids and vehicles.

Among the names that reappeared in the dossier was a familiar one, Mark Simmons.

He was Ava’s ex-boyfriend, a mechanic at the Lolo Peak Auto Service Center.

This car service had already been mentioned in the first reports, but the investigation had no reason to search it then.

Now, the reason was more than valid.

On September 22nd, the detectives received a search warrant from the district court.

The document stated, “Suspicion of storage or disposal of substances that can be used to conceal a crime.

” The Lolo Peak Auto Service was located on the outskirts of Missoula, 2 miles from the highway.

A small building with a yellow sign, a row of old cars, several barrels of fuel, and garbage containers under a canopy.

It looked like an ordinary workshop run by a man named Ray Donaldson.

He was in his mid-50s, had a criminal record for stealing parts and tax fraud, but had lived without scandal in recent years.

The search began at 7 in the morning.

The entrance was blocked by two police cars, and employees were not allowed to enter the premises.

According to eyewitnesses, the owner of the service was watching from the doorway, silently smoking a cigarette.

Simmons stood next to him, pale, nervous, and tired looking.

They first checked the recycling area, a small yard behind the building where used oil and tires were stored.

They found dozens of unmarked barrels, some half empty, some filled with a thick black liquid.

At the bottom were the remains of burnt rubber pieces.

Experts took samples and sent them to the laboratory.

The initial analysis showed a chemical match with the residue found in the soil at the site where Campbell’s body was found.

The search of the warehouse then began.

In the corner under a tarp was an old white van with no license plates.

On the door, a worn logo was barely readable, a silhouette of a mountain and the word peak.

It was exactly what the hunter Henry Jones had talked about.

The car was opened and the inside smelled of metal and oil.

The seats were removed and the floor was covered with coarse rubber.

Experts removed small particles of soil and vegetation from under it.

When the samples were sent to the forensic laboratory, the result left no doubt the soil composition matched that found in the forest at the site of the body’s destruction.

This was the main evidence that the van had been used at that time and place.

At the same time, we checked the services records.

The white van was listed as a company vehicle registered to the company, but the last official inspection was 3 years ago.

The registration database also revealed that the vehicle often traveled outside the city despite the lack of a permit for the transportation of technical waste.

After several hours of inspection, the detective seized documentation, hard drives from surveillance cameras, which turned out to be out of order for a long time, and several employee phones.

When experts examined the office, they found a notebook with records of fuel and oil deliveries in Donaldson’s desk drawer.

Among the usual numbers and amounts, an entry stood out.

July 13th, departure to Forest Point.

Clear.

Return alone.

The date coincided with the day Ava disappeared.

Police reports indicate that during the search, Simmons began to behave restlessly, avoided eye contact, and tried to leave the room several times.

He was the first to be detained.

Donaldson was arrested an hour later when he tried to call someone from an unknown number.

After the arrest, both were taken to the sheriff’s office for questioning.

According to Detective Dalton, who was present during the first interview, Donaldson kept a cool head, denied any involvement, and insisted that everything found was just normal work materials.

Simmons initially repeated the same thing, but the next day, under pressure from the evidence, his behavior changed.

According to the interrogating officer, Mark repeated the phrase several times.

I didn’t mean it.

I was just helping with the car.

He did not sign a confession, but admitted to being in the woods with Donaldson on the day Ava disappeared.

His testimony was recorded as a partial admission of participation in an event of an unspecified nature.

After that, the media leaked information about the detention of two people in the Campbell case.

Journalists, neighbors, and several employees gathered near the car service, fearing that the service would be closed.

Some people left flowers at the gate.

Others left notes with the words justice for Ava on them.

The county sheriff gave a brief comment confirming that a link had been found between the crime scene and the business.

He did not name any names, but hinted that the investigation was looking at organized activity aimed at concealing illegal operations.

This came as a shock to the city, which was used to quiet routines.

An ordinary car repair shop on the outskirts suddenly became the center of one of the most high-profile cases of the last decade.

The street near it remained blocked for several days as investigators, experts, and forensic vehicles continuously arrived.

A week later, the laboratory confirmed the final match between the oil and soil samples.

This was enough for the prosecutor’s office to launch an official investigation.

Mark Simmons and Ray Donaldson were charged with preliminary charges of destroying evidence and possible involvement in the murder.

Thus, the circle of tires found in the forest closed in on the circle of people who were directly involved.

And now the investigators were preparing to unravel what began as the disappearance of one woman and turned into a case of a whole scheme where oil, metal, and human cruelty merged into one dark spot.

October 2014.

The cramped cell in the Missoula County Jail smelled of moisture, cheap soap, and grease that had eaten into his skin even after weeks of not working.

Mark Simmons sat on the narrow bed with his hands between his knees.

He had been arrested with Ray Donaldson 3 weeks ago.

Since then, he has kept quiet, at first hoping that the evidence would not be enough.

But when investigators showed him photos of the van, soil test results, and oil samples.

His confidence crumbled.

The detectives noted in their report that Simmons appeared exhausted and frightened.

He kept asking if he could make a deal with the prosecutor and avoided mentioning his boss.

The first meeting with him was scheduled in an interrogation room on the third floor.

It was there, in the presence of the prosecutor and his lawyer, that Mark first agreed to tell what happened that summer.

His testimony was later included in the official case file.

According to Simmons, Ava Campbell did not disappear by accident.

She stumbled upon their illegal activities while conducting her research in the forest.

According to Mark, Ray Donaldson organized not only car repairs, but also a whole waste disposal scheme.

The Lolo Peak Auto Service officially took old tires and oils for recycling.

But in reality, most of the waste was taken to the forest and burned there to save money.

Simmons said it was more profitable than any legal business.

They bought used oil from other services and accepted industrial waste from private companies without permits.

The Pers, where everything was destroyed, were located in the middle of nowhere, away from the trails.

He had been to the place where Campbell’s body was later found dozens of times.

According to him, on July 13th, 2013, Donaldson instructed him to deliver another shipment of tires and barrels.

Simmons left in an old white van in the morning, loading up the waste.

Donaldson was to join him later once he had finished working with his clients.

When he arrived, it was already getting dark.

Together, they unloaded the materials near an old clearing, but didn’t have time to light a fire.

A woman appeared at the edge of the forest with a backpack and a camera.

Simmons recognized her immediately.

Ava.

She came closer, asked what they were doing here, and pulled out her phone to take pictures.

Donaldson, he said, reacted instantly.

He hit her in the arm, and the phone fell into the grass.

An argument started between them.

Ava shouted that she would go to the police.

Then Rey silently took a metal pipe from the back of the car and hit her on the head.

Mark claimed it was a sudden panic attack.

She fell down and Donaldson continued to hit her as if blinded.

Then he said that they had to clean it up before it’s too late.

Mark helped move the body to the barrels and held the lantern while the boss poured oil over everything.

They threw a few tires on top, lit a fire, and left the place before it was finished.

His testimony was cold, devoid of emotion.

The protocol records that he repeated several times.

I didn’t want her to die.

I just couldn’t stop him.

For the prosecution, these words became the key to a new strategy.

Mark Simmons was not just a suspect, but a potential witness who could confirm the motive and mechanism of the crime.

The prosecutor’s office began negotiating a plea deal with the investigation.

According to the agreement, Simmons agreed to testify against Donaldson in exchange for a reclassification of the charge from first-degree murder to aiding and abetting a crime.

The district attorney, Richard Hail, in his address to the court, explained that such a deal was necessary to establish the truth.

We are dealing with an organized system of evidence concealment and illegal disposal of toxic waste.

Without Mr.

Simmons’s testimony, it cannot be fully exposed.

Donaldson, meanwhile, refused to cooperate.

He pleaded not guilty and called Mark a liar, saving his own skin.

But each new fact confirmed by laboratory tests drove him deeper into the trap.

His fingerprints were found on the containers in the recycling area, and notebooks with marks of the places where he had made trips were found in his office.

During the re-interrogation, Simmons told about the other side of the scheme.

According to him, Donaldson had agreements with several farmers and warehouse owners who paid for the disposal of hazardous substances.

Some of the waste was indeed recycled, but the rest was burned in the forest in specially selected lands so that the smoke would not be visible from the roads.

The same white van was used for transportation where the soil from the crime scene was later found.

It was a large-scale scheme that lasted for years.

Donaldson controlled everything from purchases of lubricant to its disappearance from the reports.

Mark received money for doing menial tasks and didn’t ask questions until Ava disappeared.

After several weeks of investigations, Simmons testimony was confirmed by experts.

Chemical samples from the crime scene matched the oil purchased by Lolo Peak Auto.

Even the type of tires that burned in the forest matched the brand that the service had handed in for disposal.

The prosecutor’s team officially formalized the agreement with the witness.

It was a breakthrough for the investigation.

They now had the inside story of the events told firsthand.

Simmons was transferred to a different block of the prison, isolated from Donaldson.

Reports indicate that after the plea deal was signed, he became calmer, often asking for newspapers and writing letters to his mother.

In his first statement to investigators, he added, “If I had known it would go this far, I would not have gone to the forest that day.” His words formed the basis of the charges that the prosecutor’s office was preparing against the service owner.

The motive for the crime was clear.

Fear of exposure.

Although the details were still being checked, the structure of the events became clear.

An illegal business, a bystander, an impulsive murder, and an attempt to destroy everything with oil and fire.

In official documents, this episode is summarized briefly as Simmons testimony, the deal was approved, the materials were submitted to the court.

But for those involved in the investigation, this part of the case had a different name.

They talked among themselves.

We made a deal with the devil to catch the worst.

February 2015.

The Missoula District Court was preparing for one of the most high-profile trials of the last decade.

Journalists, law students, and local residents who knew Ava Campbell’s story, not from the newspapers, but by hearsay gathered daily near the stone facade of the building that overlooked the square.

Everyone wanted to see the man they called the man who turned an ordinary car repair shop into a hidden crime scene.

The defendant is 55-year-old Ray Donaldson, the owner of the Lolo Peak Auto Repair Shop.

He was charged with first-degree murder, destruction of evidence, and illegal handling of toxic waste.

His former subordinate, Mark Simmons, was the main prosecution witness after a plea deal.

The courtroom was overcrowded.

Eight jurors, four men and four women, sat in their seats with an expression of restrained tension.

Ava’s parents sat in the front row next to the press.

Their presence added emotional weight to the proceedings.

Every witness who took the stand could see their eyes.

The prosecutor’s office presented the case as a cold-blooded murder committed to hide an illegal business.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Richard Hail said, “We are not dealing with random violence.

We are talking about a scheme that has been in place for years.

A scheme where human life has become a consumable.” The evidence presented by the prosecution looked convincing.

Laboratory reports confirmed that the soil taken from the van matched the samples from the body burning site.

Experts described how the same type of motor oil used in the service was found on the victim’s bones.

Technical experts explained that the method of burning, a combination of tires, oil, and a metal barrel, required knowledge of combustible materials.

Mark Simmons was called to the stand on the third day of the hearing.

His testimony lasted for several hours and was accompanied by careful clarifications from the prosecutor.

He told about the day Ava disappeared, how she stumbled upon their waste incineration operation, and how Donaldson hit her in the head in a fit of rage.

According to Simmons, he did not stop the boss because he was afraid he would kill him.

During his testimony, he stopped several times, hiding his eyes.

His words confirmed most of the evidence found, the root of the van, the type of fuel, even the date in the purchase log.

For the prosecutors, this was a key point.

The voice of an eyewitness who put the events in their place.

Donaldson’s defense hit back.

Defense attorney Glenn Wood, an experienced lawyer, built his strategy on discrediting Simmons.

He called him a failed mechanic who decided to save himself by blaming someone else.

In his speech to the jury, he emphasized, “My client is not a murderer.

His only fault is that he trusted a man who had his own scores to settle with the victim.

The defense tried to present an alternative version, jealousy.

According to the lawyer, Simmons had a motive.

He used to date Ava, and their breakup was painful.

He could have used access to the van to frame Donaldson.

There was a heavy silence in the courtroom as the prosecutor denied these assumptions, reminding the jury that it was Simmons who voluntarily came forward and agreed to a polygraph which did not reveal any lies.

Donaldson himself looked calm, even indifferent when he got the floor.

He admitted to participating in the illegal waste incineration, but categorically denied the murder.

According to him, he did not go to the forest that day at all, and someone else could have used the van.

But the most powerful moment came at the end of the second week of hearings.

The prosecutor’s office presented an unexpected piece of evidence, a video from a surveillance camera at a gas station located half a mile from Lolo Peak Auto.

The recording made on the night of July 13th, 2013 showed a man in a dark jacket buying two cans of gasoline and a pack of matches.

The face was partially in shadow, but Donaldson’s features were clearly recognizable.

This recording was a turning point.

The prosecutor drew the jury’s attention to the fact that the camera recorded the time.

around p.m.

Just as Simmons said they were leaving the crime scene, the lawyers tried to deny the authenticity of the video, citing the image quality, but the expert confirmed that the recording was original and had no signs of editing.

Ava’s parents were present in the room when the footage was shown.

The mother was crying, holding a photo of her daughter.

The transcript of the hearing included a line that was later quoted by journalists.

The mother’s testimony was what broke even those who still doubted her innocence.

After that, experts spoke.

A chemist confirmed the match of the oil composition.

A forensic expert described in detail how the body was burned and why such a procedure could not have been accidental.

All the threads converged on Donaldson.

He had the means, access, transportation, and most importantly, the motive to hide an illegal business that could have destroyed his life.

The last to speak was the accused himself.

His words were short.

He called it a conspiracy between a former employee and the police.

When asked why he bought fuel that night, he replied that I needed it for the generator.

However, there was no record in the service logs of any repairs to the generator in those days.

The jury listened in silence, but the atmosphere in the room changed.

The doubt that the defense was trying to sew began to dissipate.

The press called that day the moment when silence went to the prosecution.

By the end of February, the court had considered all the evidence.

The parties concluded their speeches and the judge announced a break for jury deliberations.

Missoula lived in anticipation of the verdict.

Flowers were left outside the courthouse in the evenings and the local newspaper wrote that the trial was like the echo of forest smoke finally rising above the truth.

Everyone from farmers to students now knew the Montana case.

But while the judges deliberated, the town stood still as if the forest itself were holding its breath.

waiting for the verdict to return to the silence it had maintained all these years.

March 2015, it was early spring in Missoula with heavy skies, puddles on the sidewalks, and a wind that smelled like wet earth.

People were gathering at the county courthouse long before the hearing began.

The doors were opened at in the morning, and the corridors were immediately filled with the sound of voices.

Everyone knew that today the judge would announce the verdict in the case of State of Montana versus Ray Donaldson.

The defendant was led into the courtroom under guard.

He walked slowly, looking straight ahead.

He was wearing a gray prison-type suit.

His hair was graying, but his posture remained stubborn.

Next to him sat his lawyer, the same one who had insisted on his innocence from the very first days.

On the bench behind him were several employees of the former service who had come out of curiosity.

Next to him, closer to the front row, sat Martha and Robert Campbell.

They were holding hands.

The mother was clutching a white envelope in her palm, a letter she planned to hand over to the judge after the verdict was announced.

On the table in front of her was a photo of her daughter.

Ava was smiling directly into the lens with a golden pincher she had rescued from a shelter.

Judge Mason Gray entered the courtroom at , sharp.

Silence fell instantly.

His voice was calm as he began to read the jury’s decision, announced the night before after 16 hours of deliberation.

Ray Donaldson has been found guilty of first-degree murder, illegal handling of toxic waste, and destruction of evidence.

When these words were spoken, Martha Campbell covered her face with her hands.

Donaldson did not flinch.

His face remained stony.

Only his lips moved into a hard line.

The judge continued, “The sentence is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Taking into account the gravity of the crime, the court sees no grounds for mitigation of the sentence.

” The next paragraph of the verdict referred to Mark Simmons.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for aiding and abetting the concealment of a crime and destruction of evidence.

The court took into account his cooperation with the investigation and full confession of his actions.

After reading the sentence, the judge gave the floor to the parties.

Prosecutor Hail spoke briefly.

Justice was served today, but no sentence will bring back the man we lost.

The defense, on the other hand, announced that it would appeal, arguing that the main prosecution was based on the testimony of a man who had a vested interest.

The journalist recorded that Ray Donaldson leaving the courtroom whispered a phrase that only a few people nearby heard.

You are all wrong.

He was immediately escorted out by guards.

After the hearing, a short press conference was held on the steps of the court.

Representatives of the prosecutor’s office said that Campbell’s case was over and thanked everyone who helped in the investigation.

Martha Campbell told reporters that she did not feel joy, only relief.

Her words were quoted in local news.

We got justice, but when the trial ends, the pain doesn’t end with it.

The city lived with the verdict for several more days.

People left flowers near the court.

The local council considered tightening control over the export of industrial waste to forest areas.

Ava Campbell’s name began to sound like a symbol, a young woman who died trying to preserve the nature from which others only took.

The Lolo Peak Auto Service Station was closed almost immediately after the owner’s arrest.

The building was put up for auction and the equipment was sold to dealers.

A month later, the sign was taken down and the area was fenced off.

Local residents avoided the place for a long time as if it held something dark, the smell of oil and smoke that once filled the yard.

Mark Simmons was quiet in custody.

According to the Department of Corrections, he refused to speak to the press and accepted only letters from his mother.

More was written about Ray Donaldson.

He was transferred to a maximum security prison in the eastern part of the state.

The guards recalled that he spent most of his time alone, hardly communicated with other prisoners, and constantly wrote in notebooks that were later destroyed after inspections.

He continued to maintain his innocence and accused the system of conspiring against small businesses.

But outside the prison walls, the case had a very different life.

A few months after the verdict, the Department of Natural Resources unveiled a new program to monitor industrial landfills.

The state tightened control over the transportation of oils and chemicals.

The report prepared for the governor explicitly mentioned Campbell’s name as an example of how negligence and greed can turn into tragedy.

For Bob Carter, a private investigator who started the investigation almost alone, the case ended quietly.

He did not speak to the press, did not comment.

Only one journalist later wrote that he saw him that spring day at the city cemetery.

Carter stood at Ava’s grave, hat in hand, looking at the plaque with her name on it, and did not move for a long time.

Then he put a cedar branch on the ground, the same plant Ava was last seen alive near.

Missoula gradually returned to her usual rhythm.

But in the Lolo forest, where the tire circle was found a year ago, nothing grew for a long time.

The ground there remained dark, as if a reminder of a fire that once burned too brightly.

Local hunters said that on foggy mornings, they could smell the smell of oil there, even though months had passed since then.

For most residents, it was just a story told in coffee shops about a girl who searched for the truth and paid for it with her life.

For her parents, she remained an open wound.

For investigators, she was an example of how persistence can lead to solving the darkest case.

And for the forest itself, all this was just another round of time.

The trees were reaching for the sky again, covering the clearing where the tires had once been burning with their branches.

The wind again carried dust and the smell of tar.

And if you stood in the middle of that silence, you could hear only one thing.

The earth slowly absorbing the past, washing it away with the