Latest / Blood Trails / S1E6: What Happened to Aaron Hedges?

Transcript

S1E6: What Happened to Aaron Hedges? · Blood Trails

0:00
Speaker 1: The plan was simple a week of elk hunting in
0:03
Speaker 1: Montana's backcountry, but somewhere between the trailhead into the Crazy
0:07
Speaker 1: Mountains and the first snowfall, Aaron Hedges vanished. His friend
0:12
Speaker 1: said he'd gone off on his own, and searchers later
0:14
Speaker 1: found his boots neatly placed beside a firing. What happened
0:18
Speaker 1: next would baffle investigators and fuel a decade of theories
0:21
Speaker 1: about how and why Aaron died within a quarter mile
0:26
Speaker 1: of being rescued. That's next on Blood Trails. There are
0:35
Speaker 1: many strange things about the disappearance of Aaron Hedges, but
0:39
Speaker 1: one of the strangest is why he took off his boots.
0:44
Speaker 1: Hedges and two of his friends went elk hunting in
0:46
Speaker 1: the Crazy Mountains of western Montana in September of twenty fourteen.
0:51
Speaker 1: Those two friends came back, Aaron did not. A search
0:56
Speaker 1: and rescue team was dispatched to try to find the
0:58
Speaker 1: missing hunter. About a week into those efforts, the team
1:01
Speaker 1: found what they hoped would lead them to Aerin.
1:04
Speaker 2: We go back and.
1:05
Speaker 3: We researched that area on the bench and find two
1:11
Speaker 3: points where he tries to make fire. He was actually
1:14
Speaker 3: successful on one. I don't think he was as successful
1:18
Speaker 3: at another one. And then that's when we found the booths.
1:22
Speaker 1: That Sweetgrass County Sheriff Alan Roneberg, he helped lead the
1:25
Speaker 1: search efforts, and he told me that even a week
1:27
Speaker 1: after Aaron had gone missing, they were still hopeful they
1:30
Speaker 1: might find him alive, and those size ten wolverine hunting
1:34
Speaker 1: boots told them he was close. After all, what kind
1:37
Speaker 1: of hunter takes off his boots beside a fire and
1:40
Speaker 1: then keeps walking. But the rescue team, along with two
1:45
Speaker 1: deputies from the Park County Sheriff's office, searched the area
1:47
Speaker 1: for over three hours and didn't turn up anything else
1:51
Speaker 1: besides a camelback water bladder, a water filter and some trash.
1:57
Speaker 1: Aaron had vanished. It was like he'd been sucked out
2:00
Speaker 1: of his boots and into the ether. Here's Park County
2:04
Speaker 1: Detective Brian Green speaking in twenty fifteen.
2:07
Speaker 4: What was found and where it was found and the
2:10
Speaker 4: condition that was found in is very odd, and what
2:14
Speaker 4: wasn't found is very odd.
2:16
Speaker 5: There's just something about it that's very unsettling.
2:19
Speaker 1: After two weeks, the search team gave up. They'd done
2:22
Speaker 1: everything they could think of, but Aaron Hedges was nowhere
2:25
Speaker 1: to be found. In the years that followed, the internet
2:28
Speaker 1: had a field day.
2:29
Speaker 3: All theories you're out there, you know, everything from murder
2:32
Speaker 3: to UFOs to Bigfoot. A lot of us thought he
2:36
Speaker 3: walked out and he caught himself a ride, and he
2:40
Speaker 3: just left the country. He's out sipping mintizing the Bahamas,
2:44
Speaker 3: you know, all that kind of thing.
2:46
Speaker 1: Others thought maybe Aaron had been raptured, you know, taken
2:49
Speaker 1: by God into heaven where he wouldn't need hunting boots.
2:53
Speaker 1: This was the subject of a self published book on
2:55
Speaker 1: Amazon titled Aaron Hedges, A Case Study in the Rapture
2:58
Speaker 1: and the End of Life as we know it. Believe
3:00
Speaker 1: it or not, it's on the first page of Google
3:02
Speaker 1: when you search for Aaron's name. Internet sleuse and true
3:06
Speaker 1: crime podcasters got some answers when in August of twenty sixteen,
3:10
Speaker 1: almost two years after he went missing, Erin's remains were found,
3:15
Speaker 1: but the questions didn't stop. Why did Aaron leave his
3:19
Speaker 1: friends and travel so far from their base camp. Why
3:22
Speaker 1: did those friends not look for him even with a
3:25
Speaker 1: snowstorm bearing down? What killed Erin in those mountains? Why
3:29
Speaker 1: did he die within a quarter mile of a road?
3:32
Speaker 1: And what made him take off his boots and walk
3:35
Speaker 1: six more miles in the freezing cold. These and other
3:40
Speaker 1: questions have perplexed professional and amateur detectives for nearly a decade.
3:44
Speaker 1: Some of them may never be answered, but for anyone
3:47
Speaker 1: who hunted elk in the Rocky Mountain West, Aaron's story
3:51
Speaker 1: is a warning. You never know what might happen up
3:53
Speaker 1: in those mountains, and you'd better be prepared. I'm Jordan Sillers,
3:58
Speaker 1: and this is Blood Trails, What Happened to Aaron Hedges,
4:06
Speaker 1: Part one? A series of unfortunate events. Almost everything we
4:12
Speaker 1: know about Aaron's story comes from the two men who
4:15
Speaker 1: hunted with him, Joe Depew and Greg Latner. Joe and
4:20
Speaker 1: Greg both declined to be interviewed for this episode, and
4:23
Speaker 1: we'll talk about why in a few minutes, but I
4:26
Speaker 1: was able to obtain a recorded interview between Greg and
4:29
Speaker 1: two Park County detectives. As far as I'm aware, this
4:32
Speaker 1: is the first time this interview has ever been made public.
4:36
Speaker 1: I also have the complete incident report from the Park
4:38
Speaker 1: County Attorney's Office, which includes descriptions of interviews between Joe
4:43
Speaker 1: and detectives. Between those interviews and documents. We have a
4:46
Speaker 1: pretty good idea what the pair of hunters told law
4:49
Speaker 1: enforcement in the days after Aaron went missing. Here's a
4:52
Speaker 1: portion of that incident report that describes what the three
4:55
Speaker 1: hunters planned to do during the six days they were
4:57
Speaker 1: in the Crazy Mountains.
5:00
Speaker 6: Stated that they had arrived in this vehicle and that
5:02
Speaker 6: all three parties had done a hunting pack trip the
5:04
Speaker 6: year prior in the same area. Depew stated that the
5:08
Speaker 6: hunting group then started in the direction of Trespass Creek,
5:11
Speaker 6: with a destination of going to Campfire Lake, then to
5:14
Speaker 6: Moose Lake, and then up Middle Fork Creek trail to
5:17
Speaker 6: go up North Fork Creek, with a final destination being
5:20
Speaker 6: at the lower Lakes in the area of Sunlight Lake.
5:24
Speaker 1: Their plan was to pack a horse and a mule
5:26
Speaker 1: into the Custer Gallatin National Forest just north of Livingston, Montana.
5:30
Speaker 1: They went in at the Ibex trailhead on September fifth,
5:33
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, and as you heard, they hoped to arrow
5:36
Speaker 1: an elk in the area around Campfire Lake, Moose Lake,
5:39
Speaker 1: and Sunlight Lake. If you've never been there, this is
5:43
Speaker 1: a gorgeous patch of country and the weather was perfect
5:46
Speaker 1: with highs in the fifties and sixties and lows just
5:49
Speaker 1: below freezing.
5:50
Speaker 7: Beautiful mountain range. First of all, right, very visible from
5:54
Speaker 7: I ninety corridor as you drive in east and west,
5:57
Speaker 7: kind of stand out almost like an island mountain chain.
6:00
Speaker 1: That's me eaters Giannis Prutellis. Yanni has backpacked with his
6:02
Speaker 1: wife and kids in the Crazy Mountains on three separate occasions,
6:05
Speaker 1: and he recently finished a one hundred mile trail race
6:08
Speaker 1: on some of the same paths that Greg, Joe, and
6:11
Speaker 1: Aaron traveled on their hunt. Yanni explained that the Crazies
6:14
Speaker 1: are a popular place for Bozeman residents to take a
6:17
Speaker 1: weekend hike because they're accessible and not too intimidating.
6:21
Speaker 7: The Crazies actually aren't a huge mountain range. When you're
6:24
Speaker 7: on a lot of the bigger peaks or passes, you
6:28
Speaker 7: can see the flats or the val the major valleys
6:31
Speaker 7: to the east and west right, you're not like deep
6:34
Speaker 7: in and you can't see out like you can always
6:37
Speaker 7: see one way or the other.
6:38
Speaker 1: It's not a huge mountain range, but there are still
6:40
Speaker 1: plenty of opportunities for hunters. Joe, Greg and Aaron wanted
6:44
Speaker 1: to make it up to Campfire Lake on their first day,
6:47
Speaker 1: a seven mile hike up Trespass Creek trail. But the
6:51
Speaker 1: trip got off to a rocky start. Here's Greg speaking
6:54
Speaker 1: to detectives.
6:55
Speaker 5: We got all loaded up and from the old Bucks
6:59
Speaker 5: to pack south off once and right of the trailhead,
7:03
Speaker 5: just because she was scared of Aaron, you know, and
7:07
Speaker 5: we got that all. We got that all situated, and
7:10
Speaker 5: now we're running way behind. It's already like afternoon, and
7:13
Speaker 5: so we decided we're we'll make it a couple of
7:15
Speaker 5: miles up the trail and make camp. And so we
7:18
Speaker 5: get a couple of miles up the trail, Aaron tries
7:21
Speaker 5: to walk up ahead of us, and the mule sees
7:24
Speaker 5: Aaron coming through her perfield vision and flips out again
7:27
Speaker 5: and fucks everything off of her back again. And you know,
7:31
Speaker 5: Aaron gets gets pissed and starts trying to hit the
7:35
Speaker 5: mule and this and that. Joe and I just stop
7:39
Speaker 5: to it, hey man, knock it off, like she's scared
7:41
Speaker 5: of you for a reason, like get away from her,
7:44
Speaker 5: you know, like and we're getting really irritated, but you know,
7:48
Speaker 5: we've kind of kind of already started on the trip now,
7:51
Speaker 5: and I kind of had a bad feeling at that
7:54
Speaker 5: point that you know, Aaron just should not be there.
7:57
Speaker 5: But it's almost past the point of I mean, I
8:01
Speaker 5: get it. Or maybe it wasn't, but it felt like
8:04
Speaker 5: it was at the time.
8:06
Speaker 1: This wasn't the only time they had trouble with the mule.
8:08
Speaker 1: As they tried to summit the pass the next day,
8:10
Speaker 1: the mule took off again, but this time the consequences
8:13
Speaker 1: were much worse.
8:15
Speaker 5: Again, Aaron walked up and stooped to the mule, and
8:19
Speaker 5: the mule took off, bucking and that if you're familiar
8:22
Speaker 5: with that valley on the west side of Camps Campfire Pass,
8:25
Speaker 5: that basin. The mule took off, just running all over
8:28
Speaker 5: that valley, bucking our gear all over the place. So
8:32
Speaker 5: we spent all afternoon picking up that stuff that the
8:37
Speaker 5: mule lost, Aaron's sleeping bag. We eventually found every single
8:42
Speaker 5: thing that the mule had bucked off, except Aaron's sleeping bag.
8:46
Speaker 5: Never ever did find it.
8:49
Speaker 1: They admitted that none of them knew much about dealing
8:51
Speaker 1: with pack animals, and later in the trip, Joe and
8:53
Speaker 1: Greg spent three hours trying to catch the mule that
8:56
Speaker 1: had escaped overnight, but they couldn't corral it. They eventually
8:59
Speaker 1: get up and went back to camp, and the mule followed.
9:03
Speaker 1: This detail is actually more important than it sounds. That
9:06
Speaker 1: mule accident when Aaron lost his gear, was the catalyst
9:09
Speaker 1: that sparked the series of events that eventually led to
9:13
Speaker 1: his disappearance. Joe, Greg and Aaron had hunted together for
9:16
Speaker 1: the past five or six years, and Joe had known
9:19
Speaker 1: Aarin even longer. We'll hear more about Aaron's personal history soon,
9:23
Speaker 1: but for now, let's get back to the hunt. Joe
9:26
Speaker 1: told law enforcement that they looked for a couple hours
9:29
Speaker 1: for the sleeping bag, and then went back to the
9:31
Speaker 1: truck and retrieved some additional items, including blankets and a tarp, which, strangely,
9:36
Speaker 1: Joe claims that Aaron refused to use. And while Greg
9:40
Speaker 1: says they found all of Erin's gear except his sleeping bag,
9:43
Speaker 1: Sheriff Roni Berg says the search and rescue team recovered
9:46
Speaker 1: more than just a sleeping bag.
9:48
Speaker 3: It would have spent some time, but they could have
9:50
Speaker 3: got it because it was recovered by the search and
9:54
Speaker 3: rescue people. When they first got up the trail, they
9:58
Speaker 3: noticed all this stuff scattered all over the trail and
10:02
Speaker 3: they started picking up they picked it up. Why they didn't,
10:05
Speaker 3: I don't know. They wanted to get into camp. I
10:08
Speaker 3: guess I'm not really sure.
10:10
Speaker 1: Whatever the status of Aaron's gear, the delay forced them
10:13
Speaker 1: to camp on the trail that night, which didn't do
10:16
Speaker 1: much to improve company morale.
10:19
Speaker 5: Aaron had nothing, even though we told him that he
10:23
Speaker 5: needed a bivvy sack and he needed this and that.
10:25
Speaker 5: We got up there and realized that once he lost
10:28
Speaker 5: his sleeping bag, he literally had no gear at all. Nothing.
10:32
Speaker 1: Greg and Joe tried to help Aaron stay warm that night,
10:35
Speaker 1: but he refused and he'd.
10:37
Speaker 5: Being real hard headed. I'm just and I knew it
10:40
Speaker 5: was going to get down to you know, fifteen twenty
10:42
Speaker 5: degrees that night, and just look at Aaron. You can't just
10:45
Speaker 5: sleep on the ground's let's figure this out. There's a
10:48
Speaker 5: lot of options. A resourceful guy would have gotten the
10:51
Speaker 5: pads off of the horses, would have built a big fire,
10:54
Speaker 5: stocked up on firewood. Any person in the right mind,
11:00
Speaker 5: I mean halfway survivalists would have gotten all the gear
11:03
Speaker 5: that they could to stay warm. He's so hard ahead
11:06
Speaker 5: and I don't need any of that shit, which is
11:09
Speaker 5: like you do need it, you know. We eventually just
11:15
Speaker 5: gets so mad, fine, you know whatever, Like I can't
11:18
Speaker 5: make you put all this stuff on.
11:21
Speaker 1: They proceeded the next day, Saturday, September sixth, to what
11:24
Speaker 1: would become their base camp, but Aaron's mood had deteriorated
11:28
Speaker 1: after a night without his sleeping bag. In fact, Joe
11:31
Speaker 1: told investigators that Aaron was acting agitated and confrontational almost
11:35
Speaker 1: from the moment they arrived at the trailhead. According to
11:38
Speaker 1: the incident report.
11:40
Speaker 6: Depeugh said Hedges was pissed off of the mule and
11:42
Speaker 6: the whole situation, and was generally uncooperative that first night.
11:46
Speaker 6: Depeugh said Hedges remained pissed off the entire next day.
11:49
Speaker 6: After arriving at Campfire Lake on the second.
11:52
Speaker 1: Afternoon, things didn't get much better.
11:54
Speaker 8: When they set up camp.
11:56
Speaker 3: Greg gut really irritated with you and actually almost into
12:00
Speaker 3: a fifth flight at one night, to the point, you know,
12:03
Speaker 3: Erin and Greg were going to have at it. It
12:06
Speaker 3: was a heck of an argument.
12:08
Speaker 1: I should point out here that none of the incident
12:10
Speaker 1: reports I received from Park County mentioned anything about a fight.
12:14
Speaker 1: There was obviously tension in camp, but in these reports.
12:17
Speaker 1: Neither Greg nor Joe reported any kind of physical altercation,
12:21
Speaker 1: and they didn't respond to the question when I emailed
12:23
Speaker 1: it to them, and they're telling of it, it's hard
12:26
Speaker 1: to blame the pair of hunters for being exasperated. They
12:29
Speaker 1: say Aarin was acting listless and uninterested, almost like he
12:32
Speaker 1: didn't want to be there. Greg said that Aaron had
12:35
Speaker 1: put a new site on his bow, but didn't bother
12:37
Speaker 1: to site it in before the trip. According to Greg,
12:40
Speaker 1: Aaron spent part of the time at camp blowing up
12:42
Speaker 1: his arrows by firing them into rocks, and he never
12:45
Speaker 1: actually got it sited in. Greg said Aaron wouldn't have
12:48
Speaker 1: been able to hit a hay bale from ten yards away.
12:52
Speaker 5: I take it very seriously. I my whole year is
12:55
Speaker 5: devoted to bow hunting. I had to shoot my bow
12:57
Speaker 5: every day I run. It's very serious. And so I
13:01
Speaker 5: showed up to the parking lot at Joe's out back
13:05
Speaker 5: and Aaron pulled in and he just looked like shit.
13:08
Speaker 5: His face was pickled, he hadn't had a haircut and forever.
13:13
Speaker 1: Greg claims that Aaron had been drinking, and that suspicion
13:16
Speaker 1: appeared to be confirmed When Greg and Joe took a
13:19
Speaker 1: walk up the mountain and looked back at camp through
13:22
Speaker 1: their binoculars.
13:23
Speaker 5: Right by where our camp was, there was a big
13:27
Speaker 5: black bear walking in that big open bw right by
13:30
Speaker 5: where the camp was. Aaron's sitting there and just kind
13:33
Speaker 5: of looking at it. We're watching thro our binoculars and
13:37
Speaker 5: we're just thinking like, oh, is he gonna get his
13:39
Speaker 5: bow go try and shoot that thing? Is he do drunk?
13:42
Speaker 5: What's what's he doing? And so we're watching and he
13:46
Speaker 5: grabs his he grabs his bow, and he's like stumbling.
13:50
Speaker 5: We were trying to figure out what he's doing. Oh,
13:52
Speaker 5: he's looking for his slippers. So he goes and he
13:55
Speaker 5: puts his slippers on, and he gets his bow and
14:00
Speaker 5: he starts stumbling across the meadow right towards the bear,
14:06
Speaker 5: and that, you know, not like how he would put
14:08
Speaker 5: a stock on an animal. He just starts walking right
14:11
Speaker 5: towards it. I was surprised he got as close as
14:14
Speaker 5: he did. He probably got forty or fifty yards away,
14:17
Speaker 5: which could have been theoretically in shooting distance, but he
14:21
Speaker 5: never even attempted to draw his bow. He just kept
14:24
Speaker 5: walking at it, and the bear eventually turn around and ran.
14:27
Speaker 5: But that gave us an idea right there that he
14:30
Speaker 5: was gonna stay at camp or he get on out
14:32
Speaker 5: by himself, Like I'm not, you know, we put too
14:35
Speaker 5: much work into this. Like that was the most pathetic
14:38
Speaker 5: excuse for a stock on an animal I've ever seen.
14:42
Speaker 1: When Greg and Joe walked back into camp, they could
14:44
Speaker 1: tell the horse and mule were nervous about something lurking
14:47
Speaker 1: in the darkness beyond the firelight. Aaron wasn't concerned, but
14:51
Speaker 1: Greg said he knew something was wrong. He walked where
14:55
Speaker 1: the animals were looking and found another bear standing just
14:58
Speaker 1: about twenty yards away. If I were two shots from
15:01
Speaker 1: his pistol to scare the bear away and return to camp.
15:04
Speaker 5: But then after that, I was just I rate with
15:07
Speaker 5: Aaron's so mad. I'm just like, what are you doing?
15:10
Speaker 5: Are you kidding me? So this bear right there in
15:12
Speaker 5: camp harassing the horses? You're laying here drunk, you know,
15:17
Speaker 5: like what, It's just like, how good are you?
15:20
Speaker 3: You know?
15:21
Speaker 5: Just just stay in camp? Like I was so angry
15:24
Speaker 5: at him, and just it was just so pathetic because
15:28
Speaker 5: we take it so seriously, and he just wasn't.
15:32
Speaker 1: With that kind of resentment in the air. It probably
15:34
Speaker 1: came as a relief when Aaron told them he planned
15:37
Speaker 1: to leave.
15:38
Speaker 5: After that second night at the base of Campfire Pass,
15:42
Speaker 5: after he stayed up all night cussing and building the fire,
15:46
Speaker 5: He said he was going to walk to the cash
15:48
Speaker 5: at Sunlight Camp.
15:50
Speaker 1: The previous fall, the group had stashed some gear near
15:53
Speaker 1: Sunlight Lake, including a wal tent, stove, sleeping bags, and
15:57
Speaker 1: freeze dried food. Rather than spend another in the cold
16:00
Speaker 1: without his sleeping bag, Aaron said he wanted to make
16:03
Speaker 1: the nine mile hike up to Sunlight Lake and retrieve
16:06
Speaker 1: what they'd stashed. The group agreed to use their Garmin
16:09
Speaker 1: Rhino Won twenty GPS radios to contact each other at
16:13
Speaker 1: noon and at four pm every day until they reunited.
16:17
Speaker 1: Aaron said that if they didn't walk up to where
16:19
Speaker 1: he was, he'd walk back to them on Monday or Tuesday.
16:23
Speaker 1: Since they planned to leave on Wednesday, Greg and Joe
16:27
Speaker 1: got up early to look for Elk on Sunday, September seventh.
16:30
Speaker 1: They said that when they looked back at camp, they
16:32
Speaker 1: could still see Aaron milling around, and as far as
16:35
Speaker 1: we know, that's the last time anyone saw Aaron Alive
16:44
Speaker 1: Part two Aerin. Like so many things about this story,
16:50
Speaker 1: Aaron Hedges himself is a bit of a mystery. We
16:53
Speaker 1: know he was married and had one young son at
16:55
Speaker 1: the time of his disappearance. We know he was thirty
16:58
Speaker 1: eight years old. He was six one, one hundred and
17:00
Speaker 1: ninety pounds and had blonde hair and blue eyes. We
17:04
Speaker 1: know he liked to hunt elk and he lived in
17:06
Speaker 1: the Livingston Bozeman area, but we don't know much else.
17:10
Speaker 1: The friends and family we contacted about this episode, including
17:13
Speaker 1: his wife Christine, either didn't get back to us or
17:17
Speaker 1: refused to speak to us. We do know, as you
17:20
Speaker 1: may have already guessed, that Aaron was an alcoholic. Greg
17:24
Speaker 1: told investigators that Aaron would regularly drink a bottle of
17:27
Speaker 1: Jack Daniels a day, and he brought several with him
17:30
Speaker 1: on that trip.
17:32
Speaker 8: Both Joe and.
17:32
Speaker 1: Greg implied that this may have explained Aaron's strange behavior.
17:37
Speaker 5: We get off the main road and we're driving up
17:39
Speaker 5: the up the dirt road to the trailhead and Aaron
17:43
Speaker 5: pulls out like this bottle of twisted tea or something
17:47
Speaker 5: and starts drinking it just fucking you know.
17:49
Speaker 9: We're getting ready to you know, penetrate ten miles deep
17:54
Speaker 9: into the crazy mountains, and he's busting out a twisted
17:56
Speaker 9: tea and he's already just loopy is hell from whatever
18:00
Speaker 9: the medication he was taking is.
18:02
Speaker 5: And I'm just like, what are you doing them? Like?
18:05
Speaker 5: He's like, Oh, it's just these twisted teas. It's not
18:08
Speaker 5: a big deal. It's not Jack Daniels. I'll be fine.
18:12
Speaker 1: Greg said that Aaron seemed drunk on that ride to
18:15
Speaker 1: the trailhead, but he wasn't sure whether that was from
18:17
Speaker 1: the alcohol or the medication Aaron had been prescribed to
18:21
Speaker 1: help him curb his alcohol addiction. He didn't know what
18:24
Speaker 1: the medication was called, but investigators later confirmed with Aaron's
18:28
Speaker 1: doctor that he'd been prescribed a drug called chlor diaz epoxide.
18:33
Speaker 8: The brand name of this drug.
18:34
Speaker 1: Is Librium, and it's prescribed to patients to treat anxiety
18:37
Speaker 1: disorders and symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Aaron's doctor confirmed that
18:41
Speaker 1: he'd been given a prescription of this medication in the
18:44
Speaker 1: weeks prior to the hunt. Christine told investigators that she
18:48
Speaker 1: believed this medication had made Aaron quote agitated and unstable
18:53
Speaker 1: on his feet.
18:54
Speaker 6: Kstine stated that because of the negative side effects she
18:57
Speaker 6: had seen in her husband, Aaron, which included short temper
19:00
Speaker 6: and physical unbalanced, she didn't want him to go on
19:02
Speaker 6: the hunting trip. The trip was a spur of the
19:05
Speaker 6: moment trip for Erin. She also stated that if it
19:07
Speaker 6: wasn't for the medication side effects, she would not be
19:10
Speaker 6: worried about her husband.
19:12
Speaker 1: It's true that the side effects of librium include dizziness,
19:15
Speaker 1: changes in mood or behavior, and confusion, but the medication
19:18
Speaker 1: is also prescribed as a treatment for anxiety, so the
19:21
Speaker 1: doctor told investigators that Aaron should have had quote a
19:25
Speaker 1: very stable mindset while taking the medication. She also said
19:29
Speaker 1: that if Aaron had been taking the pills per the instructions,
19:32
Speaker 1: he should have been done with them well before the
19:34
Speaker 1: trip began. In other words, while both alcohol and librium
19:38
Speaker 1: may have explained Aaron's strange behavior, we don't know exactly
19:42
Speaker 1: what or how much was in his system on the
19:45
Speaker 1: day he disappeared. It's also worth noting again that we
19:49
Speaker 1: have to rely on Greg and Joe's word that Aarin
19:52
Speaker 1: was acting strangely at all. Whatever the truth is, Aaron's
19:56
Speaker 1: drinking wasn't just messing with his archery.
19:59
Speaker 8: Skills.
19:59
Speaker 1: His his initial interview with investigators, Joe said he'd known
20:03
Speaker 1: Erin for ten years.
20:04
Speaker 6: But he was under the impression that Hedges had a
20:07
Speaker 6: wonderful wife and was screwing up by drinking so much.
20:10
Speaker 1: Aaron's drinking was clearly a problem, and Greg mentioned that
20:13
Speaker 1: he switched from hard tea to whiskey after that first night.
20:18
Speaker 5: He would drink it and secret because we were giving
20:20
Speaker 5: him a hard time about it, because you know, he
20:23
Speaker 5: knew if he was taking those pills and we didn't
20:26
Speaker 5: want him drinking anyways. I mean, if you're, you know,
20:29
Speaker 5: getting done hunting at the end of the day and
20:31
Speaker 5: you want you want to have a couple pulls off
20:33
Speaker 5: the bottle by the fire, that's one thing. You know,
20:36
Speaker 5: Drinking a whole leader of whiskey over the course of
20:38
Speaker 5: the day while you're on an Elkhana is another sink
20:41
Speaker 5: like which just weren't okay with it.
20:44
Speaker 1: Getting drunk in the back country might not be wise.
20:47
Speaker 1: But the question remains is that what killed Erin. Did
20:51
Speaker 1: the side effects of the medication or another bottle of
20:54
Speaker 1: Jack Daniels or not having another bottle of Jack Daniels
20:58
Speaker 1: cause him to lose his way? And eventually his life.
21:03
Speaker 1: It's possible, but that's not where this story ends.
21:11
Speaker 8: Part three.
21:13
Speaker 1: Lost Aaron's behavior didn't stop Greg and Joe from their
21:18
Speaker 1: primary mission on that trip. After they looked back and
21:20
Speaker 1: saw Erin still in camp, they forged ahead into the
21:23
Speaker 1: hills and valleys around Campfire Lake in search of elk.
21:27
Speaker 1: They were successful. In the afternoon of Sunday, September seventh,
21:31
Speaker 1: the first day they went hunting, Greg arrowed a nice
21:34
Speaker 1: six by six bowl. They told investigators that they shot
21:37
Speaker 1: the animal near dead Horse Lake, which is about two
21:40
Speaker 1: miles northeast of Campfire Lake.
21:42
Speaker 8: As the crow flies, We're working.
21:45
Speaker 5: Our way east toward sunlight drainage right at the top
21:48
Speaker 5: of the timber, and I'm just letting out cow calls.
21:51
Speaker 5: Turn to see if I can give those two other
21:53
Speaker 5: bulls we saw, and sure enough, both of them came
21:58
Speaker 5: just came running right out of me on a string,
22:00
Speaker 5: and one of them hung up at about eighty yards
22:03
Speaker 5: and the other one just walked right up on top
22:05
Speaker 5: of me. I was able to draw my bow back,
22:09
Speaker 5: and he walked up to about ten fifteen yards and
22:13
Speaker 5: drilled them right between the chest.
22:17
Speaker 1: If you've ever been hunting, with a group. You know
22:19
Speaker 1: that when someone shoots an animal, the rest of the
22:21
Speaker 1: group tries to come help with the packout. Dead Horse
22:24
Speaker 1: Lake is actually pretty close to Sunlight Lake, and so
22:27
Speaker 1: the pair of hunters radioed Aaron to come back and
22:29
Speaker 1: help them break down the bull.
22:31
Speaker 5: We get out the radio because Aaron had that radio,
22:34
Speaker 5: and we're thinking, like, Aaron's gotta be on the trail
22:36
Speaker 5: right below us, Like, let's get him on the radio
22:39
Speaker 5: and let's tell him not to go to the camp.
22:42
Speaker 5: You know, we need his help.
22:43
Speaker 1: Aaron answered their radio call, but he didn't seem excited
22:46
Speaker 1: to hear about their success on the mountain.
22:49
Speaker 5: He immediately answered, He's like yeah, just sort of drunk,
22:54
Speaker 5: angry voice, and I'm just like, dude, we had a
22:58
Speaker 5: bull down, where are you? And he's just like not
23:02
Speaker 5: excited at all. He's just like, I.
23:04
Speaker 3: Find now you don't know, excuseuld you walk the same
23:08
Speaker 3: trail we did?
23:09
Speaker 5: Like have you gotten to the turnoff the Sunlight Trilia?
23:13
Speaker 5: I don't know. I'd don't hike it for seven miles.
23:17
Speaker 1: Greg thinks Aarin was exaggerating about how far he walked,
23:20
Speaker 1: but if he was even close to correct, he would
23:23
Speaker 1: have missed the turnoff he was supposed to take up
23:26
Speaker 1: to Sunlight Lake.
23:27
Speaker 3: He went right past the fork to go to Sunlight
23:30
Speaker 3: and went straight down to the sweet Grass. So he
23:34
Speaker 3: was headed for sweet Grass counting the last time they.
23:38
Speaker 2: Heard from me.
23:42
Speaker 1: To understand what's happening here, it helps to look at
23:45
Speaker 1: a map I used on X to map Erin's last
23:48
Speaker 1: known locations and to get a sense of who was
23:50
Speaker 1: where and when. We posted a version of that map
23:53
Speaker 1: on the case file for this episode, which you can
23:55
Speaker 1: check out over at the meaeater.
23:57
Speaker 8: Dot com slash Blood Trails.
24:00
Speaker 1: To walk from Campfire Lake to Sunlight Lake, Aaron would
24:03
Speaker 1: have had to walk northwest about five and a half
24:05
Speaker 1: miles along a well defined trail. At that point, he
24:08
Speaker 1: would have had to hang a left and go north
24:11
Speaker 1: along another trail up to Sunlight That's where, according to
24:14
Speaker 1: Greg and Joe, Aaron started to lose his way. This
24:19
Speaker 1: is an important part of the story because it explains
24:21
Speaker 1: why Aarin never found the gear cash and why he
24:24
Speaker 1: was so ill prepared to survive a drop in temperature.
24:27
Speaker 1: I haven't seen this trail or the turnoff myself, but
24:30
Speaker 1: Yanni has.
24:31
Speaker 7: I've been on that trail both daylight hours and nighttime hours,
24:36
Speaker 7: it was not hard to find that turnoff.
24:39
Speaker 1: Yanni explained that the trail in that area is in
24:41
Speaker 1: thick timber and gets a lot of human and horse traffic,
24:44
Speaker 1: So if you're on the trail, you probably wouldn't miss
24:47
Speaker 1: the turn, especially in daylight and even if you were
24:50
Speaker 1: slightly intoxicated. But there's also a crete crossing prior to
24:54
Speaker 1: the turnoff, So if Aaron had moved off the trail
24:57
Speaker 1: to get across the water or because he was hunting
24:59
Speaker 1: el it's possible he could have missed it easily.
25:03
Speaker 7: Easily because if you're on the trail, yeah, it's like
25:07
Speaker 7: right there, you could probably walk it with your eyes
25:10
Speaker 7: closed because you could feel when you go off the trail.
25:12
Speaker 7: But being he was elk hunting, maybe he was walking
25:17
Speaker 7: the trail at first. But I would imagine that he
25:19
Speaker 7: didn't elk hunt an entire day and stay on a
25:22
Speaker 7: trail the entire day.
25:24
Speaker 8: That would be hard to do.
25:26
Speaker 1: Of course, even if Aaron had missed the trail, he
25:28
Speaker 1: could have just turned around and retraced his steps. That's
25:32
Speaker 1: what Greg and Joe told him to do. But for
25:34
Speaker 1: reasons that remain a mystery, he refused.
25:38
Speaker 5: Which just like, Aaron, turn around and walk back the
25:41
Speaker 5: way you came. If you haven't switched trails.
25:44
Speaker 8: All you have to do is turn around and start
25:46
Speaker 8: walking back.
25:47
Speaker 5: We'll meet you on the trail.
25:48
Speaker 2: Joe here, talk to Aaron.
25:50
Speaker 5: Joe's just like, what the fuck, man, you don't know
25:52
Speaker 5: where you are? And He's like, I don't know.
25:55
Speaker 3: We'll turn around.
25:56
Speaker 5: I'm coming right back up here. And at that point
26:00
Speaker 5: only the signal was kind of fading out a little bit,
26:03
Speaker 5: like getting a little bit scratchy, and we're just like,
26:07
Speaker 5: turn around and come back up. Okay, we're gonna come
26:10
Speaker 5: down to the trail and meet you. Just turn around,
26:12
Speaker 5: don't go any further. Well, I that's not sure where
26:17
Speaker 5: I am. And Joe's like just getting pissed, like what
26:20
Speaker 5: do you mean, dude? Just turn around, and Aaron says,
26:24
Speaker 5: I don't think I'm gonna make it back tonight. Last
26:31
Speaker 5: words he ever spoke. Couldn't get him on the radio
26:34
Speaker 5: after that. It was almost like maybe he got maybe
26:38
Speaker 5: mad or turning off the radio. I don't think that
26:41
Speaker 5: we lost the signal that abruptly, but he just said
26:45
Speaker 5: I don't think I'm gonna make it back tonight, and
26:48
Speaker 5: that was the last thing he said.
26:50
Speaker 3: And they made more attempts to contact him, but then
26:53
Speaker 3: at that time Aaron wouldn't respond or didn't respond.
27:00
Speaker 1: The group had planned to leave on Wednesday, and they
27:02
Speaker 1: shot the elk on Sunday, so they had three full
27:05
Speaker 1: days to quarter the elk and pack it out. In
27:07
Speaker 1: the reports, Joe and Greg don't mention whether Joe had
27:10
Speaker 1: an elk tag, but it doesn't sound like they hunted
27:12
Speaker 1: anymore after that. Instead, they spent about two hours breaking
27:16
Speaker 1: down the animal and hanging the meat. Then they walked
27:19
Speaker 1: back down to their base camp on Campfire Lake. The
27:22
Speaker 1: next morning, they broke camp and headed up to Moose
27:24
Speaker 1: Lake to retrieve the elk and make another camp up there.
27:27
Speaker 1: Then on Tuesday, they hiked back down to Campfire Lake
27:30
Speaker 1: in the hope that they'd run into Erin as he
27:32
Speaker 1: made his way back to the trucks, but he didn't
27:35
Speaker 1: show and on Wednesday, September tenth, twenty fourteen, they hiked
27:39
Speaker 1: down to the trailhead and drove away. And all that
27:42
Speaker 1: time they never heard from or saw Erin again.
27:46
Speaker 3: No contact from him. He's nowhere to be found. They
27:49
Speaker 3: looked for him and they knew or were aware that
27:54
Speaker 3: there was weather coming in, and they decided to take off.
27:58
Speaker 1: They called Erin's wife when they returned cell service, and
28:01
Speaker 1: Christine called the Park County sheriff to report that her
28:03
Speaker 1: husband was missing. That call launched what would become one
28:07
Speaker 1: of the largest search and rescue efforts Park and Sweetgrass
28:11
Speaker 1: Counties had ever seen. After the break, we dig deeper
28:22
Speaker 1: into the search for Aaron and the investigation into Greg
28:25
Speaker 1: and Joe. Why didn't they call search and rescue earlier?
28:29
Speaker 1: Why did they defy law enforcement and return to the
28:32
Speaker 1: gear cash, and how does Greg try to explain their
28:35
Speaker 1: actions to detectives? Wondering whether something isn't quite right about
28:39
Speaker 1: their story? All that and more as next Right after
28:43
Speaker 1: this part four, the search Sheriff Alan Roneberg told me
28:58
Speaker 1: his career has been fined by the search for Aaron Hedges.
29:02
Speaker 1: No one wants to be remembered for a single tragic circumstance,
29:06
Speaker 1: but the search for Aarin was enormous. Those search efforts
29:10
Speaker 1: were frustrated almost from the first moment that night.
29:14
Speaker 3: I mean, it flip and snowed, the temp dropped, I
29:19
Speaker 3: don't know, probably forty degrees. I would imagine it went
29:22
Speaker 3: from fifty to like ten in eight to ten hours,
29:26
Speaker 3: and it in the crazies.
29:28
Speaker 2: It snowed eighteen to twenty four inches of snow in
29:32
Speaker 2: one storm.
29:34
Speaker 1: Janni says, this kind of sudden snowstorm isn't unusual and
29:37
Speaker 1: the three Hunters should have been prepared for something like
29:40
Speaker 1: this to happen.
29:41
Speaker 7: Nope, not out of the ordinary. I would even say
29:44
Speaker 7: it's closer to normal than not normal. Even when I
29:47
Speaker 7: did that raise at the end of July, Like, you
29:51
Speaker 7: have a kit that you have to carry with you
29:53
Speaker 7: that will basically save your butt if that happens at
29:56
Speaker 7: the end of July, Like you could see temperatures well
30:00
Speaker 7: into the eighties maybe higher. You know, if you saw snowflakes,
30:04
Speaker 7: you wouldn't go, oh my god, I died and went
30:08
Speaker 7: to Hell or something like. It's known to have some
30:11
Speaker 7: crazy weather, and I think a storm can come in
30:13
Speaker 7: and just hit those high mountain peaks, Thames drop moisture drops,
30:17
Speaker 7: and the next thing you know, Yeah, it can be September, August,
30:20
Speaker 7: July and it's snowing on you. Not out of the ordinary.
30:23
Speaker 1: The trio of Hunters had gone into the mountains in
30:25
Speaker 1: Park County. So in those first few days, the Park
30:28
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's office took the lead on the search efforts
30:30
Speaker 1: and the subsequent investigation. But they knew from what Joe
30:34
Speaker 1: and Greg told them that Aaron was headed east into
30:36
Speaker 1: sweet Grass County when they lost contact with him. So
30:39
Speaker 1: Sheriff Ronenberg figured they should send a team on four
30:42
Speaker 1: wheelers to a place called Eagle Park, which is where
30:45
Speaker 1: Aaron may have emerged if he had kept walking.
30:48
Speaker 3: It was like ten o'clock at night, tin to midnight.
30:51
Speaker 2: They stayed there.
30:51
Speaker 3: They honked their horns, yelled, form, whistle form everything they
30:55
Speaker 3: could to attract him.
30:56
Speaker 2: Were there for two hours.
30:58
Speaker 3: Nothing was there. It was just flat dump and snow,
31:02
Speaker 3: and so they took off out of there.
31:05
Speaker 1: The snowstorm kept searchers indoors until the next morning, when
31:08
Speaker 1: Park County launched their efforts at seven am.
31:11
Speaker 3: Park County launched a really good search between their search
31:15
Speaker 3: for rescue team, the abtro search dogs, National Guard, Rocky
31:20
Speaker 3: Mountain roaders all kind of got into the area.
31:24
Speaker 1: But even though the storm had stopped, conditions were still
31:27
Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous. Two horse teams were deployed to search Campfire
31:31
Speaker 1: Lake and Sunlight lake. They stayed out all day, but
31:34
Speaker 1: one to two feet of snow and sub zero temperatures
31:37
Speaker 1: kept them from searching the entirety of the trails to
31:40
Speaker 1: either lake. They found no sign of air and on
31:42
Speaker 1: the portions of the trail they were able to search.
31:45
Speaker 1: They also sent in two military helicopters to fly over
31:48
Speaker 1: the entire area. Low clouds and poor visibility hampered their
31:51
Speaker 1: efforts at first, but conditions improved as a day wore on.
31:55
Speaker 1: They kept searching until nearly midnight using night vision technology,
31:58
Speaker 1: but they still found no sign of it. But something
32:01
Speaker 1: else happened that day that to this day has yet
32:04
Speaker 1: to be explained. Two search and rescue crew members went
32:07
Speaker 1: up in a separate helicopter to the gear cash, following
32:10
Speaker 1: GPS coordinates provided by Joe, but either Joe made a
32:14
Speaker 1: mistake or the crew went to the wrong place because
32:16
Speaker 1: they weren't able to find the stash of gear.
32:19
Speaker 6: In fact, on arrival to the area, we were advised
32:23
Speaker 6: by team members that the GPS coordinates provided were as
32:26
Speaker 6: much as ten miles away from the Sunlight Lake area.
32:29
Speaker 6: Pilot Mark Taylor landed in an area similar to that
32:33
Speaker 6: described by Joe Depew and Todd and Picklow commenced a
32:36
Speaker 6: short search for the cash, but were unable to locate it.
32:40
Speaker 1: The next day, Friday, September twelfth, two dog teams were
32:43
Speaker 1: dispatched to be a helicopter, one of which scoured the
32:46
Speaker 1: area around Sunlight Lake. The team found the cash, along
32:49
Speaker 1: with a bunch of boot prints in the snow. These
32:52
Speaker 1: boot prints, investigators learned, were made by Greg and Joe
32:57
Speaker 1: the evening before. Greg and Joe had gone back to
32:59
Speaker 1: the Light Lake trailhead and spoken with the two deputies
33:02
Speaker 1: station there.
33:03
Speaker 6: They told deputies that they were going to Sunlight Lake,
33:06
Speaker 6: where they had a cash that they left the previous
33:08
Speaker 6: year while they were hunting the area. Deputy Nelson told
33:11
Speaker 6: me that he tried to discourage Depew and Enlightener from going,
33:14
Speaker 6: as he did not want them to complicate the search
33:16
Speaker 6: effort and also due to inclement weather. I would like
33:19
Speaker 6: to note that Corporal Todd had spoken to Depew earlier
33:22
Speaker 6: in the day and requested they stay out of the
33:25
Speaker 6: search area, but.
33:27
Speaker 8: Greg and Joe went anyway.
33:30
Speaker 5: So we made it up there, and it was it
33:32
Speaker 5: was the hell making it over that pass. We did it.
33:37
Speaker 5: We got down, we walked right to where our cash was.
33:40
Speaker 5: It had not been touched. Aaron never made it there
33:43
Speaker 5: without a doubt.
33:44
Speaker 1: They set up camp and spent the night, and Greg
33:47
Speaker 1: reports he didn't get much sleep thanks to the army
33:49
Speaker 1: helicopter hovering overhead. He also said Joe was sick with
33:53
Speaker 1: pneumonia to the point where he was coughing up blood.
33:56
Speaker 5: It's probably the most eerie experience I've ever had in
34:00
Speaker 5: my life. I mean, I'm sitting there, you know, looking
34:04
Speaker 5: for my buddy's that's missing, my other buddies, laying here
34:07
Speaker 5: coughing up blood, just sick as hell. It's just this
34:11
Speaker 5: like Arctic tundra at this point, and I've got this
34:13
Speaker 5: chopper all night long, just ton to to do, just
34:17
Speaker 5: right over the ten.
34:18
Speaker 1: Greg looked for tracks that evening, and he found some,
34:21
Speaker 1: but he said they were smaller than Aaron's footprint would
34:23
Speaker 1: have been. He followed them for an unstated distance, but
34:26
Speaker 1: he was worried about Joe's health, so he went back
34:29
Speaker 1: to camp and the pair hiked out the next morning.
34:32
Speaker 1: Deputies confirmed that they got back to the trailhead about
34:35
Speaker 1: eleven forty five am. This is how the dog team
34:39
Speaker 1: was able to locate the cash. The next day, they
34:41
Speaker 1: found Greg and Joe's tracks and just followed them to
34:44
Speaker 1: the gear. The reports don't mention that Greg and Joe
34:47
Speaker 1: took anything, but they couldn't help disturbing the scene. The
34:50
Speaker 1: search teams also didn't find any sign of Aaron, so
34:54
Speaker 1: they photographed the contents of the cash and kept looking.
34:58
Speaker 1: A few days later, on Sunday, September fourteenth, another dog
35:01
Speaker 1: team found the first clue as to Aaron's real whereabouts.
35:05
Speaker 1: The report says they located an arrow that matched the
35:07
Speaker 1: description of the arrows Aaron was using, but they found
35:11
Speaker 1: it in an unlikely place along the trail to Sunlight Lake. Remember,
35:16
Speaker 1: according to Greg and Joe, Aaron said he'd missed the
35:19
Speaker 1: turn to Sunlight Lake and had kept walking. But if
35:22
Speaker 1: this arrow was actually Erin's, it would mean he didn't
35:25
Speaker 1: miss the turn and was at one point headed toward
35:27
Speaker 1: the cash of gear. But that clue didn't lead to
35:30
Speaker 1: anything further, and it wasn't until the search turned east
35:33
Speaker 1: into Sweetgrass County that the searchers began to piece together
35:37
Speaker 1: what had happened.
35:39
Speaker 3: Third or fourth day, we kind of figured, well, he's
35:41
Speaker 3: not in Park County, He's in sweet Grass County. By
35:45
Speaker 3: that time, there was still a little bit of snow
35:47
Speaker 3: on the ground, so we went ahead up from our
35:49
Speaker 3: side up to Eagle Park and beyond Well, right against
35:54
Speaker 3: the trail is a pretty good fire pit that has
35:57
Speaker 3: been used by the local dude range, a great, big,
36:02
Speaker 3: nice place to camp out, and that's next to the falls.
36:05
Speaker 2: Well.
36:05
Speaker 3: We found a hip belt that had been cut off
36:10
Speaker 3: of a pack inside the fire pit, kind of partially
36:13
Speaker 3: burned maybe, but still in really good shape.
36:17
Speaker 1: Ronneberg and his team didn't know why Aaron had cut
36:19
Speaker 1: off his hip belt and burned it, but they thought
36:21
Speaker 1: it might be his. That hunch was confirmed when on Wednesday,
36:24
Speaker 1: September seventeenth, they found the boots and the water bladder,
36:28
Speaker 1: along with two places Aaron had made a fire. I
36:31
Speaker 1: asked the sheriff whether at this point they're just looking
36:34
Speaker 1: for a body, or if they thought Aaron might still
36:36
Speaker 1: be alive.
36:37
Speaker 3: No, at that time, we're still looking for him. I
36:40
Speaker 3: don't really think he has to come to anything or
36:43
Speaker 3: as we go along, you know, we're doing tight circles
36:47
Speaker 3: around that area trying to pick up any kind of
36:50
Speaker 3: trace that he was there, and we didn't come up
36:54
Speaker 3: with anything.
36:55
Speaker 1: They found the water bladder near a waterfall, and so
36:58
Speaker 1: they thought maybe he'd gone down to re fill it
37:00
Speaker 1: and had slipped in and drowned. That would also explain
37:04
Speaker 1: why he disappeared without his boots.
37:06
Speaker 3: We spent a day trying to dredge the falls, so
37:10
Speaker 3: we kind of wonder if he didn't slip and go
37:14
Speaker 3: into the water and drowned and has not come out.
37:17
Speaker 3: You know. We kind of got fixated on that for
37:19
Speaker 3: a little while.
37:21
Speaker 1: But the water didn't give them the answers they were
37:23
Speaker 1: looking for either. The boots and campfires were about two
37:27
Speaker 1: miles beyond the turnoff to Sunlight Lake and about seven
37:30
Speaker 1: miles from the base camp at Campfire Lake. During one
37:33
Speaker 1: of those last radio conversations, Joe said, Aaron reported having
37:36
Speaker 1: hiked about seven miles, which means he could have been
37:39
Speaker 1: in this area during that radio call. But that call
37:42
Speaker 1: happened on Sunday evening, a full three days before the
37:45
Speaker 1: snow hit. Was Aaron hanging out in this area that
37:49
Speaker 1: entire time or did he move on? The search teams
37:53
Speaker 1: were confident that they'd found Aaron's camp, and so they
37:55
Speaker 1: focused their efforts on the surrounding area In the days
37:57
Speaker 1: that followed. The mission lasted an other five days until Monday,
38:01
Speaker 1: September twenty second.
38:03
Speaker 3: I gathered up all my guys that were there, and
38:06
Speaker 3: they'd been there most of the two weeks, and I said,
38:09
Speaker 3: all right, is there anything else we can do? Do
38:12
Speaker 3: you guys have any ideas of where we can search,
38:16
Speaker 3: what we can do to try and find this guy?
38:19
Speaker 3: Is there anything else we could do? And everybody said,
38:23
Speaker 3: I can't think of a damn thing.
38:25
Speaker 1: It's hard to fault Sheriff Ronenberg and the other search
38:28
Speaker 1: and rescue leaders from making this call. They'd been scouring
38:31
Speaker 1: the mountains every day for twelve days straight. They deployed
38:34
Speaker 1: horse teams, dog teams, helicopters, and ATVs. They'd done hasty
38:38
Speaker 1: searches to cover lots of ground and slow, grueling grid
38:42
Speaker 1: searches to find even the smallest clue. They'd gotten help
38:46
Speaker 1: from search and rescue personnel and law enforcement agents, many
38:49
Speaker 1: of whom were pulling double duty, and they hadn't come
38:52
Speaker 1: up with anything. The case was still open, but the
38:55
Speaker 1: concentrated search efforts were over. Hindsight is twenty twenty. But
39:01
Speaker 1: as the sheriff looks back on that decision, he can't help.
39:04
Speaker 1: But wonder if he made the right call.
39:06
Speaker 3: If I had been listening to my training, which I
39:10
Speaker 3: should have been, I would have said, you know what,
39:13
Speaker 3: let's start searching further east. Let's keep going, you know,
39:17
Speaker 3: because he's hunting. I didn't put two and two together,
39:20
Speaker 3: and he's off chasing something or you know, he just
39:23
Speaker 3: decided this was the way better way out. You know,
39:28
Speaker 3: he didn't want to go back, He didn't want to
39:30
Speaker 3: stay in place. He just wanted to keep going. Like
39:33
Speaker 3: the last person, behavior says, they'll do.
39:40
Speaker 1: Part five the investigation. While the search and rescue teams
39:46
Speaker 1: were looking for Aaron in the mountains, the Park County
39:48
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office was working to piece together why Aaron disappeared
39:52
Speaker 1: in the first place. Their efforts were hampered initially because,
39:55
Speaker 1: for reasons that have only been partially explained, Joe and
39:59
Speaker 1: Greg didn't to report their friend missing.
40:02
Speaker 6: On nine ten, fourteen, at approximately eighteen twenty three hours,
40:06
Speaker 6: Dispatch received a complaint of a missing person in the
40:09
Speaker 6: Crazy Mountains area in Park County. The complainant, Christine Hedges,
40:13
Speaker 6: stated that her husband never came home from a hunting trip,
40:16
Speaker 6: and his friends had called to tell her that her
40:19
Speaker 6: husband was missing.
40:21
Speaker 1: Christine first called Sweetgrass County, but the dispatcher's there referred
40:24
Speaker 1: her to Park County. When Sheriff Roneberg heard about what happened,
40:28
Speaker 1: he found a number for Joe and Greg and called
40:30
Speaker 1: them himself.
40:31
Speaker 3: But I said, well, where are you now? He said,
40:34
Speaker 3: We're on the Bozeman Hill. I said, what the hell
40:36
Speaker 3: are you doing on the Bolzman Hill? You need to
40:39
Speaker 3: turn around and you need to go to the Park
40:41
Speaker 3: County Sharris's office right now. They tried to put it
40:45
Speaker 3: off and do this. We've got to take care of
40:48
Speaker 3: our animals, that stuff like that. I told him I
40:50
Speaker 3: don't really give her at You better get your ass
40:54
Speaker 3: down to the sharsofice a report your friend missing.
40:57
Speaker 1: Greg might dispute this characterization. In his interview with law enforcement.
41:01
Speaker 1: He said that Joe contacted the Park County sheriff as
41:04
Speaker 1: soon as they got off the mountain. But the reports
41:06
Speaker 1: I received from the county attorney clearly state that Christine,
41:10
Speaker 1: not Greg or Joe, was the person who called to
41:13
Speaker 1: report Aaron missing. I don't know if Joe's call wasn't recorded,
41:17
Speaker 1: or if something else can explain that discrepancy, but whatever
41:20
Speaker 1: the truth is, the pairaf hunters did eventually make it
41:23
Speaker 1: to the Park County Sheriff's office at seven point fifteen
41:26
Speaker 1: that evening. Deputies took their initial statements, and detectives interviewed
41:30
Speaker 1: both of them multiple times over the next few weeks.
41:33
Speaker 1: They wanted to know what happened in those mountains where
41:36
Speaker 1: Aaron may have gone, and most importantly, why they'd left
41:40
Speaker 1: him up there. What they heard from the two elk
41:42
Speaker 1: hunters was not reassuring.
41:44
Speaker 3: Almost everything they talked was a line they were trying
41:49
Speaker 3: to hide what they were doing up there. Joe and
41:52
Speaker 3: Greg were interviewed extensively, I believe three times because there
41:59
Speaker 3: was a pretty good thing theory that they had done
42:02
Speaker 3: Aaron in and probably had buried him in a rock
42:07
Speaker 3: slide up by the lake where their base camp was.
42:10
Speaker 3: That was a very prominent theory.
42:12
Speaker 1: Early on, Joe and Greg would be suspected no matter
42:15
Speaker 1: what they said. Three men went up into the mountains
42:17
Speaker 1: and only two of them came back. Investigators had to
42:21
Speaker 1: wonder whether anything the farious had happened. But according to
42:24
Speaker 1: Sheriff Ronneberg, Joe and Greg said and did things that
42:27
Speaker 1: made investigators extremely suspicious. The first is what you already heard.
42:32
Speaker 1: Rather than calling search and rescue. As soon as they
42:34
Speaker 1: got back to service, they called Christine.
42:37
Speaker 3: If it was one of my friends that was out
42:39
Speaker 3: there missing, I'd be right out front, going, Hey, we
42:43
Speaker 3: need to find this guy. I want to help every
42:45
Speaker 3: way we can. I want to be out there with you.
42:49
Speaker 2: We had to go find Joe and Greg.
42:52
Speaker 3: We had to go find them guys to get more
42:55
Speaker 3: information out of them. They didn't want to have anything
42:58
Speaker 3: to do with this, and that just through all kinds
43:02
Speaker 3: of red flags all the way through the front end
43:04
Speaker 3: of this.
43:05
Speaker 1: They did eventually give statements, but those statements also raised
43:09
Speaker 1: troubling questions.
43:10
Speaker 6: It should be noted that neither Depew nor Lightner indicated
43:14
Speaker 6: they looked for hedges at all while they were in
43:16
Speaker 6: the area. Depew stated that they attempted to make contact
43:20
Speaker 6: with hedges every hour, and even attempted to go places
43:23
Speaker 6: where the radio reception might be better. He said he
43:26
Speaker 6: thought they would bump into him sometime on Monday.
43:29
Speaker 1: Greg reiterated this timeline in his interview with law enforcement.
43:32
Speaker 5: I'm just like, when are you going to be back?
43:34
Speaker 5: I mean, you don't We didn't know where we need
43:36
Speaker 5: to at least to know the day you're going to
43:38
Speaker 5: be back, so we can you come and look for you.
43:41
Speaker 5: And he was like, wow, I don't know. That doesn't
43:45
Speaker 5: work for me. Tell me when you're going to be back.
43:50
Speaker 5: And I think he said he was going to be
43:54
Speaker 5: back either Monday or Tuesday, like he was just going
43:57
Speaker 5: to go up there and spend the night and check
44:00
Speaker 5: on things.
44:01
Speaker 1: But they didn't bump into him on Monday or Tuesday
44:05
Speaker 1: or Wednesday. In fact, over seventy two hours passed between
44:09
Speaker 1: the time they lost contact with their friend and when
44:11
Speaker 1: they finally called Christine to ask whether Aaron had come home.
44:15
Speaker 6: He asked why they did not go to sunlight, and
44:17
Speaker 6: Depew stated he was second guessing himself and thought maybe
44:20
Speaker 6: he should have gone to sunlight, but also thought Hedges
44:23
Speaker 6: may have already gone back out the way they came
44:25
Speaker 6: and be out ahead of them. Depew became teary eyed
44:28
Speaker 6: and emotional while we talked about this, and stated he
44:31
Speaker 6: felt he made a mistake.
44:36
Speaker 1: Yanni agrees. Yani's been hunting all over North America in
44:39
Speaker 1: groups both large and small. He told me he would
44:42
Speaker 1: have called the authorities if a member of his party
44:44
Speaker 1: had been missing for twelve hours let alone seventy two,
44:48
Speaker 1: and that would be especially true if, as was the
44:50
Speaker 1: case with Aaron, he'd missed a pre established check in time.
44:54
Speaker 1: It's honestly, it's unfathomable, it really is that you would
44:58
Speaker 1: go into the mountain as a group and that you
45:02
Speaker 1: would have a member of your party not check in
45:06
Speaker 1: even at like because they had set check times, and
45:09
Speaker 1: so once they had missed the check time by even
45:13
Speaker 1: just a few hours, someone should be getting worried. Once
45:16
Speaker 1: it's been twelve hours, It's like the worry should have
45:19
Speaker 1: changed to real concern and been thinking about what the
45:24
Speaker 1: plan is to alleviate that problem, that situation. But then
45:29
Speaker 1: the fact that they would have literally just left him
45:32
Speaker 1: behind and came out and then told his wife that
45:36
Speaker 1: to me, where I really start to wonder, Like, what
45:38
Speaker 1: don't we know about the story?
45:41
Speaker 2: I don't know.
45:41
Speaker 7: I think you could survey one thousand people that spend
45:44
Speaker 7: time in the outdoors, hunters or not, and they would
45:48
Speaker 7: tell you the same thing I'm saying, Like they would
45:50
Speaker 7: not do that.
45:51
Speaker 1: Greg no doubt anticipated this criticism, and he tried to
45:54
Speaker 1: explain their reasoning. When Aaron still hadn't made it back
45:57
Speaker 1: to Campfirelake, by Tuesday night, they decided it would be
46:01
Speaker 1: better to leave their friend.
46:02
Speaker 8: On the mountain.
46:04
Speaker 5: And so at this point, we don't know if something's wrong.
46:10
Speaker 5: We don't know if he's just thinking, like a fuck
46:14
Speaker 5: those guys, this is more comfortable. I'm gonna stay up
46:17
Speaker 5: here because he thinks we're gonna be there for a
46:19
Speaker 5: few more days. I mean, you know, we told him
46:21
Speaker 5: we had an help down, like, it didn't really register
46:26
Speaker 5: with him that you're looking to get it out. So
46:30
Speaker 5: we don't know what's going through his mind. And at
46:33
Speaker 5: this point, we're also physically drained. We did not you know,
46:39
Speaker 5: we didn't have the physical ability to go hiking every
46:44
Speaker 5: trail system in the Crazy Mountains looking for Aaron. We
46:49
Speaker 5: could have hiked up to the some like camp. It
46:53
Speaker 5: would have been tough, but if he was at the
46:55
Speaker 5: Sunlight camp, he had been okay. The only way he
46:59
Speaker 5: would not have been okay is if he didn't make
47:01
Speaker 5: it to the Sunlight camp. And if he didn't make
47:04
Speaker 5: it to the Sunlight camp, the two of us that
47:06
Speaker 5: are just you know, skin and bones and you know,
47:09
Speaker 5: feet bleeding, we're not going to be able to hike
47:11
Speaker 5: every trail system. And we're thinking like, well, if he's
47:14
Speaker 5: either up there somenlight and he's okay, or he just
47:18
Speaker 5: kept hiking a trail until he came out one of
47:20
Speaker 5: the many exits. If anywhere in the crazies, if you
47:23
Speaker 5: just hike a trail, hike and hike and hike, you'll
47:25
Speaker 5: come out into a trailhead somewhere. And so we thought, well,
47:30
Speaker 5: before we go breaking our backs, you know, hiking all
47:33
Speaker 5: over these mountains, let's haul ass back to town and
47:36
Speaker 5: get a hold of Christine, his wife, and see if
47:39
Speaker 5: he's made a phone call, Like maybe he popped out
47:42
Speaker 5: one of these other trailheads and hitched a ride or
47:47
Speaker 5: called his wife, Like the last thing we wanted to
47:49
Speaker 5: do was spend days in there looking for Aaron while
47:55
Speaker 5: the elk meat rotted. If Aaron was already out and
47:58
Speaker 5: sitting at his home drinking whiskey this.
48:00
Speaker 1: Couch still, they could have used their radios to call
48:04
Speaker 1: for help, or even just walk back down and use
48:06
Speaker 1: their cell phones. It would have put a damper on
48:08
Speaker 1: their hunt. But since they shot the elk on the
48:10
Speaker 1: same day they lost contact with Aaron, you might also
48:13
Speaker 1: argue that they should have packed up and left to
48:15
Speaker 1: call help as soon as they could. It's easy to
48:18
Speaker 1: armchair quarterback decisions other people make, but that's what the
48:22
Speaker 1: detectives with the Park County Sheriff's Office were paid to do,
48:25
Speaker 1: and the circumstances were suspicious. There was even a rumor
48:29
Speaker 1: that Joe and Christine may have been in some kind
48:31
Speaker 1: of romantic relationship. I heard this from a former official
48:35
Speaker 1: who wanted to remain anonymous, but the rumor was prevalent
48:38
Speaker 1: enough that Sheriff Roni Berg included it in a PowerPoint
48:41
Speaker 1: presentation he made about this incident. He presents it as
48:45
Speaker 1: a case study for search and rescue training, but on
48:47
Speaker 1: the slides about possible ways Aaron died, he lists this
48:50
Speaker 1: little tidbit about Joe and Christine as a possible motive
48:54
Speaker 1: for homicide. To be clear, there isn't anything about this
48:57
Speaker 1: in the official incident reports, and it's the kind of
49:00
Speaker 1: nasty rumor that almost always circulates around an incident like this.
49:04
Speaker 1: I don't put much stock in it, but Joe didn't
49:06
Speaker 1: respond to my questions about it, so I can't say
49:09
Speaker 1: for sure. Along with leaving Aaron in the wilderness and
49:13
Speaker 1: trying to avoid investigators, Joe and Greg also lied about
49:16
Speaker 1: their whereabouts on the mountain. At least at first, one
49:20
Speaker 1: deputy spoke to a witness who claimed to have seen
49:22
Speaker 1: the hunting party on the trail. We don't know exactly
49:25
Speaker 1: what they said, but Sergeant Clay Herps wrote that the
49:28
Speaker 1: witness refuted the hunter's claims about where they camped the
49:31
Speaker 1: first night.
49:33
Speaker 6: He said in his report, ja Peer's Depew and Lightener
49:36
Speaker 6: are actively withholding information or giving misinformation regarding their exact
49:41
Speaker 6: whereabouts during the hunting trip.
49:43
Speaker 1: Herps goes on to say that the evidence found in
49:45
Speaker 1: the mountains, including two arrows that matched the description of
49:48
Speaker 1: the kind Greg was using, indicate that Greg and Joe
49:51
Speaker 1: lied about their campsites.
49:53
Speaker 6: Herbs writes, we have been unable to locate any of
49:56
Speaker 6: these arrows at the other alleged camps. We have also
49:59
Speaker 6: not been able to locate either of the other two
50:02
Speaker 6: camps where they stated they stayed with hedges.
50:05
Speaker 1: If this is true, why did investigators allow the pair
50:08
Speaker 1: to walk free? The answer goes back to the elk.
50:13
Speaker 6: That is.
50:13
Speaker 3: One reason why they were being deceptive was because they
50:18
Speaker 3: were hunting on private ground without permission.
50:21
Speaker 1: Meet Eater contributor Pat Durkin has famously said that big
50:24
Speaker 1: bucks make people stupid. I think the same could be
50:27
Speaker 1: said of big bulls. The area Greg and Joe were
50:30
Speaker 1: hunting as a patchwork of public and private ground. When
50:33
Speaker 1: investigators finally found the carcass of the elk Greg shot,
50:36
Speaker 1: they realized it was squarely.
50:38
Speaker 8: In one of those private parcels.
50:40
Speaker 1: I reached out to Drew Scott, the game warden who
50:43
Speaker 1: handled this case from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. He
50:46
Speaker 1: confirmed that Greg shot his elk on private ground, but
50:49
Speaker 1: citations were never issued. The landowner didn't want to press charges,
50:53
Speaker 1: and so the case was basically dropped. But Greg and
50:57
Speaker 1: Joe couldn't have known that would happen. Feared getting in trouble,
51:01
Speaker 1: and that could explain in part why they were so
51:04
Speaker 1: hesitant to approach law enforcement.
51:07
Speaker 3: They had the rhinals, they had the maps, They knew
51:09
Speaker 3: where they were hunting, they knew where it was for
51:12
Speaker 3: service in private crown. They didn't want people to know
51:15
Speaker 3: where they were at anyway, And when Aaron took off
51:20
Speaker 3: because they didn't want to get found out, it was
51:22
Speaker 3: almost kind of an afterthought that they ever wanted to
51:25
Speaker 3: call him in as messy.
51:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, they knew the elk. They had was illegal.
51:30
Speaker 3: That's why they wanted to take care of the creators first.
51:33
Speaker 1: The illegally harvested ELK helped explain why Greg and Joe
51:37
Speaker 1: had been deceptive, but by itself it wasn't enough to
51:40
Speaker 1: exonerate them. They were never arrested, But since the search
51:43
Speaker 1: and rescue teams still hadn't found Aaron's remains, investigators continue
51:48
Speaker 1: to wonder whether the pair of hunters had more than
51:50
Speaker 1: one reason to lie about what happened in the Crazy Mountains.
51:56
Speaker 1: That's next on Blood Trails, Part six, The Body without
52:10
Speaker 1: a Body, It was impossible to draw firm conclusions or
52:13
Speaker 1: even formulate any reasonable theories about what happened. As Greg
52:18
Speaker 1: told detectives a few months after Aaron went missing, the
52:20
Speaker 1: fact that they still hadn't found Aaron's remains weighed especially
52:24
Speaker 1: heavy on his family.
52:26
Speaker 5: I won't closure for me and Joe and you guys,
52:30
Speaker 5: and his wife Christine, and his boy Caleb, and you know,
52:34
Speaker 5: like I was just telling him, I mean, it's so sad.
52:37
Speaker 5: There hasn't been a funeral or memorial. It's you know,
52:41
Speaker 5: and little boy still thinks that his dad might come
52:44
Speaker 5: home Riley right, because he's missing.
52:48
Speaker 1: The status quo began to change in twenty fifteen when
52:50
Speaker 1: Sheriff Ronenberg was told that a rancher in the area
52:53
Speaker 1: had discovered a backpack the same make and model of
52:57
Speaker 1: the one Aaron was using.
52:58
Speaker 3: And when we went back, we found more evidence that
53:02
Speaker 3: he had been there. It was under shelter, it was
53:05
Speaker 3: under some sapling conifers. There was a lot of bear
53:08
Speaker 3: activity in the area.
53:10
Speaker 1: The backpack was found six miles to the east of
53:13
Speaker 1: where the boots had been found, well beyond the search
53:15
Speaker 1: area from the year before. The team searched the area
53:18
Speaker 1: in concentric circles, but still weren't able to find Aaron's body.
53:23
Speaker 1: But Sheriff Ronneberg did find one other thing. You know,
53:26
Speaker 1: I found the cup off of a thermos on a rock.
53:30
Speaker 1: And the crazy part of it is is, you know,
53:33
Speaker 1: you could see the buildings of a residence two miles
53:38
Speaker 1: in front of him from that rock. I mean it
53:40
Speaker 1: was right down the hill, just with two miles.
53:44
Speaker 5: Of the place.
53:45
Speaker 3: So it's a little little bit confusing. You think, is
53:49
Speaker 3: somebody that hypothermic that they'll stop and take a drink
53:53
Speaker 3: of something, or is he so scared of that person
53:59
Speaker 3: down there that he does not want to have anything
54:02
Speaker 3: to do with him. Where is that in relationship with
54:06
Speaker 3: his physical condition?
54:08
Speaker 2: You know, what's his mental condition.
54:10
Speaker 1: Aaron had walked six miles without boots and had come
54:13
Speaker 1: within two miles of a house he would have been
54:15
Speaker 1: able to see from the hill. It's possible he wasn't
54:18
Speaker 1: able to see it due to the snowstorm, or, as
54:20
Speaker 1: Sheriff Ronenberg suggests, was afraid to approach the landowner.
54:25
Speaker 2: Joe and Greg have filled erring with stories.
54:27
Speaker 3: You know, if you get caught trespassing up here, the
54:30
Speaker 3: landowners just going to string you up from a tree,
54:33
Speaker 3: You'll never be seen again. And just I think just
54:36
Speaker 3: scared the snot out of you. He had been over
54:39
Speaker 3: that trail before with his kids the previous summer, we
54:42
Speaker 3: ended up finding out, so he was a little bit
54:45
Speaker 3: familiar with the area. That's why we kind of think
54:48
Speaker 3: he was avoiding people as well, because he did not
54:52
Speaker 3: want to get caught in case he was on private ground.
54:56
Speaker 1: The reports don't mention anything about Greg and Joe talking
54:59
Speaker 1: to about landowners, and Yanni told me he's never heard
55:03
Speaker 1: any rumors about violence. But this area is a patchwork
55:06
Speaker 1: of public and private. So the sheriff might be right.
55:09
Speaker 1: It's also possible Aaron was afraid on his own without
55:12
Speaker 1: the prompting of his friends, but we don't really know
55:15
Speaker 1: for sure. Whatever the reason for Aaron's hesitation, the mountains
55:19
Speaker 1: still refused to give up his body. Conspiracy theories continued
55:23
Speaker 1: to flourish until.
55:25
Speaker 2: The next year.
55:26
Speaker 3: In August twenty sixteen, is the Dewdranch was given a
55:32
Speaker 3: ride and they went by a dead tree, and there
55:35
Speaker 3: was a skull lay in there right on the surface,
55:39
Speaker 3: and we found his lower mandible, probably thirty yards away.
55:46
Speaker 2: And then up above, just up above.
55:48
Speaker 3: There was a cowtrail, and just off the side of
55:52
Speaker 3: the cowtrail you could see some dirt had been pushed over,
55:56
Speaker 3: and that's where we found the hip And basically the
56:01
Speaker 3: rest of the balls that we found, the.
56:03
Speaker 1: Bones that hadn't been carried away by scavengers, were all
56:06
Speaker 1: in more or less the same place. But Aaron's clothes
56:10
Speaker 1: weren't in that pile.
56:12
Speaker 3: So at that point where we found this hip bone
56:17
Speaker 3: and the clothing was kind of on the trail, I
56:20
Speaker 3: went ahead and went back up and found some more clothing.
56:26
Speaker 3: I found his underwear actually, and about midway went up
56:31
Speaker 3: a little higher kind of trail, found his coat and
56:34
Speaker 3: a cell phone.
56:36
Speaker 2: It was a straight shot up the hill from where
56:38
Speaker 2: the backpack was.
56:40
Speaker 1: Aaron's body had been buried under a pile of dirt,
56:42
Speaker 1: and his clothes had been strewn around his body. Scavengers
56:46
Speaker 1: were likely responsible for some of that, but vultures and
56:49
Speaker 1: coyotes can't explain all of it. Jariff Roniberg thinks he
56:53
Speaker 1: knows what happened.
56:54
Speaker 3: You've heard of the shedding of clothes during hypothermia. That's
56:58
Speaker 3: what he's doing as he's going down, coming down the hill.
57:01
Speaker 3: He's shedding his clothes, shedding all his stuff. And I think,
57:06
Speaker 3: you know, something might have happened to him to where
57:09
Speaker 3: he just can't go no more. Maybe his energy is
57:12
Speaker 3: totally exhausted. He just is on the ground, can't get up,
57:17
Speaker 3: can't recover, and passes away. After he passes away.
57:22
Speaker 2: There's a whole lot of bear out there.
57:25
Speaker 3: Either a bear comes in and buries him, pushes the
57:29
Speaker 3: bank over to the top of him, or maybe predates
57:32
Speaker 3: him a little bit. And kyle'ser there. You know, there's
57:36
Speaker 3: all kinds of stuff that'll noa on you. That probably happened.
57:41
Speaker 3: I think a bear probably covered him for a while,
57:44
Speaker 3: and that's where he sat for two years.
57:47
Speaker 1: The medical examiner looked at what remained of Aaron's body
57:49
Speaker 1: and used dental records to confirm his identity. Park County
57:53
Speaker 1: detectives used that information, along with their previous investigation, to
57:57
Speaker 1: officially rule out foul play, and Aaron's were released to
58:00
Speaker 1: his family on September fifteenth, twenty sixteen. Of course, even
58:05
Speaker 1: with Aaron's body in front of them, investigators were limited
58:08
Speaker 1: in what they could conclude. They couldn't do a toxicology report,
58:12
Speaker 1: so we don't know what was in the Hunter's system
58:14
Speaker 1: at the time he died. We also don't know when
58:17
Speaker 1: he died. Sheriff Roniberg thinks, based on Aaron's gear and
58:20
Speaker 1: the weather, he likely passed away within seventy two hours
58:23
Speaker 1: of Christine reporting him missing, but it's possible he survived
58:27
Speaker 1: longer than that. We don't even really know what killed him.
58:31
Speaker 1: It could have been hypothermia or some kind of accident
58:34
Speaker 1: or something else.
58:36
Speaker 3: You know, we thought maybe he killed himself. There's a
58:40
Speaker 3: possibility of suicide in there too. The skull didn't show
58:44
Speaker 3: any defect you known men will probably take a firearm
58:48
Speaker 3: to commit suicide. He actually did have a pistol with
58:53
Speaker 3: him that had not been discharged, and the skull was
58:59
Speaker 3: fully intact.
59:00
Speaker 1: However, Aaron died. He was frustratingly tragically close to finding help.
59:06
Speaker 2: When he died.
59:07
Speaker 3: He was actually probably within a quarter mile of the road.
59:13
Speaker 3: As you go downhill at the bottom of the hill,
59:15
Speaker 3: there's a road going up to the du Dranch that
59:19
Speaker 3: connects you with the due Dranch and the ranch house
59:22
Speaker 3: down below, and he would have hit that within a
59:25
Speaker 3: quarter mile.
59:30
Speaker 1: Part Seven Unanswered Questions. I reached out to quite a
59:36
Speaker 1: few people to report this story, including all the detectives
59:39
Speaker 1: who worked on the case for Park County. All of
59:41
Speaker 1: them either didn't respond to multiple calls and messages.
59:44
Speaker 8: Or declined to be interviewed on the record.
59:47
Speaker 1: This is an old case that's been officially closed, so
59:50
Speaker 1: I get it they don't have much to gain from
59:53
Speaker 1: talking to me, and some told me explicitly that they're
59:56
Speaker 1: tired of rehashing questions that just don't have good answers.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: We still don't know, for instance, why Aaron took off
1:00:03
Speaker 1: his boots and kept walking. Greg proposed one theory before
1:00:06
Speaker 1: they discovered Aaron's remains, and it's an idea I've heard
1:00:09
Speaker 1: from others as well.
1:00:11
Speaker 5: I wonder if maybe he got to that spot and
1:00:16
Speaker 5: maybe his socks were wet, because he told me that
1:00:19
Speaker 5: he had fallen in the creek or gotten his feet wet.
1:00:22
Speaker 5: So maybe he got to that spot it was getting dark,
1:00:24
Speaker 5: and he decided that he wanted to maybe just make
1:00:28
Speaker 5: camp there for the night and build a fire, and
1:00:30
Speaker 5: then you know, maybe he was had a little fire
1:00:35
Speaker 5: going and took off his shoes to dry off his
1:00:37
Speaker 5: shoes and socks, and then started getting you know, all
1:00:40
Speaker 5: drunk on those pills or who knows what, and stumbled
1:00:42
Speaker 5: off the canyon and the dark.
1:00:44
Speaker 1: We now know Aaron didn't stumble into a canyon, and
1:00:47
Speaker 1: it would be strange to leave his boots to dry
1:00:50
Speaker 1: and then never return to them. Triff Roneberg has another theory.
1:00:54
Speaker 1: He thinks Aaron was more interested in hunting elk than
1:00:56
Speaker 1: Greg and Joe are letting on, and that might explain
1:00:59
Speaker 1: why he'd walk so many miles without his boots.
1:01:02
Speaker 3: The ant theory when when I take a look back
1:01:06
Speaker 3: and kind of hypothesize on what might have went on,
1:01:10
Speaker 3: I just bet you he was sitting there and some
1:01:13
Speaker 3: elk ran by him and he decided to go start
1:01:16
Speaker 3: stalking elk. So he changes out of his boots, which
1:01:20
Speaker 3: are for you know, trail boots are good solid, stiff
1:01:23
Speaker 3: soled boots and put on a pair of tennis shoes
1:01:26
Speaker 3: to go make a stock on some elk.
1:01:29
Speaker 2: And I think that's why he left the boots.
1:01:31
Speaker 1: If he left camp to chase elk on Wednesday, he
1:01:34
Speaker 1: would have gotten caught in the storm.
1:01:36
Speaker 2: When he took off after the elk.
1:01:38
Speaker 3: I think that's when the snow storm started, or maybe
1:01:41
Speaker 3: you know, it was at dusk when the elk came by,
1:01:44
Speaker 3: and he just took off after the elk, and that's
1:01:47
Speaker 3: when the snow storm started, and he was hot after
1:01:51
Speaker 3: them elk. And I think by the time he quit,
1:01:55
Speaker 3: the temperature dumps, and he doesn't have his normal.
1:02:00
Speaker 2: Gear that he carries. He's in like clothes.
1:02:03
Speaker 3: He hasn't prepared for a change of weather. He's getting
1:02:06
Speaker 3: more hypothermic, more hypothermic. He find shelter is unable to
1:02:12
Speaker 3: light a fire. Whether he goes out from shelter that
1:02:16
Speaker 3: night or out the very next morning, he either sees
1:02:20
Speaker 3: the yard light or he sees the red roofs of
1:02:22
Speaker 3: the house. He says, I gotta get my ass out
1:02:25
Speaker 3: of here. I'm probably in trouble. And he starts running
1:02:29
Speaker 3: downhill and it's just past the point of no return.
1:02:35
Speaker 5: Now.
1:02:36
Speaker 1: He shuts his clothes as he runs and is soon
1:02:38
Speaker 1: too exhausted to keep going. Maybe he trips and falls
1:02:42
Speaker 1: and just doesn't get back up. Giannis thinks the sheriff's
1:02:47
Speaker 1: theory is plausible, though he has some questions about the timeline.
1:02:50
Speaker 7: It seems like there's like there's more to this story,
1:02:54
Speaker 7: and I think we can all agree to that, right,
1:02:56
Speaker 7: Like that maybe is how that started. But like six
1:03:01
Speaker 7: miles to chase Elk in one direction and one day,
1:03:04
Speaker 7: I think it's a little bit long. He got those
1:03:07
Speaker 7: boots wet and was like, ah, heavy leather boots. I
1:03:10
Speaker 7: don't want to pack these around. You know, I've got
1:03:12
Speaker 7: these tennis shoes, frounning shoes that have worked as fine.
1:03:15
Speaker 7: It certainly is a tactic that people do. You're very
1:03:18
Speaker 7: fast and light on your feet in running shoes. They're
1:03:22
Speaker 7: quieter than boots for sneaking up on game. So that's
1:03:26
Speaker 7: not implausible that he would have like purposely done that
1:03:30
Speaker 7: to get closer to Elk. And yeah, maybe like he
1:03:33
Speaker 7: could have chased them one day for a couple three miles,
1:03:37
Speaker 7: and then he camped there and then continued on the
1:03:40
Speaker 7: next day, like I said, and he was just sort
1:03:41
Speaker 7: of following to herd.
1:03:43
Speaker 1: The other unanswered question is what role Joe and Greg
1:03:46
Speaker 1: played in this story. When I reached Greg via email,
1:03:49
Speaker 1: he at first said he was willing to be interviewed.
1:03:52
Speaker 1: He told me that no one from the media had
1:03:54
Speaker 1: ever reached out to him, but he said he didn't
1:03:56
Speaker 1: feel comfortable speaking on the record until he talked to Christine,
1:04:00
Speaker 1: who he said had become close friends with both him
1:04:02
Speaker 1: and Joe. Four days later, Greg got back to me
1:04:05
Speaker 1: with Joe c seed. He said that after talking with Christine,
1:04:09
Speaker 1: they felt it would be too painful to.
1:04:10
Speaker 8: Rehash what happened.
1:04:12
Speaker 1: He said that people would believe false conspiracy theories no
1:04:15
Speaker 1: matter what they said, and he encouraged me to follow
1:04:17
Speaker 1: my quote journalism ethics and not include any quote false
1:04:22
Speaker 1: or misleading information or statements about this tragedy or which
1:04:26
Speaker 1: placed Joe and me in a false light. Joe and
1:04:29
Speaker 1: Greg were cleared of suspicion by investigators, and that decision
1:04:33
Speaker 1: appears to have been confirmed by the location of Aaron's remains.
1:04:36
Speaker 1: Sheriff Roneberg wasn't involved in that investigation directly, but he
1:04:40
Speaker 1: thinks it's unlikely that Parro did anything nefarious to Erin.
1:04:44
Speaker 3: Why would they take him nine miles away from their
1:04:47
Speaker 3: base camp when there are perfectly good shale slides right
1:04:51
Speaker 3: above their base camp.
1:04:52
Speaker 2: You know, that's what the Indians used to.
1:04:54
Speaker 3: Do, how they buried their dead was they would lay
1:04:57
Speaker 3: them out on the shale field and push the bank
1:04:59
Speaker 3: over room. And you know there's still skeletons that have
1:05:03
Speaker 3: never been found for two hundred years. If they would
1:05:07
Speaker 3: have done him in, I think they would have done
1:05:08
Speaker 3: him in at the base camp when they had motive
1:05:11
Speaker 3: and opportunity, and would have buried him within reasonable distance
1:05:18
Speaker 3: from their base camp, not dragging his dead body nine miles.
1:05:23
Speaker 1: The sheriff says nine miles, but it was actually more
1:05:25
Speaker 1: like fourteen. And we're not talking about a smooth level path.
1:05:29
Speaker 8: That's a long way to drag a body.
1:05:32
Speaker 1: What's more, once Greg and Joe finally agreed to share
1:05:34
Speaker 1: the photos they'd taken on the hunt, investigators were able
1:05:37
Speaker 1: to determine that they had remained in the mountains for
1:05:40
Speaker 1: all six days after Greg's final interview with law enforcement
1:05:44
Speaker 1: detective Brian Green wrote.
1:05:46
Speaker 6: History and timeline were consistent with the available time slash
1:05:49
Speaker 6: date stamped photographs. Based on that consistency, it would have
1:05:52
Speaker 6: been almost impossible for them to have left the mountains
1:05:55
Speaker 6: at any time prior to their documented departure.
1:05:59
Speaker 1: In other words, the photos proved that the pair were
1:06:01
Speaker 1: in the locations where they eventually admitted to being. The
1:06:05
Speaker 1: Elk carcass proved they were in Park County near dead
1:06:07
Speaker 1: Horse Lake, and subsequent photographs proved they didn't kill Aaron
1:06:11
Speaker 1: and dump his body in the next county. When asked
1:06:15
Speaker 1: point blank by Detective Brian Green whether Greg had anything
1:06:18
Speaker 1: to do with Aaron's death, he denied it.
1:06:21
Speaker 4: Did you have anything to do with Aaron's death?
1:06:24
Speaker 5: No other than being on the hunting trip with him.
1:06:28
Speaker 5: I didn't know anything to do with his death. I
1:06:29
Speaker 5: feel like I could have done more to to go
1:06:32
Speaker 5: look for him afterwards, but not sure it didn't have
1:06:34
Speaker 5: anything to do with his death.
1:06:37
Speaker 4: One of the theories is is you know, you guys
1:06:39
Speaker 4: were out hunting and for whatever reason, neglected your friend,
1:06:43
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden he's dead, and you know,
1:06:45
Speaker 4: maybe you realize that he had an accident or whatever,
1:06:49
Speaker 4: and you don't want to go home and tell his
1:06:51
Speaker 4: wife that you know your husband died on our watch.
1:06:54
Speaker 4: Did you guys do anything to cover up his death,
1:06:57
Speaker 4: to hide him, to try to you know, hy the
1:07:01
Speaker 4: fact that you know where he is and you're not
1:07:03
Speaker 4: telling us or anything like that.
1:07:05
Speaker 5: Negatives. No.
1:07:07
Speaker 1: Greg and Joe might not have been directly or even
1:07:09
Speaker 1: indirectly responsible for Aaron's death, but it's clear they were
1:07:13
Speaker 1: still struggling with a huge amount of guilt. Joe had
1:07:17
Speaker 1: known Erin for a long time, He knew about aaron
1:07:19
Speaker 1: struggles with alcohol, and he, like Christine, second guests his
1:07:23
Speaker 1: decision to let Erin accompany them on the trip. In
1:07:27
Speaker 1: one of their initial interviews, Sergeant Herp says Joe began
1:07:29
Speaker 1: to cry as he thought of his friend possibly dead,
1:07:33
Speaker 1: lost and alone in the mountains. He told the sergeant
1:07:36
Speaker 1: he felt responsible for Hedges, as he knew he should
1:07:39
Speaker 1: not have taken him on the trip. In Greg's final
1:07:43
Speaker 1: interview with law enforcement, he reiterated Joe's sentiment.
1:07:46
Speaker 5: You know, we had been planning this trip all year long,
1:07:50
Speaker 5: physically training for it. Joe and I Aaron his heart
1:07:55
Speaker 5: never really seemed to be in it that he kept
1:07:58
Speaker 5: saying he wanted to go. And we've we've been hunt
1:08:01
Speaker 5: together for years and years, as was our seventh or
1:08:04
Speaker 5: eighth year hunting together, and you yeah, okay. And so
1:08:09
Speaker 5: I wasn't just gonna tell him that, you know, if
1:08:12
Speaker 5: you're not gonna get in shape, you're not gonna go.
1:08:14
Speaker 5: I wanted to I didn't do that. I knew that
1:08:18
Speaker 5: he had been drinking a lot. Joe told me that
1:08:20
Speaker 5: he'd been drinking a lot, and he showed up and
1:08:23
Speaker 5: he clearly just did not look that well. And right
1:08:26
Speaker 5: then and there, I wanted to be like, dude, you're
1:08:30
Speaker 5: not coming with us, but I just I didn't have
1:08:33
Speaker 5: the I didn't have the heart to do it. And
1:08:36
Speaker 5: I'd give anything to go back and tell him that
1:08:38
Speaker 5: you're not going. But we didn't do that. And I figured,
1:08:42
Speaker 5: you know, well he'll learn his lesson. You know, we're
1:08:45
Speaker 5: gonna run his ass into the ground and he's gonna
1:08:48
Speaker 5: be dragging ass, and next time maybe he'll take it
1:08:51
Speaker 5: more seriously. I figured that he'd make it to camp
1:08:53
Speaker 5: and he'd be so beat that he'd just lay in
1:08:56
Speaker 5: camp and wouldn't actually hunt. And I'm also thinking, well, good.
1:09:00
Speaker 5: You can just stay in camp and be a drunk
1:09:02
Speaker 5: and watch after the horse and the mule, and we'll
1:09:05
Speaker 5: go on elk and maybe that works out better.
1:09:07
Speaker 1: Anyways, this I think is enough to explain Greg and
1:09:11
Speaker 1: Joe's behavior, even putting the elk aside. They knew Aaron
1:09:15
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been allowed within ten miles of the back country.
1:09:18
Speaker 1: When they had their disagreement and Aaron left. They knew
1:09:21
Speaker 1: they shouldn't have allowed him to strike out on his own.
1:09:23
Speaker 1: They knew they should have done more to look for
1:09:25
Speaker 1: him in the subsequent days, and they admitted to investigators
1:09:28
Speaker 1: that Aaron wasn't prepared, either mentally or physically to survive
1:09:32
Speaker 1: the snowstorm.
1:09:33
Speaker 5: Although he wasn't in good condition, I felt like he
1:09:37
Speaker 5: could walk a trail system to where he knew the
1:09:40
Speaker 5: cash was. And you think doable, even somebody possibly incapacitated
1:09:44
Speaker 5: with alcohol, trail doable, doable only day at the time,
1:09:52
Speaker 5: I thought that, I mean, and retrospect, I think it
1:09:58
Speaker 5: was obviously too much.
1:10:01
Speaker 1: With this regret and guilt nagging at their hearts, it
1:10:04
Speaker 1: was easier for them to let Christine call law enforcement.
1:10:07
Speaker 1: They didn't want to be blamed for their friend's death
1:10:09
Speaker 1: and it was heartbreaking to look at their actions full
1:10:12
Speaker 1: in the face. That's my theory anyway. I don't know
1:10:15
Speaker 1: if it's true, and it doesn't make this story any
1:10:17
Speaker 1: less tragic. In fact, Greg said something in that last
1:10:20
Speaker 1: interview that makes the story, if possible, even more devastating.
1:10:25
Speaker 1: Greg said he noticed that the amount of alcohol Aaron
1:10:28
Speaker 1: brought with him was less than he would normally consume
1:10:31
Speaker 1: in five to seven days. He theorized that Aarin intended
1:10:34
Speaker 1: to use that trip to quote dry out and attempt
1:10:37
Speaker 1: to get his life together. He believed it was Aaron's
1:10:40
Speaker 1: intention all along to go to the gear Cash on
1:10:43
Speaker 1: his own.
1:10:43
Speaker 8: And work through the withdrawal process alone.
1:10:47
Speaker 5: Now, my theory is that I think that Aaron was
1:10:53
Speaker 5: about to go through severe withdrawals. I know for a
1:10:57
Speaker 5: fact that he was running out of alcohol, and I
1:11:01
Speaker 5: feel like he was abusing those pills and taking way
1:11:04
Speaker 5: more than he should have. I can't prove that, but
1:11:09
Speaker 5: that's what I feel like, and I think that he
1:11:13
Speaker 5: probably didn't want us to see it. I think he
1:11:16
Speaker 5: was probably going to be real sick for a few days,
1:11:19
Speaker 5: and we thought maybe that was best.
1:11:21
Speaker 9: Like he told his.
1:11:23
Speaker 5: Wife that he was coming up here to clear his
1:11:27
Speaker 5: head and get healthy, and in my mind, that would
1:11:31
Speaker 5: mean go through detox, come out off the alcohol, and
1:11:35
Speaker 5: hopefully try and stay off of it. I think that
1:11:38
Speaker 5: in his mind, I think he was going to go
1:11:40
Speaker 5: up there and he was going to spend a week
1:11:42
Speaker 5: in that canvas tent with the fire, and he was
1:11:45
Speaker 5: just gonna drink the rest of the alcohol that he
1:11:48
Speaker 5: had and then just let it get out of the
1:11:50
Speaker 5: system and hopefully, you know, he wouldn't have to go
1:11:54
Speaker 5: through an embarrassing detox because he had employees and he
1:11:58
Speaker 5: you know, he wouldn't want anybody to to see that.
1:12:00
Speaker 5: And I don't think he ever thought he was going
1:12:02
Speaker 5: to shoot an elk. I think he wanted to kind
1:12:05
Speaker 5: of go camping and clear his body of all that stuff.
1:12:08
Speaker 1: This is the first time this theory has been mentioned,
1:12:11
Speaker 1: but it does help explain why Greg and Joe didn't
1:12:14
Speaker 1: do more to look for Erin. If they thought he
1:12:18
Speaker 1: wanted to be alone, they may have decided it would
1:12:20
Speaker 1: be better to give him space. And if Aarin was
1:12:23
Speaker 1: going through alcohol withdrawal, it would also explain why he
1:12:26
Speaker 1: didn't do more to get help or get out.
1:12:29
Speaker 5: On his own.
1:12:31
Speaker 1: But While that helps explain the strange and confounding circumstances
1:12:35
Speaker 1: that surround this story, it also casts yet another shadow
1:12:40
Speaker 1: on Aaron's death. If Greg is right, Aarin's attempt to
1:12:44
Speaker 1: recover himself, to restore his relationships with his family and friends,
1:12:48
Speaker 1: and get his life and his marriage back on track, is,
1:12:52
Speaker 1: in a weird way what killed him. Rather than emerge
1:12:56
Speaker 1: from the mountains a new and better man, he didn't
1:13:00
Speaker 1: emerge at all. Christine knew this trip was the wrong
1:13:06
Speaker 1: way for her husband to kick his alcohol addiction, but
1:13:09
Speaker 1: she couldn't convince him to stay home.
1:13:12
Speaker 5: She probably, if she was to be honest with herself,
1:13:15
Speaker 5: would not be shocked that this happened. She begged him
1:13:20
Speaker 5: not to go. She even bought him in a gift
1:13:23
Speaker 5: card to the spot website so that he could go
1:13:27
Speaker 5: and get a spot to bring with him. That he
1:13:29
Speaker 5: wouldn't do it just because he's so hardheaded. She probably
1:13:33
Speaker 5: knew that it was coming at some point. If it
1:13:35
Speaker 5: wasn't this, it was going to be a motorcycle wrapped
1:13:38
Speaker 5: the next day or the next week, or it was
1:13:41
Speaker 5: it was going to be something.
1:13:42
Speaker 1: Of course, Christine wasn't out in the mountains with erin.
1:13:46
Speaker 1: Greg and Joe were and Greg can't help but wonder
1:13:49
Speaker 1: if this story would have had a different ending if
1:13:51
Speaker 1: he'd left his elk to look for his friend.
1:13:54
Speaker 5: You know, looking back that you know that that really
1:14:01
Speaker 5: really haunts me a lot, you know, right then, should
1:14:06
Speaker 5: have left that elk and gone down there and looked
1:14:10
Speaker 5: for his ass. You know, we just we thought he
1:14:14
Speaker 5: was gonna make it to that Sunlight camp. So in
1:14:20
Speaker 5: our minds, we thought that he was probably having a
1:14:23
Speaker 5: hard time. But it was early in the day, so
1:14:26
Speaker 5: we thought that I thought he was gonna make it
1:14:29
Speaker 5: up there. And it was only Sunday, and he said
1:14:34
Speaker 5: he'd be back Monday or Tuesday, and so we're in,
1:14:37
Speaker 5: we're you know, we got this this elk and now
1:14:41
Speaker 5: you know, not that that Aaron's not a priority, but
1:14:45
Speaker 5: my priority is, Okay, I got I got meat down.
1:14:48
Speaker 5: I need to take care of it right now.
1:14:50
Speaker 1: In the months and years that followed, Aaron's family and
1:14:53
Speaker 1: friends were left to pick up the pieces.
1:14:56
Speaker 5: How's the boy doing? Uh, he's I haven't actually spoken
1:15:01
Speaker 5: to him. I've just spoken to Joe, who talks to him. Basically,
1:15:05
Speaker 5: he's just confused because you know, Dad, he's not dead.
1:15:12
Speaker 5: Daddy's missing, but we don't know if he's coming back.
1:15:16
Speaker 5: Type of a thing, all right.
1:15:19
Speaker 10: At this point, she may have told him, she may
1:15:22
Speaker 10: have just told him he's dead. I don't know what
1:15:25
Speaker 10: she's told him, but he's just like any young boy
1:15:30
Speaker 10: would be. That's dad just disappeared off the face of
1:15:33
Speaker 10: the earth.
1:15:38
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If
1:15:41
Speaker 1: you'd like to see images from this case, head over
1:15:43
Speaker 1: to the meeater dot com slash blood Trails and click
1:15:46
Speaker 1: on the case file. For this episode, we've posted photos
1:15:49
Speaker 1: of Greg, Aaron, and Joe, along with a map of
1:15:52
Speaker 1: Aaron's route and some other official documents. A big thanks
1:15:56
Speaker 1: to Sheriff Ronneberg, Jannis Boutellis, Park County under Sheriff Dykstra,
1:16:01
Speaker 1: and Paul Hoyt, who was the voice of the police reports.
1:16:04
Speaker 1: If you have a tip about this case or another
1:16:07
Speaker 1: case you think we should cover, send us an email
1:16:09
Speaker 1: at blood Trails at themeeater dot com. That's a B
1:16:13
Speaker 1: l O O D T R A I L S
1:16:16
Speaker 1: at the meeater dot com. See you next time, and
1:16:20
Speaker 1: stay safe out there.