- 6 months ago
The wilderness isn't always what should be feared... Join us as we explore bone-chilling events that happened along America's most famous hiking path. We're skipping the ghost stories and focusing on real-life crimes and deadly accidents that make hikers think twice before venturing into these seemingly peaceful woods. From tragic disappearances to brutal murders, these stories remind us that nature's beauty sometimes hides terrible dangers.
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00:00It's a sad thing that we didn't find him.
00:03It tugs at your heart.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're providing our picks for some of the most bone-chilling
00:10events to happen on the Appalachian Trail.
00:12For this list, we'll be skipping the many ghost stories that surround the trail.
00:16Instead, we'll be focusing on the real-life crimes and accidents that would make any trail
00:20hikers wary.
00:21That doesn't happen in national parks at all, it really doesn't, I mean that's extraordinary.
00:27The icy dangers of the White Mountains Compared to the Rockies, the White Mountains feel
00:32approachable.
00:33They're ancient, full of well-marked trails at modest elevations through familiar woods.
00:37That misconception has cost lives.
00:40Cold is the real killer here.
00:41But this time, witnesses say ice fell off the falls onto Tufts doctor Judith Pinsker.
00:47Sudden storms, plunging temperatures, and wind-driven snow routinely turn routine hikes into emergencies.
00:53Hypothermia can set in fast, even in shoulder seasons.
00:56If hikers get wet or are underdressed, they can be at extreme risk.
01:00There were signs on the victim that indicated he was confused, his coat was on backwards,
01:05which was kind of odd.
01:07And that can happen when someone gets into advanced stages of hypothermia.
01:11Rescue teams respond every year to exposure cases across the range.
01:14Some hikers are found alive.
01:16Sadly, others succumb after getting lost, exhausted, or frozen.
01:20Cold strips away time, judgment, and margin for error in these mountains that look deceptively
01:25tame.
01:2625-year-old Luc Paquette of Quebec was hiking with friends when he wandered off the trail
01:32to get a better look at a nearby waterfall and fell.
01:35The machete murder The Appalachian Trail is built on trust.
01:39Strangers share campsites.
01:41Hikers swap food, stories, and warnings.
01:43In 2019, that trust collapsed in the worst possible way.
01:47Near a remote campsite along the Appalachian Trail, two hikers encountered a man who seemed
01:51agitated and unstable.
01:53Hours later, he attacked with a machete.
01:55The male subject who takes him is reported to have a machete.
01:59One hiker, Ronald Sanchez Jr., was killed.
02:02The other was severely injured, but managed to escape through the woods and hike for help.
02:06The attack came without warning and ended a life on a trail built around community and
02:10goodwill.
02:11The killer fled, triggering an exhaustive manhunt.
02:14The killer, James L. Jordan, was eventually captured.
02:17Jordan was found not guilty by a reason of insanity and sent to an institution for treatment.
02:22James Jordan had been arrested before for threatening hikers
02:25along the same trail.
02:27McAfee Knob Fatal Falls
02:28McAfee Knob is one of the most photographed spots on the Appalachian Trail.
02:33Never hiked a McAfee's Knob, so after 65 years I finally made it and it's beautiful up here.
02:38It's a sweeping stone ledge with a stunning view.
02:41It's tailor-made for Instagram, looking safe enough to sit, stand, or lean out for the perfect shot.
02:46That fiction has proven deadly.
02:48In 2018, and again in 2022, hikers fell from the summit and died.
02:53In both cases, the falls occurred near the exposed cliff edge.
02:57Crews say he fell about 50 feet from the top of the summit.
03:00There are no railings and no barriers.
03:02The only thing protecting hikers from a sheer drop is judgment.
03:05Rescue efforts followed both accidents, but there was nothing responders could do.
03:09The popularity of McAfee Knob has only increased the risk.
03:12As crowds gather and photos are staged, hikers keep walking the edge at their own risk.
03:17For comparison, here's Aiden and me today, and a couple of years ago.
03:22Same shot, clearer weather.
03:25A deadly hate crime.
03:26People often think the Appalachian Trail is dangerous because of the wilderness.
03:30While that is mostly true, sometimes hikers need to fear their fellow humans.
03:35Near a remote stretch of trail in Pennsylvania's Michaux State Forest,
03:38a young lesbian couple were camping together.
03:41They became targets because of who they were.
03:43Steven Roy Carr stalked the campsite from the woods before opening fire with a rifle.
03:48Rebecca Wright was killed.
03:50Her partner, Claudia Brenner, was critically wounded.
03:53She survived by feigning death and crawling for help.
03:56Carr later admitted the attack was motivated by their orientation.
03:59The murder became one of the earliest modern hate crime cases in the United States.
04:03He had reason to believe that he lived in the mountain during the winter and for quite a few years.
04:09A deadly mountain.
04:11When people picture deadly wilderness, they aren't typically thinking about New Hampshire.
04:15Mount Washington is a sleepy peak, full of gorgeous fall foliage hikes and cozy quiet woods.
04:22Yet this small mountain has proven fatal time and again.
04:25The peak sits within the White Mountain Range, where weather can turn in an instant, particularly in winter.
04:30Winds routinely reach hurricane force and temperatures can crash in minutes.
04:35So as these storm systems roll in, the winds are literally funneled right toward Mount Washington.
04:42When that happens, visibility goes to zero and you can get lost in an instant.
04:47Every year, rescuers respond to hikers suffering hypothermia, frostbite or exposure.
04:52Some are pulled out just in time, but not all.
04:55Mount Washington has claimed many lives.
04:57Not because it's tall or remote, but because it's underestimated.
05:01You can really see it all just kind of, you know, comes together over Mount Washington,
05:05giving them those crazy, crazy weather.
05:07The murder of Janice Balza.
05:09The Appalachian Trail in the 1970s drew a small, trusting community of hikers.
05:14Compared to today, there were far fewer people.
05:16The days felt long, the nights pleasant.
05:19That sense of safety shattered near Van Deventer Shelter in 1975.
05:23Janice Balza, a 22-year-old nursing graduate and solo hiker,
05:27stopped for the night near Van Deventer Shelter in Tennessee.
05:30By morning, she was dead.
05:32Balza had been attacked with a hatchet and killed in her sleeping bag.
05:35Answers came quickly, but grimly.
05:38A disturbed drifter named Paul Bigley confessed to the murder after approaching locals near the trail.
05:43He later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to prison.
05:47He died less than a year later, leaving the motive unresolved and the case forever unsettling.
05:52The disappearance of Dennis Martin.
05:54It's every parent's worst nightmare.
05:57You look away for a moment, and your world changes irrevocably.
06:00The disappearance happened near Spence Field, inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
06:05During a family hike, six-year-old Dennis Martin stepped into the woods as part of a game.
06:10When his father looked for him, he was gone.
06:13The three boys scared the family, and Dennis never showed up.
06:17His disappearance triggered one of the largest search operations in the park's history.
06:21Rangers, volunteers, and even U.S. Army Green Berets scoured the area.
06:26Helicopters searched from above.
06:28They amassed a whole lot of people, hundreds and hundreds of people.
06:32Storms soon complicated efforts, and scent trails were lost.
06:36Weeks of searching and countless leads produced no substantial physical evidence.
06:41Dennis Martin was never located. The case remains unsolved to this day.
06:45Nothing. He's never been spotted since.
06:49The campsite double murder.
06:52Shenandoah National Park is often described as one of the Appalachian Trail's easiest stretches.
06:57It's full of gentle, rolling terrain with heavy foot traffic.
07:00It's a place that feels safer than most wilderness.
07:02In 1996, that assumption was shattered.
07:06Julie Ann Williams and Lolly Winans were well aware and ready.
07:09But nothing could prepare them for meeting a killer in these woods.
07:13Julie Williams and Lolly Winans set up camp in the park's back country while hiking together.
07:19When they failed to return, a search began.
07:21Their bodies were discovered days later at the campsite.
07:24Both women had been bound and murdered.
07:26They were last seen alive on May 24th.
07:28Their bodies were found eight days later.
07:30The brutality stunned investigators and rattled hikers across the region.
07:35For years, the case went unsolved.
07:37Nearly three decades later, federal authorities identified a suspect.
07:41A violent drifter named Walter Leo Jackson Sr.
07:56The Randall Lee Smith murders.
07:58The Appalachian Trail's isolation has always been part of its appeal.
08:02That isolation became a liability in southwestern Virginia.
08:05Randall Lee Smith encountered two hikers near a remote campsite along the trail.
08:10He opened fire without warning and the two hikers were killed.
08:13Smith fled the scene, and was later arrested, tried, and convicted.
08:17The case was horrifying enough on its own, but it didn't end there.
08:20Randall Smith had a lot of mystery that stayed with him why he did such a horrible thing.
08:26I'm told that when the investigators asked him about it in 1981,
08:30he just said he didn't want to talk about it.
08:32After serving time in prison, Smith was released on mandatory parole.
08:36In 2008, he returned to the Appalachian Trail in the same general region.
08:40There, he attempted to murder two more hikers, but they miraculously survived.
08:45I didn't know what really happened. I just knew my head was ringing.
08:48The families of his original victims later blamed the system for allowing his release.
08:53Sean and Scott are airlifted to a trauma center just in time.
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09:13The disappearance of Geraldine Largay
09:15On the Appalachian Trail, Wilderness is only a few steps away. That's usually the appeal.
09:21Step off the path though, and everything can go wrong fast.
09:24In 2013, experienced hiker Geraldine Largay became separated from her group in Maine.
09:30She stepped off the trail briefly to relieve herself and couldn't find her way back.
09:34In a text message to her husband of 42 years, she writes,
09:38In some trouble, she said. Got off trail to go to the bathroom, now lost.
09:42The dense forest hid many landmarks and sound didn't carry. Worse, her phone had limited signal.
09:48Despite extensive search efforts, Largay was never found alive.
09:52Wardens and others scouring the massive areas around where they thought they might find Largay,
09:57but they never did. A few years later, her remains were discovered only two miles from the trail.
10:02Nearby was a journal. It revealed the most haunting detail of all. Largay survived for nearly a month,
10:08carefully recording her days as she waited for rescue that never came.
10:12No matter how many years from now, please find it in your heart to mail the contents of this bag
10:17to one of them. The Appalachian Trail is beautiful,
10:20dangerous, and can leave many unanswered questions. Which story stuck with you the most?
10:24Let us know in the comments below!
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