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The ground around Rebecca’s tent showed minimal foot traffic for someone who’d been camping for several days. Her water bottles were nearly full, suggesting she hadn’t been drinking regularly. Most puzzling, her journal, which friends said she wrote in obsessively, contained entries through June 18th. but nothing from June 19th onward.
The last journal entry photographed as evidence read, “Wolves howling all night counted at least six distinct voices. Something else too further out. Not wolf, not elk. Almost like a woman crying, but wrong somehow. We’ll investigate tomorrow. The darkness here is absolute. Even with the moon, can’t see more than 10 ft.
Feel like something’s watching from beyond the light circle. Probably just a curious bear. Still glad I brought the pepper spray. As summer progressed, theories proliferated. Some suggested Rebecca had encountered a grizzly, though no bear sign was found near the campsite. Others believed she’d fallen into one of the thermal features that dot the park, though none existed near Slow Creek.
A few proposed she’d staged her own disappearance, though her bank accounts remained untouched and her passport was found in her apartment. The FBI briefly investigated a connection to other missing person’s [music] cases in national parks, but found no pattern linking Rebecca’s disappearance to others. In August, monsoon rains flooded Slow Creek, washing away any remaining trace evidence.
The campsite where Rebecca’s tent had stood became inaccessible for weeks. When waters receded, maintenance crews found the area transformed. Tons of sediment deposited where bare ground had been. Rebecca’s case moved from active to cold. Another name added to the list of people who vanish in America’s wilderness areas each year without explanation.
October brought the first snows to Yellowstone’s high country. On October 23rd, a maintenance crew arrived at the Slow Creek campsites to remove bear boxes and prepare the area for winter closure. According to crew leader Tom Harrison, they almost skipped site 2S5 because of its remote location, but regulations required checking every designated campsite.
The ground where Rebecca’s tent had stood 4 months earlier was now covered with fallen leaves and pine needles, looking undisturbed except for animal tracks. Harrison noticed at first a slight depression in the earth where the tent had been too regular to be natural settling. When he kicked away the leaves, the ground beneath felt different, softer, as if it had been excavated and refilled.
The crew marked the spot and called for investigative rangers following protocol for any unusual discovery in the back country. What started as routine maintenance was about to become a crime scene. The investigative team arrived the next morning with ground penetrating radar. According to their report, the initial scan showed an anomaly approximately 3 ft beneath the surface, roughly cylindrical, about 18 in in diameter.
The object appeared to have been wrapped in something that reflected radar waves differently than surrounding soil. The team began careful excavation, photographing each layer as they descended through dirt that had clearly been disturbed months earlier. At 18 in down, they encountered fabric, a heavyduty nylon that forensics would later identify as tent material.
But this wasn’t part of Rebecca’s tent, which had been removed during the initial search. This was older, weathered, a different brand and color. Wrapped inside the fabric, they found what the technical report described as manufactured items of unusual configuration. The first object removed was a metal canister roughly the size of a paint can sealed with electrical tape.
Inside were photographs, dozens of them, but not of wildlife. The photographs processed at the FBI lab in Quantico showed people in Yellowstone’s back country, all taken without their knowledge. According to forensic analysis, some dated back years, showing hikers, campers, and park staff in various locations throughout the park.
Rebecca appeared in 17 of them dating from previous trips spanning 3 years. In each photo, she was alone, unaware of being watched, engaged in routine activities like setting up camp, filtering water, or adjusting camera equipment. The photographer had been close, sometimes within 50 ft, hidden in vegetation or shadow.
Beneath the canister wrapped in plastic sheeting, investigators found what the report termed personal effects inconsistent with typical camping equipment. A collection of women’s jewelry, none of it Rebecca’s, according to her sister. Maps of backcountry areas with certain campsites circled in red ink.
a GPS unit containing way points for remote locations throughout the park. Each labeled with dates and initials that meant nothing to investigators. And at the bottom, wrapped most carefully, a journal written in cramped handwriting that would take FBI linguists weeks to fully decipher. The journal’s author never identified themselves by name.
The entries dating back five years described what the FBI behavioral analysis unit would later characterize as systematic surveillance of isolated individuals in wilderness settings. The writer described techniques for approaching campsites undetected, methods for disabling emergency beacons, and detailed observations of solo campers routines.
One entry from 2018 read, “They never look up. Even when they feel watched, they scan horizontally. The trees here are perfect for waiting. Some camps I’ve visited dozen times and they never knew.” Rebecca was first mentioned in an entry from 2017. The wolf woman is back. Third year now, same campsite.
She talks to herself when she thinks she’s alone. practices presentations about animal behavior. Last night, she said my name, but she was asleep. How does she know? She doesn’t. Can’t. But hearing it spoken aloud after so long made me almost answer. The entries about Rebecca grew more detailed over time. The writer knew her work schedule, her favorite trails, her habit of singing while hiking.
They knew she was allergic to bee stings, that she carried an EpiPen in her camera bag, that she preferred tea to coffee. An entry from May 2019 read she’s planning something special for June. Heard her on the phone at the Gardener coffee shop. Five nights at 2S5. Finally been preparing that site for 2 years. Everything’s ready.