Some times people go missing because they don't want to be found. Seems very odd to do it in the middle of a long hike, but you never know....

Florida Frank wrote:Some times people go missing because they don't want to be found. Seems very odd to do it in the middle of a long hike, but you never know....

A long hike can give you time to think about things. The long time alone can probably cloud your judgment; you probably forget many of the familiar things that are in your life when you are not hiking.

Seems like the mystery woman might have been Inchworm herself; they didn't really discuss that possibility. Great article, though.

I grew up in the Appalachians in VA. Seems like someone "vanishes without a trace" nearly every year on some portion of the AT. Sucks, but a trail that gets that much use is going to have someone end up as a statistic. Terrible for her friends and family, and I hope it works out that she just got desperately turned around.....

I didn't realize that she was a Bigfoot.

There was a good program on the other night about this. The "Animal Planet" cable TV network has a program about Maine game wardens and one of their episodes dealt solely with the search for this lost hiker.

Very interesting; I saw the Game Wardens show and I remember another tv show (of the 20/20 type) that went into greater depth about her disappearance.

But it still hits hard since I am Inchworm's age and everything about the SERE site suggests that you can't dismiss it as possibly being connected. There are many unexplored possibilities and the one that concerns me most is that it has been impossible to do a thorough search inside SERE. And if she was harmed by her presence in that area what would be more likely? Revealing Inchworm's demise or keeping the status quo?

My heart goes out to her husband and family who may never know what happened and cannot bring her home.

Thanks for posting.

In the background of the photo of Lt. Adam, there are maps with "final location" marked. Hard to read but it seems to be a little east of Redington pond. Consistent with the text of the article, that's about 2.5 miles from Poplar ridge and just inside the Navy property. Interestingly, it seems the AT once passed very close to that spot, but has since been rerouted further south (presumably to avoid the Navy property). Maybe she found the old trail by accident, or had it in a GPS?

edit: here's one of the maps:
https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-x ... 2891_o.jpg

(I noticed this when I couldn't make the "final location" anywhere close to "3,000 yards from the trail" (quote from the article) as the trail was depicted on an online USGS topo map. Turning to my AMC map I see the trail further south, but still not quite that far?)

Another news report: http://bangordailynews.com/2015/10/16/n ... ern-maine/

New details emerge. She was found in her sleeping bag inside her tent. Such a strange story that the massive initial search never found her. RIP.

http://www.centralmaine.com/2016/01/29/ ... port-says/

Nobody is claiming she starved to death. Nor is anybody claiming she was alert or even alive while the search passed near her.

The cover sheet does say the official cause of death is "inanition due to prolonged environmental exposure", but the report does not say anything about starvation. In fact the report does not contain any other mention of a particular cause of death. "inanition due to exposure" was clearly chosen as a default "we need to categorize this and there's no evidence of foul play" label. (Or for the cynical, "we already publicly stated this as the cause of death, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, there's no reason to change it.")

"Inanition" usually does not mean starvation, which takes weeks. It usually means lack of water, which can kill in a couple of days.
Of course, dying of thirst in that location is also very unlikely -particularly given the heavy rain at the time she went missing.

The report is very light on details, but includes one that makes me confident that Largay did not die of starvation. (warning: graphic) The report mentions the presence of some "adipocere" - waxy remains from rotted body fat. The presence of body fat at time of death just about rules out starvation as a cause of death.

No one can ever *disprove* foul play. Sure, she could have been killed by some method that leaves no marks on the bones. And then the killer could have cleverly decided to put her inside her own sleeping bag inside her own tent, trusting that this would be enough to make it look like an accident. All this after she not only wandered into the SERE area, she happened to bump into her killer on that 12,0000-acre parcel.

The campsite seems to be pretty well-chosen (considering the rough terrain and thick vegetation in the area), near a stream, and she was apparently in good enough shape to build a platform and erect her tent when she reached it. So there's still plenty of mystery as to what actually killed her. Given the weather, hypothermia is my best bet. She may have gotten soaked before getting into the tent, and been unable to warm up as the temperature dropped into the 40s overnight.

One correction to Bark Eater's post: she was not actually found inside her tent. Sometime over the two years, the tent had been ripped open by scavenging animals, and the sleeping bag with her in it had been dragged about twenty feet from the tent (which was found with the zipper still closed).