The P.I. Post: When Curiosity Leads to Murder

Do you ever see a shoe lying on the side or in the middle of the road and wonder…how did that shoe get there? What random act could cause a person to lose just one shoe like that? I’ll admit: I often worry whether the person who belongs to that shoe ended up in a bad way. It’s just the way my mind works.

In fact, here’s one example. On a road trip a few years ago, we were in a major park and stopped to rest near a lake. I spotted a red item out of place among the hues of yellow, green and brown surrounding the blue lake. I was surprised to find a red-heeled shoe.

Just one shoe, resting near a fishing sign.

I tried to imagine the woman who might wear these shoes on a trip through the national park, where getting out of the car to sightsee was a common occurrence. I wondered why she might walk in wearing two shoes but leave the park wearing only one. By the time we drove away, my imagination was in overdrive and a story was already forming in my head.

An active imagination mixed with rampant curiosity.

I use my imagination to write about mysteries, but my curiosity was also useful when I worked as a private investigator. When there’s a puzzle to solve, I can’t help myself, and I’ve always been interested in criminal law and what makes people tick. I believe my naturally curious nature made me good at what I do, both as an investigator and as a writer. As a defense investigator, it wasn’t always possible to discover the absolute truth. However, I did my best to discover and verify what I could before the case went to trial and a jury was asked to deliberate on what was provided to them. The truth isn’t always obvious, but it’s there somewhere. A jury has to sift through the information and do their best to decide whether it’s enough to prove guilt or reasonable doubt.

Some cases are simple…others are not.

There is an interesting case I would like to share with you. To be clear, it’s not one I worked on. It’s a case I learned about quite by accident while on vacation and only due to my own curiosity.

We were driving through one of my all-time favorite locations, the Big Horn National Forest. We drive through this area when we travel from Yellowstone to South Dakota. It’s a stunning landscape mixed with numerous sights of wildlife. The scenery in that area of the state is, in my opinion, absolutely beautiful and definitely worth a visit.

On this particular trip we passed through lush green fields, drove along the mountainside and spotted an outlook we later learned was called the “Fallen City.” An odd name, you might say, but this area caught my attention. The hillside above the valley is riddled with rocks jutting up through the trees, called a massive boulder field, and is quite a sight. 

What’s that down yonder?

I’m an avid photographer, so we stopped to take photos. We also needed to stretch our legs and take a break before we finished heading out of the mountains. But before we decided to leave, we caught sight of something at the bottom of the valley. The object appeared to be a vehicle. Curious, and concerned, we used the camera and the binoculars to try to get a closer look. The idea that someone might have gone over the hillside was disturbing and we couldn’t leave without knowing whether we should call for help. While it was difficult to see details, we were fairly certain the vehicle had been in the valley for some time. 

Eventually, we had to move on. That particular adventure took us through eight states over the course of a 17-day road trip. You can imagine we saw quite a few attractions and distractions, any of which would have been on my mind for days and weeks to come. But after I arrived home, I couldn’t forget about the car at the bottom of the valley at Fallen City. 

So I decided to do some research. Of course I was curious when or how someone might have ended up at the bottom of that valley. And I wanted to discover the truth behind the real story my imagination was trying to piece together. I thought the most I might find would be an article about a terrible crash after someone missed a corner on a cold, snowy, icy night… 

What I found was not what I imagined. 

What I found was a story about a case said to have occurred more than three decades ago. If the accounts I read are true, it involved murder, a confession, a botched investigation and two jury trials ending with a result you might not expect.

Imagine the mountains in Wyoming covered in snow on a cold fall morning many years ago. Three bodies are discovered in a cook tent and the deaths are presumed to be the result of asphyxiation caused by a faulty stove. The scene is disturbed when the bodies are removed and it’s discovered the next day that the three men had actually been shot at close range. 

During the investigation about a week later, police questioned one particular coal miner. It’s unknown exactly what the miner told police but the following day it was discovered he drove his vehicle off the mountain at the outlook called Fallen City. Unbelievably, the miner survived that crash and while recovering in the hospital, he confessed to killing all three men in the cook tent. His story was that they stole some of his equipment so he went to their camp to retrieve what was his. During his contact with the three men, he felt threatened by them and he shot and killed all three before retrieving his belongings. There was apparently no real physical evidence to back up his story other than an item found in the cook tent which the miner claimed was his.

Not quite an open and shut case…

Once a confession is obtained, the police arrest the subject and the state works to prosecute the miner at trial. During the trial the jury learned about the miner’s confession and heard first-hand from the miner what happened from his point-of-view when he took the stand and claimed self-defense. When it was time for the judge to instruct the jury before deliberation, the defense made a point of arguing that the jury could only be instructed on First Degree Murder and not Second Degree Murder or even Manslaughter. The argument was all or nothing and when the prosecutor wasn’t prepared to argue why the reduced charges should be an option, the judge agreed with the defense. This meant the prosecutor had to prove the miner killed all three men with premeditation. 

Based on the evidence, or lack thereof, this made it more difficult for the state to get a conviction and in the end the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict. According to some accounts, it appears the jury didn’t believe the miner was innocent, but that they would have liked the option of finding him guilty of a lesser charge. 

On to round two…

Ending with a hung jury, the state brought the miner to trial a second time. This time the case was heard in a different county and before a different judge. Where the state may have had a chance for a conviction during the first trial, the state didn’t stand a chance during the second. It began when the judge ruled that the miner’s confession was not admissible and wouldn’t be heard by the jury. When a jail witness popped up as an informant against the miner, the evidence the state might have had was short-lived when the judge removed the witness from the stand after discovering a state agent was in the courtroom when he wasn’t supposed to be present. 

And the case for the state just went downhill from there.  

The jury learned that the bodies had been removed before anyone had even realized the men had been shot. Even worse, it was discovered the state lost the bullets after they were removed from the bodies. This time around, the miner didn’t bother to testify. He simply sat back and watched his defense attorney poke holes at the state’s case.

I guess you can imagine what happened next.

The second jury, while they also didn’t believe the miner to be innocent, decided that the state had not proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt. They acquitted the miner and set him free. 

But did the story end there?  

It depends on how you look at it.  The victims’ families still had to live with only the miner’s confession about how and why the men died. They had to live with the fact that, while the miner may have been guilty of a crime, the state had not been able to put together a solid case in order to convict him of the appropriate crime. However, the story took a turn with regard to the miner when less than two years after he was acquitted, he passed away. I don’t know how, as that isn’t clear, but whether this brought any relief to the victims’ families, I would not venture to say. 

I’ll never know whether the vehicle we saw at the bottom of that outlook was a vehicle from a recent accident or one that occurred decades ago. And I really can’t say whether this story is completely true, which is why I did not list names of the victims or the defendant. But one highlight from this story is that no case is clear cut, or open and shut, even if there is a confession. 

And what this case illustrates is that when your curiosity takes hold, pay attention. You never know what interesting stories you might uncover.